We had a very wonderful evening celebrating Tom's birthday at a gorgeous venue close to Glyndebourne yesterday, kindly lent by the dear friend who lives there...highlights of a heady occasion included the presence of many friends from far-flung places, champagne with which our cup overflowed, our neighbour the fabulous jazz pianist who used to play on the Queen Mary, a lot of potato salad and a chocolate cake with sparklers on top that set off our generous host's fire alarm & produced a fire engine in the drive within minutes. The hunky Sussex fireman was then accused of being a strippergram, though Tom might have been mystified by that choice.
And Nina Stemme was there too, having wandered in unsuspecting with her family to explore the house as tourists during the afternoon, fresh from the Tristan dress rehearsal the day before; we rushed to add them to our guest list. Beg, borrow or steal a return for this production - it is one of the greats - and Nina towers at the top of it, surely one of most glorious Isoldes around. Above, the birthday boy with his Isoldegram.
Of course, Wagner's first draft was called Thomas and Isolde, but his publisher said that the sales and marketing department advised changing the hero's name to something not associated with tank engines. :-)
4 comments:
Thomas and Isolde reminds me that the Guardian once reviewed an opera called Doris Godunov. I can see her now: Tsarina of all the Russias in a floral pinny and curlers.
Priceless! Reminds me too of a music critic (possibly Edward Greenfield?) who reviewed a performance of Britten's 'Les illuminations' back in the days when you had to telephone your copy through and someone would take it down by dictation at the office. He opened the paper the next day to discover he'd reviewed 'Lazy Luminations'.
.....then, again in the Guardian, was Philip Hope-Wallace describing the power of Callas's Norma as that of a "tigress parted from her whelps". It was printed as a tiger parted from his whelks.
An odd thing: a couple of years ago I read a piece by a Guardian journalist about a legendary copytaker, as they were called, at the Telegraph. She was apparently an organist, extremely well-versed in matters musical, and, an ardent communist, reviewed concerts for the Morning Star. The author of the piece did say that Lazy Luminations and Doris Godunov would never have seen print if the Guardian had had her on the job. But given the general state of music journalism I'm not sure it makes a lot of difference. Many North American papers are doing away with dedicated music positions. And in the Observer of July 29 I find an article about the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra, written by whom? Ed Vulliamy, foreign and U.S. correspondent, who, among other idiosyncratic notions, thinks Sibelius' Finlandia is a symphony. Nevertheless, it is not a bad piece on the whole, I'm happy to see publicity for this wonder, and also delighted to see they are playing at the Edinburgh Festival as well as the Proms. Finally, a belated happy birthday to Tom.
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