Brian Dickie

Remembering Robert Rattray.......

We are all reeling from the shock of Robert's sudden death yesterday, an unbearable loss of one of the kindest, most generous, most life loving and life enhancing, most twinkly humourous yet deeply serious friends and colleagues one could wish for. When we first met 45 years ago he was one of Emmie Tillett's well chosen young men all of whom went on to distinguished careers in our business.  One of his early tasks was to look after the great , then octagenarian, Andrés Segovia on a tour of the UK - what a start!

After Emmie handed over the business to Wilfred Stiff he remained there for a short time before moving to join Lies Askonas in those Lilliputian offices in Air Street - his tiny frame fitted those narrow corridors perfectly! And he eventually teamed up with Martin Campbell-White as joint managing director of Askonas Holt, a brilliantly successful re-merger of two of Emmie's young men!  Robert's strength as a manager of singers was unrivalled and what a roster he had!

And in all those years we worked together, particularly of course during my Glyndebourne years, those sparkling mischievous eyes ensured that there was never a cross word.  Unique! So we grew old together (actually he was nine years younger than me) in the business that he adored, with the singers that he adored and who adored him, one of the finest most selfless beings in a business where such creatures are few and far between. There are aching hearts around the world - it is hard to believe............

Photo by Tristan Cook/Met Opera

Lull......

I have been pretty quiet over the last couple of weeks for multiple reasons, largely due to family duties (which are all a pleasure), but also to belt tightening during the weeks prior to settling my tax bill for the year, due on Wednesday next!  So it has been austerity January - but to be followed by a leap back into action in February with three days in Lisbon, nine in Izmir, and three on the Côte d'Azur, I hope, to round the month off.  So no February blues for me!

I was at another charming recital at the V and A last week when the ever delightful Alison Rose was joined by her namesake Nicola and Louise Innes in a varied programme of Handel, Mozart, Strauss, Debussy, Bizet and Ravel.  Here was another excellent demonstration of the achievements of the National Opera Studio over the years since its founding, as successor to the London Opera Centre, in 1977.

I was not able to get to the V and A last Thursday as there was a rival NOS event at their home base in Wandsworth - but this coming Thursday can not be missed - Winterreise with Matthew Rose and Tom Poster.

© NOS/Marc Gascoigne

The rival event was "Americana" - a cleverly devised programme of scenes from pieces by Avner Dorman, Stephen Flaherty, Ricky Ian Gordon, John Harbison, Stephen Sondheim, Gian Carlo Menotti, Tobias Picker, Jake Heggie, and Leonard Bernstein.  The only person missing was America's greatest living opera composer Carlisle Floyd!

The range of exceptional talents in the current team of NOS Young Artists was put on excellent show.  I have mentioned in the past the merits of the three remarkable mezzos.  On this occasion they shone again (unforgettable was Sinéad O'Kelly's Ladies Who Lunch complete with a martini and a refill......) and I will invidiously also pick out Satriya Krisna, Emyr Wyn Jones, and Daniel Shelvey for additional mention.  But in truth it was a splendid panorama of the virtues of these young people, each of whom flowered under the special direction of Keith Warner.  How good it was to catch up with Keith who around 27 years ago did a Ballo for us in Toronto when I was General Director of the Canadian Opera Company.

You can see this excellent show at St John's Smith Square on April 24 - well worth taking the trouble.

Today it is a family lunch, preceded by Roger Federer and Marin Cilic battling for the Australian Open title!

A Royal Opera mainstay

© Tristram Kenton/ROH

Old timers will bang on about Zeffirelli's 1964 production of Tosca which survived for more than 40 years.  I saw no less than five performances of it with Callas and Gobbi - those were the days when early 20 somethings like me were happy to sit in the "Gods" at Covent Garden for practically no money.....and magnificent it was of course.

The Royal Opera has got immense mileage out of the hugely successful 2006 Jonathan Kent production which replaced the enduring Zefirelli one.  It has returned yet again with a series of a dozen performances with multiple casts between last night and March 3. You can take your pick but you would do well to take the Canadian pairing of Adrianne Pieczonka and Gerald Finley, together with Maltese tenor Joseph Calleja, the team that opened the run to enthusiastic acclaim yesterday evening.  It is quite difficult for the "shabby little shocker" to fail to make its impact, but here you have uncompromised excellent singing which ensures that Covent Garden's high vocal standards are also maintained. 

Pieczonka remains in superb fresh voice into the third decade of her distinguished career - she has clearly managed the stresses and strains of an international schedule with huge skill and thoughtfulness.  She is good to go on pleasing us for many more years.  And what to say about Gerald Finley singing his first Scarpia?  The intelligence, and vocal quality and stamina, of this man gave us yet another masterclass.  What a pleasure!  And Calleja is Calleja, one of the most sought after tenors of the day with good reason.

Preceding that treat last night was an excellent hour at the V and A on Thursday with Emma Bell and David Butt Philip, part of the ongoing opera exhibition at the South Kensington museum.  This was a program of Wagner and Beethoven by two of the UK's finest.  Emma Bell was the winner of the Ferrier Prize in 1998 when I was a jury member.  She has most certainly justified our faith as she is clearly in her prime 20 years later, but singing Wagner and Beethoven's Leonora rather than the Handel and Mozart she wowed us with all those years ago.  And David Butt Philip is now launched on an international career which should take him to the very top.  In due course, though to be sensible not quite yet, he will own Florestan, Lohengrin and Walther von Stolzing. 

Today is more mundane - appointments with my accountant to review my return, and the dentist.......which will be the most painful do you think?

Royal Opera off site

The Roundhouse 1847

The Royal Opera returned to the Roundhouse in Camden yesterday evening for the second of their Monteverdi productions, Il ritorno d'Ulisse in Patria.  I had greatly enjoyed their Orfeo there in 2015.  I assume that they will get round to Poppea in 2019!

Christian Curnyn and his splendid Early Opera Company forces were drafted in for the purpose and what could be better than that?  And the Royal Opera had assembled an outstandng cast led by Roderick Williams and Christine Rice, with distinguished contributions from the ranks of Britain's finest, Susan Bickley, Catherine Carby, Andrew Tortise, Stuart Jackson, Samuel Boden, Mark Milhofer, Nick Pritchard (SO many tenors!).....as well as Jette Parker programme members past and current - David Shipley and Francesca Chiejina.  The latter made a notable impression as Melanto.  And there was a remarkable substitution - Christine Rice played Penelope but was voiceless - and Caitlin Hulcup came to the rescue sing the part from the pit, quite ravishingly - and by the way the sound virtually seamlessly managed by the magicians of the Royal Opera's "engineering" department.

John Fulljames delivered a simply effective production in the rather circumscribed framework of the Roundhouse, complete with entertaining sound effects including sheep and popping balloons.

The Roundhouse is a refreshing space though with inevitable compromises that go with such a conversion.  For the Ulisse run they have tried on a "dining experience" assuming that the typical opera audience likes to spend £50 and more per head for a fixed price supper.  Together with apparently many others I eschewed the opportunity, and went to the excellent and amusing Belgo across the road.  And next to it there is a good looking pizza place...........

On Monday I was at St Clement Danes for one of the Jette Parker Monday lunchtime recitals - my beloved Die schöne Müllerin sung by a JPYAP ex member Dawid Kimburg with Marek Ruszczynski his excellent partner at the piano.   I learnt the cycle as a teenager from the Fischer-Dieskau and Gerald Moore recording of 1951- and age and experience makes one appreciate its journey all the more! So it is always an emotional as well as a musical pleasure to hear it again and again.

A day trip!

Lake Zürich from the Zürich Opera House noon Sunday January 7 2018

I had a day trip to Zurich yesterday and realised that it had been a long time since I had been there - a regular port of call during the 70s and 80s.  It has had a long tradition of finding and promoting young artists.  It was there that I heard for the first time the 20 something Francisco Araiza as Don Ottavio.  And when the studio was established, by the then Intendant Herbert Graf under the leadership of Marc Belfort, it  soon became a primary source of young talent.  That was back in 1974.......44 years ago!  I made so many visits to Zurich all those decades ago, and had so much fun there with Ponnelle and Harnoncourt in the Restaurant Conti over the road from the stage door - but that is another story!

It is clear that the International Opera Studio is very much back in that position now, so I was delighted to return to this delightful place yesterday, primarily to see Barrie Kosky's remarkable production of Fanciulla del West.  Of course there were many members of the studio in the large cast.  But the three protagonists would be hard to beat - Catherine Nagelstad as the Minnie of our day, Brandon Jovanovich, from Montana but a citizen of the whole opera world, as an impossible to beat Johnson, and the really excellent Scott Hendricks that unpleasant Jack Rance character! 

I wont go into the detail of Barrie Kosky's simple approach to this opera - simple because there was no silly operatic fluff, just superlative direction of top notch artists resulting in theatre, music theatre, of totally absorbing power that created instant suspension of disbelief.  Great stuff - the man is a genius.

And that top notch cast were supported by the ensemble drawn largely from the IOS.  There are some stunning talents there but I am not going to reveal trade secrets!  Go and listen and experience your own "eureka" moments!  There are names that you will die to hear five years from now!  And all thanks to the leadership of Zurich's Brenda Hurley and Sophie de Lint. And maybe also to original vision of Graf and Belfort!

I am now back in London and will write tomorrow about the Jette Parker recital which I greatly enjoyed at lunchtime today.

Emerging from Christmas and New Year.........

I am still here!  But But with 4 children and eleven grandchildren I have been engaged in matters unconnected with opera!  But I am getting back into the swim now that I have done my tax return on top of everything else!

© Victoria and Albert Museum, London

A real delight last week was another visit to the V and A where he National Opera Studio have been providing Thursday lunchtime events in connection with the V and A's grand exhibition Opera: Passion, Power, and Politics. Once again those splendid three mezzos at the NOS took us by storm - but there are a couple of excellent tenors there too, notable also for that fact that one is from Indonesia, and the other from Lebanon. Good for them - they were splendid in Verdi, respectively Traviata and Rigoletto.  This was a thoroughly enjoyable hour and the house was full.  Go next Thursday for two graduates of the NOS - David Butt Philip and Emma Bell.  Classy!

I have been spending hours sorting through the applicants for the Montréal Voice competition - almost 1,000 videos from more than 300 candidates and we have to reduce them to just 24.  But my job done - there are five of us doing this noble work!  I hoe that the others are getting on with it - it takes AGES!  I think that it could be a starry line up.  I was on the finals jury there three years ago and what a fun time we had. Alas its just remote semi-control this time, but I think that the jury will have a superior field!  And I know that they, and the contestants, will have two gorgeous weeks in Montréal where the hospitality is fabulous and the whole organisation of the competition, by the team led by Christiane LeBlanc, is exemplary.

I am off to Zurich for the day tomorrow - to see the amazing Barrie Kosky's production of Fanciulla del West.  A good start to my 2018 opera going year.  Next up will be more Puccini at the ROH with two dear Canadians Adrianne Pieczonka and Gerry Finley in Tosca. The Maple Leaf rules!!