Roland and The Prado
18 March

Over the years, Roland and I have taken a number of trips abroad - notably to Barcelona and Amsterdam.

Usually, we build a trip round an operatic treat and, in that way, we have seen Cunning Little Vixen, Gloriana, Hamlet and Mefistofele together and, quite separately, I've also been to Semiramide.

This time, we visited Madrid and took in Tannhaüser at the Teatro Real. Anyone who has known me for a long while will know that, although I like opera a lot, I am not really a fan of the works of Richard Wagner. So, the choice of Tannhaüser may seem like an odd one but I've explained elsewhere that there were extenuating circumstances.

Quick summation of the trip. Great art, OK opera, fine food. I wouldn't want to return to Madrid - it's an ugly city with an unresolved past. The one-to-one pound/euro rate is crippling. I had my shoulder bag stolen. I'm really glad that I had decided that I didn't like Madrid before this happened so I can't blame one unfortunate incident on the whole city.

I lost my glasses, a black sweater, a novel I was reading and my digital camera (and with it the photographs that would have accompanied this Journal entry) as well as the bag. Actually, at the time, the bag was the most distressing item to lose as, without one, I had nothing to transport my worldly goods home in. We bought a trolly bag the following day for 9 euros so that hurdle was easily surmounted.

The actual theft itself was well done. Roland and I were standing outside a cafe drinking a vermouth in the sun. A man went past and dropped his keys. I bent down to pick them up and gave them to him. Some minutes later I noticed that the bag had gone. Very clean and clever. Luckily I am a reasonably seasoned traveller and so wallet, money, cards, passport and travel documents were all elsewhere. Nevertheless, it was a bummer.

Thursday

The flight from Liverpool John Lennon via Easyjet was fine. They've now further cut down the amount of contact with the public by allowing online check-in so we simply arrived with a printout as our proof of travel. There was some business about taking liquids on the plane but no-one seemed to bother about my aftershave or shampoo so I didn't remind them of it.

We touched down in the mid afternoon to temperatures in the mid 70s and travelled on the Metro to our hotel. This turned out to be something more like a large apartment which rented out rooms. Breakfast was not included and so, knowing Roland's habits of hardly eating, I'd arrived with various snack bars to see me through. I supplemented these with some locally bought bananas and clementines.

We were staying in the Chueca district - fairly central if somewhat run down. And there seemed to be a lot of men dressed in very tight clothes. Display seemed to be the order of the day. Oh, and that couple are holding hands. And, yes, they're kissing. Hmmm. Now, it could just be that Madrid is a very open and welcoming sort of a place. But, no. Roland tells me, as if I should have already known, that we are in the heart of Madrid's gay ghetto. Oh, yes, that shop is selling rainbow dildos, I should have guessed.

I should mention at this point that the head cold which had bedevilled me for the previous few days had not entirely cleared up. In fact, although I had begun to feel heaps better, it had settled on my chest with the consequence that I was experiencing occasional and sudden bouts of hacking coughing.

So, our first cultural stop over of a classical concert was a difficult one. I managed to control my coughing to a minimum and I can only hope that Roland wasn't being kind when he said that it was hardly a distraction.

The concert was given by the Orquesta Sinfonica y Coro de Radiotelevision Espanola (the equivalent of the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus) in what appeared to be a badly converted cinema. The first piece that we heard was by a contemporary Spanish composer, Carlos Satué. Lineas de fuerza translates as Line of Force. It wasn't very good. It was like a pastiche of an Edgard Varèse - musique concrete but not as interesting.

We then moved on to Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No 3 with John Lill tickling the ivories. I heard him in a very bad performance of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No 4 back in 2001. This was much better but not as good as the one given by Simon Trpceski and the RLPO in April 2008.

After the interval, we heard Poulenc's Gloria with Maria Espada as soloist. This was my favourite piece of the evening and was a delight. Neither of us thought that the orchestra or chorus was as good as the RLPO. The whole, by the way, was conducted by Adrian Leaper.

I got a good night's sleep.

Friday

I was excited when I woke up the following morning. We were due to visit the Prado museum. For the previous few weeks, I had been using the miracle of the Internet to research the place. Their website had given me a clear idea as to which paintings I wished to see and I had listened to a number of small podcasts describing selected works. I was up for it and my only fear was that the whole could be a complete let down.

Let me say straight away that I wasn't. I was bowled over. I had ooh about three and a half jaw dropping moments. So, I'd say that the whole experience was superb.

Unlike, say, our National Gallery, whose collection has been put together as an Art History lesson, the Prado's collection reflects the tastes and purchases of Spain's royal family. It helps therefore that they had court painters of the quality of Velázquez and El Greco.

And there came my first jaw dropping moment - seeing Velázquez's Las Meninas in the flesh for the first time. I really hadn't realised how big it is, for one thing. And, it works compositionally. And, it works through the detail and the overall impression. And, it works on all sorts of levels of understanding. And, it works from a variety of vantage points. It is fabulous. But that is just one painting out of dozens of Velázquez's on display let alone the ones they don't have room for. In just one corner of one room, there is a religious painting, a court portrait and a battle scene, all painted with complete mastery of the different genres. I was gob-smacked by the sheer ability of the man. No wonder that he was the one who Picasso wanted to emulate and better. I'd never understood the fuss about Velázquez before; he has leapt up in my estimation.

And then there were three rooms of works by El Greco - not three works; three rooms filled with works by him. I'd know that I was likely to like his work and I was dead right. I loved the surging energy flowing vertically through the paintings. One room contained a series of enormous works from the High Altar of the college of Dona Maria del Aragon. They were ecstatic and tremendous and another jaw dropping moment. My only criticism was that they should have been hung higher because they demanded to be look at from below.

By now, we'd spent over an hour and a half just looking at one floor. We decided to check out some second floor galleries containing works by Goya before lunch. After taking in the fabulous Third of May, 1808, in Madrid depicting Napoleonic troops executing Spanish rebels, we found ourselves walking through room after room of horrible chocolate box depictions of Spanish peasants doing coyly amusing things. It's all very well having dozens of masterpieces by the one painter; it's another thing to display dozens of canvasses that wouldn't be bought up in a flea market just because the name at the bottom is famous. My estimation of the man plummetted and I fulminated over lunch.

Then it was off to find The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch. I've never seen a Bosch painting before and the Prado has five masterpieces. His is the craziest world view. I know that the Medievals are not to be underestimated but he is off the scale. Not a jaw dropping moment but one of eyebrows raised certainly.

And then, because Roland wanted to, we set off to an obscure area of the ground floor to find some more paintings by Goya. And, thus, we encountered the works from Goya's final years, known as the Black Paintings.

And that's when I had my third jaw dropping moment. And I got what the fuss is about Goya. Yes, there's the court portraits and the religious works; there's the more daring political stuff and the naked and clothed Mayas; there's even those dreadful, touristic peasant images. And then there's this late work, drained of colour, drained of hope, a hard, straight look into the abyss. What I don't understand is the continuity within one person. I can see it with Velázquez; the work is varied but it's quite discernibly the product of one mind. With Goya's work, it feels as though three personalities are contributing.

And, at that point, the two of us agreed that we were sated and could take no more. I was glad that I had done the research beforehand. We could have spent time with some of the French and Italian works but London has many examples of works by the artists represented. I felt that what I saw was the pick of the collection that I wouldn't get to see anywhere else.

Then we both took a well earned siesta before our evening meal. There was no artistic event and so we ate late and heartily. However, this was the first time that the pound/euro issue hit us firmly. The meal without wine came to €80 for the two of us. The last time that I was in Barcelona that would have equated to around £25 per head. Now, it's £40 per head. What would have previously felt like a good value, high quality meal remains high quality but now feels costly. Still, if you can't treat yourself when on holiday, when can you? It was very good.

Sleep came easily.

Saturday

We both slept in and had a gently start to the day before heading off to the Museo Reina Sofia, which I guess is the equivalent of Tate Modern. Certainly there's work there by Picasso, Dali, Miró, Braque and many of the other usual suspects. But there's also works by the likes of Antoni Tàpies, Juan Gris, Julio Romero de Torres and Ramón Casas Carbó about whom I know little or nothing. As with seeing The Divisionist exhibition at the National Gallery or visiting Sweden's National Art Gallery in Stockholm and seeing the Scandinavian artists, it is good to be reminded that there are many other good painters in the world apart from the French Impressionsts.

All of which was very good but there is one supreme for visiting the gallery. It is the home of Picasso's Guernica - probably the most famous 20th century painting. And it doesn't disappoint. Again a jaw dropping moment. I was prepared for the image. I was was more or less prepared for the scale. I wasn't prepared for the impact of the image being in front of me. It was goosebumps.

The security around the painting is tight. It has been attacked on a number of occasions. So, I couldn't get up too close without setting off the alarm system. What I really wanted to do was to see something of the brush work. It's a painting that, by repute, was conceived and executed in the white heat of anger, pain, rage against the machine, grief. I expected to see a surface which was disturbed, jagged, raised, pitted. And not a bit of it. It appears to be as flat as a fluke. Goodness only knows how that was achieved.

So,the Gallery experience I would say was very good. Guernica, however, was superb.

We ate lunch in an open air café in the central reservation of one of Madrid's main thoroughfairs. In Madrid, that didn't seem odd; in this country, it would have done. More rest, more food and then another concert, this time by the Orquesta y Coro Nacionales de Espana - Spain's national orchestra. We heard another contemporary Spanish work, this time by Mauricio Sotelo. Arde el alba translates as The Dawn Burns and, unlike the retrogressive piece by Carlos Satué two nights earlier, was much easier on the ear and offered a musical fusion of West and East which had internal logic and musical progression. I'm still not sure that I would actively seek out more by this composer.

This was followed by Vivaldi's Piccolo Concerto, which José Oliver tossed off with aplomb, and, after the interval, Carl Orff's Carmina Burana - soloists were Milagros Poblador, Augstin Prunell-Friend and Thomas Mohr and the whole was conducted by Josep Pons. I couldn't remember if I'd ever attended a live performance of Carmina Burana before and then it came back to me. I had. It was a performance by the Liverpool Welsh Choral Union back in the 1980s. And the reason I remembered was that I had the same two thoughts as I had had on that occasion. The first was that the tenor doesn't get much to sing. The second, very soon after, was Good God will this never end. there's nothing wrong with any of the chirpy vignettes. It's just that twenty-three in a row is wearying.

Back to the hotel and sleep.

Sunday

By this stage a routine had developed. Roland slept late - late that is until about 9am. I was up and about at my usual 7am. I opened the curtains, raised the shutters, opened the sliding windows and threw back the shutters letting the light in. Then, I made myself a coffee, ate an energy bar, a banana and a clementine and read my book whilst listening to Spain's equivalent of the BBC's Radio 3. There are the sounds of an awakening city in the background. This is what it feels like to be on holiday.

Eventually Roland awakes and, mindful that we have a Wagnerian opera later in the day, we decide to take it easy. A stroll in the park was called for and the best one is El Parque de Retiro at the back of the Prado museum. Apparently, it's the place were all of Madrid goes to walk the dog, skate the board, glide the inline or row the boat. We'd already discovered that there are a number of wayside cafes offering beer, crisps, ham rolls, plates of cheese, etc. These also afford the traveller ample opportunity to sit and simply watch the world go by. I should also mention that, by now, the temperature was nudging into the 70s. Warm it was.

We took in the topiary, the formal rose garden, the glass house, the terrapins in the lake and then we sat down for lunch. My understanding was that we were going to have a light lunch and that Roland was simply going to get a couple of beers and some ham rolls. He returned with two beers and two half baguettes filled with the Spanish equivalent of Palma ham and a plate of cheese. The whole ensemble had cost €26. When I put it to him that the best part of £26 was an awful lot for a light, lunchtime snack, Roland said that, when you put it like that, it does seem rather a lot, doesn't it? Well, yes. Anyhow, it tasted lovely.

So, lunch finished, we took a post prandial stroll, taking in La Plaza de Cibeles with its monumental fountain which shows Cybele, the Greek goddess of fertility and nature, holding a sceptre and a key while being pulled by two lions on a chariot. Apparently, it's a gathering place for celebrating football supporters. Liverpool had recently knocked Real Madrid out of the Champions League but we kept quiet about that.

The fountain and plaza are overlooked by the Palacio Telecomunicaciones. This used to be the main post office and now houses mayoral office. However, no-one talks about its use during the Franco regime as the headquarters of the Secret Police. In fact, there appears to be a complete city-wide amnesia about some thirty-odd years of recent history. Unlike in Germany where there was a regime overthrow, in Spain the regime simply continued but changed its outward garb and no-one has yet been brought to account.

We stopped for a drink outside on of the bars in Chueca just near our hotel and that is when the theft took place. We could have spent time explaining things at a Police Station but we didn't and, having spoken to other people about this since returning, it would seem that we would have wasted a lot of time and not really accomplished anything.

So, we cut our losses and, after a quick refresh back at the hotel, headed off for the Teatro Real, Madrid's opera house. I liked the house. We had tickets on the very front row, which, for me, is a great novelty. Among the many benefits was that I was not distracted by the Spanish surtitles.

It also put us both in a prime spot for viewing the goings on during the orgy which accompanied the Venusberg music at the start of the opera. Director Ian Judge was quite happy for all manner of couplings to be depicted and so was I. A particularly vigorous act of troilism certainly caught my attention. Shagging a lad who's shagging a lass is one of the few things I've not managed over my many years of escapades and, I guess, I'm unlikely ever to celebrate that one further conquest now. Still, it's always a good idea to have something more to look forward to.

And then we got down to the business of Wagner's opera Tannhaüser. Overall I liked the performance. It's probably Wagner's most lyrical works. Good God, people sing arias and tunes. There are set pieces, marches and processions that Meyerbeer would have been proud of. Jesus Lopez Cobos conducted a more than passable account of the score and Ian Judge production told the story, was handsomely staged and had ideas which didn't get in the way.

As for the singing, we had the second cast. In most respects that did us no disservice. We particularly liked Edith Haller's Elizabeth, Roman Trekel's Wolfram and Günther Groissböck's Landgrave Hermann. Anna-Katharina Behnke was a bit squally as Venus. Robert Gambill's Tannhaüser was a great disappointment; he basically huffed and puffed his way through the rôle rather than sang it. Maybe, ten years ago this was a good interpretation but, as with so many singers these days, he's shot his voice by singing too much Wagner too often in too many big houses.

Overall, I enjoyed the performance and thought it was good. I would be happy to attend Tannhaüser again sometime in the future. I'd be happy to see this production again if either ENO or Covent Garden picked it up but goodness only knows who they'd get to sing the title rôle.

We took the metro back to the hotel and got our heads down for the last night's sleep.

Monday

First thing to do this bright Monday morning was to buy me a bag so that I could pack my clothes for the journey home.

That accomplished we took in the Royal Palace. I'm not particularly good in places like this. I just don't have enough knowledge of fine arts to appreciate one ornamental table from another. I did like the apothecary's store and I did not like the suits of armour for the royal children.

Then we lunched out of doors on chicken and rabbit. Metro to the airport and a flight home. I was through the front door before 8pm. There was still some light in the sky.

As a side note, I listened to a live radio relay of Tannhaüser from the Teatro Real streamed over the Internet on the following Tuesday. It was the cast we didn't hear and was in most cases preferable to listen to. Peter Siefert was streets ahead of Robert Gambill