The Arts have provided the main stream of solace into my life for many years now.
Had the world proceeded as anticipated this year, I should have travelled to London so that I could attend the matinee performance of Tristan and Isolde at Covent Garden possibly preceded by a visit to the Aubrey Beardsley exhibition at Tate Britain.
It was to have been my treat to myself in advance of my 66th birthday and as a tribute to the fact that, having now achieved pensionable age, I am returned to something like a stable and guaranteed income. Travel and ticket monies are reclaimable: the experience not.
A decade after the Birmingham pub bombings of 1974, some local people were still giving that event as the main reason as to why they would not go into the city centre of a night-time. I wonder how much fearful resistance to travel is building up in the general population.
How long will it be before most people travel to London (particularly) without any sense of unease about possible infection from CV-19? When shall I sit inside the Royal Opera House again?
On my birthday itself, I took the opportunity to catch a 1986 performance of Wagner's Lohengrin from the Met using their free streaming service. Lohengrin is my least favourite of all of Wagner's operas. This performance did not change my opinion on that matter but I did see some more virtue in it.
The August Everding production was lavish faux medieval and that made a lot more sense of the reams of Meyerbeer marches and processions - you don't need all that music unless you have one hundred people to get on the stage.
Peter Hofmann was the Lohengrin of the 1980s with his rock star good looks although the tiredness in his tone already signalled how short he career, ultimately, would be. Éva Marton was in peak voice as Elsa. Leif Roar gave a human portrayal of Telramund. Leonie Rysanek's second act screams as Ortrud were the stuff of legend. Musically, James Levine was the hero of the day. I can't say that I had a Damascene moment. I don't need to see it in the theatre now. But I can say that it has a place in the canon even if that place is bringing up the rear.
Larry Kramer died recently. These days he is best known through his activism during the AIDS pandemic. The sweatshirt he wears in the photo displays an image created by another such hero, Keith Haring, whose work was shown at Tate Liverpool last year.
My direct contact with Larry Kramer was more as an author and playwright. Coming out in the late 70s, I snapped up and devoured Faggots from a local radical bookshop. Within its pages, I found characters to laugh and cry with and lifestyles that may not have been my goal but which gave me a sense of what might be possible.
Seven or eight years later came The Normal Heart - probably the second most important play on gay themes of my lifetime after Bent. If Bent gave me access to my history, Normal Heart gave utterance to my grief and legitimised my anger during the AIDS pandemic. For those two texts and much more, I salute a great soul.
Another death that occurred recently was that of Stranglers keyboard player Dave Greenfield. Cause of death was given as CV-19 which was a bit of a surprise but the real shock was to read that he was 71. I have very strong memories of going to the Roundhouse with Julian to see The Stranglers perform. I fell deeply in love with Jean-Jacques Burnel that night and wanted to dive off the balcony into the mosh pit. Then I twigged that that event happened over forty years ago and that Greenfield was actually only five years older than me.
Die Zeit, die ist ein sonderbar Ding.