Why I've been overdoing it on LinkedIn

'Arguing with a fool makes two,' is one of the few motivational saws I've liked on LinkedIn. Which hasn't stopped me doing it, in the last couple of days especially, rather defeating the purpose of my not joining Facebook or Twitter (reason: I'd waste time and get into pointless spats). Why? Because I still can't get my head around the difference - which still seems to me to hang in the balance in these crucial few days - between this,

namely a truly lovable President, with an equally adorable wife and daughters, pictured above with Haben Girma, the first deafblind graduate of Harvard Law School, and this,

which I don't need to explain.

Meryl Streep had the unarguable moral high ground on that one. Anyone who defies her speech has to be a retarded school bully; and Trump's lie that he wasn't imitating the reporter's disability is negated by three seconds of horrible video evidence. I can't bring myself to watch the press-conference meltdown; am I wrong in replaying instead both Obamas' last speeches, and Michelle's best speech of the election campaign? Like so many millions, I can't believe the President-Elect will arrive in the White House.

But that's America for you. Which won't stop the fightback against Trump, Putin and Brexit, with renewed fury and focused vigour. Take confidence in the fact that America's best President - in my lifetime, at any rate - and the best of First Ladies will be there to hold the country's hand and speak out more forcefully in the eye of the storm, should it arrive.

Meanwhile, one good piece of news which doesn't seem to have made the UK press: Somalian-born refugee Ahmed Hussen has been appointed Canada's Minister of Immigration (pictured with Justin Trudeau above). What a parallel universe to that of America, Russia and the UK - though we do have our so-far impeccable Mayor of London Sadiq Khan. But we also still, unbelievably, have dangerous doofus Jeremy Hunt as Minister of Health. It bears repeating that Trudeau's cabinet of experts includes an opposite number who's a respected doctor and medical expert as well as a Minister of Education who's long been well thought of in that profession. Again, enough said.

Dazzling woods, stagnant lake

Here's what I want: to persuade as many of you as are interested that the new, Disney-backed film of Sondheim's Into the Woods is infinitely better than any of the lukewarm or downright vindictive reviews I've read of it would lead us to believe, and to urge you to go and see it. Derek Deane's assisted Petipa/Ivanov Swan Lake for English National Ballet at the London Coliseum needs no such special pleading, but much as I enjoyed catching the first night as the guest of The Arts Desk's excellent chief ballet critic Hanna Weibye - who raved here - I have more than a few reservations about both the nature of the tradition and even the performance of prima ballerina Alina Cojocaru, my favourite Aurora but not on this evidence the greatest Odette. I know, I know, ENB is so lucky to have her, above all dancing with Ivan 'the Beautiful' Vasiliev (only picture of him below among the selection offered by  ASH for ENB), and in the past I've found her dancing peerless, but this was odd from where I sat in a good seat towards the back of the stalls.

Why? Because I couldn't see any facial expression. It was as if she'd decided Odette has been turned into a kind of mechanical doll by Rotbart (vigorously etched by James Streeter, but our villain has nothing to do other than flap his rather splendid wings). Maybe that's one way of interpreting her, but then what about the poetry of the budding love between Prince Siegfried and the swan-into-forlorn maiden (or male swan, in Matthew Bourne's heartbreaking reinvention, which would have so moved Tchaikovsky)? As Hanna remarked, Cojocaru only let her face light up once, as the Prince pledged true love towards the end of that crucial second act.

My other problem is that I'm perhaps too fixated on a tall Odette - perhaps not an option for the small but perfectly formed Vasiliev. Still, you need to know who the Swan Queen is the minute she emerges from the gaggle. I'll never forget Svetlana Zakharova's infinite, and infinitely expressive arms at the Mariinsky. Cojocaru simply doesn't stand out from the pack, not to the non-connoisseur of dance at any rate.

Cojocaru was, though, superlative as black swan Odile (apart from the dull Drigo-arranged variation where her execution made one fear for the famous multiple fouettés to come, though as it turned out there was no need to worry). Here I could read the switch between smiles and mock-sadness towards Siegfried and craftiness towards dad Rotbart's implausible egging on (and why on earth would a court tolerate those freak-henchmen of his? I know it's not meant to be realistic, but still...)

On the other hand, I couldn't take my eyes off Vasiliev. Not just because he is indeed so beautiful - part of a trio in my books that also includes Ivan Putrov and Roberto Bolle - but also because the slightest tilt of his body suggested his pain and boredom at court, his anguish in the later stages. The trouble is that apart from the leapy-leapy in the 'Black Swan' Pas de deux, Petipa and Ivanov's Prince is a mere support act. A long way indeed from the Spartacus with which Vasiliev burst upon the London scene.

I thought the corps excellent, and the four cygnets mesmerising in their leg-work; it took Hanna to explain to me how certain angles would be more perfect from the Russians, but she was impressed too.

The real poetry comes from all those waving arms, that sea of bluish-white which for me is the real treat of an old-style Swan Lake. Otherwise, Matthew Bourne's storytelling is superior as a reflection of the music at every point, especially in Act Four, so limp here.

Thankfully ENB didn't take over wholesale the Drigo-butchered score which goes with the rehabilitation of 1895: gone were those horrid Tchaikovsky piano-piece arrangements which are so alien to the world of the composer's through-composed final act. Still, the Pas de deux pretext for a borrowing from the otherwise-cut Pas de six of Act 3 does nothing for the dancers and holds up the action just as badly as Drigo's number. The score was well enough conducted by Gavin Sutherland, but clearly hampered by ridiculously slow tempi for nearly all of Odette's music (at Cojocaru's demand? I can't tell).Star for me was an oboe hero of mine, Gareth Hulse. Can't quite make out why the London Sinfonietta's top man has ended up here, but it's a quality band if a bit thin on the violins.

No such extreme musical surgery was applied to Sondheim's masterpiece of music-theatre Into the Woods - now, for me absolutely the tops of all his work for sheer integrated, clockwork perfection - in its fortunately not too Disneyfied version by Rob Marshall. Some songs are cut, though I didn't miss any except the meaningful reprise, with a very different text, of the princes' 'Agony'. Thanks to certain insistences and the guiding presence of original 'book' writer James Lapine, kids may well be disconcerted by the especially dark turn the counterpoint of stories takes in the second half: no fairy-tale happy-ever-afters here. And though I loathed in principle the idea of Sondheim's having caved in to let Rapunzel survive and not bereave the Witch too severely, in practice her riding off with her prince was probably an OK decision; there's enough death and misery around that part of the drama as it is.

None of the stage-show's sharpness has been lost. Indeed, its brilliant first quarter of an hour is paralleled by superlative filmic cross-cutting between the characters. I didn't know the names of about half the members of the great ensemble* but I was convinced by them all.

Well, not perhaps at every point by James Corden's Baker, but he does cry convincingly and he's generally simpatico. It was going to take a lot to convince me that this Baker's Wife could match up to Imelda Staunton (in Richard Jones's original London production - revisited the soundtrack over Christmas, and it's one of the best ever) and Jenna Russell at Regent's Park, but Emily Blunt is so winningly lovely and mobile of expression, and her singing is fine. As is everyone else's, though I wonder if there was a bit of help for Daniel Huttlestone as cheeky dimwit Jack in his number 'There Are Giants In The Sky', which sounded almost too good to be true for a kid.

No doubt about it, Lilla Crawford as Red Riding Hood is a total star. Good lord, is that Annette Crosbie in about 40 seconds of Grandma time? Not to mention Simon Russell Beale as the Baker's Father and Frances de la Tour revving her contralto register as the Giantess - luxury indeed. Jonny Depp is as surprisingly good smarming up the Wolf in 'Hello, Little Girl' as he was in his off kilter Sweeney Todd (Sondheim's favourite film adaptation until now: does this take pride of place, I wonder?)

All the acerbity of the lyrics bites through, the execution of the G&S-in-black patter song 'Your Fault' is astounding and this time I bought into the possibly oversentimental music of 'No One Is Alone' - well I remember Richard Jones telling me he thought that was a disappointing lie - because the words keep it sharp. So did the fact that we were watching it with a goddaughter who'd still been in her early teens when her mum died. 'People sometimes leave you/Halfway through the woods' is a line that always gets to me.

Perhaps I'd have liked a more active segue into the return of the opening music at the end - it's used to back some of the credits - but that's my only major criticism. Jonathan Tunick is on hand, as ever, to make sure the larger-scale film orchestrations really work (it sounded good, if as ever a bit overamplified, in the Vue Cinema on Lower Regent Street). The woods look sinister-beautiful - do I see my beloved Frithsden beeches? Must check - and the film medium fully exploits the special-effects potential of exploding beans, beanstalk, whirlwind witch, etc.

So what, finally, of Meryl Streep as the Witch, referencing her age reversal in Death Becomes Her halfway through? Sensational. '[The] Last Midnight' rises dizzyingly to its 11 o'clock number status, a sinister Ravelian waltz to set aside the 3/4s of A Little Night Music, and leaves us gasping for breath. It also, incidentally, has some of the best-set lyrics: 'You're so nice. You're not good, you're not bad, you're just nice. I'm not good, I'm not nice, I'm just right'. So here's one musical they got as right as the cinema ever can, and if you say 'I wasn't going to go but now I shall', then my job's well done.

*Not quite as starry as the cast of the second read-through back in 1995, when Columbia Pictures and Jim Henson were interested. Sondheim lists the names in his second volume of complete lyrics and observations, Look, I Made a Hat: Robin Williams (the Baker), Goldie Hawn (the Wife), Cher (the Witch), Carrie Fisher (Ugly Sister Lucinda), Bebe Neuwirth (Ugly Sister Florinda), Moira Kelly (Cinderella), Kyle McLachlan (Cinderella's Prince), Brendan Fraser (Rapunzel's Prince), Elijah Wood (Jack), Roseanne Barr (Jack's Mother), Danny DeVito (the Giant) and Steve Martin (the Wolf). 

Why did it come to nothing? According to Sondheim, 'because of one of those periodic shake-ups where a new platoon of executives replaces the old one, eager to throw out all projects begun before their arrival in order to demonstrate the freshness of their re-thinking'. Familiar story in all walks of life, alas.

Anyway, let's celebrate that it DID get made nearly 20 years later, and with more of the original material. I can't imagine the opening sequence being bettered.

How old is Emilia Marty?

The poor old thing can barely remember herself - 337 she says, only to be worn down to a confused 327 under cross-examination (or is that a piece of last-minute vanity)? Well, it's perhaps a pedantic detail given the looking-glass-versus-realistic world of Janacek's opera The Makropulos Case (though I've always felt it was the biggest spoiler for this supposed thriller to lead with 'opera about a 337-year old woman's quest to regain the elixir of youth', but there's no avoiding it if you want people to come to performances).

One thing seems fixed: Elina Makropulos was born in 1585, took the potion invented by her father as court magician to Emperor Rudolf II in 1601 when she was 16, and never grew old - until 1922, when she comes to get a refresher dose. What a terrible abuse, the forcing of the experiment on to a young girl (and as Marty points out, it was a waste of time, because how could Rudolf know if she'd live for 300 years?). It's something David Alden's English National Opera production made a great deal of, and it accounted for Amanda Roocroft's portrayal of 'E.M.' as an infantilised prima donna. Which worked fine, and proved very moving until the final scene (photo by Neil Libbert).


Where I think Alden copped out was in what some saw as a stunning surprise at the end. One thing I will say is that it's not what either Janacek or his astonishingly prophetic, modern source, the playwright Karel Capek, wanted. The potion has been touted round all the men and, in the play, debated by them from various angles - idealistic, hedonistic, eugenic - until they reject it. And then the mostly silent but always sympathetic young singer Krista takes the document - and burns it. A liberating gesture, surely, whether or not Marty dies at the end of the piece (in the play she simply laughs and says 'the end of immortality!' - curtain).*

Lehnhoff's Glyndebourne production got it right, I think, leaving the final scene as a confrontation between Marty and Krista, the only person who really reaches out to her in the entire opera. The City Lit students who've been following me through The Makropulos Case in our six Opera in Focus classes on Janacek's masterpiece were all bewitched by Anja Silja's iconic performance, and those who'd only seen the ENO production, much as they admired it, had to admit that this was on a whole different level. I like the fact, too, that the glorious Anja was supposed to be celebrating her 60th birthday when I finally interviewed her at Glyndebourne but - well, rumours were that actually that milestone had been passed a couple of years earlier...

I still count her Marty and Kostelnicka among the handful of greatest performances I've ever seen. I do wish I'd caught Soderstrom in the role on stage, though. On the terrific Decca recording with Mackerras conducting the Vienna Philharmonic, she inflects every line so meaningfully that I like to think you'd get the gist of it even without having the English translation to hand.


Now we need to campaign for a good, strong staging of the original drama (I'd also love to see Capek's R.U.R., the work that brought the word 'robot' into the language, and his Insect Play). The opera follows it almost slavishly for the first two acts, but its third is very much a condensation of Capek's acts three and four in which Janacek gives musical lyricism and liberation their head. I wept almost as much in the Arcola Theatre staging of Preissova's Jenufa, adapted by Timberlake Wertenbaker, as I always do in the opera, so surely this would be a worthwhile case? Capek's Makropulos Case is more brittle and even funnier than Janacek's, but how incredibly timely it remains.


As I'm sure the scriptwriter for Robert Zemeckis's Hollywoood black comedy Death Becomes Her must have realised. I've watched the film three times now, and last Monday I played the students the scene in which Meryl Streep visits the mistress of the mysterious elixir (Isabella Rossellini, so camp). This was Streep doing masterly comedy way before The Devil Wears Prada and Mamma Mia! She and the equally wonderful Goldie Hawn, a little shall we say padded out in a very funny early scene, transcend any limitations the film might have, and Bruce Willis is amusing, too, as a plastic surgeon turned mortuary beautician. Here's a witty montage set to Marilyn's 'I wanna be loved by you', the number Streep's ageing star performs at the beginning of the film.



And now for something completely serious, but as joyous and as life affirming as Janacek's opera. The six-minute trailer - some trailer - I was originally showing has since been 'removed for copyright reasons', which seems a bit small minded. The documentary in question, 'Alice Dancing Under the Gallows' focuses on Alice Herz-Sommer, about to turn 107 on 26 November. Having survived Theresienstadt, this astonishingly optimistic woman loves life more than ever and remains fascinated by other people (she also still plays the piano amazingly well). I'm not saying that this is how it ought to have been for all holocaust survivors: we will never forget the ones who committed suicide so many decades later, or indeed my dear friend Trude Winik who suffered agonising guilt about the family she left behind in Vienna - they were sent to Treblinka - every day until she died, not to mention long bouts of depression. But this shows that affirmation is possible too.

What a rich counterpoint to Marty's tired 337-year-old declaration that the soul has died within her is Hertz-Sommer's 'only when we are old are we aware of the full beauty of life'. An example to everyone alive - not to say, 'this is how everyone ought to be', but 'this is how we could be if only we were good enough.'

*Alden isn't the only one to change the essential meaning and leave the recipe unburnt. I just read that at the end of Graham Vick's Mariinsky production, our heroine throws the piece of paper into the orchestra pit. I'm not saying these endings would be wrong if they provided an equally compelling alternative to Krista's setting light to the document, but I can't see that they do.