A child of the opera

I've been listening again to bits of Mascagni's 'Zanetto', a short, very moving opera that has largely been passed over in consideration of his canon. Come to think about it, anything beyond 'Cavalleria' tends to be given a swerve. Not at OHP of course where he continues to be something of a popular star: we produce 'L'amico Fritz' for the second time in ten years in 2011. 'Zanetto' might just make it into 2012 and we harbour ambitions to bring 'Ratcliff' and 'isabeau' (another of those late, highly ornamental operas that drew on Wagnerian and Straussian palettes) to the OHP stage. In this regard we are getting back into full stride with Catalani's 'La Wally' finally making it to W8 next year too. Very soon we will announce the full 2011 season (there are protocols to observe).
The rain continues to beat down incessantly but when Chile is shaken to shreds we ought not to complain too much (we finally had a call in the middle of the night from Sally's sister who lives in Santiago confirming they were all OK). The rain keeps me from a cafe seat this morning.
My day with Fiora ended badly and in gallons of vomit that she began to emit dramatically and without warning as she sat on my knee watching family home videos - she loves watching herself perform. After the first eruption covered my keyboard I spun around towards the living room; two further columns of the stuff, travelling horizontally, issued forth and for a moment we danced around ensuring that the entire place was anointed as I looked in vain for somewhere safe to catch the spew. Suffice to say there is no such place in my lounge. I will spare you the drama of the clean-up. This morning she is emitting a slow constant whine that rises to a crescendo of wailing the further Sally moves from her. The whine only stops when she is clamped limpit like to her mother. She certainly has a suitably operatic streak of melodrama in her.
Monday is the first day of March and ten days from now our roof arrives. Perhaps the sun will have risen high enough to shift once and for all the uber winter weather system that has been parked over the UK for two months. I have a lot of cafes to explore.

Weird World

Am at home with my 18 month old daughter Fiora (OHP devotees may be able to work out where that name comes from). She is asleep, which is where I ought to be since last night was somewhat reckless. It was a staff conference - on his Twitter page, James has pointed out the surreality of the moment when he and I chatted to the Mayor as an Amy Winehouse impersonator strutted her stuff behind us. However I partook of rather more red wine than I ought to have done and Sally, Fiora's mother, was in full Tongan warrior mode as, looking at her from three different directions at once, I swore blind I was as jober as a sucking fudge. As is my habit in these circumstances I fell out of bed and crashed to the floor, flailing my arms wildly as I did so. Today I have all the symptoms of a hangover and some others besides. Sally is giving me all the sympathy she feels is necessary: none.

Pondering OHP in such a condition does nothing to help so I won't. I'm off for an espresso and a lie down.
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Summer's Cauldron

I heard somewhere that this long and perishing winter is a sure-fire guarantee that the summer will be furiously hot and long. At my arctic cafe seat (Earl's Court again - the macchiato is good) I find myself as ever worrying about a hot summer because hot summers tend to bring tropical rain too; it is the price we seem to have to pay in England. Unlike our Med counterparts who happily programme their festivals with literal blue-sky thinking, we are pressed into ever more inventive solutions for blotting ours out. The rich tapestry of creative cover always produces a knock on effect: so, for example, a deck that needs cover may need to be raised in order to provide sufficient level area which in turn means the under structure needs cladding and this in turn means a problem with having wood against architectural gravel etc. It may all seem mundane and boring to you, dear reader, but I feel like Lawrence Llewellyn Bowen (without the ruffs and cuffs and better operatic judgement). This year I shall be featuring acrylic mirrors as part of the overall effect. You'll be dazzled.

Meanwhile the 2012 season is on the planning board and I feverishly trawl the late Italian repertoire for a big surprise number.

Inspire/Perspire

On this almost balmy, damp morning (cafe in Fulham this time) I'm pondering the concept of Pandora's Box; we appear to have opened it - or at least the floodgates if you permit me to mix metaphors. Having launched the Inspire Project in January lots of professionals within the council and beyond have commendably and from a standing start, very quickly realised the profound results that music and cultural experience can deliver in very challenging fields. It is worth keeping an eye on the website section relating to Inspire. Of course that also means much time is spent developing ideas and structure so we can deliver them but the season draws ever nearer; the sweat is fine but I'd prefer to avoid the blood and tears.

The symphony in green that is the artificial grass forecourt in front of Holland House is in need of protection from the construction about to begin. The ground in front of the house is usually scarred and trenched so that a site inspection can feel like a walk in the South Downs. Now, we have a billiard table by comparison and it must be treated with reverence. Not all of our contractors are happy about the new era of gentleness we have induced (the roof arrives in early March) but to help them we'll lay a lavish carpet of (sustainably produced!) plywood. Two hundred sheets of the stuff arrive soon but the upside is that when we remove the theatre, a magical and instant scene of architectural loveliness will appear. I intend to invite Gardener's World down for a one hour special.

Tech Lite

What with the blogosphere, Twittersphere et al (my cafe seat is mercifully less refrigerated this morning but the Earls Court Rd is no place to be pondering such matters) it is some relief to know that although our world is digitised, the operatic stage remains a bastion of pure human achievement. This reassuringly Luddite conclusion came to me as I traversed Kilimanjaro (in just thirty minutes, atop the bicycle in the gym using the aerobic Hill Plus programme: distance covered 10.93 km, average output 423 kw, average speed 9.2kph, calories burned 412, average heart rate 109).

Victoriana

By the wonders of modern science I am able to post to this blog on the move. Unlike Twitter I don't have to reduce my meandering to 140 characters so I can drivel on endlessly from my refrigerated seat outside a cafe in Sloane Square.
I have just walked past the pretty Dovehouse Green on the King's Road; that place definitely has potential for a Christmas event we have been discussing. All manner of Victoriana float through my imagination but I ought to view the visions with suspicion since Harry Secombe keeps popping up too (not to mention Mary Poppins and Dick Van Dyke). I'll make a conscious effort to force Walter Crane into my mind's eye, maybe the Pre Raphaelites as well. Not even Harry Secombe (bless his little Welsh tenor socks) can sully that.

Fantastic Mr Fox

If you ferret around on our website at operahollandpark.com, you'll see that we have just announced the European and UK premiere of Tobias Picker's opera of Dahls' 'Fantastic Mr Fox' on the park's Yucca Lawn (the link above - the title of this blog entry -  gives some interesting background on the piece.) Anyway, the piece aside, I was struck today by the never ending oddities of the things we are all required to consider in our daily trudge through the world of opera. In another post in this blog's history, I referred to a meeting in which I sat through some very in-depth discussions about cemetery management. Today, we thought about the most appropriate time to programme the performances of 'Fox' in order that children's lunch and tea could be considered. All vital and unavoidable and being the only parent in the office, I do feel somewhat like the 'child bore' when such things arise, but it means I can bring some authenticity to the more critical challenges that face us. In any case, I continue to annoy my colleagues by referring to the opera as the Fantastic Mr Volpe (at the risk of stating the obvious to my learned readers, Volpe is the Italian word for Fox). It was a pleasing day as an anonymous donor pledged £1,000 to our Friends for the production, a sum that joins the several other thousands pledged by generous patrons to make it all happen. 


Lucy, our corporate and events officer is back from her weary journey to Mustique. She wasn't best pleased by the change in light and temperature that confronted her in Kensington. Our collective heart bled all over the floor for her. But she is back, pressing her gently tanned nose to the grindstone, securing our future. Despite the downturn/upturn/tentative recovery/waiting to tip over the abyss (delete as appropriate) we appear to be attracting much attention.


I am dying to announce some good news but am legally prevented from doing so for the time being. Given my role in life and my general methodology (OK, I have a big mouth) you can be sure that not a nanosecond will pass beyond the very moment I am permitted to tell you all what it is I am dying to tell you all etc.


Hundreds of Friends booking forms have thudded onto the box office carpet and are being processed as we speak. A couple thousand more are due anytime soon.  It is humbling and quite remarkable how the Friends have flourished in recent years; from a first donation of just £7,000 a few short years ago to something in the order of £220,000 in 2009. And that is on top of the 18,000 odd tickets that they buy. 


The breadth and scope of the Inspire Project continues to surprise us and our event with Looked-after Children on Friday was heartwarming and touching for all concerned; a potent vignette of just what kids can achieve when given the right guidance and motivation.  Ideas for partnerships continue to flood in and suggest some very interesting diversions in the near future. If we have our way, opera will be woven fully into the fabric of life in RBKC; it is a powerful tool as many people working in challenging roles are starting to discover.


Now, as I spy the canopy build approaching through the snow, ice, wind and rain, I must take some difficult decisions. First and foremost is how on earth do we protect the new false grass that has been laid in front of the house? 

Back on the Blog

It has been a few years since this blog was active but with Facebook, Twitter, and other online nonsense having grown exponentially in the intervening period since my last post, it seems almost foolish not to draw you all in to read the musings of me and others. Both James and I have opened Twitter accounts and we shall no doubt tweet and broadcast the minutiae of our working (or otherwise) lives through the spring and summer, but we would be nobody if we were not Twits.

I managed to keep things fairly regular(?) when I last committed to this blog and I shall try to do so again. It is possible that there will be something interesting amongst it all. If you subscribe I can promise little more than humble observations and fulsome praise of the OHP team and as few words as possible about me. Which is a relief for you all.

It is less than a month until we begin the canopy build and then the whole furious process begins in full sometime in early April; operationally there have been interesting developments and the theatre site is set fair to look better than ever in 2010. We spend much time working on and developing the Inspire project (see the website for info) but soon we'll need to turn and look the season full square in the face. First one to blink...