THE COMFORT OF OTHERS

The last few days have mostly revolved around analgesed reverie, mostly on warm afternoons (at least before today's cool misty drizzle set in), and mostly in bed. The verandah doors open wide and the gully slips away just beyond the giant gum, rooted deep below in the rainforest floor and whose upper branches, themselves alone the size of any other nearby trees, reach confidently above the cliff.

The orphan is here to stay. He sleeps on his trampoline bed on one side, and the old dog on the floor on the other. The pup is now a three year old and the bonds are strong. She lies with me, tucked into my knees or stretched out alongside, always pressing close whatever the arrangement. Respirations are rhythmic and shared, interrupted only by the sporadic twitching and yelps of deep dog sleep.

Iris Murdoch, with whom I have started a belated relationship, is also in the room. If not in hand, The Green Knight is on the bed on the other side to the dog, my place marked with a small horse, a clever folding cardboard magnet, which S bought at the Acropolis Museum just before she came back to Sydney, and died. Bellamy, gay and desperately seeking, has just written again to Father Damien, to whom he is abnormally attached, begging, if not admittance to the monastery, then such physical pain as to shatter his mind and allow God to enter.

Outside there is absolutely no breath of air. It is warm and still, nothing moving, not even a leaf, except for the slow assemblage of soft puffy white clouds and they are working on another time meter altogether such that difference is only noticed after a long period of not looking at all.

With the completely unpredictable downbeat of an unseen conductor, a mighty chorus of cicadas starts and without hint of any variation in dynamics or fatigue lasts till the sky shades two fingers of pink above the horizon and the arch of blue above picks up a darkening indigo tinge. They sing for hours. Timbals, that's what they're called, the ribbed membranes these insects vibrate in endless unison. They are courting, each individual frequency searching a mate, but the total harmonic effect is one of omnidirectional radar jamming. They know where each is, predators can isolate none. You'll never find one by listening, and they climb high, higher, highest. Seven years for seven days is the legend.

I spent days in the branches of the big Liquidamber (an easy climb) in our childhood yard in the thrill of it all, green grocers, yellow mondays, piss whackers, and the occasional prized black prince. Childhood comforts - the sound of cicadas, scrambled eggs, pyjamas warmed by the fire, and dogs.

And today Polly and friend flew in from the mist, for a check, and a swing.

JOAN SUTHERLAND MEMORIAL

A State Memorial Service for Dame Joan is to held in the Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House, on Tuesday November 9, 10.30 am.

STONED IN SHANGHAI

Out of my mind? To death?

No - although either would have been better. Stones in the kidney!

I think it probably started in Shanghai. It was hot, humid, and quite frankly I was scared of drinking the water. The hotel had four bottles of water in the room at any time, and if that wasn't the clue, what was? I didn't take them out in the day, and did go walking. The hottest day walk was when it took a few hours to get to the Shanghai Museum. Stopping at a stall in a park I picked a bottle of what looked like water. But no, it was syrupy and lemonade-like. I couldn't drink it. I headed into the Museum Cafe, but by then perhaps it was too late. And then there's air flights, although I tend to over-drink and drive everyone nuts getting up and down.

Remember chemistry classes and making crystals? There has to be a nidus, and I think mine was made in China (tempted to say cheap and nasty, but won't). It seems a predominantly male problem. The payback by the other sex. It's the closest you'll come to knowing what childbirth is like they say. Well I didn't want to know, thank you very much.

Anyway, it's twins. I've got two. Treatment has started but far from finished. I know my way around these circles and have been lucky enough to be in control of who does what to whom.

Should the ramblings get too wild, blame it on substances.

REMEMBERING JOAN III

Some details of the funeral have emerged. From someone who was there:

"Her funeral was held in a 17th century church filled with gorgeous floral tributes and friends came from all over the world to attend the lovely service. Her son Adam and his son Vanya both gave superb eulogies along with others. Many of Joan's religious recordings were played including "Let the Bright Seraphim" and "Oh Divine Redeemer." At her grave site each of us mourners was given a red rose and a scoop full of earth to accompany her casket as it was lowered into the ground."

Out of the darkness into the light.

REMEMBERING JOAN II

The BBC have been having some trouble with their Joan tributes. It's all bit of a giggle, but worth watching for more than the muddle. I was struck by the emotion of Pavarotti's face, as he holds her tightly, visibly moved by the occassion, Joan's final stage appearance, guesting in Fledermaus at Covent Garden.

If they were looking for a good tribute, there's none better than that Kennedy Centre Honours night, presented by Marilyn Horne. Americans are so good at this sort of thing. She includes the story of that New York debut.

The Rosalinde clip that the BBC finally showed as they tied themselves in knots is quite interesting in itself. It is from 1982 in Sydney. Now if you don't know, Sydney has a significant Hungarian community, and as generalisations go, they love music, love opera, and love good seats. Joan laughed at herself telling the story of the complaints about her diction and someone once saying for all intents and purposes it could have been Hungarian, when it was!

Well, this is it. She is 56, singing the Czardas in Hungarian, but not before a fabulous "Zsank you darlink" (0:10) to the front stalls.

REMEMBERING JOAN

My thoughts are still preoccupied with the death of Dame Joan. Here are a few of my favorite photos.

* Amina, La Sonnambula, La Scala 1961

# Margeurite de Valois (on horseback), Les Huguenots, La Scala 1962

* Elvira, I Puritani, London 1964 with Gabriel Bacquier

# Norma, Vancouver 1963. Her first Norma and an ecstatic audience (it's worth clicking to enlarge just to see the man in the front row)

# Lucia, Lucia, Lucia, Sydney Concert Hall, January 1980 (I took Mum and Dad)

* Alcina, Sydney, 1983 with Margreta Elkins and some beefy boys.

# Beatrice, Beatrice di Tenda, La Scala 1961

I had planned to follow each picture with a recording from the time, if not the actual photographed performance. While everything is special at the moment, there's one more special than the others to me. It is the exquisitely beautiful, impossibly difficult, achingly sad cry from Beatrice just after her entrance - "Yet am I the only one, alas,"

Beatrice di Tenda was her Feb 21, 1961 New York debut (along with Marilyn Horne), the opera resurrected for her by the American Opera Society in concert at the New York Town Hall. As we know, the two would go on to form a close friendship and formidable working relationship - the 'Druid Duo'. Marilyn Horne is said to have been restless that night, unable to sleep, and finally rang Switzerland at 4 am New York time. Richard told her Joan had just died.

One the day before this New York debut (Lucia at the Met would come later the same year, Sonnambula at Carnegie Hall at the same time), Sutherland received the news that her mother had died, all the more shocking as she had been in good health. Encouraged by her aunt to stay and sing, she did. She sang. The emotion in her voice is only to be heard. Two more performances had to be scheduled at the larger Carnegie Hall to meet the overwhelming demand.

This is the later studio recording. The live 1961 pirate is widely available.

Harold Schoenberg in the New York Time 22 February 1961 wrote: It is a beautifully colored voice, one that ascends effortlessly to the E in alt and most likely beyond. Where most sopranos have trouble with B flats and Cs, Miss Sutherland is at her most secure above the staff. And withal she preserves the color, warmth and style. In concerted numbers her voice soars above the ensemble without ever becoming hard or jagged. She is a supreme technician... She phrases like an artist, and she never tries to take centre stage in the ensemble numbers. She has numerous ways of changing the color of her voice, in accordance with the dramatic and stylistic needs of the moment, and she does not hesitate to do so...in somewhat altering the coloratura she follows precedent.

I don't think she'd like us to finish that way. She often said she loved to leave the daffy mad roles ending in death and revel in humour and joy, in the sheer delight of singing. Enter Joan, all but held aloft by the gentlemen, little feet skipping down the stairs (just) in the most breathtaking entrance, a flash of relief across her face that she made it, then sweeping her way through this, this small pinched hint of what she sounded like in the Concert Hall, in a gorgeous camp very Sydney production:

* Joan Sutherland A Tribue, Moffat Oxenbould

# La Stupenda, Brian Adams

HERE SHE IS

This has just come to light. It is early 1974 in New York, a few months before she would come to Sydney for her first appearance in the new Opera House in the four great soprano roles of Hoffman. This tape of her Olympia has surfaced. It should give you some idea of what I was talking about.