Brian Dickie

Last day in Chicago!

So I am on my way this afternoon after three pretty frantic days packing and tidying......but yesterday I had a wonderful afternoon at the Mayne Stage where the Haymarket company were rehearsing a delightful youthful comic cantata by Handel - written when he was just 22 years old.

Josefien Stoppelenburg, Alison Wahl, and Angela Young Smucker - plus dog!

This was Clori, Tirsi e Fileno, completely new to me, except that Handel reused some of the best numbers later, notably in Agrippina.  The show opens of Friday and is an essential ticket for anyone professes interedst in baroque music.  It is a charmer, and short too - just 85 minutes I guess with intermission.  I urge you to go.

The cast is just three and the orchestra some of finest ealy musiuc player in Chiocago, and also from further afield - Michael Leopold brought his arch lute all the way from Milan!

There was some wonderful singing from the three high female voices, tewo sopranos and a mezzo.  Alison Wahl, whom I had notices in the Northwester concerto competition, was a charming Clori, and the two boys were the spelendid young Dutch soprano, Josefien Stoppelenburg as Tirsi, and mezzo Angela Young Smucker.

With no early operas on the immediate horizon from COT the work of Haymarket is all the more important.  They provide work for the fine musicians here in this city, and opportunities for gifted young singers emerging into the profession.  So more power to them.

I hope that the larger Chicago organisations, such as COT and Music of the Baroque, take note.  It is good to know about such stylish and accomplished singers living here in Chicago!

I am now at O'Hare en route to London where I arrive early tomorrow morning.  More news from there in due course!

Stress!

The moving people come today, probably in the next few minutes.......so I have been silent these last 24 hours preparing for all that.  But I managed dinner with Steuart Bedford and Michael Gieleta yesterday evening in the excellent Santorini in Greektown.  But there was monsoon like rain, the streets were already closed off as a result of some festival or other, and I arrived drenched from head to toe!

Other than that I am fine!!  And looking forward to today being over..............

Getting there.........

I have deliberately taken this "getting out of town" thing slowly!  I had another quiet day organising myself so that I have what I need in London for the next 6 weeks before all my possessions arrive in October. Decisions, decisions........anyway I am now pretty well ready for the removal folks to come and clear the place on Monday.

Meanwhile tomorrow morning I will be down in Hyde Park, at the Logan Center, for an event to honor and remember a remarkable man who was a board member of COT of unique commitment.  This is Bob Rudolph (right).  We loved him and revered him.  There will be many friends there to celebrate his life.  So I have an early morning start in a very good cause indeed!

Farewell to a great COT staff member!

There was one member of the COT staff who was there when I arrived in 1999 - a talented young woman called Colleen Flanigan who held an important but junior position in the Marketing department.  She eventually went off to the Goodman Theater where she flourished as young peope can do.  And then she returned to us seven years ago as an enormously successful director of marketing.  She was one of my key colleagues and friends over these last years.  And now she is moving on - today was her last with COT.  She is joining the team at the great Auditorium Theater.

We had a little party for her this evening at the Italian Village.  This was to mark her leaving, and to celebrate her time with COT.  She will be greatly missed I have no doubt at all.

After that I had a nice dinner party with past and present board presidents, as well as with some other younger board members who represent the future of COT.  Tomorrow I continue my packing.......

About conductors

I often reflect on the critical importance of the rôle of the conductor in the rehearsal of an opera production, and in the nightly execution of the performance.  This is the person who shapes the musical preparation and the musical character of what you hear.  And the music is the thing.  That is why we attach such crucial importance to thorough musical preparation.  Au fond, it is the genius of the music upon which the triumph of the piece depends.  And so what the conductor does is the sine qua non.

Over the years I tried to put some emphasis on this.  So it is always particularly gratifying to have the participation of a man such as Steuart Bedford who is leading the new production of The Magic Flute currently in rehearsal at COT.  Left you see him in rehearsal yesterday afternoon.

This is deeply serious work.  Steuart has spent his long career working with only the best.  His remarkable effect on our production of Owen Wingrave in 2009 measured the man and musician only too clearly.  His impact on Mozart will be no less.

Audiences worship conductors on the concert platform.  They should also recognize their key role in the opera house.

Magic Flute in rehearsal

Steuart Bedford (Conductor) and Michael Gieleta (Director) in the rehearsal break 3:30 pm August 22 2012

I popped into the Magic Flute rehearsal this afternoon - a run through musically before they begin the staging tomorrow.  After three days of music it is up and running nicely and ready to go.  I was glad to have had an opportunity to see them - and it is great to see the warm authority of Steuart Bedford making itself felt.  I think that they are in for a rewarding time.

More about "my" Idomeneo

The first new production of a Mozart opera that occurred during my time in charge at Glyndeboune was Idomeneo.  This was in 1983, incredibly enough 29 years ago.  It was conducted by Bernard Haitink and this was Trevor Nunn's first opera production.  They are seen here in Jane Bown's beautiful study on the Rehearsal Stage at Glyndebourne.

Again we had a remarkable cast.  Carol Vaness, who had made a sensational debut the season before as Donna Anna, was a spectacular Electra.  She went on to other great things at Glyndebourne including Fiordiligi and Amelia Grimaldi in Simon Boccanegra.

Jerry Hadley, continuing the Glyndebourne habit of having a tenor for Idamante, made his youthful debut, and the legendary Philip Langridge was the heart achingly beautiful Idomeneo.

I would have so loved to bring this great work to COT.  There just is not time for everything!

An interesting outcome of this event was my introduction of Trevor to Simon Rattle who was conducting The Love for Three Oranges that season.  So we hatched the plot for the great Porgy and Bess they did together in 1996.  They were good times........

 

Photo: © The Observer - Jane Bown 1993

Broken the back.......

.........of the sorting out of the debris of 13 years in Chicago.  It has been a wonderfully liberating cleanout and I have even had some nice surpirises.  For example the discovery of some long forgotten share certificates!  Well it is not sudden riches but nice to know that there is some petty cash to pay the removers who will be taking my posessions back to London next Monday.

I really got going this morning as I saw the light at the end of the tunnel after a week of rather depresssing labor. Meanwhile my friends and colleagues at COT have started the rehearsal process for The Magic Flute production which opens next month and which I will not see.......really very sad to miss it.  But I can not just hang around.  This is now in the hands of my admirable successor who I am sure will look after it carefully.  And I hope to see some of the team, in particular Steuart Bedford who conducts and Michael Gieleta who is directing.  There are some lovely singers in the cast - a couple of still young but old COT hands, Elizabeth Reiter and Markus Beam, as well the the stunning Tamino Sean Panikkar.  All round it is a strong team and I am sure it will be a great show.

I will try to get out tomorrow now that I am feeling better about my house clearing progress!

Ravinia's Mozart

James Conlon has done a terrific job at Ravinia in recent years undertaking concert performances of Mozart operas with first class casts. And they have the delightful Martin Theatre to do them in - a perfect hall for works on this scale.

This year was the turn of The Magic Flute and Idomeneo.  I was at the Idomeneo this afternoon - and a singular treat it was. 

Conlon knows this stuff inside out, and stamps his authority on it without question.  How good to see a Mozartian of such commanding presence.  And Ravinia assembled an excellent cast, dominated by the superb Idomeneo of Richard Croft.  It was so great to see him - it is 20 years since he sang those fantastic youthful Ferrandos in Toronto for COC.  And there were spendid contributions from Susanna Philips as a delectable Ilia - singing better than ever.  She is an alum of the Ryan Center.  And there was a marvellous Electra from Tamara Wilson.

This opera has a very special place in my heart and in my career in this business.  It was 48 years ago that the old Carl Ebert production of Idomeneo was last seen at Glyndebourne.  The opera was effectively rediscovered at Glyndebourne in 1951 with a new production conducted by Fritz Busch with Sena Jurinac, Birgit Nillson and Leopold Simoneau.  And my first encounter with it there in 1964 was as a 23 year old - I went through the whole rehearsal process and attended all the performances with Luciano Pavarotti as Idamante (seen here left) and Gundula Janowitz a sensuous Ilia.  And listening this afternoon the unique sound of Pavarotti, and his caressing of the Italian text, came back so vividly.

Ravinia was looking its best today - perfect weather and a really manageable crowd.  It can seem somewhat over populated during the evenings.  But today was perfect.  Lovely place with a remarkable history of excellence which continues......and below you see the agreeable eating place in its bucolic setting.

Photo of Pavarotti as Idamante Glyndebourne 1964 by Guy Gravett

Glorious day for the airshow

The Chicago public turned out in force, happily encamped along the whole lake shore for the day, with tents, BBQs, picnics, chairs, tables, rugs, the full equipment needed for a day at the beach.  And they brought with them good behaviour and general geniality.  An American crowd on an occasion like this is a model and example to the world.

The lake was crowded with boats from which I guess the occupoants got the best view of the show as the aircraft streaked at lowish heights across the lake.  This show is a 53 year old tradition, free of course, and one of the days in the year that is greatly anticipated.  We could not have asked for a better day - 75 degrees and a light breeze is as good as it gets.

Tomorrow afternoon I will be at another great Chicago tradition, of even older vintage - Ravinia.  It is Mozart again - Idomeneo which I hear from others who were there last night is a super performance......well its a phenomenal opera which has played an important role in my career.  More of that tomorrow.