I should post my considered and thought out review of the concert performance of Die Walküre before I regale you with tales from the Stage Door. but I have a lot of boring domestic things to do this evening (eating, unpacking etc) and I have three days of work to follow :-(
On the Friday, when we arrived in Barcelona, Jimmy suggested we wandered along Las Ramblas; while we were there we recce'd the Opera House. I ended up in the shop, and with hundreds of Euros burning a hole in my purse, I bought a doll. A Richard Wagner doll. As one does. Jimmy suggested that I took my new Wagner doll along to the performance of Die Walküre. So I did. He sat on the floor of the box and listened.
Afterwards, Jimmy met me at the main entrance of the opera house at 1.15. We walked to the Stage Door where a crowd was beginning to mass, including very many familiar faces. I waited outside, while Jimmy got in a last half hour of drinking in a bar in the central reservation of Las Ramblas right opposite the opera house.
I managed to catch Alan Held and thank him for his performance as Wotan, and I took a photo which didn't come out at all well. I saw René Pape emerge and I half-heartedly chased him a few feet down the road before giving up.
Then I waited and waited and waited. I was out on the pavement; the lobby area of the Stage Door was just packed with people. We just knew when Plácido emerged: the heaving mass erupted in applause. So we went inside and I hung around on the periphery of the crowd of adoring fans.
From time to time I could see the top of Plácido's head, and I could often see him through the screens of other people's cameras. I had surrendered my camera to Jimmy, who just kept taking photos. Ever so slowly the throng around Plácido began to thin; I could see him, he was there, in the flesh, and from where I was standing, he was looking lovely and was clearly in fine spirit, chatting with people, signing, posing for photos, letting one woman fling her arms round him and kiss him.
Jimmy said to me - get out your doll, and ask Plácido to pose for a photo. At first I resisted. I thought, Plácido will do what is the closest he will ever get to 'yeah, right, whatever...' which is to nod politely and vigorously a few times. But Jimmy insisted.
So, a bit self-conscious I approached Plácido and asked whether he would pose for a photo with my doll. He took one look at the doll and laughed, clearly taking an instant liking to it. "It's Richard Wagner!" he exclaimed. He asked me whether he sings. (Afterwards, it occurred to me that if I had been in my sarcastic default mode, I would have said 'No, it's you that sings, Señor Domingo, remember..." - but fortunately I wasn't in my default sarky mode!). I replied- if you wind him up, he plays Ride of the Valkyries. And I explained they sell them in the shop next door.
There were so many people there, not pushing as such, but when a small space is packed with people it's inevitable that there will be some jostling. We were taking photos for fifteen minutes, according to my camera, but we started long after he first emerged. Everyone wants their moment with him, he's turning this way and that, and while, obviously, no one would jostle him intentionally, I can't say that I would be entirely comfortable in the middle of such a crowd. My time with Plácido were just a few moments. Very special. For those few moments I felt that I was the only person that mattered to him. It's a special gift to make near-strangers feel that way. And afterwards I was trembling with pleasure!
Jimmy also spoke to him, thanking him for all the happiness he brings to people. Jimmy had been good - he'd stayed in the hotel room till midnight, then had spent an hour in a tapas bar before meeting me, and another hour while I waited, so he wasn't drunk, but he was a bit tipsy, garrulous and unrestrained, so I did think for a moment that he was going to fling his arms round Plácido and kiss him; he didn't!
He came out into the street and we applauded him as he got in the car; people on the central pavement on Las Ramblas (where the bars were now shut and even the human statues had packed up for the night) joined in. Then one man, who was clearly drunk, or high, or disturbed, or all three, decided to run across the road and past the car making some stupid noise. I am sure that I was not alone in thinking 'uh-huh, what's going to happen now...?" Plácido just laughed and said "And that was the best of all...!"
Afterwards, Jimmy remarked that what impressed him the most, wasn't that he was so patient, charming, attentive and pleasant to the fans, although that was impressive, but the way he was so cool about the drunken fool. So many self-imagined stars would have been freaking out, getting their enormous attention-seeking entourage of heavies to go in all heavy. But Plácido's attitude was so much better - presumably he's well aware of how Las Ramblas is - and it just turns a potential 'situation' into a non-event. (But Jimmy assures me that if the drunk had turned violent, Jimmy would have tackled him with both fists, and would not have resented spending the night in the cells, if necessary...)
Plácido left at half-two, waving to us as he went. I then realised just how badly my feet were aching, and it seemed a long walk back to the hotel (It had taken fifteen minutes when we went out). We did try a couple of bars that still had customers, but they were closed to new people. We did eventually find one that was still open, and I managed to knock back a couple of vodkas-and-orange, before returning to the hotel room. Jimmy reported that Albert my teddy bear was a bit upset. He was already upset the previous day at me introducing a 'new kid on the block' into the family. But when it turns out the 'new kid on the block' is called 'My-Richard-Wagner-doll-that-has-been-touched-by-Plácido", well, Albert is just jealous...
I loaded my photos onto the laptop and purred with pleasure. I even detected a wifi signal, but when I tried to use it, it wasn't strong enough actually to connect to the internet. Sorry. Over the next few days I will publish a few of the better curtain call photos and also some of the ones from the Stage Door. I didn't get any at the Act One curtain call, because I wasn't really prepared. I took some at the end of Act II, and loads at the end of Act III.
They all trooped on to take their bows, the Eight Valkyries, then Hunding, Fricka, Sieglinde, Wotan, Brunnhilde and the conductor. It dawned on me that Siegmund was not going to do an Act III curtain call, which is disappointing, but not entirely surprising, considering he ends up dead at the end of Act II, and probably had a plane to catch, another opera to conduct, an opera company to generally direct, a restaurant to run, or whatever. I was disappointed that it meant that I would miss the chance of seeing Plácido afterwards, but of course, my main reason for being there was the performance, so disappointment is all relative. They all trooped off, and trooped back on again...with Siegmund, changed out of his concert clothes and into a suit, and late back from hanging out in some or other bar on Las Ramblas! He received hearty cheers, of course! The photos I took of the curtain calls covered sixteen minutes. There's fifty in all, many of them not good enough to publish, but the best I will. I will also publish the best of the rest of Stage Door photos and presume that the people in them don't mind, because it's sort of a public place.
