Three Stars All Round
28 April

We're gradually sliding through spring.

The first of the flowers have gone and the cherry blossoms and bluebells are at their height. Our plum tree has produced no blossom this year and so there'll be no special crumbles in the autumn. Another missing element from this time of year has been the flights of geese. Either they've passed us by or something's going on.

But the days are getting longer and it's mostly quite mild and sunny. We've started with the salads and the central heating is more off than on.

After the joys of Bach a couple of weekends ago, I got to hear the RLPO pretending to be a period band once more this week. They imported a specialist conductor, Rinaldo Alessandrini, but, to my ears, they still find it difficult to change their style from late Romantic to suit this sort of music. We started with Handel's Music for the Royal Fireworks which was suitably martial and explosive but, surely, very truncated. CPE Bach's Sinfonia in F followed and was quite lively. The first half ended with Mozart's Piano Concerto No 27 with Jean-Philippe Collard as soloist. I remember him when he was starting out and being hailed as a young turk for his recordings of Debussy and Ravel. His hair is totally white now. But he played Mozart with grace, charm and a certain Gallic insouciance. The concert was rounded out with a spritely account of Mozart's Symphony No 39. All told good music making without any special tingles.

That was on the Thursday night. The Friday brought a sadder duty. Roland and I made our ways to Southport crematorium for the funeral service given in celebration of the life of Nigel's father. It was as good as these occasions can be. It finished with a recording of Stravinsky's Firebird ballet music from the RLPO concert of some weeks back. It was the last concert which Nigel's dad had attended and, as Nigel said, in among the applause at the end of the work, you could hear the sound of him clapping.

That evening, I was off to Buxton.

Janacek was, for years, one of the staple composers of my operatic life. Very few years went by without my attending one or other of his mature works. So, it came as a bit of a shock to realise that this performance of Katy'a Kabanova given by English Touring Opera was the first work of his I'd seen in some seven years. A lot of that is down to productions given in the original Czech with an updated setting as I've railed against before. So, it's very pleasant to report on a production given in English and, more or less, in the proper period and locale.

The reduced orchestra under Michael Rosewell played well and James Conway directed a clear interpretation of the plot within Adam Wiltshire's minimalist but effective designs. For me, the best singing and acting of the evening came from the secondary characters. Particularly good were the Varvara of Jane Harrington and the Kudryash of Michael Bracegirdle. I might have heard him sing three years ago in the Mid Wales Opera production of Smetana's The Bartered Bride but scheduling meant that I heard the second choice (and less good) tenor instead.

Linda Richardson is a fine artist. I heard her sing a very affecting Violetta in Verdi's La Traviata with Opera North back in 2003. She was too nice for Katy'a; I didn't really believe in her dilemma. Fiona Kimm is another very good artist. I was even less in tune with her Kabanicha - not enough spiteful iron in the soul. Of the other men, Richard Roberts was an ardent if diminutive Boris and Colin Judson made a passable stab at the non-entity rôle of Tichon. I'm pleased that I went but I can't give it more than three stars.

Saturday passed and, on Sunday, Sam and his dad ran in the London Marathon. Both finished creditably. Sam's time was 5 hours 15 minutes and his position was 28,226. He feels that it is not too shabby. He was something like two hours ahead of Katie Price and Peter Andre. However, Katie was continually held back by the two bald headed men continually jogging in front of her.

That evening, I met up with Roland and Nigel once more at a Crosby Symphony Orchestra concert in one of our local churches. It was actually pretty good. They gave us Walton's Orb and Sceptre March, Sibelius's Valse Triste, Ravel's Mother Goose Suite and Strauss's Blue Danube Waltz in the first half. There was perilous intonation in a couple of the pieces and the leader fell apart in his big moment in the Ravel. But we were carried along by it all. The second half was devoted to Borodin's Symphony No 2 which was given some welly. I'd love to hear Mr Petrenko do it with his band.

Monday we had Mr Becker round in our back garden to look at our out houses. They have to come down before they fall down. And there is no doubt that the roof is made of asbestos - not the virulently lethal sort but enough for us to want to it handled by professionals who know what they are doing. And we can also trust Mr Becker to dispose of it properly without throwing it over a hedge somewhere.