Afternoon opera and loss of a friend

After a Saturday morning lie-in, waffles for breakfast. Then I went for an hour's walk in the park to get some exercise before an early snack lunch. Then we drove to the Millennium Centre for a WNO opera matinée at three. 

This time, it was a new production of Benjamin Britten's last opera 'Death in Venice'. It was different from anything we've seen before with a troupe of five NoFitState circus artists integrated into the performance, representing youngsters having fun on the Venice Lido beach, slack-lining and tumbling in amazing balletic routines, plus corde lisse  rope ballet, representing the turmoil of thoughts and emotions in the protagonist's mind. It happened during the music and singing, not as a show within a show. 

The combination of music and movement I found emotionally powerful. Marc Le Brocq sang Aschenbach superbly. He was on-stage for nearly all of the two hours forty minutes performance. The stage was bare apart from ladders at the sides used by the circus artists, and a few movable props to symbolise the change of setting, in addition to a video backdrop of the sea, Venice and a hotel.

The melancholic musical ethos reminded me of his 'War Requiem' and 'Curlew River'. It evoked an artist in later life reflecting on his literary vocation during a spell of writer's block, who is deeply disturbed by the awakening of an attraction to a young man called Tadzio, who has no singing role, but is represented by leading male circus virtuoso artist Anthony César doing gymnastic moves on the beach. Its getting good reviews in the press. Well deserved, I reckon.

We drove home as the sun was setting, and I cooked a pasta dish for supper. Then I had a message from our friend Manel in Geneva to say that Alec Hester had died, getting on for a hundred I believe. With his wife Ann-Marie, we was one of Holy Trinity Church's most long standing members, being one of the early British post doctoral physicists to work at CERN, marry and then spend the rest of their lives together living in a house right next to the French border, not far from where he worked. 

Each year when I was Chaplain in Geneva, we would prepare the annual Nine Lessons and Carols service booklet together for the big Christmas Eve service in Saint Pierre, using his Apple Mac - he was an early adopter. They were a most hospitable couple, welcoming church groups to their home for fellowship over a meal or working party activities. I officiated at their younger daughter's wedding too. They lived in the same house for over sixty years, well into their nineties, before needing care in a nursing home. We met thirty two years ago, and were still exchanging Christmas news and greetings until covid disrupted all our lives. It must be ten years since we last visited them. He was a wonderful, thoughtful gentle soul. May he rest in peace.