Gertsamtkunstwerk

On not blogging

I never wanted this blog to become something that becomes an obligation to me. I have been updating it since February 2002, and intend to carry on doing so infinitely.

I know with all 'leisure' activities that as soon as they become less attractive than, say, work or household chores, it's time to give them a rest.

I was feeling a bit this way about the blog, and, as I have said several times before, Twitter doesn't help - I think I share this with several bloggers. It's easier to dash out 140 characters when an instant thought occurs. 140 characters is only sufficient for one thought; you expect the reader to realise that and not demand clarification, expansion or illustration. It takes considerable skill to write a truly memorable tweet, but, like headlines or soundbites, the mundane and functional takes little effort for anyone who has writing as second nature.

I was guilt-tripping about this blog, then I just decided to stop guilt-tripping.

1 September seems a good time to take a deep breath and start again.

I have often expressed my indifference to the official New Year starting on 1 January, that, the depth of winter is actually the worse time to resolve to self-improvements, and it's an arbitrary date that bears no resemblance to the natural rhythms of life.

Easter is a far better time to consider renewal, Easter being a corruption of the pagan festival of fertility and renewal. I don't consider myself a Pagan, but prefer their rationale for Festivals than the Christian rationale for stealing them.

Although I have been out of the formal state education system for 21 years, there are still good reasons for seeing 1 September as the start of a new year. Parliamentary terms are similar to school terms, which influences the headquarters of government departments. The retail world is geared to 'Back to School'.

The football season starts in mid-August, but I always feel those first few weeks are skirmishes; it's only in September that the League tables start to take on any meaning.  The Last Night of the Proms, for all its ghastliness, is a signifier of the end of summer, and it coincides with the start of the new season for the opera houses and concert halls.

So I am resolving that from 1 September I shall re-apply myself to blogging with diligence. But only to the extent it doesn't interfere with all the other duties I am resolving to meet!

On going for a bike ride

I have been massively quiet on the blogging-my-exercise-routine front of late. This isn't just because my blog needs a massive kick up the rear end and an injection of adrenaline, but...I don't think I need to explain what you're already guessing. (I kind of decided to take August off, except when I felt driven to write!)

One of my character failings is having initial enthusiasms that then wear off. One of my strengths is being acutely aware of my failings and knowing how to correct them or turn them into strengths.

To recap, a couple of years ago, after several years of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/Fibromyalgia, I was acutely aware of how unfit and overweight I am and decided to address that by going to my local swimming pool. Inspired by the Olympics, I bought a bike, and blessed by a glorious Indian summer I spent several months of exercising three or four times a week. I knew then I wouldn't keep it up indefinitely, as other distractions got in the way. But last summer was good, in that on several Mondays Jimmy and I went out on excursions by bike.

But the past ten months have provided glorious excuse after glorious excuse. Going on holiday and developing the inevitable post-holiday phlegmy cold and lingering cough. A particularly long, cold and wintry winter. Clapham and Streatham swimming pools closing and being knocked down, creating exceptional pressure on Brixton which embarked on an extended refurbishment period. The General Election which took up time and energy. The post-Election political intrigue which demanded endless hours of sitting on my arse. Going on holiday. Heatwave. Simon Boccanegra. You can see the excuses becoming thinner and thinner and petering out. Culminating a couple of weeks ago in 'Oh, it looks like it might rain sometime in the next four hours'

We have booked a holiday in the New Forest in November which seems like a risk, and we recognise this. But it's not far away, we're going to a village which seems to have several restaurants that boast a 'modern British' cuisine of fresh local ingredients, near a town which seems to have a wide range of eateries. The risk isn't that the weather will be cold, we can dress for that, we just hope it won't piss it down all week long, which will put a downer on things. If we get a few fine bright crisp autumn days it will be nice to take to the forest on bikes; a basic level of fitness will be welcome for this.

It seems a bit silly to have given up smoking but not be addressing the other part of fitness and, of course, putting on weight is silly. It's ultimately unsightly, and I don't want to be squeezing into the various nice clothes I've bought over the past couple of years.

In a way it's frustrating to acknowledge how many backwards steps I have taken. Sometimes I can sit there and feel my once temporarily firm thigh and arm muscles turn to jelly. It was annoying last week to take so long to recover from a short - though intense - ride round Tooting Common and yesterday it was annoying to feel my thighs hurt at trying to make the long but very gradual incline. Especially when I know I ought to be able to go out and cycle tens of mile in a day at a leisurely pace and taking breaks.

I keep telling myself that though it's easy enough to weaken in one's resolve, there are very few resolutions or endeavours that cannot be revisited. I tend to the 'oh, I've slipped, that's over', when I must actually tell myself to try again. Yes, I've lost the momentum of exercising regularly, but I am still considerably fitter than I was two years ago. I've proved to myself that I can do, and sustain it for a year. So there's really no reason not to take up where I left off.

Ramble over!

On competitive school sport

I suspect that this blogpost is likely to be dismissed as the rantings of some Guardian-reading Lefty but hey ho!

It seems that a particular bete noire of mine from the Eighties has surfaced again -  the idea that all school sport should be competitive 'because life is'. I think it's a nonsense promulgated by dullards who can only define themselves by their erstwhile ability to have represented their school or Borough/County at some team sport for a very short period of their lives.

In practice, for most adults, life is horrendously competitive, but sport is often the one area they can actually escape from formal competition. What on earth can sport teach you for the numerous competitions in life? Why schools should be teaching kids sports skills which have no further purpose beyond school?

Take football out of the equation for a moment. Football is unique among sports that it dominates the national discourse and dominates public spaces. It is beautiful because it only needs a strip of land and a ball to make it possible. Fancy kit and equipment are optional extras.

Life is competitive. We compete against other candidates in job interviews and for promotions. Even when not actively seeking promotion we generally want to do at least as well as our peers and often want to out-do them. Not particularly out of pure competition but to get a bigger bonus, more interesting assignments or to ready oneself for a promotion in the medium term - playing the long game.

We often find ourself competing against obstacles. In our paid jobs, or many life tasks such as Do It Yourself, planning a holiday, or fighting chronic ill-health to cope every day.  Many of those obstacles come from within ourself, many more from the external environment. If we care enough, we fight to win, if not, we don't bother.

The biggest competition many of us face is in human relations - to win that man (or woman) and then to maintain that relationship, as well as competing for the attention and affections of myriad friends whilst fighting the jealousy when they appear to favour another (or is that just me?)

I have never played hockey since leaving school, and have only played netball and rounders a few times and not for years. I can't find any benefit from having learned those at school.

My chosen forms of exercise are swimming and cycling. For many other people, 'going to the gym' or other forms of 'keeping fit' where the objective is on 'keeping fit' rather than vanquishing another human being.

Even for those - runners in particular - who do compete, they spend a lot more time battling themselves and the elements to get themselves up to standard than they do 'competing'. I do not think that most people who enter Marathons do so in order to win - they do it to conquer the environment and their physical weakness (relatively speaking!).

Playing team sports does not prepare you for this, and for people with no emotional involvement, their motivation is zero and they soon learn it really doesn't matter. As opposed to that competition to get the job, to do the job properly, to get promotion, which always matters, at least up to a point!

I would think that schools and others charged with nurturing children need to equip them with the means to manage adult life. This includes skills such as hard work and determination; teamwork; when to co-operate and when to look after one's self-interest; working towards goals; conquering one's fears; overcoming weaknesses; and having the ingenuity to find alternative solutions and the wisdom to accept one's shortcomings.

Some of these can be taught to a certain extent by sports, be they competitive or not, in teams or solo. For the majority of adults - and children and teens - the greater challenge is to become and stay fit. If that is through country walks or dance classes, that is so much better than forcing lumpy adolescents to charge up and down a hockey field doing a passable imitation of Quasimodo. Someone who learns the art of hiking or gets into a swimming habit young is far more likely to maintain this into middle-and old-age than someone who is taught that physical activity is only worthwhile if you win.

Competitiveness is learnt through numerous activities. For many of us, it's sibling rivalry, competing for parental attention, which then transfers to the classroom and teacher. Some of us competed to out-do our friends in exam marks -  this is deemed to be discriminatory against dullards and boys for exactly the same reasons that makes competitive team sports a torture for physical inadequates and girls. We compete in quizzes and board/card-games, these days kids do it with computer games.

Almost anything creative ends up competitive, be it prizes at the inter-school festivals, exams for dancing, drawing competitions. Bright and/or talented non-sporty kids don't need to be dragged down to competing in sports they care little about any more than sporty kids need to be bullied into painting a picture or writing a short story.

I took football out of the equation. I'm going to conclude with an observation about elite football. Following England's shambolic World Cup disaster, Alan Shearer was forthright in his views that there is too much competitive football at a young age. English boys do not learn the football skills that kids from many other nations do because of the obsessive focus on winning and competing.

It made me very sad to hear Alan Shearer, former England captain and one of the most important players of his generation, say this. He's about the same age as me, and when he and I were teenagers way back nearly thirty years, it was an ongoing theme in Match Weekly and Shoot, and on Football Focus. The kids play too many competitive matches, very few have the ball-skills and far too many are exhausting themselves when they should be growing to physical maturity.

Sadly, although is an old problem, it is not one that is being addressed. So it seems even our elite athletes, the footballers who are good enough to play for England, still the Seventh best team in the World, are deemed inadequate because they played too much competitive sport. Surely that must also apply for the part-timers in the depths of non-League and to the hundreds of thousands who play for their pub or works team, reinforcing the argument that schools really shouldn't be playing more competitive sport, but in fact less.

Schools should be on the one hand teaching the skills of the specific sports they favour, and on the other, teaching all pupils how to exercise for enjoyment and to be fit through their life, and to have the determination to push themselves beyond their comfort zones, physically and psychologically.

On having a parcel delivered

On Monday I ordered some goods online. It was only after completing the transaction I thought that it would almost certainly be delivered while I was out. Sure enough, when I got home on Wednesday, there was the familiar Royal Mail P739 on my doormat.

Moan moan, I thought, have to go all the way down the hill to the sorting office on Friday morning. Moan moan moan, have to come all the way back up the hill carrying parcel from sodding sorting office.

Thursday evening I get home and there is another card on the doormat, this time a green one, from Hermes courier. Puzzled, I couldn't remember ordering anything but the parcel that's sitting waiting for me in Brixton Delivery Office. Part of me thinks - maybe it's the prize from some or other competition I entered weeks ago. A larger part suspects it may be for one of my neighbours. I initially think the card says to call 'Mark' on Phone left blank but closer scrutiny reveals the parcel has been left in my 'Secure Front Porch'.

Strange, I think, I don't have a front porch, secure or otherwise. In any case, a porch that's open for couriers to leave parcels is by definition not secure enough to prevent nefarious parcel-stealers doing what they do.

I looked on the pathway and there was a parcel, with Hermes logo, as well as Lakeland. Lurking behind, but not really concealed by the wheelie bin. Yes, you have read that correctly. A parcel, wrapped in cardboard left on the path on a day when the rain has been fairly steady and quite heavy.

I look at the address label and see it is correctly addressed to a neighbour, Mark, at The-Cottage-in-the-Corner. Hmm, I think, it's from Lakeland (nice shop). Mark won't know it's been delivered to my path, after all, it's correctly addressed to The-Cottage-in-the-Corner, not Gert Cottage. Should I steal it?

Of course, I didn't steal it, but walked it round to my neighbour, and he thanked me - and I pointed out that they've now opened a shop in Kingston. But you know, I could have been away on holiday or anything, and poor Mark could have been waiting weeks for his kitchen equipment.

Back inside, I re-read the Royal Mail P739. Apart from the 'Has been returned to the Royal Mail Delivery Office at' almost ten minutes' walk away, the only other options are "As you requested your item has been left: In your 'Safeplace' on your property/with your designated neighbour'

See that, they don't randomly dump it on the path of a neighbouring property like Hermes do, nor deliver it to a neighbour who happens to be in, like Amazon's couriers do - could be a thieving neighbour, or one you don't wish to be under an obligation to.

No, they keep it safe in their custody unless and until you issue specific instructions otherwise. I know people - not least me - knock the Royal Mail, but sometimes, it's telling that their service is markedly better than their commercial rivals.

Dear Diary

I have just been watching the programme of the same name, the first in a series, this one presented by Richard E. Grant, less annoyingly than I feared, and at least it wasn't Hugh Grant, who someone told me was Richard E's brother, which I believed for years, largely because I am insufficiently interested in either to bother finding out the truth.

I kept a diary from the age of twelve until I got my first PC at the age of 30. The owning of a PC changed all that. Ironic really - it should have been the key to more writing. If the truth be told, I was probably the world's crappest diarist in the 1990s, although some of my efforts from the 1980s are immortalised in this blog.

I've actually come to the conclusion that my best diary writing was as an adolescent, because I was actually quite clueless about how to write a diary. I had this vague notion it was important to express an opinion about important things in the news, even though I lacked the maturity or wisdom to work out what was important and what was fluff. But the use of a single sentence to sum up my reaction to, oh, I dunno, the Falklands War or glasnost is hilarious, to me anyway.

When I became more self-aware, or introspective, or analytical, and started to use my diary to analyse my feelings, it became all very tedious.

Pages and pages of pretty much the same mistake being made time and time again. Pick a name, any credible male name, and slot it into a narrative which runs like this

"I have a crush on him, I want to go out with him, this isn't reciprocated, if I keep crushing on him he will learn the error of his ways, I'm going to keep telling people how much I crush on this bloke, they're getting impatient because nothing is happening and it's a non-story".

And I utterly failed to realise - amidst all the self-analysis and emoting that my supposed emotions were false, an illusion.

Reading back over the diary, I am surprised at how entertaining a fairly straight narrative is, how much seeps through the seemingly dry prose. Looking back nearly thirty years it is easy to pinpoint the changes made by technology, and, perhaps in societal attitudes, but, actually, it's amazing how little fundamentally has changed. 

I'm trying to get back into writing a paper diary. It has to be paper, which I know is silly, but for me it's important sensually. I've been through phases of writing for an imagined audience, assuming I'll be famous and the world will want to read my teenage diaries. I've also considered using them as a basis for fiction. But it has recently occurred to me that they may actually have a value in being the real  - though obviously edited - diaries of a slightly odd 1980s teenager. In all cases a word-processed version would actually be more useful!

Anyone know how I go about getting a publisher for my 80s diaries?

I'm still laughing at my entry in 1982: In Maths we played on the computer. It is most interesting

Wot no audit?

Nothing like starting a blogpost on a tangent. I started my political existence in opposition. I was politicised by the 1979 Election, and joined the Labour Party in 1984. I was 29 before I really experienced a government of *my* colour. I realised in the past three months that many of my young comrades are the mirror image, too young to remember really a Tory government, they flounder at being in opposition.

One thing I have learnt from experience, it isn't necessary, as an activist, to oppose absolutely everything the Government does. Parliamentarians have a specific constitutional responsibility to oppose, but the rest of us should choose our battles wisely and sparingly, in order to make a greater impact when it really matters.

But I couldn't let the abolition of the Audit Commission go by without comment.

I have never worked for the Audit Commission, but I started my career at the National Audit Office, have worked for a large Accountancy firm, and in Internal Audit . For over twenty years.

There is no case for saying that any organisation must continue existing in perpetuity, nor that any particular function should always be delivered the same way.

When I worked for the big firm, it was on contract to the Audit Commission. They were responsible for appointing auditors to all Local Authorities. In many cases they appointed auditors from what was then known as the District Audit Service, in other cases, from private firms - I always understood the firm I worked for to be a Limited Liability Partnership, but I read in Wikipedia it changed its status - somewhat surprisingly - to 'co-operative' a few years after I left.

Councils had no real say in who was appointed their auditor, and they were in no position to dictate how much audit they be subject to. The amount depended upon how much was needed. The firm employed mainly trainees and potentially disastrous contractors (such as me, I wasn't disastrous!), in order to keep the cost down. Of course, that also risks a reduction in quality, but, hey what does that matter!

Audit isn't glamorous, and it's very difficult to persuade people that it's essential. Its necessity is usually more noticed in its absence.

I don't feel a need to shed tears over the demise of the organisation known as the Audit Commission. It's difficult to find out precisely what is happening to various different functions. I have read that the Value for Money work will transfer to NAO, which I feel relaxed about. There may be difficulties in the details, but that is for those closer to the initiative to work out. Possibly some work could be done by the Care Quality Commission.

But what scares me is the fact that councils will be able to appoint their own auditors, from the private or voluntary sectors. I am bit surprised to find that there are voluntary sector audit providers, unless that covers 'co-operatives' like my former employer. Perhaps for most councils, those that are moderately competent or better, it won't be a big deal, for a while.

But, to be honest, even in those circumstances, I am fearful of what it means.

I don't think Local Government yet knows - but can guess - how savagely they will have to cut expenditure. It will be exceptionally painful to slash the big spending budgets, especially schools, and care for the elderly.

It will seem like a no-brainer to go for the cheapest possible audit option. Even the most senior officers and elected members think that audit is there to prevent fraud, and that alone, and will claim to have great corporate anti-fraud structures.

Many of them will need to be persuaded of the need for Internal and External Audit, thinking them to be duplicate functions. Internal audit looks at the management of risks and the adequacy of controls, whereas External Audit exams the financial statements, and, where necessary, the systems that support them.

Irrespective of the cuts agenda, there is a need for Internal Audit to re-examine its role: when I started twenty years ago, no one but Internal Audit carried out any sort of scrutiny of risks, systems and controls. Nowadays, in most mature(-ish ) organisations have, at least to some extent, the tools to self-scrutinise. But the operational independence of an Internal Audit service is crucial.

In some councils, officers and members may welcome the opportunity to appoint their own auditors, swallowing the guff or believing the myth that 'bright people in accountancy firms' can offer us so much more. I simply don't think this is true. Sure, they have some great economies of scale in firms, being able to develop specialisms by client, by theme (eg Housing Revenue Account, infrastructure assets) or in use of a specific accounting system, for example. But I assume that the Audit Commission is also large enough to sustain that level of specialism.

And I have seen in firms I have worked with and worked for, that the standards are really not very high. I won't say more, for reasons of commercial confidentiality.

In the near future,  deep cuts will bring about massive changes, not least significant staff reductions. At a time of change, when staff are departing, morale is low, remaining staff are under pressure to 'deliver more for less', corners will be cut, and there is a very real risk that controls will be ignored, and internal scrutiny will be scrimped. Appointing a poor quality external audit - and reducing internal audit -  will exacerbate the problems.

But no one will notice. Eventually, service users will see a sharp deterioration in service levels, but that won't come as a surprise to anyone. We will blame it on the underfunding of services, it will be ridiculous to try and blame it on the absence of adequate audit.

It's impossible to imagine a Lambeth, or Westminster Homes for Votes, or Doncaster, happening again, because history doesn't repeat itself. In any case, if such scandals do happen again, will we know?

Things that annoy me in TV dramas

I know that fiction is fiction. I can suspend credibility to know that time passes at a different rate in TV dramas (and films and plays).

I know they edit out all the inconsequential actions. It would be boring if they showed every meal, every visit to the loo, every time they check their emails or buy something - although it does mean that checking of emails, going to loo, or, indeed, presenting a credit/debit card is a shorthand for 'watch out, something is going to happen and it will be an axis on which the plot rotates.

I'm relaxed about juxtaposition of locations - except where they are iconic picture postcard locations: I'd be worried if they showed Buckingham Palace to be on the river, but I'm relaxed about a residential road I happen to recognise seeming to emerge onto the wrong main road.

I'm also very relaxed about the 'he/she wouldn't do that' because, just because you or I would wouldn't, or most people wouldn't, doesn't automatically prevent someone else from so doing.

What I hate is pure basic factual errors. It shocks me that with the number of people who go into making a TV drama not one speaks out and says "That's wrong!". Loud enough to get a researcher or unpaid intern scurrying off to Google.

Two classics from the past. One was in that comedy series starring Jack Dee that started off funny but deteriorated. He made some joke about some company highlighting their anti-environmental practices, which immediately caused their share price to plummet (unlikely but possible). As a direct result of their share price plummeting, they went bankrupt, notwithstanding whatever reserves they held, how many contracts they were fulfilling. Okay, I can envisage a situation where loss of reputation can lead to withdrawing of credit, but not overnight.

In some political drama or other, there was utter confusion between a White Paper and a Bill. I can't remember the error but it was so basic that it scared me they were making a political drama without consulting someone who knew anything about basic Parliamentary procedure.

Mistresses the other night provided another classic to add to the list - the retrieval from a house of the Title Deeds to that same house. A house that laid empty for several months. there was no evidence that the deeds had been stored in a fireproof waterproof safe. And in any case, didn't one person on set question this? Who stores the title deeds in the actual house?

Do they think we are really thick? I've cited three examples where I've spotted the flaw. The first - well, I'm an accountant, admittedly, but even so, I suspect there are tens if not hundreds of thousands of people more familiar with the relationship between share capital, turnover, cash flow etc of a business than I am.

I have an A-Level and a degree in Politics, but so do countless others, and there are many many more people who have experience and knowledge of the political process.

The final one is even more ridiculous. How many millions of home-owners are there in this country. Admittedly, most will be on a mortgage and therefore will have no dealings with the title deeds. But I thought it  was just one of those things that is widely known, even if not universally.

I know no one's perfect, and we all mistakes, but it surprises me that they let these programmes go out with such glaring errors on matters so fundamental to the plot.

I have to say though, Mistresses has become very silly, pushing credibility to the limits. The scene in the kitchen where Trudie declares the buns need another '45 seconds'. Not to mention that she's flouting all the rules on good safety by wearing the wrong clothes, not having her hair covered and so on.

Then you get the wedding of the New York woman, who is marrying the ex of one of the mistresses, Siobhain. It's not unreasonable for an American woman to get married in her British husband's home town - I've been to a wedding where precisely that happened. And, inevitably, the friends/relatives are going to be predominantly his. But how likely is it that a significant proportion of the wedding party is made up of the friends - and their husbands - of the groom's ex-girlfriend? And yet, the groom's daughter seemed to be absent from both ceremony and reception.

I suppose I get annoyed by these programmes predicated on a friendship group. I will stand corrected but I doubt that any such group remains unchanged for decades, irrespective of who has kids, emigrates (and comes back). Don't most people have a network of friends, picked up from various places - old friends from school and Uni, people you've worked with, people with common interests, people whose kids are friends with your kids, and friends who you have to think what the actual connection is - maybe they are the sister of the ex-girlfriend of the housemate of someone you worked with briefly ten years go.

I think Mistresses is a good laugh and harmless fun. It's rather nice to see their ridiculously affluent lifestyles begin to crumble, based on an unsustainable basis of debt. But the message these programmes send out, if taken seriously - as immature insecure people may well - is that this is some sort of 'normality' something to aspire to. And that's very sad, because aren't they just the dullest self-absorbed people ever, not one of them having an interest in anything but themselves, their lovelife and - occasionally - their jobs.

“小丑”---多明戈

Fabulous pictures of Rigoletto in Beijing!

Update: And video, too

And another video! (thanks to Stephanie) - obviously CNTV.cn don't let fact-checking get in the way of a good story.

And also thanks to Stephanie, a rather wonderful thirteen minute video/interview from last week in Madrid - Siempre Plácido

On giving up smoking

If you are content with spending thousands of pounds a year on smoking, please don't read this, because I don't want to be lectury or evangelical.

If you want to carry on smoking without the expense or many of the irritating side-effects, I think this post is for you.

And also for people who think it is their right to lecture people they barely know about smoking.

Smoking isn't big or clever. We all know this and don't actually need telling. It is extremely annoying to have some stranger or indeed slight acquaintance lecture one about this. It is not unique in its impact on the lives of other people. In my experience, those that lecture the most are usually people who drive big cars, often. They generally have well-thought out arguments about why they have the absolute right to belch dirty smelly pollutants into the atmosphere. As I do when I get on a plane, or bus, or sit here lights blazing with laptop  and TV on.

I used to smoke cigarettes and now I don't. And I don't see any reason why I ever will again.

This blogpost may end up being merely a bagful of praise for Electronic Cigarettes which have changed my life.

I don't want to give up nicotine. Giving up nicotine makes as much sense to me as giving up caffeine. Sure, there are disbenefits in both, but in my view they are outweighed by the benefits. Chocolate or alcohol, I can take or leave.

I had read and heard so much guff about how difficult it is to give up smoking. I have to say - that is totally rubbish. Once you have decided to do it, and decided when to do it, it's as easy as anything else you decide to do.

I felt a bit pressured into it because Jimmy gave up in April or sometime. I was beginning to freak out at the astronomical cost. I wasn't concerned about my health (so many other aspects to worry about). I wasn't frightfully concerned about the smoking ban: I just go less to pubs and restaurants as a result.

I didn't want to give up before going on holiday to Spain which has a very liberal attitude, and where I would be spending most of the time on the beach etc. I initially decided I would give up the day after I returned from holiday.

My reasoning - and you have to indulge my extreme silliness here -  was twofold. This was the day of George Oik Osborne's emergency budget. I made jokes about my giving up smoking will screw up his calculations. It was also the day of the Simon Boccanegra Insight Evening, and I have stated, almost convincingly with straight face, that Plácido Domingo would be more likely to make a pass at me if I wasn't smoking. Yeah right, humour me here!

In the end I rejected that day for two good reasons. One was that England v Germany was coming up the following Sunday, and the thought of a cigarette-less penalty shoot-out was scary. Yeah , a penalty shoot-out. We'd have been so lucky. I also decided I might as well pick the optimum time in my menstrual cycle - why make things more difficult than they need be?

I made sure that I was well stocked up on supplies for the Electronic cigarette, and just before bedtime on 27 June I smoked the final cigarette in the packet, turned to the Electronic version.

And, honestly, that's all there is to say. I don't miss cigarettes one bit. There are various occasions when my instinct tells me I ought to have one in my hand - after a shower, waking up in the morning, walking at out of the Albert Hall at an interval. And that's about it. Alcohol doesn't make a difference, because I'm not relying on willpower. On those occasions I just reach for the EC and I'm sorted.

The EC is better than other nicotine replacement products because it so closely replicates the physical actions of smoking. Holding it in the hand and inhaling, even kicking back with the throat. It glows red at the end, which seems a bit silly except that the red light also warns when the battery's going or when you've been sucking just too much. It suits me especially because I tend to put a lot of things in my mouth - I suck my thumb, chew my office pass and gnaw my way through woollen gloves and cardigan cuffs.

You even get to exhale some vapour which is far more satisfying than parking a piece of nicotine chewing gum under your tongue. It disconcerts some people and I suspect was the reason for a 'Smoking is not permitted anywhere on London Underground' announcement at Brixton Tube the other day.

There are downsides to the Electronic Cigarette. It hasn't been tested to the same rigour as products that are licensed by the MHRA. I recognise that as an unquantifiable risk, but in my view an acceptable risk for any ex-smoker because of the tremendous benefits. A few times I have noticed my heartbeat racing, as if I had drunk rapidly two double espressos. This occurred during the prologue of Simon Boccanegra, so conclude what you will.

Obviously, it's not a cost-free option, but I reckon it's considerably less than a pound a day (or four cheap cigarettes). It doesn't 'cure' the nicotine addiction, although I intend to move down from my current 'super-high' to 'low' or 'zero', but over a year or two. I suppose that makes it a crutch and obviously, I'm still an 'addict'. I would imagine it's not advisable for pregnant women or people with heart conditions.

The other downside is that my sense of smell has improved. Great! So, I get to smell other people's hygiene 'issues' or KFC on a bus even if no-one's eating it. I've lost my excuse to pop outside the office or elsewhere; at work this means I have less contact with non-auditors. And sadly, George Osborne is still Chancellor hellbent on destroying the country, England didn't get reinstated in the World Cup and Plácido didn't make a pass at me.

But I get to laugh at the non-smokers who don't have a steady drip drip of soothing nicotine, and smokers who have to put up with the dry throats, coughs and burns from traditional smoking. I win!

Plácido gets a new shirt

Plácido Domingo visita el Bernabéu

Simon Boccanegra from Madrid

Video interview from last Tuesday

Report from the Press Conference

More on an Angela Gheorghiu fanblog; including some pictures from Angela's Facebook

Plácido Domingo: Nunca había sentido tanta emoción en Madrid

Domingo hasta el infinito y más allá

Intensa ovación en Madrid para premiar el debut de Plácido Domingo como barítono con Simon Boccanegra

Splendid video shows tantalisingly short highlights, including the 'death fall'

Plácido Domingo: Hay que gritar patria y hay que gritar amor como Boccanegra

An account of how he took 25 minutes of applause from 6000 people watching on the Big Screen in Plaza de Oriente

El mayor palco del Teatro Real: Cientos de personas asisten a la ópera 'Simon Boccanegra', con Plácido Domingo como barítono, desde la plaza de Oriente gracias a una pantalla gigante

 - report from amongst the crowd

Video of him sharing the applause with Reina Sofia on the balcony of the Teatro Real on Sunday

A Legend Comes Home

Just three days before this performance, I saw a more personal side of Domingo when we shared a commercial flight from London to Madrid. He was recognized by almost everyone, but most kept an awed and respectful distance. Except for a ten-year old girl named Eleanor, who sat across the aisle from me. She was determined to get a photo of herself with Domingo. She got it and more – a great big hug

A few more links for the Simon Boccanegra Prom and other miscellany

BBC Proms 1 to 7 - Observer

Plácido Domingo might be 69 years old but he can hurl himself to the ground with spectacular abandon.

PROMS 3: VERDI'S SIMON BOCCANEGRA, ROYAL ALBERT HALL, LONDON - Express

The evening showed Domingo at his dominant and generous best... His Boccanegra has grown in authority and depth, the voice darker but at times with glinting tenor notes... Most moving of all was the reconciliation between Domingo’s dying Doge and his former enemy Fiesco, sung by that wonderful basso profondo Ferruccio Furlanetto.

(not sure about that basso profondo description)

From Dickie and Butch blog

when a performer has as much charisma and stage presence as Domingo does then nobody truly cares...the role seems to fit very comfortably within his range... his high notes still ring out across the Hall and his textbook technique ensures that his voice effortlessly cuts through the orchestra... one always gets the feeling that you are in the company of a very unique and truly legendary performer.  He manages to combine real star power with a sense of humility and modesty at all times, a very rare gift.

Placido Domingo Will Sing in Varna (Bulagria)

Next summer

Domingo: Proud to be Spanish

Interview on the FIFA website

“It’s been a fantastic World Cup and South Africa was a great host. In my time here I found the organisation and security superb. That said, my poor musical ears suffered a bit with the vuvuzelas. But there you go, they brought a lot of atmosphere to the stadiums,” he concluded with a smile.

Verdi's Rigoletto given 'cinematic' makeover for BBC: Placido Domingo to play lead role in special performance of opera that will use real-life locations in Italian city of Mantua

Some photos from Simon Boccanegra at Royal Opera House

15 July 2010

 

 

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Thoughts on meeting Plácido

One of the many things I don't really really understand about Plácido's wonderfulness is the fact that he is very approachable. I've blogged several times about meeting him before and after performances, and even in his hotel. On previous occasions at Covent Garden, I've seen him stroll up to the theatre from a direction which makes me assume he had strolled across the Piazza. This time, for the five performances of Simon Boccanegra, he has approached from Bow Street.

To be honest, if I was in his position, and especially on the evening of a performance, I would arrive by car and be straight in through the Stage Door. I wouldn't want to talk anyone. Similarly, afterwards, I'd just want to get away, back to where I was staying, eat, drink, whatever.

And sometimes I think, it gets a bit silly, especially in my mind. Surely the point of going to an opera is to hear the music, watch the drama, applaud the scenery and so on. I do get into a frame of mind that 'meeting Plácido' is an inherent part of the show. And I love him for it!

I didn't attend the Friends' Dress Rehearsal, because I didn't have a ticket. As I knew he would be rushing away to Vienna, and I had a party to go to, I didn't even go into town to hang around, as I might have done if circumstances were different. He did appear briefly, captured on video.

On the Monday of the first performance, I had to go and buy a ticket off a friend, and I had to do that after work, and make a judgement about early I could leave the office (bearing in mind I am pathologically unable to get in before, well, I'm a late person). By the time I arrived at the Opera House, I was reliably informed that Plácido had already arrived, and had said that he would be leaving straight afterwards to go to Vienna (for Ioan Holender's final performance as Intendant at the Staatsoper Vienna, where he sang the closing of Parsifal).

On the Friday, I met up with a couple of friends for a bite to eat beforehand, so wasn't outside the Stage Door when he arrived. After the performance, a message came down that he wouldn't be meeting people that night - I later learned that Rolex, production sponsors, were hosting a reception - so my friends and I buggered off to the pub just in time for last orders (isn't Westminster dire - the one place where post-11pm drinking would be extremely useful, it doesn't happen!)

On the Monday, unusually for a Monday, I had to go into work for a couple of hours. I was a bit anxious that I would get delayed en route and would miss him, but in fact I arrived at about twenty-five to six, and he didn't arrive until quarter past. That's a long time to stand around doing not very much - although in time, friends arrived so I was able to chat with them.

Eventually, we saw Plácido strolling along Floral Street from Bow Street and I scampered over to him. As soon as I meet him, I am dumbstruck, not really knowing what to say, and fearing I might say something stupid. I mean, I have form, not just with him, or with other singers but with people in various walks of public life.

So I think I just said hello and gazed at him; he said hello and shook my hand. I think he had a look on his face along the lines of 'what stunt is she planning now'. Later a friend asked me about meeting him, and I said something like, 'he looked me up and down and noticed I wasn't wearing a low-cut top', so my friend, partly teasing, suggested that my remark was inconsistent with my claims to be a feminist. At the time I just I giggled, but later tweeted her that it's being a feminist that made me wear a round-necked top, and being a feminist doesn't stop him looking!

The Monday performance was followed by a Gala dinner which is totally not my scene, and we assumed  - correctly - that there would be no Plácido at the Stage Door, so again we buggered off to a (different) pub. And soon, he was off to South Africa for the best part of a week.

The next performance was on the Tuesday after the World Cup Final* and I have already written about that, plus photo. Afterwards I waited outside the Stage Door for quite a while. First of all, Joseph Calleja appeared, but I didn't step forward to speak with him whilst he was still surrounded by a crowd, and he walked off in the opposite to direction from where I was standing.

Then I met John Tomlinson, who had been substituting for Ferruccio Furlanetto (and very soon afterwards I fell into a pothole and then the gutter and hurt my foot). At that point I wasn't really clear how my foot was hurting. I often do things like twist my ankle and it hurts like billyo, but after half an hour or so it's worn off. On other occasions it actually doesn't hurt as much in the immediate aftermath as it does the next morning - this turned out to be one of those. Even so, when Tony Pappano emerged, I didn't feel much inclined to limp over to him and risk losing my balance in the crowd. He, too, walked off in the opposite direction.

Eventually, word came that Plácido was going to be signing at the desk just inside the Stage Door, and we were invited to form a queue. One of the ROH staff said that he didn't have much time and urged us to hurry - it was about quarter to midnight, and they like to close at midnight, I've found.

I think I've written before that I don't particularly collect autographs and I don't either feel a need to get a programme signed as a souvenir nor do I feel that a signature adds to the inherent value of a programme or CD. I do think that asking a celebrity for their autograph is often a convenient and easy way to make contact, and there is a very good reason why 'signings' are so frequently organised and so popular. I also don't like it when people present dozens of items to be signed.

It also irritates me when people decide that they have to tell their life story to a star.  Perhaps I am being a bit cruel, after all, there's nothing wrong in saying "I saw you in such and such in whatever year and really enjoyed it," or whatever, but when people start rambling on, and have to provide the context and back-story, too, I think it's incredibly rude - I mean, they really aren't interested, trust me, I read the body language and facial expression. So I (nearly) always try and keep it short and sweet. I asked his permission to take a photo. I have to say, I don't really like it as a photo, it's not very flattering, but here it is anyway:

 

I think the red scarf is in honour of Spain winning the World Cup.

I then said that my mother had really enjoyed seeing Simon Boccanegra on the TV (she specifically told me to pass on this message; I haven't actually yet told her that I did!). He seemed delighted at this and beamed in response! And I limped away.

On the Thursday, I again escaped early from work and caught a taxi over to Covent Garden. I was dropped off on Bow Street and as I limped along to Floral Street, I saw a woman I recognised. Despite her looking very familiar, for a split second I struggled to place her - was she from work? someone who lives in my neighbourhood, perhaps? And then, of course, I realised she was an opera singer. Marina Poplavskaya, I thought, she must be going to tonight's performance. Oh, wait, of course, she's Amelia. She wasn't heading for the Stage Door, that's what confused me!

Again I waited for a while, again with friends, until he arrived. He seemed to be in a hurry or at least not in much of a mood to linger. I did try hobbling over to him, but I was getting nowhere fast - I think he noticed, though. I didn't get any chance to speak to him, and only a fleeting chance to take a photograph, which again, isn't great - I simply didn't get his eyes at all!

Still, I was in the front row of the Stalls for the performance, which was a brilliant place to be. I took about 30 photos at the curtain calls and, hopefully, by the end of the weekend, I will have half a dozen or so of the better ones up on the blog.

Again I hung around again after the performance, but word eventually came that he wouldn't be coming out, which was a bit disappointing, especially because, at the time, I was utterly convinced that it was his last performance in a full opera at Covent Garden. I did get to meet Joseph Calleja again - "Oh, it's you again!" he said. I said "I am such a fan of you now" which in retrospect must have sounded all wrong. Truth is, I have rarely heard him live - only as MacDuff previously, I think, plus on CD, and the rather thrown together at the last minute 'Tony Pappano and friends' concert last year.  I didn't go to the Traviatas he was in because I simply couldn't bear the thought of having to endure an evening of both Renée Fleming and Thomas Hampson - but I can tell from the excerpts which have been popping up on the BBC this summer that Joseph at least would have been worth seeing.

A friend of mine spotted Plácido arriving at the Albert Hall when she was in the queue for the arena. Also, from what I can gather from the internet, he spent some time outside the Stage Door after the Prom. But I wasn't there either time, basically because Jimmy was working until 3pm on the Sunday and afterwards, we'd agreed we would rush to get back near home and get ourselves a curry. Sometimes in life one has to sacrifice one's hero for one's partner!

So, I've written a very long blog post, largely about not getting to meet Plácido, except very fleetingly. As I said at the start, I think he's wonderful the way he is so approachable. Of course, this just leads to me having unrealistically high expectations. He's an extraordinary person. Sometimes I find it quite confusing when I do meet him. The main reason I adore him is as a singer, and alsong with the singing comes the total performance. More even than just 'acting' but the total stage presence. There were several times during the six performances of Simon Boccanegra, where I told myself "There on stage is the legendary Plácido Domingo. You are seriously privileged to be witnessing this extraordinary performance right now". I'm not sure how to describe this, but watching him in an opera - as opposed to a concert - there is nothing that makes you think 'famous, legend' except from the fact that you're watching a wonderful performance.

Outside the Stage Door he invariably comes over in exactly the way he is frequently described in the media. Unassuming and approachable, always courteous, always fairly and often very patient, in some ways quite an ordinary person and yet, even if he wasn't surrounded by adoring fans, I think you'd still know that there's something special about him. Nothing ostentatious - even though I know he has a liking for some of the finer things.

I am by nature a day dreamer, and I don't suppose I'm revealing anything by saying that I sometimes daydream about him. Setting aside fantasy scenarios, the sort of thing that fans often have about the object of their fandom, I do like to dream that maybe I'd meet him by chance. I'd love the opportunity to spend some time with him, properly I mean, get to know him a little bit. But I know I'm not alone in wishing for that, and I know realistically it's not going to happen. So, I make do with these fleeting opportunities briefly to meet him, to shake his hand, for our eyes to meet, an exchange of pleasantries and banal comments. Just for the sheer pleasure of being in his presence. It's wonderful to know that he's planning on coming back to Covent Garden, and that I've got tickets to see him in Barcelona next July. I'm going to treasure every moment of him I can get!

* He's already stated he'll have no singing engagements between 26 June and 14 July 2014 because he'll be in Brazil for the World Cup - dontcha just love him...

Reviews of the Simon Boccanegra Prom

Update: For some inexplicable* reason I forgot to include this review from the Independent:

The Proms Opening Weekend, Royal Albert Hall, London: Big is beautiful as the Proms set sail on a wave of grandeur from Mahler, Wagner and Verdi

With his career now into its fifth decade, Plácido Domingo leapt on to the stage during the prologue of Simon Boccanegra in a full, dark wig that made the audience do a double-take; as the pre-Doge, pirate Simon, a quarter-century before the main action of Verdi's opera takes place, it was hard to believe this energetic baritone was the 69-year-old legend. But the voice was the voice: still there in all its richness, emotion, intelligence and power. Supported by a stellar cast this performance was even more alive than the Wagner, and those of us fortunate enough to be in the Royal Albert Hall for this magical evening will never forget it.

Domingo’s presence drew the entire Royal Albert Hall into the drama - Telegraph

...great moments of truth, and ones where Domingo’s presence drew the entire Royal Albert Hall audience into the drama, aided by the rich bass of Ferruccio Furlanetto as Fiesco, and abetted by the idiomatic and far-sighted conducting of Antonio Pappano.

Pappano’s conducting, the Royal Opera Orchestra at its most euphonious, Elijah Moshinsky’s direction of the semi-staged action, and above all Domingo’s complete identification with the doomed hero, together presented a compelling realisation of this drama.

Prom 3: Simon Boccanegra - Guardian

....his artistry is utterly compelling. His feelings are released in high pianissimos that are simply heart-stopping. Later on, when he harangues his council, we're conscious of accomplished rhetoric and emotional sincerity jostling within his mind.

Yet Domingo's voice is now a low tenor rather than a genuine baritone...Low notes can be gravelly where we expect warmth. Most notably, there are losses in heft in some of the ensembles.

As a totality, however, the evening was often magnificent...

A mighty start to the Proms season - Evening Standard

Domingo’s putative baritone remains very much the instrument universally known and admired but down a notch or two. It’s not the kind of voice one expects in this role but Domingo has made a long career defying expectation and there’s no denying that he delivers a terrific performance.

Unforgettable Verdi at the Proms: Domingo excels in a semi-staged Simon Boccanegra at the Royal Albert Hall  - Gramophone

the final plaudits have to be reserved for Domingo. Perhaps he saved his best for last. Whatever the case, he treated a rapt, packed Proms audience to one of the great portrayals of one of opera’s more interesting heroes. The timbre of the voice does not have that baritonal bite but this was a lived-in and very finely sung Doge, believable in its own right. One was privileged indeed to have been there.

Strangely, this critic seems to think that there was only one performance at Covent Garden, the one where Ferruccio was indisposed and was replaced by John Tomlinson singing from the wings. This was the performance this same critic declared that Domingo was vocally not up to Gobbi in 1965

Die Meistersinger/Simon Boccanegra (BBC Proms) What's On Stage

Singing was magnificent throughout, with Marina Poplavskaya as Amelia surprisingly powerful in the hall’s dim acoustic and tenor Joseph Calleja as Adorno all but stealing the show through sheer brilliance.  But the honours of course went to the star tenor, sounding less as though he were trying to be a baritone than he had (at least on the first night) at Covent Garden and all the more comfortable for it.  This looks set to become a classic portrayal for Domingo and may well take him into his seventies; an extraordinary achievement all round.

I did bump into Simon T in the long interval for Meistersinger and opined that Simon B would merit a review in its own right. Clearly I didn't persuade him!

Simon Boccanegra, Royal Albert Hall - The Arts Desk

But it was Domingo's night. I had to blink twice when he first bounded onto the stage. How old is that man? In the Prologue he could have passed for 30. He could also now quite easily pass as a baritone - throughout. He seems to have completed the vocal transition, remarkably. In a world where many singers singing in their favoured voices have lines and fissures running all along their tessitura, Domingo's flawless sound (only a touch too gravelly at the very bottom) is a marvel.

Verdi: Simon Boccanegra - Musical Criticism

Domingo's Boccanegra is a character that has made operatic history...the singer possesses an immensely expressive vocal colour...the result is a compelling figure, both psychologically and vocally. The arch of his phrases tended to be brief, but he rarely seemed short of breath. And in powerful emotional moments, such as the recognition scene, his lines were beautifully delivered.

Simon Boccanegra at the Proms - Opera Today

El Royal Albert Hall se rindió ante la presentación de Plácido Domingo

El infatigable cantante, de 69 años, volvió a dar muestra de la versatilidad de su imponente y noble voz al saber ajustarse con maestría a los tonos más graves que requería el prólogo y luego a los más agudos de los tres actos.

Some curtain call videos: 

Last nights exciting loud and v long curtain call with placido Domingo

Final part of Placido Domingo curtain call at #bbcproms last night - long loud and emotional

(hat-tip to White Rabbit)

* inexplicable because I have a bit of a crush on Clemency Burton-Hill, especially since I discovered she isn't really a Tory, just played one in Party Animals!

Simon Boccanegra Prom

I had already seen Simon Boccanegra five times at the Royal Opera house and to some extent the five performances have merged into one in my mind. Actually, that's not strictly true, but I think writing a review of each performance, even if I had time immediately afterwards, would have been repetitive.

In many ways the Proms performance, on Sunday 18 July was very different from the Royal Opera House performance. It occurred on the fifth anniversary of Plácido Domingo making his Proms debut. I was there, too, meaning I have been to every one of his Proms performances!

A different venue and no just in a trivial way. The Royal Opera House has a capacity a little over 2,000; the Royal Albert Hall holds about 6000 - they say it's 5,500 seats, but they take some seats out to create a mosh pit in the centre of the floor level, and there is also standing way up near the roof in the Gallery. Tickets are by-and-large cheaper than the Royal Opera House, although I will challenge that assumption when I get round to writing about the Meistersinger Prom.

The Prom was promised as 'semi-staged' and costumed. Oh, and I went with Jimmy, so, naturally I had the added anxiety of being responsible for his enjoyment!

We had very nice seats, two in the front row of Loggia Box 25, a box that is low down, is at about 70 degrees to the stage (or at about twenty past if the stage is o'clock). Unrestricted view and acoustically reasonable.

Before it began, I remarked to Jimmy that I wasn't sure why I was there, because I had the entire opera playing in my head, anyway. I did try to brief him on the plot, but he wasn't interested in anything other than 'there's a lot of singing, then he dies'. Although I did further add that the Prologue takes place twenty five years earlier than the rest of the opera, and so Plácido has to wear a dodgy wig to pretend to look younger.

The semi-staging meant that there was no scenery, and the chorus was dressed in evening wear and arrayed like a choir behind the orchestra. All the actors had also been let go, so the acting was very much the cast of seven to ten doing their stuff on a fairly narrow strip of stage in front of the orchestra and conductor, with the minimum of props.

But they were in costume, for which I didn't envy them. The programme notes for the ROH performances included an observation that the costumes, dating back to 1991, are very old-fashioned: some of them, for the Council Chamber scene, are made of upholstery fabric.

Many of the entrances and exits by the singers were made, not directly from the usual doors from the wings but through the doors into the arena, making use of additional space and allowing us to watch entrances down the stairs by the stalls. Intermezzo experienced this at close hand

Placido Domingo stopped just three feet away from me and sang a few lines! No idea what they were, I was too gobsmacked by his presence. Charisma doesn't begin to cover it. It's like a gravitational field. The Albert Hall shrunk around us.

I don't think the opera lost a great deal by being semi-staged. I'm not against concert operas and, indeed, my favourite night at the opera ever was a concert version. But in principle I regard it as diminution of the total work.

They haven't found a way to implement surtitles in the circular Albert Hall, so a full libretto (Italian/English) was provided with the programme. The lights weren't entirely dimmed, unlike the opera house, so it was possible - and indeed advisable - to follow the libretto. I'm not a great one for sitting down at home and listening to an entire audio-only opera recording following the libretto. I tend either to watch subtitled DVDs or listen to the sounds the music makes without necessarily understanding the words. I did find that there are at least three English versions of the words: the condensed form used on the surtitle screen (And TV subtitles), the literal translation from the Italian libretto and the free translation that was printed in the book. It was a good exercise to follow the libretti.

I'm going to write a separate blogpost about my overall impression of the opera and my 'marking' of the singers. I don't think that there was very much difference from my overall impressions of the ROH performance. It was good to have Ferruccio Furlanetto back in the role of Fiesco. To my ears he didn't sound quite as gorgeous as he had, for example on 5 July, but maybe that was because I knew that he had recovered from a serious throat infection.

Jimmy thought Marina Poplavskaya was the best singer and also thought very highly of Joseph Calleja. His verdict on Plácido - 'he's past it'.He then corrected to that 'his voice'. Well, I think Jimmy's wrong, but he's entitled to his view. But he was most certainly impressed by Plácido's dramatic performance.

I found it really quite overwhelming. I had spent Thursday evening on the front row of the stalls at Covent Garden, in a direct line to where some of the best action took place, and even, at times, chose yo use my binoculars. On Sunday, I was a good distance from the stage, in the cavernous Albert Barn, and felt the performance entirely differently. I suppose my overwhelming memory was of the final scene, when he entered, stooped over, on sticks, playing old and dying. Even though I was by now expecting it, it still shocked me, and he seemed to take so long to do that slow walk up onto stage. And most of all those final moments where he is in the final gasps of life and the plot is resolving itself into reconciliation. By this stage, I was waiting for 'the fall' and so was Jimmy, even though I was not sure whether it would happen - too much clutter on what seemed such a small strip of stage. In the event I missed the full impact of the fall, because he soon disappeared out of my view. This also means I missed the melodrama as he stayed down, playing dead for longer than necessary. Again, I refer you to Intermezzo and commenters for the full description of what happened Placido Domingo is dead (oops no hang on a minute....)

What overwhelmed me was, to use a cliche, the way he inhibited the character. I have to say, Plácido is a remarkable man in every possible way. In the prologue he really did look like a young man. Perhaps not in the TV close-ups but certainly in the way he moved. Not just bounding round stage, but in his bearing and his demeanour.

Once the prologue was over, Simon Boccanegra had aged considerably, but had also taken on the gravitas of the Doge. We are told he had become a tyrant, although this was never fully spelled out. In the Council Chamber scene he was regal, which was a contrast with his tenderness with Amelia. I have seen this played and have found the affection between Simon and Amelia to be too much like lovers. Despite the onstage chemistry and the clear affection, I found that it played wonderfully as father and daughter, perhaps partly because the actual age difference between the actual singers was convincing.

From being in command in the Council Chamber scene, he descended through self-doubt into physical pain and death. Stupid people says he plays each role exactly the same, which is utter nonsense. Clearly every actor uses the same part of themself to portray a similar aspect of a character - it wasn't difficult to imagine that this man had played Otello several times, clearly there are similarities. I sense that he thoroughly enjoys playing these drawn out over-dramatic death scenes; I thoroughly enjoy watching them. If I had the patience and the editing skills, it would be fun to out together a compilation video of the best 'death falls', and I am certain the similarities would be superficial.

I have read several reports calling this 'the best Prom ever'. Even allowing for short-memory syndrome (some had applied that label to the previous day's Meistersinger), I can't agree! I have limited experience, but for me, the best will remain Die Walkure in 2005. And much as I thoroughly enjoyed Sunday, I still had my memories from a very special performance on Thursday night to luxuriate in.

I took a lot of photos at curtain call, but they are all really rubbish. I did also shoot a video, again, rubbish, but here it is, anyway

'I am a very happy man, but I love to suffer on stage'

A very adoring article about Plácido from the Observer the other day

Five decades into his brilliant career as one of the world's great tenors, Plácido Domingo – now a baritone – is working as hard as ever. Catch him while you can, says this devoted fan

There is a thrilling existential frenzy to Domingo, despite his unoperatically low-key personality...

...I realise I have taken him for granted for almost 40 years. With a kind of panic, I am starting to wonder whether I'll be able to cope without him.

Fortunately, there is good news. Last Thursday I tweeted that that was quite possibly Plácido Domingo's last performance in a full opera at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. He is exactly six months away from 70 and has no appearances scheduled at the Garden next season.  I already knew that he has been planning his diary up until 2014, but I also know that for several years his contracts have given him the freedom to walk away. Last week I was perfectly able to accept that I might never see him in a full opera at ROH again; funnily enough, I got a definite feeling on Sunday night at the Proms that this wasn't it.

So it's rather delightful to read this article:

Plácido Domingo to sing Rigoletto: The great tenor plans a baritone return on TV, as well as more Covent Garden appearances

Neither has Domingo, as was widely believed, made his final appearance at Covent Garden. His publicist confirms that he will return to celebrate his 40th anniversary in opera on October 27. In addition, the Royal Opera House’s chief executive Tony Hall has said that he will return the season after that and beyond. Repertoire has yet to be announced.

I haven't a clue where I'll be in 2014 and certainly no guarantee I'll have a job, or indeed in October 2011. But if at all possible, I will love love to see him. If I'm on the dole, or if he decides to call it a day before then, I know I will always remember the tremendous experience of six glorious performances of Simon Boccanegra.

Link-log

A whole load of links featuring Plácido Domingo and/or Simon Boccanegra I have saved over the past couple of weeks!

Late review from Bloomberg.

Domingo Digs Deep

What a voice. He’s as stylish, passionate and authoritative as ever in the title role of Verdi’s opera, and as magnetic on stage too.

The notes are there, granted. They’re just not the most exciting notes in his range. His baritone register is rich and rounded, not goose-bump thrilling.

Still, trying to grade Domingo on stage is like trying to give a star rating to a lightning strike or hurricane. Domingo is a force of nature, plain and simple, and it’s wonderful to see him back on stage after his time in the hospital.

Domingo: I Don’t Think About What Happened to Me; Death Is Part of Life

Interview with Efe

“I love challenges and not repeating myself too much, and if I can find something new, I try to do it...the important thing is to touch the hearts of the audience listening to you, to excite and move them, make them cry when they should cry and laugh when they should laugh. That’s the privilege of being an artist...

"...I had a lot of luck and I see life from another perspective. I don’t take things so seriously and I enjoy much more what is special and what is important. It’s a privilege to still be alive and there comes a time when it all ends,

Kendal actor wins role alongside opera star

Westmoreland Gazette has feature on one of the extras in Simon Boccanegra

Boccanegra botch-up: Fiesco fiasco mars night that was meant to be all about Domingo

Very depressed/depressing review "Domingo isn't Gobbi" Oh, sorry, I forgot to go to that 1965 performance. It was three years before I was born

Domingo sara' Rigoletto in kolossal tv

Broadcast on Rai Uno on 4 and 5 September. I have subsequently read it will be broadcast in 134 countries. I can't help feeling that the UK won't be amongst those 134

Brief preview of Plácido's 7 August concert in Durango, Mexico

Regresará Plácido Domingo al estado de Durango

Football-related

A video in which Plácido accompanies Reina Sofia to the Spanish team's dressing room following the Semi-Final victory over Germany. My mother explained to me that King Juan Carlos doesn't get out much nowadays because he had treatment for a benign tumour a few months ago. I nodded and smiled, which conveys very little over the phone...

Plácido Domingo elogia a los españoles

After they had won the World Cup!

«Plácido, por favor, no grites mucho»

What Marta said when he called her after the World Cup Final!

Hello blog...

I noticed just last night that my 'Recent Tweets' are no longer appearing on my blog. It seems that the service that was automatically transferring them every day has suddenly shut down.

As it happens I was engaged in conversation about this just a few days ago, and I expressed my mixed feelings about the service. I kind of feel it's a form of lazy blogging, that enabled me to capture the essence of 'stuff' without actually having to open the editing screen.

There have been times over the past few weeks when I have wanted to blog, especially on occasions when I have come home from the opera house. But I have also recognised that it is already after midnight, and in order to get through the next day's work, and maybe another performance, it is actually really important to get to bed some time before one o'clock.

It also means that I often just stick links in there, with the risk that they get lost amidst all the other guff.

So, partly because I have been forced to but maybe because I was thinking of doing so anyway, I am embarking on a new era of proper blogging!

"My mother is..." and other excuses

I would love somebody to post a comment that convinces me that talking at length during an opera - or concert, play or film - is acceptable. I don't know anybody who has the slightest tolerance for anyone who does so, but the behaviour is so commonplace, there must be entire gangs of people out there who can convince me of the positive reasons.

I used to have a housemate and 'friend' (of sorts) who, watching a newly released film, would routinely ask "What's happening next?" or "Why's she doing that?" or "Where are they going?". It used to drive me mad, and it happened whether it was psychological thriller, rom com or whatever. She couldn't bear to wait for the plot to unfold and reveal its denouement, or that people behave/things happen for reasons that aren't immediately apparent.

In my view there are occasions when talking is permitted. Either: 'Fire has been detected in the building' or similar. Or: 'I'm about to (or my companion is) have cardiac arrest or stroke, faint or throw-up'. No one chooses those circumstances, occasionally they are thrust upon us, and we have to deal with them as appropriate. I'm not stupid enough to criticise people who talk in those uncommon circumstances.

I read somewhere that anyone who can't abide human behaviour in the opera house/theatre/concert hall should stay at home in their living room. I would agree that there is a level of sensitivity to other humans that suggests the problem does lie with the observer. For example, I -and others - comment on outbreaks of coughing, and even discuss why it happens in some works/performances and not others. We even moan about particular individuals (Simon Rattle once turned to the audience in between acts and requested that people use handkerchiefs to stifle their coughs). But on balance, we know the occasional cough, sneeze or even loudly dropping something isn't deliberate.

The other day I suddenly couldn't remember if I'd switched off my phone; my companion said she'd kill me if it went off during the performance. I told her she needn't bother, I'd kill myself. I still managed to turn it off long before the house lights went down. My responsibility, you see. I have heard people's phones going off at several performances & it always causes a disruption, not least to the performers.

I really couldn't believe my 'luck' that occurred twice in Simon Boccanegra. The first time was the Friday, when I paid an obscene amount of money to sit in the Orchestra Stalls. Before things started I overheard the two women to my left discussing why they were there. "I thought I might regret it if I didn't come". Perhaps it's just a turn of phrase, but it seemed quite weak compared to my 'Desperate to...wouldn't have missed it for anything..."

The second time was on the Tuesday, when I had paid considerably less, but still more than normal, to be in the Balcony. This time the two women were to my right, the older one I had noticed was in a wheelchair.

Simon Boccanegra starts with a prologue of about half an hour, followed by a pause of a few minutes for scene-changing. On both occasions, I had been disturbed twice by an exchange between the two women during the Prologue. Each of the four exchanges were prolonged, more than merely 'Pass the binoculars, dear'. Each time I feared that these exchanges would continue throughout the performance and ruin my evening.

Each time I used the pause between Prologue and Act 1 to summon up my best manners and say "Please could you refrain from talking during the music".

The first time the younger woman came back with "I have to explain to my mother, she can't hear!". I'm still trying to puzzle that one out - she can't hear, so she had to be told when Plácido Domingo walked onto the stage. She couldn't hear, so she had to have explained what was written in the programme, cast sheet and any synopsis available online, as CD notes or in Kobbé. So, no logic in it, but also so unbelievably rude. I explained that I had paid a lot of money for my ticket. She replied that they had, too. But the difference was, I paid to hear the opera (not them talking). I will freely admit there is nothing in the small print that contractually obliges them not to talk, but there is such a thing as observing conventions, and if they had stopped to think about it - nobody else was talking.

Later in the evening, I had cause to stand up between acts; when I sat down again the silk belt of silk dress inadvertently landed on "mother's" lap. She flicked it away with the utmost contempt, like it was a snotrag or something. And they conspicuously glared at me at every opportunity.

On the Tuesday, the response was "My mother has dementia. I need to explain who Plácido Domingo is".

Ooh, ethical dilemma, here!

I don't suppose many of us will go through life without having someone close - or ourselves - succumb to dementia. I find it impossible to imagine how someone copes with the day-to-day burden of caring for such a person.

It didn't take much effort to imagine that 'mother' may have been a fan of Plácido for decades. I can see exactly why daughter wanted Dementia Mother to witness one final performance from him, maybe even hoping that his wonderfulness would reach a mind that is nearly gone. I'm not hard-hearted, honest.

But I did sense that Dementia Daughter was determined to provoke me into some unwise derogatory comment about dementia. Not me, mate, you see my mother is a social worker (retd.). I simply stated that she didn't need to explain anything and disturb anyone else.

As a post-script, the evening I was seated near Dementia Mother was the night that John Tomlinson sang from the wings whilst Ferruccio Furlanetto, silenced by a throat infection, mimed on stage. I have admired Sir John Tomlinson in many things (as recently as The Minotaur), but I share the consensus that his voice has gone (he's well into his Sixties). There was one bit where he wobbled even more than normal in a way that was spectacularly off-pitch, and Dementia Mother let out a howl of anguish, which seemed a fitting commentary. I laughed to myself.

On Criticism

Nowadays, anyone who can write a sentence has the opportunity to write about anything and be read by any passing stranger. Audiences don't have to wait days for one solitary review to be published in a newspaper, and we don't have to take a professional critic's word as authoritative.

I've been pondering the dilemmas this creates. Part of me thinks - my blog, my rules, I can write what I like, providing it's not defamatory. I'm rarely the only account of an event and I expect my readers to read many others and extract an objective 'truth' from the patchwork of subjectivity.

A while back I was chatting with Mike, who reviews pop concerts in his city for the region's newspaper. He goes to a lot of gigs and I suppose is often the only person formally reviewing these events. Going to so many must surely enable him to differentiate between the good, the mediocre and the downright appalling. However, he recognises that, for many people, it's a rare big night out and he doesn't have the right to spoil their evening with misplaced negativity.

Others say that most audience members, even the keen and informed, simply don't have the experience and expertise to know precisely whether something was performed correctly. I certainly avoid using quasi-objective statements such as 'best' (or 'worst') because it can only ever be the best within my very limited experience. 

I don't like it when the critic seeks to crush people's enjoyment by intellectualising the details. And yet, I can't stand an approach that just says everything was wonderful. I had a conversation recently where I mentioned I was looking forward to Tosca next year, and somebody told me that if I had seen Tito Gobbi as Scarpia there is no way I could enjoy Bryn Terfel's interpretation. Maybe that's true for that person, but I haven't seen Tito Gobbi's portrayal, so it can't be true for me. The truth is, I felt crushed and put down. But, conversely, I didn't let my knowledge of Plácido Domingo's Cavaradossi or Don José spoil my enjoyment of Jonas Kaufmann; similarly with Rolando Villazón and ETA Hoffmann. I look forward to Jonas's assuming of Plácido's signature roles of Otello, Siegmund - and semi-seriously, Simon Boccanegra.

Ah yes, Plácido Domingo as Simon Boccanegra!

As it turns out, I enjoyed this far more than I imagined I would, more than if I had consumed the wisdom of the 'no one will ever do it like (insert name of dead singer)' types that inhabit too many internet groups. As it happens, it seems that my appreciation accords with the majority view.

Naturally, there were some people who attended the live performances and didn't like it. People who in some cases have the experience and knowledge to draw meaningful comparisons with excellent portrayals of the past, or simply felt that they weren't enjoying it very much. They are, of course, perfectly entitled to state their view, particularly when they give cogent reasons why. 

What I don't like is the slightly sneery attitude that seems to assume that anybody who can possibly enjoy Domingo as Boccanegra is one of 'just a handful of mainly female hysterical fans*' - an actual phrase I saw written. In their view,  by enjoying the performance, one displays ignorance and irrelevance (I particularly despise this 'let's put-down the paying audience' attitude when it comes from the liggers on the freebie tickets).

Philosophically, that presents a problem, because I sneer at people who, for example, say that Katherine Jenkins's rendition of Una voce poco fa is excellent, because it isn't. Its awfulness is so obvious on any objective basis, that it stands to reason that anybody who praises it** is doing so without any comparison with the merely adequate let alone the greats. I suppose the fact that there is never any further statement about why it's good, other than some vague statement about liking her voice convinces me that they really don't know what they're talking about**.

But the sneerers I despise could argue, and not without truth, that I  have insufficient knowledge to make an assertion about Domingo's Boccanegra, so I'm no better than those who rave about the imagined excellence of La Barbie.

However, I am on much firmer ground when I deride the opinions I have read about Domingo's Rigoletto. I have to say, I could happily go to my grave without ever hearing, let alone seeing, Plácido Domingo as Rigoletto. But now that I know it's going to happen, gimme that download!

I thought similarly about his Boccanegra - yeah, nice little end-of-career novelty act, but inconsequential in the context of such an amazing career as a tenor. Now I'm not so sure.

I have a completely open mind about his portrayal of Rigoletto. I fervently believe it will be memorable dramatically; I can't imagine him proceeding with it if it were to be a disaster vocally.  I'm not sure I especially want the beauty of Plácido's voice in that role. But, like everyone else, I haven't heard/seen it yet, so anything I say is merely speculation.

But see what I'm doing there - I'm keeping an open mind, retaining an intellectual curiosity and acknowledging why there may be misgivings from those who aren't in the 'handful of mainly female hysteric fans'. I'm not saying "Ah, but it's Plácido, he's amazing ergo his Rigoletto will be amazing" and I rather wish the naysayers were not so forthright and absolutely convinced of their correctness in predicting a complete disaster. I just think it's a bit crazy to review a performance without actually seeing it, especially when it's not actually happened.

I'm writing this because I have several blogposts coming up that are reports on performances. I didn't make contemporaneous notes, and didn't attend them with score in hand, so, ultimately, the posts are going to be about my reaction to the performances. I hope to draw out elements that worked especially well - or didn't - for me, and rekindle your memory, if you were there, or provide a little nugget of commentary on a favourite singer.

But nowadays, we are limited only by our own memory and writing ability. Everybody can report on a performance if they feel inclined and have the time, and this is just a repository for me to write my memories down.

*I'm not sure whether the implied lack of judgement is thought to be overwhelmingly a female characteristic, or whether similar male behaviour is merely deemed to be loyalty; either way, I can't take seriously the opinion of someone who hates (or fears) women

** Assuming they actually mean it and aren't just letting their dicks blind their musical judgement

Holding post!

I have numerous blogposts to write about various things, not least various aspects of Simon Boccanegra, and Manon, Salome, Semele, too.

This weekend I'm off to Meistersinger and Simon Boccanegra at the Proms, so don't expect much substance here until well into next week

Stage Door beforehand

Yesterday evening I was waiting on Floral Street for Plácido's arrival.

I saw him approaching down the road, from the Bow Street and rushed over to greet him, just as the first drop of rain fell, rain that had been threatening all day.

A woman approached him and said that she was a friend of another singer (which, to be honest, I don't believe - more likely 'slight acquaintance' or 'met once at a Stage Door') and asked - or insisted - that she had her photo taken with him. At first she tried to do it herself by holding the camera herself at arm's length. As that, obviously, didn't work (cheap camera without a swivel screen), she thrust it in the hands of some other woman and ordered her to take a photo. The second woman, who didn't exactly come across as an archetypal geek, panicked "What button do I press? What do I look through". The camera owner pointed to a button but we weren't getting anywhere.

At this point, I felt as if everything entered a state of suspended animation. You know the cliché - you see your whole life flash in front of you: for me it was specifically every traffic jam I have ever been stuck in on a bus, plus all the French, Latin and Italian vocabulary I never bothered learning for O-Level (yeah, weird, but surreal suspended animation is like that, believe me).

No one who knows me, friend, colleague etc, would ever accuse me of being decisive or of taking control, but, sometimes when I'm in the wider world and people are dithering round, it dawns on me that if I don't take control, no one will, and we would be here all night. More raindrops were falling, Plácido was noticeably getting irritated, so I seized the camera and took the photo, before realising that I had therefore denied myself the opportunity of taking a decent one myself. I did manage to get this one, at the point he was briefly in conversation with an acquaintance.

I actually couldn't believe the woman who had claimed to be a friend of some other singer. she actually asked me if I would take another one for her. I got scowly and said 'no' in a rather truculent tone. I don't know who the hell she thought she was, though obviously some delusionist, but she was very rude and very bossy, and didn't even say thank you. 

I also have to say I am always gob-smacked at people who demand an extended audience with Plácido, especially before a performance, when they ought to know better, that he doesn't like to talk before a performance, there are other people around, and, oh, it's just started to rain. Also, let's not kid ourselves - people in the public eye are really not that interested in the tedious boring detail of some dull tale being told. Of course the polite and/or PR savvy will listen politely, but that's out of politeness etc.

If I recall correctly, there was some mention on Floral Street of Spain winning the World Cup...!

How the not-broken foot happened

Those of you have been following my tweets with baited breath throughout the day will know that,having hurt my foot last night, I woke up with it so sore I couldn't put weight on it nor bend it. I called in sick to work and work advised I go to the doctor to have it checked over. The doctor referred me to X-ray, and the x-ray department assured me it wasn't broken.

It happened as a culmination of an evening full of bizarre exasperating incidents.

I was waiting with friends, acquaintance and strangers on Floral Street outside the Stage Door of the Royal Opera House. Joseph Calleja had been out and had spent a lot of time surrounded by admiring fans. I don't care for pushing into pressing crowds and in the end I let him get away as he left in the opposite direction. Next out was John Tomlinson, who, again, spent quite some time surrounded by fans. When he finally emerged from the crowd, it was to walk along the road in front of where I was standing, so I walked over to him, took a photo, asked whether he would be appearing in future performances (he was, rightly, tight-lipped), and listened to some answers he was giving to someone else.

I moved away and realised that there were two women precariously close to me. They were unbelievably over-excited; one of them showing the other that she had got John Tomlinson's autograph. She was backing into me, all 4'6" of her, so I told her to watch out, and swerved to avoid her. She altered her path and continued backing into me. I swerved again, and managed to put my foot into a pothole, go over on both feets (I was wearing the slightest of heels) and fall to the ground, twisting as I went in order to protect my camera. At the point where my bum hit the ground, I exclaimed "Shit!" really rather loudly and very unladylike. But when you're rolling round in the gutter, you don't feel very ladylike anyway.

It was nice that people were sweet and concerned, but I didn't think I was that hurt. Still, it would have been decent if the moronic bint who caused it had apologised, or checked I was okay, rather than scurrying away. Cow. Grazed elbow, bang on the bum and generally shaken up. My foot hurt, but it didn't stop me half-walking, half-limping. I managed to carry on standing, and then walk into the Stage Door area and wait patiently to meet Plácido.

I didn't have any problems getting to the Tube and was mildly irritated at not getting a seat at Green Park. Indeed, it was only when the train was braking on the downhill run into Victoria and throwing my weight onto my left foot that it began to dawn on me it might be worse than I thought.

When I woke up, I realised that it wasn't feeling good. My instinct was to call into work, explain, say I was taking the day off to rest up. I called my manager's number, as per the rules, but I could only get his voicemail, and I feel that voicemail or email is insufficient for calling in sick, because it assumes that they are going to be in as planned. I ended up talking to my head of unit who was quietly insistent I went to my doctor. I dread going there, especially in the morning, and it took me ages to limp round there. There was a long wait just to register; I finally got to see the doctor who didn't even examine me. He referred me to X-ray, saying he's had three women this week who've been walking round with hairline fractures of feet, and that's not obvious by examination, so an X-ray would rule it out. He also gave me a 'fit note' signing me off for a week (not that I need it - I self certify for a week) but said go in, say on Monday, if I feel up to it.

I called my manager and explained. I thought I had to be honest. He's only recently become my manager and I don't think he knows the extent of my infatuation with Plácido. But my two previous managers do, as do several colleagues, and I've told my Head of Unit that I'm overdoing the nights out this week. I said that nothing, but nothing, will stop me going out tomorrow and I do believe that if you're fit enough to go out, you're fit enough to go to work (this doesn't apply if you're signed off long-term for a chronic condition). He agreed with me, but was happy with me saying that, depending on what the hospital says, I'll go in tomorrow but might be later than normal (going in the long way via two buses, to minimise walking, especially on stairs).

Fortunately, the GP referral was to X-Ray, so I didn't have to wait in A&E. I was in X-Ray for less than an hour, most of it waiting for a doctor to return from lunch. I was actually relieved there is no break, though it still aches like buggery.

Simon Boccanegra: What Twitter said

Placido Domingo....you opera god :) PhoebeKirrage

Watching Opera on bbc2 Placido Domingo is amazing! donnapanda

There's something called 'Placido Domingo in Simon Boccanegra' on BBC2 now. Sounds like a Latin American porno. littlemark_83

Not saying the world cup is not enthralling but I am watching Placido Domingo in Simon Boccanegra on BBC 2. Great voice but I no comprende! keithmullingspt

I am watching Placido Domingo in Simon Boccanegra on BBC 2. Fabulous! psweetman

watching Simon Boccanegra with Placido Domingo. Didn't imagine for a second quite how fantastic it is northbriton45

No football for me. Simon Boccanegra with the one and only Placido Domingo for me EileenAllen55

Anyone see this on bbc2 tonight? "Placido Domingo in Simon Boccanegra" - that's 2 and half hours of pure loving. Domingo got mad stamina yo adamprincebilly

Watching Placido Domingo singing opera at age of 69. lucky if i can stand when get to that age. Fantastic! darkmagician

Placido Domingo in Simon Boccanegra *sniff* brendadada

More of the same please, Simon Bocannegra with a superb cast headed by Placido Domingo. Now that's entertainment of a high calibre. Bravo Polstan

Am listening to dreamboat Placido Domingo, on BBC 2. Too muggy to do anything else. Amalari

Verdi's Simon Boccanegra on BBC2. Most complicated story in opera. Half the plot takes place before it starts & some characters change names parkavenueguy

Not sure if I fully understand Simon Boccanegra's plot so far but am enjoying the singing and music. Wonderful manipillai

this verdi opera simon boccanegra is beautiful and so is domingo. highheeledlady

Just got home from work to discover Simon Boccanegra on TV. Hurrah! modernmalcolm

'Restore my faith in your innocence' line from Simon Boccanegra reminds me of Sita returning to Rama after the Ravaana episode. manipillai

Watching Simon Boccanegra on BBC2 - stunning. Not heard it before completely blown away by it. crofty

Simon Boccanegra had made me well up. *sniff* MahlerMad

I loved the televised Boccanegra, Domingo was excellent! leonora1

Boccanegra superb! Can't wait to see it live! CurzonProduct

Antonio Pappano beguilingly enthusiastic presenter & conducter of Simon Boccanegra tv bcast 2nght not to mention fab cast, Domingo et al! JoannaLazarov

And

RT @Gert: TV ALERT TV ALERT. Today BBC2 1930 (2100 in Scotland) Plácido Domingo is Simon Boccanegra http://bit.ly/buMcaX I highly recommend this erwin_schrott (yeah, Erwin Schrott, RT'ing me!)

Labour leadership Brixton Hustings 30 June

It's not often that we get vote to for leader. I've been in the party since 1984 and have only voted in three leadership elections; this compares to six General Elections.

Before the recent General Election I had been politically inactive for quite some time, but Labour Party politics - and, I daresay, other parties, too  - have this habit of drawing you back in.

So when I heard that all the leadership contenders were to be husting in Brixton - yeah, Brixton - I was, like, try and keep me away. I actually did hesitate, because it did occur at the start of the most hectic three weeks of my life, at least since leaving the council. Which is why this blogpost is so belated!

I took a few photos of the contenders. Their relative quality reflects only where I was sitting. I could have been more assertive and taken more and better photos, but I don't think that that's very comradely. And nothing can be deduced from my voting intentions from the photos.

Diane Abbott was the most interesting. I identify the most strongly with Diane. She tends to speak first and think later, or doesn't seem frightfully concerned about how a statement will come across, if it's something that she believes and wants to say. She's also a bit rubbish when it comes to stand-up comedy. I'm surprised that, with her experience, she hasn't realised that however funny one is in informal situations with off-the-cuff quips, it doesn't necessarily work on stage in front of an audience. I feels she knows most instinctively how benefit cuts and job losses will affect ordinary people, whereas I think the blokes are more like me - we can intellectualise from observation but it's not the same.

I am happy to give Ed Miliband my second preference vote. Of the chaps he seemed the one most able to understand the need for change, not just in matters of detail but in a wholesale philosophical approach. I think he has the intellectual capacity to be Leader, although his people-skills fall short of those of say Tony Blair or Neil Kinnock, or indeed Diane Abbott or Ed Balls, but are far ahead of Gordon Brown and Ken Livingstone, for example. I also think he has the capacity to grow into the job. He doesn't come across as a Prime Minister but some people are capable of stepping into giant shoes.

I felt that Andy Burnham's heart wasn't in it. He seemed the most affected by the tremendous heat in the room - by the end he looked a lot damper than this, with which I can sympathise. I think his campaign is so overwhelmingly North West  - so it was a bit weird when he announced himself the local - Brixton-dwelling - candidate. Before the meeting I disliked him intensely, now I don't, so he may count that as a victory, if he wishes. But I can't see any reason to put him above five on my list.

I cannot properly decide between David Miliband and Ed Balls. I feel that they both have way too much baggage I want to distance myself from. Miliband is too much a Blairite, Balls is too much a Brownite. Both of them have repudiated these positions and have declared they have moved on, but I feel some discomfort at some of the Miliband followers, and I just don't trust Ed Balls. I think Balls comes across as by far the most impressive as a campaigning politician, who knows how to seize the news agenda; I fear a Balls leadership would be back to the same-old same-old Mandelsonian/Campbell/Blair/Brown obsession with ephemeral headlines, which was successful for it's time but we've moved on. As for David Miliband, I tend to like him, and I think he has the intellectual capacity to be leader and a personable character  , but I think he lacks a certain indefinable 'leadership quality'.

I think it's brilliant that it's a long drawn-out leadership campaign and that they are touring round the country. Westminster insiders and the media wanted it to be over quickly, clinical and decisively. Instead ordinary party members have had the opportunity to hear the candidates unmediated by mass media and actually ask questions. Political parties get this luxury at the start of a Parliament. Whatever is lost by a sense of leaderlessness in the past couple of months will be soon forgotten. I believe that whoever becomes leader will know - and members and voters know - that they have an undisputed mandate from the members.

There is nothing like political involvement to get members involved. For the past dozen years, the wail has always been - how do we get members involved. And I've always said that people primarily want to be involved in political discussion and education. It's difficult to campaign when you have forgotten what you're campaigning for, or that it's the rather nebulous concept of 'to win'. It gets a bit boring doing local campaigning, a lot of which isn't really party political, but about jostling for position and trying to get inward funding in one's area.

And it was stiflingly hot in the hired premises, which somehow just added to the nostalgic feeling for old-style Brixton policies!

At one point, Diane Abbott stated that she is the daughter of immigrants. I could see reactions all round - the Milibands are the sons of immigrants, and both Ed Balls and Andy Burnham (and Andy Burnham's Dad) have stressed repeatedly that they are from backgrounds far from privileged. Then later, David Miliband proclaimed himself to be 'the first member of my family born in this country', which caused Ed to react, almost - but not quite - imperceptibly, and led to quite a bit of comment on my Tweetstream. So, after the hustings, when Ed came over to talk to the person I was standing with and say hello and glad-hand me, I did ask him whether he suffered from 'second sibling syndrome'. That probably counts as one of the most stupid remarks I have made to someone in such a situation. HE said he didn't know what it was, so I explained. Cringe moment, hey...

PS It was chaired by Steve Richards from the Independent, visible in the Ed Balls photo

Some more Simon Boccanegra links

Lots and lots of photos, albeit watermarked of the production (if the link doesn't work, search 'Simon Boccanegra')

Picture Perfect — Plácido Domingo as Simon Boccanegra, Royal Opera (from Opera Today)

Domingo’s authority is all the more impressive because there aren’t any florid, crowd pleasing arias in the part... Indeed the tension in Domingo’s voice at some points enhances his characterization of Boccanegra as a man ravaged by fruitless struggle.

Domingo was convincingly tender in the reconciliation scene with Amelia, but reached true heights later. His monologue “Ah! ch’io respiri l’aura beata del libero cielo!”was exceptional. Acting skills grow with experience, so even if a voice ages, a true artist like Domingo can bring out aspects in the character deeper than words alone. 

Wonderful wonderful opinion piece: James Naughtie: why Placido Domingo has been the best opera singer of his time

It may be a curious word to use, but that feeling of determination has always characterised Domingo and set him apart from some others who roost near the top of the tree. There are relatively few who have been willing to take so many risks for so long. Perhaps the reason why that side of him has been underestimated is that most of them have come off...

...These human characteristics, of course, shouldn’t be remarkable: but they are, because something about the pace, the physical pressures and the emotional atmosphere of opera tends to work against them. It sometimes seems easier to be a pain.

Calleja triumphs alongside Placido Domingo (from Times of Malta)

“Placido arrived a couple of days late for rehearsals, and during the first rehearsals without him I often wondered how his approach towards this role would be, given his gargantuan experience and megastar status. Once he arrived , he came straight from the airport where he had just landed from LA and I was flabbergasted to realise that he was actually looking forward to rehearse and go through the role with the rest of the cast there. His approach still fresh and unscathed from over 45 years of rehearsing and performing."

The serious business of football has played a part too, even if the Maltese tenor managed to annoy the grand old man a little on that score . “During the first week of rehearsals he requested that no one would tell him the scores of the ongoing football matches. For some reason this ‘request’ didn’t reach me and I kept telling him. He politely didn’t tell me not to

(I was supplying Joseph with updates in the final matches of England's group, during rehearsals...!)

Dave Reinstein's blog

Did this fabled Spanish-Mexican superstar manage it? Musically, and in Boccanegra’s tricky psychological journey, yes in all respects. Yet perversely his timbre remains firmly that of a tenor, glowing best at the radiant top, with a tendency to thinness at the bottom, the precise opposite of baritone instinct. But as long as he can make an utterance called singing, displaying frailties as well as magnificent treasures, this artist will always give pleasure. His Boccanegra is a monument to an incomparable career. Watch the broadcast on BBC2 next Saturday, 7.30pm or, better still, catch the big-screen live relay on Tuesday 13 July in London, Bradford, Bristol, Ipswich, Leicester, Manchester, Plymouth or Portsmouth.

And just for good measure, some photos from the Gala in Vienna a week ago Saturday

Plácido Domingo is Simon Boccanegra

It is so very difficult to write a personal review of a performance when you have read so many reviews by others, and participated in so many conversations.

On Friday I decided that I would write a personal appreciation of the performance by Plácido Domingo as Simon Boccanegra. That's also pretty difficult to do because I still haven't managed entirely to assimilate all the details of the plot of the opera!

I am actually quite surprised at how people are describing this as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to experience something historic. Quite contrary to my judgement that this would be wonderful to see, but significantly less meaningful than, say, Plácido Domingo as Otello, Plácido Domingo as Siegmund, Plácido Domingo as  Cavaradossi.

At the moment, these may well be his final singing performances at the Royal Opera House, and the Prom his final in London, because there is nothing else publicly announced - although Jim Naughtie has dropped a heavy hint of something big planned for his 40th anniversary in late 2011. So that's important, too.

If I have to single out one aspect of his entire performance, I must point to the closing moments, when he flings himself to the floor, dying of poison. I know I joke about him rolling on the floor and indeed, I did ask him whether he enjoys rolling around on the floor off-stage, which he mischievously deliberately misinterpreted!  But he has no need to. There are other ways to portray the death. If he just slumped in a chair, no-one would complain, nor indeed if he spent the entire opera rooted to a spot merely singing. It's something he clearly enjoys doing - because he can - but it also symbolises his total approach to the role.

In the prologue, which happens 25 years before the main action, he wears a wig and has his beard dyed. It's not that great a look, to be honest; he looks so much better when he's back to his natural grey look. But I do notice that he seems physically different - much more agile and lithe. In Acts 1 and 2 he is sparer in his movements, having assumed the dignitas of office as the Doge; in Act 3 he is splendidly infirm, stooped and lame, supported by two sticks, and visibly failing.

Vocally, I am yet to be convinced. I am perfectly satisfied at the appropriateness of a tenor singing the role. No, it doesn't mean it should *always* be sung by a tenor, but all roles are open to interpretation; this is a valid interpretation, and one assumes that in future the role will generally be sung by a baritone.

I think it's worth noting that he is vocally secure throughout. It's too easy to take that for granted. I admire and like the colouring and other dramatic use of the voice to portray the character and tell the tale, and I appreciate the absence of showboating and histrionic circus-tricks, which may be the sine qua non for some so-called opera fans, but are often the desperate signs of a mediocre talent.

But I miss the characteristic Domingo sound, perhaps even more because once it really shone. I love it when he pus his head back, totally relaxes and this gorgeous velvety almost purring sound comes out. If I recall correctly, this was in the Council chamber scene, but there is so much to take in and so much to remember I may well be wrong. Part of me thinks I should be taking notes as I go along, perhaps I will when it is televised!

Talking of televising, Friday's performance was filmed for TV, as will be tonight's (Monday). This will be shown on BBC2 on Saturday and later made available on DVD. At the end, during the curtain call, I stood up, largely to take photos, and only subsequently realised that a TV camera was focused entirely on me. I assume they were filming several audience shots and will maybe cut in or two fleeting moments, but if they keep that shot, I will be pretty conspicuous! Eventually nearly everyone was on their feet.

On stereotypes

A few weeks ago, someone (might even have been my fiancé, can't quite remember!) said "I never judge people by appearances"

"I do," I said. "All the time!" They looked at me aghast. I went on to explain that it's enormous fun to do so to passing strangers, in my head, to create entire imaginary scenarios based upon a fleeting glance. But I never take action based on that judgement. Especially not important stuff such as job appointments etc because it would be crass, stupid, and self-defeating, not to mention illegal.

As I said in my previous post all stereotypes have a basis in truth. Even if the basis is tenuous, and the necessary classification makes massive assumptions about similarities.

Stereotyping someone based upon immutable factors such as gender, race, background etc can lead to disadvantage, discrimination and unfairness. I think stereotyping people on the basis of what they choose to do (hobbies etc) is fair game, even though it's intellectually lazy. I really don't like negative stereotyping.

But, as I say, they usually have a basis in truth.

Imagine these sweeping generalisations:

• Typical black teenager with their socks and sandals and real ale obsession
• Archetypal trainspotter, judging everyone on how rich they are
• Oh, those yummy mummies, so tribal and always brawling in the streets
• Another bloody football fan with their ethnic skirts and organic headscarves
• Typical Guardian reader, playng their loud 'music' on their phone on the back seat of the bus

They just don't work, although of course, I am sure most of us knows someone who fulfills one or more of those statements.

There isn't much point to this post, just something that vaguely amused me in passing.

Vicious Kicking Woman

Wherever you sit in the Amphitheatre at Covent Garden, you have to accept that you are in close proximity to your neighbour. And most of the time you have to accept a level of intimacy that would drive you mad on a flight*

We make choices. Once you know the ROH, you know you can save a fortune by compromising slightly. Front row of the Amphi, slightly restricted view, massive discount (for Manon, my £40 ticket was next to a £65 ticket; I missed a small corner of the stage). For Simon Boccanegra, I had, additionally poor leg room as a result of a cable box (£30 - only for elitist opera snobs though!). It wasn't directly in front of my seat so I didn't need to fold my knees round my neck. Simply couldn't spread my legs. By the way, I'm 5'2" so this wouldn't work for you Tallies: it really sucks for anyone over 5'3" so STAY AWAY from the short people's seats

The man to my left should have entered the row from the left but made the mistake of entering from the right, apologising as he did so. Silly mistake, but, in my view, no harm done, he's unlikely to make the same mistake again, it was well before the house lights went down let alone conductor appeared in pit. Unfortunately, it did happen to coincide with a couple arriving from the left who should have arrived from the right, so they had to crossover, obviously a dread word in an opera house. But he gave them directions politely and firmly, and it worked well.

Except that the woman to the right of me proceeded to hector my left bloke, telling him how inconvenient it was that he had come in from the wrong side and there were signs and, oh you know. I thought it was a bit OTT. Maybe if the overture had started, or the guy had been bumptious or arrogant, then maybe a sarcastic admonition would have been understandable.

In his absence I had been somewhat lolling in his space, but on his arrival I had to restrict myself to my own space. Woman on my right asked me if I could move to my left. I thought about it. I mean, I really did think about it - where is my thigh, where is my arm, is my boob drooping into my right armpit, encroaching on her space. Is maybe my hair a bit big? "No" I replied. I couldn't actually, because the cable box was blocking my leg. She wanted to sit at an angle in her seat and place her legs in front of my seat. Understandable for the view, but not fair.

There is a pause between the Prologue and Act 1, when the house lights come on, and it's a good opportunity to stretch a bit or root around in the handbag.

As the lights dimmed I placed my feet on the floor to give me sufficient leverage to sit properly in my seat. Immediately, I realised I was being kicked. For a split-nano-second I thought it was an unavoidable accidental clash of limbs that occurs in tight spaces.

But, no, this woman had a look of determination on her face as she directed her leg muscles to move back and forth to kick me. For another nano second, I couldn't actually believe it. I then decided: I'm not going to let this bitch ruin my evening, I'm not going to get angry. If I have to say anything at all, it's going to be "Do you have to be so unpleasant?"

At the end of the Gabriele/Amelia love-duet, which is heart-stoppingly beautiful, I had the misfortune of having to let out a suppressed choked cough. No excuses, it happened. At a bad time. And I know it's unpleasant for neighbours when such exquisite music is jarringly interrupted like that. Her tutting lasted longer than my cough, though.

At the start of the second half, I again used the floor to give me heft to sit back in my seat and let my feet dangle (And thus let bitch woman's feet encroach into my space, actually, as it happens). The manoeuvre takes a moment, maybe a second or two. Again, the bitch started kicking me. I said to her "There is no need to kick me!"

"Oh. Right!" she said. No apology, of course, but, also tellingly, no denial. Her whole attitude was like I'd said - it's okay, there's no need to tell me the plot of Simon Boccanegra, or explain something or other that many people may not have known. It was like, she actually thinks there are certain situations where there is a need to kick people.

I actually felt quite shocked about this, really quite upset. I started to dwell on it, and I was struggling to focus on the action on stage, which then made me even angrier, because - well, that was actually what I was there for.

Between the early 80s and mid 90s, I went to a lot of football matches. Usually on the terraces, amidst a crowd which was caricatured as violent, and at best was rough, even if only due to sheer numbers, and jostling. I have never ever been attacked in any way inside a football stadium.  It makes me indignant that I have to go to the Royal Opera House to get kicked, twice, by some dried-up miserable hag.

When the music started after the interval, she spent several minutes rooting in her bag and then rustling the plastic wrapper of a tissue packet; near the end, she pushed a switch to illuminate her digital watch and allowed it to shine in my peripheral vision for more than a fleeting moment. Not that I'm especially bothered, but this was the woman who tutted at my unfortunate splutter.

When the curtain calls were happening, I had my camera out (indifferent photos) and there were flashes going off from all quarters. In her characteristic disagreeable disapproving voice she said "Some people are taking photos". I really wanted to say "What of it? Get over it!" but people like that are so sour-faced petty and disagreeable.

When I entered the row before the start of Manon, I was momentarily disconcerted to see her. She glared at me in the most unpleasant way. How dare she! I had been toying with the idea of reporting her to the ROH for assault** but as I listened to her moaning on, I just started to feel sorry for her.

She sounded angry when she said liked Anna Netrebko; of course it had to be 'She doesn't screech like *that one* from Tuesday'. She sounded really pissed off as she remarked she gets Joseph Calleja and Vittorio Grigolo mixed up (I mean, really, is it because they're both tenors with Southern European names, unlike any other tenor in the history of tenors?) and she sounded bitter as she remarked how well Joseph Calleja had sung on Tuesday.

She had this tone whether talking with her friend or with whom appeared to be a random seat neighbour of 'I'm going to tell you what I'm thinking so that you will know what to think, too'. It seemed that her friend was the cowed sort who would probably appreciate being told what to think. Talk about co-dependent!

I won't be surprised if I encounter this woman again, because I overheard expressing her rationale for seat-choice, which is identical to mine. She is thin and sour-faced. I would have put her at about 50, but her hands are the gnarled and wizzened hands of an old woman. Her hair is dyed black and jars with her skin. She has a glasses case with a a sprinkling of hearts on it. She is a teacher and she is from Manchester originally. Indeed, in her bossiness she displayed the stereotype of the teacher who treats autonomous adults as recalcitrant pupils, and the incessant Moaning was stereotypical Manc. Of course, most teachers aren't bossy and most Mancs don't moan (at least, not incessantly) but I think all stereotypes contain a smidgen of truth. (Some of my relatives and best friends, etc etc!)

The football hooligan in my head has decided if she ever attacks me again, I'm going to glass her. The opera snob in me emphasises this will be only with a broken champagne bottle. But more seriously...I doubt she reads the internet, let alone this blog, but, just in case, consider this a warning - one step out of line and I will escalate this.

* a friend was next to a 'little old lady' with elbow-powered opera glasses pumping up and down as elbow dug into my friend. What you can do? I asked my friend rhetorically. She demonstrated by shrinking her body uncomfortably. She would have been 'well within her rights' politely to request Little Old Lady to stop pumping, but there are social niceties that make one hesitate! Other friends have endured smelly people, sleeping people, talkers, man-flu victims, you name it

** I don't imagine for a moment they would actually do something, but in my mind is the principle that if everyone reports grossly anti-social or criminal behaviour (actually, yes, I was assaulted), a pattern would emerge and eventually the person would become non grata