Stumbling on melons

Sadly, D’s new bike which arrived on Christmas Eve has been a bit of a disappointment.

The bike only cost less than $300 including freight from China and the bloody Gerry Harvey tax. Even at Chinese prices this obviously cannot have left much over for the bike itself.  Not only is it pretty heavy, but the components, though on paper high-grade (disc brakes, albeit not hydraulic, gears, and FOLDING) are the cheapest which could answer these descriptions.  The chain and gears leave much to be desired.  The wheels are smallish and this also means the pedal cranks are relatively short.  It is not really the right size for him.

These are the perils of buying online if you don’t know a lot about what you are buying.  I could have said “I told you so” but I needn’t because he did this all on his own without consulting me.

Add to this that D has yet to build up any cycling stamina, so that even the shortest ride exhausts him.  The most we’ve managed is about 1.5km or maybe 2km on the flat (though he notices the slightest slope) before he has retired exhausted and demanded a return to base.

There is a silver-lining.

On our last ride, D was labouring (possibly even pushing the bike) up a short slope when a young father with two infants – one on a carrier and the other towed behind – surmounted the incline with ease.  As he passed us, he beamed and declared: “Electric!”

D frequently returns to this moment – it’s become a humorous catchphrase for him – and wonders at it.  Did the man overhear some remark by us? I don’t think we said anything. It was enough that he sensed our feelings of relative inadequacy and envy and volunteered the explanation of his apparent greater prowess out of kindness.  Delight in his ease of propulsion probably also played a part.

I love cycling (though not so much in the rain) and it’s a great way to get exercise, but it takes a commute to get me cycling with any regularity. 

Since we moved to Canterbury in 2016, my cycle commuting has declined sharply.  An extra big hill at the start is a deterrent and the greater distance means that it is quicker to walk to the station and take the train.  I’ve had recourse to a part-commute (2) along the Cooks River and through Marrickville to take the train from Sydenham.  This is pleasant but not a time-saver so happens only intermittently. Other times I have hopped on the Light Rail at Dulwich Hill and cycled from Jubilee Park (at the foot of Glebe Point), which likewise saves 2 big hills. This does not save any time, but provides a bit of invigoration before going down the mine/up the big building in the sky. I do find it liberating at the end of a working day to hop on the bike and ride all the way home. It’s something to do with getting straight out of the city and not having to wait for the train.  

I’ve become a bit of a nanna rider. By that sexist and ageist term I don’t just mean that I am slower but also more sedate. I’m less keen than I once was to mix it with the traffic and increasingly prefer quieter routes. I appreciate the urban pastoral and also some of the newly funky byways of the inner city from which through traffic has been largely banished and am prepared to take a longer route for their sake.

My bike, purchased in 2008 (1, 2), is also showing signs of age. 

The writing is on the wall: my next bike, if I can accept the expense and extra anxiety of theft risk, will almost certainly be an electric one.

Last night to the Sydney Town Hall to hear the Sydney Symphony Orchestra after an 11-month great pause.

The program was

Tchaikovsky, Violin Concerto
Connor D’Netto  Uncertain Planning and
Dvorak Symphony No 9 (New World).

Simone Young conducted.

Chief Executive Emma Dunch took to the stage to tell us that the resumption of performances was a joyous occasion.  She also told us that the City of Sydney asked us to remain in our seats at interval unless requiring “the bathroom” and that, the bar being closed, free bottled water was available.  It was just a bit late to tell us both those things but I guess we will know for next time.

I hope next time more Covid-check-in Q-code stations are provided.  We had to queue in the rain for the few that were there. And any water should be in less crackly bottles. I picked one up at interval all the same: I’ll be able to get 10 cents for it eventually.

Conductor and players emerged onto the stage masked and then doffed their masks, putting them back on as they prepared to leave the stage.  String players (who usually share stands) were a bit more spaced out than usual and each had their own music stand.

Originally we were to have heard “Taiwanese Australian” Ray Chen.  Probably on account of that there was a greater than usual presence of Chinese-background people, including families with children. It could also have been a [“Chinese”] new year kind of thing. In recent years the SSO has done a bit of targeted marketing in that direction.

I first heard the Tchaikovsky concerto in 1974 or 1975 played by Cho-Liang Lin, then known to us as “Jimmy Lin.”  I’m pretty sure that was at the Town Hall, maybe even with the SSO as part of the old ABC Instrumental and Vocal competition, though it could have been with the Sydney Youth Orchestra.  Lin was off to the USA not long after and scarcely looked (or came) back.  Thirty years later Chen has followed a similar Taiwan-Australia-USA trajectory. Lin has been one of his teachers.  

It would have been nice to complete the circle, but Chen cancelled.  Word was that he was unwilling to endure the quarantine and other travel difficulties. You can’t blame him but it was a pity and probably a disappointment for the CNY set. It’s not as if quarantine requirements have become much more onerous since the SSO first announced the season. Then again, they haven’t reduced either, and there is the more virulent strain.

Instead we had German violinist, Daniel Röhn, sitting out the great shut-down in Oz with his Kiama-raised flautist wife.  His was a rather sober rendition.  He opened up for his Bach Partita No 3 prelude encore which I felt suited him better.

Many years ago I had to make an agonized exit from a central front seat less than ten minutes into Cosi fan tutte, missing the remainder of the first act, because I had overlooked the usual precautions. That’s the sort of thing you don’t forget. On the precautionary principle I exercised my “bathroom” privilege.  As was apparent last year, renovations to the Town Hall have depleted provision in this regard (in favour of a kitchen on the south side).  The situation is particularly hard for the Ladies.

After interval, Uncertain Planning was one of a series of commissions by the SSO.  According to his notes, D’Netto wrote this in the middle of last year, so we can take the title as programmatic.  Horns and trumpets interjected sinisterly from the north and south galleries.  For my money they could have been positioned so they projected a bit more directly into the hall, but maybe remoteness was the idea.  There was a big viola tune.  I hope to have an opportunity to hear this piece again if the concert is to be broadcast.  (Update: the ABC has scheduled a broadcast of Thursday night’s concert for Sunday 21 Feb at 1pm.)

From my very good seat in row V of the stalls, most of the kaleidoscopic cymbalstern-ish woodwind detail in the D’Netto was lost in the great echo. 

On the other hand, the Town Hall acoustic, sympathetic to especially the lower strings, suited the Dvorak.  The slow movement is my favourite – not so much because of the famous cor anglais tune as for almost all of the rest of it and especially the opening and close. I enjoyed the symphony a lot right up to the last movement which whilst still enjoyable (how could it not be?) seemed a bit business-like – something to do with how the transitions were negotiated and characterisation of episodes such as the swinging flute descant riff.

I suppose I shouldn’t cavill. Emma was right: it was great to be back.

Fortuitously,* I went to this again on Wednesday. That will be the last time. There remains only a matinee on Saturday anyway. D didn’t want to see it again so I took a friend.

It was even better than the second time – probably for the same reasons that the second time was better than the first. Once you are reconciled to the play-within-a-play approach, or at least expect it, its execution repays repeated viewing. On reflection any repeated attendance at an opera really involves stepping into such a p-w-a-p approach.

The museum you enter or need to imaginatively re-enter is the mind-set of the nineteenth-century public – ready to be carried away by the twists and turns of a Gothick melodrama (honour-bound Spain is like a later era’s Ruritania) which provides the opportunity for a range of stock situations: the lovesick bandit (nobleman who has gone wrong), entrapped and bewitched maiden, a castle about to be stormed, wedding festivities (x2), bandits, plotters, vendettors, amazement at the unexpected appearance of a monarch (x2) who turns magnanimous (WWCD? ie what would Charlemagne do?). I’ve never seen William Tell in the flesh but it it must be the most obvious forerunner (notably for the role of the chorus). Switzerland was also a bit of a locus dramatis (OK – I’m not a Latinist), after all, and the Rossinian crescendo an obvious influence.

As for the Verfremdung – all Verfremdung is a bit of a trick since in the end the idea (well, this is my take) is that, notwithstanding having been told up-front and many times that “this is only a play” (as if you could ever think otherwise in an opera where everyone sings everything), in the end you are sucked into it. The signification in this production is when Ernani kills himself: the “stagehands” doff their hats and look shocked. But it all goes back to the moment in Act II where Silva gives up Elvira rather than betray Ernani to Carlo because he Silva is honour-bound by the laws of hospitality – EVEN THOUGH ERNANI CAME IN DISGUISE! (Ridiculous, yes, but it’s the premiss of the play.) After that Silva is always going to extract revenge on Ernani (except for when he offers to let Ernani off if he will yield his place as designated assassin of Carlo to Silva).

In this case there is also a journey from comedy (many instances – my favourite is Elvira skipping round the stage during the little instrumental passages when Carlo and Hernani are having it out for the first time in Act I) to tragedy.

At one interval I overheard someone saying “it’s rather rum-ti-tum” but I don’t mind that – and spacious compound time (ie, big melodies over a slow beat divided into three, with further articulation within the three) is the great musical innovation of the period. There are so many felicities in the score. I like most the little Verdian jabs. Maybe I’ll compile a little anthology of my favourite bits later. Liszt in his paraphrase – which has far too many notes for my executant ability – sticks to compound time stuff.

In my first post I was critical of Natalie Aroyan’s coloratura, and it remains the case that when she is in that territory (in Ernani involami [starts at 23.10 in this currently still online broadcast of the opening night] and the succeeding aria – the two really are the one piece) it feels like witnessing a semitrailer careening through a chicane. But that is only a part of the role, and she really throws herself into the big moments where, for most of the rest of the opera, Elvira tries one way or another to prevent the disasters that beset her. Misguidedly of course. When Elvira tries to dissuade Silva from insisting that Ernani kill himself in accordance with his oath by saying “I love him” you want to yell out “That’s not going to work!” It’s a sort of pantomime “he’s behind you!” moment.

As for Diego Torre’s tight spot in Act II – [starting from about 1.03.50 ditto] it was still there last night though more successfully negotiated. It’s to do with a passage that trickily combines an awkward spot in his register with a requirement for quiet singing, which is not his forte. Forte is his forte and it is great to have it.

Vladimir Stoyanov as Carlo and Vitalij Kowaljow as Silva (Don Ruy) are the buy-ins and are in a (n even) higher league as you would hope.

So yes, I am smitten.

*[disclosure] following a gracious gesture by Opera Australia.

To this for the (planned from the outset) second time on Monday night, with D.

I enjoyed it more than the first time, even though my neighbour was all too obviously the less-interested member of a couple who had been dragged along. Frequent program reading, fiddling with his mask, looking at his watch, ruminatively rolling his lolly-paper into a ball between his thumb and forefinger – all the classic signs were there, other than the mask stuff, which is a novel outlet. Judging from their ages (at least 70) this could well have been going on for years, unless it is a recent, onset, issue. Oh how satisfying it would have been to swat him with my program! D says I get too concerned about this sort of thing and I know he is right.

The obvious reason I enjoyed it more was because I had a better seat. This is always part of the plan. The other was because I knew what to expect, and so wasn’t disappointed or even put off by the jokey/ironic approach. In some ways I could appreciate it all the better. Some reviewers have commented that the irony is inconsistently maintained. With the benefit of a second time I could appreciate its nuances more. Possibly there had been a few adjustments to it.

I’m still not sure this meta stuff works so well for us here where few could enjoy the luxury of seeing something more than once, the piece is a rarity unlikely to have been seen before in other productions and the impression will have to be made by the one performance, and it has to carry a bigger burden simply because there is little else on. I overheard a fair bit of audience chatter going out about it being a rather silly work etc.

So one for the cognoscenti. The music and the spectacle are splendid.

For me, the music is the most important. I have a number of favourite musical moments buzzing around my head by now.

Whatever my earlier criticisms of them, the male chorus is back on form. At one point in Ernani’s Act II duet with Elvira I was worried that Diego Torre seemed to have got stuck in a bit of a tight corner but he successfully extricated himself. Those tenors really have to tough it out!

In “Lo vedremo, veglio audace” [first-night broadcast at 1:11:55] Vitalij Kowaljow as Don Ruy/Silva portrayed in a kind of snarly (or maybe I mean surly?) insolence in his answers to the king [de Silva responds at 1:12:53] which were a great bit of singing acting and not an approach I’d seen/heard in recorded renditions.

I tried out “brave“ on the female chorus during the curtain calls but I don’t think anybody noticed.

In January, Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban went to an Opera Australia performance of The Merry Widow.

At the end of the performance, Keith and then Nicole took to their feet to join in a standing ovation.

A man sitting behind them (whose view of the curtain calls they were presumably blocking) asked them to sit down.  They declined to do so and remained standing and applauding in front of him.  The man swatted Nicole with his program.

Keith accused the man of assaulting Nicole.  Amazingly, police were called and spoke to Keith and the man.  No charges were laid.

I know this because Nathanael Cooper, standing in for Andrew Hornery as author of the Sun-Herald’s “Private Sydney” feature, chose to publish a story about it today.

Why is this news?

Nathanael tells us:

…it raises the important question of what is and isn’t appropriate etiquette when one is watching a 116-year-old piece of theatre inside Sydney’s most famous building.

Back in the olden days standing ovations at the opera were considered a big no-no. It was the height of rudeness to stand up and potentially block your fellow patron’s view of the performers’ bows. Loud clapping, shouting bravo (for the men) and brava (for the women), and even loudly stamping your feet were all ok as long as your butt remained connected to the seat.

But social norms have evolved. In 2021 standing ovations are not only totally acceptable but encouraged. The performers love to see all those masked faces move five-to-six feet up as audiences show appreciation for the three hour performing odyssey they’ve enjoyed.

Somebody had to tell Nathanael “encouraged” and the last sentence (though the figure of “five-to-six feet up” could be his own miscalculation: not even Shane Lowrencev could be that much taller standing than sitting).  I mean, he couldn’t just have made it up, could he?

The account includes this paragraph:

After the drama subsided, Opera Australia boss Lyndon Terracini escorted the Kidman-Urbans through back of house and out the relative safety of stage door where they graciously posed for a photograph with the show’s star Virgilio Marino despite the ordeal they had just been through. PS reached out to reps for Kidman and Urban to make sure they are ok, but heard nothing back.

The supplied photo was taken by Lyndon Terracini.

So Mr Terracini is a likely journalistic source.

I can’t help feeling that a fair bit of the following was also inspired by Lyndon.

Imagine it was someone’s first time at the Opera House and they had to endure the embarrassing ordeal of being chastised by a curmudgeonly old bloke desperately grasping on to antiquated opera etiquette in an attempt to keep the art form reserved for the elite.

I once rocked up at the opera in jeans and sneakers and the looks of disgust on some of the well-heeled fuddy duddies could have separated the threads in my trousers. The fact I love opera, was the youngest person in the building by a good 30 years and would leave and tell all my other young friends about it was totally lost on them. They will all soon be dead and if young people don’t go to the opera we may need to start calling that building the Alan Jones School of Conservative Thinking because there won’t be much to put in it.

If Opera Australia is to survive and thrive it needs to encourage new audiences to see its productions. It lures newbies in by staging hokey populist operas and musicals. Despite copping criticism for this strategy, it persists because it needs to make money just to stay afloat, let alone recover from the huge financial hit all the performing arts suffered in the pandemic.

Old mate and his program are part of the reason opera patronage is dwindling. As much as Opera Australia needs to keep up with the times, so too does its audience.

FWIW:

1. If anyone is part of the elite, it is Nicole and Keith.  They took their bodyguard.  It would be unsurprising if they were on the free list.
2. I’ve never heard of a “rule” against standing ovations but I’m sure I would not remain standing if a person behind me whose view I was blocking asked me to sit down.
3. If there is such a rule it’s not a rule which preserves the form for an elite.
4. I hope I would not, if I were in the position of “Old Mate” (at 67 according to the police, he is younger than Lyndon) swat someone with my program.  It was wrong of him to do that, but not, in the circumstances something which ever need concern the criminal justice system.
5. Terracini presumably knows or could find out how/by whom police were called.  Did Nathanael not ask him about that?
6. Nathanael gives no indication of having sought out “Old Mate”’s side of the story.  How does he know OM was desperately grasping in an attempt to keep opera for the elite? Read more carefully than I did at first and you might discern that Nathanael is just imagining that bit.
7. When I went to Ernani there was an announcement asking that we remain in our seats until invited by the staff to leave.  I’d be surprised if there wasn’t such an announcement at The Merry Widow.
8. “Bravo” is for a male performer; “brava” for a female.  You can also say “bravi” for male or male and female performers (plural), and (esoteric: I only just found this out – now I will never slip into Cosi fan Tutti again) “brave” for women in the plural.  That’s interesting isn’t it?  A fun thing to learn, like the special acknowledgement of the orchestra after the final interval or the prima donna leading the conductor onto the stage at the end of the curtain calls. Oh no! Fuddy-duddies!
9. Alan Jones was cast in the 2015 Sydney run of Opera Australia’s production of Anything Goes.  Terracini was artistic director at the time.
10. There are so many reasons why opera patronage is dwindling. The biggest one is almost certainly expense.

Maybe my suspicions are unfounded. Maybe Nathanael found out about the incident from others, Terracini just supplied minimal information in response to his inquiries, and all the editorialising is Nathanael’s alone. On the other hand, any publicity is good publicity, or so they say. And if you can get in a swipe against the fuddy-duddies, well, that would probably suit Mr Terracini just fine.

It was a shock to read of Elijah Moshinsky’s recent death. A fall shouldn’t have done for him, but it seems going to hospital during the Covid crisis did.

Opera Australia has published a generous (and deserved) tribute which has the advantage of listing Moshinsky’s productions for OA and Opera Australia in the order of their premieres, from Wozzeck, only seen in Adelaide in 1976, to Don Carlo[s], which opened in Sydney 1999.

During rehearsals for Don Carlos there was a bust-up when Moshinsky spoke (and worse, spoke publicly, though it’s likely he was caught off his guard) less than flatteringly of OA’s musical standards and the orchestra in particular. Some of his complaint related to the Opera House’s infamous concrete pit. He had to write a letter of apology which was placed on the music stand of every player in the orchestra.

After that, although his productions were regularly and successfully revived (especially La Traviata but also Rigoletto) Moshinsky did not return in person until the revival in 2015 of Don Carlos.

In a 2008 post on the upcoming 2009 season, discussing what is going on or what happens when artists “speak out,” I speculated on Moshinsky’s absence since the Don Carlos bust-up. I cherish this comment from “elijah:”

“Barred from my own company by trying to be objective. Off to the Zimbabwe Lyric Opera for openness.”

Those were the golden years of blogging!

At least any hatchet was eventually buried. It’s a shame it took so long and came too late for any further productions here from him.

Two of my favourite moments in Moshinsky’s productions involve cigarettes – and no, neither of them is in Carmen.

In Rigoletto Gilda is smoking a teenagerly illicit cigarette when she hears her father at the front door. She extinguishes it and hastily tries to fan the smoke away with the (also unsuitable) magazine she has been reading.

In Hansel and Gretel, Mother, who is not much better than she should be and not managing very well, absent-mindedly stubs her cigarette out in one of the children’s pencil cases.