The week of opening up

 This (the destination for my second jab last Wednesday)

has, in essence, made possible this,

namely my first sight of an auditorium since December, and my first time within the main Royal Opera House since March 2020. Does the classical curia give a clue? It's Richard Jones's production of Mozart's La clemenza di Tito, all of a piece with the superlative conducting of Mark Wigglesworth and a vibrant cast, half of whom I'd never heard of, but all of whom were classy indeed (just heard that Emily D'Angelo, the Canadian-Italian mezzo who sang Sesto, has a contract with Deutsche Grammophon. Seems that RJ wants the Vitellia, Nicole Chevallier, for Weill's Lady in the Dark, as she loves musicals and is a real stage animal). The Arts Desk review of first night is here. Later in a week of wonders, I filmed a Zoom interview with Richard for the fifth of my Zoom Opera in Depth classes on Clemenza this Monday. 

Mark W and Ian Page of the Mozartists, a generous presence throughout the classes, joined us live and we watched the first 22 minutes of the interview; I ran the rest in an extra half hour. Living with this incredible music, Mozart often as minimalist, has been like treading air while dealing with heavier stuff on the Russian Music course.

There was nothing heavy about Tuesday's London Symphony Orchestra concert back at the Barbican (queueing for a very well-organised entry pictured above). Simon Rattle actually prompted the tears that hadn't flowed in the excitement of the previous night in his opening speech (a one-off, he said). The music to excite 'that noise you make with your hands' was celebratory with a dash of wistfulness: Britten's Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, three numbers from Faure's incidental music to Pelleas et Melisande, Dvorak's first set of Slavonic Dances. Review here and photo below by Mark Allan.

After this, the first of the two LSO concerts, I had time before the 'finissage' of partner J's first exhibition for a year at the 12 Star Gallery, so I paused for a blissful coffee and caramel brownie outside Konditor in Waterloo. Then on to the show, where the select few (or rather more than a few) had temperatures taken before admission. Simone Bergmann's photos of the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival - or rather of the happily naked attendees rather than the performers have created quite a stir, The exhibition finished on Friday, but this little film is still worth watching,

Our lovely friend Katharina von Ruckteschell-Katte, head of the London Goethe Institute, who features in the film, also made a speech on Tuesday evening alongside head of the European Parliament representation in London Susanne Oberhauser. Would you believe it, this photo by the resident expert Jamie Smith was banned from Facebook because of the bottom in between them. And some attendees were irritated that other private parts weren't properly shown (though there are some distant willies). Anyway, this prudishness or prurience are both irrelevant - it's a joyous celebration, a symbol of what we're missing. And they're fab photos.

Susanne used some good lines, but didn't adopt J's 'Arsch for Art's Sake'. And that is probably Best Bottom, but what I particularly like is that the cool dude has round his neck what look like gun cartridges but turn out to be harmonicas.

We were allowed to take our masks off once seated at tables with a good distance between us. So good to be able to meet and talk to friends. I look a touch ernst here talking to Lucy Hannah (on the right) and her surgeon godson.

General shot, good as always from Jamie.

Probably the first time in ages I've been a bit hungover (from several glasses of wine). and there was no lingering on Wednesday morning as it was second jab time. J had booked his for 10.50, mine was at 10.30 so we overlapped and I was able to stroll around the Science Museum for a bit.

It was especially exciting to look a bit closer at the spare section, as I've just finished reading the two Cosmos books by Carl Sagan and his wife/widow Ann Druyan, scientific humanists both: more on those in a future post.

My vaccinator turned out to be opera singer Annabel(le?). We started chatting because she commended my EU mask, and I just happened to have one in my bag to gift her. She seemed very spirited but obviously disappointed because Savonlinna, where she was due to be covering Rosina, had just cancelled its operas for the year, The following week she was auditioning for English National Opera; I hope it went well for her. As I left I heard her calling after me: I'd left my precious vaccination card on the table. That at least meant I could take a shot of her in the main area.

There was a lively protest/bit of street theatre outside against the Science Museum's acceptance of Shell as a sponsor for an exhibition about the environment.

Then we went on to have coffee in the sun outside the South Ken Comptoir Libanais, and I cycled off through the parks to Wigmore Street, where it has another branch, to hear Sean Shibe's lunchtime recital at the Hall: haven't been parted from live concerts there for quite so long. The system for admittance is as admirably rigorous as ever.

The programme was a mesmerising winner; review here. And as, unusually, it wasn't livestreamed/broadcast on BBC Radio 3. I had to take a curtain-call shot of Sean in his ruff. 

Hmm. He can just about carry it off, as he did the reddy-pink boiler suit for his electric guitar shocker the last time I heard him at the Wigmore. Glad that most of the programme, plus magical Rosewood pieces by Irish composer David Fennessy (which he played in the quieter half of the previous Wigmore spectacular), has been captured in his recital for the delightful and enterprising Fiachra Garvey's West Wicklow Festival, also from London but sans ruff.

Here you get some enlightening chat (at 15m6s) before the recital at 28m50s. Love it that one of his earliest memories is his dad (potter Paul Tebble of a great Edinburgh institution, the Meadows Pottery, with Sean's mum Junko Shibe) singing him and his sister to sleep with 'anti-Thatcherite coalminer anthems'. Then there are some deliciously off-piste observations, which briefly fox even Fiachra.

Being in the vicinity of Regents Park, I cycled up there - haven't been for months - and was pleased to find St John's Garden open again. Still some wisteria at the gate,

irises flourishing against an early rose of sorts

 and a beautiful, post-rains light for general views across to the villa which once owned this garden.

Then on, eventually, to divobass Freund Peter Rose around the corner, where his usual mirthfulness was doubled with the presence of director Paul Curran. Photos I have of them aren't very good, unfortunately.

More garden scenes, but also rain again, for the opening of the Glyndebourne season: kudos to the Christies for agreeing to four productions, three new, a concert staging and quite a few concerts too. The decision was taken a year ago - very bold. As was Damiano Michieletto's production of Janáček's Káťa Kabanová, which is not to say I liked it or thought it served high musical values well. Here's why I didn't. If only the angels had stayed in shadowplay; this, among many images by Richard Hubert Smith, makes the production look better than it ultimately was, though focus was retained throughout.

Only wish I'd thought of David Thompson's thoughts when the Act 3 curtain for the storm rose, very predictably, on more gyrations: 'it's raining men'. 

It was raining cats and dogs when my friend Deborah and I emerged to take up our place on a bench at the head of the lake, so we moved our picnic stuff to the wonderful new covered area they've put up on the croquet lane. Gone are the exterior excrescences; this looks good (pictured later, when the rain had cleared away).

We did manage a good stroll before the performance, everything uncut looking lush after so much rain.

Deborah, who has been on a campaign near her home in Lacock to stop the National Trust cutting down bee orchids for a car park, was thrilled to see numerous specimens of the least exciting looking variety by the lake, the Common Twayblade (Neottia ovata; like the Dunnock, it may look ordinary but has a fascinating sex life, as Darwin pointed out). Couldn't decide which shot to choose, so take your pick.

Copper beech beyond the fence at the far end of the lake (quite a few of them in the vicinity) looking handsome

and even once the rains set in, there was a poetry (apart from these people, we had the lake to ourselves).

Windows of the Organ Room through budding mulberry (soon it will be too thick to see them).

Can't resist reproducing Deborah's cartoon in the card that arrived yesterday:

Just joyful to be there - especially as I have finally liberated myself from DJ conformity with my advance birthday present from J, a Nehru jacket - and clearly the staff felt the same; there was a wonderful energy about the peripheral circumstances, and great care too, though people WOULD keep taking off their masks once they were seated.

Friday, Saturday and Sunday evenings were devoted to the white-heat-as-usual Ragged Music Festival of pianists and partners Pavel Kolesnikov and Samson Tsoy. I've written myself out on the subject for The Arts Desk here, but again the peripherals are fun. Hadn't taken the canal path behind the row of buildings before. Usual suspects among birds, Canada Geese and coots, but their offspring were amusing, and Saturday afternoon was the first time I've ever been to the Ragged School Museum when it wasn't raining (it was on Friday and Sunday).

Irises had been planted in front of the graffiti-ed walls

and this was a novel approach (for me) to the building

After the renovation, it will have changed beyond recognition, and I wonder if the atmosphere Pavel and Samson love will have gone. Probably best, though, because there must be health hazards. There's beauty in peeling paint and general decay, though.

One last glimpse of the journey there on Sunday afternoon: geese contrasting with Canary Wharf skyline

and obstructing the towpath. You don't mess with protective parents. I and the cyclist heading for them had an amused chat about it while we waited for them to move.

This week has seen a necessary break from concerts and opera, and a return to more consistent nature here :the London Wetlands Centre, where the hides are now open again, and Chiswick House, where we saw the massive walled garden for the first time. But that's for another time.

The show should go on

I knew cellist Alban Gerhardt (pictured above with feline companion by my good friend and best photographer of artists in the business Kaupo Kikkas) was the sort of Mensch who would respond to my plea for an Arts Desk 'First Person' piece on why Germany was wrong to send its cultural scene into a second lockdown and - by implication - why that mustn't happen here (though from what I can make out of the latest proclamation, finally given as I prepare to publish this, it will, from Thursday). 

All of us lucky enough to attend live concerts in England over the last few months - poor Scotland never got the green light - will testify as to how responsible and orderly they've been: temperature testing and handwash plus registration at the door, ushering to specially distanced seating, masks on in the hall (the artists wear them on to the platform but remove them after reaching their equally clearly-delineated places) and an equally careful exit routine (no lingering in groups to chat). The only thing I can add to everything that Alban has expressed so succinctly is that, in addition to the uneven application of rules to pubs and restaurants, the spreading-ground of schools has been overlooked, too; if only there had been proper guidelines there.

Also have to own up to the special privilege of being among the lucky few at events not officially open to the public at the Royal Festival Hall and LSO St Luke's (the tiny numbers also very carefully calibrated, the ritual of admittance and departure even more regimented). I wonder if even the filmed, livestreamed events planned will bite the dust. They're not the same, of course - you can tell the players, singers and conductors need a real audience input, though Julia Bullock was so communicative on Thursday (the hall from my seat above, Bullock pictured by Mark Allan below) - but still very welcome and will be even more precious if we're not admitted any more).

The riches between July and now have been unprecedented, starting with the brilliance of Raffaello Morales' Fidelio Orchestra Cafe recitals. What a great moment that was when Steven Isserlis stepped out in front of a public, albeit a very small one (25 people) for the first time in four months which must have felt like half a lifetime. The moment is so well captured in Nick Rutter's photograph.

FOC has been going from strength to strength, though Angela Hewitt's appearance this coming week couldn't happen owing to travel restrictions - heavenly Imogen Cooper is due to take her place. She will only do so on Tuesday and Wednesday, and then of course nothing for at least a month.

I have enough recent memories to last a lifetime, above all of the two little-great not-so-mini festivals pioneered by Pavel Kolesnikov and Samson Tsoy at the Ragged School Museum (a poleaxing sequence of masterpieces in devastating performances) and by Jonathan Bloxham's Northern Chords Festival in Newcastle last weekend. These are the truly heroic musical figures of the year, along with the Wigmore Hall's John Gilhooly. To keep the memory of the Newcastle idyll going, next stop on here will be a photojournal ot autumn light on that memorable Sunday. May the inner light continue, too. We all need it.

Footnote: Raffaello (pictured above sitting on the stairs leading to the balcony part of the cafe) got in touch last night to tell me about the situation with the 'Imo' concerts this coming week (two remain, last one on Wednesday evening). His additional positivity needs to end this piece: 'Life goes on and we are more combative than ever. I think the best reaction we can have at this point is being constructive and showing how fundamental our contribution is. The narrative has to change from one of lamenting our condition of perpetually under-considered category to one that proudly shows how relevant and necessary we are to civilzation...one of those tasks that we'd better get going at soon'. Hear, hear.

Round and round the Ragged School

Four times in all, three for the advertised concerts in the phenomenal Ragged Music Festival organised by pianists and partners Pavel Kolesnikov and Samson Tsoy, a fourth for a spontaneous 'musical party' scheduled for 6pm on the third day of the festival; expecting amuses bouches, we got three full, meaty sonatas plus a Mozart finale and the Schubert Fantaisie. Read more about the event, which has blitzed me and spoiled me for everything else for some time to come, here on The Arts Desk.

Two years ago we found a house in a terraced row close to Mile End tube which seemed perfect: it had a garden, and even a dog seemed possible when I discovered the green lung that runs from south to north (where Hackney's Victoria Park takes over). In the end, the additional costs proved impossible and we stayed put in the west But I loved the area, and I love it even more now that I know it embraces the Ragged School Museum, reached by a walk from the tube through aforementioned green lung. What's been done with urban nature here is so impressive, starting with the green bridge joining up the two 'wings' of Mile End Park over five lanes of the M11 near the station.

As Isabella Tree points out in her must-read Wilding, this is (or was at the time she wrote the book) only one of two land bridges in the UK. The Netherlands, she reports, has 62 such 'ecoducts', so there's a lot of catching-up to be done.

I know Erica Davies, its enterprising director, from Freud Museum days (I think she was just beginning there when my year as a guide under the Manpower Services Commission scheme came to an end). We shared a table, at a respectable distance of course, when Samson gave his first recital with Alina Ibragimova at the Fidelio Orchestra Cafe (a momentous meeting which led to the phenomenal musician's collaborations with Pavel, Samson and their friend/mentor Elisabeth Leonskaja here). But I knew nothing more than the slightest hearsay about the RSM. I can see why the pianists fell in love with the place as an atmospheric setting for their festival. All concerts took place in the former boys' schoolroom on the top floor.

A brief history is given here on the RSM website, but let me paraphrase and quote from it. Irish doctor Thomas Barnardo was horrified by conditions in the East End of the mid-19th century, not least an appalling cholera epidemic, and set up schools to provide free education for children whose families wouldn't otherwise afford it (even where they might have been admitted elsewhere, if they couldn't afford decent clothes, they would be excluded. Not in Barnardo's set-ups). 

In 1877, 'Barnardo’s Copperfield Road Free School opened its doors to children and for the next 31 years educated tens of thousands of children. It closed in 1908 by which time enough government schools had opened in the area to serve the needs of local families.

'The buildings, originally warehouses for goods transported along the Regent’s Canal, then went through a variety of industrial uses until, in the early 1980s, they were threatened with demolition.

'It was then that a group of local people joined together to save them and reclaim their unique heritage. The Ragged School Museum Trust was set up and the museum opened in 1990.' 

Richard Griffiths Architects won a competition to set about sensitive conversion in 1988, but more remains to be done, and they will be involved again in a major renovation. As it is, of course, I love the multiple staircases and the odd showpiece like the schoolroom where thousands of children still learn what it was like to be educated here in the 19th century, My distinguished student Robin Weiss went and was rapped over the knuckles for writing with his left hand.

Clearly much remains to be done over the next few years, and I like the idea of a cafe with a terrace on to the canal at the back, but I hope the essential character won't change. 

The display on the ground floor is very informative

and benefits from local donations, including charity collecting tins and boxes,

At any rate it was all remarkably atmospheric on a weekend where it hardly stopped raining. On the Sunday we had a very cosy lunch at the Afghan/Persian restaurant Ariane before the 3pm concert. Warmly recommended for setting, starters like the mix of salad leaves and herbs called sabzi khordan with lavash bread cooked in the nearby kiln

and a menu of food most of us won't have had in this shape or form - when we travelled round Iran, all we ever got in restaurants was cholla kebab with a raw onion - but the main dishes seemed rather underspiced. Still, it's right opposite the museum on the other side of the 'lung', so that was useful for not having to get too wet moving from one place to the other.

Finally, a few more pics of the occasion itself, which is still reverberating with me a week later. Here's a photo Samson proposed of the line-up - five out of the six performers: Andrei Ioniță, Samson, Alina, Elisabeth Leonskaja and Pavel.

I turn to photographer Eva Vermandel for a few more pics I wasn't able to use in the Arts Desk review: to complete the line-up, clarinettist Nicolas Baldeyrou

and this intriguing shot of Samson, Leonskaja and Pavel in their trio effort at the end of the Brahms waltzes sequence. 

I love it that you can't tell EL is smiling from her eyes, but then you look at the reflection in the piano lid. What a miracle that she could come, and how ecstatic she seemed at the end of proceedings. As were we all - but I even wonder if the artists didn't end up less exhausted than the audience. It's demanding work, being an active listener...