WNO's new take on Cosi fan Tutti

It was midnight when I got to bed and gone half past nine when I got up. I was certainly tireder than usual when I got to bed. Rhiannon and Kath slept late too. Clare woke up at seven and couldn't get back to sleep so she cooked a double batch of pancakes to feed us all. After a long lazy breakfast, I got to work making the Morning Prayer video slideshow, and uploaded it to YouTube. We had a snack lunch, the drove to the Millennium Centre for an afternoon performance of Mozart's 'Cosi fan Tutti'. It was a delightful surprise even though the Guardian review a few days ago was somewhat a spoiler.

The essential storyline has an older man and woman attempting to teach two younger couples a life lesson about love and relationships, and how fickle all people are capable of being, hence the title - in effect it means - everyone's like that. Usually it's presented in eighteenth century costumes of the elite. In this new version, it's set in a secondary school's classroom and canteen, with everyone apart from the teachers and the cook/housekeeper in school uniform that included short trousers and short skirts. 

The youngsters are meant to be mid-teenagers. It's a challenging re-think. Not everyone may like it, but it does make clear, as intended that the older generation are playing tricks on the younger generation, manipulating their emotions and ideals into deception and betrayal to teach them a lesson. It was played for its comedic content, and in my opinion raised more laughs that might have done if played as a trad costume drama. Wales' own Rebecca Evans playing Despina was outstanding, hilariously funny in her several guises.

The sextet of singers playing students and staff all sang superbly and moved playfully around the stage with chorus members during minor changes to the single stage set to signal scene changes by using big placards with images on that called for a certain amount of decoding. It worked, just about. I believe there may have been some changes to the English translation of Da Ponte's libretto as it highlighted the humour expressed on stage. It was a bold exercise in presenting a much loved opera classic, a challenge risen to imaginatively, refreshingly. We left for home just after the sun had set, much cheered.

After supper I went for an hour's walk in the dark to complete my daily quota, then spent the remainder of the evening writing until Kath and Rhiannon returned from dining out with old friend Emma. It was gone midnight by the time we went to bed. 

Welsh musical First Night

More rain overnight, so the pavements and rains were flooded when I walked to St Catherine's to celebrate the Eucharist. There were a dozen of us today. As it was the 'All Saints of Wales' feast day, I had the idea beforehand of making a list of Welsh Saints whose names I could recall from memory from place names around the Principality, then read them out in place of a sermon and explained why. There was one local to us, St Elvan, to whom a church in Aberdare is dedicated. Stephen, who taught in the town's Church secondary comprehensive school, reminded me of this over coffee afterwards. Apart from this omission, I managed to remember twenty four names.

I then went to Chapter to collect this week's veggie bag and cooked some chicken for myself and a sugo to accompany this, and the veggie equivalent of meatballs. Later, I did the week's grocery shopping at the Co-op, and made a few edits on Sway. Then it was time for an early supper so that we could drive to the Millennium Centre for the first sell-out performance of 'Branwen:Dadeni', a Welsh language music theatre show.  Here's a peek at the rehearsals

The story is a creative adaptation of a tale from the Mabinogion about a royal family in decline, war weary, corrupt, looking to restore its fortunes through the ability of a charismatic 'People's Princess' to unite the kingdom to build a new society together. All that happens in the story is history repeating itself. It's a matter of plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose - same old, same old yet again. 

The auditorium was packed with younger than average opera goers, predominantly Welsh speaking. An unusual experience! A band of six musicians played from an open gallery above the stage - keyboard bass, drums, to fiddles and harp. The music was too loud for me, but appropriate to the character of the show, even if on times the dialogue was repeated in song a dance routine 

The spoken dialogue was interspersed with song and dance routines delivered by six principal performers plus eight singers performing either in the gallery or on stage. Translated into English on two of the three surtitle screens (one at stage level in the corner), it was often funny but for my taste, overly crude adding nothing to the story, if anything a substitute for real emotional depth. 

Much of the dialogue was poetic philosophical, reflecting on the nature of power and status. I'd love to see a full operatic treatment of this libretto by a top composer like Carl Jenkins, as a completely sung version would bring out its full emotional power and colour. 

It was gone eleven when we reached home. I had to hunt the neighbourhood for a place to park the car, as our street was full. That's why I hate going out in car at night. Returning the usual hassle spoils the pleasure, and it won't be easy to get to sleep.

Una gorra neuva

I must have been tired to sleep eight and a half hours, and wake up in bright sunlight with the sun above the roof line of the terrace opposite the bedroom. By mid afternoon the temperature was 25C. All I did this morning was finish preparing for tomorrow, print out my sermon and cook lunch.

I walked down to Los Boliches after lunch and then went north east along the Paseo Maritime to Playa Carvahal. On my way I was passed one of the many tiendas selling clothes as well as beach supplies, and noticed a few gorras (gents' cloth caps) of interest. I need one big enough to tuck my ponytail into and stop my hair blowing into my face. There was one in cotton denim that was just the right size for me. I've hunted in many stores since I've been here and it's the first time I've come across one that wasn't too small. I can't believe that I've bought a shirt and a cap this week. I never shop for clothes on holiday, as my packed suitcase usually contains everything I need.  

Carvahal at the far end of Fuengirola municipality has 1.2km of beach. The Sierra de Mijas peaks are 15-20km inland from here, but descend to a narrow coastal strip dedicated for the past forty years to high rise blocks of hotels and holiday apartments, on sites excavated from steep slopes behind the beach road. The original N340 highway runs 50m above the beach, the Cercania railway line 50m above that. The A7 autovia runs another 500m higher up. All of these in their day were massive civil engineering projects to improve access for the tourism industry.

The L1 free bus runs from here all the way to the Miramar shopping mall at the other end of the municipality, the longest route. I caught one on the return leg, and was impressed at how well used the service is. I got off at the stop opposite the Los Boliches market and walked up to Mercadona to get a few items I'd not been able to carry yesterday. My ankle hadn't been given me much trouble while I walked, but as soon as I stepped into the supermarket it hurt enough to make me limp, and I have no idea why. As I had a bag with several kilos of shopping in it, I crossed the road and sat on a bench waiting for the L3 bus to take me back up the hill. Fortunately I only had five minutes to wait, and was soon able to take off my shoes and walk around barefoot, which relieves the pain promptly.

While uploading and downloading photos after supper, I watched a cooking programme from a small town in Cordoba Province. The dialogue was difficult to follow, a bit fast for me. The news programme that followed was easier, and helped by on-screen headlines, thankfully.

Clare and I chatted for half an hour. She told me about the new Welsh opera she went to with Diana and Pete at the Millennium Centre last night. It was a story about a Welsh male voice choir, and as she said "Very culture specific, unlikely to travel well." The real life Dowlais Male Voice Choir performed on the stage in the foyer beforehand, and put in an appearance on-stage at the end of the opera, which featured an audience sing-along, in Welsh as well as English. Probably a reason why it wouldn't travel. I wonder if there'll be a video to circulate among ex-pat New World Welsh societies? 

WNO re-emerges triumphantly

Despite the glorious weather, I spent the morning working to complete next Thursday's prayer video upload. I feel the need to clear some space to enjoy the coming weeks, as we're off to the Gower en famille next weekend. I also want to complete the upload that's due the morning after we return. I enjoy creating these things but not when I'm under pressure these days, when I have time but don't always use it wisely.

After lunch I walked into town to get some updated photos of the redevelopment work, also the current state of the city centre as lockdown eases.It's great to see lots of people again in the streets, many more now sitting to dine and drink at new outdoor restaurant facilities, many of them attractively designed, with colourful enclosures, and flowering plants uplifting the streetscape. A lot of hard work and a big  . I hope it pays off.

At half past six we drove to the Bay to attend the re-opening our our national opera house after 14 months of covid closure, with an hour's concert before an audience that was a tenth of the normal full house, everyone being correctly socially distanced in their 'bubbles'.

Just one entrance was open for check-in, and we were slowly and carefully channelled through the building to our appointed seats. This was a trial event to test the robustness of the in-house team's implementation of safety protocols.

There were fifty in the orchestra, seated on stage and another thirty singers of the opera chorus in the front stalls facing the orchestra. This actually worked surprisingly well in terms of sound balance, as the auditorium acoustics are so well designed.

The orchestra played with fervour and precision. I have never heard the overture to Rossini's 'Barber of Seville' played at such a breathless pace. Every instrument was clearly audible in a way no hi-fi disc could ever match. Sound from the orchestra pit, partly under the stage cannot be as clear as the sound emanating from down under is constrained by the smaller space.

After the overture, we had Figaro's famous opening aria, then the Cantique de Jean Racine from the chorus, an aria from a Massanet opera sung by WNO favourite Reecca Evans , Sibelius' New World 9th Symphony, and a song from a Bernstein opera with chorus and soloists to finish with. It was a moving and powerful event, filled with defiant hope and confidence for the future. Whatever happens in future, there will be music, there will be opera, and we'll be there!

WNO anniversary milestone

Last night we agreed that the holiday letting we fancy booking is an apartment overlooking Aberaeron harbour. There was a glitch when Clare tried to book on-line, so I rang up this morning and was pleased to find the place was still available. The letting company Wales Cottage Holidays uses a simple payment system working on any 'phone with a tone dial keypad. It's good for those who are unable to pay on-line, and resembles the remote banking transaction system used in parts of Africa, where usable internet is scarce but landlines or more likely, Nokia type mobile phones are commonplace. We've booked for late June, to be on the safe side given that my op is at the end of May. We've visited Aberaeron before when holidaying in Ceredigion. It's a long wait, but something lovely to look forward to.

There were fifteen of us at St John's for the midweek Eucharist I celebrated this morning. Walking home with Fr Benedict afterwards, I discovered that one of his passions is the history of liturgical development. In fact, he's doing a PhD on early Christian eucharistic prayers, and how understanding them has evolved over the past half century. This was something I also found interesting when I was studying for ordination, so I look forward to reading his work when he eventually publishes it.

We had blue sky clouds and rain showers today, and fortunately not when I walked in the park after lunch. I got back at four in time for a Zoom session put on by the Welsh National Opera, reviewing the seventy five years of its life, celebrating its remarkable evolution from a small group of keen amateur singers and musicians, which held its inaugural meeting in a Crwys Road chapel at the end of the war, to a world class professional touring company with its own full time chorus and orchestra. 

It was a delightful hour's watching with the WNO's archivist telling the story and former musical directors being interviewed, and telling anecdotes. The best true story was about a pioneering visit to the former German Democratic Republic, during the Cold War. Somebody joked about the need to omit punctuation from performance related documents, liberetti and technical schedules and notes, just in case the Stasi held up the documents, vetting them scrupulously for embedded microdots. The administrator took it seriously and to everyone's astonishment produced punctuation free paperwork. This occurred in the days before word processors. Imagine!  

This evening we sat together and listened to Oscar Peterson, and Miles Davis albums, and I drafted the last couple of Rogationtide reflections for next week. In many ways listening to jazz takes me back to my youth as much if not more than listening to sixties pop songs. It's far richer and diverse musically than pop songs (few of whose lyrics I can ever remember completely) and like opera, has far more meaning for me. I'm so glad that i grew up in a family with such broad musical tastes. Dad was always contemptuous about the new wave of rock and pop music when I was growing up. I think I understand why now. 

 

Lost and found

Our friend Gail arrived from Worcester yesterday lunchtime for another night at the opera together. This time it was Verdi's 'Sicilian Vespers', something none of us had heard before. I didn't realise that it would be in French, composed as it was for a Parisian audience, although the story was based on the historical uprising of the Sicilians against their French overlords in 1282, so I expected it to be in Italian with some French as a bonus. Not so. It's not so well known or often performed as Verdi's other operas, but the music is rich and powerful.

It was presented with another timeless minimalist set made up of large mobile open frames. It was too dark for my liking but nevertheless highly effective. The singing was as ever, top class, and the middle section included an imaginative and superbly performed piece of contemporary dance, as a medium for telling the background story of two main characters. There was just one interval in the three hour long performance, and that came after the dance intermezzo, so the first Act was two hours and the second was one. For me, that length of sitting was too long in the seats we had booked which were somewhat cramped for a tall person at the best of times, but with the state of my behind was uncomfortable and stressful to manage. 

For the past hour I moved up to the viewing platform for wheelchar users at the back of the stalls where there are half a dozen stand-up places, and a few seats with more legroom. I wished I'd thought about this from the outset. We were sitting in the same row as last time, when it was also equally uncomfortable, but it didn't cross my mind as the wound is far quieter these days. But there's still a limit to the amount of direct pressure I can take while sitting so I need to move around. Hardly the best thing when you're in a front row seat with a dozen rows behind you.

This morning I celebrated and preached at the St Paul's Grangetown Eucharist again, and afterwards officiated at the baptism of a one year old boy. Interestingly, twice as many attended the christening as there were for the Eucharist, and all different people. It was the first christening at the church in a year. The regular congregation hosts a Sunday school with up to thirty primary aged children, so there are young families in the area. There's work to be done by a new parish priest to build bridges between the few families that still attend just for a christening and the Sunday School ministry, and it's not so easy in this highly mobile era of ours.

By the time I got home, Gail had already left, hoping to find a train still running. With warnings of heavy rain and high winds over the weekend, some train cancellations had already been announced. As it turned out, she was lucky in that the train she went for actually did run, although later ones did get cancelled. Walking in the park this afternoon was quite challenging, with occasional gusts of wind of about thirty miles and hour. There had been torrential rain overnight and in the morning, but fortunately, not while I was out. The river Taff at Blackweir bridge had risen by over two feet overnight, with the torrent water covering the fish ladder tunnel, and the water level rising to within a foot of the western side foot path. Huge flocks of gulls and crows were grounded in the fields. For some strange reason, the flocks of starlings congregated in a few select trees.

Clare leaves for Phoenix to visit Rachel and Jasmine tomorrow. She's been packing for a week and is very nervous about every aspect of the journey there, starting with the 05.55 coach to Heathrow's Terminal Five. This afternoon she was distress to find that she'd lost an earring while changing over cardigans. We hunted high and low, with no success. It was only when we emptied the dishwasher after running it that she found the earring in the cutlery basket. It's had to imagine how it go there. Then a little while later, she couldn't find it a second time and fretted about this until she realised she'd re-attached her ear for sake keeping, having taken off the other one for safe keeping earlier. Pre-flight nerves! I wonder how I'll be when I'm about to fly again for the first time in eighteen months?

  

Opera weekend

Saturday morning, Clare cousin Nick and his wife Sue arrived to stay with us. They'd flown down from Edinburgh to Bristol and driven a hire car across. Sue's a musician, and some of her students are working or studying in Cardiff, but the real purpose of the outing was a trip to the opera, with an opportunity to hear one of her students playing in the WNO orchestra. They had tickets for Verdi's Forza del Destino, which we'll see in a couple of weeks from now. We booked tickets for the Sunday performance of 'Tosca', long before they made their plans. After a long lunch, they went into town to meet the students and then go to the opera.

They came long after we'd gone to bed. Clare and I were up early, and went to eight o'clock at St Catherine's together. I was booked to celebrate, and Clare, as she was there and handy to ask, read a lesson. Then we returned for a big late breakfast and heard that they'd so much enjoyed their night at the opera, Nick and Sue decided to make the most of the weekend and attempt a late booking for the performance of Tosca. They were successful in getting last minute seats, so we set out together in good time. Their seats were in the Upper Circle and ours were in the middle of the front row within touching distance of the conductor.

After breakfast, despite the cold wind, we walked into town and then up to the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, which Sue was keen to see. Her former student was busy in rehearsal, so couldn't meet us there, but Sue was suitably impressed with the marvellous building. It's only twenty minutes or so across the fields from there back home. Crossing Blackweir Bridge I was relieved to see that the fallen tree was no longer stuck at the top of the weir, but had been washed by a fresh spate of upstream water about a hundred meters further down, where it would cause less trouble. We didn't stop long to look, as the wind was merciless, and we were in need of warming up with a good lunch, before heading out to the Millennium Centre for a four o'clock start.

I think this is the third time I've seen this particular production since we've been back in Cardiff. As ever the singers and orchestra were marvellous. I don't think Nick and Sue were disappointed. After the performance they took us to an Italian restaurant nearby for supper. After that brisk 7k walk and an intense musical experience followed by pasta, were all ready for bed. A delightful weekend.

     

Unexpected operatic premiere

I was back on duty, celebrating the midweek Eucharist at St John's Canton this morning. Clare has been doing battle with the internet, trying to obtain confirmation of tickets booked on line for a string quartet concert here tomorrow night, thankfully handled by an agency, not by the Parish! She had trouble with the ticketing website, which sent confirmations and info relating to password changes that ended up in the Spam folder, as often happens, except the spam folder wasn't in evidence. I looked for it and missed it, as for some reason it requires scrolling to find, rather than being near the top of the display, which would be a more useful default, given the common need to manage spam messages frequently, or go crazy, unable to tell the wood from the trees.

After lunch I had a bereavement visit out in Danescourt. Now I am fully briefed on the three funerals at which I have to officiate next week. At six we took the X1 bus to town, then the Bay Car to the Wales Millennium Centre for an evening at the opera. I knew nothing about what we were about to see, and nothing about Frank Martin, composer of 'Le vin herbé.' We were surprised to discover that he was a 20th century Genèvois, and that it first saw the light of day in London with an English liberetto by Hilaire Belloc, seven months before it premiered in Zurich, either in French or German, both in 1948.

Le vin herbé translates into English as the Love Potion. The story told is that of Tristan and Iseult, also used by Wagner in his opera of this name in the late German Romantic mode. Martin, on the other hand, was musically in a similar vein to Benjamin Britton, wonderfully rich creative use of dissonance, but not atonal, nor making use of fractured rhythms. It's not a long opera, short enough to be delivered with no interval in an hour and three quarters. A spell binding hour and three quarters, as the production did not fail to retain one's attention throughout.

First - no scenery, minimal staging. Costumes? Black and black. Tragic Iseult alone appearing in white and later in gold. The libretto makes use of the fifty strong WNO chorus, as the means to tell the story, with chorus and individual voices, just a handful of roles being distinguished by the movement required of them. Belloc's libretto is a simple rendering of a classic story with group narration and passages of quoted speech from key characters delivered by individual singers. Group choreographed movement of the storytelling chorus was also an important element of the presentation. It made us think of Greek tragedy performances we last saw fifty years ago.

The stage is bare, minimal furnishing. A string sextet plus piano and conductor are centre stage throughout, the cast move around constantly. The backdrop is black, everyone save Iseult is dressed in black. So much depends on stage lighting, and it works superbly, from the start. There's no curtain, and the lights don't go down immediately either. The cast take their positions and stand still looking into the audience until they have everyone's attention, a bit like a teacher with a distracted class of pupils.

When all are settle, out of complete silence, the music and voices emerge. The audience is sitting at the feet of a storyteller, in this case a group of fifty. It's intense and engaging from the outset. As ever the singing by principals and chorus is excellent. Only as it was starting did I learn that it's the premiere of this WNO production.

The house wasn't totally full as it often is. I suspect that this 20th century opera lacks the glamour and pull of Mozart, Verdi or Puccini favourites, yet, it's music of our lifetime, and an inspiring effort made by Martin to connect with the ancient tradition of storytelling, which transcends culture and keeps being reborn in the artistic endeavours of rising generations. This production, and all who take part in it are a credit to our other major Welsh national past-time, the difference being that great opera always wins.

Blog restored, operas booked

The man from SSE came to read our gas and electricity meters this morning. We chatted briefly about how smart meter introduction will affect his job. It seems they've not yet been told. I told him my concern about how data was to be harvested wirelessly from our side of the street, suffering as its does from such a poor phone signal. He didn't say much except that uneven reception happened in all sorts of places. I wonder if there is a Grand Plan, or if it's a case of hi-tech trial and error?

Thankfully for Owain, the blog failure crisis is over. It was nothing more than a broken SQL database link. No hacks, no data loss. Immediately he set about installing a site backup plugin on his WordPress software, and has learned how he can do his own repairs in future. There was a time when I was keen to learn all the technical details to be able to build and manage websites, but I was never well pleased with the results for the effort invested. I used Google sites to build web pages for several years, but in the end, got daunted by the enhanced security measures and difficulties encountered in linking pages to URLs I'd purchased, and gave up altogether. Now I concentrate all my effort on journal writing, and minimise the amount of time I spend on design or tweaking default settings.

Over the weekend I received two more requests to officiate at funerals, so that I have three next week, none this week, and so have enough time for preparation. After several days in succession without a good walk, I got out at the end of this afternoon, and walked around Llandaff Fields and then Pontcanna Fields, covering three miles as the sun was setting. There was an east wind, but the temperature rose to eight degrees, so the wind didn't bite quite so hard as it has done since new year. Not that spring is yet in the air. Snowdrops and crocuses are out, and a few prodigious blossoms among the abundance of daffodil shoots growing taller by the day, but few signs of buds swelling yet, ready to burst. But who knows what a few days of milder weather might bring?

Early booking for the 2017-18 season of opera performances at the Wales Millennium Centre started today. Rather than buy on-line, Clare went down to the real world booking office and obtained perfect seats for four operas in our usual place, the middle of the few rows of front seats behind the orchestra pit which are at subscriber discount prices due to the steep line of sight to the surtitle screen. There are three Russian operas in the schedule. We decided we could cope with one, 'Eugene Onegin'. Then there's our old favourites 'Tosca' and 'Don Giovanni', and Verdi's 'La Forza del Destino', which we've not seen before if my memory serves me right. Plenty to look forward to.

  

Musical memories

After a late breakfast, Owain went off to see friends before returning to Bristol. Clare and I got ready to go to the Millennium Centre for lunch, before a matinee performance of Cole Porter's classic musical comedy 'Kiss me Kate'. It was raining, and likely keep raining for the rest of the day, so we decided to drive there by car. The car wouldn't start, so we had to abandon the car and wait for a 61 bus. The next one was late arriving and very crowded. We were the only two allowed on at the stop. Sheer luck. We only had to wait a few minutes for the number 6 Bay Car bus in town. 

The city centre was heaving with damp shoppers. When we got there, the Millennium centre was also pretty crowded with damp people. I think there may have been other events on besides 'Kiss me Kate'. We had to queue for ten minutes to get sandwiches for lunch, and it was difficult to find a place to sit and eat them. It was amazingly busy, but despite the minor inconvenience, it's good to realise how well used the place is.

I doubt if any Broadway musical production could have surpassed this one. Fine singing, brilliant solo and ensemble dancing, engaging comedy, and a wonderful stylish relationship between performers and audience, so evocative of fifties vaudeville. I can't remember when I last saw a live performance or a movie, it's so long ago, but several of the big songs I knew well. My mother had a compendium of sheet music songs from the show. She would play the piano accompaniment while my sister June sang, and occasionally it would just be Mum singing. It was a lovely moment of escapist romance in the front room of our three bedroomed miner's terrace dwelling in Ystrad Mynach. It's a fond memory I have of childhood, even though it causes me to feel sadness as well as pleasure when I hear the music again. I don't know why this should be.

I was fortunate enough to be raised in a household that loved to sing and play music together. When our children were young our home was the same. Clare still sings and plays piano, but I've lost the taste for it in recent years, I'm ashamed to say, and don't understand why. After my mother had a stroke, she did make an effort to resume playing, but found it dauntingly difficult, and so the house fell silent, and the sound of live music was replaced by that of the radio. Perhaps I too am daunted by the difficulty of moving from perpetually practising music to performing it, and the feeling I have no audience to work at performing for. I just have to be grateful there's still an audience for my preaching and leadership of worship. I hope our offspring will never give up performing, or wanting to find an audience to perform to. It's a great treasure to relish.

The other Figaro opera

After my Monday afternoon walk, I was less stiff and tired than I thought I might be, but nevertheless was glad not to have much to do before walking to Tuesday evening's Chi Gung and Tai Chi double class in St Mary's Church Hall. Today, by contrast, was busy with the St German's midweek school Mass, then the Ignatian meditation group at noon, followed by a funeral at Pidgeon's Chapel straight after, just down the road from where we were meeting.

Then in the evening, we went to the Millennium Centre for the Welsh National Opera's performance of Mozart's 'Marriage of Figaro', definitely one of our favourite operas. I thought I'd be disappointed that it wasn't sung in Italian, but this particular English free rendering of the original is very good and gives added value to the comedy element, such that people laughed aloud more than they normally might. 

At the climax of the final scene, in a thoughtful and moving moment, the Contessa with a philandering husband, declares she has pardoned him, and speaks of forgiveness as calming troubled hearts. She who is most persistently betrayed. Just right for an evening in Lent, as thoughts turn to Christ's passion. Superb singing throughout. We came away feeling joyous and enlivened in spirit.

In the foyer beforehand we bumped into Peter and Mary Barnet fitting in a night at the opera in between a West Country visit and returning to their home in the Gower. Peter succeeded me as Team Rector of St Paul's in Bristol back in the eighties, and we've met up occasionally over the years since then. We also bumped into Bob and Mary Hardy, St John's bell ringers, attending an event in the concert hall. We've bumped into them at Dyffryn Gardens on a couple of occasions. Finally, we bumped into Dafydd Elis-Tomas in the interval. We usually meet each other walking to the Llandaff Fields bus stop, as their house is in a neighbouring street to ours. Sometimes we don't see a soul we know on our Millennium Centre visits for the opera. Tonight was a happy exception.

We decided not to book for the third in this season's trilogy of operas focusing on the character of Figaro, entitled 'Figaro gets a divorce', it's hard to imagine how something with such a depressingly post-modern theme could deliver delight in the way that Rossini and Mozart's offerings do. Just a bit too contrived a theme concept to my mind. There, exposing my age and my values. 

  

Barber of Seville re-visited

After a relaxed day preparing for Sunday, a visit to the Millennium Centre for the new Welsh National Opera rendition of Rossini's 'Barber of Seville'. At the end of primary school, sixty years ago, the top class was taken from Ystrad Mynach to Cardiff's New Theatre for a WNO schools performance of this opera. I remember what fun it was, and although it was more than a decade before I went to another opera, the seeds for my life long devotion to this performing art were sown.

The Wales v Scotland rugby match was reaching half time when we got off the bus at the bottom end of Cathedral Road (due to road closures), and walked through busy streets to find the right bus stop to catch the number six 'Bay Car' we needed. Due to road closures, the route and stops for the six had been modified and there was a dearth of information. So, we ended up walking the rest of the way. As we'd left plenty of time, there was no panic about this, and we caught the second half of a string quartet performance in the foyer beforehand.

As is now so fashionable, the stage scenery was minimalist, and made clever use of mirrors, lights and translucent screens to frame the action. The ethos of the performance resembled that of a vaudeville farce, stylish, racy, and hilariously acted as well as brilliantly sung. It was sheer entertainment, played for laughs, almost mocking the romantic operatic genre, without losing the quality of the music or plot. Rarely have I laughed so much throughout. What a treat for the eve of Valentine's Day.

The contemporary English translation of the libretto is witty and funny, making it highly accessible to a much wider audience, but I missed hearing it in Italian. Some of the presto choruses are fiendishly hard to sing, regardless of the language, but English uttered rapidly sounds more percussive, like stuttering, less easy to understand. In contrast to the fluency of the Italian pronunciation better fits the excitement generated by the music. I wouldn't mind seeing it all over again. That's how much I enjoyed it.

At the bus stop afterwards, a merry Scotsman, celebrating his nation's narrow defeat commented loudly that I looked like Billy Conolly wearing my Basque Beret. Funny. The last spontaneous remark made to me in the street was from a Korean gentleman who told me he thought I looked like Sean Connery!

The city centre was crowded with people happily celebrating after the match. The number six dropped us by John Lewis' and there was a sixty one bus waiting for us when we arrived in Westgate Street, but it didn't leave for ten minutes. Road closures ended at eight, but buses are fewer and further between in the late evening, even on match days.

No singable tunes, but so thought provoking

This evening we went to the Millennium Centre for Shoenberg's 'Moses und Aron'. As a result of attending the pre-opera discussion hosted by David Pountney and Mona Siddiqui, our appetite for something that's definitely not run-of-the-mill opera has been whetted. Schoenberg was a creative artist with a strong sense of mission, confronting his contemporaries in the German speaking high cultural realm with the uncompromising moral and spiritual demands of Jewish monotheism. He was discovering his identity as a Jew for the first time returning to the religion of his forefathers after a secular upbringing. He wrote both music and libretto for the two finished acts of his opera, and left directions about its staging. The entire opera is an expression of his unique prophetic voice. It's hailed as a masterpiece, but would we agree?

I anticipated that the music, based on Schoenberg's innovative use of the 12 tone scale, would be difficult to engage with, and indeed the first twenty minutes of listening was challenging for its sheer intensity. Or perhaps it was a matter of attuning to something different, with few memorable motifs or tunes to pick up. The choral element of the work was just astounding in richness and complexity, mixing polyphonic singing with choral speech. The physical positioning of different elements of the choir, not only on stage, but in the orchestra pit and off-stage behind the scenes, created the most remarkable sonic textures. On times the orchestra seemed to be playing a dissonant counter-melody to the singing of the choir, with powerful effect. 

Moses and Aron are the key dramatic figures on stage. Moses speaks, but in a rich melodic way, contrasted by Aron's singing voice. The orchestra doesn't accompany the singing but rather creates a huge rich sound track, building atmosphere, reflecting the content of the libretto. If it was hard to tune into at first, it's because there's simply nothing else quite like this music. It gave me that same buzz of excitement I get from hearing good contemporary jazz improvisation.

The design and staging is said to be derived from Schoenberg's production ideas. The set for the first act resembled a political debating chamber, presided over by Moses, accompanied by Aron as his spokesman. This is where Moses proposes to the people of Israel the covenant of allegiance to the one true and eternal God. The meaning of this is discussed in the light of miracles wrought by Moses before the exodus from slavery in Egypt. 

In the second act, the set is transformed into a cinema auditorium. This act recounts the story of the making of the Golden Calf and all that follows from it, concluding with the return of Moses and the destruction of the tablets containing the Commandments. There's no image on stage of the idol, mentioned in the biblical story. The subject of the people's idolatry is a projected movie. Aron speaks to them of the 'image' they watch as being images of themselves. In this context, it's an astounding, challenging idea. 

The dialogues of the people of Israel with both Moses and Aron were of great interest meriting further study, and cross checking for consistency with biblical narratives, or reflecting Schoenberg's textual interpretation. He was, after all a newcomer to biblical tradition, perceiving the story with fresh eyes. I look forward to finding out more and can now say with personal conviction that this work is a twentieth century masterpiece in every sense. The third act was still a work in progress when Schoenberg died. An attempt has been made to complete and perform it from legacy material, but that wasn't included here. As an unfinished work it has greatness in its own right, because of its bold confrontative nature.

There's no doubt WNO's production and performance of the opera is as good as it gets, and faithful to its author's prophetic intent to get his contemporaries to think about real nature of divine reality and what it demands of human beings. In an epoch marked so strongly by idolisation of the self and self-fulfilment, may this work continue to make us think hard about what we value most in life, and why.

   

  

Prelude to a night at the opera

After another day housebound by weather and the miserable effects of sinusitis, we ventured out this evening to the Millennium Centre, for supper at Ffresh, the stylish in-house restaurant, where we were greeted by a Welsh speaking Maitre d', and served by a French speaking Quebecois. 

Afterwards we attended a talk given by David Pountney, librettist and opera producer, about composer Arnold Schoenberg's life and his operatic masterpiece 'Moses und Aron'. His special guest was theologian and broadcaster Mona Siddiqui, one of Britain's top islamic theologians and inter faith dialogue specialists. They had done the same double act this morning at the Hay-on-Wye literary festival, and seemed glad to have another go at it on home turf. It's one of a series of events under the banner 'One World, Many Faiths', mounted to accompany the summer 'Faith' season of operas, well just two of them actually, the other being Nabucco. We have bookings for both in the coming month.

I didn't know anything about Schoenberg apart from his name being associated with use of the twelve tone musical scale. Despite its length, David Pountney's biography of Schoenberg's life and work was informative and interesting. and Mona Siddiqui's valuable comments and reflections left me wanting to hear more from her. The theme of their conversation was that of identity in relation to religious faith.

Schoenberg was born into a non-practising Jewish family. His search for spiritual meaning led first to conversion to Christianity. Then, well before the rise of Nazism, he encountered and was subject to the social germanic anti-semitism of the era, and reacted against it by reverting to Judaism. His consciousness awakened to the profound evil of racism and the need to campaign actively against it, which he did with prophetic discernment and fervour in the political sphere, finally joining other German exiles in the USA during the time of Nazi supremacy.

As a man of Jewish ethnicity disposessed of its ritual and community life, Schoenberg strived to engage with the religious and spiritual meaning of Jewish scriptural foundation texts, discovered in the context of modern secular liberal values and his pride in German artistic cultural heritage. His opera 'Moses and Aron' centres around the relationship between the Moses the inarticulate man who walked and talked with God, and Aaron his brother and divinely appointed spokesperson to the children of Israel. Its setting is the story of the Exodus from Egypt and sojourn in the wilderness up to the fabrication and destruction of the Golden Calf and death of Aaron.

Schoenberg wrote both libretto and music, but only completed the first two acts. These were performed in concert for the first time just before his death in 1951 and premiered as an opera on stage six years later. His use of the twelve tone scale, in which each musical tone and semitone is equal to the other, was intended as a revolutionary innovation heralding a new era of artistic musical consciousness. It's more than coincidental that in Schoenberg's latter years, Swing was evolving into Bebop taking Jazz in a new and revolutionary direction. Black Jazz musicians, were also struggling with questions of identity post-slavery, in an 'emancipated' society that was nevertheless riddled with racism. 

Schoenberg's engagement with the Torah as an outsider to Jewish religious tradition led to a realisation that the first two Commandments required an uncompromising moral and spiritual austerity hardly congenial to human beings. This may be what having faith in God demands in the wilderness, in times of crisis, but what happens in the promised land? Or is there no promised land, in a world so ridden with injustice and tyranny?

The evening's conversation was a stimulating prelude to a night at the opera still to come, and touched upon many more issues than it pursued. It was the beginning of an interesting dialogue about what it means to come to the sources of faith, if not faith itself, out of a society that has lost touch with its identity and roots in religious culture and spirituality. It's an issue that has resonance for all kinds of believers eager to share their faith. Remarkably, it occurred in a precinct of highest artistic endeavour, rather than in seminary, cathedral, mosque or temple. I'm sure there are historical precedents for this. It was just good to be there.
  

Operatic perspective on Tudor times

A quiet day's pottering at home, writing a sermon, followed by an evening outing to the Millenium Centre for the WNO's performance of Donizetti's opera 'Anna Bolena', the Italian spin on the tale of Henry VIII and Ann Boleyn, the first part of a series of three Donizetti operas around the English Tudors. Unusually, the auditorium was less than full, perhaps because of critics' lament about the stage design and costume. It was certainly a minimalist presentation on a black set with dark colours so that the lighting emphasised mainly faces and hands. 

The costumes were a de-historicised allusion to the period, almost Wagnerian in abstraction, nothing attractive or likeable. Enrico, with his long mane and garb looked as if he'd been parachuted in from the ring cycle. He projected nastiness so effectively that at curtain call he raised an appreciative theatrical 'boo' as well as applause from the audience. The music, the singing and stagecraft of the performers, not to mention the energetic antics of the conductor, made the performance powerful and moving, provided you could be philosophical about the mise en scene. A great night out.

Donizetti's liberetto portrays an evil, ruthless, scheming king in a less than subtle way. Taking into account what a nasty piece of work the author of the Anglican break with Rome was, there seemed to me an element of Italian Papal aggression towards the English in the spin given to the story told. How did that go down when it was first performed in London two hundred years ago? I wondered. Mind you, if the story had been set in an a non-historical continental land, fictitious or real, with characters named to suit, this probably wouldn't have drawn my attention.

It's impossible to feel pride about the origins of  Anglicanism in reformation conflict. It's something of a miracle of divine grace that so much good fruit came from inauspicious origins over centuries since. 

Talking of which, the Church in Wales Governing Body voted in favour of ordaining women to the episcopate yesterday. It will grieve many adherents to a traditional understanding of ministry and church structures but at least it's reformation without blood letting. More reform is needed to make the church and its message more credible to the contemporary world - the way episcopacy and authority are exercised, the way decisions are made and followed through. Old ways and institutions can't last much longer due to decline financial support that goes with loss of members. Can the church lose size without totally losing substance and significance? It's not really in our hands. It's up to God.

 

Bank Holiday weekend Opera

I celebrated Solemn Mass for Trinity Sunday at St Timothy's Ely yesterday morning. The regular sacristan cum server was away on holiday, and with no substitute, I had to arrange everything liturgical apart from readings and intercessions - a DIY job - and I'm not all that used to it these days. However, I managed to fire up the thurible without incident, and used incense as prescribed simply by parking the thurible in easy reach on the floor beneath the altar. My little improvisation worked without embarrassing moments, and having extra things to attend to didn't seem to inhibit preaching, so perhaps I'm getting more relaxed about things as I get older.

After an early lunch, I headed down to Cardiff Bay on the bus, in bright sunshine for the afternoon performance of Wagner's 'Lohengrin', an opera I've not seen before. It was such a nice day that I wasn't looking forward to spending the next six hours indoors. Also, with Clare in Arizona, I had a spare ticket. Nobody I asked was able to accept the offer. I queued at the Millennium Centre box office, in the hope of re-selling it, but had left it too late. If I'd bothered to go down on Thursday last I might have had more luck. Such a shame about the ticket. Nevertheless the performance of this amazing opera was so good it was worth walking away from the sunshine for. In fact, would have been worth paying double to see. It was a world class event without doubt. And, as if to prove it, the BBC broadcasted it live.

Bank Holiday Monday today, saw the return of rain and cold weather. A day to get up late, mooch around the house, upload photos and talk with Clare and Rachel on Skype, enduring forty degree heat out there in Arizona. Rachel has been using the Viber app on her iPhone to send me photos, so that I don't miss out, bless her.

     

Santes Dwynwen

The first meeting of the new CBS RadioNet steering group was this morning, convened by the city manager, not unreasonably impatient to get on with set-up business even though we still await the appointment of representatives from retail users. There were half a dozen of us, and after a wobbly beginning - we'd not been informed until the last minute that the start time had been deferred an hour - and it was a little difficult to get clarity about lines of responsibility on some issues.

Ashley and I have the longest continuous memory of how CBS was designed to run. Unfortunately the original intentions have been poorly pursued because the stakeholders who should have taken careful interest from the outset didn't, and the exercise of keeping CBS firmly tied to its mission and ensuring its viability was simply left to CBS volunteers to get on with.

After five years of poor support, all sorts of people are starting to take an interest who don't have sufficient background or understanding of our highly regulated framework. Assumptions are made which aren't always accurate, so getting clarity of communication at the outset is essential to avoid grief later on.

Anyway, after a few awkward moments, the meeting outcome was positive. We will be meeting on a monthly basis for the rest of the year. That'll keep us nicely on our toes.

If I'd known about the morning meeting delay in advance I could have organised myself better. I missed an opportunity to attend Mass for the Conversion of St Paul, and that was a disappointment, as he remains one of my top ten Saints.

After working in the office through lunchtime, I went home to work on a document to circulate to students on the whys and wherefores of creating their personal portfolio, then went up to College at the end of the afternoon on an errand before Clare and I went out for supper at Stefano's restaurant around the corner. It was a special fund-raising evening to raise money for a  de-fibrillator, featuring a quartet of Welsh National Opera singers performing popular romantic arias. It was, in the old Celtic calendar Dydd Santes Dwynwen, the Welsh counterpart of St Valentine, both belonging more in folklore than in history, unlike St Paul. 

The food was good and the singing delightful. It was most enjoyable conclusion to a dark chilly wet, yet nevertheless busy winter day.

 

Wagner at Pentecost

Our friend Claudine arrived at lunchtime yesterday from Geneva, where she'd stopped over, after flying from Bangkok, to give a talk to Holy Trinity Church's Care and Concern Group, before coming to us for a night at the opera and a relaxed weekend. We went to see the WNO's Wagner's 'Tristan and Isolde', and our friend Pauline came with us as well. The performance at the Millennium Centre was superbly crafted. It's the second time we've seen this production. This time I decided that I don't like the opera. Not because it's so long - five o'clock until ten fifteen - with an hour long supper break, but to my mind, essentially this great saga of tragic romance is not all that romantic. The bottom line is 'death is stronger than love'. Depressing teutonic philosophical musings. At least it reminds me that I'm a Christian. Pagan myth and legend don't do anything to make my life more worth living. The music, however, is rich and powerful, worth listening to despite the sentiments floated over it.

This morning I had only one service to take, an eleven o'clock at Holy Cross Cowbridge. This meant we could have a late breakfast and be together for worship. I would have been happy to take Claudine to any of the Benefice churches, because people are all so welcoming, but Holy Cross, in the middle of the town is a special place to take visitors. I knew it was important for her, as she doesn't often get to church these days. She lives in Thailand, travels to and from the north of the country and goes to Burma in the course of her work for the Swiss government's humanitarian programme. She misses the regular sustenance of traditional Anglican worship in a mainly Buddhist environment where most of the few churches are very conservative evangelical. A Pentecost Parish Eucharist hit the right spot for her, and I glimpsed her beaming smile during Communion.

Afterwards Clare and Claudine went out and sat in the sun in the Cowbridge Physic Garden, opposite the church - a very pleasant place to relax while I hung around in church and chatted with people after the service. Then we drove towards home, stopping for an excellent lunch at the Loch Fyne restaurant near Saint Hilary en route. We arrived back, just in time to welcome colleague friends of Claudine's who dropped in for tea, catch up and a baggage transfer. Their daughter, recently back-packing in Thailand, had sent home with Claudine a package of clothes redundant after a sojourn in temperate New Zealand! How small the world becomes for those who lives revolve around travel, as opposed to the rest of us whose journeys, great or small, occasional big events.