Brian Dickie

Wexford's artistic director

I had an excellent dinner at the Garrick this evening with David Agler - the Wexford Festival's Artistic Director since 2005.  David has guided Wexford through the difficult transition process into the wonderful new Opera House they opened in 2008.  David is a boyish and youthful 68 year old showing boundless energy of the kind needed at Wexford.  I was 25 when I ran it - I can not imagine doing it at twice that age, let alone getting on for three times it!  So bravo David - never, never, never quit!

There are Wexford Chorus rehearsals in London this week.  Their new Chorus Director is my dear friend  Errol Girdlestone.  So I thought I would trespass on their territory tomorrow at their auditions up in Hampstead.......I seem to be unable to keep away from this scene!

Meanwhile back in Chicago The Fall of the House of Usher continues at the Harrris Theater.  It appears to have been very well received.  Good - COT is important!

Classic playing

Yesterday evening's concert at London's Queen Elizabeth Hall was, as expected, a joy.  And that was enhanced by the use by András Schiff of a reproduction of a Walter fortepiano built by Paul McNulty.  McNulty, an American who lives in the Czech Republic, is the preeminent builder of these beautiful instruments. The last time I heard one of these instruments, in the flesh as it were, was in Warsaw two years ago played by Viviana Sofronitsky. 

Schiff is a glorious musician, and to have him playing Mozart's concertos 9 and 24 with the OAE on a Walter in the comparatively intimate surroundings of the QEH is about as good as it gets.  And he also conducted Papa Haydn's 98th symphony - and of course was able to demonstrate his keyboard skills again in those disarming moments in the finale when he sat down at the keyboard and played a little duet with the concertmaster - written by Haydn for himself and Saloman. It was an utterly charming moment.

I am looking forward tomorrow to seeing my friend and colleague David Agler, Artistic Director of the Wexford Festival, who is here in London for a few days from his home in British Columbia. He has auditions all day - we will have a relaxing dinner to catch up after his long day.

OAE

The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment is a very special group as far I am concerned.  It is an extraordinary success story in a notoriously fragile field - that of "Historically Informed Performance Practice". The have made HIPP..............well - Hip!  It is a real achievement I think.  The regular work that this orchestra does at Glyndebourne, where they share the pit duties with the London Philharmonic, has been a really solid and durable body of work for them since 1989.  This has made a huge contribution to their well-being.

Anyway I am glad to remake acquaintance with them this evening - András Schiff will be playing K271 and K491 - a marvellous pairing I think.  And sandwiched between them is a Haydn symphony - number 98.

The Queen Elizabeth Hall is completely sold out for this - it should be a wonderful evening of really classy music making.  Bliss!

Wolfgang Sawallisch 1923-2013

I was so sad to read today of the death of a very great musician, Wolfgang Sawallisch.  I knew him only slightly, but during his tenure as Intendant of the Bavarian State Opera for 21 years from 1971 to 1992 I heard so many performances conducted by him.  There was Strauss and Mozart in which he was supreme.  But he ventured into the Italian repertoire as well, memorably with Il tabarro with Fischer-Dieskau and Julia Varadi.  However, it was with his authoritative performances of Richard Strauss and Mozart, together with his Ring directed by Nikolaus Lehnhoff, that he raised the Bavarian State Opera to be the greatest house in Germany at that time.

He will be remembered in the USA primarily for his period leading the Philadelphia Orchestra from 1993 to 2003. 

RAM Percussionists

The Percussion Showcase at the Royal Academy of Music at lunchtime today was something of a little miracle - an extraordinary display of virtuosity by the students in the Timpani and Percussion department led by Neil Percy, for 20 years principal percussionist of the LSO.

We were treated to Shostakovich ((an Entracte from The Nose), the wonderful Tango en Skaï by Roland Dyens arranged by young James Larter for the marimba, and stunningly played by him, as well as pieces by Steve Reich, Joe Locke, and Paul Lansky.  

I was completely bowled over by a piece from Michio Kitazume - Side by Side - a drum solo for six various drums and a pedal bass drum, played with astonishing virtuosity by Tom Lee.

And this short display ended with a piece by a RAM post graduate student from the US - Michael Rareshide, whose Baker Street Beat sent us merrily on our way.  Terrific stuff.

My ears were opened........

Rather grim concert!

It is always a pleasure to hear Emmanuel Ax playing Mozart - or indeed pretty well anything.  And he was a wonderful as ever in Paris yesterday evening.  Playing Mozart's K 453 - not the most heavyweight of these wonderful concertos but in Manny Ax's hands...........

But there was then an hour of Bruckner's Mass number 3.  Too much for me I am afraid.  And a far cry from the performance of the same composer's 9th symphony by the LSO and Haitink in London on Sunday.  Never mind - it happens.  At least it was a chance to see and hear our COT Sesto from 2009, the stunning Renata Pokupić.  But it hardly gave her the opportunity to shine, in this turgid if sometimes, albeit fleetingly, beautiful piece.  There were not enough of those moments.

No doubt I am a complete Philistine - excuse me please!

Tomorrow I will be at the Royal Academy of Music with my younger daughter to attend the Percussion Showcase, and also part of a rehearsal for their production of Eugene Onegin which opens there is a couple of weeks.  Meanwhile my mind moves the Chicago where this evening there is the dress rehearsal of the Philip Glass Fall of the House of Usher which is COT's first offering of 2013.  It is I am sure greatly anticipated.  I am really sorry not to be there.

Manet at home

The Musée d"Orsay 3pm February 20 2013

I was at the Manet show at the Royal Academy in London two weeks ago so took the opportunity today, as I am in Paris, to see a good many of master's other great works in their current resting place, the Musée d'Orsay.  I still rather miss the simple space of the Jeu de Paume where so many of these paintings now on level 6 of the Musée d"Orsay, were displayed until 1986.  But that is progress........just too many people want to see these things than could possibly be coped with in the former space.  And the old Gare d"Orsay was converted splendidly and copes with the crowds very well. So time goes on......

This evening I will be at a concert at the Salle Pleyel which I have not been to since its revamp in 2006. The pleasure of Emmanuel Ax in Mozart 17, with the Orchestre de Paris and Ingo Metzmacher, is something to look forward to. Then back to London in the morning......

LSO and Haitink

There was a remarkable concert at the Barbican last evening.  Bernard Haitink delivers - this was Bruckner 9, preceded by his partnership with the delectable playing of Beethoven's Piano Concerto 2 by Maria João Pires.

There is no point on banging on about Haitink.  It was just such a thrill to see this man of total integrity in full flight at his great age with the infinitely responsive LSO.  I was in the back row of the balcony in the Barbican.  And that is where it sounds best!

And it was something of a Glyndebourne reunion as well.  Bernard was Music Director when I was General Director - and Peter Hall, who was the third man in our trio, was there last night too, as was my old friend, colleague, and successor at Glyndebourne, Anthony Whitworth-Jones.  A great evening from every point of view.

National Trust

Osterley House 2 pm February 17 2013

Britains National Trust is a wonderful organisation which everyone should join!  I was a member for years before I left for Canada in 1989.  And I have just joined up again.  So this afternoon I popped down to Osterley, half way on the Piccadilly line to Heathrow, and found myself in the country at Osterley Park which reopened yesterday after the winter break. It was a good two hour breath of the beautiful fresh air. 

And I will be making my way to the Barbican in due course for this evening's concert.  With all the underground weekend line closures it will be a challenge to figure out how to get there.......

Rigoletto HD

Metropolitan Opera

Michael Mayer's production of Rigoletto which opened at the Met three weeks ago was available for all to see yesterday.  In my case in a movie house in Wandsworth.  I guess there was a little déja vu for us Brits - 30 years ago Jonathan Miller set his brilliant fabled ENO production in Little Italy, NY.  This one moves a couple of thousand miles further west - to Las Vegas.  But the idea is similar. 

Hugh Canning, the respected critic of London's Sunday Times, lamented in his column this morning that La Scala is casting its Verdi operas predominantly from Eastern European singers - a reflection of the gaping absence of Italian singers, and representing "a crisis for idiomatic Verdi singing in the centenary year".  And we had the same phenom here - four of the five principal roles taken by Eastern European singers.  And splendidly efficient they are I hasten to say.  I can not imagine where all the opera houses would be without them.  But Hugh Canning is right - its the idiomatic issue.

In fact the finest singing came from the spectacular German soprano Diana Damrau - pure joy for its impeccable refinement of style and gorgeous tone.  The discriminating Met audience was appropriately appreciative. 

The conductor was the up and coming Michele Mariotti.  He is from Pesaro where the Founder, and still Sovritendente, of the Rossini Festival is Gianfranco Mariotti.  I have no idea whether they are related - but if so then the family must be very proud of this young man who seems to be both accomplished and charming.  And he will be coming to Covent Garden later this season - for La donna del lago.

The production was designed by Christine Jones - amazing work both in its concept and execution by the Met.  There can be no other house in the world that is prepared to spend like this!  Wonderful!

I really loved Mayer's approach - but with one huge reservation - who the hell is Rigoletto?  Jonathan Miller's Rigoletto was the barman if I remember rightly - John Rawnsley on its first outing and many times thereafter.  You could not cast the jester better or place him more appropriately.  But I couldn't figure out where this Rigoletto fitted in to the Rat Pack "family".  It was the one bit of the story telling which was unclear. 

I was delighted to see Robert Pomakov, a Canadian bass who sang Seneca for us at COT, as Monterone.  Very good too.  And Alexander Lewis making a real impression in the small part of Borsa.  Alex is an Australian member of the Lindemann programme at the Met.  His parents Michael and Patricia were in the Glyndebourne company 40 years ago.  Alex has made two successful appearances at Neue Stimmen finals - first as a baritone, then as a tenor.  He is going places - a really intelligent musician and actor, a fine fresh young tenor voice and bags of personality.  You notice him.  He will be in our Bertelsmann concert in Washington in April.  I will be getting him to do something really special - a multi talented fellow.

It is a lovely day here in London.  I am off on a short expedition this afternoon.  And then to the Barbican this evening for the LSO concert conducted by Bernard Haitink.  A good Sunday!