The true future of opera

'As a by-product, this development will put an end to today's star system. The indispensable quality of "stardom" is its rarity. But, on the one hand, the difference between a star and a non-star performance will not be tolerated much longer by a growingly knowledgeable public. On the other, the stars themselves will fade. Even now, their strength is being progressively dissipated by the incredible fatigue of their enforced nomadic life, and in the end they will be unable to deliver what is expected of them.

The true future of opera lies in the ensemble principle, by which I mean well-matched ensembles of fine singers working together and staying together. This mode of organisation has never completely disappeared. A few, very few, theatres have always maintained it, and elsewhere, now and then at the insistence of a maestro, a performance reflecting it turns up. So the ensemble principle will not need to be re-discovered. Even the public knows about it. And once the public starts asking for it, sooner or later it will get it' - Antal Dorati writes in his 1979 autobiography Notes of Seven Decades (Hodder ISBN 0340159227).

The exigencies of the star sytem mean that Punch and Judy receives a tiny mention in this new Royal Opera House national press campaign, but its composer doesn't. Never mind, read about him here, and continue playing spot the composer's name here, before reading more about Maestro Dorati here.
Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Royal Opera House loses the plot

The advertisement above is from the Royal Opera House's current press campaign. Their production of Parsifal, which gets a tiny mention bottom left, is conducted by Bernard Haitink (age 78) and John Tomlinson (age 61) is singing Gurnemanz. Which makes it one of the musical events of the year in my book. But, sadly, Holy Fools don't have as much sex(ist), or age appeal, as a 29 year old soprano.

Below is an advertisement from the programme for another memorable musical event in London, Otto Klemperer's 1961 London Beethoven Festival. It is followed by part of the acceptance speech Maestro Klemperer made when he was awarded an honorary doctorate in law from Occidental College, Los Angeles.


'The lawyer fights for justice; his highest duty is to go and permanently fight for innocent people, to save their life against the attacks of their enemies. And what are we doing, we musicians? We fight for the innocent Lady Music. Is she not accused? I think she is. She is accused of being useless, a thing of luxury. And is she not innocent? Is there any reason to condemn music to death? I do not believe it. The contrary is true. We musicians have to protect this noble Lady, Music; we have to save her from the attacks of materialism'.

Attitudes towards Lady Music have changed very little in some parts since that speech was given on 24 September 1936. But recognition of her contribution is increasing. A wonderful book has just been published which chronicles an important contribution to twentieth-century music. It celebrates the life and work of Imogen Holst, who was an important influence on English music for more than three decades, and who worked alongside that great figure of twentieth-century music, Benjamin Britten, for twelve years.

The stereotype of Aldeburgh portrays it as an exclusively male domain. But the inclusiveness of that most musical of places is reflected in the location of Imogen Holst's grave, alongside that of Britten and Peter Pears in Aldeburgh churchyard. The words on her headstone, from her father Gustav Holst's Hymn of Jesus, deliver a message that is still not fully understood today:

The heavenly spheres make music for us
All things join in the dance

Now join in the dance here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here, and read about Britten's women here.
The Beethoven Symphonies advertisement comes from my own collection. The Occidental College speech is from Klemperer on Music (Toccata Press ISBN 0907689132) - highly recommended for advertising agencies everywhere. Imogen Holst - A Life in Music is published by Boydell & Brewer ISBN 9781843832966. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Opera looks at the bigger picture

Dutch video production houses are all the fashion. This week Endemol started a new series of Big Brother in the UK, while over in Holland it launched De Grote Donorshow (The Big Donor Show), which gives three dialysis patients the chance to win a dying woman's kidney, or not. And the Royal Opera House, a dedicated follower of fashion, got in on the act by buying Anglo-Dutch specialist DVD producer, Opus Arte, for £5.7m.

Covent Garden made much PR spin of the story that this is the first time an opera house has acquired a DVD production and distribution company, but in fact the convergence of opera and video goes back more than forty years. In 1966 Leo Kirch founded Unitel to produce video operas, and concerts using the tag-line "music to watch." The company now has a catalogue of more than 1,000 titles, and has pioneered the use of HDTV technology.

Unitel is best known for its catalogue of video recordings by two media aware musicians. Herbert von Karajan, seen in my header photo at a Unitel shoot, is represented by more than 50 hours of video footage, while Bernstein contributed 120 hours of Lenny 'airtime' including a complete Mahler cycle. In 1978 Unitel signed an exclusive agreement with the Bayreuth Festival, and the results of that include the video of the "Centennial Ring" of 1976-1980 produced by Pierre Boulez and Patrice Chéreau, which is estimated to have been seen by more than 60 million people.

Opera houses buying video producers is part of the remorseless vertical integration of classical music that sees orchestras starting their own record labels and the BBC running the world's biggest music festival. And, inevitably, the BBC are linked to today's story. In 2001 the BBC made a deal with Opus Arte to allow the video producer "to make a substantial investment over the next five years into new BBC classic music programmes, as well as licensing both recent and archive classic material from BBC Worldwide", which really brings a one party musical state closer.

Vertical integration may be an inevitable result of the collapse of traditional media intermediaries such as EMI, but it also threatens the spontaneity, risk-taking and individual flair that are essential to the creative process. The sterile corporate speak of the Covent Garden press release, which in just under 1000 words doesn't mention a single composer or opera, says it all - world-class - global market place - licensed brands - digital strategy - global broadcasters - big digital ambitions - creation of a revenue stream - a multiple win ...

The press release also says '£2 million borrowings already in the company have been refinanced through alternative lenders' and goes on to thank, among others, New Boathouse Capital. They are a London based corporate finance advisory business which works in the ruthless world of venture capital finance, and their other clients include the Cath Kidston fashion chain, Virgin mobile phones, and Bunker Secure IT Hosting.

Big business and grand opera may not be happy sharing the same stage. I described above how Unitel, which is still trading, was founded by Leo Kirch. In 2002 his company KirchMedia declared itself insolvent. The insolvency represented the largest insolvency of an enterprise in German postwar history. The next month Kirch sued Deutsche Bank for €100m, claiming that they had damaged confidence in the group and disclosed confidential business information in the process. I hope the Royal Opera House knows it has moved from a garden to a jungle.

Now read about three examples of spontaneity, risk-taking and individual flair that I don't think we will see in the Covent Garden video catalogue -
Image credit Unitel, showing Herbert von Karajan filming Carmen with Jon Vickers as Don José. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Opera's other ring

Opera at the big houses is a circus with acts that include £10million donations, vanity productions and shuffle maestros. My photo above was taken last night at an opera as far away from £170 ticket prices as you can get, but it was still a circus.

Great Yarmouth Hippodrome is one of the oldest surviving circus buildings in Europe still used for circus performances. The survival of the remarkable building, which dates from 1904, is almost certainly due to the circular arena, or ring, which very unusually doesn't have a stage. This meant it was unsuitable for conversion into a theatre or cinema, and the structure has survived for more than a century virtually unchanged, although the original audience capacity of three thousand has been reduced to today's Health and Safety friendly nine hudred.

The historic photo below, showing the interior, is the first of two kindly supplied by the current owner Peter Jay, and was taken soon after the Hippodrome was opened. One of the remarkable features of the building is the water feature created when the floor of the circus ring sinks and is flooded with 60,000 gallons of water. The feature is still in regular use, but not for last night's opera!


When the Hippodrome was opened Great Yarmouth was a fashionable seaside resort, and the second historic photo below shows the circus building in its heyday. In the hundred years since then the town's fortunes have declined, with the collapse of both the tourist industry and commercial fishing leaving the area economically blighted, a stark contrast to fashionable Aldeburgh which is just 25 miles to the south.

Today Yarmouth is a bleak place dominated by amusement arcades, fast-food joints, and cheap hotels for migrant workers. The Hippodrome's front lot has been sold as a slot arcade, but, by a miracle, the building remains intact behind it, and is still a working circus due to the heroic efforts of former rock star Peter Jay who now owns and actively manages it (does anyone out there remember Peter Jay and the Jaywalkers?). For details of circus performances follow this link.


Norfolk and Norwich Festival took the inspired decision to bring opera to the Hippodrome in 2007 for the first time ever, with Armonico Consort Touring Opera bringing their much praised production of Purcell's Fairy Queen for just one night. Bringing an innovative production to a new venue in a town that never sees live opera is what music festivals are all about. This adventurous approach simply underlines how the BBC, and other corporations, have hijacked the word 'festival' to give credibility to events such as the BBC Proms that are now little more than cynical exercises in massmarket entertainment and commercialism.

Purcell's Fairy Queen is a musical fantasy (or 'semi-opera') based on the ideas and characters in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Designer Thomas Guthrie took his inspiration for the Armonico Consort production from the 19th century painter of Shakespearian fantasies Richard Dadd. The artist established a reputation in that extraordinary genre, the Victorian fairy painting. But he changed career direction when he was committed to a mental institution in 1843 after killing his father. In echoes of Vincent Van Gogh, an enlightened doctor in Bedlam encouraged Dadd to paint without commercial constraints , and the results inspired last night's production which, as my photos show, was set in an old-style mental hospital.


The production used comedy, music, song, dance, puppetry and circus skill, but was also musically completely authentic and extremely well sung. What an evening! - live music-making of the highest order, imaginative staging that gave real meaning to those tired words 'music theatre', an inspired choice of venue, and a vision from the Norfolk and Norwich Festival that redefined inclusiveness. But above all an evening that challenged our preconceptions of what opera is, what a music festival is, and even what we are. Here are director Thomas Guthrie's wise words:

For me both Dadd and Fairy Queen represent the need for marriage within us all, whether we are actually 'married' at all, or even inclined to it. The marriage in the Fairy Queen is a union not between characters we have come to know and feel for, as it is in Midsummer Night's Dream, but at a deeper level a marriage of mind and heart, of heaven and earth, fairy and mortal, lost and found, inward feeling and the outward expression of that feeling. It concerns us all because we are in a relationship with ourselves as well as with the world around us. A marriage that none of us can escape.


Now read about how another artist was encouraged to paint by an enlightened doctor
Three production photos taken by Pliable at Hippodrome performance on May 9 2007 using available light with Casio EX-Z120 digital camera. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Another donor - another name

The Royal Opera House is to receive a £10m donation from the foundation of late philanthropist Lord Hamlyn. The Covent Garden venue's Floral Hall (left) will be renamed the Paul Hamlyn Hall in honour of the publisher and arts patron, who died in 2001. It is one of the largest donations ever received by the Royal Opera House ~ reports BBC News. Last time round it was called the Vilar Floral Hall in honour of another donor, but that all ended in tears.

People in glasshouses.........

Hard on the heels of the 1984 debacle the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden is involved in another major damage limitation exercise. One of their highest profile benefactors has been arrested and charged with allegedly stealing $5m (£2.7m) from a business client.

In 1999 Cuban-born Alberto Vilar promised £10m (US$18.2) to the Royal Opera House to finance the building of a glass-skinned atrium in the centre of the opera house complex. Additional finance was promised for a very worthy young artist training scheme, and aircraft style video screens in 700 seat backs in the main auditorium for subtitles. To recognise these donations the completed atrium is known as Vilar Floral Hall (see photo to the right), and the development programme as the Vilar Young Artists Fund.

Alberto Vilar left Cuba when Castro took power in 1959, and is reputed to have amassed a fortune of £520m (US$950m) from investment in hi-tec companies such as Microsoft and AOL. He has made large donations to other arts institutions world-wide including the Metropolitan Opera House in New York and the American Academy in Berlin.

Unfortunately it appears that, like the software he invests in, Mr Vilar's financial fortunes have crashed. He has reportedly had problems making the promised donations to the Met, and they have cut and run by removing a sign recognising his munificence. A promised donation to the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra also apparently failed to materialise. Meanwhile the Royal Opera has reportedly only received £4m (US$7.3) of the £7m (US$12.7) promised for the glass house. Covent Garden are being typically British and stiff upper-lipped about the fiasco. Tony Hall, Chief Executive of the Royal Opera says it is too early to say whether Vilar's name will also be written out of the history of Covent Garden. But thankfully he tells us a new sponsor is in the wings for the much needed young artist development programme, and Vilar's name will definitely not be associated with that.

A sorry saga, and I sincerely hope that the young artists who benefitted from the excellent development programme will continue to be supported. But it does all go to confirm what Sir Peter Maxwell Davies told us in his recent Royal Philharmonic Society Annual Lecture. The arts, and serious music in particular, need proper funding not funny money. Otherwise the next thing we are going to hear is that the Piano Man is stepping up to the Covent Garden plate.

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