I am a liminal being

THEATRE OF REVENGE

2012-01-30T13:38:00.017+11:00

Bookending the Faust (the New York Met's take on Gounod/Barbier et Carré after Goethe) were two plays which made that production (bubbled away in the moral vacuum of a dream sequence where the solution to anything is, well, anything) seem to be bordering on banal. The music is French sensuous, and the story one of mendacity, lust, passion and scandalous impregnation. Oh, the potential. Without my theatrical counterpoints, I might have been more easily satisfied dramatically, as I was musically.

Because it's rather nice about now to slot a picture into a post, here's the never married Johann Wolfgang von Goethe with his friend if not soul-mate Friedrich Schiller, both standing tall outside the Court Theatre in Weimar.

Goethe holds a laurel wreath, his hand gently resting on Schiller's shoulder. The bond is palpable.

Now, here's the post.

Cheek by Jowl have a travelling global roadshow of " 'Tis Pity She's a Whore", after the Jacobean John Ford - a blood-revenge drama of incestuous pregnancy, forced marriage, self-poisoning by switched chalices, and finally cardiac evisceration - take that you whore! With the touring British production, director Declan Donnellan and designer Nick Promerod deliver a stylish contemporary update of an oldie-but-a-goodie. The setting is Annabella (sister of Giovanni - you know the rest) sitting on her bed, laptop open, ipod plugged in as the audience enters the theatre, and her world. The story was well delivered, although I found much of the dialogue hard to catch, not least because of the strong contemporary cadence of the British english, a broken jerking legato-less style, and the slight voiced Annabella of Lydia Watson. And when it was over, the blood spilt and the deed done, what pleased me was the return from off-stage of a fully alive Annabella, her hand outstretched to her brother still holding the avulsed heart.

Forgiveness I thought. Understanding. Understanding is forgiveness. How marvelous. When later I mentioned this to someone-who-knew I learnt that in fact the intent was to confirm that, yes you guessed it, it was all a dream. It does make it work, but at the same time I can't help but feel it moves the whole moral imperative to a lesser space.

This will give you the texture of the production.

Next came "Thyestes", after Seneca (the father of the revenge play) presented by Belvoir written by Thomas Henning, Chris Ryan, Mark Winter (the three actors) and Simon Stone (director). Thyestes is the story of the House of Artreus, as the director details (not for the faint-hearted, as Bette Davis said about old age).

Remember Argamemnon? Remember revenge begets revenge? Well, Argamemnon is the son of Artreus!

In this piece of contemporary theatre where there is no escape from the immediate reality that this is now, they are us, we are of them, it could be me, it is me, where the script is written to be improvised each night, where all the roles are played by males, you are faced with the black comedy of the vileness of the human condition. I was stunned. They speak not the text of Seneca, but the vernacular of contemporary Australia, brilliantly using parallel circumstance on the moral spectrum to prize open the raw truth that there is no difference in degree, in time, or in place.

If you were taught at school that to covet is to steal, if you have ever wondered if to wish someone dead is to kill, if attack is attack and the slightest of same is the greatest of same, then you have some insight into how this is played out. "These myths are real". Genius in concept and execution is all I can say. And you don't have to take my word for it.

A G rated example (and there's not many of them) is the scene where Seneca writes of Pelopia, mother of Aegisthus and second wife of Artreus, having discovered the identity of Aegisthus' real father (Pelopia's own father, Thysestes - sorry, not so G rated after all) kills herself. All this is explained in surtitle text before the scene opens, wherein Pelopia (remember played by male, jeans and t shirt) sits at a grand piano which appeared from nowhere on a sparse white set with no flies and no wings, and sings (beautifully but I'm not sure what key) Schubert's 'Der Doppelgänger'.

The night is quiet, the streets are calm

In this house my beloved once lived

She has long since left the town

But the house still stands, here in the same place.

A man stands there also, and looks to the sky

And wrings his hands overwhelmed by pain

Upon seeing his face I am terrified -

The moon shows me my own form.

O you Dopplegänger! you pale comrade!

Why do you ape the pain of my love

Which tormented me upon this spot

So many nights, so long ago

The great Richard Tauber, tenor

The great Feodor Chaliapin, bass

K is home safely, and I / we are going again.

OUT AND ABOUT - FAUST

2012-01-28T23:11:00.015+11:00

I've been on the town.

There was the Met HD Faust at the local. And not bad at all it was. The seats are comfortable, the crowd small and predictable, and the sound satisfactory, if not great. The orchestra seemed to come forward from the sound stage a small way, but the voices were trapped and sitting back behind the screen. I guess it was the mixing. And as for speakers, consider me spoilt. (By the way, K is back from CES and Cal-I-forn-I-ay on Monday, and I think I've blown up a tweeter in the country; timing will be everything when I break that news.)

There was Jonas Kaufmann, handsome dark voiced tenor-de-jour; René Pape, oozing personality in the Méphistophélés role for which he is well famous; an attractively frail bewildered Marina Poplavskaya as the now-you''ll-think-I'm-awful-in-the-morning and don't tell-my-brother-about-the-baby Marguerite; and a terrific performance from Russell Braun as da brother.

The real star was the little giant in the pit: the completely amazing Yannick Néset-Séguin. The orchestra was superb and it was all so ... so French. I envy Philadelphia. The production I didn't care for - nuclear physicist, Fat-Boy the work of the devil of course (nice try but I'd leave that commentary in the hands of Mr Adams), although the factory scaffolding set had its moments of menace with everyone caught in its cold steeliness. And yes, it was just a dream, with 'dopplegänging'. Well, yes it is a dream, but that's not the way it works. Barbara Willis Sweete's handling of the filming and editing was restrained, with more long shots, and quite beautiful in parts, and that was a pleasant surprise.

It began of course in the Auerbach's Keller in Leipzig where Goethe and the lads drank and rumbled. It's now a popular touristy spot ...

... complete with the legendary magician riding the barrel out,

and murals tell Goethe's story (perspective can be seen in the first photograph above).

Here's Jonas Kaufmann's (quite dark, germanic, and a little pushed but very effective) "Salut, demeure chaste et pure ..."

And now, the fabulous Franco Corelli for how the Italians do it (and Bonynge was much more a natural in the French repertoire)

Finally, Georges Thill flies the tricolour for the home team

More Out and About and dopplegänging tomorrow ...

PICTURE AT AN EXHIBITION

2012-01-26T15:29:00.012+11:00

I'm a reasonably curious person. It may have started with the impact of reading "On Death and Dying" by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, the remarkable psychiatrist who was the first I think to help me regularly contemplate my own death.

I was struck, and still am, by the recurring message of those who had had near-death experiences that the insight gained in their 'transition' was that our purpose here was to seek knowledge and to know love. I once looked after someone who had such an experience and the sincerity and clarity of her recall, once she trusted me, was beyond convincing; whatever the physiological processes and/or metaphysics involved, cause doesn't matter in light of the outcome.

Now I am a little bit wiser about what she (and they) meant by knowledge and love, and surely that doesn't need any elaboration. I think I have found my source; more another time. But I did absorb some thirst for learning and experience which has pushed me in pursuit of anything but treading water, risking maybe lack of depth in the drive to embrace too much - grazing might cover it.

Where was I? Curiousity. Like enrolling in courses. It's not just the subject matter but the other insights of who, when and where. Like the photography courses last year, of which there were three. I had a camera, and it worked on automatic. But what I didn't know about was who taught photography, who went to photography classes, and what else you could learn there, other than something about how to use the camera. I didn't realise how completely impossible it is to predict what other students (about ten per class) would be bringing to class each week in our assignments; how poor my judgements, dangerous judgements, would be in imagining their view of the world. As a learning experience that itself was enough.

So there were assignments, four per course, and at the end of each course a student could submit what they considered their best shot for consideration to be hung at the end of term student exhibition. That in itself holds many lessons - the need or not for approval, for one.

The first photo I submitted (Camera Craft 1) was an attempt to be too clever by half. It would be a shot of the (very patient) dog in front on a mirror without a reflection and it took forever to set up and work out. It wasn't selected to hang.

Next was Adobe Light Room. I was quite chuffed that I had negotiated my way through it all, and at the end could produce a triptych (from Dresden, beautiful Dresden, and labelled what's more) for all the world to see. It wasn't selected.

Finally, with Camera Craft 2 I made it to the wall with a shot of a man desperate to sell a flower to two Japanese women sitting street-side in front and just below us in a little French restaurant. K was mortified that I would dare bring the camera in but 'being there' was one of the requirements of this particular assignment. It's all about the lighting, and that was all about chance.

I can't help myself - I started German lessons last night. Fascinating teacher, a woman from Iran who has been living in Sydney for a year, and an interesting group of students, bipolar in age, one of whom came up to me and said "I know that (my) name, are you friends of ....." Here we go.

LITTLE LEAF

2012-01-21T21:57:00.007+11:00

The courtyard tree is the city is a Chinese Elm, Ulmus parvifolia, a pretty deciduous elm from China and the East. It is hardy with an upright trunk of attractive flaking reddish browny tan bark and the branches arch and spread like umbrella spokes and in summer contain the little yard in a luscious green.

Parvi-folia: little leaf, poor insignificant leaf. It is a lovely leaf I think, small and delicate, with slightly serrated margins and strong ribbing to give it strength, and character. Now, we are just one month past the midsummer solstice, and already age is wearying them though autumn seems so distant still.

Some are falling with a full compliment of chlorophyll, green, and settle and wither on the table alongside my favorite rocks.

But with each day, more and more are yellowing, their energy systems run down, and lighter drift in the air. And in the breeze and float their fall is broken by the delicate lacework of the spiders whose lacy webs stretch from most unlikely place to most unlikely place.

The spiders and their webs are welcome (if not that sticky surprise on your face) and now with markers, are so much easier to dodge and preserve.

BACK IN TIME

2012-01-19T20:32:00.014+11:00

Yesterday afternoon I took to the bed for a well-earned rest and a good read. The afternoon heat and humidity were building up. Outside the screen doors the house gum tree was throwing its shadow across the grass and I was back a few centuries, having moved on from the she-wolf, beyond the origin of 'patrician' and 'pleb', hadn't laughed at what SPQR doesn't stand for (humour is not one of Mr Hughes strong points, of which there are more than enough) and was settling into early Rome (and that section of the book that apparently one must read with a certain degree of caution) when ... around the corner came ... Jurassic Park.

I'm sure he's the same one I've seen before, briefly, and at a distance and rather more in the wild. But here he was, this huge Goanna, wondering across the lawn in search of food which I assume would be birds, mice and lizards (at least ones smaller than he) tongue, forked as you can see, darting in and out, shoulders humping as he swung himself forward (there's no way I can refer to this fantastic creature as anything but male), taking his time but not wasting any either.

There have always been swallows nesting in the corners of the (for want of a better expression) car-port. A week ago I noticed these lovely swooping little birds had suddenly disappeared and the nests, as best I could see from the ground, were empty. I think the explanation just walked across the lawn.

A WEEKEND IN THE ...

2012-01-07T19:53:00.017+11:00

No sooner had the lawns been mown, and I was sitting on the verandah in admiration (it has been a good summer for lawns) than they were back, those tense little bundles of energy, 'Robin Yellow Breasts' - the Eastern Yellow Robin. Maybe it was cutting the grass, or perhaps they knew the weather was building up and carpe diem etc, but after a noticeable absence, there they were perched as usual just high enough to be safe and still within easy dart-down-grab-grub-and-get-back-quickly distance.

A few metres is their range, and they favour the verandah posts or the low branches of the eco (tall and spreading enough to give summer shade yet let the underslung low winter sun through) eucalypt strategically placed in the north-east angle of the house. Cute and fluffy they maybe from a distance, but a closer look betrays a serious sharp eye on the business of survival.

The weather did build up. While in that first moment of awareness next morning it seemed I'd beaten the sun, the darkness was a sky heavy with storm clouds. By the time I was back in bed with a cup of tea and Julian Barnes (I can't wait to finish it but don't want it to stop and every word is to dwell upon) it was raining. Millie had no book, no tea, and was off as usual to inspect the remains of the night, with that moist black nose and its sensory depth of field telling her who and what had been, where, even when, and should she be lucky, might be slow still escaping the dawn.

Julian Barnes: his latest contribution to Intelligent Life is "Where Sibelius Fell Silent".

"There are two famous silences in the history of classical music: those of Rossini and Sibelius. Rossini's lasted nearly 40 years, was a worldly, cosmopolitan silence, much of it spent in Paris, during which time he co-invented tournedos Rossini. Sibelius's, which lasted nearly 30 years, was more austere, self-punishing and site-specific; and whereas Rossini finally yielded again to music, writing the late works he referred to as "the sins of my old age", Sibelius was implcacble. He fell silent, and remained silent."

If you haven't yet, make the pilgrimage. Stare into that fireplace, as Julian Barnes:

Between storms we've had our walk now, and the weather is lifting a little. The humidity is up and there's primal tongues of mist rising from the gully. You can see that rough barked grey gum where the robins wait near the house.

BWEAKFAST

2012-01-06T12:37:00.010+11:00

What a difference. I'm back in the country for a few days and this morning was cool, misty and quiet. As the kettle boiled, feeding had already started outside.

It looks like he's in the flowering wattle, but the wattle is not his fare. The Gang Gangs and King Parrots feed on the wattle seeds. This big bird, the Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo (Calyptorhynchus funereus - funereus!) eats big. He's after the hardening seeds of the shrubby Banksia spinulosa, the hairpin banksia - a native to this area. I've mass planted them all around the house.

There's ruff ends left on the plant and and an excess of rejected or spilt seeds underneath. 'Waste not want not' we would have been chastened at the table. A closer look at a half eaten seed capsule shows it's not that unlike corn on the cob after all.

NEW YEAR RESOLUTION

2012-01-03T22:29:00.014+11:00

Here we are idling into the new year. Sydney is enjoying the most glorious weather of perfect days in the high twenties and a light onshore breeze with not a hint of any heavy humidity. And the nights are mild and somehow soft, windows wide open, lying under a single sheet, the ceiling fan on a slow revolve. The frangipani in the front yard has just started dropping its flowers, heady white whorls with yellow throats, mostly onto the footpath over which it hangs.

Everything and everyone seems to be moving in slow motion, even at the pool, where we swim each morning now.

There's few films worth going out for but last night we settled for Melancholia which at least sounded interesting and had ruffled a few feathers one way or another. It was entertaining, in that I didn't fall asleep, and I suppose well enough acted, but not one premise, not one character (well, except for that Charlotte Rampling mother, whose biting dismissal of marriage cut through the rest of the dross) and especially not the self-conscious self-indulgent art direction had any impact on me at all. And as for its metaphysics, well there wasn't any. I thought it a load of crap. I even thought the editing was rubbish, and I don't often venture there. Oh, yes, the sound track. Over and over and over, T & I, till you wanted to scream, like Mum did when I was my Roy Orbison phase: Turn that damn thing off will you.

Note to self: you still haven't seen The Eye of The Storm - Charlotte Rampling, Geoffrey Rush, Judy Davis at al and Fred Schepsi bring Patrick White to the screen with great acclaim - no mean feat that.

(Charlotte Rampling as Elizabeth in The Eye of The Storm)

This wasn't helped I'm sure by arriving just a few minutes before screening into a nearly full (small local) cinema with a few empty rows at the front (beyond my neck let alone eyes) and scattered singles throughout. I spotted two seats up the back - one on the aisle (seat 1), then a popcorn eating young male (seat 2) with crossed leg extending into seat 1, then the other empty seat (seat 3). There was no option but to take a stand. I approached him to see a glass of wine on the floor of seat 3. "Is that seat taken?"I ventured. The head moved sluggishly to one side with no attempt to rearrange himself or his spreading person. "Then, I proposed, it seems the options are we sit either side of you, or perhaps you could move up one". "I'd prefer neither" he shot back. By this time heads had turned, and blessedly one of the gay couple (seats 4 and 5) rescued the situation with "We'll happily move along for you". K got to sit next to the unhappy chap and I was next to the happy gay fellow, or is that fellow gay, who slept through most of it, his boy friend rubbing his arm.

One of the more memorable films I've seen lately (at home on video) was the surprising, in fact startling, "Requiem for a Dream". I was surprised, startled, because I'd forgotten the book on which it is based was by the man who wrote "Last Exit to Brooklyn" (that rattled even the British establishment in the late 60s), and knew nothing of Hubert Selby Jnr's (1928 - 2004) story. Some of it is here.

It is a potent and beautifully made film about the curse of existence - attachment - the curse of the ego. Needs. In this case, stretched into addiction, of the less legal kind. No less cruel or destroying than legal addictions, they are all much the same, a wicked disguise of the truth that is our essence - these things will not fulfill.

Here is Hubert Selby Jnr interviewed by Ellen Burstyn, the film's star (might I suggest you give him time, there are some messages worth waiting for)

Should he interest you, the rest are follow-ons on youtube, easy to find.

Meanwhile, in another exploration of attachment, here is the very special Yvonne Minton (I saw the child at the mother's breast - Act 2 Sc 2 Parsifal - all attachments bring suffering, even a mother's for her child):

BACKYARD FLOWERS

2011-12-27T22:33:00.008+11:00

On Christmas eve we had a drink with J (J was the first letter in this blog) and D in their old sandstone house in North Sydney. The garden is wonderful, a wild mix of natives and exotics. What was completely captivating was a small stand of huge, almost mutant, sunflowers. They stood about two and a half to three metres, reaching up to the sky, like satellite dishes.

There was no way I could get level with them to peer into their round yellow faces, which is what I wanted to do. I love them. But they're not for picking. The only time I bought some was when we did the church for Dad's funeral. We tried for as many of the flowers he grew and so in amongst the more traditional Sydney suburban flowers, arranged with a free range looseness he always did (and he always did the house flowers; Mum would be the one who collected a single bloom of whatever for each place at the table, on occasions, like Christmas, or when visitors came) were some bright yellow sunflowers which he used to grow in the country garden into which I was born and first got dirt under my nails and the smell of wet earth in my nostrils.

Funny how it all came flooding back, not the flower so much as the context, the backyard-ness of it. Not even in France, well especially not in France, were such memories stirred.

On Boxing day we popped into Jy's for coffee and to meet her new grandson. Jy was the birthday girl on Lord Howe Island. Bursting out in her inner city little backyard was this brilliant flowering grafted west coast gum, a Corymbia ficifolia I think, a fabulous explosion of drag queen pink.

Thanks to Mr Apple and the i-phone, that's a camera in my pocket.

IT'S CHRISTMAS

2011-12-24T07:40:00.001+11:00

TO HIS OWN

2011-12-23T13:32:00.012+11:00

You have to be quick. The moment I step outside, the Rosellas are off, Crimson Rosellas mostly, squatting on their stumpy little legs, beaking out grass roots with no interest in grubs or worms. The Eastern Rosella is less common and altogether more discrete, with softer colours of greens and pale yellows; none of that flashy red and blue. I've yet to see one on the ground - it's usually a swooping fly-past and gone into the trees.

(Crimson Rosella with grass root)

Harder to catch is the English Black Bird. At first glance he could be confused with the Blue Satin Bower Bird, but the latter has a gorgeous lilac eye ring, while the Black Bird's is distinctly yellow.

Perhaps he still feels an intruder and is ever wary, for he's never still, not for more than a second (unlike the parrots which stay at the food source until disturbed) and is forever darting around. He even seems to know he's being watched from inside - looking, skipping away, turning back, a sudden change in direction, watching, off again. He like grubs, nice fleshy ones.

The especially handsome King Parrot, as we saw yesterday, is a seed berry guy, and considerably more photo-friendly. A poser in fact.

THE KING PARROT

2011-12-21T21:24:00.012+11:00

Polly came today. I was talking on my mobile phone on the verandah when he just flew in. And all alone too. The King-Parrots often, or rather mostly, pop around in pairs or threes, as as such, when one gets spooked, off they all wing. I sometimes wonder if this is some diversion game as not infrequently one or two will return shortly and while I can't be sure, I do wonder if the pecking order has been changed.

Anyway, there he was, sitting directly in front of me, and in a eye-to-eye exchange served notice that he expected food.

The dog, as we'll see soon, happened to be inside and confidence and trust was running high outside. I should say these parrots are the most forthcoming of them all, usually ping-pinging their way from tree to tree approaching the house, then settling close by waiting, and waiting, expectantly. This beautiful thing came sound unheard.

I think preemptive feeding of native animals is a bit of a selfish indulgence, risking upsetting the natural order of things, the food chain. So you'll find lots here providing an abundance in the local diet - wattles for seed, grasses for grubs and beetles, lilies for berries. These days, with the wattle in seed and the grass moist from constant drizzle there's lots of Gang-gangs , Rozellas, Whip birds, Blue Satinn Bower Birds, Grey shrike-thrush, Robins, Willie Wag-tails, and most visible of all - the common (English) Black Bird, with a soft limpid song at complete odds to the calls and shreaks of the true locals.

Anyway, today it was Polly, up close. I confess I do just happen to have a box of seed in the pantry for just such a special occasion. I ducked inside for a small handful of seed (not too much), the camera, and a stern word to the dog.

I deliberately kept my portion small, and sure enough, when done he went straight on to the berries of the seeding Dianella caerulea (native blueberry lilly) spilling over the verandah's edge.

Meanwhile, you-know-who was sitting patiently inside salivating pools onto the floor.

BIG AND SMALL II

2011-12-19T12:22:00.019+11:00

Sydney's summer (and Bill Gates vacation) has been ambushed by the Girl-Child. It's generally cool, cloudy, and wet, despite the few days of dazzling blue sky, which only reinforce what we're not having. I've had one swim only so far, and not one showing of the body-less-beautiful at the beach. Never mind.

So it's all rather indoorsy. There is the not to be overlooked blockbuster at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the 'entire' contents of the Musée Picasso, Paris (closed for renovation) and certainly more than I've managed to see on repeated visits to same. 150 works are superbly displayed, and yet again, one visit is not enough. It's strange to see them dislocated from their more natural ambiance. It makes them even more arresting. I was pretty much drained after two hours, which is about my gallery limit at this level of intensity, and still one room to go.

Here's the about to retire, sadly, Edmond Capon doing a bit of publicity and giving some of his thoughts on the man and his work.

Bookings are heavy. Book in advance.

Not so far away, tucked among the gentrified Victorian terraces of Paddington is the Sherman Contempory Art Foundation founded by Brian Sherman whose son Emile was, you may remember, the producer of The King's Speech.

In this one room there was to be found, until the weekend just past, a deceptively simple installation by Tokujin Yoshioka: Waterfall. In an unintended diversion on the way to the greengrocer, shoes covered with paper slip-ons, I heard myself make a little gasp when I walked in, totally taken aback by the simplicity and beauty and silence - a quantum change from the just outside bustling.

With thousands of straws, Tokujin Yoshioka fills the room with the appearance of billowing soft clouds of transparent water particles, to walk though and sit amongst, in tribute to the greatness of nature and the beauty in that greatness.

Tokujin Yoshioka's world is here.

BIG AND SMALL

2011-12-15T21:02:00.005+11:00

Gross und Klein (Botho Strauss, 1978, Berlin) is nothing if not a 'star vehicle' and in Cate Blanchett it has a very starry star indeed. And incredibly, she's on stage for something like three hours each performance, then home to three children, eight times a week, week after week, while co-artistic director of the Sydney Theatre Company as well. I am in awe.

She seems so hardworking, so sensible, so balanced and yet so naturally glamorous that affectation never blips on the radar, and most of all, she is possessed of this extraordinary talent to assume a character in such a seamless almost mysterious way that the art and craft of her craft and art dissolve. It is a thing of beauty. This is a beautiful performance, far more so for me than the last time I saw her, in a much acclaimed but less convincing (for me) Blanche in Streetcar. Not that she wasn't good. She's always good.

Perhaps it's the language (translation and adaptation by Martin Crimp) with mixed vernacular and straight text laced with German names and ultimately a universal voice for a universal dilemma - the search for meaning and truth in the banality of the everyday. Perhaps it's the character, a disconnected Lotte, in a disconnected city is a disconnected world, who finds no meaning in the meaningless of existence and therein some salvation. As dysfunctional as she first seems, it is she who ultimately sees that the insanity is not within her but around here.

I was not ever less than riveted, and sometimes overcome, as in the final scene, where Lotte, hunched perfectly still, almost transparent, out-of-body for a time, now a spirit (Cate does transparent better than anyone, ever - helped by Nick Schlieper's lighting and Johannes Schütz's set design which are just stunningly effective) as the characters of her world sit motionless alongside her, each chillingly called offstage by name through a cold soulless intercom, as if to execution, none returning. When the doctor (for we are in fact in his waiting room) finding her when he imagined his day was done enquires as to her purpose, she closes the play (almost) with:

"I'm just here. There's nothing wrong with me"

That I could be so wise.

It is not to everyone's taste. One hears things like 'well I just didn't understand it, and we didn't go back after interval" That's the whole point surely. Tell me anyone who understands this thing called existence and I'll show you a very advanced spirit. There has been some criticism of the director (Benedict Andrews for an unable-to-travel Luc Bondy) but that is beyond my level of theatrical maturity. I just found it profound and true to my sensibilities.

I was on the phone first thing next morning and scored two returns for this week. To hear the text, to be transfixed by Cate B again, as for example in the mesmerising moment when the black stage holds nothing but a metallic phone box (lit from within with Lotte dialling haplessly out) starts to slowly rotate and drift, that incredible face and body shape of Cate Blanchett, revolving around before us, now visible now not, drifting away, in a scene that took me right back to that moment in Kubrick's 2001 where the astronaut is cut adrift in space and spins out of control in a fusion of complete horror and incredible beauty.

This 'production' will be reprised in London next year as part of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad (oxymoronic to some I know). I wonder if Luc Bondy will be re-involved.

THE DAME SANS PAREIL

2011-12-12T01:26:00.008+11:00

I've just discovered this. If ever you've wondered what the fuss was all about, wonder no longer. Heavens knows where this is from, cos the heavens are the source. It is early Joan, peak Joan, perfect Joan, unsurpassed Joan. How often is stunning bandied around? Well, even for an old Joan diehard like me, this is completely amazing, technically incredible, crisp diction, infused with emotion, and with her trademark brilliant shining top.

LAST CONCERT FOR 2011

2011-12-10T18:01:00.015+11:00

(source: via the australian)

The SSO's concert year ended with the lively and idiomatic Osmo Vänskä at the helm. I can't remember having seen him before (this being his third visit) but on Friday's showing I'm sure I haven't. He's most memorable. And he happens to be my Sibelius man of choice - Finnish that he is - someone who knows his way around that place, that garden, that house and that soul.

"What secrets of musical emotion does Vänskä possess?" asks a moist eyed Alex Ross. I'm the least to be able to contribute to that question, but whatever he is open to, however he hears a work, he knows how to take the orchestra, and thence us, with him. Thankfully. And it unlikely you've been there before. (I've just given myself this little present for Christmas which fills in a few small holes in my Osmo collection.)

As it was on Friday night - somewhere I'd not been before I mean. The Tchaikovsky Symphonic Ballad, the turbulent disturbing Voyevoda was a first hearing, as was the Prokofiev Symphony-Concerto for cello and orchestra, with a dazzling debut by the American cellist Alisa Weilerstein, and moreover, as was the Eroica, Osmo Vänskä's Erioca that is. It was (cliche warning) like hearing it for the first time. The Allegro con brio was very brio, a startlingly cracking pace to launch this very personal and very satisfying look at an old warhorse, with extraordinary use of dynamics and a perfectly balanced sound shining new light here, there, everywhere. The critics enthuse here and here.

The orchestra has moved into marketing mode for the end of the year and the end of its Mahlerfest. This promo is worth watching just for the much loved Diana Doherty's wide-eyed take on Mahler and Mr Ashkenazy - the 'little duracell bunny'. And, yes, I'm a buyer.

Yet, there's another recording I'd really love - the three new works Osmo Vänskä introduced me to on Friday night, as I think would many in the full hall (its tourist time in town). If only.

KEN RUSSELL'S ELGAR

2011-11-30T23:23:00.004+11:00

Ken Russell (1927-2011) was nothing if not confrontational, often of the sledge-hammer variety. Now I'd hate to suggest he peaked early, but if there's one film of his that I don't ever want to be without, it's his 1962 BBC documentary portrait of Sir Edward Elgar. The stunning black and white photography of the Malvern Hills is alone enough.

See what I mean:

RESURRECTING MAHLER

2011-11-28T12:17:00.006+11:00

Well, that's that. The Sydney Symphony Orchestra / Ashkenazy 'Mahler Odyssey' ended on Monday with the final of four performances of the Second. While the ninth and incomplete tenth hold the secrets to where Mahler's thoughts and emotions were finally focused, the ninth was rightly played on the centenary of his death, and so this huge dramatic and overtly Christian version of 'what might happen' made a fine ending for us, if not for Mahler. Thanks for the massive journey to all involved. It's a rare privilege, a once in a lifetime dare I cliche, to get the 'lot' in such good hands. Now let's hope we don't pay for it with years of abstinence - there's no Mahler for 2012. I know there's been new Mahler aficionados and converts gathered so we need a steady feed, like more of the less familiar (down here) 6, 7 and 9 please.

If you missed the Second (and by the way, Saturday was much tighter, and a good deal more moving - read teary-eyed in S stalls, the apex of the perfect triangle in the hall - than Friday), you can hear and watch it on demand, right here.

The performance will be released on CD (Saturday as played would be just fine) but in the meantime, no collection of Mahler should be without this staggering live performance of the Second with a ravishingly beautiful Yvonne Kenny at her very best. And it's about 14 minutes slower than the legendary Klemperer which is not the least of the reasons it packs such a mighty emotional punch. Look around the buy sites - I'm not linking to Amazon or the like as my account details come up - can't have that.

ANTICIPATING

2011-11-25T16:38:00.005+11:00

"Hers is a voice of the earth with deeply embodied richness of sound, alabaster smoothness and the sort of diction where word and tone become one."

So says Peter McCallum. There are three more nights - tonight, tomorrow and Monday. We're going tonight and tomorrow. Here she is, pulsing like something in a far off galaxy.

IT'S TIME

2011-11-25T16:21:00.003+11:00

I'm not sure what we would do. We fought for the legality of our existence and the end of persecution. Our lives are organised and we are blessed with loving families.

Those in our footsteps now have their battle, and they will win. There are times when I agree with Lilli Tomlin - 'who wants to be like them' - but then the importance of this recognition to the generations behind me is not for me to dispute.

LUXURY SMUCHSHERY

2011-11-23T14:52:00.005+11:00

The background to the staggeringly inept gormless episode is here. It's hard to imagine any organisation so out of touch with consumer sentiment.

Anyway, thanks to Sir Roger (Migently), this has popped up. Have a giggle before it disappears.

YESTERDAY

2011-11-15T13:37:00.004+11:00

Early morning in the country

Late afternoon in the city

4.3 MILLION DOLLARS

2011-11-14T10:19:00.005+11:00

From the Guardian is this story of the most expensive photograph ever sold - Andreas Gursky's Rhine II. I find its harrowing minimalism hypnotic.

As someone steeped in naive purism, not to mention ignorance, I was (though shouldn't have been) a little shocked to discover just how much digital alteration had been used in getting the required look.

"... the artist carefully digitally removed any intrusive features ... until it was bleak enough to satisfy..."

I've at last overcome the block that held me captive to the folly that creativity began at the tripod and ended in the darkroom. These days, digital tools are just that - tools. For people who say, oh the computer did that, well it didn't. The artist behind the computer did that.

So, I start off on my third course tonight at the Australian Centre for Photography - Adobe Lightroom. That it is five weeks of one three-hour class a week was enough to convince me that there's a lot more here than can be found in the early entry digital tools of (say) i-photo.

WHERE WAS I?

2011-11-13T23:18:00.005+11:00

Hello. I just somehow disappeared, not without trace but without apologies. Sorry.

Yes, I've been busy and there'll be a brief rundown on the lost few weeks for diary's sake soon. One thing I've discovered is that blogging is a habit, and a discipline. I think I'm back again, with mostly all good news to come.

A lot of the time has been gobbled up doing a photography course, and of that there's lots to say. But this is just to reignite my fire, and there's no better way than a snap I took during the week in Centennial Park. Of course it's Millie, in a photo I wouldn't have been able to take ten weeks ago, or if I did, would have most likely overlooked or deleted. It's taken with a new (and remarkably good value) lens, a Canon prime (fixed length) 1.8 50 mm.

I think the teacher would say the good points of the shot are that the action is running left to right, into the 'space', the blurring gives a sense of movement as well as concentrates and exaggerates the main subject, the composition has interest, incompleteness invites and engages the imagination, and most of all, there's a story at work. As the course evolved, the emphasis kept on coming back to telling a story.

LIFE GOES ON

2011-08-22T09:22:00.009+10:00

That blog title had already been written on the weekend as I'd muddled through a few thoughts about Friday's Sydney Symphony's Shostakovich 7th and Brahms double concerto. 'Life goes on' is one phrase attributed to or associated with Shostakovich and The Leningrad.

Then, the news - D's husband Jk died on Saturday and that his struggle was in part the content of my first post on this little memory lane of mine is not the least of the reasons for recording it here now. We, D and I, often spoke about what was going on with Jk. He was a cardiac cripple, and a vasculopath (all blood vessels rooted, as one vernacular said to the other) and I suspect had a malignancy of the male kind with secondaries in his spine. He had lately needed regular morphine for pain. He was desperate to die and there was desperateness in D's voice on Friday when we went over it all again, and again, death and some of its precipitants.

The sms tom-toms were beating yesterday, and she will be happy for him I know, both of them now released.

He was a man of the sea. They met in the Bahamas, sailed the world together, the last years shipwrecked by illness. She is a woman of enormous common sense, hardworking, down to earth, and suffers fools poorly and dishonesty even less. No bullshit with D. A few months ago, on a glorious Sydney Indian summers day, she organised a luncheon at the Squadron, his other home, and he brushed up pretty well for what was effectively the last hurrah. She'll give him back to the sea I expect.

LIVE, BUY ME LIVE

2011-08-21T13:23:00.019+10:00

The Sydney Symphony Orchestra concert last friday was particularly memorable. The Shostakovich 7th, the Leningrad, St Petersburg, as uncomfortable a bloodied city as any to visit. Then add the Brahms double concerto, add Alban Gerhardt returning, add a gorgeous violinist making a debut, and add a young, rather tall extremely long-limbed Russian conductor also making a debut, and you have a recipe for wanting to go twice, or three times. I checked this idea through, only to find that of the three performances, two were matinees, which I found a bit odd.

Here's a very engaging Vasily Petrenko, talking about Russia today, then, himself, and the 7th:

The Brahms double gets pretty evocative for me, stamped with childhood memories, vinyl spinning on the stereo in the front room, and now I can't listen to it without going back. Which I did. Into the garden, the music overflowing out the sitting room windows, past the Magnolia denudata, in full bloom, on by the big rambling rhododendrons, flowering azaleas and camellias, all the way to the grand old Lady Loch standing tall by the front gate.

Peter McCallum lavishes much praise here, although he seems guarded about the merits of the Shostakovich. I have none of them and none about Mr Petrenko's handling of it. I thought the bolero-esque creep of insidious fascism quite scary, brilliantly managed dynamics and tempo, no risk of crassness, morphing horribly till the beast, the truth, was exposed in a raw mix of awe and terror. I love the middle movements, vast, solid, nostalgic, motherland, a land of broken hearts but not spirits. The violins sounded stunning from where we sat (rear stalls), better than ever and orchestral detail and balance just fine. Again, the pacing of the final movement had more than enough measured momentum and thrill of eventual, at last, finally, exaggerated ambivalent victory.

It was broadcast, and I wished I'd recorded it. Better still, I wish they had recorded it and made it available in the heat of the moment. It was one of those nights, for me. As there has been many others - Armenians lining up for the Sibelius for one, any overseas visitor for another. The technology is out there (I was met with all the why-not reasons when it was raised with the orchestra a few years ago) and happily we met up with it in Cologne in June. There concerts are mixed and recorded live onto disc, and pressed, ready for sale immediately after the concert, within 10 to 15 minutes. In the main foyer they have about six machines, each pressing about six CDs, so delivering about 36 discs every five minutes. You can buy the concert-you-have-just-heard in a CD box for 12 euros, or for 10 euros, stick little nipply things onto the stiffish back leaf of your programme, and clip the CDs there.

You then take home the programme, programme notes, and the live recording, all ready for the music library. Genius. We bought of course, and were out of the hall in no time. Actually, K insisted on going back the next night, just to watch it all working, and buy one more. And believe me, the quality is superb, maybe a case of less is more.

The concert was the Gürzenich Orchestra, Köln, Sir Mark Elder, Sibelius 6 and 7 (not bad, Sibelius played by Germans conducted by an Englishman), and the Mozart Sinfonia Concertante KV 364. It was a stunning night - Maxim Rysanov on viola, Alexander Sitkovetsky on violin. Electric is the word. K said they were in love. Here they are separately, so imagine them together, energetic yet extremely elegant and refined musicianship. And we have the CD(s).

PLEASE EXPLAIN

2011-08-10T15:46:00.007+10:00

There's a few things that jump out at me from the Opera Australia 2012 (that company site takes a fair bit of searching and page turning to work through) launch. Call it getting old, but I no longer have a strong emotional investment in the company. I feel like a seagull, winging around on high, happy to stay a bit remote (that means non subscriber status - I'm just not prepared to part with my money up front anymore) and swoop down for the odd morsel. It's not the way it should be - subscribers are pretty important for keeping the momentum - but it is the way it is.

So, what to make of this :

"The Ring has the right sort of weight for the cultural life of Melbourne, whereas Sydney responds culturally a lot better to opera on the Harbour [where] it's outdoors with lots of fireworks". So says Mr Terracini. Apart from the fact that The Ring is Melbourne's and Melbourne's exclusively has nothing to do with anything except the Wheelans are putting up a few million on the proviso it is just that, Melbourne's, this is the kind of stupid sweeping statement, without basis in fact, ludicrously exaggerating an outsider's myth, that is frankly unbecoming someone getting my tax dollars. But not my subscription.

And then there's arguably the most alarming of all - that what can't be played in the Opera House pit will be played elsewhere and relayed in in 'surround sound'. Like the movies. With Mr Beresford. Wooopeee. Die tote Stadt's required orchestral forces outstrip the capacity of the pit, as for many works, think Verdi, Strauss, Wagner ... Lets think about that - the sound is coming via a mixer, with all the modifications that involves, including dynamics, and then through loudspeakers, with all the distortions and losses that involves. So, at the very least, it is only as good as the speakers, and I'm afraid, as rotten as the sound can be from the pit, that's not good enough. It may at first glance solve some problems, or rather set them aside, but it also sets some worrying precedents.

Frankly, I would rather hear the damn thing live in the concert hall (can't we set up movie screens there?), but that raises the question of would you hear ...mmm.. whoever. Opera in the concert hall has been done before, and done brilliantly. I'm tired of going on about it. And it will be done again. Soon, and sooner rather than later. Actually, Die todt Stadt should be done at the Capitol, but even I understand the problem of booking that place where popular musicals book it out well in advance.

What else. Well, Teddy will sing 34 performances, shirtless no doubt, of South Pacific. On his own. Cheryl gets her husbands head in Melbourne, Wegner in Sydney. Susan Foster sings Turandot in Sydney, the great veteran Elizabeth Connell in Melbourne. Mr La Spina continues as primo spinto rotundo tenore with Radames and Calaf. Just stand still Rosario.

SOMETHING THAT HAPPENED

2011-08-03T12:03:00.007+10:00

Being the biggest blubberer at the opera, ever, I'm was a little surprised, not to mention disappointed, that I was dry-eyed. Well nearly. I got such a shock when George threw Lennie's dead mouse off-stage, and Anthony Dean Griffey's despair was so palpable, that I felt a tear running down my left cheek and it had just started. God, I thought, I'm not going to make it. That however, aside from a few twinges when Curly's wife went limp in Lennies clenching arms, was the emotional highpoint.

The mistake was possibly reading it on the weekend. It is such a beautifully written book, already a play, lean and compact, characters drawn with haunting minimalist word-smithing, and a jabbing use of repetition to evoke and underline. I loved the protagonists and I loved the conceit - that understanding is love - and I loved that JS was born in the same year as my father who as a youngster went jackarooing into the unfenced sheep stations of New South Wales, out in the far west. And by a completely bizarre chance meeting, a photograph recently turned up, sepia'd and worn, but enough to show a tent, a billy, and dad alone except for his dog, Lady. About 1920.

So, over primed, and despite very fine performances, a well honed Lennie by Anthony Dean Griffey in what is arguably his fetish role, a rock solid George by a nearly show stealing Barry Ryan, and for me a quite touching Jacqueline Mavardi in the impossibly difficult scale travelling Curly's wife, it just didn't get me, neither in its portrayal of individuals, nor more importantly in exposing their relationships. My loss I know.

I tended to find it musically counterintuitive to the way I 'heard' the book, like the great crescendos where I yearned for breath-holding silences - putting down the dog, let alone the man - and I was thinking what Peter Sculthorpe would make of this. It was all, not inappropriately I know, very American, and I was struggling with the switch. I ended up playing spot the tune.

Bruce Beresford made it all look and fit well, despite tedious scene changes and slightly cliched stills on the curtain. I actually didn't mind the short movie chase sequence, despite this segment being particularly musically effective, and the one place where visuals weren't really needed at all. However, I'm now wondering if the whole thing might have benefited from using more of his (Bruce Beresford's) cinematic skills. Right from the beginning, before opening curtain, establishing desperateness, and then during each scene change, working up the relationships, so that the 'opera' became of series of 'tableaux' in a grander scale vision of two men and their needs.

AT LEAST I WENT

2011-08-01T07:32:00.010+10:00

Capriccio. K wasn't interested, at all. We were still settling down after a long trip and 'ends' were far from meeting as the travel budget estimates, as usual, had well and truly blown out. It was simply the price thing again. Anyway, a special ticket offer email arrived, it would be the last night of what I guessed would be a last run of a well regarded production, Cheryl was pursuing her Strauss trajectory, and what's more, I'd never seen it before!

Marcellous had given fair warning about surtitle and casting issues with a reasoned debate about tolerance and company artistic development. I compromised with E row, close enough to hear and see something, and still be able to follow the chit-chat a bit without too much neck damage.

Well. For all the banter about words and music, needlessly bourgeois as far as I'm concerned, and all the angxt about who to love (why the handsome one with the sexy boots of course - oh, he's your brother - then better stand in front of the mirror and self-adulate) what really interested me was that I, and maybe a good number of the others, was absolutely fascinated by the production. The sound was pretty crap, choked and truncated, and the words just too important that one either had to stay with a fixed neck extension, risk permanent damage, and follow it all, or give it away and go with the general drift. And vocally, overparted comes to mind. I did like hearing, and seeing, Christopher Tonkin for the first time.

But nevermind all that, John Cox did wonderful things with the cast, and that alone is what kept my interest and I wonder how many others. Theatre won! That's the answer. But even Cheryl, in all her generosity, wasn't going to settle for Conal Coad.

It was all terribly elegantly deco, droves of servants suitably subservient to Madame, suitors as wonderfully ambivalent gentlemen of the arts with more eye on the purse than pussy. To her credit, Ms Barker played all this out with considerable aplomb and being the good Australian girl that she is, had all the air of should it all disappear tomorrow, she'd still be just as content, and just as wonderful. She was, I am saying, deliciously self contained, and perhaps that's exactly what this is all about. Whatever else, conform to circumstance and certain outside forces, superficial as they are or maybe, but adapt to whatever whenever and know thyself.

With the taste of the blood of regietheatre still in my mouth, I could well have done with something like this, bombed out Dresden and Susan Gritton thank you very much, but in the absence, can I say, THIS SHOULD HAVE BEEN DONE IN ENGLISH. Sheeeesh, if any work demands it, this is it. Give me a break. All that effort, so close and yet so far.

MARGARET OLLEY 1923 - 2011

2011-07-26T16:52:00.011+10:00

((self) portrait in the mirror 1948)

"Margaret Olley was one of the most unforgettable people I have ever met. I have never met anybody so rarely passionate, committed and yet retaining a wry sense of the absurd that life inevitably presents to us ...

She was probably the most politically incorrect person I knew. Margaret Olley brought a new dimension to the word individual." Edmund Capon

OUR HOUSE

2011-07-26T13:18:00.007+10:00

In a clever move, the Sydney Opera House has celebrated itself with THE SHIP SONG PROJECT

SSO, ACO, Australian Ballet, Bangarra Dance, Neil Finn, Sarah Blasko, Martha Wainright, Paul Kelly, Kev Carmody, Katie Noonan, Elliott Wheeler, Teddy, Stones, John Bell ....

There are lots of associated interviews with participating artists on Youtube.

I thought this clip with Richard Tognetti especially good.

COLDITZ ESCAPE ACADEMY

2011-07-18T19:16:00.019+10:00

It took us off the autobahn and it took me back to my childroom bedroom where I'd left Golden Books, Enid Blyton, my sister's Twin Books, even my very own William Books, and moved onto war novels of the more romantic kind, The Dam Busters, Reach for the Sky, and my favorite by a long way, The Colditz Story, where I focused more on the suspense, camaraderie, creativity, dressing up, putting on plays, and tricking the Krauts than much to do with war. It was all very Boys Own to this boy.

That Colditz even existed had long been forgotten till a chance conversation in Leipzig (with a hotel desk clerk who was a very tall young man in drag, I kid you not, thick with makeup, long jet black hair, and neat blue pants suit) - Colditz was just down the road on the way to Dresden.

The countryside was lush and the driving easy ...

(close inspection, double click, shows roadside wildflowers and wind turbines - there everywhere)

... through little country towns (a quarter past one) ...

.. till we wound our way down into a valley, crossed the Mulde and there it was, sitting high above the town - Colditz Castle.

(from the town square)

(from the far side, the exercise grounds of the camp, and adjoining countryside)

The Castle's long history is here including what was a concentration camp for Jews, homosexuals, gypsies, and undesirables (1933-1934) now called " 'protective custody' for opponents of the Nazis". I was actually reading Hans Fallada's shocking "Alone in Berlin" at the time. It takes a strong stomach to finish.

Colditz was the camp for allied officers who had an escape history - creating, as our droll guide ('now remember, I am counting', she would say whenever we went through a closed doorway) said was effectively an escape academy. The late Earl of Harewood was one special guest, and inmates were treated like officers, and in accordance with the Geneva Convention.

The Castle is a short climb up through the town (fairly obviously not a bombing target) ...

... across the dry moat

(restoration ongoing)

to the main gates, the coat of arms of the castle and the town above.

Next episode - inside Colditz.

COLOUR ME TROUBLED

2011-07-16T15:12:00.014+10:00

There were two(*) impressive debuts this week with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra - the lively New York born conductor James Gaffigan, leprechaun in size only, and the young Armenian violinist Sergey Khachtryan. I went on Friday, especially for the Sibelius Violin Concerto (1904, not 1804), and sat close, about eight rows back soloist side. It was strange walking into stalls after being away and thinking - but this hall looks small. Why has everything been looking small?

Who was the curly black haired New York (?Jewish) violinist who played the Sibelius about 20 years ago. It is one of those permanent imprints, perhaps because it was the first time I'd heard it live, but more likely it was the technical brilliance infused with a goodly dose of angst that so moved me.

Sergey Khachatryan looked so melancholic and his reading of this was a serious tragic meditation with even the final Allegro struggling to escape into optimism. It was achingly sad and deeply deeply felt. Did I mind? Not really. It is a seriously thoughtful work for me, the opening Allegro quite world weary and the sublime Adagio a poignant reverie on the struggle for faltering ascent to higher meaning, not realised here, but that's as possible as is (say) Nigel Kennedy's flight into transcendence. James Gaffigan paced it beautifully with nice dynamics and my only reservation would have been to reign the orchestra in even more with the soloist as he indulged the softest, almost disappearing, of highs, sometimes cut off, others left to fade to some cosmic minimalism.

The strings sounded nicely shimmery and pretty together, and it was girls nights in the strings, although I can't help but comment that the private joke and giggle between two after the first movement was mood breaking for those in the mood (obviously they weren't) and better kept till later. I wished I hadn't seen it.

A large Armenian contingent were there, and in fact some didn't return for the second half. They, well we, were treated to a traditional folk song as an encore - the Apricot Tree (I think that's what he said, and was left with the impression that it was the only one, and it had just died)- very beautiful, also very sad. I wanted to call out - do happy!

The Prokofiev was a Gaffigan arrangement, and a good story was told. They played well for him, with a high sense of drama and dance (does being a New Yorker help with dance), and the Death of Tybalt built to such an exciting climax (even in row 8) that spontaneous applause erupted, sparingly, through the house, enough for him to turn and quip -'Fortunately, that's only one dead - two to go!' - either to remind people that no, it wasn't over yet, or more likely in the rush of the strong audience connection.

That's the second good American conductor with an interest in opera (Gaffigan is MD in Lucerne) I've heard here this year. The other was Andrew Litton (Rosenkavalier for OA).

(*) Maybe two and a half if Tobias Breider's viola solo was a first.

THE CONCERTGEBOUW SOUND

2011-07-14T21:55:00.001+10:00

There's a few half started posts from the trip I'll get up soon - things are fading fast.

Firstly, back to Amsterdam and the Concertgebouw. We actually went on the guided tour after we'd been to two concerts, two wonderful concerts, in themselves enough to make the trip worthwhile - Brahm's German Requiem, June 9, and then a thrilling Russian night, June 11.

So that opening sombre funeral beat of the Brahms, Residentie Orkest, conducted by Claus Peter Flor (Leipzig born), with Ingela Bohlin, the amazing Dutch bass-baritone Robert Holl, and the Nederalands Concert Choir, were the first sounds we heard. It was quite overwhelming. The thing is, the sound doesn't come to you - you are just in it, immersed. It is warm, and soft, and caressing, and most interestingly, with little sense of directionality, made even more so when the organ was playing. K said it is 'wet'. Whatever resonances and reflections are occurring, it seems little is lost (maybe there's some smudging of detail, loss of brilliance in say the brass, it would take more visits than this to say) and everything good is reinforced. The changes in dynamics are immediate, in front of you. I felt I was completely in the middle of the music, but I was sitting a few rows back in the stalls on the aisle. It is, can I say it again, a very beautiful sound space, and as we were to find out (another concert and a tour during a dress rehearsal for Handel's Messiah, with a lot of moving around), it matters little where you sit. Hence the legend of the Concertgebouw.

The choir (I counted 80 plus - the sopranos and altos separated by the men - producing one blended voice, again the room at work also, such as I've not ever heard) was conducted by Claus Peter Flor as if they were the only ones there. He lent into every word, syllable, with them and they were with him. They are very close to him, on his left. It makes our choir arrangements seem so distant. It was profoundly Germanic reading, heavy, funereal, but never despairing. Humanistic. Robert Holl was deeply emotionally involved, red faced, the pages in his hands trembling, leaning to the choir, the conductor - such an intense and genuine singer, the voice of enormous depth with the most beautiful subtlety.

Then comes silence. At the end of the performance, the audience sits, absorbed, replete. It goes on, more than seconds, forever, a self perpetuating acknowledgement of the power of the work and the performance, till gradually sporadic applause starts, and slowly gathers, till unison is achieved, the volume swells, and then another phenomenon - some people stand, here and there, till, like birds taking flight, the audience, separate yet together, and without the slightest self-consciousness, slowly stands. This is not some routine reflex indulgence. This is understanding.

Two nights later it was 'From Russia with ...' : The Shostakovich Second Cello Concerto op.126 (no, I'd not heard it before; why?, don't know), Stravinsky's Petrushka, and an unexpected amuse bouche, the dangerously familiar Romance from the film music for the Gadfly (Ovod), op 97. Well no danger here. Beware Thomas Hanus and the lady concertmaster for they will steal your heart and make you cry.

Below is Daniel Müller-Schott, cellist (in rehearsal). See that cluster of seats in the upper corner - that's where we sat this time, and again it's in the middle of the music. A magic place.

The cello was amazing and the concerto stunning. I own a copy now, and that's just the beginning. Has this been played here? Cop this -

The Pertruska was just brilliant. Then that Silence again. I am out of adjectives and gush.

HOME AGAIN

2011-07-11T19:13:00.005+10:00

We've been back a week now. There's something about coming home, something ambivalent. It starts with that sunrise you see from the plane - the red is burnt with residuals of black, a deep indian red, with a slightly sickly lurid yellow halo, and the whole effect, unlike the pink, blue and pale yellow pastels seen from the ground, I find unpleasant. It's like looking into some space not meant to be seen at all.

Then comes the forced squeeze through the pores of over-lit crass duty free shops before emerging in front of a sullen customs clerk. Everything is starting to feel crowded, and unlike most airports, escaping through customs in Sydney is just the beginning. Now the herding really begins. Another line, another wait, another sniffer dog, another layer of authority. When you finally burst through the crowded arrival hall into the day, they've saved the best for last. Ill-designed garden beds and hideous rust steel somethings, sculptures is too generous a word, need to be navigated before the piece de resistance - a cattle grid worthy of a Four Corners programme, stinking of whisky from a smashed duty-free bottle, hardly a taxi to behold despite thousands waiting yonder, harnessed till called, unable to cross some unimaginably poorly designed road network.

Why is this so cramped, so small, and that's without mentioning the minds, and the thinking.

The drive to the city is along one of the filthiest roads in the world. Rubbish and filth. And then the town house - ah, home. So small, so little. Some perceptions have been reset and something needs rebooting. It wasn't till some hours later as I drove up the winding red dirt road to pick up the dog, through a clump of white scribbly gums, ghost white against the brilliant blue sky, as tens of Magpies swooped from tree to tree, laughing and warbling, that I felt a little rush of pleasure.

Since then we've been buffeted with gale force cold winds, enough to cut off the power for four days and drive me back to town. So we lined up for Terrence Malick on a cold blowy night, only to find out it was sold out in just enough time to iphone our way around the block and into the arms of Bob Connelly and his wonderful documentary. And I cried, not at the end, but the beginning. I was home.

TOKYO DAY

2011-07-01T22:52:00.015+10:00

The heat and humidity continue but today was the last full day, so armed with an umbrella, as you do, off I went. At least it was overcast. I was keen to walk along Tokyo's "Champs-Élysées" - Omotesando Boulevarde in the Omotesando neighbourhood, a long tree lined boulevarde constructed in 1920 to conduct worshippers to the Meiji Jingu shrine. Today the avenue is lined by designer buildings, boutiques, and fashion houses. It's a far cry from the crazy scene around the corner at Shibuya and degrees cooler.

At one subway stop from the hotel, it was a walk there and a ride back.

Time for iced tea.

The little side streets extend the posh vibe a short way before it quickly fades away.

Eclectic just about covers it.

I was about to cross the pedestrian overpass the explore Tod's when the battery on the little camera ran out.

Unfinished is good.

TOKYO NIGHTS

2011-07-01T00:59:00.006+10:00

I'm holed up in Tokyo for a few days and it's hot and humid. Normally I'd be walking, but memories of dehydration put paid to that idea.

So it's been off to some shows at night at Opera City, a large complex in Shinjuku and a short taxi ride from the hotel. As well as the New National Theatre (opera and ballet) where I saw Butterfly a few weeks ago, there's a concert hall and separate recital hall. The ballet was on, Romeo and Juliet (after MacMillan) in the theatre. Prokofiev - that's a score I like.

The usual pre-performance announcement (Japanese and English) wasn't quite as usual. After the customary electronice devices warning, and please don't lean forward as it restricts the view of the neighbours, came the announcement that the building we were in was built to the highest fire and earthquake protection standards, and in the event of an earthquake, please remain seated and bend forward. Well, now I've heard it all!

The performance was, how to put it, almost saved by the lovely, extremely delicate, joyously youthful dancing of Ono Ayako. Here she is aged 17. How gorgeous is that! You can imagine her Juliet some 7 years later. Everyone is so young here. The conductor looked like he should be at home doing his homework.

Next night to the concert hall for a subscription night at the Tokyo Philharmonic (100 years old and Tokyo's first symphony orchestra). We love concert halls, or had you noticed.

(entrance to concert hall, opera city)

Inside is timbered, an almost square very open and high vaulted space with a reflecting and lighting panel over the concert platform, though quite high up. Timber baffles protrude from the ceiling.

The sound was very bright and not particularly nice I thought. In fact everything sounded sharp to the point of wondering if they had tuned sharp (except the violinist, who seemed to be going the other way). The programme was Three Film Scores by Toru Takemitsu, Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto (Teiko Maehashi, not having a good night) and the Shostakovich 5th. The Largo was good. The audience was wildly enthusiastic.

Tonight the Mahler 5!

HAVE I JUST DREAMED ALL THIS

2011-06-29T15:44:00.022+10:00

"Have I just dreamed all this" wonders the fool in Act 2 of Parsifal. I know how he feels. Whisked out of Zurich by train early the next morning into a Paris crippled by 37 degree heat, flown through the night into the next day, I'm now on the other side of the world perched high above Tokyo (also melting and with powers restrictions - business required to reduce consumption by 20%, households by 15%).

Parsifal, Zurich, June 26, tram 4 through the hot afternoon for a 5 o'clock curtain, row 11 stalls, which might sound close to the front but is nearly the back in the lovely little theatre, a production by Claus Guth, and someone who can put the helden back into tenor.

I'm pinching myself ...

There's this thing with Parsifal, the thing that it's his last work, it holds the key, you get it or you don't, it is revelatory when you are ready to receive its message, and if you don't you're a fool, innocent be damned. It's easy - sacrifice, salvation, denial, institution, brotherhood, compassion, innocence, sin, guilt, reincarnation, self-gratification, denial, christ, religion, jews, buddhism, sex, renunciation, love, joining, healing, body, mind, saviour, journey, create, destroy, spear, blood, chalice, death, rebirth, ritual, communion - for starters. It's like searching for the string theory for everything, except whenever I found a bit of a string, and tried to follow it, it lead to ... another string. Frankly, I was starting to wonder if Mr Wagner was none to able to unravel it himself (unlike the Ring, where his clear message is one of the greatest), and so I'm thankful to Mr Guth, profoundly thankful, for some insights beyond the obvious. "Oh, he's good" said someone in Sydney before I left when I mentioned the name. Good! - that's an understatement.

It is a beautiful production (Christian Schmidt, frequent collaborator with Guth) to look at - a two level revolve of faded glory, a decaying villa, upstairs and downstairs, sometimes one room, then two or part thereof, sometimes the garden, and a staircase with all its implications - up and down, above and below, dominance and submission, ascent descent and all the metaphors, crowding and clusters, watchers and watched, instability and insecurity. The lighting is wonderful, highlighting the beyond as much as the present, the other room, through the many doors, passages, to the other place and time, where we've been, where we're going. There is an inevitability in the changes, the relentless movement, the journey, infused with a pervading sense of doom. You are gripped and carried along, unable to get off.

Breadth and breath are the call. The opening prelude was very slow, with the silences between the expanding motif taking us beyond time and place so long as to risk disconnection, nearly. It was opening night and if trying it on was the order, so be it. The general sound of the theatre was loud and, surprisingly, tending to dry (very clean). The brass especially sounded good, thankfully. And Daniele Gatti played it loud, while all the time considerate of his singers, as formidable a team as ever. In the most thrilling moment of the night, as Parsifal two thirds way up the stairs and pinned to the back wall by transcendent light, triumphs over Klingsor above, Gatti let all stops out. Stepping up to the redeemer's mark, Stuart Skelton in radiant voice, poured forth such that if I die not hearing anything like that again, I'm happy, the little theatre full to overflowing with Wagner at its very best.

It is between Wars (are we always between wars?). Two production points, the beginning and the end, will give enough to join the dots. Spoiler warning. Towards to end of the prelude the curtain rises on a two level set. Above - the spear and grail each in its own museum-style show case, trophies. Below - Titurel and two sons, brothers, twins, the other side of the self, one about to be favoured (Amfortas) the other rejected (Klingsor). The journey of separateness had begun. In a stunning inversion, yes, a reconciliation was to come at the closing moments, but hardly that expected. Parsifal, having claimed the crown, the kingship, the power, is immediately corrupted as power can and must.

The assumption of superiority, difference, is the antithesis of the belief in equality and oneness. As the once innocent healer stands on high morphing into a grotesque military despot with obvious references, below the two separated souls reach out to each other in understanding. One cycle is closing, another beginning. You don't need me to tell you what's happening musically - its just the the 'holy spirit doves' are not where you expect. All healing, regardless of external forces, guides, redeemers, is from within and not without. Holiness lies in not what you do but why you do it.

Matti Salminen was the wise frustrated chaplain Germemanz in the sanitarium for the physically and mentally wounded. He has lost a good deal of weight, and I thought maybe some resonance in the voice (though there were plenty of reserves) but it could have been the acoustics. Thomas Hampson's incredibly sympathetic Amfortas was everything I had hoped, a lesson in perseverance through agony to ultimate resolution. And well matched was his nearly identical darker voiced twin, Egils Silins' Klingsor.

Yvonne Naef's wild Kundry (if an example of alter egos as a principle was needed to justify what Guth was getting at then Kundry is it) had more than enough fire and Lauren Bacall sensuality to undo just about anyone, except you know who, and a few wild notes to boot.

Then there was Stuart Skelton, of seeming unlimited voice, his handsome masculine tenor perhaps less brassy but now with even more lovely colours, tender and warm, strong and radiant, he's got it all. Go Stuart.

I forgot to remind myself what a great choral work this is, and needless to say, the chorus was excellent, with female voices from high in the upper circle risking cliche but achieving a wonderful surround sound angelic effect.

Gatti was heavily booed by some somewhere, countered by others and none less than Thomas Hampson during curtain calls. There was some lesser boos for the production team, but generally enormous and enthusiastic support.

Since I started this, a few days have slipped by, and I've been locked out of blogger. Luckily. From Opera Zurich this has now been uploaded. Much has been written and said in German and Swiss about this fabulous production. I'm afraid I know little more than 'two beers' (or not two beers). Over to the ones who really know - I feel terribly inadequate in the face of such people and watching this now I just wish I could get back on the plane and fly back.

Addit: Here's a review in English (Financial Times).

SWAN LAKE

2011-06-25T22:04:00.005+10:00

We've been on the road, and I need to backtrack to Cologne, but that may take a day or two. Meanwhile, there's swans galore here.

Not that Swan Lake, this one - we're in Zurich.

And none dead - yet.

ON THE RHINE

2011-06-24T02:57:00.009+10:00

200o years old - Colonia Claudia Ara Aggripinensium (now shortened a bit).

There wasn't much left after 1945, except the staggeringly high cathedral. Top selling postcards seem to be the black and white aerial photos of the bombed city.

It's all a bit of a mess around the centre - they are building a light rail service, partly underground where a huge collapse of ancient artifacts into the excavations saw the mayor resign.

There's even some Roman sewer remains directly opposite our hotel front entrance.

And the entrance to the Philharmonie is a bit disrupted:

So, here's the concert hall and associated in a more flattering aspect - well above ground level:

That cathedral is never too far away.

And there's some interesting redevelopment down south on the river (to where the new rail will connect) - would that Barangaroo could achieve either (transport and something remotely interesting).

THURINGIA

2011-06-23T16:52:00.017+10:00

Driving east from Leipzig is a drive through the 'green' - 'intellectual' - 'enlightened' heart of Germany, the Thuringian Forest. The trees whisper Bach, Luther, Goethe, Schiller, Lizt, Nietzsche, Bauhaus (and speaking of houses - the House of Windsor, exceptions make the rule) and on and on.

Off we went with Weimar, Erfurt and The Wartburg circled on the map. Actually, TomTom is running this trip from my iPhone, and just as well - the alternative (a navigator and just an old fashioned piece of paper) would by now have become unpleasant. How does this little tiny thing sitting on the dashboard know every address in Europe, every little laneway, every speed limit, some of the speed cameras (though not the one entering Leipzig, ooops), and now, everywhere we've been.

Weimar - a dalliance with democracy and the home of arguably the greatest renaissance man of them all - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. It is the most beautifully presented of any of the small towns we visited. Almost surreal. Spotless, soft pastels shining in luke warm sun after a morning rain shower, leafy, quiet, and only a smattering of tourists.

Those handsome fellows above should need no introduction, not to anyone visiting here, where they lived and died.

Goethe's house in the orange one in the middle, now of course a museum with all the trappings

and sitting opposite Schiller's yellow house (below), eating waffles with forest berries, thinking how civilised the whole comfortable scene appeared, it was uncomfortably easy to forget that Buchenwald was just a few kilometres away.

Next stop Erfurt, little river town, centre and capital of Thuringia, born of St Boniface, in whose Augustinian monastery Luther studied, and host to a thriving university campus. Whatever we expected of this medieval town, it wasn't a New Orleans style jazz festival, a far cry from Weimar, with streets thronging with crowds, jostling, trams gently gliding through, and locals doing what locals do - sitting on benches drinking beer listening to music.

With Cologne still some hours away, this time The Wartburg was to remain a tower on a hill just outside Eisenach (J C Bach's birthplace) as we flew by on the autobahn.

COUNTDOWN TO REVENGE

2011-06-22T00:33:00.013+10:00

This had been big on my list of expectations - I didn't care so much about who sang and how, within the usual parameters, but it was all about the Gewandhausorchester playing Strauss, playing Elecktra, in the soviet style Leipzig opera house opposite their own contemporary recital hall with Ulf Schirmer conducting.

Klytemnestra Doris Soffel

Elektra Janice Baird

Chrysothemis Gun-Brit Barkim

Aegisth Viktor Sawaley

Orest Toumas Pursio

Director Peter Konwitschny (Leipzig's 'resident' producer)

(This Elektra is from the mid2000's, seen in Copenhagen, Stuttgart...)

Sitting a few rows back in the stalls, this is what we first saw:

The mirror 'curtain' is reflecting the house, not too long before the start, and its not anywhere near full, reaching at a guess 60% capacity. Next, see the ancient bath centre stage - that's where the young Argamenon is playing with his three children, they in swimmers with floaties, rubber duckies, water pistols, learning to swim, survive, playing shootings and scaring one and other playing dead.

After the conductor enters (silently) and the orchestra (huge, maybe not the 111 scored, but maybe yes) warm up stops and the auditorium falls silent, two doors open in the mirrors, and out stride Klytemnestra and her lover. Screaming children, blood squirting high, dead daddy in the bath.

Just as the murderers retreat and the doors close, the shattering Argamenon motif explodes from the pit as the mirrored front splits into two to become the sides of the set. Pretty good start as far as I was concerned. The production style from now on is not so hard to predict - Argamenon and bath (and metaphor) always present, variably moved around by Elektra, even ghosting himself out as a quasi-pacificist trying to stop Orest's capitulation. The style is contemporary, slick white leather minimalist sitting room, reflecting walls (looking at self, nothing outside, only the within). The lesbian element is particularly strong - Klytemnesta's attendants are tough chick security guards, and the Elektra Chrysothemis mental seduction about as physical as it could get - sitting astride with forced (and rejected) kissing. This even extended to Chrysothemis pouring forth (some of the best singing of the night) her fabulous 'I wanna be me' aria evoking pregnancy with Elektra's frock coat cardigan stuffed up her dress.

That the axe (nor the hatchet) was never buried mattered little, in fact was the point, though that it was a bit obviously a silly rubber one, and later to become bullets started to stretch things. But even so, it was well in the spirit of the piece. The great finale, and here's the spoiler, is complete mayhem. The Queen and consort are shot in full view, as is everybody else in the world, dysfunctional family included. I like the concept - revenge, murder, any attack, is self-perpetuating, it never stops. It begets. And killing anyone or anything is killing everyone and everything - all things are joined.

But it did serve to reduce focus on the descent of Elektra into death, from within rather than from without, although I wont dispute that there is no difference there either; there is no without, only the without that is the projection of the within.

My major production quibble really is the time clock rear projection - the sort of concept that is a bit tired as soon as its been thought of, let alone some six years later. Anyway, it was easy to switch off from it, and also fun to think - 12:42 till she cops it!

The musical values were stunning. Beyond expectations. And the final bars were quite overwhelming and the only real time I teared up (though the initial 'I love you father' motif gets me every time). Doris Soffel completely dominated the stage when she was on, totally and always in character, a powerful yet degraded and degrading creature. She was mesmerising. And I loved Gun-Brit Barkim's lost sister, innocence trapped. The voice is big, she soared over the dense orchestration, with a round oaky timbre, an older sound than the girl as presented but of no matter, she is the more mature, the only mature character in the family, completely understandably unable to extricate herself from the madness.

Which leaves Janice Baird's Elektra. Now I don't imagine anyone should criticise anyone who can actually sing Elektra, and Baird can sure sing it. She cuts and stabs, seduces, and embraces the final oblivion with all stops out. But - I never once believed in her. She was, frankly, just not psycho enough. This woman is seriously deranged. She should be snorting on the glass table top, or sniffing gas (David Lynch where are you) not sipping a whisky with mother. She's hallucinating, she's out of time and place. Baird, in jeans and black tee shirt (you know that look), looked (though didn't sound, not for a minute) as if this was just another run through.

Never mind. A great night, a great work, and as fabulous a sound as I'm ever likely to hear. Here's a curtain call shot

and a preview is here.

LEIPZIG'S BACH

2011-06-21T02:29:00.013+10:00

Or should that read Bach's Leipzig?

Leipzig's initial charms may be more elusive than Dresden's, but its musical roots are as deep and its history needs no more (though there is much much more) than its most famous resident cantor - J S Bach, born in Eisenach to the West, into a family of unparalleled musical pedigree, who would for 27 years shape the city's musical history and compose the majority of his works.

We arrived in Leipzig plop in the middle of a 19 day Bach Festival. That we found accommodation anywhere, let alone perfectly placed, was just another miracle. That we survived the autobahn in our little blue Peugeot, survivors of some thrill-seeking in the fast lane, was the first. Leipzig and Dresden are a mere one hours drive away (closer than Parramatta and Sydney you could say) and a good deal safer to commute. These Germans know about cars and roads. And about Bach, and Strauss.

Needless to say, the place is crawling with Bach groupies (and take that as JS, though JC is getting some gigs as well). On day one of our stay, in the street near the hotel, I'd bumped into an old friend, a colleague's widow (he died in his pool) - and would do it again two days later in the Bach Museum. Better buy a lottery ticket Mum would have said.

So Bach we went to, and both times it was organ recitals in Leipzig's most revered 'recital halls' - Thomaskirche and Nikolaikirche. It was Thomas Church where Bach was cantor, directing choir rehearsals, giving keyboard lessons, accompanist at wedding and funerals, engager of musicians, preparer of librettos, and composer of the order of one Cantata a week. Oh, and supervising the boarding school one week a month, running a small business selling sheet music and books, hiring out and maintaining instruments. And fathering quite his fair share of offspring (20 from 2 wives, though survival rates were poor).

Thomaskirche ~

Just being there was enough, but hearing what he wrote as he heard, from up high in the second gallery was pretty moving. We were literally swallowed up by a Bach Cantata, a Max Reger improvisation, a Lizt variation on a theme, a David Timm (the organist) improvisation, and as if someone knew the missing link, we did get Siegfried;s Funeral March after all. Hearing that on this organ in this church needs no further words. If I'm seeming a bit vague, it is because we had no programme notes - they had run out by the time we arrived, not that the church was full. Interestingly, because they had no more programmes, admission was now free.

It seems a feature of the Germans (unlike the southerners who they are in the process of bailing out) that they are refreshingly honest and the default position in the event of any discrepancy about costs or quotes is that they always take the rap. For instance, once we were late into Munich by train from Budapest (the train from Budapest always runs late) and missed the night train to Paris (which usually waits but this time it was just too much). Now none of this had anything to do with the Germans, who graciously accommodated and fed us overnight. And while I don't make a habit of challenging prices, there have been a few instances this trip where their generosity of spirit and fact have been repeatedly evident.

Nikolaikirche ~

The similarities are self evident.

The organist here was Nikolaikantor Jurgen Wolf but the show stealer for me was Tamamo Saito, the gorgeous little Japanese violinist in the white organza dress who played a dazzling Lizt Fantasia from the body of the church near the main altar.

A TALE OF TWO CITIES

2011-06-20T18:53:00.015+10:00

(that's looking back to Altstadt and the semperopera, above stage fly area)

Across the Elbe, on the other side of its wide sandy banks, beyond the grand boulevard of Albertstrasse, past the fountains of Albertplatz, is Neustadt (New Town).

(albertplatz fountain)

A far cry from the gravitas and gothic grandeur of Altstadt (Old Town) it is actually an older part of Dresden and survived the shock and awe bombing more intact. (It's worth noting that there has been an exchange of relics between the Catherdrals of Dresden and Conventry in a gesture of reconciliation.)

Altstadt is grand urban planning and spacious thoroughfares of the restoration (and where the busking is serious cello, bassoon and oboe, violin, with Ave Maria top of the charts, or penny spinners). Neustadt is intertwining and criss-crossing residential streets with bars, restaurants, clubs, and counterculture. Beyond on slightly higher ground are some quite grand bourgeois villas. On a Saturday, we wandered through carried along by the sounds of street music, the smell of food stalls, and especially the vibrancy of the street life - young families, teenagers, groupies, punks, gays, and not a policeman in sight, and nothing but a sense of mutual respect and tolerance.

The scale back there is big; the scale here is human.

This is a intoxicating bipolar place.

SCHWANENSEE IN DRESDEN

2011-06-18T16:44:00.016+10:00

There I was - seat 22 front row. And all because a nudge came (thank you nudger), an on-line check just happened to have one ticket available, and I was up close and personal with a fabulous orchestra and a very classic production of a totally sold out oldie but a goodie.

And I was inside the Semperoper (that link provides a list of operas premiered there) thinking about Dutchman, Tannhauser, Salome, Elektra, Arabella.....

I was so overcome with the sound (an ongoing story with this trip I suspect) sitting three seats to the left of the rather handsome, in a bald kind of way, conductor, so immersed in the overture and how good it was, that I completely missed the curtain going up and suddenly I was in some palace where people in the most outrageous costumes, my god this is camp I thought, we're embarking on a dance-a-thon, anything you can dance I can dance better, till the two guys left standing had a final dance off, and I'm not sure who won, or whether it was the dancing that did it, or their other attributes, which were not insignificant, but they had a bit of a tussle then decided to go on a hunt together. Haven't they seen the movie? Don't they know what going hunting together means, especially with those kind of attributes. Anyway, one of them shot the swan which is not good. It seems when you shoot a swan you have to end up marrying it, which puts an end to hunting trips and things.

The swan as a lovely Japanese ballerina who cleverly morphed out a bright light where the 3D video swan landed. She was always the Japanese dancer dancing the swan for me, not really becoming a swan. My Swan Lakes are few and far between these days, but they do go back to Marilyns (Jones, Rowe) and even Kathleens (Gorham) and their swans had arms without elbows, wonderful fluid wing like arms and big strong partners to fly them through the air. The baddie with the black cape was big and strong and the Japanese dancer dancing the swan really got fired up with him, and started smiling a lot (I think I know why, he had very good attributes) but in the end, after heaps of more dance-a-thons, including Russian and Spanish ones, you know that don't you, Team White eventually beat Team Black.

The best bit was the (nearly cliched) four white swan routine which the drag queens do, crossed arms holding, legs doing what legs were never designed to do at great speed. It was fantastic. Seriously, this was extremely good, traditional, and extremely German I felt, based on the highest of musical values, and they've been doing it like this for a long long time. The trumpets were having a great night, and percussion, and string, and woods. It was great music making.

Somewhere it suddenly dawned on me why the music was so good. No one sings. Of course. The orchestra can let rip, nothing to hold back for, and no lousy singing to wreck it all.

Here's the nasty black cape guy with tangled long red curls dashing off after a curtain call. See, I really was in the front.

DRESDEN

2011-06-17T22:59:00.018+10:00

Dresden, Saxony, land of the (other) sun king - Augustus The Strong. This is the most wonderful and moving city to visit. Here in the centre - the centre of arts, churches, palaces, museums (and tourism) - are vast stone public spaces, car free, sign free, all interconnecting and linking the evolving restoration of the 1945 bombed-out city, now very alive with a fantastic restaurant and bar culture. It's jaw-dropping. Really.

The scale here is big.

The river separating the 'old city' and 'new city', is blessed with sandy grassy flood slopes for idling and transporting moments where you can slip back centuries. The weather is gorgeous.

It feels distinctly more 'east', a restraint, an order, an aura, and English is much less fluent outside the hotels than before. There was a moment crossing the river last night at dusk after a shower of rain that I was reminded of St. Petersburgh, in depth, solidity at least.

The whole experience is like opening the lid on a something very deep, a culture, a history, and peeping inside.

OUR TWILIGHT WON

2011-06-14T05:39:00.008+10:00

I only managed two acts of 'Le Crépuscule des Dieux' at Paris Opera, Bastille last week and any comments have serious reservations - we were both hit by sledge hammer jet-lag despite some good sleeps. The dark, the length, the pace all conspired against us.

Cast list again:

Bastille seemed an even bigger yawning space than I remembered. Here's a snap to show the height of the place (can't get ceiling and pit in the same shot) as well as the distance from the stage (the little yellow writing is the 'no phone etc' on the front of curtain). We sat front of first level.

The orchestra generally sounded somewhat muted. Presumably Phillipe Jordan was keeping things reasonably modulated for the singers and I'd like to have stayed if for no other reason than to hear them 'play out', as in the funeral march, but I'll never know. The pace was too slow for me. I like this forward driven and shaped with a sense of inevitability to the fore. It was a soft sweet reading (too French I heard myself mumbling) and I found much even hard to recognise.

Voices generally carried well, except for Torsten Kerl's Siegfried which was a struggle to hear. And he was saddled with a shuffling, stooped demeanor, which didn't help the hero/anti-hero image either. Hans-Peter König fared best, quite thrilling stuff despite spending the night in a wheel chair nursing a world globe - another image which added nothing to, actually detracted from, a character. Katarina Dalayman's duped bride we'd heard bef ore in another smaller friendlier venue; there she battled the Berlin Phil, and managed that far better than the battle of the Bastille. Here she resorted to getting a bit shouty for the big notes, and not sounding too nice in the process.

Sophie Koch was a well sung and effective Waltraute (if you like a young know-all type of sister) who resorted to a hissy-fit and tipping over Brunnhilde's kitchen cabinet at the end of her failed counsel. It was silly, though Brunnhilde had spent the whole exchange clearing the table into the cupboard, and there then was something flat on stage for the 'rape' scene (another tepid episode, a feckless Gunter with Siegfried hiding under the kitchen table) to follow. The problem was becoming apparent - there was no wisdom here, certainly not on the stage.

There was a 'bag-lady' in a corner of the stage during the wonderful ominous prelude to Act 1 (not so either in the French version, more's the pity) fiddling with a shield and broken spear before the Norns appeared upstage. Well, wouldn't you know, next thing next act the bag-lady derobes into Alberich, the apparition, with a not especially effective Peter Sidhom pleading with Hagen. I'm more for the other-worldy infusing of evil into the bad seed approach. Those Norns by the way were wandering lost around a slow revolve, dressed in designer black with sunglasses for a funeral they couldn't find, yet.

So, what did I really like? The Rhinedaughters. They made a guest appearance in fabulous tight silvery fishtails, with outrageous little black maps of Tasmania on the outside (where little maps of Tasmania lie on the inside) and long slinky red gloves. Thats was the best bit, which explains why the jet-lag won and we propped out eyes open and walked back into the Marais and to bed after Act 2.

THE CONCERTGEBOUW

2011-06-13T04:47:00.017+10:00

Late in the 19th century, recognising the need to improve its cultural base, Amsterdam held a competition to build itself a concert hall on a block of wasteland by an old canal outside the city. The winner, a student of the architect who had designed the Rijksmuseum, and who just happened to be on the judging panel, set off to Leipzig where its hall was recognised as the very best. Armed with measurements and ideas, he returned to Amsterdam where practicalities and others intervened, and with a shift here, a widening there, more of this and less of that, the Concetgebouw was eventually finished and opened in 1888.

Foresight, planning, and not the least a goodly dose of serendipity and luck, had given the world the justly famous Concertgebouw sound. It is astoundingly beautiful. But more on that later.

Today the canal had gone, the marshlands are a not particularly attractive urban park, bordering a stadium, with the Van Gogh Museum nearby and the Rijksmuseum on the edge of the old city. It deference to the design history, the new extension for public space, restaurant and bars, has a prow so the Rijskmuseum can be seen in the distance and the link acknowledged.

The main hall (there is an original small recital hall and a newer jazz room) is creamy white and gold with chandeliers and red upholstery . It seats around 2000. A narrow single pillar supported gallery runs around three sides with choir stalls /seating either side of the organ. It is much closer to a square than rectangular, and the concert platform is very much part of the place rather than at one end of it.

Red carpeted stairs from high up next to the organ are the stage entrance - a precipitous descent for instrument carrying soloists or ladies in big dresses.

We were on a tour during rehearsals for a Messiah. Here we are in the roof, where an effervescent tour guide is demonstrating how good the air recirculation is.

The Concertgebouw website with a virtual tour is here.

THE VONDEL PARK

2011-06-13T03:37:00.013+10:00

We are staying in the one of the quiet residential streets fringing the city's main park. Houses are substantial, with increasingly deep front gardens, most with clumps of green foliage shrubs and trees, a few with sprawling roses or dotted with hollyhocks. Dad loved hollyhocks. There's the odd planter box, on a window sill, or front steps, spilling over with Lobelia or Impatiens. The footpaths are nicely paved with charming street lights and not an ugly wire to be seen. Here, substantial three floor townhouses with generous back gardens and the park opposite sell for two million euros.

The Vondel Park in early summer is lush and green. There's a tranquil blend of wild meadow, sweeping grasslands and ponds. The winding roads are for bicycles, the occassional jogger, and the few pedestrians wandering off soft crushed pebble paths.

The Dutch and their bicycles - in the rain showers, not even getting wet, an umbrella, a phone, two children, a basket of shopping, boy and girl, all in smart street clothes, upright, perfectly balanced. It all embodies freedom and the individual, with the common sense, mutual respect and responsibility such recognition returns. No signposts here, no petty endless repetition of what to do or not do, where to go or not go. The contrast with our own Centennial Park and its infestation with regulatory hardware couldn't be greater.

And, the Concertgebouw is two blocks and ten minutes walk away.

THE STREET ORGAN

2011-06-11T04:20:00.007+10:00

MUST BE

2011-06-11T03:52:00.008+10:00

Friday - must be Amsterdam.

CRÉPUSCULE AT BASTILLE

2011-06-09T19:04:00.004+10:00

Thoughts added later are here.

PARIS EN ROUTE

2011-06-08T21:55:00.016+10:00

We're in Paris on a quick stopover for a twilight show. Here's a few happy snaps from this mornings walk.

BUTTERFLY IN JAPAN

2011-06-07T10:18:00.023+10:00

As a fitting sequel to an afternoon delving into the Meiji era, last night at the New National Theatre Tokyo was the first of a run of Madama Butterflys.

It was the direction I was most looking forward to, wondering how the Japanese would tackle it, on what level the emphasis, what it would look like, and lastly if I'm honest, how it would sound. The director was Kuriyama Tamiya, the award winning artistic director of New National Theatre for drama since 2000 and design by Shimo Jiro. Good - this was to be a Japanese Butterfly, nothing imported here. Well, except the leads - a Russian Butterfly and a Serbian Pinkerton, but then there was a Japanese American Consul and a Japanese Kate. 'Trouble' was, not surprisingly, a seriously cute black-haired little Japanese boy.

And the best surprise of all as it turned out, was the Franco-Canadian conductor Yves Abel and what came from the pit. His Butterfly pedigree is good, including one with someone we know. It was a case of came to see, stayed to listen. With a strong sense of where the whole was going, it was well driven (well very well driven for the One Fine Day, too well I thought, but that was the exception) but otherwise giving love and attention to those delicate moments, oozing gorgeous Puccini phrases without overindulgence, very attentive to the singers and keeping a kind (to them) balance while letting the orchestra roll it out when their turn came, and lifting things from the score I've never heard, gorgeous things, like the harp! The climax I'm hear to tell you was devastating.

A high semicircular set dominated the stage, a cyclorama for shadows and spooks, creating an inner world of isolation and entrapment with the outside world hinted at through a upper opening from which a large staircase curved down to Butterfly's small minimalist house suggested by one wall of Shoji sliding doors, a large terrace with a solitary post, with sweepings of autumn leaves and later the ubiquitous blossom petals. The post was almost phallic, though I don't think for a second that was the intention. She was of sincere heart. But with swapping the outside fluttering 'Stars and Stripes' for a moon, removing the little screen doors, one would be ready for lighting change, another two worlds, and Salome.

The costumes were, of course, entirely authentic. Butterfly in white in Acts 1 and 3, and sombre purple black for Act 2. Pinkerton is hard to get wrong. Suzuki and the women's chorus were in kimonos of the most subtle mushrooms, grey, soft blues, morphing with lighting changes from warm supporters to disappearing shadows as they turned their backs in the chilling 'O Cio-Cio San' with Butterfly left in garish isolation. And the minor roles were splendidly dressed, a scary Bonze and most aristocratic formal Yamadori, arriving in a black lacquered rickshaw.

The stairs as you can imagine were perfect for Butterfly's fatal entrance. It gets me every time, and this time I really welled up. Even Olga Guryakova's nervous sounding start, marred by a very wide vibrato and poorly controlled dynamics failed to dint this hauntingly beautiful moment. I sat there thinking how surreal it all was, seeing this 'the right way' at last, a few paper lanterns, the women with their self-effacing stoop as only the Japanese know how, escorting Butterfly haltingly down into her snare. While things got worse for Butterfly, things got better for Ms Guryakova. She has a beautiful timbre, rich with dark colours, and more than once I wondered if this was in anyway what Tebaldi sounded like live. Her highs were (mostly) there, buoyed by her tippy toes, though alarmingly often cut short, seeming to sacrifice control at the altar of volume. Joan would have something to say about breath support I expect. As for charactisation, going on against the locals is some disadvantage.

She would climb the stairs one last time for the night vigil.

Zoran Todorovich (that's not him in the poster above) was a handsome Pinkerton, rather awkward, perhaps intentionally, and a certain tightness in his sound was to ease later on. Mr Tamiya kept his characters well separated, except from the lovely Suzuki of Obayashi Tomoko: this Butterfly was a lonely lost creature. Even in the 'Vieni Vieni' Pinkerton stood perfunctorily on the terrace as Butterfly wandered back and forth, back to him, in the leaves. Sharpless was particularly well sung by the Vienna based Kai Eijiro and the deliciously scurrilous Goro of Takahashi Jun was the most complete characterisation on stage. The chorus was lovely. Other tear jerking moments were the scene with the Bonze, a crouching scary ancient with an equally creepy almost crippled companion, and the splendid moment of the cannon fire, as the flag appeared again, and Butterfly rushed to the footlights (and nearly into the pit) - her voice in good control now, and certainly more then her emotions.

So it was all rather big picture stuff, imperialism, the entrapment of poverty and the power of position and money. It's happening in New York right now. But the climax was yet to come, so spoiler alert on the infinitesimal chance that anyone is reading this let alone reading before seeing it. Butterfly prepares for her death with her back to the audience, kneeling, eyes fixed on the fluttering American flag. From the moment the knife pierces her neck, she is frozen, the orchestra in thrilling form, thank you Mr Abel, and as Pinkerton calls her name, it is not he who runs out, but little 'Trouble' in the middle of the terrace, staring at his transfixed mother, she transfixed by that flag, till at the great climactic moment her little house and child retract away, and with a blinding flash of light of nuclear brilliance, a horrible horrible light, she falls dead, in Nagasaki.

(Curtain calls - mainly to show the set)

SINCERE HEART

2011-06-06T17:39:00.015+10:00

Magokoro ~ sincere heart ~ is one the virtues and values of Shinto, Japan's ancient oriental religion with no founder, no book, and no concept of conversion. In Shinto, the divinity is found in divine spirits (Kami), held in awe and respect and to whom they build Shinto shrines.

The Meiji Jingu shrine in Shibuya is dedicated to the divine souls of Emperior Meiji (1852-1912) and Empress Shoken. Their tombs are in Kyoto. The shrine was established in 1920 when volunteers planted 100,000 trees collected from all over Japan and overseas creating what is now a huge self-sustaining forest of 700,000 sq metres (yes, I'm reading the little brochure) containing the shrine and some very beautiful gardens, notably the Iris garden which comes into flower in June. Each day the number of flowering Irises is counted. It's nearly 20% she said as I paid my 500 yen and escaped the heat into the shade of the pathways leading off like a wandering maze through bamboo and azaleas.

Emperor Meiji was the 22nd emperor of Japan and the great-grandfather of the current Emperor. He opened Japan up to the world and introduced the West while preserving Japanese identity, laying the foundations of modern Japan. The Empress was concerned with women's issues, world affairs, the Red Cross and the Japanese find her sincere heart expressed in the Waka (traditional 31 syllable poems) she was fond of writing. You can lucky-dip an Empress Waka for 100 yen, and although I've been on the Sake, I'm sure there's more than 31 syllables - the translation I guess.

"If we but recall

That we may go astray

We shall be most careful

In every trifling act."

The shrine is a reasonable walk from our hotel, past NHK (the National Broadcaster) and a sports complex, and it is the first place I always visit.

Women in traditional dress approach the temple and shelter in the shade.

This woman was being photographed by two photographers (and a lot of others).

The Iris garden - they are growing in moving water which you can see bubbling in near the post next to the man with the bag.

Whenever I hear the word 'Kami', the cry "O Kami, O Kami" reflexly floods my thoughts. Coincidentally, well not coincidentally but entirely appropriately, Madama Butterfly is set in the Meiji era. She had sincere heart.

TOKYO AFTER THE EARTHQUAKE

2011-06-06T11:12:00.013+10:00

We flew to Tokyo yesterday.

Waiting to leave Sydney on a blue winter's morning.

Over Iwo Jima in the north Pacific.

At Narita, the customs hall was strangely quiet and even more unusual was that the freeway into the city from Narita was virtually empty. An old woman and a dog could have crossed and made it.

By the time we had reached Tokyo it was getting dark, and it was as if some earth hour had been forgotten to be switched off. There was reduced street lighting, no neons, no advertising, and a spooky dark shadowy pall was falling across the biggest city in the world. All the usual landmarks, building lights, advertising and dazzling neons were unlit. In the penumbra the only concession to the past, or maybe the future, was Tokyo Tower, glowing orange as usual. Peering down into the streets below the freeway was like peering into a Hitchcock film. Very noir.

In Shibuya, street life was more or less as usual, lit by retailers and restaurants and night spots. The hotel porter was quick to point out where the emergency exit was on our floor and where the torch was in our room.

This morning is Monday morning, warm and humid. Life is bustling on outside. Page two of the under-the door-in-the-morning Japan Times, however, has a chart of the last 24 hours radiation levels.

O MERRIE ENGLAND

2011-05-30T12:28:00.010+10:00

These are just too delicious to let slip by. From The Guardian - a preview of an upcoming exhibition of the work of Tony Ray-Jones, photos from the late 1960s, documenting English life "before it became too Americanised".

Butlin's Holiday Camp, Clacton-on-Sea, 1966

Brighton Beach, 1966

Beauty Contest Southport, 1967

Windsor Horse Show, 1967

Derby Day, Epsom, 1967

Chelsea Flower Show, 1968

Click to enlarge

(Photographs Tony Ray-Jones, National Media Museum, SSPL, Getty Images, via The Guardian.)

MAHLER 9 SYDNEY

2011-05-23T11:21:00.007+10:00

The first of the three performances was on May 18, commemorating the centenary of Mahler's death. We went on Friday, and it was one of the most memorable concerts in a long time. It was a live broadcast, live webcast, and being recorded for release as with the whole cycle, or odyssey. Quite a big night then.

The concert started with Scottish born pianist Steven Osborne playing a delicate and delightful Mozart Piano Concerto No. 13 in C. Mozart, along with Alma, were supposedly Gustav Mahler's last words.

Then the 9th.

The programme notes introduce the Mahler 9 as "Another World". Maybe, maybe not. To me this was a warm and loving reflection on this world, and very much of this world. It was wonderful. Perhaps the 10th is, or would have been, of 'another world'; much of it has the feel to me of someone looking back on himself from the 'otherside', those death snares, the funeral beat, already dead, being swept away. But this 9th was still very much in this world, not yet gone, but ready to leave, ready to let go. The love and resolution Ashkenazy evoked was more than reassuring - it was assertive, as positive a statement about the composer as I so needed to hear.

Unlike the Das Lied von der Erde with its aching attachment to existence, here was a man at terms with his fate. The first movement was beautifully shaped, with waves of emotion and love from some gorgeous string playing, inevitably driven forward but without dread, despite ripples of fear and chill scuttering through the winds, death becoming inevitable if not yet embraced, a shoulder looked over again remembering the love in life. It was refined, elegant playing, a European sound C said later, the brass and horns (having a very good night so far) contained, the larrikan brashness of the Mahler 1, now a year and a half ago, long left behind. Mr Ashkenazy was shaping a wonderful journey.

The second movement was not so much a dance of death, nor a dance despite death, but rather a dance regardless of death. This was death not feared so much as becoming irrelevant. The mad tumble rumble of the worldly Rondo-Burleske had its climax contained such that it sounded like a perfectly appropraite faux-climax, nothing to celebrate, everything just understood. And then the final Adagio. I've gone all goosey again remembering it. With beautiful and fantastic ensemble string playing, perfectly balanced dynamics and soft diminishing pianissimos, Ashkenazy evoked an elegant contented resigned slow extinction of life, a release, a happy release dare I cliche, till there was just silence.

I've already bought the Das Lied von der Erde. I'll be buying this. But mostly, I consider myself lucky to have been there. I now think differently about Mahler and his complex impenetrable Judeo-Christian life.

MAHLER COMES TO AN END

2011-05-17T07:03:00.019+10:00

That's last night's full moon rising through the blue and pink twilight over the gully. By midnight it was high and white in the sky, throwing its light across the lawn and turning the pebbled driveway into a creamy arc with arms tapering into the darkness of the trees. There'll be a frost in the morning I thought, looking out the bedroom windows.

I was finishing the last pages of David Rieff's painful catharsis on his mother's death, Swimming in a Sea of Death. Susan Sontag 1933 - 2004, life the little dash between the dates. I was reading about her internment in Montparnasse, in the city to which she was, as I understand him, most attached, among the graves of some of the great writers. She was first and foremost a writer, a writer very attached to this world, and even writing that, this world, I know how inappropriate an expression it is for her, that this implies some other, which for her there wasn't. There was only the world. Repeatedly she struggled with the prospect of her extinction, nothingness. It's not so hard therefore to understand the desperateness to cling on, the anger at the loss of specialness, the frustration with inadequateness of science, and the difficulties in dealing with the beliefs of others, whose comforts and well meaning platitudes brought no solace.

I had wandered into Cemetery Montparnesse many years ago on a day scripted for such a visit, cold with light rain, myself and only one other, moving around slowly in the distance, in long black coats under black umbrellas. Not far from the gates I was drawn to a grave, the slab covered in small stones, each weighing down a hand written note, words bleeding in the wet. The remains of Simone de Beauvoir and Satre lay there. David Rieff in those final pages quotes de Beauvoir, who had herself written of her own mother's death, also from cancer : "whether you think of it as heavenly or as earthly, if you cling to living, immortality is no consolation for death".

Tomorrow is the centenary of Gustav Mahler's death and The Sydney Symphony Orchestra has programmed his 9th - the final complete symphony, if not the last word. His anniversary is thoughtfully bookended by the 9th and 10th (except for the Adagio, incomplete at the time of Mahler's death)

Mr Ashkenazy had chosen the Rudolf Barshai completion. How different it is to the more frequently performed Cooke version, I don't know. If truth be known, I'd stayed away from 'completions', somehow stuck in the belief that, well, if Mahler didn't finish it, it isn't. I'd last heard the Adagio live in 1988 in the same hall when the Chicago came (for the Australian Bicentenary) with Solti, casting a long shadow with their justifiably famous string sound.

This 10th we heard was nonetheless a particularly moving performance with many I suspect hearing it (the Barshai) for the first time. The auditorium was exceptionally still, concentrating, almost breath-holding for the duration. The Adagio is one of those intensely exposed movements that imperfections rob mercilessly of its impact, not to mention that long Chicago shadow. By the second movement, it seemed as if Mahler had all but 'crossed over', reflecting as much on his death as his life, before being swept away in the closing passages to a place, if at all, I suspect Mahler was dreadfully uncertain about. The death screams from the brass were chilling, the solitary drum of the fireman's funeral perhaps less effective, and by the final movement the strings had gelled into a sheen and luminance the work deserves. At the close, there were a few unusual moments of silence and wonder. Ashkenazy looked pleased, and in a rare display, encouraged the audience into an appreciation growing slowly, too slowly he must have thought, till some stood. If there was uncertainty, it was not about the playing, rather that Mahler man and what he was thinking.

The 9th, complex and mysterious, will be critical I think in how Ashkenazy's great Mahler tribute is perceived. The odyssey will finish later in the year with the 2nd, the Resurrection, a brilliant conclusion, if not, who knows, exactly where Mahler finally stood at the end. Though it may simply be a matter of logistics, the programming I mean. How fortunate we have been.

David Rieff' calls resurrection a "Christian fairy tale". Stephen Hawking believes the afterlife a "fairy story for people afraid of the dark". I believe in uncertainty. I defend doubt.

JANE RHODES 1929 - 2011

2011-05-08T19:46:00.022+10:00

(photo source)

AFP reports that the great French mezzo who was the Carmen of her time has died in Paris. Jane Rhodes and I go back a long way - in fact, to the beginning. In the early 60s, as Sutherland was storming the opera world, my big sister escorted me for my birthday to town to buy my first record. I'd decided on Carmen and we were off to Rowe Street Records, (note - link has audio, and you need to open 'Rowe Street stories', then 'Theatre & Music', then 'Rowe Street Records' for the story, and the pictures) where George Cooks (Kux) presided over his imported classics.

Rowe Street was a small inner city lane with hints of bohemia - coffee, design, boutiques, and those progressives who sought something else - now long since sacrificed at the altar of development. This photo ('Jim Southwell collecting the plates', Lincoln Coffee Lounge and Cafe, Brian Bird photographer), from the State Library, caught my eye, as it looks like he did his.

There was, I think I recall, access to some of the more segregated facilities of the (sadly now demolished) Australia Hotel, and I also remember a book shop, downstairs, where publications of the male physique of the more salacious kind could be accessed from the equally salacious proprietor. But back to the birthday present; the other titillations were still some years away.

I stood sheepishly at the counter. My sister boldly asked, to my juvenile embarrassment, if there was a recording with Joan singing it. I didn't know much, but I did know Joan sang really high notes and Carmen didn't. Mr Cooks was very gracious I remember and assured us that no Joan hadn't recorded Carmen, and the one I should buy was the only one to buy - Jane Rhodes.

Philips Gold Label Series (made in Australia) Classical Favorites - Bizet: Carmen, Jane Rhodes, Albert Lance, Robert Massard conducted by Roberto Benzi, Miss Rhodes husband. I played it and played it, and played it. Hoffman would be next, my first complete opera, Ace of Spades label (they were cheap I think), so the French thing was there early on.

What Mr Cooks didn't tell us, if he knew, was that there was an antipodean connection after all. The tenor was Albert Lance, born with the fabulous name of Lancelot Albert Ingram in Adelaide, who would have a huge success in the Northern Hemisphere while remaining relatively unkown in his country of birth, and who now, at 85, has just been honoured by Paris Opera with an invitation to be president of the Paris Opera Jubilee.

Here they are in the Duet and Finale - burning it up, as they say :

If you got to the end of that without goosing up, go see a doctor. And now for something completely the same, more gypsy French singing, 'Connais-tu la pays?', from Thomas' Mignon :

There's something about them, isn't there.

HAPPY AND SMILING

2011-05-08T13:04:00.010+10:00

There were two welcome diversions from routine and lingering lurgy(ie)s last week.

iOTA is back ringmastering, or mistressing, depending, Smoke and Mirrors, for which tickets at the Sydney Festival Speilgeltent were hot cakes over two seasons, I think. It ran in Adelaide and Edinburgh and this is the third, and last, here, so we are told.

With all the hype, some cast changes, and a venue change from tent to Seymour Centre of all places, let alone jaded performers, expectations were guarded. Not a bad way to start because they were seriously exceeded. There's no way the buzz of late steamy January holiday Festival nights can carry. No way. As we lined up for entry (this is general admission, so it's not when you buy your tickets but when you get there that matters), it was about as buzzy as waiting for a bus. But...

Inside the theatre, there was a fair attempt at recreating the circus vibe - lights and things - and it's in the 180, and raked, so all in all quite a good space though I don't doubt much of the magic and some of the thrill was diluted. But there was more than enough to go round and unusually, at least in my experience of jaded Sydney audiences, there was a pretty spontaneous and genuine full house standing ovation at the end. This was first night of this run. And everyone went home happy and smiling. Happy and smiling can be hard to find these days.

If there were messages about who we are, aren't, could be, will be, they were lost on me. Perhaps that needed the intimacy of a smaller venue. But as vaudeville and circus, social commentary aside, backed by the bestest hottest band you're likely to hear, this was a great night. And it is very funny.

iOTA, if you haven't experienced him (in Hedwig and the Angry Inch where his performance was unbelievably moving, and also Dr Frank-n-Furter where he was less successfull I thought, perhaps too young, too campy drag queeny for what should be more sinister), has a huge stage presence, and a great voice, coloured and modulated with a skill that belies his age. I loved the magic, the very funny strongmen, the trapese, and the rather gorgeous voiced bearded chanteuese of Queenie van de Zandit.

Two days later the Sydney Symphony Orchestra was lining up with the Sydney Philharmonia Choir and Sydney Children's Choir, with soloist, with big screen, and as it turned out with a brilliant sound man, for a live backing to the first of the Ring Trilogies - The Fellowship of the Ring. That was buzzy, with a nicely mixed audience, some, it wouldn't be hard to imagine, hearing a big orchestra live for the first time. It's a great Howard Shore (he wrote the opera The Fly, btw) Oscar winning score, here conducted by Ludwig Wicki, no stranger to film music generally or this immense work specifically. Kaitlin Lusk was the soprano with 25 Lord of the Rings Symphonies to her credit. And there was a stunning boy soprano soloist who thankfully was rightly brought onto the stage for bows.

Microphones were everywhere, but actually hard to find at first. They were throughout the orchestra, at front and side of the choirs (each either side of the screen which covered the whole of the choir stalls) and the mixer was rear stalls, where we we sitting. The film is the film - what's too say, except that it looked great of the very big screen, the dialogue was subtitled as well as spoken which irritated some, not me, but was increasingly necessary as the adventures accelerated into the great battle after intermission. I've decided Orlando Bloom is the star - his performance was very stylish, understated but quite masculine and strong without any macho macho, and if he'd never handled a bow and arrow before, you could have fooled me. Charismatic comes to mind.

Anyway, the sound was just fantastic. I've no idea if it's a hard or easy play, but it's certainly long, although there were nice breaks when even the orchestra members were glued to the screen. The sound was BIG, and a very good blend of amplified and direct, the former predominant where we sat, but enough live to give directionality, and the mixing was just first class. The choirs, no surprise here but even then still a surprise, were simply wonderful. That children's choir, I tell you, give thanks.

Everyone loved it, whooped it up at the end, as the exhausted musicians took their bows and their leave. My only regret was the conductor failed to acknowledge, as far as I could see, the mixer as his desk, and the fabulous Rebecca Lagos who had been counting and belting the shit out of some anvil or the like for three and a half hours.

AUTUMN COLLECTION

2011-04-22T14:06:00.008+10:00

There'd been quite a few things to get out of the way before the big long weekend away. The shopping was the main job, and I'd even replaced the whatever-they-were in pots in the little courtyard off the bathroom with Raphis Palms which I'd found time to buy during the week (being slow means you can't really buy small and wait and watch them grow, and for the same reason decent-sized means scandalously expensive).

We'd been back to Darlinghurst for the bread (OK, and a dozen hot cross buns; oh alright, and a cake - the 'Classic Financier', a moist sweet French vanilla sponge which you serve with gorgeous things like berries and cream and coulis). After grabbing a quick dinner it seemed probably late enough to try out the traffic except that what with all the busyness and a full stomach, somnolence had crept up.

A little nap before we set off sounded a good idea, the traffic would be clearing, and we'd arrive at midnight. Next thing it was 4.30 am.

All of which is by way of saying that instead of driving through the little villages in the black of night, or moonlight at best, we, unusually, saw things along the road in glare of the early morning.

MEANWHILE

2011-04-19T20:34:00.014+10:00

The season moves on. Last night a huge Easter Moon floated over the gully, as it does every year, and every year it takes my breath away. I sat on the verandah steps, stunned by its creamy pockmarked beauty, binoculars on and off, its silver glow dancing off the tree tops far below. A huge chunk of rock spinning around us, spinning around, lit by an invisible sun. It was just so beautiful, and still.

Since the last cool wet change moved through, the days have been quiet. The earth is still warm and the grass keeps just enough growth to dress its tips in fresh green. Wrens and robins jump and run, dart and poke. There's whipbirds and lyrebirds calling, waiting. Black cockatoos make a late low sweep before disappearing into the fade.

Except for the banksias (there's always banksias), flowering has nearly finished. The native honeysuckle (Lambertia formosa) is having its usual late summer flush,

and the flannel flowers (Actinotus helianthi) throw up their last, small but still proud stutters of their early form. They're finished this year and I'll replant, if not in the same big numbers, then at least some.

The remaining paper daisies are small and look tired. Being everlasting isn't easy.

Grasses catch the morning sun.

And of course there's the rosemary, with banksias (Banksia spinulosa) behind.

Speaking of rosemary, I've trimmed up the Westringia (native rosemary), making 'waves'.

ANNE SOFIE IS COMING

2011-04-05T12:28:00.005+10:00

Anne Sofie von Otter will be here in November. She sings The Songs of the Auvergne (well, some of them, if 'highlights' means that) with The Sydney Symphony Orchestra in a mixed bag, which sounds fun. Nicolas Carter conducts.

Arguably more interesting, she is in recital in the Utzon Room - Brahms. Schubert, Schumann, Sibelius, Sibelius, Sibelius, and *Dean*. The gods-of-just-in-time guided me and I booked today. The Utzon Room is general admission, and seats 200. I booked seating 153 and 154. I think that means there are 6 seats left. Repeat, six left.

For this

AUTUMN (OF HER YEARS)

2011-03-29T20:59:00.010+11:00

It's not so much that there's hasn't been anything happening as there's been a lot happening. Most memorable of the last few weeks were two exceptional concerts with the Australian Chamber Orchestra, compiled in association with and presented by Alex Ross, the music critic for The New Yorker, author, blogger and long distance driver. I hope to make some record of the programme in the next few days.

But there's been enough time in the country for the soft gentle pleasure of the change of the seasons. Days are now longer than nights, the sun's arc is increasingly lower in the sky, night temperatures are dropping, the morning grass is wet with dew and the lyrebirds are courting. I just love it. Summer holds too many perils down here, and the long winter nights, of the mild temperate southern hemisphere kind, suit my pyschological complexion.

I've been meaning to join in recognising the death of Elizabeth Taylor (Dame just doesn't roll off the tongue, or finger tips). We had, truly, just watched Suddenly Last Summer which I'd recently picked up at that Bookshop near the Balkan (Darlinghurst) where we sometimes grab a grill and sit on the footpath watching the parade. Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf (I think this is my favorite film of all, not of hers, of all) and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof are also in the collection, watched at least once a year, every year. And National Velvet is one of my earliest memories. There's nothing to say that hasn't been said, except that her kind don't exist any more, and that's been said anyway. She was a woman who was ultimately, by all appearances, completely comfortable with herself. There was no pretence. She was who she was and she dealt with her stunning gift of astounding beauty with an honesty and balance rarely if ever seen in today's superficial starlets.

Watch this (all of it) and love her that little bit more (by way of The Arts Desk) :

CECILIA FILLS THE HOUSE

2011-03-14T20:05:00.011+11:00

You know you want to - it's 10 million CD Cecilia Bartoli.

To be honest, rather than really really wanting to hear her, it was that I didn't want to not hear her. So, before it completely sold out, driven by some inner budget-defying demon, I found myself scrolling around the concert hall seating plan when some automatic typing took over my hand and CLICK - I'd bought two tickets.

I don't like talking money and find it tedious when others do. I'm about to be tedious. The tickets were $195 - that's $400 on tickets, $35 on parking (options are available, but getting away quickly was a necessity), dinner $50 (at the very busy new foodies just past the Opera Bar, day sliding into night behind the silhouette of the bridge and its last climbers), and then $20 for one of those glossy oversized advertorial programmes with the song list buried somewhere in the middle. I resisted the programme till interval - surely a song list on a piece of paper is not too much to ask for $200? Yes, it's too much. And a teeny weeny ice cream. That comes to more than half a thousand dollars.

And meanwhile, Japan is being shifted sideways around the earth, and the horror of what is happening to the helpless is all muddled up with my selfish guilty thoughts of superfunds, a trip we've just booked through Tokyo, K's business dealings in Japan, and here we are swishing around this stunning city on a hot summer's night throwing money up in the air. I know, I know, but I just couldn't stop thinking about it.

The concert platform was nicely dressed, a series of lush red curtains, a black drop, a piano, a full house, and on she comes to rapturous applause, thick dangling curls, winning smile and sparkling eyes (not to mention earrings and bracelet) - Cecilia Bartoli (recently married - make that happily partnered - see comments) and pianist Sergio Ciomei. With the (grammy winning) Sacrificium recital clashing with the ACO with Alex Ross , we were in for a night of 'Romantic Songs'.

She had a lovely persona, radiating a feeling of a generous artist, one certainly about to give a generous programme, with few if any pretensions. The stage mannerisms were controlled and in fact rather subdued mostly, her feet anchored, arms moving with appropriate feeling, and face and eyes living the words. She certainly sang the words. I wish I had been more familiar with her repertoire. This voice is larger than I expected, much larger. She had, at least from where we sat (side box near the stage), no trouble filling what can sometimes be a challenging acoustic space for voice. The middle and chest voice is wonderfully rich and full, warm and embracing. There was no shortage of vocal acrobatics, for which she is justly famous, and while I hesitate to be a nark, the sound can get a bit nasal and as she runs through whatever her glottis is doing with her fast articulations, a hard edge appears, more like running up and down wooden stairs than throwing out a string of vocal pearls, and we know who did that. I actually enjoyed her most when she was off the circus routine and letting flow with long lines, and she certainly has them, well controlled, of gorgeous rich tone.

There was perhaps too much fidgety self awareness between pianist and singer, gushing at each other, and clapping, but it all helped fill in what can be awkward empty spaces between a very long list of songs. And thankfully there was no dress change between halves, rather the earrings and bracelet disappeared in favour of necklace of serious brilliance. More Italian, moving comfortably into French and onto Spanish, she wrapped it up with a showy but slightly underwhelming Rataplan. Then, four encores - "We need to end this concert" - she beamed to a wildly enthusiastic audience and we slipped out thinking we were with the early get-aways. They weren't - they were forming a line for CDs and programmes to be autographed that was already across the foyer and they were still clapping and cheering inside.

Here's one from the second bracket, and what she gave us was even more lovely - languid but never limp - the next phrase only countenanced when the caress of the last was complete.

DRAGONFLY

2011-03-13T08:28:00.006+11:00

What a difference some fairy wings makes.

A BIT OF A LIST

2011-03-09T11:47:00.008+11:00

This will amount to not much more than a list, just for the record.

I managed to make it, black tie and all, to our 40th Alumni Reunion dinner in the Great Hall on a steamy hot night at the end of February. Do the sums if you must, but remember things happened earlier way back then. I had my 17th birthday in first year University. It was way too young, for most things, let alone a career choice. That said, forty years later there were few regrets among the large number still alive and still interested, although quite a few had retired, and they mostly 'proceduralists'.

There is a strange commonality at play. A large group initially derived from school academic achievement and adolescent, or parental, ambitions, becomes subdivided alphabetically for practical, in both senses, reasons, only to be reorganised again for student allocation to institutions, then dispersed in postgraduate allocation to an even wider array of institutions, and finally let loose on an unsuspecting public. Yes, I'm talking Medicine. And what happened next was the subject of the night.

It turned out that Turns, despite much goodwill in the audience, really failed to hit the spot. A shame really. Everyone wanted it to work. As K noted, Reg is best with someone else's material and with much stronger direction that his protege could deliver. Nancye Hayes was saddled with a increasingly unfunny costume, loads of dialogue, not her strong point, and not that much to sing. And the mother-and-son routine is pretty old hat.

Our first encounter with the Sydney Symphony for the year was a very satisfying Peer Gynt. This was fine ensemble playing, with some gleaming icy brightness from the violins, and terrific solo work, especially Jacqueline Porter's lovely Solveig and Simon Halligan's ardent Peer, all held together with lucid narration by John de Lancie. Stage direction was considerably better than the last effort, a clumsyish Midsummers Night Dream, and this time the amplification was excellent. Not inappropriately either.

Earlier on the same day, in the same concert hall, there had been a memorial for Bruce Jackson, Sydney's export to the world of big sound. He had a huge career in the USA, front of house for the Greats, (Elvis gave him a plane for his birthday, Streisand would have no other) and though you may not have known at the time, he was the man behind the sound of the Sydney Olympic Opening Ceremony. He had crashed to his death in Death Valley, on the Californian Nevada border. Bruce and K had grown up together, neighbours, family friends, had entered the world of electronics together, stayed in contact, and worked together again during the recording of the Sydney Olympic music.

Lilli Tomlin was a must see. It was the night before Mardi Gras, and Enmore was buzzing. So was Lilli, kind of. Despite local references, there was a sense of Friday-must-be-X, and although the seriously gay and lesbian crowd loved her, they failed to deliver her that extra feedback I suspect she needed to really raise it up a bar or two. The interesting point she did make, and confirm the next night on the Mardi Gras telecast (where the commentary was between embarrassing and atrocious) was that she was not in agreement with gay marriage, seeing it as aping heterosexuals.

We even managed Nixon in China from the Met, with Adams' score sounding particularly Glassish, with Wagner interludes. The libretto mostly escaped me. It was of a depth and meaning that made it all but impossible to appreciate except by slow reading the text. For me, the women stole the show, except for the exceptional Cho En-lai of Russell Braun. I still find the camera work too close, too often. Peter Sellars alone was worth it.

The SSO Mahler 6 was very good, fast driven, muscular, exciting. They're getting good solid sound happening, which augurs well for the 7, anyday soon.

And last but not least, Orchestra Romantique gave a great concert last Sunday afternoon, all within walking distance, a glass of wine, a happy happy crowd. Harriet has the story. We sat close and the Berlioz was particularly vivid and visceral. I loved it.

Enough already.

ORCHESTRA ROMANTIQUE

2011-03-01T16:59:00.011+11:00

Paddington Town Hall; Sunday, March 6, 3pm. You'll be just waking up.

Orchestra Romantique, brainchild of Nick Byrne (second trombone Sydney Symphony and Ophicleide serious dude) and Nicholas Carter (Sydney Symphony associate conductor), is the new Sydney orchestra made up mainly of Sydney Symphony players with a focus on the romantic repertoire. While obviously targeting all music lovers, it is especially conscious of people who for one reason or another don't necessarily make it to the big venues with bigger ticket prices. But the intimacy (Paddington Town Hall, 600 seats), the prices (adults $25, concessions $15, family $65), and the starting time (Sunday 3pm) aren't the only reasons you should be going.

How's this for programming:

Carl Maria von Weber - 'Oberon' Overture (1826 - it was said to have killed him, aged 40).

Jules Demersseman (1833-1866) - Introduction and Polonaise for Ophicleide and Orchestra.

Hector Berlioz - Symphonie Fantastique (the 1830 version, with period brass and percussion, prepare to riot).

Never heard of Monsieur Demersseman the virtuoso French blower who died at 33? Never heard the ophicleide?? Then better not miss this challenging work on this amazing instrument with a reputation for needing more air than a rugby player and not without risk - apart from the untimely death of the two composers, there's this: "... and his uncle who tried to commit suicide by shutting his head in a carpet bag, and his father who played Ophicleide and died insane as they all do..." Virginia Woolf to Vanessa Bell, 1916).

More pictures and stories, as well as all about this pre-tuba brass instrument of sweet highs and gruff lows, can be found on Nick Byrne's fantastic Nick and his Ophicleide website. Be careful Nick.

But wait - there's more. There's Scott Kinmont and his big serpent. Hah. The gang's all here.

I missed their first concert but I'm not missing the second. From what I hear, neither should you. My eldest sister and some of her extended family heard the programme last Sunday in Newcastle, and she reports it was brilliant, with the Novocastrians whooping and foot stamping in appreciation.

Meanwhile, here's the 'Oberon' overture. Imagine, instead of that horn, it just might be the first time you hear "the most lyrical Romantic-era brass instrument you've never heard"

A DAY IN TOWN

2011-02-23T22:48:00.019+11:00

I'd stayed in the city for what turned out to be a depressing work meeting on Monday night. On the humid drizzly morning-after, forewarned about heavy traffic around the foreshores, I set off to walk to the pool with not much more than a dilly bag with togs and towel, and a book.

The two Queens had slipped into the harbour as the dawn was just breaking through heavy clouds and by the time I was at Mrs Macquarie Chair the huge Queen Mary 2 had docked at the Naval Base and Queen Elizabeth was looking somewhat more glamorous, if that compliment can ever be extended to today's big cruise ships, all top heavy overstuffed with little balconies, at Circular Quay.

I made it three people at the pool, as a light rain came and went, overhead mostly dark with occasional cloud breaks revealing a brilliant Sydney blue sky for a teasing few minutes. It looked like some of the local pleasure boats were taking passengers directly on board from a lowered gangway and jetty.

Swimming in the rain is heaven.

Around the cove, past the Opera House, I threaded my way along the Quay, through a million cameras, to the Museum of Contemporay Art, where the queues for the Annie Liebovitz exhibition were said to be intimidating. Well, there weren't any. Everyone was pointing the other way, looking at Herself, caught in breaking sunlight, and warping the perspective of all our usual landmarks, even the bridge pylons reduced to little stone things.

The exhibition is on one floor - 15 years of her life, with great expansive landscapes, walls of densely compacted personal photos of unnerving intimacy, drawing you close, too close, overlapping life and death, beginnings and endings, and everything in between, and of course riddled with the rich and famous. From an awkward gangly almost frightened early Nicole Kidman snap, for example, Liebovitz then takes you to the fabulous star, wrapped in the narcissism of her own glamour, emerging from a swirl of smoky gauze, nearly unrecognisable with swept back short hair and one vulnerable eye, and in a stunning inversion of reality, the empty theatre blurred out by the spots, leaves just the beautiful one and that door competing for your attention. Queue for it.

I was there for a long time. When I emerged there was more light rain and things were whiting out.

(clicking should enlarge)

I wandered off into the streets of the city, better.

LEO SAYS

2011-02-15T19:54:00.007+11:00

The other day I came across this. While I can't say I yet agree with the first sentence, if he is talking about earthly life on this planet, and I don't know the context but intend to try to find it, I think I know what he means.

"Love is life. All, everything that I

understand, I understand only because I love. Everything is,
everything exists, only because I love. Everything is united by it
alone. Love is God, and to die means that I, a particle of love,
shall return to the general and eternal source." Leo Tolstoy

SEE YOU LATER SPOTTY

2011-02-14T14:11:00.014+11:00

It happened quite quickly on Friday evening. She had been looking a little bit glazed and uncertain for the last few days, although she was in reasonable shape walking in Centennial Park on Thursday morning, trotting along at her own speed, tail wagging slowly, and endlessly, as it always did. Her last years were nothing if not a manifestation of strength and beauty of personality.

Spot was 16. The oldest dog I've ever had, and I've always had dogs. Always will I hope. Strangely, I'd been lent Dog Walks Man the week before, half finished now on the bedside table. Spot walked us through a life certainly better for her being. Our good fortune.

The little city house felt suddenly empty. I didn't get down to the country, by now surrounded in mist and low cloud with a light steady rain, till Sunday evening. With two candles and an incense stick burning, I sat on the couch with Millie. She's the big dog now, the keeper of the spirit. In a half awake half asleep fading meditative state, my bare feet under the old wooden table where Spot spent most of her last years, in the stillness, I swear I felt her hairs gently brush past my toes, soft and fleeting, then gone.

We had stayed in town for a fund raising party on Saturday. Under a marquee on the lawns of an old sandstone house, Sydney twinkling beyond the harbour, Diana Doherty, with Pen on piano, had played Robert Schumann's Evening Serenade, and only as she could - heartfelt and beautiful, time slipping away, a hushed audience, and us, a wee bit teary.

Here you go Spot ... and thanks

THE KING SPEAKS

2011-02-08T14:03:00.012+11:00

You've seen the film. Now hear him speak. Colin Firth was reportedly brought to tears. There's more from the BBC.

The producer of this very personal film is Emile Sherman ...

(thanks to mamamia)

... son of Brian Sherman, immigrant, business man, entrepreneur, arts patron, animal rights activist. Sydneysiders, especially from the eastern suburbs, will be familiar with Sherman Galleries.

POPPING IN, AND OUT

2011-02-02T12:02:00.012+11:00

The heat continues. During the day, and especially in the afternoon, there's very little coming and going, at least that you can see or hear. On Monday friends driving south popped in mid-afternoon. Although inside the house was marginally cooler, we sat with cold lime drinks under the big gum overhanging the lawn. The shade and the stillness, with just the slightest of air movement, surrounded by the hovering heat, was almost exhilarating. It was certainly peculiarly Australian.

Later we walked through what will hopefully one day be a canopy of scribbly gums. They're about four year olds now, and were planted as tube stock to evolve into an avenue of creamy white wandering trunks with widespread protective arms over the new gardens. More on them later. To get there you walk over the little stone bridge near the dam where two skinks live. One is always on the lookout, whatever the weather.

By the time we were back to the house, another visitor had appeared, someone I hadn't seen in all the years we've been here. Out came the book. It could be the common but rarely seen, secretive and shy, Scaly thrush (Zoothera dauma), a beautifully disguised forest floor dweller with brown and cream marbling, striding alertly across the lawn grub hunting. Or maybe it's the Spotted quail-thrush (Cinclosoma punctatum), equally wary.

ON THIS DAY

2011-01-26T17:31:00.016+11:00

There's the usual hoopla going on everywhere about the day Governor Phillip set up a penal colony in No Man's Land, except it wasn't. Are we so bereft of honesty, with so little else to be proud of, of which to be proud, yunno.

It's breathlessly hot in the bush. The morning was deceptive, overcast and spotting. In spite of the forecast for a stinker, it was pleasantly mild. They're wrong again I thought, failing to notice that I was the only one out. Except for an English Blackbird (they are around - how did it know it was the day for trespass) trilling itself stupid and me awake just as the sun rose, there was nothing about. Even the dogs hung close to the house. By late morning the sky was a radiant hot blue and the temperature soared. Inside the house was comfortable, doors and windows thrown open all night now well shut. Nothing stirred - not a cockatoo or parrot in the trees, no whipbird to be heard, no wrens on the grass, no swallows near the house.

As if they'd known, and I'm sure now they did, the Cockatoos had been around in larger than usual numbers late yesterday doing whatever they do before weather like this. A large flock of Suphur Crested, high overhead, screeched their way south. Parties of Yellow-tailed Black (Funereal) Cockatoo (Calyptorhynchus funereus) winged back and around in the receding afternoon. Just outside the study window one landed in a Hairpin Banksia (Banksia spinulosa) bobbing it over the driveway with its weight. There's green tight new buds emerging, still a month or two from opening into flowers, but it was one of the last years few remaining nutty brown seed pods he was after. Sitting confidently, the pod held up in one hand, dropping as much as he ate, he cleaned it up in no time.

With a cheeky glance, I know you're there, he was away.

Times like this I think Banksia not such a bad name at all.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MR

2011-01-24T22:25:00.006+11:00

Here's a very hip Teresa Berganza in a Monroe x Deitrich tribute to Placido Domingo, celebrating 70 years in Madrid, with very little lost in translation.