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RELUCTANT BLOGGER 11 Farewell Bolzano, hello Prague

Alex Brücke Langer opened last Friday and went very well. The audience contained many former friends and colleagues of Alex's and it must be a strange experience for them to see a piece which attempts to portray him, and which includes as part of the production much video archive material of Alex 'in action'. However the response was warm and attentive.

The new ending worked well and seemed to round off the piece well. Unfortunately Yoshi was not able to make the performance so I can only guess as to whether he would have approved of my tinkering or not.

So I flew from Bolzano early yesterday, leaving the cast to 3 more performances, and came to Prague for a couple of days of meetings and casting for the next project, Idomeneo. Website of the Narodni Divadlo Prague

In Bolzano it was just beginning to feel like the early signs of Spring were eager to appear. I stopped over in Rome for a couple of hours where it was a decidedly balmy 15 degrees and the change of season was firmly underway. Prague is still gripped by Winter, though the snow which lays deeply on the outskirts of the city is beginning to thaw.

Prague Old Town Square

I will be in Prague for two months leading up to the first performance in May. I was here last year at the State Opera for the revival of Death in Venice and had a difficult though ultimately very rewarding time. But the city didn't quite get under my skin. It is certainly very beautiful but also full of contrasts. The city has also vigorously taken the tourist dollar, though that has probably saved it.

It is a strange mix of Western and Eastern Europe and there are sights which take you by surprise. Beggars here abase themselves completely, with their faces to the ground and their noses in the snow and ice. An uncomfortable sight in a city alive with tourist temptations. Perhaps that's good.

It is interesting coming back, even for this short visit, and I think I will enjoy this next stay here much more, now that I know the ropes a bit more. In the meantime, my sights are firmly set on a few blissful days at home!

RELUCTANT BLOGGER 10 Making myself redundant

In productions of straight theatre there is one person in total charge of both the vision and execution of the show – the director. In opera however, there is a delicate courtship between director and conductor. Sometimes the drama must bend to the music, sometimes the music must adapt to the drama. Sometimes this involves tense negotiations! Occasionally the process is an intense but enjoyable journey. On Alex Brücke Langer it has thankfully been the latter case as I am lucky to have as conductor Pierre-André Valade – a conductor not only of notable musical integrity, but also a patient and experienced colleague.

Opera rehearsals always begin with a few days of music rehearsals where the conductor gets to shape the kind of performance he requires from the singers. There then follows several weeks of production rehearsals which are primarily for the director to create the physical production, but also for the aforementioned negotiations to take place. This doesn't always go smoothly. It has been known for directors and conductors to fall out so badly that one or other walks away (or is sacked) from the production. Thankfully never in my case.

The final stage rehearsals with piano are for the director to put everything together – lights, scenery, action, stage effects, video......all the physical elements of the production. But after these vital and often nerve-wracking rehearsals there are still several rehearsals to go before the final dress rehearsal. These are the orchestral rehearsals where that final wondrous and unique element is put into place, and these rehearsals are strictly the property of the conductor.

This is of course as it should be. Come the performances the director will either be long gone, or propping up the stalls bar with a gin and tonic. It will be the conductor out there under the glare of the public, responsible for the whole shebang.

Some directors – and I have experienced it at first-hand – keep fighting to control everything right to the very end, as if their (and indeed our) lives depended on it. It can be very exciting to be caught up in that kind of frenetic energy but when they have left, you feel as if you have been washed up on a beach.

My view is quite different. Precisely because I WON'T be there for the performances, I prefer to withdraw during the final rehearsals so that my performers begin to rely on their own energy and that of the conductor. I still give notes and corrections of course, but if I keep driving the process personally at full speed where will they be when my energy disappears? First night will be fine because of adrenalin, but second night? Second night will fall flat because they have not learnt to create their own inner drive.

I also think it vital for the conductor to take that total control of the opera. He or she will be the one to take what is (hopefully) 'our' work to the public. For that to be the case there has to be trust and confidence and a hand-over period.

It all makes those final rehearsals very strange for the director. You tweak, you give notes, you support everyone and you give feedback of course, but ideally by the dress rehearsal you have made yourself dispensable. That is a strange feeling. I know few directors who enjoy first nights and that is because you don't have a job to do except turn up and take a bow.

There is also a bizarre truth - theatre changes in performance. It grows, it finds its true life, it truly develops only in performance. The conductor is, of course, right at the centre of this and can influence it. The director is completely out of it, except through the memory of the work that you have done in the rehearsal room which may inform performers' choices. It's a weird feeling believe me.

So we started orchestral rehearsals today and I have begun to withdraw. Giving notes, offering feedback, but ultimately slowly making myself redundant.

RELUCTANT BLOGGER 9 The Mountains

Bolzano has the second best rating for quality of life in Italy (the town that took the first place is only half an hour away from here) and after a nearly a month I can see why.

When I first arrived I thought that I would feel claustrophobic, surrounded so tightly by mountains. When Jeff was here we took the swish new cable car which glided smoothly up and over the mountains to Oberbozen, from where we took a little train through the snow along the side of the nearest mountain to see views of the Dolomites. It was very lovely.

Today I took a break from my extensive study of Itaian popular TV culture and took another cable car from the other side of town up to the village of San Genesio. This older, and smaller, cable car lurches and sways its way up the mountainside to a very pretty town which has spectacular views over the Rosengarten - the nearest range of high mountains, so called for its thorn-like vertical spikes.

Castel Mareccio with the Rosengarten Mountain Range in the background

To get to the cable car I walked alongside the river, which is the town's playground, with mini golf, basketball and all sorts of sports taking place by a pleasant parkland walkay. Also en route is the gorgeous Castel Mareccio (now a conference facility) surrounded by vines - as indeed are all the surrounding hills.

                                    

Looking down from the cable car to Schloss Runkelstein (blog 5)

The Views from up here were stunning and I'm afraid my little camera-phone cannot do them justice. It's easy to understand how ancient civilisations thought that the mountains were the home of the gods. The light is always different up there and you always feel that you are staring on something both other-worldly and outside of time. Awe inspiring is the only phrase really. I'll let pictures do the rest of the talking - as ever 'click' to enlarge.

Sledging in San Genesio

The Rosengarten Mountains in the background...

...like Valhalle in the distance

Declining light over the valley

RELUCTANT BLOGGER 8 Culture

Ah Italia – the food, the architecture, the art, the music, the countryside, the passegiata, the beautiful people, the fashion, the weather and................oh dear, the TV! Italian TV is something else.


It is interesting to see the popular TV culture of different countries. French TV has lots of serious, but very boring, current affairs programmes but some fantastic cinema. German TV at the moment is wall to wall Fasching – Carnival, which is a spectacle unlike any other. Imagine the Lyons Club joined with the WI all in fancy dress holding a highly ritualised party with everyone performing their party-pieces............on TV.......every night for a fortnight. Mmm – an acquired taste.

Karneval in Germany

Italian TV has a very different flavour. Mainly, the TV here is wall to wall game shows, which are on nightly. They are strictly formulaic – a portly and resolutely jolly late-middle-aged host, an hostess who is past her prime but valiantly employing every artificial means to fight the fact, and very scantily-clad young dancing girly performing gratuitous cheeky routines at regular intervals. These girls are popular Italian heroines and every woman in Italy, apparently, wants to be them. I would have thought the majority of the Italian female populace would instead have banded together and driven every one of these unfeasibly perfect young ladies into the Mediterranean by now. But no, this is evening entertainment.

Raffaella Ficostachetto, dancing girl on 'Prendere o Laschiare'- family entertainment Italian Style

The other staple is the talent show. Stars and their protégées, dancing stars (not coming close to the standard of the UK 'Stricly Come Dancing') team-talent competitions, children's song fests – every group catered for in one or other of the huge, over produced and very long (3.5hrs plus!) spectaculars over the weekends.

A regular guest on both types of show is il principe Emanuele Filiberto. This handsomely named, and handsomely turned out young man is, believe it or not, the heir apparent to the, now defunct throne, of Italy. The Italian monarchy was evicted in 1945 and until 2002 the male line of the Savoy family were forbidden by law to set foot on Italian soil. Emanuele Filiberto however has found a unique way to bring the monarchy back into the affections of the people. He has appeared on (and won) the Italian Dance with the Stars, and is regular 'straight man' to a popular TV host. He seems to be willing to appear on TV at the drop of a hat, in any silly costume or daft skit. He makes It's a Royal Knockout look like a grave State Occasion.

Il Principe Emanuele Filliberto on 'Ballando con le Stelle'

You can't help admire him though. Everyone knows who he is. The gossip columns are full of his antics. He is probably the most popular king-that-will-never-be in history. Certainly the most entertaining.


The interesting thing to me about this orgy of dubious-taste but unmissable TV is the pure enjoyment and love of song. On all of these talent shows the emphasis is firmly on shared entertainment and not, like the UK's talent bloodbaths, on the destruction of the hopeful. There are no overblown 'that was the best performance I've ever heard' from insincere judges, and no stringing out of the final verdict placing unbearable tension on the contestants.


When one contestant is singing, all the others (and the hosts) sing along in the background, genuinely enjoying the event. On the children's talent show, Io canto (hosted by the Italian version of Terry Wogan - the housewife's choice Gerry Scotti) small children compete alongside older children in a truly supportive and enjoyable atmosphere. And even the youngest can really put across a song in the most mature way.


They seem unaffected by the stage-school manner which so easily sanitises children in the UK and US and instead appear to be genuinely comfortable with performing and totally convinced with the text. Also, far from being dressed and made up in inappropriate adult attire as mini 'Brittneys' or 'Whitneys' they are presented in their Sunday best, as if for a visit to which their elderly Grandmother. Rather lovely to see kids dressed as kids, unsophisticated but totally at home with the adult world too.

'io canto' - a phenomenon with child performers

Frankly at home I would rather stick pins in my eyes than watch a 3.5 hour children's talent competition, but I can't wait for Saturday night for the next Io canto.



It points out what I have mentioned in earlier blogs – the very palpable enjoyment of life that pervades the culture here. And it is a desire which is not limited to the self or even the family, but takes in everyone around them.

RELUCTANT BLOGGER 7 Revival

My job on this show here in Bolzano is that of Revival Director. The original production was directed by Yoshi Oida, an iconic Japanese performer in his seventies who, as well as being a trained Shinto Priest and having studied with a Noh theatre master for ten years, was one of Peter Brook's collaborators at the International Centre for Theatre Research in Paris. A true theatre legend. He has quite some pedigree, and I am supposed to fill in for him on this one!

Of course you can never be someone else, work in their pattern, or offer exactly what they offer and I have had to accept that I can only bring to this production what I can bring and hope that I don't lose Yoshi's approach in the process. I also did not work on the project originally so have, in essence, learnt the physical production from a video. It is possible to recreate that physical production exactly. But would this yield the right result?

This opera, Alex Brücke Langer was premiered seven years ago and, as I explained in blog 3, has significant political relevance here. Since its first performance, Europe has changed dramatically and the composer has revised the final scene to increase the political edge of the piece. In my mind this is a laudable aim. Europe has become bigger, financially and politically more stable, and more influential in the last seven years - certainly since Alex Langer's time in the late 90's. But with this stability comes complaisance – politics becomes instead bureaucracy and we forget that people were fighting and dying for this freedom and stability.

This has left me with a couple of difficult questions to ask myself – to revive the original blocking, which ends the piece very beautifully in a poignant and touching human way, but which now just feels to rub against the new vibe of the score; or to create something new but which will, inevitably, be more me than Yoshi.

I can only trust that by following the creative process here and now with the performers in the rehearsal room, we will do something honest of which Yoshi will approve. When you feel something good come together in a rehearsal room, you can't ignore it.

Reviving someone else's work is a very tricky process. You have to be true to their vision, respectful of their work, and recognise their ownership. However you also have to keep the process fresh and creative for your performers, respond to their input and, to an extent, own it yourself. If you don't invest something of yourself into it, it will be hollow.

What the master will think... we will see!

RELUCTANT BLOGGER 6 Ted.com

I've become quickly addicted to the website www.ted.com which contains many interesting, challenging and inspirational (but refreshingly brief) talks on a vast range of subjects. The website is well worth delving into - the more the look the more you will find - and this talk from conductor Benjamin Zander definitely comes under the inspirational heading.

RELUCTANT BLOGGER 5 Schloss Runkelstein

To Schloss Runkelstein, one of the three castles which sit around or above Bolzano, and a real gem! Schloss Runkelstein Website This part of the Tirol has the largest concentration of castles anywhere in Europe - literally hundreds of them - but Runkelstein is unique in being covered in secular paintings from the late 1300's. Quite beautiful.

RELUCTANT BLOGGER 4 Speaking the lingo

This part of Europe suits someone like me – someone with an enthusiasm for conversing in 'foreign' but without the confidence to really do so fluently. True, I can converse and make myself understood in German, Italian and (to a lesser extent although I probably understand it more) French. But, oh joy, in a bilingual town I can get away easily with saying the word in German when I can't remember it in Italian. Of course I could speak English as everyone here speaks that too with ease, but I discourage either myself or people I meet to resort to that out of principal.


At school I thought I was truly terrible at languages. I just didn't get them. In truth, I simply didn't understand my own language but because I always had an easy facility for words and creative writing, no-one noticed. It wasn't until I was in Milan working on Berio's opera Outis, and with a lot of spare time on my hands, that I made a concerted attempt at another language. Each day I would work on a lesson from a book, look up vocabulary for an imagined situation and then go out into the streets of the Italian Capital and attempt to contrive that situation. I often got no further than the reception desk of the apartments on the Corso d'Italia where the kind ladies must have rolled their eyes each time they saw me come out of the lift with my vocab cards, but who hid it well and answered my poorly pronounced questions patiently and with typical Italian grace.


Helpful too were the room maids. I (carefully) stuck labels and verb tables all over my room and would come back from a day's rehearsal to find my labels corrected. The same happened in Catania, Sicily when working there – the cleaning lady would put up additional labels when something had more than one name. Can you imagine a quintessential 'Blackpool' landlady doing that?

Early in my attempts to learn Italian I once summoned up the courage to telephone a hotel in Venice, explaining at length my request for a room with a double bed, a bath and breakfast for the following weekend only to listen crestfallen as the voice at the other end said 'we can speak in English if it's easier for you.' Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!! Hours of work down the drain.


However some slow progress was made, and I at least could buy a pizza and a drink......and another drink.......and another drink.......and by then it didn't matter what language was being spoken. But I conversed! And I realised I wasn't rubbish at languages, just that I had been taught in the most unimaginative way possible. I worked out for myself that listening to crass repetitive Italian pop music (which now hangs about in my mind and gives me great joy!), reading comics and very easy children's books, and watching the Italian version of 'Who wants to be a millionaire' (where the question is on the screen for a minute, giving me time to look up any words I don't know and jot them down) is the genuine way to learn another language. It's impossible without context, and a mobile classroom on a Friday afternoon with a 'monodrone' teacher is NO context. When you're hungry and need to know how to cook whatever it is, you translate the instructions and remember them. When you aren't, you don't


So here I am, in Bolzano, with a cast of two Italians (who speak fluent German and English), one Austrian (who speaks fluent Italian and English) and one Englishman (who speaks good German and Italian) ham-fistedly rehearsing with as much Italian as I can muster and mug up on in advance. I'm sure they long for me to just speak English, for the sake of everyone's ease, but I am determined. And I'm quite pleased with the results some of the time. When I have a few seconds to think about what I'm going to say, I do quite well. When I try to make it up on the spot, I do terribly and resort to English. But I did my whole long 'it's going very well, and here's what we must concentrate on next week' speech in Italian and was received my lots of nodding heads and smiles. In truth my Italian gets better by the day.


The only trouble is – after February 21^st when do I come back to take it to the next level? I'll be on to trying to improve my German by then meanwhile using my basic Czeck – capable only of saying 'hello' and buying a coffee.


This is where the rest of Europe has the lead over us. They are surrounded by each other's cultures and languages and move freely between them. In England, that little stretch of water and the dogged spirit to 'hang onto our Britishness' (whatever that is) stops us from gaining from all that Europe has to offer, however much we travel, as it is not part of our every day experience. And what have we achieved? A unique and strong British culture? I would say we have the weakest definable culture of our neighbours, and it has nothing to do with it being diluted by immigrants but a lot to do with our own stubbornness to experience and embrace the unknown, or be confident with what we have.


Anyway, I'll get down off my high horse, or scendero dal' il mio cavallo alto – except the Italians probably have another interesting way of putting it! I'm off to watch Amici – Italian tv show which is like a group version of X-factor crossed with Big Brother for singers and dancers. It's all the rage here and I can't get enough.

RELUCTANT BLOGGER 3 Why I’m in Bolzano

I'm in Bolzano directing the first revival since its premiere in 2003 of an opera called Alex Brücke Langer by an Italian composer called Giovanni Verrando.Teatro Comunale Website I am very in sympathy with the musical style of the piece as it reminds me of Berio and Steve Reich, both of whose work have been very important to me as a performer. It combines Berios'sense of the voice as an instrument with Reich's ability to create vertical harmonic texture and astounding beauty through using voices as an ensemble. All this makes the passages where voices are used as solo characters all the more poignant and effective. It is a four-hander with the singers and the small instrumental ensemble mic'd – again familiar territory for me. Giovanni's Website

The Teatro Communale in Bolzano

The piece is about a local politician, Alex Langer, who led the Green Party in Europe during the mid 1990's and championed the cause for cultural and political unity in this part of the world. However, wearied by others' intransigence and federal burocracy, he took his own life in 1996.


It is a piece close to my heart dramatically as well as musically as it is very much a 'real' story and the composer and librettist have not tried to tie up the loose ends or present conclusions. I've been convinced of the possibilities of opera which is not narrative led but almost 'docu-opera' since performing Steve Reich's Three Tales – a work which similarly presented real events in an innovative musical way. A standard opera or piece of theatre invokes in its audience, in part, the need for conclusion – message – character development, all of which may not be true to real human experience but are natural for us to seek. Meanwhile a documentary is bound by biographical and historical fact. How great to combine the two – an opera with documentarial content but which utilises the unique emotional pull of the sung human voice and the dramatic possibilities of theatre without being bound by any known structure.

The view from my rehearsal room - not bad eh!

 I explored this idea in the piece I work-shopped with composer Ben Park at Opera North, 88 minutes. My libretto took facts and real stories of suicide for its source material and tried to present them in a way which didn't attempt to rationalise the issue but instead provoke honest debate – something missing with this subject. For many reasons I only got part way towards succeeding, not least of which was the difficulty of the subject. However, being involved in this revival of Alex Brücke Langer has reminded me how exciting I find this particular kind of work.

RELUCTANT BLOGGER 2 Bolzano

So here I am in Bolzano, in the Alto Adige region of Northern Italy, surrounded by The Dolomites. It's an interesting area with an equally interesting past, having passed from Austrian ownership to Italian and back again several times. Indeed many in the region have fought for complete Tirolean independence, a fight which continued with real and bloody consequences into the late 1980's.

The situation is quieter now though it is definitely still a place with a unique and strongly identifiable mix of cultures, with German and Italian both spoken and writ in a jumble around one.

 I can't pretend to understand or sum up the complicated situation in this part of Europe but to an outsider's eye it is in many ways representative of the best of what both Austria and Italy have to offer and the food reflects this.


The town is small and elegant with narrow streets bordered by tall buildings, many painted in typical Tyrolean style. It is not unlike York in that its narrow passageways and hidden courtyards have to be sought out and yield more with each exploration.

The main shopping area is famous for its colonnades and the town's small daily market winds round the Piazza Erbe with a statue of Neptune at its centre. It is bustling but relaxed and, unusually even for Austria and Italy these days, everything closes on Sunday. My apartment is right in the centre of town in the eaves of an old building which has a secret – a fantastic old wooden fascia hidden from view in the street.

Each morning the bells from the surrounding Cathedral, churches, and two Monasteries compete at 6am to tell me the time. It is just like the depiction Puccini painted in music of early morning in Rome in the opening to the last Act of Tosca but with the addition of the Cathedral bell which sounds again very persistently at 7am, just in case it failed to get you up at 6.

It is lovely to be back experiencing the Italian custom of passegiata – an early evening stroll around town which is as much about being seen as seeing. It happens year round and is quite unlike the way people 'take the air' anywhere else. Each night people slowly stroll arm in arm around the main streets, stopping for a glass of prosecco in a bar, to look in the chic shop windows, admire each other's dogs or have a brief friendly chat. All ages do this, and on a Sunday, best fur coats may be worn! I first came across this when I was in Mantova with the Swingles and it is the memory of the elegant Mantovans (or should that be Mantovanis?) strolling around the misty wintry streets and main square of the city which remains one of my strongest from Swingle trips.


I mentioned dogs – The Italians are very proud and particular about theirs and I have seen the most beautiful Golden Retriever dogs here. Beautiful golden animals holding their heads nobly and displaying impeccable behaviour as they enjoy the passegiata, seemingly with as much of a sense of occasion as their owners. They are my absolute favourite kind of dog, apart of course from my doggy 'niece' in London with the black and grey fuzzy-face.


The Italians really know how to live. Work in the morning (but not too early), a long relaxed lunch during which the shops shut for a couple of hours, then work again until the evening followed by a little socialising. It is the difference between working to live, which we do frantically in Britain, and work being an enjoyable but not exclusive part of living. I've grown accustomed very quickly to the long lunch and far from dampening the energy it seems to provide necessary space to think and come back to work afresh.

It's the life, I tell you!

RELUCTANT BLOGGER 1

There are many people out there in the ink-jet black void of the internet writing quite dull blogs about themselves. I have always been reluctant to add to their number and further clutter up the ether. However I am lucky enough in my professional life to travel widely and realised that most of my experiences have gone un-documented, un-photographed, and un-commented upon – usually little more than a 'Yeah, good trip thanks!'

I've already been to so many places and have little to show for the experience, and surprisingly few memories too, so this blog is as much an opportunity for me to chart my trips for myself as for the anticipated pleasure of any reader who might stumble upon it.

I have long admired those with the discipline to write a diary or keep a scrapbook, but in my attempts to keep a diary I have always become unbearably navel-gazing and the results bore me let alone anyone else - in fact nobody but an unemployed psychologist without a real case to work on would be able to stomach more than a paragraph of my diary attempts. No, I've always produced my best when doing so for an audience, real or imagined, which leads me to offer this, dear reader, to you.