Port out...

I view a glass of port as a luxury at the best of times but on a Monday night it is positively indulgent. I bought a bottle on impulse when I was feeling chilled and damp after an hour on site - the weather has turned most un-spring like again. Still, never fear, a small long range weather forecasting outfit in Cambridge somehwere (odd because they get the prevailing weather last of all over that way) have said we are due the hottest summer since 1976 or since Emperor Hadrian was in the hot seat or some such elongated passage of time.

Good. The rain was horizontal today and you'd get wet standing at the centre of the covered space at the theatre.

The mezzanine is prepared and will rise from the ground tomorrow like some constructivist set (or a giant Meccano house - pick your own cultural reference). People are starting to gaze through the fence at the build.

I'm drowning my anxieties in an ever growing catalogue of chaotic late Italian opera - Giordano's Mala Vita is the latest.

Image

I'm in the middle of a series of meetings with PR companies who we may charge with supporting our annual work in this field since OHP the brand gets bigger but the office staff count doesn't.
However, perhaps by way of karmic warning, I had an encounter yesterday that demonstrated unequivocally that no matter how hard you work to foster an image, patrons' personal experience or views can quickly render all that you purport to be - or in reality are - worthless. The patron in question was objecting to our admin fee - a small charge on the entire booking and not per ticket. Anyway, the point is not so much the charge itself but the depth of feeling and expression it evoked. The letter of complaint laid a barrage of caricaturistic (have I made that word up?) accusations at our feet: 'nasty' was the least of them and if I am honest I was quite impressed by the lyricism of his opprobrium. I engaged him and feel I may have re calibrated his view somewhat but the point is that after years of happy, willing patronage, one small charge could have rightly or wrongly poisoned his whole view of us.

I do sometimes feel that the modern patron spends much of their time railing against the PR culture whilst falling hook line and sinker for it at other times. The obvious conclusion is that we buy only the message we are willing to buy. It is also a long held belief of mine that PR often seems to reach over the heads of the product's primary audience - PR for PR's sake as it were. And the unpardonable sin of believing your own PR is one that continues to be committed without end.

We need, of course to tell people what we are doing, hence talking to these companies, but the golden rule that the only kind of business is repeat business still applies. It is not lost on either James or me that no PR in the world will save rubbish work. It is also true that the best PR in the world won't change an unyielding mind even when the work is magnificent. But the devil is often in the detail and (coining, literally, yet another cliché) if you look after the pennies the pounds will look after themselves. My complaining client was not happy, I suspect, to get a reply that disagreed with him but was content to get one at all. PR, like charity, seems to begin at home.

Funny old world

Just a short note.  We had sent a proof copy of a gala poster, for his approval,  to Richard Bonynge. However he is away and Dame Joan Sutherland approved it instead. Just thought I'd mention it since it isn't too often you hear that.
I'm glad she liked it though.

Memories and melancholia

A walk to work with the voice of Roberto Murolo in my ears. Murolo is one of the great authentic Nnapulitan singers; him and a guitar alone, aching melancholia drenched in the visceral regional accent, words that even other Italians don't understand. I don't know of any other music with such profound 'L'esprit du lieu' and it evokes summers in Salerno with the family, when mum was making the memories she has now lost -although she still remembers Roberto Murolo. I have still to decide if I think that is a blessing or a curse.

Lea is sending me a poster that is being used to advertise the master class/concert that I have arranged at her and Gianluca's school. The fabulous Orla Boylan is coming over to take upper school students through pieces they have prepared and will then give a short recital before joining the combined choirs for the final chorus from Iolanta in Russian. Great credit should go to the head of music there, Ben Parsons, for being so ambitious on behalf of his students. It should be a great evening and a real thrill for the youngsters to sing with Orla.

The away day went well and in a year's time we shall look back, as we did yesterday on last year, and hopefully see the various wish lists coming to fruition. We have a habit of creating monsters that leap from nothing and force us to chase them around; we manage to get them on a tight leash eventually but yesterday certainly showed that we haven't lost any ambition. Expect monsters to pop up all through the coming year.

Exploration

Sally, who is a stock librarian, asked me to do a list of book suggestions to be printed up and posted in the library for readers. I dashed off a varied list that won't give me entry to the house of literary sages but it did make me wonder at how opera is so much more shackled by prejudice (benign or otherwise) when it comes to what people will venture out to see and hear. OHP, of course, has a better record than many in this regard - we have persuaded thousands of people to extend their operatic tastes, but even we meet entrenched resistance with some parts of the repertoire and no matter how good you tell somebody an opera is, they will dig their heels in and refuse to give it a try. 'Better the devil you know' would seem to be the principle criteria.

Music is unique in this regard which is odd since it is the art form with the most infinite possibilities. People who happily read new book after new book, see play after play, watch latest movie after latest movie will restrict themselves to the narrowest repertoire of opera (you know the form) and even when they do explore the edges, there will often be other rules of engagement - in my experience the rarity stands a better chance if it is Italian. And offering it cheaper only makes a partial contribution to improving that situation. I have mountains of statistics to back this up by the way so don't argue with me.

I'm not complaining that people flock to what they know - it means we can safely programme the bulk of our season. Our many years of work mean that we can also safely (almost) programme some rarities that others would consider potential disaster. But I do wish that unknown, but good operas (and I'm not talking about contemporary opera although some of those do quite well relatively speaking) would be greeted with the same universal excitement as a new Andrew Lloyd Webber musical. I will leave the reader to luxuriate in the irony of that last remark.

The build is ahead of schedule and the mezzanine part of the construction has been moved forward a week. At this rate we will have so much time for the finishing touches (vital!) that we will be able to hand polish the gravel.