TIME FLIES

We're in Hong Kong.

It was a remarkably easy flight, a scheduled nine and a half hours. Before we even took off, the captain said the expected flight time was eight and a half. I'd brought three books, and had a few movies I was keen to catch up on. But still.

By the time I'd found The Death of Stalin, and then we'd synched our viewing (we spend forever stopping and starting till we are on the same frame), we were well into lunch and then the next thing I knew I was waking up to the Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique. It'd be better on a big screen anyway, the movie I mean.

The head sets (Cathay) were terrific, and the noise reduction technology brilliant. I drifted away into the music as the 777, a noisy beast if you're near the wings with one huge engine each side, each alone able to get the thing home on its own regardless, droned on in some remote other world.

Shirley Jackson's "We Always Lived In The Castle" came with a genius recommendation from George Monbiot. I've got a thing for Mr Monbiot, but no-one knows that, except the internet now. I like his style. He just had prostate cancer surgery, which is a pretty big challenge to body and mind, and his attitude is as admirable as it gets.

Already, it's a book I don't want to put down but I don't want to stop. So there's that delicious conundrum. Early on, the protagonist, who loathes the villagers with a vengeance, wonders why such ugly and unwanted creatures were even created. It's a great question.

And in between pages, and more nodding off, there was more Berlioz, and before you knew it the late afternoon sun was glinting orange through the starboard windows, the shades now all up ready for landing, and everyone upright and fastened. I wondered if anyone was using safe words; if people before a disaster had any premonitions. The plane skipped down through the low clouds. The pilot came on air again. He had a softened Kiwi accent, and was rather friendly. I wondered what he looked like. Did he use safe words?

The craggy green peaks and wandering coast line came closer. The air looked heavy and humid. And the landing was perfect.

BEST FRIEND'S FRIEND

(rushcutters' bay)

All I saw were the hind legs and tail disappear over the wall. 

In an unexpected display of fearlessness, she'd jumped the wall and dropped a good three metres into the harbour. I thought she knew about water, but what would I know.

I peered down, as she scraped on the scaley stained sandstone blocks, exposed by the extra low tide. Our eyes met. She was way beyond arm's length. My mind was racing - the depth, the extent of the wall, the nearest wharf at least a hundred metres away, what clothes do you shed before jumping in, well shoes at least, ...

I heard him before I saw him, heard him say 'I'll get him" as he pulled off his shirt. Mid-teens, fit as a fiddle, and beaming an uncertain smile. I don't think he knew exactly what to do either, but he wanted to do whatever it was.

"Thank you. Thank you very much. What if you get over and I hold your arm and then you might be able to reach her with your other arm. And he's a her. She not two yet."

We tried that, but were a long way short.

"I'm going in" he said stripping down to his shorts, and then he was beside her, reaching out to her, and took her in his arms. "I don't want a bull shark to get her" he called up. I don't want a bull shark to get you, I thought.

He carried her carefully down to the wharf, his father and his brother now looking on. His father seemed mighty proud. "I don't want a bull shark to get her" he repeated, more than once.

"I don't know how I can ever thank you" I said to his father after the rescue was done, and he'd gone off down to the boasted to clean himself up. "Whatever can I do. Is there anything he'd like, or needs?"

"Some shoes" said his father, visiting from Melbourne, their yellow hire bikes lying on the grass. "Some shoes". 

(his father took the photo)

PERTH

(from King's Park)

We've been to Perth, both for the first time, but just for a couple of nights.

Fremantlle, where we stayed, had a touristy charm about it, though it was alarmingly quiet on a Sunday evening, teetering on abandoned.

Cottesloe's famous beach facing the great Indian Ocean was greyed under sullen skies but the heady pulse of hot summer days was palpable just below the surface. We couldn't resist fish and chips on the verandah of the grand old hotel, aka the Cott.

Before flying home, we idled a morning away in King's park. It is huge reserve of all but virgin bush with more manicured gardens around the restaurant and function areas, boasting a tempting preview of the west's justly famous eucalypts and flowers. The city is splayed along the river, clearly a mining town with any significant building's naming rights in the hands mining companies.

We went for a funeral. The cemetery is a vast and beautiful place of handsome gums and gardens with a random wildness that adds to the stillness. It seems more bush than mannered burial ground, and more welcoming for it. We walked about twenty minutes behind the hearse in a light warm summer drizzle to a plot reserved fifty years ago next to my sister's first little infant son who died at nine months and now no longer lies alone, but with his father.

IN MEMORIAM

(warm summer's evening)

When Anne Sofie von Otter's husband died suddenly in Sydney days before her scheduled appearances with the SSO, it was especially shocking. We had cancelled going down to Adelaide for her recital there at the last minute anticipating the imminent death of close family here in Sydney, which did overtake us, and in this grief we felt even the more for her, so tragically robbed of her marriage, a state we ourselves were closely approaching.

In lieu, Stuart Skelton graciously and generously flew across from Perth, and back again, then back and back again, and the programme changed to German songs for voice and piano.

In the Uber on the way in for this, on a warm summer Friday evening, news came of another death, my brother in law in Darwin, a welcome but grossly disturbing relief from the terror of premature vascular dementia. We now faced two funerals, and headed into the house in sombre mood.

That Donald Runnicles spoke at some length about the Mahler 10 that was to follow after interval before Skelton entered the concert platform was slightly disconcerting, as if Mr Skelton was stuck in a cab in Macquarie Street. It was however more to do with balancing the two concert halves I gather. Finally onto an empty stage save the piano and Runnicles, he took his place, and in a remarkable and sombre piece of theatre, the likes of which I don't think I've ever seen before, the hall plunged into complete darkness, with each man lit by a single spot, which merged into a skewed eight shape.

We were sitting, unusually for us, in a side box, looking down and across, where perhaps the impact of this was arguably even more dramatic. The air was cold and still, and silent.

I thought he sang magnificently, across a range extending to both extremes of tenor highs and lows, and maybe as high and certainly as low as I think I've heard him, with beautiful colouring, wonderful pianos, and sublime phrasing of which his huge Wagnerian voice, reigned in yet crystal clear and penetrating, is a master. This was the first I'd heard him in recital, as it was for those around us. 

Hugo Wolf

Verborgenheit (Seclusion)

Richard Strauss

Ruhe, meine Seele! (Rest, my soul)

Franz Liszt

Wanderers Nachtlied (Wanderer's Night Song)

Richard Strauss

Morgen! (Tomorrow!)

MURIEL'S WEDDING

By chance, we went to Muriel's Wedding, The Musical, Sydney Theatre Company, on the night the marriage equality legislation finally passed. A tortuous and disgustingly politicised process had at last come to its proper conclusion. I'd bought the tickets more than a year ago for K's birthday.

Driving through the city in heavy traffic on the way to the theatre, we heard the final moments, and then the cheering, crescendoing into We Are One from the visitor's gallery. it was emotional, but also a strange feeling which I struggle to define. The best I can come up with is perhaps it's like being let out of jail after decades kept in the dark - the light is too bright.

It's a terrific show, and tracks the film very closely. Maggie McKenna (she's Gina Riley's daughter - Kath and Kim, The Games) stands out from a stand out cast, with perhaps Gary Sweet just missing the sleaze needed for the sleaze bag father, he's just, mmm, too sweet. (booom tish). It's a bit too long, and easy to trim, and the ending needs a bit of a rethink maybe, but no matter really. The ghosting presence of ABBA is genius.

And so, in the curtain calls, this fabulous cast took on the spirit of the night. That's Maggie McKenna (Muriel) holding the Vote Yes placard.

LOOKING BACK

It seems to have been a long year. Uppermost in my mind are the three operatic events in the concert hall, two from the Sydney Symphony, and one from Opera Australia.

1. Charles duToit led a wonderfully hypnotic Pelléas and Mélissande, beautifully realised by a mostly imported cast, and fine musicianship from the orchestra under his elderly but firmly disciplined hand. I sort of tranced out, and thinking about it, so must have the audience who, while not always in the habit of being silent and composed in the euro style, behaved impeccably in what was for many I suspect, and for myself, a first time live encounter with this Debussy and his magic ways.

2. In an outstanding contribution to opera in the concert hall, Opera Australia's Parsifal was a stunner.

                                          (lousy pic, but shows the rapturous audience on their feet)

Sold very much around Jonas Kaufmann, this was anything but a one man show and everything about excellence on every level, with conductor Pinchas Steinberg at the top of the trickle down. The pacing, shading, textures and balance (for a difficult hall to get right) were wonderful, and the orchestra a pleasant surprise, which reflects a lot more on me than them. How good do they sound! Simone Young went through a phase of 'getting them out of the pit into the open', and we'd be very lucky if there were to be more of this.

Savour the cast:

Conductor       Pinchas Steinberg
Parsifal           Jonas Kaufmann, a beautifully elegant sound of much depth of feeling
Kundry           Michelle deYoung, god she's got the goods, and the presence.
Amfortas        Michael Honeyman, stepping into a big sing and singing big
Klingsor         Warwick Fyfe, perfect histrionic casting hurling out malice
Gurnemanz     Kwangchul Youn, rock solid top drawer
Titurel             David Parkin, interesting casting with a lighter voice adding tragic frailty

with delicious Flowers Maidens, Knights and Esquires (listed in the link).

The very lovely emerging Anna Dowsley was alto solo, and also Genevieve in Pelléas and Mélissande. She was also Lucretia in Sydney Chamber Opera's Rape of, and that I missed that is the one regret of the year.

On top of all that excellence, what was also especially satisfying was the beauty of the production with some small elements of semi-staging, perfect placement of persons and voices, and a fabulous chorus which were actually arranged and lit like a swan at one stage, which brings me to the lighting of the most subtle and sophisticated kind, even and up to finally spilling red, red and then some more red.

3. And last but not least, the year ended with Sydney Symphony Orchestra's Bluebeards Castle, right up David Robertson's tightly controlled alley. This was another first outing for me, and while I had planned for thrice, I made it twice.

                                    (don hans narrator, david robertson, john relyea, michelle deyoung)

I'm not even sure now that I want to see it fully staged. It is theatre of the mind, and to the extent that they overdid the lighting effects, with the exception of the almost orgasmic brilliance of the fifth door as Michelle DeYoung unleashed a stunning high C into the hall, they actually only emphasised the need to keep this pared back to a gradual parting of the dark shrouds of the imagination. (The earlier special effects in Parsifal are a fair reference point for less is more.)

Together, Michelle DeYoung (six foot one) and John Relyea (at least two inches taller I'd guess) were fabulously paired in an illuminating exploration of fear and love, the great eternal opposites, brilliantly scored by Bartok.

THE DOORS

No, not those doors. These doors ~

Decades ago I was in Melbourne for a Meeting, and on the morning of the first session I rang M, who was staying with J & P, to see if she was going in. M was in the shower, and J kindly chatted to pass some time. 

"What are you up to?" she asked.

"Oh, not much. But we have seen a block of land in the bush, and we're seriously thinking about buying it, and building a house."

"How fabulous. P and I have some land on the peninsula, and we were thinking of building, but have decided against. In fact we've bought the front doors!"

"You've what?"

"Bought the doors. You don't want any doors, do you?"

"Well, you know me. Who knows. Where are they?"

"Oh, here's M. They're in a shop in Albert Park. I'll give M the details"

We found the shop. We bought the doors. We shipped them to Sydney. We built a house around them.

So it happened that on Sunday, on our last night after the Trade Show, we ducked dining with the crowd, and opted for an early night before the drive home, and found ourselves in an Italian Restaurant not too far away from the hotel. In Albert Park. It was lovely, and deliciously traditional with terrific staff and smiles all round.

Full and happy, we walked a little after, along the wide streets, thinking we'd see a taxi. A tram rattled past. The sky was darkening. K was feeling the night air, and took to ordering an Uber. "No wait. I want to cross over, and see what's down there", feeling a vague familiarity. Not more than a few doors along from the intersection, there it was.

Totally unchanged in twenty years, there was the shop where we'd bought J's doors, her wonderful doors, our happy threshold, unchanged to this day from the day they left the shop. 

Not that long after they had become ours, even before they had a house built around them, to our horror came the news that J was no longer with us.

What little we know.