Fire and water

CDs Adams to Prokofiev after the fire in my London study: Kiefer-worthy, don't you think? Puccini to Zemlinsky safe, if a bit smoke-blackened, in the hall and opera DVDs OK next door. The water input here was necessary but has of course caused further damage. But how glad I was to be by the waters of Lake Vesijärvi a week later, after one of the superb concerts in the Lahti Sibelius Festival.

And right now I'm back in Dublin and immersed myself in the waters of the bay last Thursday, with swimming friend Catherine and visiting artist pal Marcelle happy to look on in the sunshine at Seapoint. 

I see looking back on this that I didn't say how it happened. I'd returned two hours earlier from Dublin, lying on the bed in my t shirt and underpants looking at emails. Smelled burning, checked the rooms four times, then saw an orange light. The curtains by the desk were on fire, ignited by one of those awful tungsten lamps which always got too hot, and the blaze was spreading. Singed my hair trying to pour water on it, then neighbours at the door got me out and had called the fire brigade, which came quickly. I was taken to hospital to check I didn't have carbon monoxide poisoning - I didn't - but the blood tests revealed I had a severe potassium shortage, so I was put on a drip feed for two hours. 

The two weeks of kickstarting insurance action and leading a nomadic existence, shared between my friend Cally's Chiswick place and my late mum's flat in Banstead, in the process of being sold, had many good moments, but I look back on it with a kind of horror, and such relief that I'm temporarily away from the chaos. Contents insurer via NatWest has been on the case, and I'm impressed with the professionalism of the assessor. The buildings assessors have been very slow but are now finally firing on various cylinders. with  news about alternative accommodation now very urgent.

No clearance has begun, so the place still looks like this. A photographer on Bluesky suggested I should get it all snapped in black and white. The burnt CDs could become a kind of installation.

Two big paintings by Ruth Addinall have been completely destroyed, inter alia, but the other two rooms are more or less OK, if smoke-blackened. While the single Adams CDs are also a goner, the Earbox which I kept on the other side of the study is soggy, but JA's personal signature, which he made after I'd interviewed him before a BBC Symphony Orchestra concert, survives.

The smell is overwhelming. There have been silver linings. One is that at Charing Cross Hospital, where I had tests to make sure I didn't have carbon monoxide poisoning, they discovered I needed a two-hour infusion of potassium. And the fact that my precious study as I knew it is gone may affect the decision on where to live when J retires.

I didn't think I'd be able to carry on my Zoom courses as the hifi has melted down - I need the big burner to make clips - but in the back room, in the black filing cases, I found my snippets from the last time I 'did'  Tannhäuser, so that's been continuing, and it's another happy place for me. I even retrieved the Dover score from the other side of the room - books and LPs have been slightly damaged, but not gone. I can do the same with Tosca and The Makropulos Case for Opera in Depth starting in early October, but will need a place and equipment for the late Schubert course. One step at a time...

From Walküre to Tannhäuser on Zoom

 What a spectacular parade of greats we had to visit across 10 Monday afternoons on Die Walküre, which completes my Wagner Ring on Zoom (we started with Siegfried when lockdown meant I couldn't go to Gartmore for my annual course for the Wagner Society of Scotland, moved on to Götterdämmerung, Tristan, Meistersinger and Parsifal before going back to Rheingold). A Siegmund came first (the adorable Jay Hunter Morris, previously welcomed to talk Siegfried and Tristan), then two Sieglindes (Linda Esther Gray and Natalya Romaniw), a Wotan (John Tomlinson, just before we watched the big Act 2 monologue in the Kupfer Bayreuth production, still peerless alongside Chéreau's) and a Brünnhilde (Anne Evans, ditto before the final scene in the same production).  

Natalya's visit was a first. And of course she was a delight, sure of where she's going now but doubtful of the Wagnerian path before Sieglinde came her way (I remember a student from continental Europe who said she was cancelling her Royal Opera visit because Lise Davidsen, expecting twins, had pulled out - I told her the replacement wouldn't be second best). 

Of course the Royal Opera isn't looking too good now, having gone for former Putin supporter Anna Netrebko as Tosca to launch Jakub Hrůša's first season as Music Director in September when it could have highlighted La Romaniw, a Welsh-Ukrainian exponent of the role worldwide. Natalya is in any case singing Tosca for Welsh National Opera, so that's where to see it. I've decided I'll cover the Royal Opera version for The Arts Desk when Aleksandra Kurzak takes over. 

We've now plunged into the Venusberg in the first Zoom class on Tannhäuser, with six more Wednesdays to go. Irish soprano Jennifer Davis, who made such an impact as Elsa in Lohengrin at the Royal Opera, is preparing her first Elisabeth for Geneva Opera, and I hope she'll join us. In dealing with the background for the first class, I compared the original 1845 Overture (Klemperer) and the 1860 elision with a big Venusberg ballet for Paris, very much post-Tristan. John Neumeier's choreography for Gotz Friedrich at Bayreuth is very impressive. I have it on DVD, but it's all here on YouTube with English subtitles.

It's still not too late to join, since I can send the first class on video (and indeed you can always get the instalments that way if live attendance is difficult). Details below (click to enlarge).

Proms hat trick

That's partly a reference to Falla's vibrant ballet El sombrero de tres picos, but chiefly to an historic seven days at the Proms, with not only a Ring cycle at the highest level possible but also two other impressive feats: squeezing in Tristan und Isolde between Siegfried and Götterdämmerung, all three of which I had to miss because of my proud association with the Brittenfest in north Norfolk, and the participation of the stunning Antonio Márquez Company in Juanjo Mena's BBC Philharmonic spectacular of Beethoven, Falla and Ravel.

Had the dancers made it into the Proms prospectus, I would have noticed and made a special effort to go (bulletins were subsequently sent out to advertise their addition, but I somehow overlooked those). I can't regret going to the English National Ballet triple bill that Thursday night instead, and I love the only-connect fact that shortly after we'd seen a state-of-the-art Petrushka with Benois's designs and Fokine's choreography, orchestra and dancers at the Albert Hall were to some extent recreating a Ballets Russes hit of 1919.

That second half with Ravel's Boléro following The Three-Cornered Hat, at any rate, I managed to see on its BBC Four transmission, and colleague Jasper was absolutely right in his five-star 'Danza Erotica' review on The Arts Desk. On the platform where Anja Kampe, Nina Stemme and Bryn Terfel had sung and acted their hearts out two nights before, the dancers gave us sex without the usual cliches. Founder and star Márquez justifies his position, electrifying in the Miller's Dance of the Falla one-acter (pictured below) and dripping buckets of sweat as he launched Boléro shirtless.

The patterns of various dancers outlined the different phases in the slowly crescendoing tune; the stamping only heightened the orchestral excitement. And let's not forget the fact that Boléro started life to choreography by Ida Rubinstein's company, mixing factory rhythms and sensual provocation. Is this a first for the Proms? I know there's been dancing before an orchestra before, chiefly when Rostropovich conducted Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet at the Barbican and the Lithuanian Ballet joined in, but surely never at this level.

It won't eclipse memories of a slower, deeper-digging Boléro at the Proms conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen with subtler Ravel at the other end of the scale in the shape of the complete Ma mère l'oye ballet, but it was certainly something I've never seen before. Here's it is on YouTube. I fear they've clipped the first few seconds of side-drum, but at least it's otherwise complete. You can still watch the whole BBC Four transmission on the iPlayer for the next few days.

In its way, this was every inch as much of an achievement as 'the Barenboim Ring', though less widely noted. Much as my attention was riveted by every note and gesture of Das Rheingold and Die Walküre, the climax to the week would have been the Götterdämmerung - I was bathing blissfully in a warm North Sea off Holm Beach as it began - and clearly Barenboim's afterspeech thanking the Prommers for their silence was deeply felt.

I need to disgorge all my impressions about Britten in South Creake, Wells-next-the-Sea and Holt, but I can't download my own photos at the moment for several complicated reasons, and I still need some Yorke Trust snaps of their Midsummer Night's Dream. I'm sure it can wait; happy memories keep me going meanwhile. And now to the Proms Tannhäuser. 

5/8 Still buzzing from it. Duly eulogised on The Arts Desk. Another Prom for the history books. And how could I resist a couple more of the indefatigable Chris Christodoulou's shots, others of which feature above? As I wrote on TAD, Runnicles is a gift for him - and a match for Barenboim, which is putting it mildly.

This big handsome man, Estonian bass Ain Anger, is a new god on the block. Read why over there.

Wagnerabend in Belgrave Square

They do these kind of events very well, the Germans, and returning to the ambassador's residence was bound to be a pleasure. Especially as the programme had been arranged by the organisers of the Wagner 200 events this year, Mark Eynon and top Wagner expert Barry Millington (my former editor at the BBC Music Magazine, also the one who was kind enough to kickstart my Prokofiev book, pictured above with Sue Bullock and her husband Richard Berkeley-Steele. Georg Boomgaarden, the genial German ambassador, is seen between two of the heads).

What kind of Wagner fare can you serve up in an intimate space? They managed a good mix. La (or should that be Die?) Bullock launched stylishly with top pianist Llŷr Williams in the Tannhäuser greeting, 'Dich, teure Halle'. Janice Watson sang two of the Wesendonck Lieder (actually the two I find least interesting, but they were well done all the same). Here are the four artists in one of two official photos; the shots of the trio at the top and of Sir John Tomlinson in conversation with Barry are mine.

The coup was to bring the Bullock-Berkeley-Steeles together in the Dawn Duet from Götterdämmerung. Williams somehow managed to conjure an orchestra in the sunrise, and in came the two, each standing naturally and lovingly while the other sang. I'd forgotten what point SB brings to the German text, all the better in a small room. She's a fabulous recitalist: her Crear Classics disc of the Wesendoncks, Britten's The Poet's Echo and Prokofiev's Five Akhmatova Poems with contrasting flavours of Strauss, Quilter and Rorem is outstanding (it was our Vocal/Choral disc of the month in the BBC Music Magazine's March 2007 issue) .

Apparently another CD of songs with Malcolm Martineau is due for release shortly; and she's to be heard in recital at the Wigmore on 22 March.

To round off the little homage, Williams made effortless work of the Tristan Liebestod in Liszt's insane transcription (all those tremolos!). Eynon gave a felicitous speech, and didn't need to sell the highlights of the forthcoming festival to me: I'll be going to Kings Place to hear Watson's song recital and Williams's presentation of Wagner piano pieces alongside other Liszt transcriptions.

That greatest Wotan of the 1990s, Sir John Tomlinson, was there in the audience at the ambassador's residence, wrapped up in the music; he'll be presenting a read-through of the entire Ring libretto in the British Library on 9 June (date now confirmed thanks to Barry's message below). Dame Gwyneth, alas, couldn't make it, though she'll be masterclassing as part of the festival; now there's a diva I want to meet. The programme of events so far confirmed is on the Wagner 200 website here. Millington and SJT discussing plans below.

The whole event was entirely genial; the ambassador (to the right of Berkeley-Steele, ie to his left, in the photo below) and his wife are very cultured folk - not always the case in that world - and J likes them very much indeed. Sue Bullock has always struck me as completely natural in person (we first met her at pianist Phillip Thomas's 50th birthday party). I managed to have a chat with RBS about Phyllida Lloyd's English National Opera production of Götterdämmerung in which he sang Siegfried: absolutely the best staging of that particular opera I've ever seen, even if I had my doubts about the others (good in parts). Ardent Wagnerians apparently felt the same - one went to see it six times - and we all lament the fact the cycle never had another chance.

Meanwhile, roll on the festivities in the round. My priority is to get to see Die Feen as done in concert by Chelsea Opera, though sadly a Sussex Das Liebesverbot later in the year has bitten the dust. Collectors can tick off a few gaps in the Wagner list, though to be honest there aren't that many worth bothering about.

The following Monday, the Italians held a parallel tribute to Verdi at their ambassador's very beautiful residence in Berkeley Square. This turned out to be an actor reading excerpts from Verdi's letters and memoirs translated by Gaia Servadio and Royal Opera chorus master Renato Balsadonna playing excerpts from Nabucco, La Traviata, Aida and Otello on the piano. Interesting enough, but we missed la voce cantata.