WNO company briefing

Another cold night, just above freezing followed by an overcast day with the east wind making it feel even colder. After breakfast, I had an early appointment with 'Chris the Earwax Guy' to hoover out my ears. The left one was blocked and my hearing really impaired. I thought the right one wasn't so bad, but inspection showed it was almost as bad, even if I could hear more from my right ear than my left. It was such a relief to get it done. I've put off making the effort to arrange an appointment for too long.

Clare and I made a rendezvous at the nearest bus stop to travel into town and then down to the Millennium Centre for a Friends of WNO gathering at which Adele Thomas and Sarah Crabtree, newly appointed joint director / CEO of the Company introduced themselves and shared their vision for the future development and the creative enterprises that rely upon it for work - some five hundred people - in a time when funding for the arts is being savagely cut back across the country. It's a question of imagining how to do more with less, how to engage more support nationally for a Company held in high esteem internationally for its innovative productions.  Sara observed in her talk that WNO's native audience are more adventurous than other opera audiences judging by the way innovative productions play to full houses at the Millennium Centre. That was certainly the case with Death in Venice and Ainadamar last year. Both got five star reviews as well.

Sarah has come from the team at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Adele is from Port Talbot, and had a key role in Michael Sheen's Port Talbot Passion Play fifteen years ago. Her career so far has been as a free lance artistic director. "This is the first time I've been properly employed." she joked. It was great to see such enthusiasm with clarity of vision and realism about the work ahead. They were very well received. We were also treated to a fascinating talk by the head of the WNO's wig making team, demonstrating what goes into preparing both chorus and cast to step into their roles suitable coiffured. The two hour session finished with a short operatic aria recital from Harriet Eyley the singer playing Cherubino in the Marriage of Figaro which opened last night to a enthusiastic audience with plenty of hwyl, by the sound of it. 

Waiting for the bus on Plas Roald Dahl afterwards with an arctic wind blowing made us impatient to get back to the city centre and lunch in John Lewis. We got on a number eight bus as much for shelter as the longer trip through Grangetown. We both had dishes of pie and mash with red cabbage for lunch. Veggie for Clare and chicken for me. We both wished we'd gone for fish and chips in Caroline Street instead, as the pie crust was hard, chewy and didn't digest readily. 

We went to the bus interchange nearby to wait for a bus home and shelter from the wind. Unfortunately we got on the 24 bus to Llandaff North which goes there the long way, instead of the 25 which goes up Cathedral Road and stops at Llandaff Fields. Rather than take an hour to get home instead of twenty minutes, we got off the 24 at the Kingsway stop and walked a chilling quarter of a mile back to the nearest stop where we were lucky to catch the 61 stopping closest to our house. No success in avoiding the cold wind after all! Once I'd warmed up with a cup of tea, I donned my long topcoat and walked for another hour.

The death of Lord Dafydd Elis-Thomas was announced on the evening news, eighteen months younger than I. He was a Welsh language activist, campaigning politically for the introduction of bi-lingual signs and schooling. He led Plaid Cymru for 17 years, was an MP for 18 years and Presiding Officer of the National Assembly for Wales before it was transformed into the Senedd. I first got to know him at events hosted by St John's City Parish Church. A few years ago he and his wife Mair moved from a neighbouring street into Meadow Street. 

We met now and then, walking in the park, and occasionally walked together to the Cathedral Sung Eucharist reflecting on our lives and current affairs.  He was born and bred a Welsh Non-Conformist and told me that the time he spent in Westminster influenced him to become an Anglican. It's been a while since I spotted him opening his front door to receive a parcel delivery and waved, let alone on the street. A great champion of his motherland, its culture and spirituality. May he rest in peace.

Clare found a bereavement card and wrote a condolence message in Welsh to Mair, Dafydd's wife, to pop through their door in between watching episodes one and two of 'Death in Paradise' series 13. It's a very popular show, showcasing the feel-good Caribbean lifestyle enjoyed by original inhabitants and ex-pats alike. Rather gentle for the most part, with elements of romance and humour outside the murder stories it tells. These are mostly conventional domestic whodunits with clever solutions to seemingly inexplicable crimes, offering little insight into the dark underside of genteel society as modern crimmies tend to do. It's entertaining rather than reflecting sordid reality.

The new WNO production of 'Marriage of Figaro' tomorrow afternoon

WNO's 'Il Trittico' impresses and delights

Clouds and sunshine today, and cold. The usual Saturday pancake breakfast with mushroom added. I made an effort to go for a walk before lunch as I was feeling unusually stiff despite a good night's sleep. We heard from Kath that she's been awarded an Arts Council grant to produce her next show. She wasn't sure she'd be successful in the present economic climate, and can now look forward to realising her plans to bring her creative ideas to life on stage. Naturally we're thrilled for her.

Clare cooked us a prawn stir fry with rice earlier than usual as we had a matinee performance of Puccini's opera 'Il Trittico' starting at three. We walked to the bus stop by Canton Library and caught a number 2 bus that took us all the way to Mermaid Quay in the Bay, a short walk from the Millennium Centre. A convenient route, which we took only because it was the first to arrive at the bus stop. It seemed like a roundabout route, but in reality no more travel time than taking any bus into the city centre and waiting for a number 6 from the centre to the Bay. The down side was a dreadful noisy vibration the vehicle made any time it stopped in traffic queues, at lights or bus stops. It sounded like a pneumatic drill. I had to block my ears, as it was becoming painful. Anyway, we survived in time to have a glass of wine in the patrons' area before curtain up.

'Il Trittico' is three one act operas. It was a new operatic format with which Puccini wanted to experiment. Each one is different. Two tragic, one black comedy. The cast of singers and chorus had roles in all three. The sets were brilliantly conceived and constructed, requiring a half hour interval between each, making it a four hour long show, The singers were superb as was the attention to detail, with movement and visual symbolism reflecting the libretto. The first was about a love triangle leading to a crime of passion on a barge in Paris, a scenario in which the workers have a hard insecure life in grinding poverty. 

The second is set in an enclosed convent with a severe penitential rule of life dedicated to devotion to the blessed Virgin Mary. A young noblewoman is one of the nuns, dispatched there after she gives birth of a child. Others in the convent, are not nuns but servants. There are suggestions of this being like a Magdalene Laundry. It ends in the noblewoman's suicide, out of grief when she learns her child died two years earlier. In effect it denounces the shame and emotional cruelty which may run through life in a community whose piety is detached from its spiritual roots in the Gospel.

The third is about a bourgeois family squabbling over the legacy of a rich dying relative, talked into concealing his death and re-writing the will, so that his wealth doesn't go to a monastery. They are tricked by the street-wise father of a girl who is being wooed by a younger son of the family, and end up losing the prized assets they were fighting over, and the young couple inherit instead. It's hilariously funny and the behaviour of the greedy family members is played for laughs. The movement and interaction between them is superbly choreographed. I don't think I've ever heard so much laughing out loud throughout the hour long performance. It's a satire on human avarice, observed with great insight. What a performance, by everyone involved! At the curtain call, cast members donned their protest campaign tee shirts for their bows. The applause reassures them their audience doesn't approve of the threatened cut back in orchestra and chorus, forced by government reductions in arts subsidy.

We didn't have long to wait for a number six bus back to the city centre, nor for a 61 bus for the new bus station, so we were home just after eight for a light supper of pasta and pesto with salad.

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.

Unique operatic celebration at RWCMD

I woke late having slept well on another cold night, thanks to having worn a long sleeved thermal vest in bed for the first time. It makes enough of a difference to persuade me to do this again. More positive news from Gaza with a further extension of the temporary truce being mooted by Hamas. If both sides take more time to take stock during the lengthening pause maybe it will awaken a realisation of the terrible things both side have done, how it's nowhere near working out a practical long term solution to the historic problem of sharing the land between two peoples with a deep rooted sense of belonging in the Holy Land.

As an experiment, I added chorizo to my regular breakfast diet. I eat enough to see me through until lunch time but often feel light headed an hour and a half before lunch, without feeling hungry. I wanted to see if it would make any difference to eat some meaty protein. I rarely have a full English breakfast, as it's too much hassle to prepare at the start of a day. A chunk of chorizo the length of my thumb worked well, carrying me through comfortably to a lunch of grilled mackerel. Another thing worth repeating. I like our vegetarian/vegan diet but my digestive system evidently works better with a little extra meat or fish.

More info arrived for posting on Sway, and I did this before heading to St Catherine's to celebrate Mass with seven others, standing in again for Fr Dyfrig. After coffee and a chat, I collected this week's veggie bag from Chapter on my way home for lunch. After eating I exchanged messages with my sister whose landline has stopped working. There's something wrong outside her flat, at the distribution box at street level, where work was being carried out by OpenReach recently. Some careless engineer left the cabinet door open, and her line hasn't been right since. She's now in need of a crash course in using WhatsApp on both mobile phone and tablet. 

I went out and did my weekly Co-op grocery shopping, then Clare did her shopping at Beanfreaks. Basma emailed to say she was happy with my account of her story, and that enabled me to use this in a witness statement to inform her solicitor, and add to the documents to be presented for the hearing of her case at an immigration tribunal, if this turns out to be useful asset. Then I emailed a copy of this to Fr Stewart, for information when he comes to write his own statement of support, and endorsing mine. The judges need to know that church leaders and members are agreed about her commitment. 

In the late evening a message arrived from Basma rejoicing that her daughter has now received her UK travel document which will enable her to travel and visit her grandparents who are, I believe in Jordan. I hope she is able to continue to obtain full UK citizenship in whatever time this takes especially as she has no intention of ever returning to her native Iraq.

We needed to have an early supper before walking to the Royal Welsh College for this year's Opera Gala performance, in which the entire college takes part - some 17 singers performing a wide ranging programme of solos, and ensemble pieces for two three four, even six singers on stage, and a chorus of forty up in the gallery, not only singing but doing so with choreographed arm waving for added effect. They were accompanied by the WNO orchestra on stage, conducted energetically by James Southall, who was a delight to watch, as he participated in some of the scenes by his body language and gestures, adding to the humour of the piece.

In several items performed, there was no pause between one and another, continuity maintained by one of the singers remaining on stage, and switching role when joined by a new group of performers. This was effortlessly smooth in execution, like a well edited mix-tape programme. I've never heard or seen anything like this live on an opera stage before. An utterly brilliant production. After the final applause we drifted out on cloud nine with delight, and walked all the way home in the chilly night air. It was just too cold to stand and wait for the bus. I've walked 14km today, the longest distance covered since I was in Ibiza, just after lockdown started in 2020. I'll sleep well tonight.

New book

Awake before the reminder from my phone and posting the link to WhatsApp for today's Morning Prayer video. Another clear and sunny start to the day, and a morning mostly spent preparing text for next week's prayer offering. Then, a walk to Mercadona and back for fresh fruit and veg before cooking lunch. There are no shortages here, but British news is full of accounts of supermarket empty shelves and rationing as the regular fresh food supply chain from Spain has been disrupted by the strong cold winds earlier in the growing season, reducing the abundance of exportable fruit and veg the UK has come to rely on in years past. Hopefully this will be a wake up call for government money to back an increase in domestic fresh food production to make Britain more self sustaining, and reduce the carbon footprint from food imports.

There were service sheets and collection money to take to the church office on my afternoon walk which took me down av. Los Boliches past the book-shop which was open so I went in and browsed for something new to read. A rotating display stand full of paperback novels by Spanish authors, ten or eleven euros each got my attention. I picked up one by Gabriel Garcia Marques to look at, and realised I read it already but had forgotten. It was my first attempt to read a novel in Spanish four years ago. How time flies! 

The novel by Carola Ruiz Zafon I finished a couple of nights ago was also on display, along with others of his. I bought a book by Javier Cercas, about an strange incident in the Spanish Civil War which comes to light and is investigated by an unsuccessful novelist seventy years later. It promises to be interesting.  I then walked along the Paseo Maritime to the town centre. The sea was like a millpond. When I was passing Playa San Francisco I spotted a procession of four paddle boarders crossing the width of that surfistas paradise, which had four metre waves not so many dyas ago. 

The temperature began to drop well before the sun set, as a light chilly breeze sprang up, and clouds started gathering on the eastern horizon over the sea, heralding the return of more wind and rain soon. After dark the sound of wind gusting through the urbanizacion was audible again after a respite of more than a week.

Clare and I chatted before the Archers. Priority booking for the next season of WNO operas has opened and she's already on the case, after tickets for Ainadamar and La Traviata for this coming September. Kath and Anto will come down and join us for the former, and Ann for the latter. In order to come here, I've missed two operas this season. I felt this was an opportunity not to be missed. The lengthy vacancy could well be filled later this year, so I won't get a chance to return again. 

It's amazing it happened at all, nine years on from the first time. I'm coping well here on my own, and if I'm more nervous than I was before, that's because I'm ageing, slowing down, and the trauma of the sprained ankle has certainly made me more cautious. I don't honestly know if I'll be able to do a two month locum next year at this stage. I've had a good run and I'm most grateful for the enrichment of my retirement through the experiences I've had. Whether on not it's time to call it a day, remains to be seen. Funny, I remember thinking the same after Ibiza three years ago!

Young musicians day

We were about three dozen adults and children at St Catherine's for the Harvest Festival Eucharist this morning. With another opera matinee this afternoon, we didn't stay around to socialise but went home and had n early lunch. Chris joined us again at the Millennium Centre for the Young WNO's performance of 'Cherrytown Moscow' written by Dimiri Shostakovitz in 1959. I've never heard of it before.It's more of a musical theatre work. The mid twentieth century 'musical' ethos, structure and composition style reminded of a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta, funny satirical, with dancing and choruses, as well as solos and spoken dialogue.  

The story line was about life and love in post war Soviet Moscow at a time when housing redevelopment was under way in the face of accommodation shortage, making fun of administrative incompetence and corruption at the Cheryomushki high rise low cost housing estate. The cast consisted of about thirty young performers all dancing as well as singing in brilliantly choreographed, energetic routines involving the whole ensemble on stage at the same time. The libretto was written by two Russian satirists, performed in an English translation. The pace of the music made it difficult on times to take in the surtitles needed on times when the singing wasn't clear and distinctive. A most enjoyable experience. The three act show was  condensed into one, lasting two hours, uncomfortably long without an interval. Afterwards, we went for a walk around the Bay and had a coffee together before taking Chris to the train station on our way home.

We sat together after supper and watched the 'BBC Young Musician of the Year' final, with five astounding performers, all under twenty. It was so inspiring and uplifting, especially following Cherrytown Moscow.

Family and friends Sunday

After breakfast we walked to St Catherine's for the Parish Eucharist. Altogether there were about forty adults and fifteen children present, with a dozen of them in the choir. 

After an early snack lunch we drove to the Millennium Centre for the performance of a new work commissioned by WNO called 'Migrations' in 2020, to commemorate the voyage of the Pilgrim Fathers to America. An opera meditating on a theme, that touched upon several different stories, rather than a single story line throughout. We were joined by our friend Chris, as we had a spare ticket, since Owain forgot we had invited him to come with us.

Through a series of operatic 'vignettes', for want of a better word, it presented the stories of other migrants. A black slave from the Caribbean brought to Bristol in the 18th century, a group of Cree Native Americans whose lands had been invaded by oil companies. a group of Indian doctors recruited to work in Britain in the 1960s, a diverse group of language learners in an English class, and most engagingly a flock of birds, represented a a dozen or more children singing and dancing superbly. 

The WNO chorus was on stage all through the two hour performance with a major singing role alongside individual soloists. Altogether a hundred people on stage. The libretto was sparse but powerful and the music emotionally rich and filmic, much like the Janacek we saw recently. 

After we said farewell to Chris, we stayed down the Bay for a while, enjoying a stroll in the evening sun, and then went to the station to meet Rhiannon from the train, coming to stay with us for a couple of nights. Last time she came she was unwell throughout, so it was lovely to have her with us for a catch-up. Since then she's been to Sta Pola with a couple of mates without her parents, and with her parents for a package holiday in Sorrento. She's now started working as a movie extra, introduced by Kath, who's been doing it for years. It's possible she may spend her gap year earning a living like this. It's well paid, if you're lucky enough to get hired, and she enjoys the social experience behind the actual performance she's required to be part of. She told us that she's going to training sessions for extras that involves fight simulation among other things, including basic stunt work. She said she's missed the Physical Theatre element of the drama course she's done in Stratford over the past two years, since finishing the course.

As we were about to eat supper, Rachel and Jasmine rang up, and the five of us joined in a video call. It's the first time in a couple of years since the two cousins were able to meet, albeit on-line. A fortunate stroke of luck for us. We watched telly for an hour and then turned in for the night.

Autumnal opera season begins

After breakfast I has a phone call from Tony Lewis of the United Services Mess inviting me to serve as chaplain at the annual Remembrance Day banquet, as I have done many times in the past twenty years. The banqueters are mostly armed service veterans. This is the first to be arranged post-covid. I do hope there'll be rely good turnout.

I completed next week's Morning Prayer video and uploaded it to YouTube, then I walked into town, while Ann and Clare walked in the park. Having decided to travel to London with Ann on Monday to see my sister June I needed to buy a train ticket. I was lucky enough to reserve a set next to her. Monday off peak trains are not so busy, apparently.

We drove to the Millennium Centre after tea for the evening's performance of Janacek's opera 'The Makropulos Affair', one we've never seen before. It was an unusual story, about a law suit and a 300 year old opera diva kept alive and young by a magic potion, set in the early 20th century.

The music and singing was immaculate as ever. The production was unusual and innovative, making use of evocative video projection during the overture and one act. Then during a long scene changing interlude, one of male singers came on stage and explained entertainingly to the audience the complexities of the law suit. A brilliant innovation.

Janacek isn't as popular as many other opera composers, and the auditorium wasn't packed, as it is usually. Those who didn't chose this show missed a treat. It's unusual in another way worth experiencing.

It was like a stage play with dialogue and actors singing not speaking. The music, full of dissonant harmonies served like a sound track in a movie. It was rich with emotional content, sustaining the drama. One thought provoking statement from the 300 year old diva, was how intolerably lonely it was live so long, a sentiment often expressed by those who live beyond ninety and lose spouse, friends and sometimes offspring. For such loneliness, when nobody is left who shares your life experience, there's no cure.

Lost in the woods

A routine start to the week with cleaning chores after breakfast, and a re-write of mt Thursday morning reflection on the difficult passage in Matthew ten in which Jesus talks about his ministry causing division, an uncomfortable message. Thursday is the start of the UN's annual campaign against violence to women, a sixteen period marked by supporters wearing a white ribbon. It proved possible link this to Safeguarding in the church, and back to the Gospel. Once I'd made the connection, writing and recording was easy.

As I was busy, Clare cooked lunch. I went to the shops, then recorded and edited my Thursday service. We had supper early, then set out for the Royal Welsh College over Blackweir Bridge and through the park for an opera Gala Night. In trying to reach the cycle path three hundred metres through the woods beyond the bridge, we took the wrong path twice, added twenty minutes to the walk, and arrived dead on seven thirty, as the Welsh National Opera orchestra was tuning up. 

Failure to find the right path, not way-marked for some stupid reason no doubt, while easy in daylight was impossible at night, though we have walked it at night in the past. It's a case of remembering the lie of the land, which changes when the undergrowth is overgrown. Anyway, we walked down the playing fields, couldn't exit by the ambulance station, but found a way out by the new service entrance gate which, though closed wasn't locked. I was pretty certain that there was a permanently open way out of the park at night next to the College, but Clare didn't believe me, though we've walked that way before. It was quite a bizarre predicament to be in, but we laughed our way through it more than we bickered.

The concert was wonderful, Carlo Rizzi conducting the WNO orchestra with great energy and the opera students rising admirably to the challenge in eight extracts from operas, only one of which we knew. The last piece was from the end of Verdi's Falstaff with ten singers on stage singing a fiendishly complex fugue with much gusto. It was offered, as Carolo said, in memory of David Seligman, a long standing patron of the College, and music making generally in Cardiff, who died earlier this year. It was more in keeping with the spirit of the man than a minute's silence, Carlo said.

Sitting in front of us was Eileen, the caretaker at St John's church. She was already at the bus stop to get the 61 home when we arrived there after the performance. It was great to find a fellow enthusiast among our local church members. What a night! Lost in the woods, then arriving in the nick of time.

Taking liberties with Puccini

I was grateful for a good long sleep without a nose bleed. Clare and Ann went off to St Catherine's wrll before I was ready to leave for St German's where this morning, Lay Reader Mike Cook preached a wise and thoughtful sermon and I celebrated. 

This was a welcome respite for me, as there was a christening straight after the service, for a very tired and wriggly two year old toddler. His heavily pregnant mother had to hold him over the font for baptism which was risky for her climbing up two narrow steps in high heels. The child was too heavy for me to hold and pour water over and would have screamed even louder and wriggled if I tried to pick him up. Thankfully all went well without mishap.

It was twenty five to two when I reached home for lunch. At three we drove to the Millennium Centre for the matinée performance of Madam Butterfly, a new production. The singers and orchestra were under the direction of favourite conductor Carlo Rizzi. He was cheered when he arrive at the rostrum. 

The music was superbly sung as ever by all involved. The new stage set is strikingly modern and simple, making use of LED lighting technology, projecting video effects on to the white building to conjure an atmosphere. Centre stage on a turntable was a house consisting of two cubes on top of each other. linked with stairs. The upper cube was a glass box and in the lower cube a modern kitchen and laundry room. In these spaces and on the stairs much of the action took place.  The house rotated to effect scene changes, which would have been fine if the mechanism hadn't emitted mechanical noises that penetrated  orchestral interludes.

One main criticism all three of us had was of the costume. Cho Cho San's bridal dress looked like that of a Can-Can dancer. Admittedly she's a teen bride but if she was from a traditional culture did she have to resemble a bride from a reality TV show? Or was that a deliberate interpretative insinuation? She dies by stabbing herself with her father's suicide dagger in Puccini's plot, but her instrument is now a pistol, but there were no sound effects of shooting. 

Worse still. CSI forensic investigators would have seen immediately it was staged - a neat blood stain on a shower curtain (hommage to Hitchcock's movie 'Psycho'), plus another on the bathroom door which was revealed on opening when Cho Cho San's bloody arm tumbles out from within. That may also be a cinematic reference. But, it doesn't portray the far messier horror of a scene when someone blows their brains out. This looked like two deaths not one. Its implausibility distracted from the tragic ending. Not so much a controversial interpretation of a death scene as sloppy thinking about its representation. Someone should have a word with the producer. 

After supper when we returned we watched the Leeds Piano Competition on BBC Four with five superb finalists delivering pianistic fireworks, playing with an orchestra. Then I went out for a late night walk in the park, as my knees were complaining after spending so much of the day sitting down, and not always comfortably.

WNO's triumphant return to normality

A walk in Thompson's Park after breakfast to wake me up and clear my head so that I could concentrate better on recording next week's Morning Prayer and the Reflection I quickly wrote yesterday. The job was done by lunchtime, with fewer editing corrections needed. Perhaps I should discipline myself to prepare for creative tasks by doing this more often.

In the afternoon, a short siesta and another walk around Thompson's Park before an early supper ready to drive to the Millennium Centre for this evening's landmark performance of Rossine's opera 'The Barber of Seville'. A landmark because it's the first full length opera in front of a live audience in eighteen months. To celebrate the occasion, Clare donned a lovely blue and white frock and I my white suit plus blue shirt, and we wore of WNO 'Partners' badges. I was surprised to find that our names are printed in tiny print in the supporters list at the back of the programme for the night. Amazing!!

This is the same English language production as we've seen twice before, brilliantly theatrical and funny, and well worth repeating, as a kind of signature work in the hands of a great opera company. The singing was superb and the pace at which it was taken was breathtaking, if anything to my mind a bit too fast for one to read the surtitles. Reading them was necessary when the speed of singing began to lose the sense of the libretto. Now and then it was impossible to speed read them. There were also occasions when the connection between singers and orchestra became a little ragged, and that's very unusual for WNO chorus and orchestra. Tomas Hanusch drove them all a little too hard to my mind, un-necessarily so. Perhaps the sheer excitement of the occasion, getting back to live performance accounts for this. After all, it was a very different kind of first night to remember.

The arrangement of the entrance area of the Millennium Centre has been significantly modified, hopefully for the time being and not forever. All the ticket desks are boarded off, no longer in use. Ticketing is being done on-line only at the moment, so you can't just walk in and book things. You can have tickets posted to you or emailed, including discounted car park tickets. Each one contains a QR code which is scanned by one of the stewards on entry to the auditorium. This automatically reports your identity and contact details for track and trace reporting.

The car park barrier has a scanner which operates the barrier in and out. I had misgivings about the size of the coded tickets embedded in the confirmatory email, and the quality of the printout possible, so I took a computer screen grab of each instead and saved them to my Blackberry, producing a full screen image of the coded ticket, just as it's been possible to do with airline tickets for the past five years. It works a treat, as long as you remember to take your phone with you! It really would have been better if the tickets were attached as .pdf files to the email. More people know how to handle these than know how to take a screen grab. To be fair, the email does contain a live link to Apple Wallet, but what good is that if you don't have an iPhone?

Nevertheless, all steps in the right direction I suppose. It's so good that the Millennium Centre is working again, with its wonderfully welcoming staff and outstanding musical offering. Rossini is resounding in my ears as I go to bed a happier man tonight.

Travel plans in place at last

My Llandaff diocese CRB check certificate arrived in this morning's post and was immediately sent of to the Provincial office for inspection as required. That won't be necessary next time round in five years, as the Church in Wales as well as me will have recourse to the full on-line service by then. It's a shame the Province is that far behind the CofE, which went digital five years ago.

I called the EHIC Plus help-desk after breakfastt and discussed my travel insurance premium. I found out that the standard rate could be applied if my condition awaiting the final operation was exempted from the policy. This seems reasonable to me. I am managing things well, and bearing in mind what happened in Montreux 18 months ago, would rather fly home and go to the nearest A&E, if anything threatened to de-rail my progress than seek surgery abroad. Follow through specialised treatment in situ would be impossible as a temporary resident. I believe the risk of anything going wrong is very low, both surgeons and my GP didn't seem to think so, and I can't be the first and only person to be in this position before. I paid over the phone and within minutes the policy documents arrived by email.

With that done, I set about investigating travel arrangements. The only outbound EasyJet flight to Mallorca from Bristol in the first week of March leaves at seven in the morning, so I'll be obliged to take the 02h30 coach from Cardiff to the airport, something I've done once before, though I can't remember when. When I get to Palma, I'll be able to visit the local branch of the Ministry of the Interior and apply in person for the Spanish police check. This may take a day or so to see though properly, so I'll stay at least one or two nights in a Hostal, and then take the ferry to Ibiza. I may even get to do some sightseeing!

I couldn't find a direct return flight, but there was an 08h40 Vueling flight to Barcelona, and another EasyJet flight to Bristol three hours after landing. I believe (I hope) they use the same terminal. KLM offered possibilities of a flight to Cardiff or Bristol via Schipol, but their website is pretty unfriendly compared to Vueling and to EasyJet, so I soon lost interest. I was amazed at how much time it took to do the research and book the flights. It was late by the time got out for a walk. I set out in the dry but got drenched by a heavy shower toward the end, so I covered the shortest distance of the week.

I am so looking forward to resuming pastoral ministry with one community for a couple of months, as opposed to being on call by the Cardiff Area Deans or our own Team Rector to fill in wherever the need exists. As it's Lent and Eastertide, this measure of continuity is mutually beneficial. I can maybe plan with the church pastoral team how to go about the teaching side of ministry over that period. I'll have an opportunity and time to prepare fresh material to use as well, which I find stimulating. Even so, I can't help but feel nervous about getting started again, and perhaps that nervousness added to the difficulties I had with travel planning. Being stuck at home and so vulnerable for such a long time has left its mark on me, over and above physical injury.

Today, priority booking for the 20-21 WNO season of opera performances opens, so I went down to the Millennium Centre and bought the selection of tickets which Clare and I had decided upon before she went to Arizona. Not only do we get seats in the row we want, but also at a 15% discount. It's one of the special things we enjoy about living in Cardiff, just a short journey away from a world class opera house and performing company.

Great craftsmanship - musical and artisan

I spent most of yesterday working on my ever expanding story, partly trying to work out how to bring its principal character back home from his travels, now that it's become more and more elaborate. In the evening, we walked over the the Royal Welsh College for an Opera Gala Night. All the graduate students on the opera course perform selected acts from great works, accompanied by the WNO's orchestra, conducted by Carol Rizzi, a well known and much loved musical figure not only in Cardiff but on the international operatic scene.

We were treated to a portion of Humperdink's 'Hansel and Gretel', two portions of Puccini, one from 'La Boeme' and a scene from the one act opera 'Suor Angelica', with the finale from Mozart's 'Cosi Fan Tutte, involving a dozen different singers and an opera chorus made up of students. Our seats were in the third row. The music wasn't too loud, but what was very powerful was being so close to these young opera singers, being able to see them act convincingly, and experiencing the full impact of them living their parts. So powerful, I was moved to tears. A night to remember!

Today, with the promise of fair weather, we ventured out to Brecon for the fist time in several years.
The higher mountains had snow on them after the recent rains, and the reservoirs alongside the A470 were full. The town band was playing Christmas music in a small square and people were collecting for charities. The section of the main street in the vicinity of St Mary's parish church contained two 50 metre marquees sheltering stalls selling Christmas craft goods, in addition to the Market Hall we were heading for.

We had a superb soup and sandwich lunch in the Hatter's Tea Shop, and the lamb cawl I had was the very best I have eaten anywhere. It's a family business, and the matriarch heads the cooking team. She told us that she'd learned to cook cawl from her Grandmother, who always insisted on using fresh vegetables and good quality meat. Cawl is a traditional poor peasant dish, not expecting to use the best meat, but my goodness, what a difference it makes when you do!

Clare was on a mission to visit the a stall there where she knew she could meet the artistic wood turner Bernard Dite, two of whose beautiful wooden bowls we bought from his stall at  St Fagans craft fair last summer. She wanted to buy one as a wedding present for her godson Florian, and this was the only opportunity we could be sure of, as his next St Fagan's date isn't advertised yet. She ended up buying three bowls for presents, beautiful yet practical objects. The ones we bought last summer are in daily use chez nous.

We got back home as it was getting dark, and in the evening I watched the final double episode of French crimmie 'Spiral', which came more or less to the expected conclusion, but with enough of an unfinished plot line to suggest another series. Well, I already knew Series eight was being made. In fact, it may even be aired on Canal Plus in French only now. I wonder how long we will have to wait?

Another opera premiere night

Having driven down from Scotland with Digby their dog (not big and scruffy haired, but slim, short haired, an athletic hunting dog), with an overnight stop in North Wales, Clare's cousin Nick and his wife Sue arrived after lunch, for a visit to the opera with us this evening. We took Digby out for a five mile walk around Bute Park to exhaust him, so he'd settle for an evening out confined to the back of their BMW estate car.

Then we ate an early supper before driving to the Millennium centre. The opera was Janacek's 'Cunning Little Vixen', one that none of us had seen before, and once again it was the premiere of this particular production. It's based on a Moravian folk tale, I think, in the tradition of Aesop's fables, about the cycle of life, love and death, conflict between animals and man. I don't know if it was written with a young audience in mind, but it's relatively short and simple to follow.

The audience for a matinee dress rehearsal was arranged with parties of school aged children in mind, a brilliant idea, reminding me of my first visit to a WNO performance of 'The Barber of Seville' in the New Theatre, when I was eleven. The cast includes children as well as adults, singing and dancing in animal roles. It was superbly done with a cleverly designed bucolic set and a libretto translated from the Czech into idiomatic modern English, funny enough to have the audience laughing out loud on several occasions. It was a delightful evening, which all of us were seeing for the first time, and much enjoyed. Happily, Digby was asleep when we drove to the Millennium Centre, and asleep when we came out and drove home.

Birthday opera treat

It rained on and off for most of the day, which was frustrating, as Clare had arranged for a carpenter to come and rebuild the frame of the door on to the lane at the end of the garden. Despite dodging the downpours, he worked diligently and did a superb job. Clare has already decided to trail a climbing plant across the lintel. When we get a dry day, I'll give the new ensemble a coat of preservative paint. The previous construction lasted ten years before rotting away. Hopefully this one will last longer.

Sister in Law Ann arrived in time for a late lunch today. Her birthday falls next week, so we invited her to come for the weekend, and a night at the opera. Before we drove to Cardiff Bay, I managed a shorter than usual walk in between showers. The river Taff was running high and fast, displacing almost of the resident waterfowl. I hear the squawk of one heron, a few minutes before I saw another perched on the limb of a dead tree overhanging the river, and got a super photo about 10 metres away.

This evening's opera was the premiere of a new version of Verdi's Rigoletto. We sat in the front row of the ground floor circle, a good seat but not quite enough leg-room, or should I say wriggle room for me, so it was an effort to remain comfortable throughout, despite my much improved condition.

The production was new, with a contemporary mise-en-scene - Washington's Capitol Hill, and the cast wore suits. One scene was placed in the imposing office of a public official (suggestions of the Presidential Oval Office. The audience sniggered as the lights went up. Point taken, since it's a tale of powerful men abusing women, corruption, vengeance and hitmen from 170 years ago. It worked well in a modern context. The layout and presentation of the scenery for several acts, though given a face lift, seemed much the same to me as in the previous production, which I've seen twice, though I can't exactly remember when. The singing from all the main characters was sublimely beautiful, fresh flawless and unflagging right to the end. I splendid birthday treat for Clare and Ann alike.
   

Post op - the Lord's Day

After a good night's sleep, early ablutions and dressing change, we were able to get to St Catherine's for the Parish Eucharist, celebrated by a priest who said that he'd been doing a PhD in Cardiff Uni's Theology department. I think he may have been on the staff at St Mike's a while back. He certainly preached us an interesting and scholarly sermon. I was so pleased to be out and about again. Every component of normality helps me on the path to healing I believe.

Clare rushed home afterwards while I chatted, to get an early lunch ready. The nurse appeared just as we finished lunch to change my dressing. Then Clare had to go and  meet Rhiannon from a train as she was coming to us in time for an afternoon performance of WNO's  'The Magic Flute'.

It was the first time for her to travel by train unaccompanied, and this entailed a train change, plus a bus trip from Bristol Parkway to Cardiff, due to the weekend closure of the Severn rail tunnel for electrification engineering work. She'll be fifteen at the end of this week, and quite confident, but used to being taken places by car and not needing to travel independently by public transport, although she now uses the train to go from Kenilworth to Coventry. 

There were no hitches and by two she was tucking into a sandwich prepared for her by grandma before they left for the Millennium Centre. A ticket was bought for me but in the end offered to a friend of Clare's because of the uncertainty about my ability to cope with long spells sitting down. It was a disappointment, but I stayed in an watched several more episodes of 'The River' on More Four Walter Presents. This is yet another drama making the most of the wild winter beauty of Northern Norway's borderland with Finland and Russia. What seems to start as a scandi-noir crimmie, evolves into a spy story which explores the legacy of the Cold War and spotlights contemporary tensions in communities along border regions of this kind. Very thought provoking.

Clare and Rhiannon returned by eight and we had supper together before turning in for the night. It's good to have a lively teenaged grand-daughter in the house again. Kath will come down to collect her on Tuesday.

A royal night out

Another visit to the GP surgery yesterday morning for a blood pressure check. As usual, the readings there were high, in contrast to readings taken at home which average out at the desired 'normal'. I make a point of taking my home readings chart with me, to add to their record. It's all a bit strange really, but at least I'm no showing signs of contracting an infection. The wound varies from day to day and so does its impact on general well being, whatever the logging of vital signs reveals. If this operation does happen next Thursday, it will be interesting to see what impact this has on vital signs, once recovery is under way.

Clare's cousin John arrived by coach from Halifax mid-afternoon, to spend the weekend with us. We haven't seen him since we went up to Northowram for his wife Dorothy's memorial service a year ago, so there was a lot for us to catch up on for the rest of the day. 

The weather wasn't kind enough to encourage a walk this morning, but we drove down to the Bay after lunch to show John around before going to the premiere of a new production of Verdi's opera 'Un Ballo in Maschera' at the Millennium Centre. Prince Charles attended. He's the WNO's royal patron; also the Mayor and other civic dignitaries, with no ceremony, but with unusually punctual start. We arrived to discreet security checks, previously notified by letter, and were required to take our seats fifteen minutes curtain up. The performance didn't finish until ten thirty, and sitting for the best part of three hours apart from the interval was a uncomfortable and tiring, but it was rewarding nevertheless..

I think it's the first time we've seen this opera. As ever with WNO, the solo and choral singing was superb and choreography was executed with style and a certain humour. The music is unfamiliar, in the sense of having few well known popular arias, but it's beautifully rich. The production, however, was quirky and confusing. The opening scene, wasn't set in the heroic nobleman's audience throne room, but around a coffin, from which he then emerges to preside. This coffin reappears in the final scene after his murder is staged, but he's not shown lying dead in it, but walking around and singing on-stage. A few moments earlier we saw his stabbing, or did someone else take the hit for him? This was unexplained. Or was it meant to be his masked alter ego killed off? Or was it his spectre singing about the legacy of regret and pardon in the wake of the avenged amorous encounter with his best friend's wife? I thought this was muddled, especially as the programme's plot synopsis referred to his dying words uttered on the ballroom floor. Altogether too clever, I'm afraid, adding nothing to the evocation of tragedy.

Some other plots of Verdi operas, like Rigoletto and Forza del Destino, as well as this one, feature an element of doom brought on by a curse or a moment of clairvoyance. Does this reflect the dark side of the nineteenth century society he was part of? Or was Verdi looking back to how things used to be in generations before him? There's a thread of inescapable tragedy which isn't exactly cheerful or inspiring. Despite the beauty of his operatic music, they deliver an overdose of melancholy, which I'd rather do without at the moment.

A prophetic opera

Well, I got through the night without being too much bothered by pain or nausea, and was able to eat carefully at breakfast and lunch. I lay low most of the way until it was time to go to the Millennium Centre for the opera. Gail slept long and sweetly in our new bed and said it was the most relaxed night's sleep she'd had for ages.

Clare and Gail went down to Cardiff Bay early for a walk around and something to eat before the performance. It started and six thirty, and I timed my arrival for si, which meant I was able to buy a sandwich and a drink from Sainsbury's and eat them outside before entering the Millennium Centre.

'War and Peace' adapted from Tolstoy's novel, was written by Prokofiev around 1940, when Stalin and Hitler we still allies and Russia hadn't invaded. It's a prophetic work of art, as well as a patriotic celebration of heroic Russian resistance to foreign aggression. What was true for Napoleon's time turned out to be true for Hitler's time also. Both underestimated the courage and endurance of ordinary people as well as, or in spite of their leaders. I wonder if Prokofiev was musically giving voice to misgivings among the Russian people about the alliance between Stalin and Hitler?

In the opening scene, Tolstoy himself is portrayed, writing on stage, while the characters in his mind appear and move or dance about the stage. Such an effective narrative device. There are some fine choral episodes and apart from this a great deal of recitative, thankfully well rendered in good English translation. Curiously, there are fewer notable set piece solos, duets or or ensemble pieces.

The choral work and many individual singers as well as the principal parts were superbly sung. The movement of the 80+ singers and dancers on stage was a wonder to behold. Behind the stage was a large screen on to which still and moving images were projected, and the chorus turned to the screen on times and interacted with what was being shown. The first act was set in peace time, the second was set during and after Napoleon's invasion and defeat. Clever use was made of old movie footage of battle scenes from a period piece movie. Very effective indeed. It was powerfully and confidently executed in every sense from start to finish. What an opening night!

Being seated for the best part of three and a half hours took its toll on my gluteus maximus, and the last half hour was quite uncomfortable as I was unable to move around. I was none the worse for wear by the time we got home, however. As the performance finished late, the last number six Bay Car bus had gone, but thankfully there was a Stagecoach X8 bus going through the city centre a few minutes after we reached to stop. It's reprehensible that there seems to be no co-ordination between Cardiff Bus and the Millennium Centre, when it comes to extra late finishing times. I had a moan about this on Twitter since then.

Contrasting portraits of evil

For our third opera outing of the winter season, we invited our old friends Martin and Chris to join us, and they took us to lunch beforehand, at a brasserie on the other side of Roald Dahl Plas from the Millennium Centre. It's ages since we last got together, as I've been abroad so much, so it was good to catch up with their news.

Then, we went to the matinee performance of Mozart's 'Don Giovanni', a production we last saw with Eddy and Ann when they came over from Felixstowe to celebrate Clare's birthday in 2011. It's a morality play, set to the finest music. The portrayal of the wicked exploits and downfall of this manipulative sexual psychopath is presented, for the most part as a farce despite its dark undertones. The acting and singing of all taking part was, as we have come to expect from WNO, superb. It's fine to play most of the action for its comic content, but I would have liked to see more menace mixed in with Don Juan's charm, and more craven cowardice in his servant Leporello.

At the end, just before he can be brought to face human justice, supernatural retribution overtakes Don Juan. Heaven and earth in turn are appalled by his behaviour. It's a narrative cop-out really. A fairytale magical end to the bad guy implies human justice is incapable faced with such extreme wickedness. Over the last century, humankind has often believed that. Nevertheless, we've also seen that justice can eventually done, by persistent, patient application of due legal process, globally and locally. Perhaps things were that much worse in Mozart's time

Like the real Spanish 'Don Juan', the villain keeps a journal boasting of his seductions, narrating his own success as a serial sexual abuser. His reputation as a 'lover' makes him a source of fascination for some women, if not envy on the part of men. This is unusually relevant in the light of recent revelations of abusive sexual behaviour by movie and media men, and attitudes to this, disclosed or undisclosed. After the opera's final set piece madrigal reminding the audience of the moral of the story, Don Jan's journal is picked up and peered into by some of the singers, with fascination and curiosity written on their faces, rather than disgust or horror. It's a subtle final comment on attitudes despite the moralistic conclusion.

We arrived home by half past eight, in good time for supper followed by another double episode of 'Modus', the latest BBC Four Scandi-noir blockbuster about the kidnap of a female US President in Stockholm. The plot is complex, and a certain suspension of disbelief is required. What's interesting, however, is the role of a senior FBI officer, with a history as a serial abuser and rapist, who seems to be the orchestrator of the kidnap or may be a double agent with inside knowledge. A monstrous conspiracy is slowly being unveiled. The top G-man is the smoothest of operators, persuasive, calmly sinister at every turn. Nothing funny to see here.

Operatic annoyance

This morning I went to St Luke and celebrated Mass for half a dozen people in Fr Mark's absence. Then in the afternoon, we went to the Millennium Centre for our second opera outing of the season. Verd's 'La Forza del Destino, which neither of us recall seeing before. The music was unfamiliar but so beautiful, the story a bit far fetched, about the far reaching consequences of a tragic accidental shooting, but the chorus and all the performers sang superbly. 

The set was minimal and abstract, albeit cleverly designed to represent the various scenes. I took exception, however, to the portrayal of the chorus, in one scene, supposed to be a choir of monks at a religious ceremony, which had all two dozen singers wearing white mitres. They were supposed to represent a community of friars for whom wearing a mitre plays no part in their life. Not even a global assembly of Benedictine mitred abbots would see that number of white mitres used in one place at worship. It was a vain pointless expression of 'artistic liberty', that would un-necessarily bewilder and distract a liturgically ignorant opera goer.

Come to think of it, I was equally annoyed at last week's 'Tosca' performance at the end of the first act where a congregation is assembling for a festive Te Deum, to see that the liturgical procession resembles an old style Papal procession where the Pontiff is carried aloft by bearers, wearing conical white hoods after the manner of Spanish 'penitentes'. Sure these costumes are used in Sicily, which was rule for a couple of centuries by Spain, but this is Rome. 

The mise en scène is the Roman city centre church of San Andrea in Valle. It's not a place where the Pope would turn up and take part in a parish event, in those days, when his life would have been confined to the Vatican and St Peter's. Once again, annoyingly inappropriate and un-historical use of church ritual and symbols, when the actual liturgical conventions, properly used are just as dramatic and powerful. It's now the third time I've seen this production, and nothing has changed. I should have complained before!