Dreadful, awful.

Why do directors do it? Because they can I suppose.

I have seen plenty of poor productions in my time, up till recently the worst production of anything I have ever seen was at, of all places, Covent Garden. The Tristan and Isolde that I saw a few years ago consigned the two principals to red and white boxes, similar in size to the sort of containers that are shipped all over the world. Tristan did leave his box at the end (I can’t remember which colour was assigned to whom) but Isolde was stuck in hers for the duration. All the love music in the second act was sung without touching, I can’t remember many other details other than the men’s chorus came on to sing at the end of Act I will megaphones. It was frightful, but not offensive. I applauded at the end but not with much enthusiasm. As I recall the Isolde was very good, but the Tristan was a stand in and could not really cope with the role. It is a killer and I felt sorry for the poor fellow.

The production was silly, stupid perhaps. It certainly did not pay any attention to the intentions of the composer and librettist (the same person in this opera of course). But it was not offensive. I have just seen the most offensive piece of theatre that I have ever experienced. Something that not only reverses the intentions of the composer and librettist but twists and mangles them to such an extent that I was genuine upset as well as offended.

Bluebeard’s Castle with music by Bela Bartok and libretto by Bela Balazs takes the myth of the Bluebeard legend and adds a twentieth century twist. It is not easy to explain what the opera is about, but to me it is clear Bluebeard and Judith are deeply in love. From here on in I think every individual has to decide for themselves what is going on, this does leave the piece open to alternative interpretations. Perhaps Bluebeard has been damaged, as Judith opens each of the first five doors she finds blood on whatever is in there. At the opening of the 5th door Bluebeard rejoices, happy that Judith has brought light to his castle. He begs her not to open any more, and this for me is where the heart of the story lies. He knows that going further will damage both of them, but Judith is not able to stop and their relationship crumbles.

To turn this into a story about recent mass murderers and criminals is so absurd and hateful that I can’t believe anyone who listened to the ravishing music in the final scenes could ever consider it. This music moves me to tears, now it is spoilt, probably forever.

I feel betrayed. A hooligan, a vandal, a moron has disfigured something beautiful. A great gash has been cut in the face of a beautiful and much admired friend. I will not be able to forgive Daniel Kramer and his cronies for the offence they have caused. I will never attend another of his productions. I don’t really want to set foot in the home of the ENO ever again, the thought of doing so sickens me.

For the first time ever I regret to have to say than on the 6th November 2009, I am genuinely sorry that I went to the opera.

From the sublime to the ridiculous

The DVDs of the Master Course in Bulgaria arrived a few days ago. The organisers of the course had rushed through a copy for me to take away but I left them in the car that took me from Ruse to Sofia, I was very cross with myself. I have been looking forward to receiving the replacement disks for a while and since they arrived I have taken a good deal of time studying them.

The session that I was looking forward to watching the most was the twenty minutes I spent running through the finale of Mahler’s third symphony. As I wrote in this blog I have almost no recollection of this rehearsal. I do remember the first few minutes, the moment when Panula makes some remarks about some ties missing in the first violins, and a missed subito piano in the wind.

I went into the session with the wrong idea, I wanted to prove that I had the orchestral control to do rubato. I had not at that point got my head around what could be achieved at the master course and was still looking for a sense of direction. I did not get my thoughts clear until well into the third set of rehearsals and I owe a lot to my colleagues for helping me to realize that the course was about learning, not proving myself.

Even so, I count this session as one of my most successful at the course. When I stepped up to the podium I had already established myself as the conductor with the loud voice, I didn’t need to prove that any more! I made a few opening remarks, which I think were ignored! I waited for the chat let to subside by raising my arms into the ready position, and looking at the chatters until they stopped. The first rubato took the orchestra by surprise, but they caught on quickly and were soon prepared for the music to be pulled about.

From then on, with the exceptions noted earlier, I remember nothing until the end of the movement and the crashing tympani blows. Watching the video has been especially interesting and a great pleasure. I now realize that the orchestra pulled out all the stops for this rehearsal and made a huge effort. The dynamic contrasts are fabulous and the music really sings out. I had been worried about the brass players getting tired, so was keen to give them an easy time, but they play with great feeling and power. The wind play beautifully and the string tone is lush and full. I take the brass restatement of the theme fairly quickly, again I think this must have been because I was concerned not to tax them unduly, but I can’t remember doing so at the time. The final chords are played with great power.

If and when I do that movement again I will do several passages differently, but that is to be expected. I have now played the video several times, and in many of the passages the orchestral playing is superb, bravo!

One of my colleagues mentioned after the rehearsal that he didn’t like the way I shake my hands and arms during long sustained chords. Many conductors do this to encourage the orchestra to sustain a chord fortissimo and I consider it to be an acceptable technique. What I didn’t realise is that this can look a little odd when someone a bit overweight such as myself does it. I posted a remark on this blog a while ago saying that I was going to have to lose some weight, and two dear friends (both ladies, both singers, both mezzo-sopranos!) said that I was perfect as I was and didn’t need to change a bit.

Well ladies, take a look at the last few seconds of the Mahler 3 finale Part 2 video. It’s not the arms that are shaking! The music may be sublime, but I look ridiculous.

Growing old humorously

I don’t really think of myself as old yet, but it won’t be long before I have to. I am certainly no longer young, and “middle-aged” is such a dreadfully bourgeois term. My youngest child is now over 16 and should therefore be considered an adult in most regards, my eldest is thinking of buying a house. These things alone can make one feel the time that has passed.

As for growing old, my awful sense of humour hasn’t changed much over the years, I still love teasing the wife and kids, I love jokes but can no longer remember them. I enjoy quirky or humorous stories and these I can often remember. Amongst my favourites stories are those about one of my favourite conductors, Sir Thomas Beecham. Beecham’s recordings are wonderful, most especially those made of live performances. They always have life and energy.

The stories are many and I was delighted to add to them on the recent master course. I asked Maestro Panula whether he had ever seen Beecham conduct and got an affirmative answer, “very good”. Panula then smiled and recalled a Beecham story that was new to me. Beecham came to Helsinki on many occasions to conduct the works of Sibelius and others, but had trouble sleeping through the very light evenings. After a particularly bad night he was taking an orchestral rehearsal and whilst continuing to conduct dived into his bag which was below his stand and started rummaging around in it. After a few moments he brought out a sandwich and started to eat it, whilst continuing to conduct! This would be quite unheard of now, and whilst it may seem of little consequence to a non-musician, to a conductor it is quirky beyond belief.

One of the advantages of getting older is that less is expected of you and to some extent you expect less of yourself. If one of the kids volunteers to do something energetic on my behalf, I let them. If they sort something out for me because they think I am tired and a bit gaga, so be it.

The other day I received an “are you there” email from a daughter who shall remain numberless. Since we are both attached to mail servers, emails are delivered more or less instantly. We often have conversations via email. After a few moments the phone went, it was my turn to write something in the email conversation but I answered the phone anyway. It was the same numberless daughter I was having the email conversation with. I asked her to hold for a moment and typed into my computer’s email client “Speaking on the phone to someone now, won’t be a minute.” and sent it. We then had a phone conversation about something so important that I have completely forgotten what (age playing its part again perhaps?). After hanging up I resumed the email conversation with “Off the phone now. What’s up?”. This had the delightful effect of getting the numberless daughter worried about whether I had realised that the email conversation and the phone conversation were with the same person, namely her. Eventually I had to give in and admit that I was teasing her but she remains concerned that I am getting old and confused.

Getting old is going to be fun, if only a bit.

The end of the course

The Master Course is now over and I am back home in Surrey. Normal life is resuming, the wife has what she calls a stinking cold and I would call the sniffles while daughter No. 4 has the sniffles and calls it the sniffles. No.3 is off to University at the weekend and is cross with me for forgetting her birthday whilst I was away. I was too busy chatting up photographers. There is a mountain of post and the tax on my car needs renewing urgently.

The course ended with a concert in which I conducted the last movement of Sibelius’s Symphony No. 2. It went well and was well received. My tempo was a little fast but in the circumstances was not a bad choice, though if I were to do the whole symphony and have adequate rehearsal time I would probably take it a little slower. The orchestra played well and with spirit.

Unusually for me I felt a little nervous before going on; I am rarely nervous before conducting. I had to calm down and breathe deeply for a few moments. Even so when the moment came to go to the podium I strode on as if I owned the place, took my bow, preened myself a little to show the orchestra that I had had a haircut (smiles from the woodwind), and launched into the music without a worry, all nerves gone.

The orchestra reacted beautifully to everything that I did, the pianissimos were very quiet and the fortissimos powerful. After the performance the orchestra were very complimentary and many of the players congratulated me. I was very pleased about this as orchestral players won’t congratulate a conductor unless they mean it. Panula seemed happy as well, and was all smiles and congratulations. I asked if I had done anything wrong technically, “You bent your knees, but only once”. This man is strict!

I have put the videos from my camera, with sound from the camera, on YouTube. When I have the version with sound from the separate microphones I will add them as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiFqdC6sR24
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvAPrcXkFX0

The next morning I was booked on the early car to Sofia, I had to get up at 4:15 to be ready to leave at 4:45, farewells were taken at the after concert party and final thanks given. I packed and got a few hours sleep before my alarm. The journey home was uneventful apart from the fact that I stupidly left the DVDs of the course which had been rushed through for me in the car at the airport. I am VERY cross with myself about this.

After a coffee and catch-up with an old friend at Gatwick the taxi bore me home and back to reality. The post and the sniffles need to be dealt with, the taxman must be paid and the kids educated.

The course was a wonderful experience, and has given me a great deal to think about. The comments of Panula and my colleagues will be brooded over and the videos studied. The orchestra was hard working and committed, they were unfamiliar with all the music (even Sibelius 2, which did surprise us, it is a standard work in Western Europe) and struggled to sight read some of it, but worked hard at learning it and with dealing with 18 conductors with varying degrees of experience and skill. Congratulations to them.

The course was well run and good value, credit is due to the organizers.

Looking back at my sessions a pattern is starting to emerge. For the first three sessions I was trying to prove something. At the first that I could control an orchestra and get them to play in a disciplined fashion, at the second that I could control a choir, at the third that I had enough technique to get the orchestra to do outrageous rubato. I then realised that continually trying to prove myself was not really what I was there for, so the fourth was about getting the passion and drama out of some very powerful music. From then on I settled down to some conducting and building a working musical relationship with the orchestra. Fortunately there was just enough time for this to be achieved before the concert, the sessions ended with both me and the orchestra happy.

Maestro Panula was critical of some of my conducting but seemed to like other parts, I have to think hard about what he suggests as some of the things he does not like are very built into my technique. I will also reflect on what my colleagues said during the course, there were some fine conductors there and they made many useful and interesting comments. I made some good friends too, I hope to stay in touch and I will follow their careers with interest.

One thing is already clear to me from watching my videos, if I am to continue conducting, I have to lose some weight!

Soap operas and faux pas

I write this sitting in my hotel room, which as I have mentioned before is basic but has air conditioning. I am grateful for this as I have promised not to buy shorts on this trip and it is once again hot outside. I did a brief rehearsal of the finale of Sibelius 2 this morning and I will conduct it at the concert this evening, the rehearsal went well and I am relaxed about the concert.

The master course is nearly over and what I would really like to do is to describe the final few days in the most dramatic fashion possible, allowing free reign to English language’s propensity for exaggeration and hyperbole. I could write that one conductor was on the point of refusing to work with the orchestra, that the orchestra were on the point of refusing to work with a conductor, that Maestro had gone missing for an hour an no-one could find him and that a colleague and friend had been taken very ill for a while and we were on the point of calling a doctor. But of course no-one would believe me. This is nerd’s convention, we all sit around discussing our down beats, on occasions we seek some light relief but discussing our up beats. Nothing so exciting could ever happen on such a course. Hmmm....

So instead I shall tell you (remind you might be better) of my continuing ability to open my mouth and put my foot in it, as deeply as possible. One of the conductors told us in the first week that a friend of his would be arriving to take some photos of him at the master class. She was a student at the university in Berlin and was studying film; she designed websites to get by. When she arrived she asked if she could take photos of me and I agreed, I hate having my photo taken but it is necessary to have good photos of oneself conducting and a few more would not go amiss. We got chatting and I mentioned this blog amongst other things. We met a few days later and greatly to my surprise she said that she had read the blog and enjoyed my story about the Turkey Sandwich (see below). I was of course delighted and very flattered and since then we have had a good chat every time we meet.

She showed me some of the photos she had taken of me during a rehearsal; I was very pleased with several which showed me not looking too ridiculous, perhaps even a bit artistic. My favourite was one where I am making some dramatic gesture with my right hand, which is holding my baton, while my left hand is brought up and back and looks as though it is just about to pluck out my eye.

After today’s rehearsal I went once again to the restaurant next door to have lunch, I had had a short discussion with Panula and he seem satisfied with what I was doing, some of the others were discussing matters but I had nothing more to say so left the group. In the restaurant I saw the conductor and his photographer friend and went to join them. I ordered the cat-fish from the river and we got chatting again. She had heard that I have four daughters and was asking after them so I gave my usual laconic description of each (sorry kids!). I was a bit surprised when she said that she had a daughter, I don’t suppose that I should have been, it’s not that unusual for students to have children these days. My standard reply when caught like this is to say “You’re not old enough to have children!” which usually goes down quite well. “Ah, you might be a bit shocked to find out my daughter’s age then” she said. OK, so the child might be five or six I thought. “She is twenty”.

It does take a while to extract one’s foot when it is THAT deep in one’s mouth.

Fishing and to be a fish.

A few days ago a group of my conducting colleagues and I were sitting at the breakfast table discussing our favourite topic, conducting technique. Yes I know, yawn - yawn, but bear with me for a moment please.

I am, and always have been, fascinated by conducting. I watch other conductors very carefully and with interest. I study their movement, technique and the way they act out the music. I like to think that over the years I have gained a good deal of technique and have enough presence on the podium to keep things going well. I can and do conduct opera, and you can’t do that without technique.

So these conversations with other conductors are fascinating to me, and with apologies for repeating myself, we were discussing technique a few days ago when the subject of “fishing” came up. This is conducting with a series of upbeats that can look like someone making regular rhythmic pulls on a fishing line. According to my colleagues, all of whom have been on Panula’s Masterclasses before, the Maestro doesn’t like fishing conductors.

One of my colleagues has to conduct a movement which is one beat to a bar and is concerned about being criticised for fishing. Panula can be cutting sometimes if he wishes to be, and avoidance of techniques he dislikes is strongly advised on his courses.

I had decided some time ago to concentrate on the Sibelius works in this Masterclass, and I am ill-prepared to avoid fishing. As it happens none of the pieces or movements that I have done or want to do are one beat to a bar, and so far the Maestro seems to like what I have been doing, so I have to date escaped his wrath with the possible exception of overdoing the rubato in the finale Mahler 3.

The next thing I wanted to conduct was the 1st movement of Mahler 2. I thought long and hard about this, but I decided on it as I had not worked on the first movement of Mahler 3 and I thought it would be sensible to do a first movement of something. This movement is a very powerful statement, words can never do it justice, despair and desperation seem the most appropriate of them. As my response to the finale of Mahler 3 had caught me by surprise, I wanted to be properly prepared for this piece. For a couple of days I avoided most company, studied the score and got myself mentally prepared.

When the moment came I stepped to the podium and started. I realised that all the preparation had been entirely unnecessary, the music said it all. I was quite pleased with the session apart from the fact that the Cor Anglais player was missing, I was very annoyed about this as there are many important solos for the instrument in this movement. I was told he was ill and that there wasn’t another player available in the town.

I did rehearse a few sections, and got to the crushing climax which held together well. When I left the podium I was still cross that there was no Cor Anglais but I had had a satisfactory rehearsal, even if my mood didn’t make me particularly popular with the orchestra!

Most of my colleagues have brought their own Camcorders with them to video themselves conducting, I had not as I didn’t have one to bring. I was anxious to see myself conducting before the next video session with Panula so I have bought one. I recorded myself conducting the Mahler so dashed away to view it.

A few days ago an American had passed comment on the fact that I seem to conduct with an open mouth, and perhaps I was vocalising a bit to the music. Not having seen myself conduct much I was curious about this and watched my video for it. Sure enough, there it was. I sing along to the music, I hope I sing soundlessly (if that is not a contradiction in terms) as I don’t like my own singing voice much, and the family hate it. I have not had complaints from any orchestras so I am pretty sure that I make no noise.

But I now have to reconcile myself to the fact that when I conduct my mouth opens and closes all the time as though one of my fishing conductor colleagues has just landed me.

This was not the sort of fishing I was expecting to have to deal with.

R is for Rubato

The Master class with Jorma Panula in Ruse, Bulgaria is now entering its second week. I have enjoyed the first week enormously, the freedom to discuss problems and technique with ones colleagues and peers doesn’t come around frequently for conductors, we are solitary beasts.

I have taken the podium three times, each has been different in its way and it is the opportunity to discuss the sessions with Panula and the other participants of the master class that makes this experience unique. All the conductors are very sympathetic, there is no bitchiness or jealousy and comments are freely exchanged and discussed. Whilst there are no cliques we do mix and discuss matters mostly with the colleagues who are sharing the same hotel. The group I am staying with are very open, honest and helpful. It has been enlightening discussing my sessions with them and I try to contribute something meaningful to theirs.

My first session was on the 4th movement of Mahler’s epic 3rd Symphony. The piece lasts about 90 minutes, the first movement taking over 30. The 4th movement is very slow and features a low female vocal solo. It is not that difficult to play once all the parties know what they are doing, but can be frustrating whilst everyone is learning. Before I went on the orchestra were getting a little restless and the chat level was rising. When I got to the podium my first priority was firmly but politely to put a stop to this. Those reading this who know my rehearsal technique will know that I like to be in control, and that when I need to establish this I do it with my voice. It’s loud! The orchestra were soon persuaded to pay a bit more attention and we got some useful work done. I was not particularly happy with my conducting, but I established a good relationship with the singer by giving her time to be expressive when she needed it (in my experience this is the quickest way to a singer’s heart).

After my 15 minutes were up I left the podium reasonably satisfied but annoyed that I had made a number of small but basic mistakes with my beat. The singer seemed happy but disappointed that we couldn’t finish the movement, Maestro Panula made a few comments but seemed satisfied. I had got my first appearance over and done with, and several of my colleagues congratulated me.

My second appearance on the podium was to do the 5th movement, this also features the alto singer but Mahler adds female and children’s choruses to the mix. Several of the conductors wanted to have a go at this movement but no-one wanted to go first and this slot refused to fill. I work with choruses all the time, I have four children and I used to teach. I felt that I could also use my (now infamous) voice to get them going. Up I stepped.

The choruses were in the hall with the orchestra for the first time so I knew that they would need some encouragement. This was given in the form of firm direction and careful rehearsal, once again I used my voice at full power and the results were obtained. The kids, who of course were shy and unsure opened their mouths after a while and the “Bims” and “Bams” started to ring through the hall. At the end of my time one of the organisers of the course came straight up to me, shook my hand and congratulated me on a good job. “That’s the way to do it”. Some of the other conductors were not so sure, and worried that I had frightened the children. They didn’t sound frightened, but I was concerned about this. I had made a small joke at one point, and I could immediately tell that about two of the children spoke good English as they laughed before the translation had filtered through. I saw one of these young ladies passing so I gently enquired about whether I had been a bit OTT for them, “No, not at all, you did very well!”. But nevertheless I took notice that some of the adults thought I was a bit too aggressive with the youngsters.

I was discussing this session with one of my colleagues, and was deciding what to do in my next. There were still problems with wind intonation in the first movement so I was wondering whether to spend some time sorting this out. My colleague suggested that I had already proven I could rehearse and sort out problems; it was time for me to do some music. This was a very kind and helpful suggestion and I was very grateful for it. My favourite movement in Mahler three is the 6th, the Adagio. I decided to take this on.

I had already heard several people rehearse this and I felt that something was still missing. Mahler is not played frequently in Bulgaria and we could all tell that the orchestra did not know the piece at all. The 6th movement, which is passionate and very beautiful had not yet reached the state where it really had begun to live, so I would try to see if I could get it going.

What I had noticed in particular is that no other conductor had tried to get any sort of rubato in this movement. Rubato is when a phrase is stretched or compressed in time to make it more expressive, singers use it a great deal and one of the challenges of opera is to get the orchestra to follow a singer’s rubato, Mahler was a great opera conductor and Richard Strauss commented on his rubato so I felt justified in taking this approach to his orchestral music. I set myself the task of putting as much rubato into the movement as I could. Even if it didn’t work musically it would be fun to try to get the orchestra to follow my beat as I pulled and pushed the music around.

I expected to have to stop in the rehearsal and correct things, and I did not want to get to the end as I wanted to save the brass player’s lips. The end of the movement is a series of D major chords played fortissimo. I started the movement and immediately started doing some outrageous rubati, the orchestra cottoned on fairly quickly and within a few minutes they had learnt to expect me to pull every phrase around. I kept going and before I knew it the end of the movement was approaching, it arrived and the brass seemed willing to play so I got to the end and we played the thundering D major chords and timpani blows with great style.

The orchestral gave me a brief round of applause at the end and I descended the podium quite satisfied. I was immediately congratulated by another member of the organising team and one or two of my colleagues. I said “I got through it in 20 minutes, it must have been really fast!” One of my colleagues replied “Sometimes you must let go of the written notes and let the emotion take over” and another said “No, not fast, moving.” I was quite pleased at these remarks and was feeling quite content and a bit pleased with myself.

I was just about to re-enter the hall to listen to the next rehearsal when I realised that I was feeling a quite odd, I left the hall and was walking to the foyer when I became quite overcome and didn’t know what to do with myself. I found a quiet corner, sat down for 20 minutes and gathered myself together. I do respond emotionally to music, I have been very moved in the past by performances I have conducted of Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder, but I have never been taken so completely by surprise before. I had no idea that I had become so emotional.

I tried to think back to the rehearsal and realised that for large sections of my rehearsal I had no recollection of the music, however much I tried I could not remember how it had gone! Later that day I had a video session with Panula, I expected to find much of what I had done to be over the top, and this was indeed the case. I commented at one point “There is so much rubato it sounds like opera” and Panula said at another “Not bad for film music”. But at another he said “This is love”, found the comment at the front of the score pointing out that Mahler had said of this movement “What love tells me”. While I’m sure Panula thought that much of what I had done was unnecessary he seemed pleased with other bits and pleased with my orchestral control.

The following day I asked to see the video of this session in full, and watched it with great interest. The passages of which I had no recollection sounded OK, and the video prompted memories of several gestures and technical details, but even now I cannot properly recall much of what happened. I must have been completely “in the moment” a phrase which I have previously dismissed as meaningless.

I must like this music more that I thought.

A Turkey Sandwich

I develop habits quickly. I’ve been in this hotel for only a few days and already I have a daily routine. My alarm goes off at 7, I shower and have breakfast with my conductor colleagues and chat until it is time to set off for the morning’s rehearsal. After that I come back to the hotel, have a nap, think about my blog, call home and study scores (mostly I nap).

For the evening rehearsal I make sure I have my cool new shades for the walk to the hall, I buy an ice cream to give me a bit of energy (I don’t have lunch) and I am all set up for an evening’s music making.

After the rehearsal those of who are socially minded go for a meal together in the restaurant adjoining the concert hall. This is run by a charming and animated Bulgarian who is able to speak every European language there is, he claims to have run a 5 star restaurant in either Sofia or Berlin (I can’t remember which) and I can well believe the claim as the food is excellent.

Last night a group of us accumulated on our usual table and were enjoying a meal. The restaurant has no menu in English so we are dependent upon the charming and very pretty waitresses or the proprietor himself to tell us what he has. I have had an excellent pork cutlet and the fish on offer looked good too. I asked what fish they served and as it was beyond the very pretty waitress’s English to explain, the proprietor was called over and we had a lengthy discussion about the fish he had available. “River Fish or Sea Fish” was the starting point, and pretty much the ending point as well as he only knew the Bulgarian names from thereon. I had selected Sea Fish, he gave me a name that I couldn’t equate to anything but I was happy as I knew it would be good.

An American amongst us had ordered a Turkey sandwich, which I thought was a bit unadventurous given the standard of the food, but he was away from home and may have been homesick. The Americans pretty much invented the Turkey Sandwich. They didn’t invent the Sandwich, we did, though they would like to take the credit and would if we did not constantly remind them that they did not. But, you could say that a Turkey Sandwich is as American as Apple Pie, but I prefer not to as I’m sure the English were eating Apple Pie long before the Pilgrims set sail.

After a while my fish arrived, brought by the proprietor himself, “This is Salmon, I hope that is alright”. I love salmon, and this was rolled, stuffed and in a white sauce, it looked delicious and tasted better. It wasn’t quite what I expected, as I’m pretty sure that the Bulgarian for Salmon is pretty close to Salmon, and sometimes the unexpected has a habit of jumping up and biting you, but I was content with my fish.

I had long finished my Salmon when the American’s food arrived, but he looked a trifle disappointed when a plate of red meat in a purple sauce was put in front of him. “This is not what I ordered, I ordered a Turkey Sandwich” said the American. This seemed to be stating the obvious rather, we all agreed that this was not a Turkey Sandwich, however delicious it looked. The very pretty waitress had gone, so while a few of us made animated efforts to call her back the rest of us discussed what the delicious bowl of meat might be. “It looks like Roast Beef to me” said the American, “It might be duck” I ventured, a Korean suggested something else and the conversation continued like this for a moment or two until the proprietor arrived.

“This isn’t what I ordered, I ordered a Turkey Sandwich” repeated the American, “Yes, this Turkey Sandwich”, said the proprietor omitting the verb in the sentence, but we all forgave him. He pointed to the bowl of delicious red meat “This Turkey” and pointing to a bowl of bread the waitress has also brought, but which had escaped our notice in all the excitement, “This Sandwich. Turkey Sandwich”.

Now I love a joke, but I fell of my chair at this! I roared. It was the funniest thing I had ever seen in a restaurant, and I have seen a few. The expression on the American’s face did not betray any sign that he was amused by the proprietor’s speech. Rather the reverse in fact. I wouldn’t exactly describe his expression as disappointed either, disbelieving maybe, pained perhaps. At this point a number of words were exchanged between the American and the proprietor which although perfectly civil did not have quite the same friendly tone as 10 minutes earlier. I had to restrain my continuing guffaws in order to save everyone’s embarrassment, even my own. The American insisted that this was not a Turkey Sandwich, nor even Turkey, and the proprietor insisted that this was exactly what it was. “Turkey is white, white meat” said the American said pointing to himself, rather inappropriately I thought, “this is red, it’s not even well done”. The proprietor seized on this moment of American weakness and said “I put under grill, then if you no like, all fine, I bring something else”. The American reluctantly agreed to this and the delicious looking meat and the bowl of bread were taken away. Despite the humour we all felt obliged to sympathize with our colleague, whatever we might think of Americans and the eating habits that they have inflicted on the world, we would have to agreed that the Turkey Sandwich was pretty innocuous and that what he had been given was definitely not one.

A few minutes later a dish was put in front of the American, on it were the bread rolls cut in half, and on top of each one was a slice of the delicious looking red meat, slightly better done before and showing signs that the purple sauce had gone under the grill too and therefore was now slightly dried out. “I’m sorry, this is still not a Turkey Sandwich” said the Yank, “You try, if you no like I bring something else” insisted the proprietor. There was nothing for it, the American was going to have to try this stuff. He took half a slice of the red meat and rather gingerly eat it. “You no like?”, “It’s not Turkey” he said, that was enough and the proprietor seized the plate and bore it away, a plate of grilled vegetables was ordered and when they arrived the American eat them with great gusto.

My curiosity had been raised by this, as well as my funny-bone tickled. I really wanted to know what the delicious looking red meat was, and I was curious about the sauce too. So when we went to the restaurant the next day, I asked the waitress if she remember the dish of delicious looking red meat brought to the American as a Turkey Sandwich “You want Turkey Sandwich?” she said. No, I wanted the dish of delicious looking red meat covered in Purple Sauce which you thought was a Turkey Sandwich. She looked puzzled, I shrugged. “OK, please may I have a Turkey Sandwich”.

After a few moments, a plate of Bread Rolls cut in half with some delicious looking red meat appeared in front of me. It wasn’t what I had ordered, I felt like saying “This is not what I ordered” in my most impeccable English accent, “I ordered a Turkey Sandwich” but decided against it.

It was duck, and very delicious!

The gods, wormholes and shorts!

I am quite used to it now, whenever I travel I know that I will forget to pack something vitally important and that it will be an enormous struggle or prohibitively expensive to replace at my destination. I am reminded of the trumpet player who was going on a gig where he knew that he would need every conceivable type of mute, he carefully gathered all his mutes together (they always managed to hide themselves in the most unlikely places) and put them in his gig-bag and toddled off to his concert feeling very pleased with himself. When he arrived he opened his bag to show his mates his magnificent collection of mutes; they were all very impressed, until some wag asked “Where’s the trumpet?”

When I conduct I am completely neurotic about my musical scores, I will check I have them all several times over. My usual habit is to get them all together the night before, knowing I will wake up in a cold sweat, check them again until I am quite sure they are all there. The night before my flight for this trip I woke to remember two scores that I needed that were not packed, and my bag was already bursting at the seams. They came as hand luggage. Now I’m here I do think that I have all my scores, though I am pretty sure that my Mahler 3 is the wrong version.

So - the first day in a strange city, with a language I can’t read nor understand, is always spent looking for things that I forgot to bring, or as I prefer to put it, that my wife forgot to pack. It is very hot in Bulgaria, I knew I would need shorts, and I don’t have any. I have three million shirts, but no shorts. This was going to be very annoying, but my bag was damn close to the 20 kilo limit for the aeroplane so I decided to manage without; I would go for a wander around the town of Ruse, or Rousse, or Pyce in Cyrillic.

My walk was without particular purpose, but I took off in the general direction of the Concert Hall, which I had been told was at the end of a certain street. I found the street and wandered to the end, there indeed was an impressive if slightly run-down building that could well be a concert hall. Culture was very important to Eastern European countries during the Soviet era, since then it would appear that little money has been spent on keeping the buildings up to date. I was surprised to find most of the shops open on a Sunday, and it occurred to me that I might be able to buy things that I had forgotten, if only I could remember what. What was it I needed?

Deodorant, of course! How could I forget? When I conduct I sweat a bit (OK, a lot), and deodorant NEVER gets packed. At moments in time such as these, something very curious usually happens, I am sure that I can’t be the only person to have experienced it. All the pharmacies, or any shop that is likely to sell deodorant, collectively jump down a wormhole to another dimension. However hard I look I know that I will never ever find one. This was of course the case, and where-ever I looked there were plenty of restaurants, clothes shops, computer shops and mobile phone shops but not a single pharmacy. They had all escaped to an alternate universe.

The secret is not to panic, and not to worry too much. Show the gods that you don’t really care. After all, if I smell a bit after some energetic conducting, I don’t notice. It’s only everyone else. The thing to do is to find another shop and buy something in it, the shops that you really need then re-appear in great numbers. There were two book shops quite close to each other. I like bookshops! But everything here is in Bulgarian and therefore Cyrillic, no use to me whatsoever. Never mind, on my quest for deodorant I must go in and appear interested.

Inside there were, well, plenty of books. None of them were of any use to me. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted the dictionary section. Then, even better, Longman’s dictionary of contemporary English. This is an interesting book! One of my clients typeset it, and I always enjoy looking on the back of the title page and seeing “Set in Some-Font-That-I-Have-Never-Heard-Of by Letterpart”. It gives me a nice feeling of satisfaction that I contributed in some small way to the production of this book. I then flicked through the pages at random and found a definition of “Chip and Pin”, wonderful.

Then, a brainwave! Bookshops sell maps, I could genuinely buy a map of the town, this was something that I really needed! Off to see the (very pretty) girl behind the counter, who spoke English, and who quickly found a little map, IN ENGLISH! Brilliant. 1.50 Leva, about 75p. Can’t argue with that. I left the shop feeling very self-satisfied, mission accomplished. Now, what was it I really needed? Err.......

This doesn’t happen very often, but out of the corner of my eye I spotted a Pharmacy! Deodorant! And they sold it, even for men! Roll on versions too! This was going to be a good day.

So, back to the hotel to play with my new toys. The hotel is an old Soviet style building, and was probably top of the range when it was built and still looks quite impressive in places. The rooms have air-conditioning but the communal spaces do not, and the fourth floor corridor on which is my room is located is stifling. Back in my room I remember how hot it was outside, inside it was so cool! Shorts! Dammit. OK, make a list of all the other things I was going to need. Well I would want a bite to eat, but that would not be a problem, the town was heaving with restaurants. I had seen clothes shops, but where? I had my map, with its aid I could retrace my steps and find them again.

So, out into the streets again to find some shorts, I could feel the space-time continuum shifting as all the clothes shops collectively hopped down a convenient wormhole and were replaced by an excessively large amount of pharmacies. There would be no point in going in them, I already knew that they would have a much larger choice of deodorants at half the price I had paid. Never mind, don’t let it get you down. Find the clothes shops.

Hmm - lots of mobile phone shops, computer shops and restaurants. No clothes shops, None.

I was just about to give up when I spotted the street where they all were, this was unusual, but there was no doubt about it, clothes shops. And, they had shorts. Being 6’ 2” does have some advantages, my children’s friends are all scared of me, this is a surprising plus, all I have to do is growl slightly and they all run away. But Bulgarians do not appear to be a large people, besides - I am very overweight. I did find a pair of shorts that normally I would not be seen dead in, they had gimp-like zips over all the pockets and would have made a twenty five year old look silly. Fortunately they were far too small so I wasn’t able to buy them. All the other shops were the same. I had forgotten that only young thin people buy clothes, unless of course, the wormhole had taken all the tall fat-person’s clothes. Back to the hotel with a resigned air, don’t let it get you down.

One of the odd things about being away is that your family suddenly want to talk to you. Grown up kids are busy and have jobs, so they never normally have time for a chat, and teenage kids are by the laws of evolution prevented from speaking to parents. This changes somewhat when there is distance involved. The greater the distance the more they want to chat. And the wife – well!

With the age of the computer comes the age of the video call, it all works quite well now, providing you have a good connection and headphones. These latter I had forgotten to pack. I have hi-fi headphones for doing my homework on scores, but not computer headphones with a mike. Well, I had seen lots of phone and computer shops, there was one at the top of the road.

Of course there wasn’t. How could there be, I wanted to buy something from it. They had ALL disappeared to be replaced with restaurants, clothes shops and pharmacies. Don’t give up, keep an air of devil-may-care insouciance. If you don’t care enough you will find one. It worked, a mobile phone shop, with lots and lots of – Bluetooth headsets. Not what I wanted at all. The sales assistant was a boy of about 10, but wonder of wonders and blessing of capitalism, he spoke excellent English. He understood “Headphones for a computer with a microphone and standard 3.5mm jack plugs” perfectly. There were some for about 9 leva, £4.50 or so, excellent. A victory, albeit a small one. So back to the hotel, the 10 year old had carefully put the receipt in the bag and told me “if you have any problem just bring them back”. I had even complemented him on his excellent English. This was a big mistake. HUGE in fact.

Could I get those headphones to work? Of course not. The gods were against me since the moment I pretended I didn’t care. So I gathered together the packaging, the bag and the receipt, none of which I had yet lost. The packaging was even in good condition, it wasn’t the heat sealed type that is impossible to get into and half destroys the contents in the process. This was all TOO good, I was being lined up for some huge humiliation, I could feel it. Let’s try the headphones once again. The headset had a volume control, better try that! Then, of course, they worked perfectly. Can you imagine how I would have felt going back to the shop, in my “I’m a computer expert and these don’t work” mode, to have the ten year old plug them into something, adjust the volume control and say “There you are - Sir” in the most condescending conceivable voice. It was a narrow escape, I was going to have to be careful.

So, some study, some chat with the wife about her computer which she had broken, then supper. No problem here, there had been restaurants all over the town all day. They couldn’t possibly disappear. There was time for a quick nap as well.

When I woke I found my phone and wallet and went off in search of a restaurant. The gods had decided to punish me for finding the volume control by having it rain. Never mind, there were plenty of restaurants nearby. But what if they were all to close early? It was eight o’clock and they couldn’t possibly shut that early, and indeed so it proved. All the restaurants were still there and still open, the only thing wrong was that it was raining.

The first restaurant turned out to be a bar, then the next, then the next... They were all bars, no food anywhere! The rain got harder, I started to panic. Where was I going to eat? My head started to swim, I went in bar after bar, not so much as a sandwich anywhere. I was losing my sense of direction, and I had left the map in the hotel room.

Getting more and more desperate I started wandering in ever increasing circles, sometimes stumbling back into the same bar four or five times looking for a bite to eat.

I lost sense of time and place, Bruckner’s majestic but doom-laden eighth symphony kept ringing round my head. The panic was increasing, I was starving, confused and hopelessly lost in a strange city with a language which I could neither understand nor read. The gods were exacting a terrible revenge, on my first day I had beaten them three times. "You won over the shorts" I
thought.

Once again I felt a slight rumble, the space-time continuum shifted again, something had changed. I walked round the corner to find - a McDonalds. The gods are indeed cruel.

No - no - no, I would not do that, I would rather starve.

My head span, by stomach rumbled, the music changed to the final scene of Gotterdammerung. "OK, I promised not even to look for shorts, and even if I stumble across some I will not buy them, I promise!"

Valhalla crumbled around me, the fires engulfed its remains, the Rhine burst its banks, the Rhinemaidens took my promise and bore it away.

I looked up, shook my head to clear it. I was standing in a puddle and in front of me was a Pizza parlour.

A Pizza parlour. I could cope with that. “A Calzone and some tap water please”. The gods had shown some mercy.

On balance, a fair day.

To Bulgaria, again!

After a more or less sleepless night the alarm went off at 3:30am and the wife and I set off for Gatwick just gone 4. No mad taxi-drivers skipping roundabouts with cement mixers this time, just me at the wheel of the Prius pootling along gently to the North Terminal. Difficult-Jet must have known that I had paid for Speedy Check in and Boarding as the queues for standard check in were a mere fraction of what they were in June. Even so, I don’t regret paying the extra for a moment, check in taking 5 minutes or so and leaving plenty of time for the cavity checks from Security and a latte and Apricot Danish from a restaurant.

The flight was on time and uneventful, I was met at Sofia by one of the same organizers who ran the competition in Bourgas and greeted as a long lost friend, a bit later by a couple more people in the same fashion. The Bulgarians are very friendly albeit that a degree of curiosity about their country helps to grease the conversation. After a quick coffee and half an hour animatedly discussing how to load the car with €20k of recording kit we set off for the local restaurant for lunch. This not being an establishment in the touristy part of Sofia (which certainly has some fine buildings that I would like to look at more closely) the menu was all in the Cyrillic alphabet and therefore completely unintelligible. I was asked if I liked salad, garlic bread and chicken, I reluctantly admitted a partiality to all these so lunch was ordered. When it arrived I was shocked and stunned to find that I was the only one eating! The others were just having coffee! I overcame my embarrassment and enjoyed my lunch (no surprise there then).

On to the airport to pickup an Argentinian conductor who was arriving on Al Italia from Rome. He expressed no surprise and little frustration that the airline had lost his bag. He entertained us with stories of how the Italian cabin crew behaved on the flight (very badly) and though of Italian descent himself, how amusing he found the stereotypical Italian behaviour. The four of us, two Bulgarians, the Argentinian and myself had a wide ranging discussion in the four hour car journey to Ruse. We covered recent Bulgarian history, how people in general are nostalgic for the Communist era and disillusioned with democracy, the Falklands (sorry Malvinas!) war, and the origin of the English word posh. The Argentinian and I also had some interesting technical discussions on conducting, he is here for Mahler 2 which he has memorized, a substantial achievement! I was pleased to find that he admires Sibelius 7 as a feat of composition as much as I do. He has recently got married, and following the master-class will be going on his honeymoon. He has married a soprano and enjoyed my favourite soprano joke although I did have to explain it. How many sopranos does it take to screw in a light bulb - only one, but there will be twenty others demanding to know why they were not asked. I assure you that if you deal with singers of classical music this is hysterical.

Eventually on to Ruse and the hotel, which is fine. I had the usual battles trying to attach to the hotel Wi-Fi, it worked eventually but I have no idea what I did to finally persuade it to attach. Patience is often the key virtue with computers. I then spent some time watching the DVD of my conducting in Burgas, more on that subject later.

Master Class

With the competition in Bulgaria now fading into long-term memory I am looking forward to my next project which is once again in Bulgaria. I am attending a master-class with the famous conducting guru Jorma Panula, there is a Wikipedia article about him here

Details of the course are here, scroll down a bit once the page has loaded.

The master-class takes place in Ruse, which I am told has a good orchestra. We are covering two Mahler Symphonies, 2 & 3, his Ruckert Lieder and Kindertotenlieder, with Sibelius Symphonies 2 & 7. Of these works the only ones that I have not conducted before are Mahler 3 and the Ruckert Lieder, the former is a massive piece, 90 minutes long! The Ruckert Lieder are delightful miniatures, only one having heavy brass.

I have to admit that Mahler’s Symphonies don’t feel as natural to me as they once did, and I am struggling to get back into these works and to learn them. I have done Kindertotenlieder many times over recent years, in different formats and venues but always with the wonderful Nina Alupii-Morton as soloist. Nina has such a wonderful voice, and such a feeling for a line that she has been a great joy to work with on these songs. It will be a wrench to do them with someone else, though it will be fascinating too.

These days it is the Sibelius Symphonies that command my attention. Over recent months I have been studying them and different recordings of them in some detail. Of all of them the one I feel closest to is No. 4, the darkest and most bleak. I find it very passionate and emotional, the finale’s catastrophic collapse one of the most powerful statements in music. Unfortunately I have never conducted it; one day, when I am ready, I would love to. The Sibelius Symphony I most admire technically is No. 7 which I have conducted before. As a work of composition it embodies everything that Sibelius does, particularly the way themes, motifs and tempi emerge and merge with and from one another. I am looking forward to working on it with Panula, and to hearing what he has to say about it.

Perhaps this course will re-engage me with the Mahler Symphonies, they are certainly great masterpieces, but currently they do not touch me in the say way as Sibelius does. There is plenty to be learnt about conducting from them, I am looking forward to working with Panula!

More final words on the Competition

I promise this will be my last post on the subject! The two conductors that I particularly admired in the competition, and who both got through to the second round, did not win prizes. One got through to the final and the other did not.

What does this mean? Well, the jury were looking for things in Opera conducting that I was not, and I am looking for things that they were not. I have no complaints about this, there are plenty of different styles and techniques around. I'm always open to suggestion and we should all always strive to learn and improve.

Lulu at Covent Garden tonight, I have never seen it before and don't know it well. Something else new to learn!

Final Words on the Competition

I'm back in the UK, and have been for a couple of days. Before I travelled to Bulgaria I was telling the wife, family and friends that I was not expecting to progress to the second round of the competition, and this turned out to be the case.

Am I disappointed? Well, in fact I am. Some entrants to the competition were standing in front of an opera orchestra and singers for the first time, others were very experienced. I watched almost everyone conduct and I thought that I had a reasonable chance of getting through.

Some of the conductors were excellent, and I felt should progress to the final. I have noted their names but I don't think it would be sensible to publish them here. Two I admired very much, they had clear technique, cued the singers, led and responded well.

I will be interested to see the results, if the conductors I admired didn't get through it would suggest that the panel have different ideas on how to conduct opera from mine. I shall then have something interesting to think about!

First Round Result

Sadly I have not been selected to go through to the second round.

Thanks to all for your support and encouragement, it has been much appreciated.

Final thoughts on the first round.

Today is the last day of the first round, and the only day when all 10 of the conducting slots are taken. The competition was open to 60 conductors and for one reason or another only 52 have turned up. You will know if you have read the posts below that there could have been only 51.

I have been able to watch most of my fellow competitors doing their rehearsal of Cav, I intend to treck into Bourgas (the hotel is 18km from the theatre) to watch the last session today. I am not going to make comments on this blog about named individuals, but I will about the general standard. It has been very mixed, with some people who are very inexperienced simply not knowing what to do nor how to do it. The experience will be quite a shock to them and they will go away chastened and realising that they have a lot to learn about conducting opera. It's a very different game from the symphony orchestra. A handful of people have been very good, and one in particular exceptionally good. He had everything, clarity, musicianship, excellent technique for cueing the singers and shaping the phrases of the band, with good accompanying skills and control. He was a joy to watch.

How do I think I have faired in all this? I really do not know, and I am not thinking about it. As I have mentioned before we have no idea of what the judges are looking for and it is entirely possible that they are looking for something that I did not give them. I came out here for the experience and to give myself the chance of getting noticed. I have enjoyed the experience and the challenge, if I am not noticed then so be it.

The Wife!

Followers of this blog will be pleased to hear that the wife and daughters Nos 1 & 2 are now safely home in England.

Reflections on Round One to date.

It is the morning of Thursday 4th of June as I write. The competition is half way through its first round. I conducted on Monday, since then I have gone into the theatre to watch the other conductors on the afternoons of Tuesday and Wednesday, I have not yet made up my mind whether I will go today because watching the competition is an exhausting business! The orchestra and singers have to cope with such a wide variety of conducting styles, techniques and tempi that I fear for their sanity. Every section of Cav seems to be capable of interpretation in an infinite variety of ways with an infinite variety of tempi. I have even started to feel sorry for the Jury, they are going to be mighty unpopular people with the majority of the competitors in a few days (I will accept my fate with stoic resolve), but sitting through 4 hours with 10 conductors each doing 20 minutes of Cav after a morning full of the same thing with Figaro is not my idea of heaven, I hope they are being well paid.

So, you may ask, why are YOU going in to watch the competition? It is tiring, I spend the morning sleeping and working on Carmen (which is the next round of the competition), and exhaust myself with watching Cav in the afternoon. I suppose it is because I am genuinely fascinated by the art and technique of conducting opera. It has so many elements, but ultimately has the goal of keeping the thing together. Stick technique (everybody so far has used a stick, including me) is so important in opera, be too wafty and flowery you might get a nice warm sound but precision will be sacrificed, too clicky and direct and warmth and expression tend to suffer. There are a million other factors to weigh in as well.

So... as we have absolutely no idea what the judges are looking for, I have absolutely no idea how I have done in respect to the other competitors. Some are having their first experience of conducting opera, others have more experience than I do. Everyone has come out of the pit unhappy with their Cav and made similar remarks to mine below. It is all in the hands of the Gods now, and I have never envied the Gods less!

Competition, First round.

Yesterday I conducted in the first round of the competition. I was first on for Figaro and last on for Cav.


I ran straight through the opening duet of Figaro. The Susanna was delightful, she watched carefully and responded well to what I was doing. The Figaro read the dots from his score, and tended to be a little late on his entries. He did sound as though he knew the part so I politely pointed out that he was late and asked him to “close his book” which he happily agreed to do. After this he was always in time!


The second duet went well so I moved onto Figaro’s Cavatina “Se vuol balare”. Half way through the horns started to rush and got out with both me and the singer, so I stopped to put that right which took a minute or two. I remember how tricky this is for the horns from playing the piece many years ago. I also had to fix some violin pizz notes to give Figaro a little more time in one or two places. Then on to Bartolo’s aria which has much more to work on. I rehearsed the orchestra for a few moments to get them to play a little more marcato, there is an angry man on stage and I like the orchestra to reflect this. This worked fairly well so I brought the singer back in. To my surprise he got lost on a simple entry so I started again and gave him a slightly more vigorous cue at the entry he had missed. He was fine this time and we carried on until the cue light came on and my 20 minutes was up. I left the pit happy and feeling I had made an impression. The orchestra reacted well to what I wanted. Generally they played down and had to be encouraged to play up but did this when asked, they made a nice sound and played together. The principals also did what I asked of them. Their style and technique is rather different to what we are used to in the UK but this didn’t get in the way and I felt it was a successful rehearsal.


After conducting one’s segment of the opera the conductors are allowed to go into the theatre to listen to the other candidates. I did hear most of the others but here is not yet the right place to comment on them!


Cav was a different matter, conducting a general rehearsal of this opera with no previous work was not going to be easy. The style is very different and it is a much bigger sing, the rubati need time to work through with the orchestra and it all needs thorough rehearsal. I knew that this was going to be a big ask for all of us and so it proved. I was doing the first part of the opera from the chorus entry (not the prelude and Siciliano). The section has massive rubati and lots of gear changes. It all started well enough although the first rubato section was a little untidy, later on one of the principal wind players couldn’t follow a straightforward and standard rallentando, she appeared to be sight reading the opera! The offstage chorus bits just about worked, but if you are standing on top of the orchestra it can be difficult to hear anything offstage, but we got through it. When women arrived on stage they were set well back and looked about as bored and apathetic as one could wish. Well, this competition is going to be hell for them so I can’t really blame them. As least they were watching me for cues. At one point I cued them a bar early and bless their little hearts they took the cue and sang in the wrong place. My fault entirely, and it’s what I would have wanted them to do. Fortunately I realised and held them for a bar and got them back in again without a problem. From there on we struggled through and got to the end of the opening chorus, after which there is the short scene with Mama Lucia and Santuza. Mama L was not singing out and Santuza was getting tired and starting to mark (sing off the voice and/or down an octave) and as a result it was difficult to hear what they were doing. Even so I was able to accompany them reasonably well and they were both watching me carefully.


The next scene is Alfio’s arrival, he sings with the chorus and then has the infamous back to front bit! The first section went well, he was watching and has a fine voice. At the back to front bit the orchestra played from muscle memory and got out with me, Alfio took my cue rather than followed the orchestra and came in exactly where I wanted him to, he held on manfully but after a few bars the inevitable happened and he got slightly out, this threw the chorus and the rest of the section was a shambles. Everybody was within half a bar of me, and the orchestra had now figured out what I was doing (beating 4 in a bar!) so at the end of the section (I was not lost) I gave a thumping big cue to Alfio and it all came back together. We finished the section, did the short recit at the end and that was the end of my 20 minutes.


I left the pit totally deflated, completely the opposite of Figaro. Too many things had gone wrong, it wasn’t a general rehearsal, it was a nightmare. All my fellow conductors felt the same way.


Between the end of the rehearsal and my writing this (the following morning) I have been rationalising and pondering. I often say that when auditioning singers I know within a few seconds whether I am interested in the voice. The rest of the audition is to separate the good ones from each other. The jury panel are all opera conductors and should know what they are looking at. If the conductor is being clear and has good technique but the orchestra and singers don’t have the technique to follow him what are they to think? Was he being clear and reasonable? Did he get flustered and was he able to put things right?


Results are posted late Saturday night, so I have plenty of time to reflect!

Travel and Scams.

I'm pleased to report that the wife is back in the French Chateau and being pampered by daughters Nos 1 & 2. She will enjoy that, and I hope that now she is in the care of those two they will start to wreak some sort of revenge for their upbringing on at least one of us! She (the wife) has to go back to hospital for a check-up on Wednesday and has more pills to take than hours in the day, but progress is being made.

Friday night I didn't sleep well as I knew a taxi would be knocking for me at 4am. I woke just before 1am and that was it. I chucked a more few things into my bags that I had remembered whilst asleep (more business cards etc) and awaited my transport. I'm quite pleased to be writing this as the taxi driver missed a roundabout, in some style, at 50 mph. I could now be in Redhill hospital with large parts of me splattered over the side of a cement mixer.We arrived at the airport before 4:30 and to my horror I found that the queue for Difficult-Jet already stretched outside the terminal! If they employed a few of the people doing crowd control to work on the check-ins .... I mustn't rant.

I did get to check-in on time (security doesn't actually do a cavity search, but it comes close these days) only to find the flight delayed by 45 minutes. No problem! I was mightily entertained by Gatwick’s travelator to gate 112, it goes over a taxi-way. If you use it at the right moment, you can see what a plane looks like from above.

The trip to Sofia was uneventful, we arrived at Terminal 1, typically of Difficult-Jet this is the old grotty one; so much so that there were no signs on what to do to transfer to Bulgaria Air. I checked my ticket and it did indeed mention my flight to Bourgas departed from Terminal 2, it was pouring outside and the place was thick with taxi touts but there were no signs for a shuttle bus. With the aid of a pretty lady and a taxi tout I found that Terminal 2 was 5km away, there was indeed a shuttle bus that ran from outside the departures entrance (of course!) and after getting a bit wet and taking a confusing call from Bulgaria Air (initially I thought she said my flight was cancelled) I found the shuttle bus and jumped on.

Sofia airport Terminal 2 is modern, it even has shops! I got there about 12:30 local time, my flight to Bourgas was at 9pm, only eight and a half hours to wait. Why not go into Sofia I hear you cry. Well, I had a heavy suitcase and a significant amount of cash on me, I really didn’t want to be pick-pocketed. So I opted for the boring wait and the outrageously expensive airport food. £8 for a coffee and a sandwich.

The wait was spent listening to Figaro (just wonderful) and Rosini’s Stabat Mater. Why the latter, why not? It was there. I was also scammed, and in French too. I’m quite pleased with myself, not so much for not falling for it, more for not falling for it in French! A gentleman came to sit next to me whilst he was on the phone, when he finished he started talking to me whilst I was in the middle of Figaro Act III . My first thought was – this is a scam artist. He started with an interesting sob story that his bus to Sofia from Varna was delayed and he missed his flight to Algeria, he showed me his Algerian passport and his visa which had run out and said he was studying mechanical engineering in Varna. The next flight was not for a week and he couldn’t get the ticket moved to another airport because – of course – there would be an extra charge. He didn’t have enough money with him and his card wasn’t working, there is no Algerian embassy in Sofia and the Moroccans said he would have to wait at the airport for a week. We chatted about this for a while, and he even asked me what I was doing in Bulgaria, all very pleasant. Then the sting, could you lend me the money? “Je ne peux pas!” was repeated endlessly at this point, he apologized nicely and moved on. I saw him around the airport for some more hours, and he did ask me one more time. My French must be improving.

At last 7pm came and I could check in, and we boarded at 8:45. The flight made an additional stop at Varna so we were late into Bourgas, then on to the hotel and to bed by 12:30. I don’t enjoy travelling much any more, I think I’m getting old.

Family Drama!

Life is never simple. The best laid plans etc etc. I could go on and on and perhaps I should.

The long and short of it is that I still hope to go to Bulgaria but a few days ago it was looking unlikely that I would. I am in France at present with the wife and daughter No. 4, the plan was to go back to the UK on Wednesday 27th, take a rehearsal in the evening, get myself sorted out ready for two weeks away from home and fly to Bulgaria on Saturday 30th.

On Monday afternoon the wife and I went into Le Mans for a walk and window shopping. Le Mans is the nearest city to our French house and is known the world over for the 24 hour car race which takes place on the outskirts of the city every June. The city itself has a wonderful old town, large sections of Roman walls and a fine Cathedral of which I am very fond. I went to look in the Classical section of Fnac (a shop selling mostly TV and video equipment but with some books and CDs) and found a 10 disk box set of Bach’s organ works for €19. I had long wanted a recording of a Bach organ work that I hadn’t identified, and was pleased to locate it quickly as the Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor. Great stuff! I was blasting it out in the car on the way home, when the wife started to complain of feeling a bit poorly. She is not a great fan of Bach organ works so after a small grumble I turned the volume down a bit.

She took to her bed that evening. By the morning (Tuesday) she was very ill indeed and not able to walk nor move. She was being sick profusely and wanted a doctor. We couldn’t find one to come out so I got her to the car and wheeled her to the local town. The doctor there (whom we have seen before) jumped her to the front of the large queue (many thanks) and was sufficiently concerned that she wanted her to go to hospital. Back to the car and to Le Mans, to a brand new hospital opened about 3 years ago with an A&E department (Urgences). She was now unable to walk and had to be fetched in a wheelchair.

She was admitted. I was pretty sure (as was she) that she had a problem with her inner ear. She’s had this before and it is very very unpleasant. You feel dizzy all the time and go deaf in that ear. I knew from what the GP had said and tested for that she (the GP) was worried it was something much worse. As I write (Thursday 28th) she has had the neurological tests and everyone is certain that it is only an ear infection. While this is a relief it is still spectacularly unpleasant, and she can still barely move. She is, I am pleased to report, making progress and hopes to be discharged soon.

So… where does that leave Bulgaria?

I have a flight booked at the crack of dawn (possibly earlier) on Saturday 30th. The wife has said very firmly that I should go, and now that we are all certain there is no danger I probably will. No. 4 daughter has GCSE exams on Monday so I have to get her back. We will leave the wife in a French hospital and come home to England tomorrow (Friday). I will then have a few hours to get myself together before the flight to Sofia. I could have flown from Paris, but then daughter No. 4 would have had to get back for her exams by herself. We have very good and kind friends in France who will look after the wife when she is discharged and daughters Nos. 1 & 2 plan to come out to look after her and get her back to the UK when she is fit to travel, which won’t be for a while after she is discharged.

Yes, I do feel callous and hard-heated, and perhaps I am!

Carmen

Over the last few days I've been in France, having transported some furniture to our holiday home. I took the opportunity to look at Carmen as this is the opera for the second round of the Opera conducting Competition (see posts below).

I don't have much to say about Carmen, it is in so many ways the perfect opera. The plot is dramatic, the characters believable and the music is superb throughout. My favourite scene is in Act II when José tells Carmen he has to return to Barracks and she abuses him with great contempt. If you get a really good Carmen who is well directed and allowed a bit of musical licence by the conductor the effect of this scene can be quite frightening.

I’ve been approached to do Carmen twice, so I have vocal and full scores ready to go. Sadly neither occasion worked out, so although I have seen it many times and know it well, I have never conducted it. I will only get to do any of it in Bulgaria if I get through to the second round; time spent on the score now may not be of any use to me in the short term, but I now have a full marked up score which may be useful in the future.

I shall be really delighted if I make it through to the second round, if only because I shall at last be able to conduct a bit of Carmen!

Mascagni

In the first round of the competition we have to rehearse two works, Figaro (see posts below) and Cavalleria Rusticana (often abbreviated to Cav) by Pietro Mascagni. Figaro is to be rehearsed as a Sitz-Probe, (full orchestra but the singers are not in costume nor acting) Cav as a General Rehearsal (in the UK also known as a Dress Rehearsal) which is essentially a practice performance.

Performing Cav without any rehearsal will be a challenge for all of us in the competition, none of us will have much idea of what the chorus and principals are used to doing and the target for me will be to keep the thing going and demonstrate that I'm being clear and helpful even if I'm being ignored! The rubati in Santuza's aria are substantial and in this sort of music it's good to give the principal some room in which to manoeuvre and, at least to some extent, to let them lead. All this is usually worked out during the music rehearsals (conductor, soloists and piano) long before the stage director gets involved. Over time and the floor rehearsals a performance builds that the conductor and principal have both contributed to. I make no apology in repeating myself in that taking on an opera such as Cav where rubato is so much part of the performance without any rehearsal is a challenge.

Studying the work has been a re-discovered joy, I performed the work many years ago with its usual partner, I Pagliacci by Leoncavallo. Both are great works but when performed together Pag usually wins. Both have reasonable plots (for opera) and both have drama and passion. When paired together Pag is always performed second and just seems to have more of everything. It’s not surprising that it usually gets more attention than Cav. A recent production of the pair in London emphasized this to an outrageous degree. Cav was well sung but the production was minimal and dull, Pag was well sung with a superb production and was breathtaking. Studying Cav without its usual partner has been great in that I have not been distracted, it is a beautifully crafted piece, both vocally and orchestrally. It has made me decide that I must get more familiar with Mascagni’s other works. Usually when I do this I also decide that I must get more familiar with Leoncavallo’s other works as well, and as a result I do neither. I am now resolved to do both, but I will do Mascagni first.

There is a brief Wikipedia Article here and I’ve looked at the other operas available on Amazon; I will make a start this year. After all, I’m doing Gounod’s Faust in November and I have already listened with interest and great pleasure to several of his other works which are unknown in the UK, so I will do Mascagni. Then Leoncavallo. Cilea. Giordano.......

Competition Information.

I've been asked to post some details of the competition here. Below is a link to the main page with all the information. I'm conducting on the 1st of June.

http://musikimpresario.com/index.php?page=63

FG

More thoughts on the Competition - Figaro

Over the last few days I've been concentrating on Figaro. As always with Mozart operas the more you get into it the more fascinating and wonderful it becomes. I've known this opera since childhood and conducted most of it at one time or another (though I regret that I have never conducted fully staged performance) but still every time I look at it or read the libretto I notice some nuance or detail that had not registered before.

I've been listening to various recordings, including two with Karl Bohm conducting. Bohm's tempi are usually delightfully measured, slow compared with some modern versions. His DG recording from 1968 is beautifully recorded and sung, but as is often the case the tempi are slower than a live recording I have of his. 

This has only re-inforced my opinion that I don't have a set of tempi for an opera that are "mine"; I like to work with the singers, find out what they can bring to the role, and take it from there. In a recent production I spent a good deal of time persuading some principals to take more liberties and do more rubati to make their singing more expressive. At first they were quite taken back, but once a relationship of trust had been built the results were excellent. If I were to do the same opera with a different cast I'm sure it would turn out differently.

How this will apply in Bulgaria will be interesting to find out. Will the judges be looking for conductors who can lead the singers, or those that be sympathetic and adjust to them? An opera conductor nees to be able to do both in the right places!

I am very much looking forward to the competition, it will be a chance to show what I can do. I hope someone notices!

FG

Conducting Competition

As this event approaches I'm spending an increasing amount of time wondering how the thing is going to work. I believe there are sixty (60) entrants in the first round.

We each get to conduct a bit of Figaro and a bit of Cav, about 20 minutes each. The Figaro is rehearsed as a sitz, the Cav as a general. Several things occur to me.

1. I do feel a bit sorry for the band. 60 conductors doing their bit of Figaro is not going to be much fun for them. 

2. Who will the singers be? Each conductor will have 20 minutes to establish some sort of relationship with them. Anyone who has worked in opera will know how important it is for the MD and the principals to have an understanding.

3. Each conductor has 40 minutes of conducting to get through their abilities to the judges. As far as I know there will be no rehearsals with piano and singers beforehand. I like to work fast, but ...

Round one should sort a good deal, but it is going to be interesting to see what the judges go for. At least it's the same for everyone. I think 18 get through to the second round.

FG

Hotel

I've just been doing some research in the accomodation. They say they have wireless broadband, I hope it's easily accessible.

The website is:

http://www.marinaholidayclub.com/index.php?ch=1&l=1

Conducting competition

Hi all

I'm thinking about blogging my visit to Bulgaria for the Blue Danube Opera conducting competition. I'm setting up a few things to test, I haven't decided what to do yet.

Let me know what you think.

FG