Category Archives: music

Verdi week

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Last night the first, Nabucco, (delayed) live from the Royal Opera House in our local cinema. Only the third time I have seen it. This casting was terrific, with Liudmyla Monastyrska almost stealing the show with her chillingly acted, beautifully sung Abigaile. Her voice is built for the biggest Verdi soprano roles, I gather her Aida and Lady Macbeth were a knockout and she can act. I can’t wait to see her live. The only reason she didn’t walk off with the audience entirely was that Domingo was singing Nabucco.

I fell for Domingo way back when he took a production of Ballo and just turned it around by making ‘Amelia’ (Katia Ricciarelli) fall in love with him on stage as we listened and watched. I would have accepted him whispering the role of Nabucco, but he gave it everything, passionate, touching, strong and weak, in the third act there was a long sustained note held as the orchestra died away – there was not a quaver in his voice as he held it. EG said he had his heart in his mouth worrying about him remembering lines or sustaining quite so heavy a new role at his age, but I think such an old dog has enough know-how to cover any dicey moments.

The other lead voices were all beautifully balanced, and although I might have indented for a slighter Fenena, her voice and acting fitted the role perfectly. Perhaps the greatest feature of this production was the direction of the chorus. With all the cameras on them, there was never a moment when their concentration faltered. They were in role from start to finish. Va Pensiero was simply, yet passionately handled and the soft fade at the end was the sweetest I have ever heard. It was impossible to detect when the sound ceased.

I fear I could go on at even greater length, it must have worked more magic on me than I anticipated.

Mozart plus and minus

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Opera on DVD last night with friends, Marriage of Figaro (Mozart), one of the best recordings of all time from the Royal Opera House with Pappano and a great cast. Singing blissful, much enhanced by sublime acting and seriously good direction. Only problem is I always forget how long this opera is. I love Mozart at any one minute white listening, but… the music always seems to live within some kind of constraint that, for me, makes it less fulfilling than, say, Verdi, or Mahler. I am well aware that Mozart is sacrosanct and that stylistically he is of his period (and a great innovator within it), still, the fact remains, that I can admire, even feel faint at the beauty of it, but don’t have the same feel of new horizons found, or enlargement of mind and senses as I do with, say, Verdi.

Not the most coherent analysis – and I am not a musician – just trying to put inchoate feelings into words. I guess that’s what writers try to do.

Mahler and garden ghosts

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White souls have been inhabiting the garden last two mornings. These rather beautiful ghosts are the frost covers that I wrap around vulnerable plants that are just coming into new leaf. And yes, I know I should only grow hardy plants, but sometimes the tender growth on tree peonies gets zapped and one of the great joys of spring is waiting for the oh-so-slow buds to open into fragile cabbage-sized blooms. I am equally soppy about the new growth on my maples. In fact I go a little gaga each spring as I watch the leaves unfolding (and again in autumn as they blaze before dying).

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Last night was a treat beyond description. We had recorded a performance of Mahler 1, conducted by Simon Rattle with the Berlin Phil, in Singapore. I am a Mahler addict anyway, but this was so beautiful, intense and powerful, that I cannot imagine a more fulfilling experience. I so much prefer to have my heart beating too fast because of a musical crescendo than because a foolish character in fiction or TV drama is blatantly putting themselves in danger and we are invited to watch their downfall.

Shattering, but immensely satisfying day playing with bricks. The brick paving on the drive was washed so all the sand has gone. Over the twenty years they have been there many bricks have sunk and there are bad, wobbly patches. I found I could extract the bad bricks, introduce sharp sand and make them level again. I have also been robbing the bricks from the area that is being redone (THEY START TOMORROW – only a week later than scheduled) and my brick paths can progress at last. The garden is a war zone now, with piles of earth, turfs, pots full of uprooted shrubs and bulbs, bags of rubble and sand.

The birds are unfazed and nesting industriously. The early martins have stayed and settled and are burbling away outside the bedroom window.

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On Thursday I did some serious work on Border Line and managed to post another submission yesterday. I don’t plan to talk about politics in this blog, but the events in Boston and elsewhere have made an uncomfortable backdrop to our domestic and very lucky and privileged lives.