Glass - for Advent

I am writing this while listening to the Meistersinger relay from the Met. on Radio 3. The nearest church to my hotel in Nürnberg - when I was there in April - was St Martha’s, used as the rehearsal room by the real Meistersinger. It was officially closed, but I sneaked in through the sacristy to peak at the stained glass, much of it as early as the late 14th Century. (Here's John the Baptist, 15th Century.)

St Martha’s had escaped lightly in World War II, but just over two months after my visit, fire engulfed the entire church: providentially its windows had been removed pending renovation work.

Glass of another sort was on the bill of the concert I went to on Thursday night at the Pittville Pump Room. As the centrepiece of their programme, the estimable Carduccis played Philip Glass' Quartet no. 3. Others in the fullish house loved it, they told me, but I was left cold. I could have coped with it as the backgound to a film - for which it was originally intended - but coming after the well known Mozart D minor, its major key Andante played magically, it seemed to go nowhere, and to take twice (rather than half) the time of Mozart in doing so.

After the interval, the Carduccis tackled one of the masterpieces of the repertoire, Beethoven Op 132, its 20-minute slow movement wringing the heart. Once over, you are led to think its all going to be plain sailing, only for a wrestling match to develop - as far from music of the 18th Century as you can imagine. A thrilling performance!

Fr. Jean-Marie, RIP

I last saw my friend Fr. Jean-Marie Charles-Roux in Rome, 13 years ago: he had retired there to the Rosminian house in via di Porta Latina, near to the then British Embassy to the Holy See where we were staying for the weekend. At our instigation, he was added to the Saturday night dinner party, full of diplomats, where of course he was perfectly at home. Rome was a fitting place for him to end his days: he epitomised the Roman Church - all that's best as well as all that's worst, as I see it.

This photograph was taken at our wedding, in June 1975. Then just turned 60, he lived as a curate at St Ethelreda's, Ely Place, where I first came across him when I worked in the City. We got to know each other quite well, sharing a love of Wagner's music dramas. He always needed a good supply of handkerchiefs, he said, when listening to Tristan and Isolde. I don't recall whether it was Tristan or Die Meistersinger that I saw with him, sitting in best stalls seats (unfamiliar territory for me) at the Royal Opera House. (Someone must have invited him, and then been unable to make it.) For Jean-Marie, it seemed that listening to Wagner was a mystical experience almost on a par with saying Mass. I owe to him a better understanding of the meaning of the beauty of holiness.

He came to the house I shared in Fulham and said a house Mass once, before supper. A tummy rumble nearly sent one of the others present into a fit of giggles. Yet because he took himself seriously - though not always too seriously - his way of faith seemed plausible. Seldom was he bitchy, though his oblique comments about his parish priest (Fr. Kit Cunningham) ought perhaps to have been heeded by those who mattered.

Others have of course written more eloquently about Jean-Marie, who died earlier this month, just short of his 100th birthday. I was intrigued to learn that he masqueraded during a World War II escape attempt as an English officer, Captain Charles Russell, matching the initials on his uniform.

Rusalka

Dvořák's music always casts a spell over me, and whenever I've heard bits of Rusalka on the wireless, I've wanted to see it staged. But last night's live relay from the Met. - we went to the Roses Theatre in Tewkesbury to catch it - turned out to be disappointing.

For one thing, the transmission was badly affected by the awful weather. The link remained more or less unbroken, despite the wind and rain, but was subject to pretty continuous bursts of hiccoughs, a bit like a silent film. For another, the Roses seemed less comfortable as a venue than I'd remembered: I squirmed a lot in my seat and shivered in the cold atmosphere. (At least they manage the house lighting better than at Cineworld, and parking is easy.)

The real problem was the opera, which seemed to drag interminably. People dislike Wagner for being long-winded: Rusalka seemed far worse. Despite some excellent singing and a beautiful stage picture throughout, we could have done with it being cut by half - and especially without the scene featuring assorted animals, some looking as if they were marshalling planes from runway to terminal. All in all I shall not be rushing back.

Wagner kept returning to mind: there are obvious similarities between the opening scenes of Rusalka and of Das Rheingold, each moral tales in their own way. Dvořák's strong Christian faith contrasts however with Wagner's idiosyncratic religious views: you can't imagine Brünnhilde signing off on Siegfried as Rusalka does with her prince: "May God have mercy on his soul."

Earlier, we had driven to Great Rissington to meet friends from Oxfordshire. I thought we would be safe walking high on the side of the valley of the River Dickler, but the rain has ceased to sink in even up there.

Ring Cycling

It would be interesting to work out how many miles I cycled during this last week that I've spent in London. I visited Wandsworth, Maida Vale, Camden and Southwark, and much in between: rather satisfying, to be seven days in London without a freedom pass, but still paying nothing to get around. The chief hazard I identified was not from buses or lorries, but those fellow cyclists who zoomed past at twice my speed.

It's hard to imagine that 2013 will bring me a greater musical experience than the Proms Ring Cycle, which reached its conclusion last night in a packed and hushed Albert Hall. Too often in the theatre applause breaks out the second the curtain falls, without any savouring of the drama: Barenboim though held us spellbound, not just throughout the five and half hours of Götterdämmerung, but for a good few seconds following the final bar of music.

"It ain't over till the fat lady sings" goes the saying; which while true enough on Saturday, can't be said of this Götterdämmerung. Nina Stemme's physique gives no inkling of her vocal power - a superb Brünnhilde; and matched by the best Siegfried I've come across: Andreas Schager - a great actor with a heroic voice. How rare is that!

"Don't you get bored with seeing The Ring so often?" I'm asked. Far from it! Each time there's something you haven't noticed before. One of my favourite themes is that describing Freia's essential contribution to the vitality of her fellow Gods. "Golden apples grow in her garden," sings Fafner. But the same theme occurred last night when Hagen described his blood as "obstinate and cold" (in contrast to the "pure and noble" blood of Siegfried). And Brünnhilde's refusing Waltraute's request to give up Siegfried's love (or rather its token) is accompanied by the music first heard in the opening scene of Das Rheingold to illustrate the renunciation of love in very different circumstances.

Nobody goes to Götterdämmerung for the jokes, but those of us standing tightly-packed in a stuffy Proms arena could be forgiven for a snigger at Siegfried's words to an off-stage Hagen: "Come down! It's airy and cool here."

From left, my photograph shows Margarita Nekrasova (1st Norn), Schager, Anna Lapkovskaja (Flosshilde), Stemme, a sombre-looking Barenboim, the great Waltraud Meier (2nd Norn and Waltraute), Mikhail Petrenko (as at Cardiff in 2006, a Hagen to be feared - he received a pantomime "Boo!" at his curtain call), the ROH Chorus Director Renato Balsadonna, Maria Gortsevskaya (Welgunde), Aga Mikolaja (Woglinde) and Gerd Grochowski (Gunther).

Tristan und Isolde

If it was a mistake to go to the Proms last night, mid-Ring Cycle, for something different (albeit by the same composer), then it was at least an interesting mistake.

The sound world of Tristan und Isolde is shockingly abstract (compared even to that provided for Siegfried and Brünnhilde in the final scene of Siegfried). The opera moves along steadily in one great sweep: not a lot happens, but the undercurrents are immense. And it requires concentration, which it's harder to give when standing, as I was (mostly) last night: for the Ring, I've had, to date, the luxury of a box seat, so one can be comfortable, even jiggle round a bit.

Semyon Bychkov is no stranger to Tristan, but one feels the difference between his BBC (big blaring chords) Symphony Orchestra and the not-in-the-least Ring-rusty Staatskapelle Berlin. It seemed a performance with far lass sensitivity to the singers - or was it just less good singers? No, I think not. Two in particular shone out: Kwangchul Youn as King Mark and Mihoko Fujimura as Brangäne. Worth being there to hear them alone! Not that you can go wrong hearing any live music @ £1 an hour.

The photograph shows Robert Dean Smith and Violetta Urmana (in the name parts) with Bychkov.

Siegfried

A large black BMW passed me in Queen's Gate this afternoon, as I biked towards the Albert Hall. "NOT 2B" was its number. So, to while away the time during parts of my least favourite Ring segment, I counted the "Not to be" moments in Siegfried. Mime's plot to get hold of the Ring; Fafner's intent to live forever sitting on his horde; the Wanderer's bid for useful information from Erda, and then his attempt to bar the young hero's way to Brünnhilde; and finally her realisation on awaking that immortality was no longer to be.

"Least favourite" it may be for many - I spied empty seats around for the first time this week - but there are still many magic moments. The break the composer took at the end of Act 2 explains the thrilling gear change you always experience at the outset of the Act 3 Prelude. Last night, the hair at the back of my neck duly stood on end then: one would expect nothing less with this wonderful orchestra on the stage.

Barenboim's relationship with all its members is not always easy to fathom: there was another of those curious frissons last night, again at the end of Act II. Was it bashfulness or defiance, the first horn's failure to come on to acknowledge applause? He deserved the belated recognition Barenboim gave him - not just for his playing of the famous dragon-awakening call, but for carrying on undaunted by Lance Ryan (the boy hero) prancing around at his side, a splendidly surreal (two days running, that word) bit of theatre.

Generally Ryan looked the gawky part, and came into it, vocally, in the final scene, which ended with the audience fully bathed in golden love-fest light. Did he deserve his Brünnhilde? Well, to my ear Nina Stemme wasn't on such fine form as on Tuesday: it will be interesting to hear her on Sunday. the big one.

The other singers were excellent, dramatically and vocally, especially Kränzle as Alberich: his duet with Stensvold's Wanderer at the start of Act 2 was a highlight. And it makes such a difference, being in a hall light enough so you can follow the libretto when you want to - far preferable to straining at surtitles. How great too, not to have production values to complain about! ("There are two Rings taking place here: one by Castorf and one by Wagner." Thus Martin Kettle sums up this year's new Bayreuth production.)

ValhAlbert

I toyed with the idea of shutting myself in my study at home, and listening to the first Proms Ring Cycle on Radio 3, but I'm glad I decided otherwise: it's memorable, to put it mildly, being in the Albert Hall with so superb an orchestra, under a conductor who knows the score backwards (and for all his jewishness is self-evidently a Wagner lover), and a magnificent cast.

After Das Rheingold on Monday, the comment from next door was about how they might have acted more. I didn't mind that - though it was a bit uneven (some acting more than others). I particularly liked Loge in an MCC tie evoking the Ashes: "Spür' ich lockende Lust sie aufzuzehren." ("I am strongly tempted to burn them up.")

After last night's Die Walküre there could have been no such complaint, surely, about lack of drama. Notung was - hinted Sieglinde - embedded in Henry Wood's bust; the dead duly lay down and the sleeping were carried off (which was a pity, as Loge's ring of fire - summoned by Bryn Terfel with three first class stamps of his patent leather shoes - ran round the orchestra and a bare stage).

But no carping allowed! This was quite simply the best Die Walküre I've ever heard.

High definition performance

It was Kenneth Tynan who coined the phrase "high definition performance". Tonight's Film Society film, last night's Royal Opera live stream and Sunday's Something Understood all come under this useful heading.

The Iranian director Asghar Farhadi won plaudits at the 2011 Berlin Film Festival for A separation: I had meant to catch it when it first came out, but failed. It was well worth waiting, though, for its superb screenplay and mesmerising acting. Only at the end, when music plays, do you realise there has been none throughout.

Music aplenty though from the Royal Opera House throughout yesterday, during the 10-hour live stream of backstage activity, available through theguardian.co.uk/music and thespace.org. We only watched a little until the evening, when we were rivetted by the relay of the whole of Act 3 of Die Walküre.

And Mark Tully's Something Understood is always worth listening to, but this week on "Dignity" he was on specially good form, particularly with his main interviewee, an eloquent Buddhist.

Tynan wouldn't have marked our High Street accordionist with "HDP", but I have recently been enjoying one particular tune he keeps playing. I don't know what it's called - we correspond in smiles, as he's from Hungary and speaks no English.

War horse

Les Troyens is on this evening, relayed from the New York Met. Caroline and I went along to our local cinema at 5 o'clock, plus picnic, ready for the five-hour big screen session; but by mutual agreement we came away at the first interval. After eating the picnic round our kitchen table, I find I'm much happier listening to Berlioz in the warmth of my study.

In the 'Sixties, I was an avid fan of this composer: Benvenuto Cellini with Nicolai Gedda was one of my earliest experiences of opera at Covent Garden; and three of us drove specially to Edinburgh in May 1969 to hear Janet Baker sing Dido in Scottish Opera's Trojans. This evening, though, in Cineworld I was bored. Was it the production, the singing or the music? Perhaps a combination of all three.

The ghost of Hector's appearance in a puff of pantomime smoke, stock still and dressed in white on top of a cave, with Aeneas kneeling below, brought the Grotto at Lourdes awkwardly to mind. Deborah Voigt as usual seemed unable to stop smirking, unfortunate when you're playing Cassandra.

Yesterday, we came to the end of the Radio 3's relay of the Ring Cycle in 10 instalments (a recording of the Covent Garden production last Autumn). As then, I listened to pretty well every bar; and that probably explained why tonight's rumpty-tum Berlioz left me squirming on my cinema seat.

"Götterdämmerung"

I waxed lyrical about an opera set last May: it was after seeing the Met. relay of Robert Lepage's production of Die Walküre. That same set is naturally used for Lepage's new Met. Götterdämmerung: it came to us in our local Cineworld by the same magical means last evening, but I found myself less inclined to enthuse. Indeed, the gyrations of what look like so many giant Kit-Kat pieces (sometimes more resembling magnified USB sticks) made me dizzy, and distracted me from the all-important transition passages played luminously by the Met. Opera Orchestra under Fabio Luisi. This techno solution to the Ring staging worked well for the Ride of the Valkyries, each of the sisters mounted on her own piece of Kit-Kat. Last night however, we were given a pseudo-realistic Grane - the first attempt at a proper-looking Valkyre horse I think I have ever witnessed. Deborah Voigt as Brünnhilde even climbs aboard as Siegfried's pyre is lit - but do we see them gallop (even trot) into the flames? No.

I have no hesitation, however, about either the singing or the acting, which were uniformly excellent. The Act 1, Scene 3 duet between Voigt and the legendary Waltraud Meier will remain long in my memory. If forced to choose amongst the rest of the cast, I might - perhaps surprisingly - single out Iain Paterson as Gunther. My photograph shows a curtain call at the first night of a very different Götterdämmerung: Phyllida Lloyd's excellent Coliseum production eight years ago, conducted by Paul Daniel. And the Gunther, alongside the mighty, pocket-battleship Brünnhilde, Kathleen Broderick? Iain Paterson.

Alberich's theft is a sin against the integrity of creation; but so is Wotan's cutting into the world ash tree, to make for himself a world-dominating spear: both actions upset the balance of what was ever a sustainable world order. Rather like us, exhausting fossil fuels and destroying the rain forest?

"Die Meistersinger"

On Boxing Night, Caroline and I endured a grim night at Cineworld: Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows looked the best of a poor selection, but neither of us enjoyed it much.

By contrast, Die Meistersinger triumphed last night at Covent Garden. I was the lucky holder of a staff ticket, entitling me to sit at the back of the Orchestra Stalls at a fraction of the normal price. Within 18 months, I've heard it three times: I enjoyed the Glyndebourne production, with Gerry Finlay's notable Sachs, relayed to Malvern in June - a match for Bryn Terfel in the WNO version (which I caught at the 2010 Proms). But this consistently amazing Wagner score never sounded so well as under Pappano's baton at the Opera House, despite some quibbles with the production. What a treat!

40 years on

Last night, I listened to the Prelude to Die Meistersinger, relayed from the Proms. And tomorrow is the 40th anniversary of this photograph being taken, before a performance of Der fliegende Holländer at Bayreuth. I am conspicuous (near the top centre of the picture), not so much for my height, as being one of the few men not wearing a dinner jacket.

My friend Clare and I had arrived at Bayreuth via three trains from London. I remember little about the journey save that Clare - about to go up to Oxford to read English - memorised "To his coy mistress" in next to no time. At Victoria Station, it had seemed like a good plan to book my suitcase in separately, but alas luggage didn't change trains with us. Result: I only had the clothes I travelled in. Our kind landlord at Bayreuth lent me a tie and his jacket - not a brilliant fit as can be seen!

Donald McIntyre sang the Dutchman in August Everding's production, conducted by Horst Stein. I recall nothing of the individual performances, but the chorus sounded magnificent.

Relayed cherry-picking

In Portugal, the informal economy was at its most visible in the stalls of cherries for sale by the roadsides. Yet we didn't see a single tree with them growing.

Within the past six days I have been to Glyndebourne and the South Bank, but travelled a mere sixty miles to get there and back. The peerless Glyndebourne Die Meistersinger came to Malvern on Sunday afternoon, and last night we had The Cherry Orchard at our local Cineworld direct from the National Theatre in its sublime production by Howard Davies.

The durability of both is that they have something timeless to tell us, and yet so much more than that: in the Wagner, we see the possibility of romantic happiness with a beautiful girl flitter across the consciousness of an eligible widower, before he concludes that a liaison would be in the long-term interests of neither. In the Chekhov, there are similar dalliances, but chiefly the conflict is between the unconstrainable romantic imagination of Mme. Ranyevskaya and her situation's grim financial reality. Andrew Upton's brilliant translation makes us very aware of the parallels with our recent banking crisis.

Old Deuteronomy

I was not particularly looking forward, yesterday, to turning out for my third concert on consecutive evenings. But it was terrific. We went to Cheltenham Town Hall to hear the Philharmonia Orchestra play three warhorses: the Meistersinger Prelude, Brahms' 1st Piano Concerto (with Boris Berezovsky) and the Pathétique. All were thrillingly performed, we thought, particularly the Tchaikovsky.

Leif Segerstam was the conductor: sitting quite far away, it seemed to us quite hard to imagine him getting through such a demanding programme, as he tottered onto the stage at the beginning, appearing to creak when rising to the podium. Ernestine Schumann-Heink was apparently of a similar build: once, at a rehearsal, she knocked over several music stands as she approached the front of he stage. "Walk sideways," urged the conductor, to which came the response: "Maestro, vith Madame Schumann-Heink der iss no sidevays."

Caroline was worried that the guard on the rostrum might be dangerously low, but Maestro Segerstam had no difficulty holding his own once installed. He even completed a stately 360 degree turn to ensure we were all enjoying ourselves as the great Allegro molto vivace approached its climax - the orchestra "still together, conductified," to use one of his own eccentric English expressions.

Sitting closer for the second half of the concert, it was clear I was wrong to think that this composer/conductor's flowing white hair and beard were evidence of great age, for his face looked remarkably young. I have now learnt that he is younger than I am; but I have yet to compose one symphony, let alone 208.

The Proms

This time last year, Leo, Mini and I went to the Proms: it was Mini's first experience of the Royal Albert Hall. They both so enjoyed it that they were there again last night. Leo came to tell us about it this evening: they intend to go every year, he said, and I bet they will.

Last Thursday, Caroline and I were lucky enough to be at the Albert Hall too, invited by our old friend Caroline Holbrook, who goes frequently from her home near Newbury. That night the concert was given by the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra conducted by Daniel Barenboim. This orchestra has become an institution in less than a decade, since its founding by Barenboim and his close Palestinian friend, the late Edward Said. It inspires not just musically, but in the way it represents the hope and real possibility of a peaceful future for both Israelis and the Palestinian people. Not a yarmulke or a hijab to be seen! And the orchestra played - besides Haydn and Brahms - music by the Jewish Arnold Schoenberg together with, as an encore, the Meistersinger Prelude by Hitler's favourite composer, Wagner.

Daniel Barenboim conducted the whole programme from memory. In my early '20s, when I was an articled clerk in the City of London, my principal invited me to sit in on a meeting that a certain Enrique Barenboim had arranged with him, to discuss his son's tax position. That son, about my age, came along too: his name was Daniel. I remember nothing at all about the content of the meeting; but I have always followed from afar, and admired, Daniel Barenboim's public achievements.

Animula vagula blandula

Half a century ago, almost, I was set to learn the poem of which this is the first line. It didn't mean much to me then, nor could I have told you who wrote it. But it's up in large letters at the British Museum, as part of the Hadrian exhibition. It came back to me when I was ploughing through Margaret Yourcenar's historical novel before last month's meeting of our book group; and again on Thursday, when Caroline and I visited the exhibition. It's well worth seeing: on till 26th October.

Hadrian wrote these verses contemplating his life's end, when he clearly sees the soul as departing in a different direction from the body. But where? Becoming Emperor less than a century after Jesus's crucifixion, Hadrian was relaxed about the Christians, but there is no evidence that he entertained Christian beliefs to help him answer that question.

Still less did Hadrian embrace Judaism: indeed, his harshest treatment was reserved for the Jews. On display in the BM Reading Room is a house key. It belonged to a Jew who had fled his home to take refuge (with many others) in a cave: trapped there, he was butchered to death. Hadrian's savagery contrasts with his love of beauty in so many of its manifestations. In the same way, Radovan Karadžić also wrote poetry; and Hitler loved Wagner's music.

My photograph shows Hadrian's lover, the beautiful Greek youth Antinous. He drowned in the River Nile on the day Egyptians were commemorating the death of their god Osiris - from drowning in the Nile. Hadrian had Antinous portrayed here as Osiris, suggesting that he too was reborn as a god from the waters of the Nile.


This statue was found more than 250 years ago during excavations at Hadrian's Villa, near Rome. Only last year, a huge, undamaged head of the Emperor himself was uncovered in Turkey: this magnificent object is the first sculpture you see when you enter the current exhibition. And last week I read in the paper that there were sarcophagi of the same era found, which had been buried up near Hadrian's Wall. How many other discoveries remain to be made?