Tchaikovsky wears Prada

I'm back from my travels and have hit the ground running - notably to the Barbican last night for a stunning concert by the Filarmonica della Scala and Riccardo Chailly with Benjamin Grosvenor as piano soloist, and this morning to Cobham to give a coffee-talk in the library (hence only posting this mid-afternoon).

I've reviewed the Milanese concert for The Arts Desk:

Chailly at La Scala.
Photo: Brescia e Amisano, Teatro della Scala

You could probably guess from the assembling audience that the orchestra making its Barbican debut last night came from Milan. That many mink coats rarely congregate in a London concert hall. And under the baton of Riccardo Chailly, its music director, the Filarmonica della Scala – vastly more than the house band of Italy’s most famous opera house – delivered an evening of luxurious sophistication, dressing over-familiar repertoire in haute couture that made some otherwise much-maligned masterpieces shine out like Cinderella on her way to the ball...

Read the rest here.  And I promise never, ever to grumble about Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony again.

More Tchaikovsky: if you're following my Swan Lakeian progress, you'll enjoy an article which was absolute treat for me to write. For the Royal Opera House Magazine I visited the Royal Ballet offices and talked to director Kevin O'Hare, choreographer Liam Scarlett and designer John Macfarlane about the new production of the ballet, the first the company has created for around 30 years. They've now put the piece on the website, so here it is.

Marianela Nuñez & Vadim Muntagirov in their new Swan Lake costumes
Photo: Bill Cooper, (c) ROH 2017

Challenges for a ballet company can scarcely be greater than staging a new production of Swan Lake. It’s everyone’s idea of the perfect classical ballet, almost ubiquitously familiar, along with its glorious Tchaikovsky score, and perhaps the bigger the ballet company, the bigger the challenge becomes. Now The Royal Ballet is about to unveil an ambitious new version of the story of Prince Siegfried and Odette, the doomed swan princess, from choreographer Liam Scarlett – its first for 30 years. 

‘We want it to feel like a big, opulent Swan Lake that could only be by The Royal Ballet,’ says The Royal Ballet’s director Kevin O’Hare. The corps de ballet of swans will wear tutus, not the longskirted dresses they were previously assigned – another feature that hints at the classic status O’Hare is hoping for. ‘I think everyone deserves a chance to take a fresh look at the great classics,’ he comments. ‘Of course there’s an emotional wrench in saying goodbye to Anthony Dowell’s production, as so many of our dancers have grown up on it or performed in it as children. But it’s important to refresh things every so often. This production has been a long time in the making and we’re very excited about it.’...

The rest is here.

And meanwhile the funding for Meeting Odette has now reached a very hopeful 59 per cent thanks to some extraordinarily generous pledges this week for which I am profoundly grateful (you can, of course, place your own pledge here and help to make the book happen).

Heading south

I'm off for a bit, but may post some sunny pictures if time and technology allow. In the meantime, dear readers, you might enjoy reading Ghost Variations, if you haven't already, and I'd love it if you'd take a peek at my next novel, a 21st-century Christmas fairytale provisionally entitled Meeting Odette, which is currently about half way towards its funding target at the brilliant Unbound. The basic pledges start at £10 for the ebook, but higher levels include a musical or literary consultation with me about your work, a Swan Lake-themed lunch party, and various other goodies along the way. All patrons will be listed in every edition of the book and, naturally, you also earn my undying and eternal gratitude.

By the way, you may think subscriptions are a novel way to publish books, but the system is in fact pretty old. I am currently ploughing through Jan Swafford's magnificent 1000+-page biography of Beethoven and only last night I was reading about how the composer funded the publication of his Missa Solemnis by seeking subscriptions from wealthy patrons, which today would be regarded as a classic act of crowdfunding. In return for what we'd call their "pledge" they would receive a "reward" of a signed copy of the score. The technology has changed, but the principle hasn't (plus, of course, I'm not Beethoven, but I don't mind his endorsement for the method). Huge, huge, HUGE thanks to everyone who has so kindly supported the book thus far!

Happy reading and see you soon.