I met Colin at King's Cross station and we travelled up to Edinburgh by train together. I was nineteen the first time that I went there. So this year is my silver anniversary of Festival nights. And I pondered on some of the implications of that during my time there.
There's a lot to cover and I'm not going to attempt to do it in strict chronological order. First, however, I just want to note the freshness of the air, the sweetness of the water from the tap, the sense of landscape underneath the city, the long vistas leading to green hills on the outskirts. More evidence of my growing dissatisfaction with the metropolis.
So, to the events.
Three Verdi operas beginning with I masnadieri based on Schiller's play Die Räuber. Having now seen it, I can now see why people at Welsh National Opera used to call it Masnadreary when they produced it back in the early 80s. Basically, it is strictly formulaic. During the first act, each scene follows the same structure. Introduce new character with some dry recitative to get the plot going, the character gets an unmemorable romanza, the plot is furthered by a little more recit, the character gets an unmemorable cadenza to finish the scene off. Boring. By the second and third acts, the form is breaking down a little. There are good scenes for the heroine, Amalia, to resist the approaches of the baddie, Francesco. Francesco gets a good sort of mad scene to himself. And there's a good recognition scene between the hero, Carlo, and his father who has been entombed. But I wouldn't rush back. Not even Edward Downes could make too much sense out of it.
Don Carlos was the highlight of the Festival. I'd seen it with Colin at Covent Garden some two years ago. This performance was even more intense. The opening scene for Carlos and Elisabeth with their initial joy and pain at enforced separation was searingly intense. Carlos and Posa's growing relationship was finely etched. Thomas Hampson was an absolute star as Posa. His death scene moved me to floods of tears. The scene of Philippe II's loneliness and Carlos and Elisabeth's final parting were indescribably moving, the music breathing anguish and loss. Musically, under Bernard Haitink, this was an outstanding achievement. Luc Bondy's direction of the characters was spot on. People moved so well and physically related to each other. The sets and costumes were iffy.
The Luisa Miller was good. It had just loads and loads of tunes and was a delight to listen to. It was given in concert under Mark Elder. I'm looking forward to the Royal Opera's full production which is supposed to run at Sadler's Wells Theatre in June 1999. We'll see.
And the revelation was the Royal Lyceum Theatre Company in Calderòn's Life is a Dream. First performed in the 1630s in Madrid, it could almost have been written yesterday for its philosophical and political thought. This is what Festivals should be about - taking something that you've only ever heard about in text books and proving that they are as great as everyone claims they are. Yes, life may be a dream, we may not be able to answer those questions, but, even if it is, we can still make the best of what we have.
I didn't get to hear any music. I tried for the Vienna Sextet performing Mozart String Quintets as I'd heard the Amadeus Quartet with Cecil Aronowitz perform them 25 years ago. It would have sort of completed circle but the performance was sold out. Some rituals and rites of passage you just can't bring off. I did, however, get a ticket to hear Alfred Brendel and Matthias Goerne perform Schubert's Winterreise late night at the Usher Hall. But it was late night and I decided to give it a miss.
I caught a couple of Fringe things - a cabaret by Morag McLaren, which was very funny and sported a Bessie Smith number sung with great verve in Scots vernacular, and a student production about ritual abuse in a public school which was not very well written and sported a very good central performance and little else - apart from two nicely turned buttocks that were positioned about two feet from my nose in a small (nay intimate) venue.
What else. Some good food. Lovely seafood - one lot too rich for my stomach. I bumped into Gerry (aka Chloe Poems) who was performing on the Fringe. I first met Gerry in 1980 when I was first out and militant and he was a sixteen year old member of the Everyman Youth Theatre. No, we never had a relationship but I was an important role model for him as an emerging gay youth.
There were a number of gay things. I had a drink in the Newtown Bar for old time's sake and I visited the Gay Centre in Broughton Street. I discovered it after a false start which took me in a wrong direction (story of my life). It had the usual books and mags and a nice coffee bar. In some respects all Gay Centres are the same the world over. But there' probably more going on if you live there and it's your resource. There was also a nice, gay friendly café opposite. I sat out Saturday morning there with a book and a coffee and pastry.
The book was Patricia Cornwell's Hornet's Nest and was the biggest of big, big disappointments for this year. You may remember that I like the same author's novels about Chief Medical Examiner, Kay Scarpetta. Well, I've always felt that there was a similarity between author and main character. Now, I know it must be true. This novel went off into different police territory and exposed the fact that, outside of an area she knows well, Cornwell is not a very good storyteller. And she cannot create individual male characters to save her life.
I went to Quaker meeting on the Sunday morning. On the wall were a number of printed
quotations from Quaker Notes and Queries. One caught my eye. It talked about
listening to your inner voice and hearing what Love has to say and realising that the
answer may be to be less busy. I walked the Royal Mile before lunch with Colin and a
friend of his called Ross. We had a gay time of it.
During our time there, Colin made multiple CD and reference book purchases. I was more restrained. However, I do seem to have returned with a number of cheapish CDs of things I've been hemming hawing about buying in London. I did hover over a CD of guitar music played by Slava Grigoryan but decided against the £15 price tag. And, try as I might, I could not find the CD of Thomas Hampson's Walt Whitman recital anywhere. So, my festival souvenir will have to wait until I get back to London.
The journey back was easy and uneventful. And then when I got home and through the door, expecting to have the house to myself, there was a written note on the dining room table...
Still here. Got gazumped. I'm out flat-hunting.
Sigh!