Driving up to Terrassa for the New Year Meal the entire population of Catalonia seemed to be on the roads. My carefully chosen leaving time which was guaranteed to ensure my arrival in good time seemed to be little optimistic as the traffic began to pile up – but the delay merely meant that my arrival was exact with no lee way!
The meal this year comprised Basque style tapas with my favourite of salmon, mayonnaise, caviar made into mini Swiss rolls – delightful!
The ritual of eating the twelve grapes of luck (las uvas de suerte) one for each chime of the bell at midnight was completed with the barely suppressed panic that eating pieces of food at timed intervals brings! And I did it twice. The first time with the whole family and the second an hour later. This repeat performance was because the Canary Islands (counted as part of Spain) are in the same time zone as Great Britain, so I was able to wish everyone ‘Happy New Year!’ in English and have attempts of varying convincingness returned to me!
The trip back to Castelldefels (after half a glass of red wine and half a glass of Cava) should have been disturbing given the expected behaviour of drivers returning to their homes after New Year celebrations.
In fact the fog that I encountered just outside Terrassa (first time I’ve used my fog lights since I’ve been in this country) was the most worrying aspect of the driving. With a few idiotic exceptions the driving was punctiliously correct - this makes me assume that I was one of the few drivers below the alcohol limits!
Being cynical I assume that the only thing which forces Catalans to drive within the legal speed limit, showing due care and consideration for other road users is fear of being stopped by the police (as if they are ever out of the bars themselves!) and being breathalysed. Perhaps I do them an injustice!
I’ve now had time to think about the production of the opera I saw the day before yesterday.
Latecomers and the coughing codger behind me limited by appreciation of the overture of Simon Boccanegra at the Liceu and the ‘conversational’ opening of the opera did not encourage an emotional involvement.
In this production the scenery (Carl Fillion) was stark with giant hydraulic flats to give a sense of scale and majesty to this tale of power and intrigue in fourteenth century Genoa – though updated to some indeterminate period in the nineteenth century in this production.
For me it took the opening of the first act after the Prologue for the production to come alive musically. The music for the first sight of Amelia Grimaldi (aka Maria Boccanegra) sung by Krassimira Stiyanova is astonishing: urgent, modern and captivating and, in spite of the longing to go to the loo I was carried along by the musical power of the piece thereafter.
I felt and feel that the production was notably undersung and few of the singers made me feel totally comfortable with their performances. Pietro (Pavel Kudinov) had no projection at all and should not have been singing. Anthony Michaels-Moore as Boccanegra
grew on me as did his nemesis Paolo Albani (Marco Vratogna) but the level of acting was dire and it detracted from the voices. There was, for me, a distinct feeling that this production had been under rehearsed.
The movement of bodies on stage was effective and, in the crowd scenes the director José Luis Gómez showed competence sometimes producing striking stage pictures but there was little in this production to bring it above the level of a far fetched melodrama.
In spite of these substantial objections I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed this production and at times I was genuinely moved. The reconciliation of Simon and Maria was amazingly successful and highly emotional. The cursing scene was effective and for once the cringing overacting seemed appropriate as the flats came together to focus attention on the internal torment of the evil Paolo.
Musically the production was a success and the musical director Paolo Carignani is to be commended for his conducting of the orchestra. As always the quality of the Orquestra Simfónica and the Cor de Gran Teatre Del Liceu were excellent.
The melodramatic nature of the piece does make direction difficult, but this story deals with nature of political power and the compromises that are necessary and the inevitable corruption that attends political and personal mendacity. The music is glorious and could have been used to give credibility to the frankly unlikely narrative. The director lacked the necessary hard edge to point up the politics in this very politically based opera.
The last scene of the opera has the major players contained in a sort of stage box of flats while the machinery which supports the flats is clearly seen (and illuminated) extreme stage left and right.
I thought that some attempt at political comment was going to be made using the idea that the power struggles were contained in a glittering artificial box while the real struggle of the people went on outside and supported the indulgence of those who played at power etc. But it seemed just an opportunity for the effective grouping of people for the final big scene.
A production of lost opportunities.
If Verdi’s music achieves a level of unique sublimity surely anyone can write like P G Wodehouse.
All you have to do is have a superior butler; a rich chump as an employer; a circle of feckless, idle friends and a paper thin plot. Liberally sprinkle words and phrases like “don’t you know” and “Rather!” and “what, what, what!” throughout and the job is done.
At least that is the impression that you get when you read his seemingly facile writing.
But try writing something like it yourself and all you get is empty parody – and you discover that that there was substance somewhere in that apparently frothy writing.
Read Wodehouse’s early works (as I now have courtesy of free e-book downloads from ‘Classic’ internet sites) and you will find true apprentice pieces where the iconic solidity of the best ‘Jeeves and Wooster’ stories is seen in its more jellied form – a wobbly try out for the later classics.
The early stuff is mostly style and pose – not a confident voice and certainly containing little of the Sakiesque aphorisms that glitter like very English rhinestones in a narrative so contrived that it makes the miracle of the loaves and fishes look like a Tesco special offer!
But as someone once said, “There are two types of Wodehouse reader: those who adore him and those who haven’t read him yet.”
Who am I to disagree!
Oh yes, and Happy New Year!
The meal this year comprised Basque style tapas with my favourite of salmon, mayonnaise, caviar made into mini Swiss rolls – delightful!
The ritual of eating the twelve grapes of luck (las uvas de suerte) one for each chime of the bell at midnight was completed with the barely suppressed panic that eating pieces of food at timed intervals brings! And I did it twice. The first time with the whole family and the second an hour later. This repeat performance was because the Canary Islands (counted as part of Spain) are in the same time zone as Great Britain, so I was able to wish everyone ‘Happy New Year!’ in English and have attempts of varying convincingness returned to me!
The trip back to Castelldefels (after half a glass of red wine and half a glass of Cava) should have been disturbing given the expected behaviour of drivers returning to their homes after New Year celebrations.
In fact the fog that I encountered just outside Terrassa (first time I’ve used my fog lights since I’ve been in this country) was the most worrying aspect of the driving. With a few idiotic exceptions the driving was punctiliously correct - this makes me assume that I was one of the few drivers below the alcohol limits!
Being cynical I assume that the only thing which forces Catalans to drive within the legal speed limit, showing due care and consideration for other road users is fear of being stopped by the police (as if they are ever out of the bars themselves!) and being breathalysed. Perhaps I do them an injustice!
I’ve now had time to think about the production of the opera I saw the day before yesterday.
Latecomers and the coughing codger behind me limited by appreciation of the overture of Simon Boccanegra at the Liceu and the ‘conversational’ opening of the opera did not encourage an emotional involvement.
In this production the scenery (Carl Fillion) was stark with giant hydraulic flats to give a sense of scale and majesty to this tale of power and intrigue in fourteenth century Genoa – though updated to some indeterminate period in the nineteenth century in this production.
For me it took the opening of the first act after the Prologue for the production to come alive musically. The music for the first sight of Amelia Grimaldi (aka Maria Boccanegra) sung by Krassimira Stiyanova is astonishing: urgent, modern and captivating and, in spite of the longing to go to the loo I was carried along by the musical power of the piece thereafter.
I felt and feel that the production was notably undersung and few of the singers made me feel totally comfortable with their performances. Pietro (Pavel Kudinov) had no projection at all and should not have been singing. Anthony Michaels-Moore as Boccanegra
grew on me as did his nemesis Paolo Albani (Marco Vratogna) but the level of acting was dire and it detracted from the voices. There was, for me, a distinct feeling that this production had been under rehearsed.The movement of bodies on stage was effective and, in the crowd scenes the director José Luis Gómez showed competence sometimes producing striking stage pictures but there was little in this production to bring it above the level of a far fetched melodrama.
In spite of these substantial objections I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed this production and at times I was genuinely moved. The reconciliation of Simon and Maria was amazingly successful and highly emotional. The cursing scene was effective and for once the cringing overacting seemed appropriate as the flats came together to focus attention on the internal torment of the evil Paolo.
Musically the production was a success and the musical director Paolo Carignani is to be commended for his conducting of the orchestra. As always the quality of the Orquestra Simfónica and the Cor de Gran Teatre Del Liceu were excellent.
The melodramatic nature of the piece does make direction difficult, but this story deals with nature of political power and the compromises that are necessary and the inevitable corruption that attends political and personal mendacity. The music is glorious and could have been used to give credibility to the frankly unlikely narrative. The director lacked the necessary hard edge to point up the politics in this very politically based opera.
The last scene of the opera has the major players contained in a sort of stage box of flats while the machinery which supports the flats is clearly seen (and illuminated) extreme stage left and right.
I thought that some attempt at political comment was going to be made using the idea that the power struggles were contained in a glittering artificial box while the real struggle of the people went on outside and supported the indulgence of those who played at power etc. But it seemed just an opportunity for the effective grouping of people for the final big scene.A production of lost opportunities.
If Verdi’s music achieves a level of unique sublimity surely anyone can write like P G Wodehouse.
All you have to do is have a superior butler; a rich chump as an employer; a circle of feckless, idle friends and a paper thin plot. Liberally sprinkle words and phrases like “don’t you know” and “Rather!” and “what, what, what!” throughout and the job is done.
At least that is the impression that you get when you read his seemingly facile writing.
But try writing something like it yourself and all you get is empty parody – and you discover that that there was substance somewhere in that apparently frothy writing.
Read Wodehouse’s early works (as I now have courtesy of free e-book downloads from ‘Classic’ internet sites) and you will find true apprentice pieces where the iconic solidity of the best ‘Jeeves and Wooster’ stories is seen in its more jellied form – a wobbly try out for the later classics.
The early stuff is mostly style and pose – not a confident voice and certainly containing little of the Sakiesque aphorisms that glitter like very English rhinestones in a narrative so contrived that it makes the miracle of the loaves and fishes look like a Tesco special offer!
But as someone once said, “There are two types of Wodehouse reader: those who adore him and those who haven’t read him yet.”
Who am I to disagree!
Oh yes, and Happy New Year!
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