Snow and opera hibernation
I have nothing particularly operatic to comment on right now but I thought I would share a few snow pictures, since I have been hunting for good ones for years, what with usually being parked in London at this time of the year.
Although snow was supposed to have come down hard for the past week, it only happened since the day before yesterday afternoon. Yesterday I went for a hike in the woods and it looked like this:
I walked all this way to see the hill come out of the fog
I am a sucker for the winter colour palette and fluffy, heavy snow in general:
is that rooster cosy or what?! Maybe that baubles obsession does not feel so odd when this kind of image pops up often enough in real life.
Since London does not have this kind of wooded hills:
the beckoning edge of the woods
The woods are quite dense and the terrain is rough, though I do not think you can easily get lost (turn around and down and you are back in town). There was good number of other people (couples, mostly) about. Around here hanging out in the woods, regardless of weather, is very common. There is little else to do 🙂 That being said, the strong and fresh air and the specific quiet of the woods (even with other people around, birds cawing, dogs barking like the house is on fire) was out of this world invigorating. Whilst I was there I wondered if there is anything better in life than the woods during a snowfall. Today is a gorgeously clear, cold day, yet I am still wondering.
Back to town:
what I call our local winter pastime, snow skating 😉 who needs ice when snow falls down in chunks?!
Let us start the year with a rant: Venice tourist fees
BLOODY TOURISTS!
So Venice has started a fight to cull tourist numbers by way of making your pay a flat daily* (?) fee when entering the lagoon. I can sorta kinda understand where they are coming from (re: gazillions of tourists, mostly parked by Rialto-San Marco; these people are apparently their target). BUT:
these people usually stay at the lagoon hotels per se, so who you are segregating against? Me!
*Is the daily fee a once a day entry fee, or does it allow multiple daily entries? It would affect tourists who stay in the outer boroughs and may have reason to go back and forth during the day.
GO SOMEWHERE ELSE!
They want to divert people to lesser known destinations, like the islands.
Idea: make the vaporetti or whatever takes you there cheaper. I WANT to go to the islands, Lido, whatever – why would I want to see Rialto over and over? I want to take cooler panoramic pictures and I just bet drones are banned.
BRIDGE, WHAT BRIDGE?
But you have another issue: there are only so many bridges that link the many islands. Make more bridges? So many people use the Rialto Bridge because there is no other bloody bridge to get you to the other side for miles. I too was sick and tired to have to use that route again and again but that is the most direct one right now.
A MAZE OF WINDING ROADS
Alternatively, sign post the lesser known streets better, so tourists who are willing to take the scenic route do not have to fear getting lost and waste time chasing their tails. The only properly signed area is the most notorious one.
RUBBISH, I SAY
Apparently there is a lot of littering. I have to say I was not struck by Venice being particularly dirty. But if this is such a problem, install a hefty fine and enforce it.
FUN IN THE SUN ON THE CRUISE SHIP AND OTHER ANNOYANCES
Interesting debate on an older article, this time about tourism in Spain (another country railing against their current source of revenue):
Cruise ships, coaches, even RVs are ways of “doing” the popular or interesting bits of a particular location without really leaving very much behind to the benefit of the area you are visiting. Cruise passengers mainly want to “do” Venice – they do not particularly want to interact with any Venetians.
If, when visiting a place, you stay in a local hotel, eat in local restaurants and spend in local shops you are at least contributing to the local economy; increasing the prosperity of the places you are visiting. All the cruise ships do is add to congestion without contributing very much to the places they are visiting.
The answer is either to restrict the number of such short term visitors, or force them to pay more for their visits e.g. through greatly increased parking / berthing fees.
Here is one who wants to pay the fee, for the sake of the local marble:
I agree we were in Venice this spring and I felt very strongly that we should have been charged an entry fee. Also having your suitcase transported (rather than lugging it around yourself) should be an offence as well, I saw people with insanely large and heavy suitcases trying to pull them up the steps of these delicate marble old bridges it was infuriating.
Surprisingly, other cities seem to have come up with a solution:
They could have special luggage boats and small electric vehicles to transport them when there isn’t a canal handy. Split and Hvar have these wee electric vehicles to move things around in the city centre.
But one thing that we may be momentarily forgetting is the traditional disorganisation at administrative level and good ole corruption. I suspect that Venice is only making a profit (if it is) due to the said humongous number of tourists.
Eventually proposed tourists will probably take all this aboard and not go. If enough of them feel unwelcome then they may end up with not enough tourists. My very easy going nephew said that Venice was extremely unwelcoming, expensive and highly over rated.
I must be SUPER extremely easy going as I did not feel any of that (except that gelato should not exceed 2 Euros / 2 scoops). But the poster has a point: I was taken aback by this proposed fee and having been there twice I may think about other destinations in the future before I decide on a high fee period.
Riga, not my city but I stayed there, has trouble with the notorious stag/hen weekenders who come (from the UK notably) for cheap booze and screws then trash the place. All brought courtesy of low cost airlines.
All brought courtesy of the disparity of income and cultural attitudes between First World ex-Colonial Empires and the rest of the world. Local admin raw greed and spinelessness as well, of course.
Let us return to cruise ships for a moment, as other from the Adriatic region complain:
And the cruise ships. Don’t forget the damn ships. They’re ten thousand times worse than AirBnB could ever be.
Here in Dalmatia, they dump human and industrial waste with impunity, ruining the water and fouling the beaches. And the class of tourist they disgorge represents a net cost to the communities they disembark in.
Every boat belches out at least a few thousand shambling, shouting, penny-pinching, insensitive tourists who desecrate holy sites, erode ancient roads and buildings, and overwhelm basic utilities. They get drunk and smash up local businesses or start fights with locals. They jam up our underfunded emergency services, then skip out on the bill in time to catch their boat. Most leave without having spent more than a handful of euros on land.
And so it’s an economic disaster here. Study after study shows cruise ship tourism to be a massive net loss to the local economy. Locals are priced out of their communities by sky-high living costs during the high season. Availability and quality of public services drop precipitously as the public sector sags under the load. And there’s barely any assistance from our EU “partners”, who are nevertheless more than happy to privatize and rent our infrastructure back to us when it serves them.
Nice jab at the EU partners as well, which is common thing in ye olde (South) Eastern Europe. Not to say that the local partners are not happy to pawn off their country resources for their sole benefit, screw the local economy.
This is the same idiot who wanted to be taxed earlier:
I think travelling has become too cheap.
Still, the post gets a comeback:
Ah, for the days when aviation was a gentleman’s pursuit back before every Joe sweat sock could wedge himself behind a lunch tray and jet off to Raleigh-Durham.
Which is basically the crux of the problem: wealthy tourists = ok, poor ones = stay at home.
I know — I live in the center of Brussels… — how awful it is to be taken over by masses of tourists but I still think some kind of touristing can be mutually interesting. Life would be pretty boring staying in each one’s backyard.
Sensible view. The usual anger makes it sound like we should all stay at home, which, in a (first) world of disposable income and increasingly freer travel, sounds really odd. Then people complain of tribalism/racism/xenophobia etc. Surely there can be a middle way?
I left a while back, it’s unlivable in Amsterdam. You cannot do simple things on summer evenings, like getting to appointments on time; sitting down for a drink with friends; booking a restaurant. Even cycling your bike becomes a pain with tourists drunk and stupid on their rental bikes.
That is kind of interesting, as I feared for my life when trying to cross the street – not because of cars but because of cyclists in Amsterdam – and you know what a big drunk I am 😉 Nowhere else have I seen such aggressive cyclists, and that is saying something, re: London Olympic cyclists. But perhaps they are just fed up with tourists.
I also do not go to Oxford Circus unless I have to (Wigmore Hall visits, so that adds up to a few times a month). In London you do not have to meet friends in tourist central for drinks but maybe it is because London is so much bigger… I do remember having a nice dinner at a local Turkish restaurant in an anonymous neighbourhood of Amsterdam when I last visited.
I also had to move further afield from Central(ish) London – but due to the more traditional forms of gentrification. Maybe London has its particular challenges, with the centre deserted after being sold off as assets to foreign oligarchs who live elsewhere, so nobody is actually disturbed by tourists because nobody lives where they congregate.
I cannot say that I had a dreaded airbnb near to wherever I have lived in the past 11 years I have been a resident here (or there, as it where, at this very moment). Then again, thank you riots, North London may still be feared by tourists 😉 This could be the answer: organise a local riot in this or that neighbourhood and scare the potential intruders off.
HOW HAVE WE GOT HERE?
It occurs to me, though, that we should ask why have all cities with something to show for become such tourist magnets? Open up a paper or check out the adverts in the tube and you will see lots of adverts for this or that destination. One assumes that these adverts are paid for by the tourism boards in those cities/countries.
Here in ye olde (S)EE the reason every scenic area is turned into bandb paradise is BECAUSE there is no other economy to speak of. The country produces nothing, it lives on the money sent home by work migrants and local services. Can it be the same (minus migrant work for First World ex-Colonial Empires) for all these other fabulous destinations?
But, you know, blame the tourists. You entice them to come and then you complain that they have come. Kinda like with migrant work, innit?
the behemoth cruise ships that chug through the Grand Canal, emitting fumes and disgorging thousands of people into the crowded streets – on some days as many as 44,000. It was announced in November last year that the largest vessels would be diverted from the city centre, but the plan is yet to be officially approved by the national government. (from this article on the subject)
Good times at the opera in 2018
Venice, Teatro Malibran, 2018
You may or may not know, but for the past few years all of late December has been family time chez dehhgi. So now that New Year is being celebrated at the ancestral home, yours truly gets involved in food preparation. Due to a fluke (a less adventurous one than the setting up of the 2017 Christmas tree 😉 ), we ended up cooking all we wanted to cook yesterday, leaving quite a bit of thumb twiddling time for today, just right for a recap of what I took part – and what I skipped or missed – in 2018.
I think the right word for 2018 is fabulous, in its glamorous connotation – Venice, Salzburger Festspiele and lots of Glyndebourne, with notable stops in Halle and at the Bremen Music Fest, all of which spawned wonderful memories from meeting up with you, gentle reader, for some rocking performances (and a certain odd production). I think I may also start paying rent at Wiggy, since from the below list it looks like I went there at least once a month, with the notable exception of August, festival month.
Hope to see you at a theatre near you (or me) in 2019 😀 though what is on at the usual places does not look quite as exciting as before. Then again, there were some things this year I did not know I was going to see until closer to the time…
Salzburg opera mile, 2018
January
11 Sonia Prina | Wigmore Hall – a good way to start the year, right?
17 Salome | ROH
21 Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria | Roundhouse – I like this January Monteverdi fixture every couple of years. After we are done with the rep, can we start over?
23 Classical Opera (Mozart’s 1768) | Wigmore Hall
25 Anna Bonitatibus and friends | Wigmore Hall
27 Anna Bonitatibus | Wigmore Hall – I did not write about it because she did not sing from En travesti and I was a bit underwhelmed by her choices. But, of course, she is wonderful 🙂
31 Angelika Kirchschlanger | Wigmore Hall
February
4 Adrian Behle | Wigmore Hall
5 Golda Schultz | Wigmore Hall
8 English Concert (Buxtehude) | Wigmore Hall – I was sick for the rest of the month, along with Mum (who was visiting…) and one of my cats. Not the best of times chez dehggi by a very long shot.
26 Les Talens Lyriques | Wigmore Hall
March
13 Rinaldo | Barbican – quite the letdown, aside from Pisaroni as Argante. Both Davies and Harvey did much, much better at Glyndebourne later in the year.
14 From the House of the Dead | ROH
20 Christine Rice / Rebecca Evans | Wigmore Hall
22 Esther | Wigmore Hall – this year most of the festivals happened elsewhere. This was the only London Handel Fest performance I saw and in the end I did not write about it. Not the best Handel I have seen, I would say, though for sure nowhere near the worst.
26 D’Odette | Wigmore Hall
April
5 Haim / Crebassa / Desandre / Devieilhe | Wigmore Hall – yes, this happened. Do not ask me details, as I cannot remember much, beside enjoying the deft playing of the band that did not need extra fireworks. The same Desadre that wowed me in Salzburg did not do much for me here. Perhaps I was bummed Crebassa bailed on me us?
7 Dido and Aeneas | Wigmore Hall
19 Orlando furioso | Teatro Malibran, Venice
21 Orlando furioso | Teatro Malibran, Venice – this was such a fun trip, I do need to write about it again.
24 Matthias Goerne | Wigmore Hall
May
1 Sonia Prina / Vivica Genaux | Wigmore Hall
3 Mauro Peter | Wigmore Hall
4 Lucy Crowe | Wigmore Hall
6 Royal Academy | Wigmore Hall
16 Hannigan Masterclass | Linbury Studio
21 Sara Mingardo / Francesca Biliotti | Wigmore Hall
24 Lessons in Love and Violence | ROH – it did spawn some interesting ideas (about love and violence) which in the end did not coagulate into a post. I kinda wish I had persevered but sometimes where there is a lot on the roster it is not easy to get your mind disciplined about something you do not particularly enjoy as such.
27 Simon Keenlyside | Wigmore Hall
June
4 Franco Fagioli | Barbican
5 Stephane Degout | Wigmore Hall
9 Arianna in Creta | Konzerthalle Ulrichskirche Halle Handelfest – after a couple of years of feasts, we have missed Hallenberg in London, so this was an awesome treat.
13 Jakub Jozef Orlinski | Wigmore Hall
15 Giulio Cesare | Glyndebourne – THE Glyndebourne Cesare! With overseas friends! A good metaphor for blogging about opera, right?
17 Ian Bostridge | Wigmore Hall
18 Christine Rice Julien Van Mallaerts | Wigmore Hall
19 Der Rosenkavalier | Glyndebourne
23 Giulio Cesare | Glyndebourne – and again 😀
Glyndebourne 2018
July
2 Veronique Gens | Wigmore Hall
6 Sandrine Piau | Wigmore Hall – that was the week of fabu French singers and I did not write up on them. For no fault of theirs, they were wonderful as usual in their light and sophisticated way. I was absolutely rotten lazy/tired in July, as you can see by the lack of activity below.
9 Felicity Palmer | Wigmore Hall
15 JPYA | ROH – yes, I went again but I did not write, although I had an absolutely hilarious seatmate, very much up my own alley in spirit. The show itself was a bit underwhelming this year, cannot say anyone stood out for me, hence the lack of commentary.
18 L’ange de Nisida | ROH – if no one produces La favourite around here, at least we got its previous incarnation.
20 Giulio Cesare | Glyndebourne – and the third time, now with the London Crew. It was a very fun (although overcast) day, and the post is half written. I swear I was so tired and a bit out of it in July that I am afraid I came off stand-offish to those who know me less, though it was by no means the case.
22 Pavol Breslik | Wigmore Hall
27 Saul | Glyndebourne – such a fun production! For some reason, a Chinook flew over the gardens. They give me the heebie-jeebies.
1 Pelleas et Melisande | Glyndebourne
12 L’incoronazione di Poppea | Salzburger Festspiele (Haus fur Mozart) – yes. At least nobody got clever with the musical content.
8 La Iole (Porpora) | Theater Oldenburg – my first live encounter with the wonderful Iervolino – and with a Porpora work in its entirety. If you are asking yourself Oldenburg what? this was part of the Bremen Music Festival 2018, which is kind enough to spread around the region instead of allowing the city to hog all the events. Another take on the Hercules/Dejanira story, this centres on the woman with whom he is cheating on her. The cosy Theater Oldenburg lavished its audience with a cast of top young singers in excellent form – Iervolino (Dejanira), Aspromonte (Iole) and Renato Dolcini (Ercole). It is a short (but fun) work but all three really got into it with much gusto and the audience loved it. I liked Aspromonte here much better than in Vivaldi.
10 Dorothea Roschmann | Wigmore Hall
14 Marianne Crebassa / Mass in B minor | Löningen – also part of the Bremen Music Festival 2018. As you can see, Crebassa remains elusive to me, but the Mass in B minor is a lovely work and the choir did a good job.
19 Masterclass Sarah Connolly | Wigmore Hall – cannot tell you why I never finished this post, I was even well rested by then.
8 Sandrine Piau | Wigmore Hall
17 Porgy and Bess | ENO
22 Karina Gauvin | Wigmore Hall – annoyingly, I was under some rough weather in October and missed these two fine ladies due to horrible head colds.
25 Semiramide | Teatro La Fenice – back to Venice 😀 and more Iervolino! Excuse me if I simply love the woman, she is cute as button here. She also sings rather well 😉
26 Serse | Barbican
2 Marie-Nicole Lemieux | Wigmore Hall
19 Roberta Invernizzi | Wigmore Hall – the show that caused me to pick up a guitar (and make some noise)!
11 Lucy Crowe | Wigmore Hall
Glyndebourne – the lawn, 2018
A very Venetian Christmas Day to you!
Ho-ho-ho, it be I who invented the commercialised Christmas… (shop window in Venice, October 2018)
This year the festive season is extra fabulous, what with having had the chance to visit both Venice in the pre-Christmas season and Salzburg, which is Christmas-y year round. In heathenly fashion, I’m going to have two Christmas posts 😉
Away on a gondola…
Greetings to all of you I’ve met and had a lovely time at the opera this year, as well as those who may just be reading 🙂 Enjoy yourselves, from now into the new year – and beyond, of course, right about until it’s time to return to the grind 😉
A very Salzburger Christmas Eve to you!
Remember that traditional childhood Christmas? I am quite the fan of those old school glass baubles with a painted story:
pictures taken somewhere in Salzburg where it’s always Weihnacht, even in the middle of August!
Hope you’ve all been good this year 😉 and are having a relaxing time with your loved ones during this festive period. This year I’m all about the visuals – time to immerse yourself in the story (and not overthink the details).
Wigmore Hall: what to look forward to from April 2019 on
Some new faces, some old, plus the return of von Otter:
April
Aci, Galatea e Polifemo it’s that thing he did twice (among the other things he did twice) 😉
Matthew Rose from the “let no Spring pass without a bass recital” rule book
Senna festegiante (with Emöke Baráth)
Katarina Karnéus let’s see what she’s up to
St John Passion my fave Passion
May
Anne Sophie von Otter she’s baack! And again, after hours.
Paula Murrihy I have no idea how she sounds like, so I should go and hear for myself, right?
Sumi Jo Masterclass Sumi Jo!
L’Arpegiatta I’m not really a fan but sometimes it’s tempting to go against your own grain
The Bangash Brothers who doesn’t love the sarod?!
June
Mafi and Morison in “Lieder fan tutte” – sounds like it could be a hoot(-hoot at Paulton’s Park)
Gerald Finley I somehow never saw him in recital
July
Simon Keenlyside singing Americana – he made such a good impression on my soaked trainers, I am buying what he’s selling even so late in the season
Righteous moaning ahead?
mezzo vs guitar – picture taken on my and thadieu’s first opera trip together (Basel 2015)
Dear all, have you ever wondered how come I don’t play or sing, since I enjoy talking and writing about music so much? Well, wonder no more! I bought a guitar 😀 so now I can join the ranks of those actually involved in music, even a little bit. No more simple moaning from the bleachers for yours truly 😉 I hope this new endeavour will help me appreciate everyone’s efforts more than before.
PS: the decision sprung up shortly after the Invernizzi recital with the two lutes, so thank you, Marchitelli and Pavan! I’ve actually tried learning before but it never quite caught on. This is the first time it feels like fun. Long may it stay that way 🙂
Christian Gerhaher as natural resource (Wigmore Hall, 28 November 2018)
It’s not for nothing that my last post regarding Christian Gerhaher involved a white horse: he’s on the mild side of the typical baritone. Last night I kinda felt a few moments of darker teething but they stood out exactly because they are so unusual for him. As do his bottom notes, which seem like a different language than he normally speaks. Whenever he ventured there (not often), it hit me: oh, he’s a baritone! Not that he normally sounds like a tenor; he normally sounds like Gerhaher. He has all the warmth of the baritone but none of the nastiness habitually associated with the term.
It seems that everybody likes this White Chocolate of baritones, because the house was packed like a charismatic church on faith healing day. Bring me your old, bring me your young, bring me your sick and bring me your healthy! Just keep the poor home 😉 Kidding.
In front of me sat the unlikely pairing of a younger but portlier James Levine-lookalike who only needed half a phrase to brag how he’d already seem Gerhaher 100 times1 and a sedentary grasshopper, with the pernickety air of a retired mechanical engineering teacher, currently masquerading as a skyscraper (seriously, he was the tallest person I’d ever seen in my life), next to me the Islington version of Stephen King kept his nose in the programme because words are important, ffs! and behind me two people in wheelchairs were in the midst of a conversation about Ermonela Jaho’s skills as Violetta.
I’d never met a Jaho fan2 before, so I had to turn around and see who was standing up for her to this extent. That was when a fashionably bearded Bismarck walked past, along with a lady sporting that droopy cheek and eyelid thing so specific to certain English physionomies – but only after I spotted her exchanging double cheek kisses with some gent. Clearly the lady voted Remain. We also had the bald patch + straw hair mullet “conductor from the provinces”, a male movie star from the 1940s (he looked exactly like that, with his slicked back parted hair, hard done by eyes and suit) and minorities from 2018. Basically the entire country, for the past 150 years.
Christian Gerhaher baritone
Gerold Huber piano
Franz Schubert (1797-1828)
Sei mir gegrüsst D741
Dass sie hier gewesen D775
Lachen und Weinen D777
Du bist die Ruh D776
Greisengesang D778
Wolfgang Rihm (b.1952)
Tasso-Gedanken (UK première)
Franz Schubert
Abendbilder D650
Himmelsfunken D651
Interval
Hugo Wolf (1860-1903)
Goethe Lieder
Harfenspieler I
Harfenspieler II
Harfenspieler III
Alban Berg (1885-1935)
Vier Lieder Op. 2
Hugo Wolf
Mörike Lieder
Begegnung
Lied eines Verliebten
Auf ein altes Bild
Auf eine Christblume II
Schlafendes Jesuskind
Goethe Lieder
Grenzen der Menschheit
Lady: how did you like the Rihm?
Gent: I didn’t dislike it.
Lady: I didn’t like it but I didn’t hate it.
Maybe you know this piece, I didn’t, since it was a UK premiere and, duh, contemporary. What do I know, right? Well, I know now that it sounds like you imagine it. The above descriptions are very apt, even though they lack in imagination.
What it brought to my (very imaginative) mind was the bell curve of adrenaline rush. When a person is pissed off and adrenaline kicks in, it takes exactly 90 min3 until the person calms down. During that period, the person will do something regrettable at least once, but possibly more than once, in quick succession, depending on 1) how annoying/lacking in diplomacy the people around are, 2) whether they have wisely vacated the premises and taken cover, 3) whether there is suitable property just waiting to be destroyed. In the end, arousal will drop below the person’s garden variety level, due to exhaustion. This is when you rush in and acuphase the composer 😉
Why nobody hated it is because it was sung by White Chocolate on white horse Gerhaher. I didn’t hate it either, although I quite possibly dozed off for a minute or two of those 900, only being sprung back to contemporary reality during the spikes of regrettability, known as tuneful shrieks. Artists always embelish reality, so the structure of the composition didn’t mimic science to a t.
Other than that it was a delightful performance. The Jaho fan commented that Gerhaher started very softly but 1) everyone does, because duh, 2) I like it, 3) Gerhaher’s chief attraction to me is how he can make himself heard anywhere (that I’ve seen him, which is exactly two places) very clearly both in volume and diction-wise, without having to max the ping, which he doesn’t have, anyway. He doesn’t need it, his tone is civilised and sensitive, the addition of ping would be akin to opening a fast food joint on the first floor of an ecohouse.
The other chief attractions are 1) how well he collaborates with the accompanist – I love singers who don’t sing in the vacuum of their glorious talent and intelligence <3, 2) no phrase ever sounds dull.
You know how some singers will focus on this or that part of a song/aria and make that it all nice and polished, because they’ve decided that’s the bit that matters – but leave other words/parts to hang limp and sound uninteresting, like they’re just there (bad librettist/poet!). Well, he doesn’t. There are other singers who manage that (hint: the ones that I like), of course, but he’s one them. The whole is really a whole, not just a clever pun with leftover dressing.
Now I need to see if I can get returns4 for his Winterreise.
- I was compelled to run mental calculations on how many times a year he had to have dutifully trotted to Gerhaher recitals or Tannhauser. ↩
- It was him that was in the midst of the conversation, the lady was rather to the side of it, gauging his enthusiasm against her willingness to see yet another Traviata, (probably the 500th, relative to her age vs portly Levine’s). ↩
- Not 89, not 91 – exactly 90. Kidding 😉 but that’s the ballpark. ↩
- I got this ticket as a return, too :-) ↩
