No flowers please for Herbert von Karajan

Few musicians have generated such a mixture of respect and revulsion as Herbert von Karajan. It takes Richard Osborne 851 pages in his masterly biography to capture the essence of this extraordinary conductor, entrepreneur and opportunist, and it would be impertinent to even attempt to cover the same ground here. So instead, with the centenary of Karajan's birth falling on April 5, I offer this personal vignette from my time at EMI, which I hope in some small way illustrates the conundrum that was this extraordinary man.

During the late 1970s the Machiavellian Karajan had carefully nurtured a deadly rivalry between EMI and his other contract company, Deutsche Grammophon. This meant that EMI had, at very considerable expense, outbid DG for the four act version of Verdi's Don Carlos with José Carreras and Mirella Freni, and Debussy's Pelléas et Méliande with Frederica von Stade and Richard Stilwell. Pélleas was a personal passion of Karajan, and because of this he agreed to make a very rare personal appearance to promote the release of the recording when he was in London in 1979 on a Berlin Philharmonic tour.

It fell to a small team headed by me to organise a 'money no object' Karajan event to prove that anything Deutsche Grammophon could do EMI could do better. At this point I have to confess that several of us were slightly ambivalent about Karajan's personality if not his music making, so we decided that the event should mirror the maestro and be just a little bit over the top. Karajan and his Berlin band were rehearsing in the Royal Festival Hall with one of their 'drive-thru' programmes, including Ein Heldenleben if my memory serves me right. So we booked the Abraham Lincoln Room (yes really) in the outrageously expensive Savoy Hotel directly across the Thames from the hall.

The whole event was organised like a military operation, my plan of action is reproduced at the foot of the article. EMI's Abbey Road Studios provided copy masters of the Don Carlos and Pelléas recordings and tape machines to play them on while KEF supplied monitor speakers. Frederica von Stade and Richard Stilwell also agreed to attend, and eighty leading music journalists accepted the personalised invitation seen below

Our over the top plans included equipping all my team with personal radios (this was decades before cell phones) and communicating with each other military style, with HvK code-named The Eagle. Staff were stationed at the stage door of the Festival Hall to brief us when Karajan was en route, and the company's limo with vanity plates EMI 1 was used to transport the conductor. (Those were the days of company limos, I bet everyone in EMI today has a Tata except Guy Hands). We were explicitly told that the maestro did not eat in public, so the journos were fed the most expensive buffet in company history while Karjan enjoyed a hero's life across the river.

Bang on time the Eagle appeared at the Savoy and Peter Andry, director of EMI's International Classical Division, who was also my boss and a Karajan confidant, chaired a flawless presentation which included the conductor talking passionately about Pélleas, a stunning playback of the love duet from the opera, and questions from the journalists. The header photo was taken at the end of the presentation and Peter Andry is with Karajan; it is from my personal files and may not have been published before.

As the presentation ended Andry thanked Karajan and the conductor left the platform to lively applause. Then came the pièce de résistance. My indefatigable secretary was stationed to the side with a bouquet of the Savoy's finest flowers which probably cost the equivalent of half EMI's current classical recording budget. Only one problem; nobody had told us that as well as not eating in public the maestro did not accept flowers in public. Karajan rudely brushed Rosemary aside and fled for the door leaving a very red-faced secretary clutching a huge bunch of flowers watched by eighty highly amused journalists.

So there we have Herbert von Karajan. Inspired music maker and totally self-serving personality. Even after almost thirty years I can't hear the love duet from Pelléas without thinking of the cost of those flowers.

Happy birthday maestro, wherever you are.


* I will be celebrating the Contemporary Karajan on Future Radio at 5.00pm on April 6 and 12.50am on April 7 with a programme of twentieth-century classics conducted by him. The music is:
~ Alban Berg – Three pieces from the “Lyric Suite”
~ Arthur Honegger – Symphony No 3

Lots more Karajan links here. Peter Andry, who is seen in my header photo with Karajan, master-minded many great EMI recordings including one of my personal favourites, Karajan's 1970 Dresden Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. Before joining EMI Andry was a Decca producer and his recording of the Ernest Bloch String Quartets should be in every CD collection. Read more about it here.

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Now it's Carla and Sarkozy the opera

Today's Guardian reports - 'The whirlwind romance of French president Nicolas Sarkozy and Carla Bruni is set to reach the operatic stage. The highlight of English National Opera's 2009/10 season is the newly commissioned A Dangerous Liaison with a libretto based on the French best-selling book Carla and Nicolas: Chronicle Of A Dangerous Liaison by Chris Laffaille and Paul-Eric Blanrue and music by Damon Albarn.

Singing the lead roles in the production scheduled to open in September 2009 are Michael Ball and Charlotte Church. The new opera is a joint production with the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris and New York City Opera and will also be broadcast on BBC4 TV. ENO chief executive Loretta Tomasi said "This exciting new opera follows on from our critically acclaimed productions of Kismet and Aida and underlines our commitment to engage with new audiences".'

Read more about Carla Bruni's musical connections here
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Darker than a starless night

Clear as a sky without a cloud
may be a mother's mind,
but darker than a starless night
with not one gleam, not one,
no gleam to show the way.

The Madwoman arrives at the ferry in Benjamin Britten's first church parable Curlew River. Photograph taken this afternoon inland from Aldeburgh. More on Curlew River here.
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Zandra Rhode's new Aida has no clothes

After the fiasco of Kismet and Carmen today's Guardian reports on the triumphal farce of English National Opera's new Aida:

Imported from Houston, it's directed by Jo Davies, while sets and costumes are the work of fashion designer Zandra Rhodes. Such is the palaver surrounding Rhodes's contribution - you can even get an e-card with a doll (see above) of one of the characters you can dress up - that the uninitiated might reach the conclusion that Aida is about frocks and bling rather than an examination of how political and religious authority can rot the lives of those who are close to the seats of temporal power yet unable to wield it. Neither director Jo Davies nor Rhodes has taken the piece seriously, and what we are presented with is a gaudy, insubstantial spectacle, and a messy one at that.

What next from ENO? - 'Classical Star the Opera' as a co-production with BBC TV?
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Aldeburgh has always been about the new

Contemporary music is flourishing in Aldeburgh. Thomas Adès is the Festival's artistic director, innovative programming is pulling in new audiences, traditional musical boundaries are disappearing, and an inspirational £14m ($28m) creative campus will make new music available to future generations.

Teamwork has played a vital role, but much of the credit for this success must go to Aldeburgh Music's chief executive Jonathan Reekie, who came to Suffolk in 1998 from Almeida Opera. The photo above shows Jonathan (left) talking to Bob Shingleton at Snape during this exclusive interview for On An Overgrown Path:

BS - What is 'Aldeburgh Music', and what is its remit?

JR - Aldeburgh Music was founded by the composer Benjamin Britten and singer Peter Pears in 1948, when they set up a Festival based in their home town of Aldeburgh. It’s remit draws on the original principles they established. These were to nurture talent by mixing established musical stars with emerging artists, to focus on the new, and to be rooted in the local community.

BS - How is Aldeburgh Music funded?

JR - In simple terms a third comes from box office income, a third by fundraising, and a third from the government via Arts Council England.

BS - How does the relationship between Aldeburgh Music and the Britten Pears Foundation work?

JR (below) - Aldeburgh Music looks after Britten’s “living” legacy – his Festival, the Britten–Pears Young Artist Programme, the education programmes and Snape Maltings concert hall. The Britten–Pears Foundation is our separate sister organisation, responsible for Britten’s music and archive and is based at the house in Aldeburgh where Britten and Pears lived for many years. The Foundation receives all of Britten’s royalty income, and some of it goes to supports us. We work closely together.


BS - Is Britten still an influence on contemporary festivals, and how do you decide how much of his music is programmed today at Aldeburgh?

JR- For the Festival his principles are arguably more important than his music. The principles, which I outlined previously, still guide us in what we do, and they give the Aldeburgh Festival its strong identity. The amount of his music performed depends on what feels right and fits with all the other things we want to do. There is no minimum or maximum.

BS - Looking back at the 2007 Aldeburgh Festival what do you view as the high, and low, spots?

JR - The high spots were undoubtedly Britten’s opera Death in Venice, the second Faster than Sound, and the multi-media opera Elephant and Castle. The low spots were the rain stopping the dress rehearsal of Elephant and Castle, which caused us technical problems on the first night

BS - How does your role as chief executive fit with that of Thomas Adès?

JR - Tom’s role as artistic director of the Festival is to help the programme, and to perform in the Festival in June. Mine is year-round and isn’t just artistic, but includes all the business side too. Several people contribute to the programming of the Festival including Tom and the Associate Director, John Woolrich. Aldeburgh Music’s work with young artists, residencies, and developing new opera all feed in ideas and possibilities for the Festival. I act as a gatekeeper to these ideas. Tom always has the final say.

BS - Your background includes opera at Glyndebourne and Almeida, and, as you have said, Yoshi Oida's new production of Death in Venice for this year's Aldeburgh Festival was highly acclaimed. Can more be done with opera, particularly contemporary opera at Snape? Will the new development plans help this?

JR - Opera is an artform that excites me greatly. When music, text, theatre & design combine effectively there is arguably nothing more powerful for an audience. Unfortunately it is an artform that is expensive, complicated and strong on tradition, so fewer and fewer opera companies are prepared or able to take risks. We are at the vanguard of trying to change this, and we put on more new opera than anywhere else in the UK. We also have one of the world’s only programmes for developing the opera writers of tomorrow. The new spaces we are building at Snape (below) will be great for this kind of developmental work and smaller scale opera.


BS - How do your audience demographics compare with other festivals such as the Proms and Glyndebourne.

JR- They are similar, possibly slightly older, because the population of the Suffolk coast is higher than average. They are a great audience, who listen and like to take risks.

BS - Talking of risk taking, you have pushed the boundaries into electronica, World Music and other genres. Is this a conscious strategy, and if so will it go further?

JR - Aldeburgh has always been about the new. Music is changing, boundaries between different genres are dissolving. What we are doing simply reflects this. For example the distance between the cutting edge of “contemporary classical music” (don’t you hate that phrase?) and electronica is arguably very small. They are both musicians trying to do something quite similar, just using a different set of tools.

BS - You talk about using a different set of tools. Does more extensive use of the internet figure in your plans, both for performance and promotion? And, I have to ask this question, do you read music blogs, and how do you see their role?

JR- The internet and other technologies are playing a growing part of our creative output and how we promote. We are doing quite of lot of R&D in this field, and it's just going to get more and more important. I do read blogs when I can but lack of time limits this. It's great that the stranglehold of the printed media is being released by blogs, which are bringing fresh blood to criticism and a new perspective on musical life. At last it feels we can escape the tired cynicism that traps many of the traditional media.

BS - Much has been written elsewhere about the death of classical music, yet Aldeburgh today seems to be flourishing. How do you explain this?

JR - Don’t believe what you read! Yes, in some places, where no-one takes risks, it is certainly stagnating. But at the end of the day if you only put on events that excite you, with a bit of luck they will excite an audience too. Good live music, performed by great artists, will never die. Keep a balance between the familiar and the new, and take risks.

BS - Any hints as to the direction that the 2008 Aldeburgh Festival may take?

JR - No major new directions. But highlights will include a new opera, Ocean of Rain by Yannis Kyriakides, our third Faster than Sound, lots of music by György Kurtag, and new works by Thomas Adès and John Woolrich. See you there!


Jonathan Reekie is seen above looking into the future of contemporary music. The new creative campus being built at Snape is one of the most exciting developments in classical music anywhere. Read about it here.
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Opera directors 2 - Composers 0

After the Michael Ball Kismet fiasco English National Opera (above) scores yet another own goal with Carmen..
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Is this composer the future of grand opera?

As a welcome antidote to English National Opera's ill-judged Kismet (I note that Peter Bazalgette, the big cheese from Big Brother is on the ENO board - which explains a lot) this email was very welcome ~ Hello, I just wanted to inform you that 'Edalat Square' won Houston's Opera Vista Competition over the weekend. It will be staged next year at their festival in June. An MTV affiliated network, LOGO, is considering filming the opera and airing it on TV. Here is a flattering review of the opera:

"The most adventurous of the lot — in both music and libretto — was R.Timothy Brady's poignant, highly poetic Edalat Square, a disquisition on the torture and hanging of two Iranian teenage boys for homosexuality. With keening strings and an overwhelming performance by Vanessa Beaumont as the wailing, distraught mother, Brady used almost calligraphic musical motifs to limn both the intolerance of Shari'a law and man's inherent divinity. Prodigiously talented young Brady is the composer to watch. He may prove to be grand opera's future."

The full article can be found here. Thank you again for your support of the opera.

Best regards, R. Timothy Brady

For the back story on Edalat Square follow this path.
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One of the great intelligent singing artists?

The controller of the BBC Proms fended off charges of "dumbing down" the annual event after the West End singer Michael Ball (above) was signed to perform an evening of show tunes. Nicholas Kenyon, the Proms controller, praised Ball's voice and said he felt sure a classical music audience would accept his inclusion. "I think he is one of the great, intelligent singing artists alive today," he said. "He deserves a place at the Proms just as much as performers in the great classical tradition" ~ Independent 26 April 2007

This new version is built around an irredeemably vulgar performance from Michael Ball, whose amplified crooning makes crossover king Alfie Boe sound almost like an opera singer ~ Anthony Holden reviews English National Opera's Kismet in today's Observer.

But it is possible to be naughty but nice.
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Not posh enough for an opera house?

'While it seems to me right that the American musicals should come to be seen as a kind of operetta and therefore incorporated into the repertoires of opera houses, the present tendency seems to be to do this only with musicals of the more pretentious kind. This year, for example, English National Opera has put on Kismet and On the Town - the one with music by Borodin and the other with music by Leonard Bernstein, both of whom may be regarded as "serious" composers. The truth is that the best stage musicals (even in terms of their music) tend to be the more unashamedly popular ones, by people such as Cole Porter, Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin, and Richard Rodgers. Yet these are clearly not posh enough for an opera house' ~ writes Alexander Chancellor in today's Guardian, while elsewhere in the paper the ENO production suffers a fair amount of collateral damage from Tim Ashley.

Now read about the virtual disappearance of classical music across the Channel in Paris.
No apologies for using the LP cover of Percy Faith's recording of Kismet, credit to Percy Faith original recordings. 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

A little less boy please ...

'A bit more Mann and a little less boy, please' demands the Guardian headline over its review of English National Opera's new production of Benjamin Britten's Death in Venice. A line of thinking that reminds me that the opera was banned from being shown to schoolchildren in Kent, England in 1989

In that year Conservative councillors forced Glynebourne Touring Opera to cancel performances planned for a school's festival. At the time the chair of Kent school's sub-committee said the decision was made because: 'It was felt that the question of homosexuality was not appropriate for all the schoolchildren who would attend.'

Elsewhere the ban was described as 'unbelievable', 'pernicious', and 'scandalous', and it was believed to be the first time any concern had been expressed about the opera since its 1973 premiere. Donald Mitchell of the Britten-Pears Foundation said the decision had been influenced by the controversial Section 28 legislation which prevented local authorities from promoting homosexuality. 'It is appalling that councils should ban a work of this stature by a composer who did so much for children. They have covered themselves in shame', he said."

A spokesperson for Kent County Council said children as young as ten would have seen the opera, and it was felt that its contents were just not suitable. The Section 28 legislation was repealed in 2003, but Kent County Council retained elements of it in their schools curriculum by teaching that heterosexual marriage and family relationships are the firm foundations for society.

Now let's celebrate not one, but two new productions of Death in Venice with Britten's champagne moment.
Sorry, my photo isn't the new ENO production, it's from the Opera Company of Philadelphia, image credit Stevenrickards.com. 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

Reginald Goodall – the holy fool

Goodall showed that as a Wagner conductor he has no equal. His control of the musical architecture is absolute. The huge span of the score was shaped as if in a single phrase. At the same time the music seemed to move spontaneously, by its own inner force, and with a glowing beauty of sound, an inevitability of rise and fall and a kind of natural momentousness of expression that will remain ideal.

These were the words of David Cairns writing in the Sunday Times in August 1987. The occasion was Reginald Goodall’s last ever conducting engagement, the Proms concert performance of Act 3 of Parsifal shown in the rehearsal photo above. Wagner’s saga of the holy fool somehow sums up Goodall; as David Cairns wrote he was a Wagner conductor without equal, he was also a champion of Britten’s music who conducted the first performance of Peter Grimes, yet he flirted with fascism and alienated himself from many who tried to help him during a career that lasted more than sixty-five years.

Goodall was born on 13 July 1901 in the cathedral city of Lincoln. At the age of 9 he entered Lincoln Cathedral choir school where he received the classic choral training that was central to English church music, and was also introduced to Wagner’s music by his visionary teacher, Dr G.J. Bennett, who had studied in Berlin and Munich. But scandal interrupted the English cathedral idyll. Goodall’s father, a solicitor’s clerk, was charged with forgery and sentenced to eight months in prison. The scandal meant that the young Reginald and his brother were taken by their mother to live with relatives in Springfield, Massachusetts.


Goodall left school in Springfield aged 15, and became a machinist in an engineering works. Relief from this tedium came from concerts by the Boston Symphony and Philadelphia Orchestras, the latter conducted by Leopold Stokowski whose approach to orchestral balance was an influence on Goodall in later years. In 1917 Goodall moved to Burlington on the western end of Lake Ontario in Canada, where his father had settled after leaving prison, and the young Reginald entered Hamilton Conservatory to study music. He graduated with first-class honours and aged 19 started his career as a professional musician as church organist and choirmaster in Dundas, near Hamilton. While there he was introduced to Renaissance polyphony and Gregorian Chant by the influential Toronto musician Healey Willan.

Goodall would probably have stayed in Canada for the rest of his career had he not met the visiting Sir Hugh Allen, who was director of the Royal College of Music in London and professor of music at Oxford University. The chance meeting resulted in Goodall returning to England to study at the Royal Academy, but his period there was not particularly productive, and it was his appointment as organist at the Anglo-Catholic church of St Alban’s, Holborn that was more important. The photo above shows Goodall with members of the choir, and during his time at St Alban’s he built the reputation of the choir in repertoire ranging from renaissance masterpieces including Byrd’s Mass for Three Voices, through Bruckner to Stravinsky and contemporary composers such as Jan Mul from the Netherlands. Goodall was also a virtuoso organist and his repertoire included Tournemire, Widor, Vierne and Dupré.

The reputation of the St Alban’s Choir rapidly spread, and in December 1934 the boys sang in the first public performance of A Boy Was Born by an up and coming young composer called Benjamin Britten. The occasion was one of the contemporary music concerts promoted by a trio of women, Iris Lemare, the violinist Anne Mcnaghten, and the composer Elisabeth Lutyens who featured herself in an article here recently. This early collaboration was the start of a working relationship between 'Ben' and 'Reggie' which was to bear important fruits.

Goodall’s pioneering work was not confined to choral music. He also worked with the amateur Bishopsgate orchestra where just one of his concerts included the first British performances of two works by German composers, a neo-classical divertimento by Max Trapp who was featured in my article Furtwängler and the forgotten new music, and Die Jahreszeiten from another composer featured here, Ernst Krenek. And that path takes us to Goodall the fool.

During the 1930s Goodall made several visits to Germany, the last in 1935 when the Nazis were in full control. On his return he extolled the virtues of Germany under the Nazis, and was vocal both in his concerns over the influx of refugee Jewish musicians, and in his criticism of the BBC for employing them. Goodall’s views may have been influenced by his wife who was a strict Roman Catholic, at a time when the Catholic press was taking an anti-Bolshevik and pro-Mussolini position. In September 1939 three important events occurred. On Sept 1 Hitler invaded Poland, two days later Britain declared war on Germany, and on Sept 8 Reginald Goodall joined the British Union of Fascists.

The outbreak of war had profound effects on musical life in Britain. Orchestra budgets were cut and musicians were made redundant. The Bournemouth Municipal (now Symphony) Orchestra was one of the casualties, with twenty-six players axed. The redundant players formed the core of the newly formed Wessex Symphony Orchestra, and Goodall was appointed principal conductor. The orchestra and its conductor went on to do some remarkable things including giving early performances of Britten’s Les lluminations and Violin Concerto.

At a time when concerts were few the Wessex Orchestra attracted leading conductors and soloists, including, in a remarkable crossing of overgrown paths, a young black conductor called Rudolph Dunbar. But even though Britain was at war with Germany Goodall continued to support the fascist cause. He campaigned for the British Union of Fascist, called the sinking of the German battleship Bismarck ‘disgusting’, and was actually arrested briefly for expressing pro-German views in public. Even after the war Goodall was unrepentant. He was recruited by Walter Legge to take part in a tour of to Germany in 1946. Some of the performers visited the site of the Belsen concentration camp, only to be told by Goodall, who did not make the visit, that Belsen was British fiction manufactured in a leading movie studio.


It is almost impossible to believe, but just one month after Germany surrendered the pro-fascist Goodall conducted the triumphant first performance of Peter Grimes, an opera composed by pacifist Benjamin Britten and with another pacifist Peter Pears singing the title role. Through the war Goodall had maintained the contacts with Britten started at St Alban’s, Holborn. In fact Goodall had conducted a remarkable chamber concert of works by Les Six in September 1942 when, in addition to Denis Brain playing the horn, Britten had played the celesta in works by Louis Durey, and by Germaine Tailleferre, the only female member of Les Six. The first of the two Britten photos above shows the composer with Rudolf Bing and the baritone Edmund Donlevy who sung the role of Ned Keene in the first performance of Peter Grimes, while the lower shows Britten at a 1945 rehearsal of the opera with Goodall, the producer Eric Crozier and the designer Kenneth Green.

In 1944 Goodall joined Sadler Wells Opera, and this company inherited the first performance of Britten’s Peter Grimes when the Tanglewood premiere (it was commissioned by Serge Koussevitzky in memory of his wife) was cancelled due to wartime transport difficulties. Britten specifically requested that Goodall conduct the first performance in preference to several other more experienced conductors, and the premiere on 7 June 1945 was a triumph, with both Britten and Goodall being lavishly praised by the critics.

Goodall went on to conduct The Rape of Lucretia for Britten’s English Opera Group. But the most definitely heterosexual Goodall found Britten’s next opera, Albert Herring, ‘prissy’ and the composer himself ‘East Anglican’, and their working relationship cooled. In 1946 Goodall joined Covent Garden as assistant conductor to music director Karl Rankl, and Goodall conducted Britten’s Gloriana in, of all places, Bulawayo in Southern Rhodesia in 1953. Later the same year Goodall replaced Britten as conductor for Peter Grimes at Covent Garden, and the excellent reviews he received set him on a path that took him from a footnote in musical history to legendary Wagnerian.


Based on the success of Peter Grimes Goodall was given four performances of Walkure on tour. The first was in the suburbs of London, and a glowing review from a young Andrew Porter in Opera magazine started Goodall on the path to being recognised as a Wagner specialist. But despite this acclaim he languished at Covent Garden for more than a decade coaching and occasionally conducting, and spending his holidays at the Festspielhaus in Bayreuth .

It was not until 1968 that Goodall really achieved recognition as a conductor of Wagner. The breakthrough came when a centenary production of The Mastersingers in English by Sadlers Wells Opera was rapturously received by the critics. The legendary English National Opera Ring Cycle of 1973, together with the EMI recordings completed in 1977, finally confirmed Goodall’s reputation as one of the greatest living interpreters of Wagner. Tristan followed in 1979 with Welsh National Opera, and with English National Opera in 1981. My photo above shows Goodall taking a curtain call at the 1973 Ring with Rita Hunter (Brunnhilde) and Alberto Remedios (Siegfried). Goodall's stature was recognised in 1985 when he was knighted for services to music.

On 4 April 1986 Sir Reginald conducted Parsifal for English National Opera. Earlier in the day he had been upset by the news of the death of Peter Pears, and the last act of Goodall's life started to unfold. That Coliseum Parsifal was the last full length opera that Goodall conducted. As described at the beginning of this article he went on perform Act 3 of Parsifal at the Proms the following year, a concert staging that marked the end of Goodall’s career. He lived for four more years in declining health, and Reginald Goodall, the holy fool, died on 5 May 1990 at the age of eighty-eight.

Conductor's are notorious for their political naivety. But hopefully Goodall will be remembered not for his foolish politics, but for a recorded legacy which is infused with humanity. His Wagner discs are best known, but his Bruckner and Britten are also essential listening.

* We are very fortunate to have an excellent biography of Goodall, from which this articles draws with full acknowledgement, and from which the accompanying photos are reproduced for review purposes. Reggie, the Life of Reginald Goodall by John Lucas (Julia MacRae Books ISBN 1856810518) is a model musical biography - well researched, objective, and very readable. The 1993 book is now, sadly, out of print, but is relatively easy to find from book dealers.

Now read Wagner - I don't get to hear anything else
All photos are reproduced with full acknowlegements from Reggie, the life of Reginald Goodall by John Lucas. Source credits, when known, are in descending order photos 1 Clive Barda, 3 and 4 Hulton Deutsch and 5 The Observer. 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

Benjamin Britten's women

Ask any opera buff who sung the roles of Quint and Miles in the first performance of Benjamin Britten’s Turn of the Screw in Venice in 1954, and they will have no problem answering Peter Pears and David Hemmings. But ask them who took the pivotal role of the Governess and they will probably struggle for the answer.

Glyndebourne Opera’s new touring production of The Turn of the Screw left me musing on the conundrum of gender in Britten’s operas. So often the male leads in today's Britten productions seem to be singing someone else’s role. It is hardly surprising, as we are familiar with the original casts through the astonishingly good recordings made with the composer himself conducting, and Pears, Hemmings and other artists singing the roles Britten wrote for them. But although the women in these recordings often reflect the first performance casting, posterity hasn’t been so kind to the sopranos.

The Governess at the Teatro La Fenice in 1954 was Jennifer Vyvyan, and she is seen in my header photograph trying to connect with Quint, sung of course by Pears. Britten also created the roles of Lady Rich in Gloriana, Tytania in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Mrs Julian in Owen Wingrave for Jennifer Vyvyan. So it was quite remarkable that in Glyndebourne’s new Turn of the Screw the startling new soprano Kate Royal (who I wrote about back in July 2005) made the female lead her own, and scored a real home run for gender equality with a performance which put the Governess firmly at the center of the plot. Watch out for Kate Royal (above), she is a real star in the making.

The gender bias in Britten’s operas is reflected in their critical treatment, with the male roles consistently in the spotlight. Following the premiere of Turn of the Screw Antoine Golea wrote in L’Express of Britten’s ‘intense preoccupation with homosexual love and the futility of struggling against it’, while predictably Virgil Thomson in the New York Herald Tribune described David Hemmings as ‘adorable all round’.

This bias does Britten an injustice as he wrote superb roles for his ‘house’ sopranos. As well as Jennifer Vyvyan, the British singer Joan Cross had roles created for her, including Mrs Grose in The Turn of the Screw, Female Chorus in The Rape of Lucretia, Lady Billows in Albert Herring, and Elizabeth lst in Gloriana (below). Unfortunately she retired before Britten committed the operas to disc, the exception being a 1955 mono Turn of the Screw. Cross had a close working relationship with Britten, lived in Aldeburgh after her 1955 retirement, and is buried in same churchyard in the town as Britten and Pears. Britten also worked closely with women who were not singers. In 1952 Imogen Holst, daughter of the composer Gustav Holst, joined the staff at Aldeburgh to work on Gloriana, and she was an artistic director of the Aldeburgh Festival from 1956 to 1977, and continued to live in Aldeburgh until her death in 1984. A portrait of her by Mary Potter hangs in the Snape foyer.

John Bridcut’s recent book Britten’s Children has justifiably enjoyed considerable success. Perhaps someone will now recognise the brave new world of gender equality by writing Britten’s Women?

* To keep things equal the other members of the excellent cast for Glyndebourne’s Turn of the Screw were Daniel Norman as Prologue/Peter Quint, Joanna Songi as Flora, Christopher Sladdin as Miles, Anne-Marie Owens as Mrs Grose, and Rachel Cobb as Miss Jessel. The conductor of a fine musical evening was Edward Gardner, and the director of a production that could have turned a little less was Jonathan Kent.

For more on gender bias take An Overgrown Path to BBC Proms 2006 lacks the eternal feminine
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