Ten days of great Zoom visitors

I rely upon the kindness of great performers for adrenalin highs in my Zoom classes, and a recent run has, though I say it myself, been spectacular on both the Opera in Depth and Mahler 1 courses - I might as well drop the names right now: Anna Larsson, Golda Schultz, Robin Ticciati and Mark Wigglesworth. You may need to click to enlarge a lot of these screenshots, and I've tried to reduce them to a cross-section rather than the full crowd, but above, bottom right, is glorious Golda, part of a very special duo of visits. 

Robin Ticciati decided he'd like to see us between final rehearsal and first night of the sensational (opera production of the year?) Dialogues des Carmélites at Glyndebourne, and for it was better since I wouldn't be prone to gushing about the first night, so overwhelming that I took the liberty of snapping a full company bow, Ticciati and director Barrie Kosky included.

I reviewed that here on theartsdesk; you might conversely say I'd drunk the Ticciati kool-aid, but what I think of as the professional relationships I have with the great and good are based on total respect in the first place. Of course I'm at liberty to say if there was a style mismatch, or I didn't think the work was quite as great as the performer did - The Wreckers, prepared at the very highest level, was a case in point. But we know how Poulenc's masterpiece - one of the greatest in all opera - never fails, even if I wasn't prepared for the cruelty and devastation of Kosky's vision. 

After a very excited RT phoning on Thursday to say he was ready to talk, Friday's visitor was very reflective - clearly tired, but so friendly with everyone, and so eloquent as ever. He talked, among other things, of the joy and necessity of being there at the start of rehearsals, how inspiring Kosky was in his first speech to the company, the special nature of silences (something that had struck me when I first met him, sharing a panel at the end of a study day on Jenůfa, which he conducted on the Glyndebourne tour) and finally - very movingly - the nature of home. Which is now, for him and his wife, very much Sussex. Over six years in Berlin, he loved the experience of living in the city but never felt entirely at ease with the level on which he could converse in German. And the Glyndebourne experience is, at its best, the most enriching you can have in the operatic world.

Golda, whose presence was due to another positive spirit who's just joined my course, Julia Noakes, was bright and bouncy on the Monday afternoon. She'd had the day after the first night to come to herself, and the parallels with the down-to-earth, forthright, empathetic and incorruptible Madame Lidoine, the second Prioress, whose arrival brings a breath of air in to the claustrophobic world so emphasised in Kosky's production, are striking. Golda thought of becoming a nun at 17, but her priest-advisor suggested her gifts might be used on other ways. And so they are. A marvellous human being in every way. I'm going to segue to my next guest via two production shots, cropping to emphasise the connections (credits: Glyndebourne image, Richard Hubert Smithl Garsington image, Julien Guidera, I think - I got sent three different sets of photos). It's amazing how strong an image is a reassuring hand laid on another, and Schultz's Lidoine does that in Kosky's production, more than once.

It's also a very moving moment in Bruno Ravella's Garsington production of Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos when Young Woo Kim's Bacchus places his right hand on top of the left hand of Natalya Romaniw's Ariadne.

I'd never been more moved by this scene. and never heard a Bacchus as good live. The South Korean tenor is adored by his colleagues, another blithe spirit, as I think one can tell from his performance on stage. In my review for theartsdesk, I suggested that though Carmelites and Ariadne are very different operas, the respective Glyndebourne and Garsington achievements are on the same extraordinary level - thoughtful production, perfect cast, and radical but perfect conducting: in this case from my long-term generous visitor to the classes Mark Wigglesworth. 

I enlisted MW's help in my Mahler 1 course, covering Symphonies 1-5, Das klagende Lied and the earlier songs (the second term, starting in late September, will deal with 6-9, Kindertotenlieder and Das Lied von der Erde). He's conducting the BBC Philharmonic in the First Symphony at the Proms on 18 July, but was heavily involved in Ariadne rehearsals when we covered that. So just before the last of the 10 classes, on movements 3-5 of the Fifth, he visited for a more general discussion, but again with fascinating chapter and verse (I must summarise at some point, but need to watch again).

First of the visitors, and absolutely not least, was the great Anna Larsson. I used a mixture of DVDs for complete movements, and when it came to the Second and Third Symphonies, it had to be Abbado in Lucerne; AL is his mezzo/contralto soloist in both, on stage from the beginning and engaging directly with the audience sans score. and she confirmed that these performances were beyond any others. 

I'm glad my New York student Alan compared her with Christa Ludwig and asked if they'd met, because we had a fascinating chronicle of how Abbado, having first heard Larsson in audition, told Ludwig she must hear her. Intense sessions followed. Here's another performer with feet firmly on the ground, colleagial and warm (we'd become friendly when I visited the musically excellent Rheingold she facilitated in the barn of the family farm in Dalarna, in which she sang both Fricka and Erda). But then I think it's true of (nearly) all artists who are truly at the top of their profession: they are secure in what they do, and generosity flows from that. 

Finally, a sadness. Sondra Arning's son gave his mother the present of joining these classes. She has been a vibrant contributor, with so much to say about all the music she experienced and - as a singer - participated in while living in New York. Soon her husband Patrick also joined up; they both attended both courses this term, sometimes on separate screens, sometimes together (as pictured above). Having made some pithy observations as usual, Patrick had to leave the last Mahler class early to go to see his doctor. On the Friday he felt il in an interval at the Wigmore Hall, where they were regular visitors. He died of a massive heart attack on the Saturday. A huge shock to everyone, above all to Sondra - they had been married for 51 years - but in one way, since he'd reached a great age, a blessing, as there was a lot wrong with him and cancer had just been detected. 

Patrick will be with us in spirit when we embark on the summer course, Wagner's Parsifal, in association with the Wagner Society of Scotland (it's a while back that I began an adventure which began with the first two Ring operas up in the Trossachs, the last two online, followed by Tristan and Meistersinger). More on that, and the season proper, anon.

And the Best Tatyana Letter Scene winners are...

...as far as Tchaikovsky's opera is concerned, two: still,  on DVD and in the opera house, Yelena Prokina for Graham Vick at Glyndebourne back in 1994. Here's the reaction of some of the students on my Opera in Depth course after I'd played it to them on Monday. I've cut down the bigger picture to focus on the best responses. One lovely person with a lifetime of astonishing musical experiences recalled emotionally what having seen it at Glyndebourne meant, and how happy she was to see it again now that she and her husband can't get there any more.

Two hours still weren't quite long enough on what turns out to be so many people's favourite operatic scene. Sound recording only wise, there was a strong positive reaction to my personal favourite here, Gabriela Beňačková in a Supraphon disc of Czech and Russian opera arias - I picked it up for a dollar when we spent a New Year in Prague a year after the Velvet Revolution. Vaclav Neumann conducts the Czech Philharmonic.

Parallel with the opera, we're also listening to some of the Pushkin text, in both the English translation of Charles Johnston and the Russian original, in two recordings featuring the very beautiful incidental music provided by Prokofiev for a 'stage realisation' of the verse novel intended for the centenary year of Pushkin's death, 1937, but destined never to see the light of day (Prokofiev repurposed much of the music in War and Peace as well as several other later scores). 

We treasure the reading of Wests Timothy and Same, and Niamh Cusack as Tatyana, in Edward Downes' realisation on Chandos, but I thought it might be most interesting for you to hear Tatyana's letter to Onegin as read by Chulpan Chamatova, with the late Mikhail Jurowski conducting the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra in the music that occasionally punctuates the text. You can have your English translation to hand if you need it. I originally found the recording broken into tracks, which would have been most convenient but doesn't work in this format. Here's the whole thing. The Letter begins at 15m32s.

Meanwhile on Thursdays, the Sibelius course is taking us all deeper and broader than I could ever have imagined. The most recent class, 8, featured not only the String Quartet 'Voces Intimae', which I'm getting to know and admire better, but three orchestral works I love most of the so-called tone poems, all composed within a relatively short space of time. I am now obsessed with hearing them all in a single Sibelius half of a concert programme. Luonnotar for soprano and orchestra is the creation myth, and could be followed by The Bard, a voiceless singer strumming his lyre until the sound of primitive lurs summons him, a kind of Ragnarok that goes profoundly within; and then one could have the purification of water in The Oceanides. 

Well, I can dream, can't I? Now there are four more summer term Zoom classes to go, then a break, then the Wagner Society of Scotland wants me to start up with Die Meistersinger on 3 August, another luxuriant course of 10 classes. More of that shortly.

Weekly cycles to Kew 2021 2: March - June

Last year, I only reached the end of February in my photo-chronicle of the lifesaving Fridays shared with friend Cally during the darkest phase of lockdown, when nothing was happening at all on the live cultural scene. We carried it on to mid-June, and those treasured bike rides, leisurely walks, soup on a bench, tea and cake on another bench later, still stand out as a highlight of 2021. I feel I need to pick up the trail now especially because after the big train jaunt, January in London has felt more than usually bleak, despite a few days of brilliant sunshine. Picking and sorting these images has been a tonic - not just nostalgic, but also a reminder that lushness and colour will return.

What's a bit hard at the moment is that the winter visitors out back, the goldfinches, and in Margravine Cemetery, the redwings, don't seem to have returned. I felt a spring in my step after seeing one of the two bitterns regularly to be sighted at the London Wetland Centre. But I'm waiting for major colour like this, from two Green Woodpeckers, which greeted us on our 6 March visit.

Other action in early March was slow. The magnolia grove was about to burst, though,

and there was a rare silvery light on the Thames as I cycled back.

Elsewhere - and I make no apologies for natural digressions - spring was more in evidence. The spaliered fruit trees along the wall of Fulham Palace's Walled Garden had started to blossom

and the first of the bees from the nearby hives (sadly reduced from last year) were on to them.

while winter's relics, the Hellebores, were putting on a fine show at the Chelsea Physic Garden.

The following Friday at Kew, the magnolias were very much out. I'm resisting a gallery of them, since I offered that in 2020, but this shot will suffice.

It was time, too, for the pulsatillas or pasque flowers in the Alpine rockery, a personal favourite.

Time was short on 19 January, so instead of the big cycle we kept it more local to Cally, taking advantage of low tide to cross over to the eyot at Chiswick Mall (for me, the most enchanting spot on the river, never the same twice). Much work had been done in late winter in the way of pruning by the dedicated locals who look after it, so major growth was yet to come.

The grand magnolia in flower in front of the big house on Chiswick Mall

and daffodils around the lake in Chiswick House's glorious grounds

then over the river to the Leg of Mutton nature reserve, whitethorn blossom providing contrast among the reeds

and above the water.

First of the Peacock Butterflies fluttering around and settling on the headstones in the graveyard of my old haunt All Saints Banstead, on a visit to see my ma, such a warm day for 30 March.

1 April, and some of the blossom was now reaching peak form back at Kew

along with the magnolias - Stellata pictured here.

Finally, too, it was fritillary time in the neighbouring meadow (quite early, I think - early May is the usual).

And the pulsatillas were no longer isolated clumps, but abundant.

Couldn't resist the plumage of this male Mandarin Duck

and at home, on the fence between the back yards and the school playground, a goldfinch was showing itself to best advantage.

Tulip and pear blossom time back at the Fulham Palace Walled Garden

and cowslips at the Wetland Centre

Yellow season much enriched, too, by marsh marigolds.

Gunnera incipient in the Pantanal zone.

This is really the home of the adorable Whistling Ducks and Screamers, though the most interesting activity was the nest-building activity of a moorhen couple:

First time I'd been here in the spring, so I was surprised to come across more fritallaries sharing swampy ground with more marsh marigolds on the south walk.

Kew's more manicured fritillary meadow again - 16 April - not sure how we came to miss a Friday -

the arrival of the tulips in the meadows either side of the prunus avenue

and more blossoming in the orchards between the Temperate House and the Pagoda, though not evenly so (the great glory of 2020, the Yoshino cherry, was not so spectacular this year).

My first acquaintance with a real oddity (to me), Cornus 'Ormonde', in a glade beyond the larches,

and first sign of leafing in the avenue of horse chestnuts leading to our usual entrance/exit.

Can't resist the interlude of a mackerel sky above Old Brompton Cemetery

where I first heard, and finally saw, a Great Spotted Woodpecker.

So to the glorious 23rd April, everything along the river and at Kew waxing lyrical. The beginnings of the finest wisteria blossom along Chiswick Mall

though it has to be said that a more sheltered specimen against a white wall was doing better at this point.

At Kew, first of the peonies were flourishing - bee-kissed Paeonia cambesedesii by the Alpine House

as well as these in the Alpine rockery proper

The rockery lushed up last year better than I can ever remember it doing before,

including among the bloomers an oddity I hadn't seen before, the Cuban Lily (Scilla peruviana).

and the vegetable beds the other side of the wall showed first signs of life with the fruit trees along the edges

with tulips in serried ranks further north - these beds awakening at last from their long winter sleep.

Bluebells at last in the woodland zone.

The cycles to and fro along the Surrey side of the Thames reminded me how far the trees had come into leaf since we started our excursions at the beginning of the year.

More abundance: horse chestnuts and early moonrise in front of the Chelsea Hospital.

Meanwhile, another back yard regular returned, or made self manifest, the Dunnock. A family was soon evident.

Last Kew trip of April, on the 30th, and first proper visit of the year to the beds of the Duke's Garden, which would offer the biggest profusion within weeks. For now, some of the peonies both here and further north had emerged.

All greenhouse remained closed during the semi-lockdown, so we could only peer through the windows at the Amazonicas in the Waterlily House.

Bluebells, Spanish chestnuts and beeches in the woods had come on magnificently

and the ongoing glories of the orchards near the pagoda made for an extended idyll (fell asleep on a nearby bench in the sun).

On the return route, a very high tide at Chiswick Mall opposite the eyot made for a welcome lingering, and the approach of a fearless swan.

May Day morning turned about to be an ideal choice for 4am rising and five hours around the dawn chorus experience at the Leg of Mutton reserve, about which I wrote closer to the time. The month continued to do what we expect of it. Cycling back to Kew on the 7th, I found the Chiswick Mall wisteria in its full glory

and the eyot duly lushing up.

Newly flourishing in the rock garden, sundry aquilegias, foreground to ferns and peonies.

Hadn't expected to see a yellow tree peony this late, but here's one at the foot of the temple knoll.

At last the glorious Judas Trees are in full bloom - first encounter with this one in the Mediterranean garden zone. The hair colour of one of these ladies seemed too irresistible a complement not to sneak a shot.

One step further for the tulips of the cherry tree avenue

and further loveliness of beech leafing against the bluebells.

There was an unexpected paeonian bonus just before we left, actually near the toilets on the north side. This looks like a peony, but its designation is Solanum jasmanoades,

while its equally big and blowsy neighbour is Paeonia suffruticosa.

Abundant peonies by now available to adorn the home. This bunch has a version of our good friend Marcelle Hanselaar's 'White Collar Man' behind it.

The yard at last began to thrive. The patio quince put forth flowers

and even the sporadic bee population seemed to be on the increase, here on the latest addition to the geranium family out back,

while I'd almost forgotten about the two irises under the weeping mulberry tree, but parted the leaves and found them thriving

Iris time, too, in the formal gardens of Hyde Park - here's one gorgeous speciment fully open

and another budding

while a ubiquitous parakeet makes for interesting colour co-ordination in a nearby tree.

I'm so glad our good friend Deborah joined me on the opening of the Glyndebourne season (20 May), because she's an orchid expert and immediately, very excitedly, identified a batch of Common Twayblades (Neottia ovata) which I would have overlooked by the edge of the lake.

Other, more familiar emergents were the over 100 year-old wisteria in Fulham Palace's Walled Garden

and the dark colombines in our bedroom windowbox.

On 28 May, downpours threatened, so we weathered it at Cally's before setting out to a nearer location, Chiswick House Gardens. But I'd never been in the newly-restored Walled Garden there, so there were plenty of treats here: the white wisteria on the outside wall,

rows of colourful planting on one side of the main avenue, irises abundant,

Phacelia tanacetifolia, much loved by bees and abundant,

ditto a lupin (mine in the back yard failed this year - unless I buy them advanced in growth, the snails get them).

Waterfowl life on the lake was much as usual, including the coots who nest in the same places every year, but this time there was a small addition, much treasured, I guess, because few of the chicks that hatch survive - too often the herons get them,

Late May seems prime time for the young 'uns. These kid grebes in Battersea Park were enchanting

and nearby, close to a swan's nest which had been deserted - one fellow visitor was concerned, but as soon as she'd gone, another assured me that the brood had hatched and swum off with mum and dad - another resourceful moorhen was raising young.

By the Serpentine on 30 May there was more avian family action. Greylag parents steered their broad successfully through the pedestrians to the water

while a mother swan gave her two cygnets the cue to rest

before the father appeared to accompany them on the Serpentine.

1 June reminded us of the first days when Kew reopened to the public the previous year (pictured at the end of this 2020 chronicle), and this day was just as glorious. Peonies back then were nearly at an end, but everything was a couple of weeks behind last June, so the Duke's Garden was still yielding wonders. If anything, the beds were now even more spectacular, with irises and lupins adding to the colour-layers.

Abundant in the rock garden were Mediterranean tulips and Californian poppies

along with Ochagavia elegans.

Bees love the giant echiums in flower.

Peak season on the other side of the wall - more bee action on abundant 'Scarlet O'Hara'

and more serried ranks of irises.

Nearby was a loner, not one I'd seen before - 'Tol long'.

At last we were readmitted to the water lily house, where the Amazonicas were doing their stuff. Having just watched how brutal they can be in shutting out the light from other plants fighting for life in the excellent Green Planet, it's as well there are experts to hand to make sure the lilies also thrive.

Resident peacock of the Japanese garden (which Cal had got to display by some embarrassing but effective singing several weeks earlier) offsetting azaleas,

colourful fungus on a tree stump (don't ask me what),

and a bee on a flower (Deborah has identified it as Camassia Leichtlinii alba) in a white and green meadow near the oak zone.

First visit of the season to Garsington's home on the Wormsley Estate, with the obligatory visit to the glorious walled garden (walkable, and we've wandered back, but they insist you take the coach from the cricket pavilion).

Not entirely characteristic sightings back at the Wetlands Centre on 8 June - a moth which doesn't appear in my Collins guide, and yet I saw it in several different locations around this time,

 orchids (Southern Marsh?) by one of the smaller ponds

ubiqtuitous (but always cheering) Lapwing on one of the flowered islets

and frilly giant poppies in abundance

Last year, the English Garden in Battersea Park was a lavish joy, having been rather unattended in 2020, though lilies on the pond are always profuse.

Roses in abundance, too, this flower with a sleeping bee inside.

The final visit to Kew in this batch, on 11 June, included J and Maxine Braham to celebrate the half-year of Fridays along with us. Here they are in the Waterlily House

A fresh batch of flowering

and water droplets on a lotus leaf.

Again we were able to compare with this time the previous year - when J and I visited in 2020 on the day after reopening, 2 June, the tulip trees were in bloom. This was the first Friday when we saw the flowers, so roughly 10 days behind.

Likewise only white peonies were still in flower back in early June 2020; now most of the rest were still thriving

though I remember the lupins near the peony garden from before,

Our white peony finalists were all doing well in the Duke's Garden

though the star attraction here was the humming of innumerable bees among the ?Salvia nemorosa? Only a film does justice to this abundance, but these stills must suffice.

Star unknown (to me) of this visit was a Japanese Snowbell tree (Styrax japonica), spectacular in full flower.

Second visit of the season to Glyndebourne was on my birthday; the concert conducted by Robin Ticciati was a stunner - first Mahler symphony (Four) I'd heard live in at least a year and a half - and so was the day. More orchids were to be found in the meadows and by the lake, where the last of the twayblades could still be found if you looked hard enough.

Meanwhile the formal beds were thriving with irises, poppies, lupins, foxgloves and a very handsome robinia (opposite where we dined in the interval, at table 59, a significant number for the day).

Heading towards the longest day of the year, we still had the sunset to enjoy after the symphony's childlike view of heaven.

The weather wasn't quite so clement on my one visit last year to Grange Park, but a circuit around the fields revealed an unusual visitor - a black bee? Certainly I've not seen one like this before.

Meanwhile, the goldfinches continued their feeding down in the back yard (view from bedroom window)

and even had some babies (if I make this out aright, there are two with their mother).

I even got to see the goldfinches moult in late summer, but there's been no sign of them for months. But the days are getting longer, the sun came out halfway through the week and nature is slowly coming back to fuller life.