Grange Park Opera Programme 2015

GRANGE PARK OPERA 20151

G I ACO M O P U CC I N I

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J E R RY B OC K & S H E L DO N H A R N I C K

Sponsored by THE CLORE DUFFIELD FOUNDATION with The Boltini Trust, Harry Hyman & The Nexus Group

C A M I L L E S A I NT- S A Ë N S

Supported by a syndicate led by DAVID & AMANDA LEATHERS with Sir Winfried & Lady Bischoff, Philip & Mary Ling and two anonymous donors

PYOTR TC H A I KOV S K Y

Sponsored by BELL POTTINGER

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LET US BE GR ATEFUL TO PEOPLE WHO MAKE US HAPPY; THEY ARE THE CHARMING GARDENERS WHO MAKE OUR SOULS BLOSSOM

Untitled (1981) August Puig (1929–1999)

MARCEL PROUST

• The Clore Duffield Foundation

Mr & Mrs Grant Gordon

I C A P plc

• • George & Caroline Goulding

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David & Clare Kershaw

• • James and Béatrice Lupton

Mr & Mrs Peter Nutting

• The Linbury Trust

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• Diane & Christopher Sheridan

• • David & Amanda Leathers

Sir Winfried & Lady Bischoff

François Freyeisen & Shunichi Kubo

Philip & Mary Ling

• Richard & Pamela Jacobs

• • Anonymous

• Francis & Nathalie Phillimore

• Jane & Paul Chase-Gardener

• • Anthony & Carolyn Townsend

Adam & Lucy Constable

Ruth Markland

Gareth & Janet Davies

David McLellan

• Mr Damon & The Hon Mrs de Laszlo

Heike & Darcy Munro

Niall & Ingrid FitzGerald

• John L Pemberton

• Anonymous

Simon & Victoria Robey

Nerissa Guest

• The Boltini Trust

• Sir David & Lady Plastow

Harry Hyman & The Nexus Group

• • Johnny & Marie Veeder

Elm Capital Associates Ltd

• John & Carol Wates

Macfarlanes LLP

Rothschild Wealth Management

Mrs Peter Cadbury

Financial Express

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• Baring Asset Management

• Barbara Yu Larsson

David & Simone Caukill

Mr & Mrs Ernst Piech

Christopher Swan

• Stephen Gosztony & Sue Butcher

Anonymous

Sandbourne Asset Management

• Nic Bentley

LONMART Insurance

Sir Roger & Lady Gifford

Noreen Doyle

• • Andrew & Caroline Joy

Judith Lawless & Kevin Egan

• • Mrs T Landon

• Roger & Kate Holmes

Brian & Jennifer Ratner

• Anonymous

• Tony & Tracey Bugg

• Mr & Mrs Richard Morse

• Raymonde Jay

Laurent–Perrier Champagne

• Tessa & John Manser

Tom Busher & Elizabeth Benson

• • Dr Jonathan Holliday & Dr Gwen Lewis

• • William & Kathy Charnley

Keith & Lucy Jones, Nigel & Viv Robson, Barry & Anne Rourke

• • In celebration of the life of Eve Mitchell

• indicates suppor t at the inception of the festival in 1998 • indicates suppor t of the 2002 Appeal to build the new theatre

KE Y S U PPORTE RS

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Cover AUGUST PUIG (1929-1999) Born in Barcelona, Puig exhibited his work aged 17 in the first post-war avant-garde exhibition at Els Blaus de Sarriá, Barcelona.

Puig’s paintings are said to be the first totally abstract paintings by a Spanish artist.

Shortly after, he moved to Paris where he studied and worked. Though repeatedly referred to as one of the major painters of modern Spain, he remained an outsider and persona non grata by General Franco’s Ministry of Culture. Consequently, Puig refused to allow his work to be shown in any state-sponsored exhibition.

Puig broke this boycott when Tate Gallery director Sir John Rothenstein, went against Spanish government’s recommendations and insisted Puig’s work be included in the prestigious 1962 exhibition of Modern Spanish Painting in London.

Untitled (1965)

Following that success, Puig exhibited widely with major events in Germany, Switzerland, Sweden and The United States. It was only after Franco’s death that Puig agreed to be Spain’s sole representative in Brazil’s 1977 Biennial, with a major retrospective.

With thanks to Galleri MDA, Sweden.

S U PP ORTING YOU NG E R ARTI ST S & YOU NG OPE R A FAN S 2015 J Paul Getty Jnr Charitable Trust T V Drastik Barbara Whatmore Charitable Trust Bernard Sunley Foundation The Dyers’ Company Gamlen Charitable Trust Garrick Charitable Trust Golden Bottle Trust Stephen & Pat Crew • • Anonymous

ADVE RTI S E RS 2015 Lime Wood Group Ltd AlixPartners Linklaters LLP Savills (UK) Ltd Hiscox Alfred Homes Financial Times Glyndebourne Festival Opera

THE GLASS CEILING SOCIETY 2015

Rupert T Bentley • Mrs Michael Beresford-West Mrs Jenny Bland Simon & Sally Borrows • Anthony Boswood Anthony Bunker Clive & Helena Butler Mr & Mrs C. Cann Mr & Mrs Bernard Cazenove • • Samantha & Nabil Chartouni Sir Christopher & the Reverend Lady Clarke Ian Clarkson & Richard Morris Mr & Mrs Tim Cockcroft Mr Roderick Davidson The Patricia Baines Trust The de Laszlo Foundation • Brian & Susan Dickie David Dutton Martin & Eugenia Ephson Niall & Ingrid FitzGerald Lady Shauna Gosling • • Keith, Maral Charles & James Hann Hilary Hart Malcolm Herring • Martin & Jane Houston The Hon Mrs Charles Ironside Mr Derek Johns Mr Anthony Johnson Neil & Elizabeth Johnson • • Keith & Lucy Jones Ralph & Patricia Kanter Mrs Sam Kirk David Laing Foundation Anthony & Fiona Littlejohn Andrew Luff Henry & Sheena Lumley

Mrs Sally Lykiardopulo Minnie & Joe MacHale • William & Felicity Mather • Ian & Clare Maurice Madeleine & Stephen McGairl B Mercer & P McInerney Roger & Jackie Morris Mr & the Hon Mrs J Ogilvie Thompson The One Style Tour, Taiwan Stephen & Isobel Parkinson Andreas Petalas Sally Phillips & Tristan Wood Sir Desmond & Lady Pitcher The Countess of Portsmouth • Dominic & Katherine Powell Chrissie Quayle Leo Quinn Mr Michael Rice Nigel & Viv Robson Barry & Anne Rourke Mr & Mrs David Salisbury The Tansy Trust George & Veronique Seligman Rosario Sgarioto Mr & Mrs Brigitte & Martin Skan Dr Anthony Smoker Prof & Mrs Peter Sonksen Fiona Squire & Geoff Squire OBE • Donald & Rachael Stearns • • David & Fiona Taylor Olof & Suzie Winkler von Stiernhielm Prudence & Kevan Watts Lord & Lady Young of Graffham and eight anonymous donors The £93,840 contributed by the Glass Ceiling Society paid for the costumes of Fiddler on the Roof

• indicates suppor t at the inception of the festival in 1998 • indicates suppor t of the 2002 Appeal to build the new theatre

CAH Alexander Nigel Beale & Anthony Lowrey Peter Bedford • Christina Benn

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AlixPartners is delighted to support Grange Park Opera AlixPartners is a global business advisory firm of results-oriented professionals who specialize in creating value and restoring performance.

Enterprise Improvement • Financial Advisory Services • Information Management Services • Leadership & Organizational Effectiveness • Turnaround & Restructuring www.alixpartners.com

GR ANG E PARK OPE R A TIC KE T S FOR C HARIT Y E VE NT S Silverline Helpline Robert Poulton Foundation Peter Grimes Grange Park Opera 2014

Terence Higgins Trust Countryside Alliance The Passage: Night Under the Stars Rugby Portobello Trust Save the Children: Secret Winter Gala Orion Orchestra: Water Rat Ball Radley Foundation Sport Aid Charity Canine Partners Norhwood African Education Foundation

Queen of Spades Grange Park Opera 2014

Vasculitis UK Charity Southend Hospital Charity Royal Anglian Regiment Benevolent Charity Children’s Unit, Southampton Hospital Royal College of Music: Soirée d’Or Sheriffs & Recorders Fund Rhys Daniels Trust: Butterfly Ball Pavoirs Burns Night Dinner Riding for Roy Cancer City Music Foundation Don Quichotte Grange Park Opera 2014

Alex Lewis Trust Save the Children: A Night of Disco North Hampshire Medical Fund:

V & A Alexander McQueen The Opera Awards XLP Annual Celebration Winchester College Dinner Homestart ~ Winchester British Red Cross

Mayor of London’s Fund for Young Musicians

La Traviata Grange Park Opera 2014

No Ball’s Ball

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CONTRIBUTORS TO

THE THEATRE & ENDOWMENT FUND 2002 DONALD KAHN & FAMILY Ronnie Frost & family Geoff & Fiona Squire Lydia & Miles d’Arcy-Irvine • Carphone Warehouse Clore Duffield Foundation Lord Harris of Peckham John & Anya Sainsbury

• indicates suppor t at the inception of the festival in 1998

Simon & Virginia Rober tson

Mr & Mrs Gerald Acher • Mr & Mrs David Anderson Mr & Mrs R Atkinson–Willes • Tom & Gay Bartlam • Rupert T Bentley B G S Cayzer Trust Kevin & Corinne Bespolka William & Judith Bollinger Douglas Guest Bollinger James Philip Bollinger Sarah & Tony Bolton Mr & Mrs Paul Brewer Rory & Elizabeth Brooks Mr & Mrs Tony Bugg The Bulldog Trust • Sir Euan Calthorpe Bt • Christopher & Katie Cardona Nigel & Elisabeth Carrington Sir Peter & Lady Cazalet Mr & Mrs Bernard Cazenove The Chase–Gardener family Pam Clarke Alastair & Tiana Collett Oliver & Cynthia Colman • Michael Cuthbert Peter & Annette Dart Mr & Mrs Geoffrey de Jager Sandra & Damon de Laszlo Mr & Mrs Lionel de Rothschild Alun & Bridget Evans Iain R Evans Mr & Mrs James fforde • Mr & Mrs T Floyd Hamish & Sophie Forsyth • The Misses Ismay,

Ottilie & Cecilia Forsyth Peter & Judith Foy • Mr Mark N Franks

Anonymous James Cave David & Amanda Leathers • Sir David & Lady Davies • EFG Private Bank William Garrett Corus º Mark Andrews • Mr & Dr J Beechey • David & Elizabeth Challen • Mr & Mrs William Charnley • Mr & Mrs Peter Dicks •

Reita Gadkari Janet & John Gaymer Jacqueline & Michael Gee Trust Enrique Biel Gleeson Lady Shauna Gosling Mr & Mrs George Goulding • Stephen Gosztony

& Sue Butcher Nigel & Diana Grimwood William Gronow Davis • Mr & Mrs Charles

Haddon–Cave QC • Hayden Trust Mr & Mrs Raymond Henley Malcolm Herring Mr & Mrs John Hewett Dr Jonathan Holliday

& Dr Gwen Lewis • George & Janette Hollingbery • The Holmes Family Hugh & Tamara Hudleston Nicholas & Jeremy Hunter Mr & Mrs David Hunter Mr & Mrs M J Isaac • Hannah Jacobs Harriet Jervis • Mr & Mrs J Jervoise • Neil & Elizabeth Johnson Andrew & Caroline Joy • Mr & Mrs Colin Keogh Dr R Hubert Laeng–Danner Rufford Foundation Mrs T Landon • Barbara Yu Larsson Mr & Mrs Malcolm Le May Peter Leaver & Thomas Sharpe Mr & Mrs Adam Lee • Jeremy Gardner Lewis

Simon Freakley • David Gilgrist & Bobbie du Bois Philip Gwyn • Mrs Ian Jay James & Béatrice Lupton • Donald & Jill Mackenzie Nigel & Anna McNair Scott • P F Charitable Trust Richard & Victoria Sharp Mrs Timothy Syder Richard & Cynthia Thompson Anne Veeder • The Band Trust

Susie Lintott & Louisa Church David & Linda Lloyd Jones • Joe & Minnie MacHale Charles & Annmarie Mackay • Mr & Mrs Michael Mackenzie Tessa & John Manser J P Marland Charitable Trust Wendy & Michael Max Mr & Mrs Peter May • Harvey McGregor QC • Thomas Monk Martin & Caroline Moore Elizabeth Morison • Mr & Mrs Richard Morse Dr & Mrs Julian Muir • The Nawrocki family The O’Hea family Sue & Peter Paice Tim & Therese Parker Alexia Paterson William & Francheska Pattisson Mark & Rachel Pearson Peter Tilley in memory of

Nigel Perfect • The Lord & Lady Phillimore Sir David & Lady Plastow Jan & Michael Potter Bruce & Lizzie Powell • Mark & Veronica Powell • Benjamin Pritchett–Brown Mr & Mrs Gary Ralfe Mrs Christopher Reeves David & Alex Rhodes • Ros & Ken Rokison Mrs Faanya Rose Mrs Antony Rowe Mr & Mrs John Salkeld • Mr & Mrs Anthony Salz •

Christopher & Anne Saul Mr & Mrs Richard Scopes • Mr & Mrs Roderick Selkirk Mrs Christopher Sheridan Lord & Lady Simon

of Highbury Edward M Siskind Paul & Rita Skinner • Mr & Mrs Martin St Quinton • Nicholas Stanley Donald & Rachael Stearns Steel Charitable Trust Stevenson Charitable Trust John & Lesley Stuttard Mr & Mrs R H Sutton • Mr & Mrs Bernard Taylor Gordon & Sue Thorburn The Titchmarsh Family Mr & Mrs Anthony Townsend • Wendy & John Trueman Adair Turner &

Orna Ni–Chionna • The Hon Lucy &

Michael Vaughan • John & Lou Verrill Lady Jane Wallop • John & Carol Wates Miss Clare Williams Hamish & Elisabeth Williams Mark & Jane Williams The Hon Geoffrey & Mrs Wilson The Wolf Family Mr & Mrs C H R Wunderly Caroline Wyld and five anonymous donors

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A NUMBER OF ACHIEVEMENTS WASFI KANI

I

’ve always signed up to the concept of ‘Lies, damned lies, and statistics’, but this year has been so remarkable, I feel I have to throw at least a few numbers at you. Since Grange Park Opera’s beginning, more than 200,000 people have seen a performance at The Grange. We have staged operas of all shapes, all sizes, all concepts operas that you have found bewitching (and only occasionally irritating).

The cornerstone of opera is the music. Grange is noted for its superlative singers – in addition to Bryn Terfel, we also have the stellar talents of Carl Tanner, Gianluca Terranova, Brett Polegato, Susan Gritton, Sara Fulgoni and Cristophoros Stamboglis.

Also, we are proud to host two highly regarded resident orchestras of international renown: the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and the BBC Concert Orchestra.

But this year we have made a breakthrough: the ticket sales for the operas this summer have exceeded all previous years. It is an astonishing, but richly deserved, result for the Great Grange Team that has worked so hard. (More stats: 400 people work to create Grange what it is - and that includes the Winchester Explorers Scouts who are dab hands at putting up the tents.)

But I would also like to mention the 60 singers in the chorus who understudy roles and take small principal roles. The chorus is created afresh each year – we auditioned more than 200 singers, some of whom are recent graduates from music colleges. (Yet more stats: 2,000 people attend dress rehearsals.) For these singers, artistic ‘care’ is important. They benefit greatly from the skill and experience of more experienced performers, but throughout their professional lives, voices also need coaching and to this end, Grange Park has a created an award to help fund this essential training. Among the alumni from this scheme are Roberto Abate, Matthew Thistleton and Edmond Choo who are performing in Samson et Dalila.

One milestone moment is that Grange Park will be appearing at this year’s Proms with a semistaged version of Fiddler on the Roof, starring the magnificent Bryn Terfel. This production has been supported by Vivien Duffield, whose philanthropy knows no bounds. The piece has a special place in her heart as her father, Charles, took her to see the first night when the show arrived in London in 1967. And we needed her munificence … the show has 150 costumes (at the time of writing) that are made by 33 cutters, sewers and wig artists.

Grange Park Opera is also eternally grateful to another sponsor: Michael Spencer and ICAP, who have stepped up to the plate to support the festival for the eleventh year. Michael has been a constant friend through fair weather and foul. I cannot thank him enough for his guidance and kindness.

The contributions of hundreds of like-minded opera lovers (personal donors, trusts, corporate supporters) provide 30% of festival costs. Grange Park Opera’s achievements are their achievements.

We have come a long way together.

From 1998, through to the 2015 festival, great loyalty and astonishing generosity has been shown

by James & Béatrice Lupton and David & Amanda Leathers. It is greatly appreciated by those within (working with the charity) and those without (the audience).

This year’s festival is the epitome of what opera should be about with the very best artists, directors, orchestra, conductor . . . and you, the very best audience. We love our audience, but all art forms need new faces arriving to the party.

Grange Park Opera has always made a conscious effort to develop our opera goers by widening the demographic through schools, young people’s groups and by targeting people who have never heard an aria before. For instance, the Meteor scheme, started in 2009, is one initiative for people lucky enough to be under 30. There are 920 Meteors registered (free) with Grange Park Opera and they can buy seats for £30. (If you are 30-35 you can be a Super Meteor.)

At the other end of the spectrum – to draw in existing opera lovers – Grange Park has, with advice from Bell Pottinger, formed partnerships with likeminded companies such as Fortnum & Mason, Savills, Laurent-Perrier, and the Financial Times. It has made an enormous difference by connecting with people who want to see what Grange has to offer.

º There have been a few trustee changes. Mark Andrews has been chair of the Endowment Fund and Pimlico Opera since their respective inceptions, (2003 and 1990). Both charities would not be what they are today had it not been for his good chairmanship and kindness.

William Garrett, former chair of Grange Park Opera, continues to keep us on our toes, chairing the Endowment Fund. John Derrick is the new Pimlico Opera chair.

Also in the Arrivals Lounge is new trustee Tony Bugg from Linklaters, and as Company Secretary

of all three charities, Jeremy Farr, Global Head of Energy at Ince, cracking the whip and keeping us in tip-top form.

Further tributes are in order: to Alison Ritchie, production manager since time began (the set, costumes, props and technical aspects of around 50 operas have been masterminded by her) … and now, sadly, she is flying away; to the volunteers (whose duties range from greeting visitors to weeding the gravel in the partererre); to Simon Freakley, miraculous chairman and the Grand Master of diplomacy, and finally to John and Sally Ashburton for their support.

Repertoire has been selected for 2016 and 2017 with artists that include Joseph Calleja, Simon Keenlyside, Maxim Aksenov, Stefano Secco, Patricia Bardon, Claire Rutter, Clive Bayley, Alastair Miles, Bryan Register and Anja Kampe.

There is much to celebrate. Numbers and statistics matter, but not as much as that indefinable moment of happiness when an opera hits all the right notes.

Our House Pimlico Opera 2015

Besides staging the operas, the charity through private donations has transformed what you see around you. Since we arrived in 1998, more than £3m has been spent to make The Grange look glorious. English Heritage, however, has been the guardian of the building for even longer, spending many, many millions and allowing thousands of people to enjoy it.

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The fruit bowl Claude Venard

CLAUDE VENARD (1913–1999) Venard was born into a business family from Burgogne. He took evening classes at the Ecole des Arts Appliqués and supported himself working as a restorer at the Louvre. This turned out to be beneficial as he came into contact with, and exhibited with, a group of young painters enamoured with Abstract painting. Critic Waldemar George captured their spirit “Let’s be young again! Painting is not dead. Its course has not stopped. Forces Nouvelles is born.”

After a while, Claude left Forces Nouvelles to concentrate on his own work. Upon release from the army his life was transformed by recognition

and came the chance to put painting before all else. He remained faithful to a post-Cubist style, and progressively accentuated the chromatism of his pallet which he used in thick form – sometime applied with a pallet knife.

Claude Venard’s career was a happy one. That in itself is a rarity.

“We must be wary of works that seduce at first glance.

By this I don’t mean to say that ugliness is the greatest of virtues – only that a work must inspire because of its own worth, without the intermediary of gracious artifices.”

JOCELYN STEVENS 1932 – 2014 As Chairman of English Heritage, Jocelyn’s bold spirit enabled Grange Park Opera to take its first faltering steps in 1998. Melinda Langlands Pearse, his daughter, captured his very essence in her address at St Paul’s, Knightsbridge in February 2015

D

ad never let the truth get in the way of a good story, a great story – drama, outrage, bloodshed, tears, a coming together, a falling apart, a thrilling finale. Why? What was there not to relish? ‘You see, you see?’ he would say, grinning with a glint, wiping his hand across his mouth, leaning closer still, a widening and a flash of the eyes, ‘And then, guess what happened next?’

His own story started in a way that would colour the tint of his pages for ever – with heartbreak. As a consequence of giving birth to him, his mother died. ‘Pennies will not bring you happiness,’ she wrote in a series of letters to her unborn child, entitled ‘To J, whom I shall never know.’

Dad grew up alone cocooned in his grand Chelsea house, dressed head to toe in silk the richness of clotted cream, and tended by a nanny, housekeeper, chauffeur and priest.

When his father re-married, he was shifted first in body to Perthshire, and later, heart and soul and lifelong passion, to Scotland. Here he met up with a beloved stepsister and stepbrothers Prue, Blair and Ralph, in their scratchy kilts running wild through the heather, swimming in the lochs, fishing in the burns, and shivering the timbers of the baby emperor. Here he was both blissfully part and apart.

Home and yet not home.

Being an outsider, feeling an outsider, his connection with other outsiders, ran like a steel rod down the spine of his years. ‘Oh how I loved that aunt,’ he would say, ‘Everyone in the family hated her you see.

They ganged up terribly. I loved her because no one else did.’

Dad went to Eton. And then Cambridge, from where he was quickly sent down. After a skiing holiday extended itself across the entirety of the following term, he wrote a postcard to his tutor.

‘Wish you were here.’ is all it read.

The rebel in him was rising.

This is a slice of Dad . . . One day he walks into the Savoy and orders himself a beer. But the Savoy doesn’t serve beer as they see it as a commoner’s tipple. So Dad posts himself at the door of the Strand, fistful of 50 pound notes, with which he bribed every passing motorcyclist to whizz through the front door of the hotel, across the marble lobby,

down the stairs, through the terrace restaurant, out on to the Thames embankment and away.

How Dad adored a little light carnage.

‘You can marry anyone,’ my grandfather John Sheffield said to my mother, when she came out as a deb, ‘except that Jocelyn Stevens.’

At my mother’s childhood home, Laverstoke there was a party. Dad introduced himself by leaping from a first floor terrace and crashing through the glass dome of the Orangery to the revelers below.

Their first date happened soon after. Dad, in a shiny Aston Martin convertible, drove through the open doors of Laverstoke along the hall. My mother descended the double staircase, popped over the passenger door, and together they reversed elegantly onto the drive and away.

Ink. Ink & words. Newsprint & photographs. The thundering smash of Hulton printworks. Ink if not running through his veins, was indelibily gathered in the furrows of his fingerprint. Typesetters first, editors, proprietors, newspaper men, this is my father’s line.

Born as he was most surreptiously on Valentine’s day, Dad bought as a 25th birthday present to himself, his first magazine Queen. It was 1957. The magazine went on to become the face and the mirror of 60’s swinging London. It was an extraordinarily risky magazine, roguish, wild and unpredictable.

The first person he hired was Henri CartierBresson, whom Dad believed was the greatest features photographer of all time. Across four issues Queen ran 80 pages of Bresson’s photographs of China. In the next issue Kingsley Amies wrote a piece on the art of Japanese pillow fighting. Quentin Crisp was hired. Snowdon took startling portraits and became Dad’s lifelong friend. Jeffrey Bernard scribbled tips on racing. Patrick Litchfield, Cecil Beaton, and Peter Beard snapped away. Antony Burgess became the radio critic and Dad asked Angus Wilson to take up the post of television columnist. ‘As long as I don’t have to watch television,’ Wilson replied. Comedian Peter Cook modelled fashion, David Bailey zoned in on Jean Shrimpton, Peter Sellars was a cover boy, and Helmut Newton and Norman Parkinson always covered the fashion shows in London, Paris and Milan.

Queen became the cream of the magazine world for young, high-spending readers whose hands it both

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‘Jocelyn Stevens has killed society, and done something ghastly with its corpse’

bit and stroked. In order to garner the attention of the advertising department of the Ford Motor Company, Dad organised five duchesses to road test their newest vehicle.

‘Jocelyn Stevens has killed society,’ the papers ran, ‘and done something ghastly with its corpse.’

Queen is the reason why Nicholas Coleridge, now President of Conde Nast International wrote in his condolence letter, ‘When I grew up, all I wanted to be was David Bowie or Jocelyn Stevens.’

Dad, at this point, was also backing the illegal station Radio Caroline and honing his skills as fancy dress master, nightclub lover, cross-Channel waterskier, dambuster, troublemaker: someone who didn’t give a hoot. He was also attracting attention.

Lord Beaverbrook, owner of one of the world’s biggest newspaper empires of the time, was waiting, patiently, for the firestarter to cool his boots. An offer to be the Managing Editor of the Evening Standard followed. Dad accepted.

The Sunday Times wrote ‘Newspapers’ new bête noire is the archetypal hero of a True Romance fiction; a fun-loving, good-looking, high living, brilliant millionaire with everything money can buy and much that it can’t.’

Dad went on to be the Managing Director of Associated Newspapers, running a series of the world’s largest popular newspapers of the time. But it was at the Standard that Dad’s swashbuckling struck in my favourite story of that period, when he arranged, against all newspaper rules, for the advance printing of an extra 500,000 copies of the paper announcing the successful landing of the first man on the moon the day before the event took place.

Vivien has entered the tale. In the wild whirligig that was their relationship for 30 years there was an astonishing amount of hard work offset by an astonishing amount of hard partying. With Vivien’s children, Bella and George, whom Dad adored as his own, I bore exhausted witness to our parents’ energy and drive. ‘No,’ we would say at the end

of the day, having gone to a gallery, listened to a presentation about nuclear fission, toured a children’s museum, watched the ballet, met all the ballerinas, seen Dad and Vivien both make speeches, once if not twice, and gone for dinner.

‘No,’ we would repeat, ‘We’re too tired to go for a last drink at a new converted firestation in Soho that you’ve heard such good things about. You guys go on.’

But for all the glamour of the man, the smell of him is of pruned roses and the river Test, of Aramis and autumn leaves and tractor engine oil and bonfires, of gunshot and the must of damp heather. Snow and ice cling to the cacophony of his eyebrows. And his eyes are twinkling because he’s just thought up a game that we must play, because so much of it is a game, and he knows, more than anyone else, that the game will always be won if you just give more than you have.

The rush of him was like being borne along on a gorgeous and exciting river. I know of no other English man made up of so much passionate extremity. He loved to kiss men, to wrap himself around unsuspecting professors giving pythonesque smooches. And how he loved to cry. At the end of every performance of Tosca, tears would pour down his cheeks. ‘It’s a disaster’ he would remonstrate, ‘So devastating. But so agonisingly marvellous. Oh, how I do love a good blub!’

When I’d walk into a room, he would always shout, ‘There she is! Don’t you just look fantastically brilliant?’

And he’d hold the back of my neck in his hand and say, ‘You have the most wonderful long neck, my darling, just wonderful,’ and he made me feel for ages – but not any more – that having a long neck was the most important thing in the world.

This is how I knew him. The noise of him. A thunderclap. An electrical storm. Sometimes he’d kiss me so loudly that my ears would ring for days.

After he got poorly and I could feel the threads of him fraying and slowly snapping, I missed so much the noise of him.

But Emma never saw the illness. She always saw the man. Her patience and kindness were manifest.

He loved her with all the tenderness of someone knowingly loving for the last time.

• After he died the fantastical clash of him has come thundering back. I have a snapshot. We are all in the South of France and we are all dancing. Dad has got no shirt on because, of course, dancing and swimming always went hand in hand with him. And I can hear him humming to the music as he always did, but in a bear-like noise, because he is more of a bear-like man. And he is stamping his feet from side to side, singing and twirling and dancing. Then he is off into the night, dancing and singing because, of course, this is an incantation, an ancient human jig, in celebration of the story, of the story that was his, of the story that he told so well. º

Jocelyn Edward Greville Stevens 14 February 1932 – 9 October 2014

When my sister Pandora looked in Dad’s eyes, she felt he knew her, that she was safe, she was understood.

He knew my brother’s huge success was not because of but in spite of him. On leaving Harvard business school Charles was offered two jobs; one at the behemoth that was IBM, one a tiny unheard of company with 17 employees called Microsoft.

‘And I told him to go for IBM’ Dad would say, cackling, ‘And quite rightly he did the exact opposite and look at him now.’

He was my brother Rupert’s greatest champion and playmate. Sitting at the end of a long smart Sunday lunch Rupert would be there with the toys he loved so much in amongst the linen and silver and cut crystal. When Dad saw Rupert’s energy fading, he’d bang the table and start a rousing song, at which my brother and he would join in the chorus screaming, ‘BOOM BOOM’.

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• indicates suppor t at the inception of the festival in 1998 • indicates suppor t of the 2002 Appeal to build the new theatre

THE SCHOOL OF HIPPOCRATES 2015 Mrs Genie Allenby & Daughters Maj Gen & Mrs J Balfour Mrs Isla Baring OAM Anthony Bird Roger Birtles & John Hayward Longina Boczon Jonathan & Karen Bourne-May Mr & Mrs W Buckley Mark & Rosemary Carawan Julian & Jenny Cazalet Mr & Mrs John Colwell Mrs Carolyn Conlan Dr Neville Conway Giles E Currie Lady Curtis Michael & Anthea Del Mar Patrick & Nikki Despard Paul Drury Michael & Allie Eaton Hugh Elwes Esq Stuart Errington CBE DL Rosie Faunch Barry Fearn Esq TD Catherine & Jon Ferrier Mr & Mrs James Fisher Simon & Hilke Fisher Mr & Mrs Harry Fitzalan Howard Mr & Mrs Nicholas Fletcher QC Tim & Rosie Forbes Michael & Anne Forrest Geoffrey & Liz Fuller Lindsey Gardener Mr & Mrs Wyatt Gates • Margaret & David Gawler Jacqueline & Michael Gee Trust • Ms Jillian Ede Gendron David & Janet Grenier Marcus & Susan Grubb Harbour & Jones Ltd Lady Heseltine Mr & Mrs Will Hillary Hansgeorg & Leonor Hofmann •

Christopher & Jo Holdsworth Hunt Mrs Christopher Reeves • Holmes Wood Hilary Reid Evans Judith & Peter Iredale Tineke Dales John & Jan Jarvis Mr Clive Richards OBE DL Simon & Alison Jeffreys David & Hilary Riddle Margi & Mike Jennings Dr Angela Gallop & Caroline & Max Jonas Mr David Russell Mr Hofmann & Ms Kim Mr George Sandars Dr Ingo & Dr Maria Lucia Klöcker Tom & Phillis Sharpe • Roger & Liz Kramers Daniela F Sieff Diana & Terence Kyle Nigel Silby Robert Linn Ottley Graeme & Sue Sloan June, Dyrol & Becky Lumbard Mrs Marveen Smith John MacGowan Andrew & Jill Soundy Wendy & Michael Max • • Lorraine Spencer Mrs Alison Mayne Mr & Mrs C Spooner Kathryn & Sarah McLeland John Stebbing William Middleton-Smith David & Deborah Stileman • Patrick Mitford-Slade • Sir Nigel & Lady Teare Dr Vivienne Monk Mr & Mrs Wiliam Tice Sue & Peter Morgan Mr & Mrs Hugh Tidbury Ian & Jane Morrison Nick & Sarah Treble Mr Colin Murray Mr & Mrs John Tremlett Piotr & Elizabeth Nahajski Kelsey & Rosie van Musschenbroek Susanne & Jeffrey Nedas Mrs P Wake Paul Nicholls Chris & Miranda Ward Nicholson Family Johanna Waterous CBE Guy & Sarah Norrie Kevin & Sonia Watson Mr & Mrs Peter Nutting Edward & Mandy Weston Barry & Sue O’Brien • Nigel Williams Paul Over Nicholas & Penny Wilson Michael & Amanda Parker Jonathan & Sue Wood Sir Michael & Lady Parker Mr & Mrs Richard J Woolnough Liz & Nigel Peace Peter Wrangham Hugh & Claire Peppiatt • and Mrs Sally Posgate nine anonymous donors Veronica Powell • Hugh & Caroline Priestley The £86,110 contributed by Jill & Mike Pullan the School of Hippocrates paid Shirley & Grant Radcliffe for the costumes & props of Dr Martin Read & Eugene Onegin Dr Marian Gilbart Read

Still-Life with Compote Dish (1848) Claude Venard (1913–1999)

THE FOUNDERS 1998 Mr & Mrs James Airy Mr Peter Arengo-Jones OBE Richard & Delia Baker Mr & Mrs Nicholas Baring Dori Bateson Mr Alan Bell Keith Benham Mrs Gerald Bland Guy Boney & Bente Dawkins P & A Braunwalder Mrs David Smith Mr Robin Buchanan David Buchler Mrs James Butler Mr & Mrs Michael Campbell Mrs Justin Clark Mary Cooke Mr & Mrs Brian Cornish Mr David Crowe Mr Guy Boney & Mrs Bente Dawkins

Mr & Mrs Nicholas de Zoete Mr Tony Doggart Robyn Durie Walton & Jane Eddlestone Mr & Mrs Roger Fidgen Archie & Henrietta Fraser Mr Andrew Frost Lt Col D R Gilbert Nicholas R Gold Mr & Mrs J C Green Mr Verne Grinstead Philip & Dilly Hallett John & Janet Hammond Marie & Alan Harrison Angela & David Harvey Dr & Mrs James F Hill Mrs Olivia Hoare Mr & Mrs P R J Holland J P Hungerford Robin & Pat Ilbert

WHO ARE NOT LISTED ELSEWHERE

Sir Barry & Lady Jackson Miriam James Mrs Julian Jeffs Miss Charlotte Moore Dr Walia Kani Maureen & Jim Kelly Mrs R C Kelton Peter Kerfack & Russell Townend Gerald Levin Mr & Mrs Simon Lofthouse QC The Hon Dwight Makins Mr John Marden Charles & Sue Marriott Mr & Mrs A S McWhirter Mr & Mrs James Meade Julia Medcalf Greg & Gail Melgaard Leni Lady Miller Lord Montagu of Beaulieu Mr Michael J Morley

Lord Neill of Bladen QC Sir Charles & Lady Nicholson The Viscount &

Viscountess Norwich Laurence O’Mara Major General & Mrs Simon Pack Ron & Lyn Peet Mrs Deidre Pegg David & Jill Potter Mr & Mrs Richard Priestley Mrs Joan L Prior Mrs Barbara Rait Mr Stephen Frost Mr Myrddin Rees MS FRCS David & Clare Reid Scott John A Rickards Karina Robinson James & Mary Sabben-Clare Sir Timothy Sainsbury Mr & Mrs Charles Scott

The Countess of Selborne Mr Philip Snuggs Mr & Mrs Jeremy Soames Hon Mrs Tufnell Mr & Mrs Max Ulfane Mr & Mrs David Vaughan Mr & Mrs Peter Vey Caroline Vroom Mr & Mrs Hady Wakefield Mr & Mrs Tim Watkins Michael Whalley &

Karen Goldie-Morrison Andrew & Emma Wilson Dr Nicholas Wright Tim Wright Charles Young Mrs Paul Zisman and 4 anonymous donors

19

• indicates suppor t at the inception of the festival in 1998 • indicates suppor t of the 2002 Appeal to build the new theatre

THE SCHOOL OF ARCHIMEDES 2015 Philippa Abell Heather Acton & Peter Williams Jackie & John Alexander • Lady Armstrong & Polly McCowen Mr John Arney Dr Richard Ashton Priscilla & Mark Austen Nick & Audrey Backhouse Richard & Jean Baldwin Mr T G & Dr L C Barker Oliver & Cara Barnes Ray Barrell & Ursula Van Almsick Paul & Janet Batchelor Anne Beckwith-Smith • Dr Carol Bell Richard & Rosamund Bernays Geoffrey & Karol Bernstein Admirer of Charles Wallach Mr & Mrs David Blackburn Halldora Blair Elisabeth & Bob Boas Mr & Mrs Anthony Bodie Johannes Boecker Mrs Margaret Bolam Lisa Bolgar Smith • Marcus & Amanda Bolton John & Lillie Boumphrey Graham & Julia Bourne • Neville & Rowena Bowen Julian & Maria Bower The Hon Robert Boyle & Mrs Boyle Robin & Jill Broadley Mr & Mrs R Bronks Dorothy & John Brook Antony & Maureen Brooking Hugh & Sue Brown Nicholas Browne & Frederika Adam Mr Patrick Buckley Peter Bulfield Mr & Mrs D M Bullough Maryanne & Justin Burkill Burton Family Richard Butler Adams David & Justine Campbell Ann & Quentin Campbell Russ & Linda Carr Peter & Irene Casey Max & Karina Casini Graham Cawsey & Virginia Korda Peter & Jane Cazalet • • Mr & Mrs J Chaffer Mr & Mrs Luke Chappell

Rex & Sarah Chester • The Chiappini Family Mr & Mrs Shane Chichester Peter Chittick & Carolyn Fairbairn Julia Chute Mr & Mrs Peter Clarke Anne Howells-Clarke Diana Clarkson Michael & Angela Clayton Sir Anthony & Lady Cleaver Roy & Jackie Colbran Liz & Mike Cooper-Mitchell • Henrietta Corbett Corin & Richard Cotton Johnny & Liz Cowper-Coles Peter Crisp & Jeremy Crouch Mr Carl Cullingford Clive & Rebecca Cunningham John & Susan Curtis Robin A Dammers Peter & Meg Davidson • Sir Crispin Davis Diana & Derek Davis Anne & Jonathan Dawson Sir Jeremy & Lady de Halpert Douglas & Pru de Lavison Sir John & Lady de Trafford Krystyna Deuss • Mrs Diana Doherty Mrs Christine Douse Jenny & Christopher Duffett Mark & Nicola Dumas Nick & Lesley Dumbreck Mr & Mrs Kenneth Eckett Jennifer Edwards Yvonne & Malcolm Edwards • Graham & Jenny Elliott Mr & Mrs Peter Ellis Alastair & Robina Farley • Jeremy & Rosemary Farr Martin & Maureen Farr Sian Fisher Michael Fitzgerald Mr & Mrs John Foster Lindsay & Robin Fox • Mr & Mrs David Gamble Susie Gaunt Mrs Thyrza Gaynor Charlie & Rosey Geffen Peter Gerrard Michael & Diane Gibbons David & Anne Giles

Lynne Gillon Mr & Mrs Bruce Ginsberg Dr Richard & Sally Godwin-Austen Paul & Lydia Goodson John & Cecilia Gordon Mr & Mrs Paul Goswell Mrs Jill Goulston Mr & Mrs Richard Grant Mr Robin & The Hon Mrs Greenwood Ian & Patricia Grice Reade & Elizabeth Griffith Mr & Mrs Alistair Groom Max & Catherine Hadfield Mr Ernst-Uwe Hanneck Tim & Geli Harris Robert & Judith Hart Emma Haynes Maureen & Peter Hazell Paul & Kay Henderson Jonathan & Veronica Henty Jane Hewett Cooney Michael & Sarah Hewett Peter & Valerie Hewett Michael & Genevieve Higgin Diana & Michael Hobson Lady Holdsworth Catherine Holland H R Holland Peter & Marianne Hooley David & Mal Hope-Mason Mr & Mrs GET Hunt Mrs S Hunter Cohen Charles & Sarah Irby • Dr P Kay & Ms A Jackson Kay Mr Andy Jackson Catherine Jago Morag & Peter James Martin & Sandra Jay • Michael Jodrell Mr & Mrs Edward Jones Judi Jones Julian G Jones Mr Per Jonsson Pierre & Caroline Jungels Vincent & Amanda Keaveny • Mr & Mrs G R Kellett Mrs Judith Kelley J.H.R. Kellock Andrew Kennedy & Lindsay Cornish George Kingston Kevin Kissane

Mrs Gabrielle Knights Stephen & Miriam Kramer Steve Lamey Mrs J Langford Mr & Mrs Bill Lawes James & Jan Lawrie Mr & Mrs Andrew Lax Mr John Lebus Dr Nicky Lee Professor Natalie Lee Hilary & James Leek Mr & Mrs Leprince Jungbluth Ruth Levy Sonya Leydecker & Steven Larcombe Mrs Roger Liddiard John & Rosemary Littlewood Mrs Lucy Llewelyn Anne Longden Brigadier & Mrs Desmond Longfield Mr Dieter Losse Fiona Lunch Robin & Jean Mackenzie Ian & Jane Macnabb Mr & Mrs J J Macnamara Sir Bruce & Lady MacPhail Bill & Sue Main Mr & Mrs Harry Matovu Brian & Penelope Matthews Dr T L McClintock Doug & Gill McGregor Caroline & Michael McLaren QC Dr Carolyn Greenwood & John McVittie Nigel & Maria Melville Richard & Patricia Millett Gillian Milton Mr & Mrs J Moreton Neil & Jane Mortensen David & Angela Moss Mr & Mrs J Muncey Derek Netherton & Elizabeth Maitreyi Chris & Annie Newell Mr Mike Newell Lady (Bridget) Nixon Bruce & Pamela Noble Nina Princess Odescalchi Dr Cecily O’Neill Janet & Michael Orr • Lavinia & Nick Owen Adrienne Page Raj & Penny Parker

Deborah & Clive Parritt Nick Pearson Mrs C E Peddie Mr & Mrs Erik Penser Mr & Mrs Robin Petherick Jonathan & Gillian Pickering Mr & Mrs J Pinna-Griffith Matthew Pintus & Joanna Ward David & Christina Pitman Mr & Mrs Anthony Pitt-Rivers John & Liz Platt Mr & Mrs Alex Popplewell Jane Poulter Tony & Etta Pullinger Gill & Clive Purkiss Lady Purves Nigel & Elizabeth Reavley Neil & Julie Record Mike & Jessamy Reynolds John Rhodes Mr & Mrs James Roberts R A Robinson Lionel & Sue Rosenblatt Peter Rosenthal David Rosier & Sarah Stanley Julian & Catherine Roskill Mr & Mrs E J M Ross Zsalya Dr Alya Samokhvalova Jonathan & Sarah Scheele Peter & Carolyn Scoble Jonathan & Elizabeth Selzer Jean & Malcolm Seymour John & Tita Shakeshaft Mr Bernard Sharp Mrs Sarah Sharpley Sir David & Lady Sieff Caroline & Mark Silver • Jean-Philippe Snelling Rick & Carol Sopher Mr Julian Stanford • Marcus & Sarah Stanton Nigel & Johanna Stapleton Rosemary Steen Brian Stevens Jeremy & Phyllida Stoke Mr John Strachan Julian & Maria Sturdy-Morton Mr & Mrs Tom Sweet-Escott Sir Richard Swinburn Caroline & Phillip Sykes Margaret Tesolin

Jane & Jeffrey Theaker Mr & Mrs P M Thomas Mrs Rebecca Thompson Max & Valerie Thum Rod & Jackie Thurman James & Elaine Tickell Prof & Mrs G M Tonge • Dr Michael Toseland Sir Tom & Lady Troubridge Mrs Harriet Tupper Dr & Mrs James Turtle Mr & Mrs M Urmston Katherine Van Hagen Lesley de Blocq van Kuffeler Mr & Mrs Niko Vidovich X N C Villers Nick Viner & Victoria Boyarsky Piers & Sarah von Simson Richard & Judy Wake Miss Siobhan Walker Kenneth Watters J Anthony Wechsler Christian Wells Mr & Mrs Graham West • Oliver & Felicity Wethered • Jane & Ian White Lyndon & Marnie Wild Isobel Williams Mark & Jane Williams • Mr & Mrs Patrick J D’A Willis Dr Gunther & Helga Witamwas Mr WS Witts Mr & Mrs Leslie R Wood Ginny & Alastair Woodrow David & Vivienne Woolf Jerry & Clare Wright Richard Youell Dr Ron Zimmern and twenty anonymous donors

The £114,830 contributed by the School of Archimedes paid for the set, costumes & props of Samson et Dalila

21

• indicates suppor t at the inception of the festival in 1998 • indicates suppor t of the 2002 Appeal to build the new theatre

THE SCHOOL OF PLATO 2015 Dr Sally Hanson Julian & Eileen Ellis Mr H B Carter Dr Stewart Abbott Mr & Mrs Richard Hardman Austin & Ragna Erwin • N H Carter • Miss Rula Al-Adasani Caroline Harper Andrew & Jacqueline Cartwright Alun & Bridget Evans • • Mrs Rosemary Alexander Cynthia Harrap Trust Michael & Wendy Evans Mrs Michael Cash Wendy Allen & family Wendell & Andrea Harris John & Hilary Everett Dr J D H Chadwick Mrs David Anderson Dr Peter Harrison Steven F G Fachada Guy Chapman John Andrews Mr & Mrs Julian Harvey Alys & Graham Ferguson Phillip Arnold & Philip Baldwin Dr I H Chisholm Dr Fred Haslam Nicholas Ferguson Mrs Minnie Churchill Katherine Ashton Young & Maureen & Roy Hatch The Fischer Fund Jonathan & Jane Clarke Brian D Young Helen & Kevin Hayes Andrew & Lucinda Fleming Mr & Mrs Henry Clay M J Askham Jamie & Victoria Heath Jonathan & Julia Flory Mrs Susie Clegg Chris & Claire Aston Maggie Heath J A Floyd Charitable Trust Mrs Laurence Colchester Dr H Bach Alan & Ann Herring Mr Michael G Foster Mr Victor Coles Roger & Lisa Backhouse John & Catherine Hickman Sooying Foster Prof Richard Collin Neha & Robert Bailhache Patrick & Sue Higham Mrs Andrea Frears Dr & Mrs Peter Collins Mr & Dr M. Bakowski Mr & Mrs R H T Hingston James & Diana Freeland Anthony Cooke Annette Ball Dr Hinton & Dr Bellenger Mrs Mary Furness Henrietta Cooke Elizabeth Ball Mr & Mrs Peter Hobbs • Mrs Stefanja Gardener Matthew & Bianca Cosans Mrs Susan Band Christina & Bamber Gascoigne Mr & Mrs I F Hodgson Robert & Morella Cottam • Kamini Banga Daniel & Diana Hodson E S Gauntlett Anthony Cove Mrs Caroline Barber Mr R E Hofer Robert & Ginna Gayner Alan & Heather Craft Mr Robin Barton Jacqueline & Jonathan Gestetner Robin Holmes Francesca & Graham Craig Val & Christopher Bateman Billy & Heather Howard Mr Alan Gibbins Mr & Mrs Keith Craig Stanley Bates Mr Stephen J Howis Brett & Caroline Gill Melissa Crawshay-Williams Tim & Margaret Battcock Mr & Mrs Richard Howorth Mrs Susan Glasspool DL Mark & Jayne Croghan Liz & Alan Beattie Bart Huby Cllr Jonathan & Tom Cross Brown Jennifer Bell MBE Iain & Claudia Hughes Mrs Sharon Glen Mr & Mrs C Crouch Peter Bell Michael & Virginia Hughes Michael & Caroline Godbee David & Peta Crowther Adrian Berrill-Cox Robert Hugill & David Hughes David Gollins Edward Cumming-Bruce Richard L Berry Siu Fun Hui Nigel Goodenough A D Cummins Richard & Jennie Blackburn Mr & Mrs Nick Humble Colin & Letts Goodwin Rosemarie Cundy Wendy & Carey Blake David & Sue Humphrey Graham & Louise Cuninghame Lady Graham Mr & Mrs Boardman Mrs Juliet Huntley Antoni & Caroline Daszewski Peter Granger Annabel & Alverne Bolitho Mr & Mrs B J Hurst-Bannister Mrs S M Grant Dr & Mrs Christopher David & Margaret Bonsall • Christopher & Amanda Graves Mrs Elizabeth Hyde Mrs Elizabeth Braakenburg Dyce Davenport-Jones Howard & Anne Hyman Mr Peter Gray Mr & Mrs J Davidson Viscount & Peter & Katharine Ingram Mr Robert B Gray • Michael R Davis Viscountess Bridgeman Tim & Christine Ingram Mr & Mrs Anthony Green Mr David & Mrs Jenny Bridges A R G de Groen Dr Michael G. Jacobides & Canon John Green Dr & Mrs Douglas Bridgewater Michael de Navarro QC Beth McGregor Jacobides Barbara & David Greggains The Bridgman/Borkowski Family B Dean Mrs Allan James Mr & Mrs B J Dennis-Browne John & Ann Grieves Charles & Patricia Brims Mr & Mrs Richard Griffith-Jones Mr & Mrs Charles Jamieson Frank & Bobbie Dewar John & Amanda Britton Mark Jarrad Kingsley Griffiths RIBA Peter & Joan Dixon Penny & Robin Broadhurst Mr & Mrs S Bobasch Tom & Sarah Grillo Mr & Mrs Matthew Dobbs Adam & Sarah Broke Mr & Mrs Nigel Johnson-Hill Pamela Gross Mr David Dodd Therese Brook Scot & Sally Johnston Dr Barbara Domayne-Hayman Mr & Mrs Edmund Grower Stuart & Maggie Brooks Barry & Brenda Jones Finn Guinness George Brown & Alison Calver Philippa Drew Douglas Jones Richard & Judy Haes Mr & Mrs R H Drury George Browning Prof Heather Joshi OBE Dr A Haigh & Prof C Eden Cathy Dumelow Patricia & David Buck Ali & Jamie Justham Mr & Mrs Tichy Jamie Dundas Mark Burch • Michael Kallenbach & The Hon Charlotte & Saskia Dunlop Mr & Mrs Ken Burrage Robert Taylor Martin Taylor Mrs Dickie Dutton Mr & Mrs Martin Burton Dr Catherine Katzka & Allyson Hall Pauline Eaton Myrna Bustani Dr Swen Hölder Jane & Rodney Hall Amanda Edgar Peter Byrne Mr & Mrs Philipp & Jane Hallauer Robin & Annabel Kealy Samuel Edge Dr Charlotte Cannon Dinah Kennedy Nigel & Jane Halsey David Edwards Mr Andrew Carruthers

Michael & Julia Kerby Oliver & Sally Kinsey Leonard Klahr Mr & Mrs N Korban Norbert & Claudia Steinke Georgina Krone Mr & Mrs A G Lambert Rear Admiral & Mrs John Lang Mrs S Larsen-Sorterup David & Madi Laurence Sarah Lawton Mrs Charles Lea John Learmonth • Mrs Susan Lee Jan Leigh & Jan Rynkiewicz Mr & Mrs David Lentaigne Mr & Mrs Bartlett Eric & Pauline Leyns Mrs M Lightfoot Diana Lines Mr & Mrs H Lloyd Nicholas & Kiereen Lock Mrs Linda Lomri Mrs Simon Loup Bertrand & Sarah Louveaux Alan & Virginia Lovell Donald Campbell Bruce & Maggie Macfarlane Derek Mackay Mrs Tom Mackean Peter & Pamela Macklin Fiona MacLeod John & Vanessa MacMahon Mrs Victoria Macpherson David & Mary Male David Mariano Ben Marnham Charles & Sue Marshall Teresa Mathers Christopher & Clare McCann Sally James & Sean McConville Hilary McDermott Eliza Pickering Antony & Alison Milford Dr & Mrs Patrick Mill Peter Miller & Hilary Kingsley Mr & Mrs Hallam Mills Roger & Sylvia Mills Edward & Diana Mocatta Mr & Mrs P W Mommersteeg Dr & Mrs Jonathan Moore • David & Alison Moore-Gwyn Nia Morgan Dr Chris Morley Mr & Mrs J Moxon Brian & Claudine Muirhead

William Nash Anthony & Jenny Newhouse Jeremy & Elizabeth Nicholson John Nicoll George Nissen Hon Michael & Mrs Nolan John & Dianne Norton • Lt Col & Mrs Dick Norton Sir Charles & Lady Nunneley The Hon Mr & Mrs Michael O’Brien Roy & Carole Oldham Mr Alan Padbury John A Paine Mrs Christine Palmer Mr Alan Parker CBE Jeremy & Mary-Vere Parr Mr & Mrs Paul Pattinson Michael Pearl John & Jacqui Pearson Lucy Pease Penny & Giuseppe Pecorelli Mr. & Mrs J Perrée Nicholas & Caroline Perry Richard & Gail Pertwee R B Petre Jeremy Pett Sally & Anthony Pfiffner Mr & Mrs Charles Pike Jan Planer Mr Michael Possener Dr D K Potter Dr J E Powell Graham & Virginia Prain Judith Prickett & Raymond Sutton Mrs D E Priestley David & Judith Pritchard Sally & Peter Procopis Mr & Mrs Stephen Proctor Penny Proudlock Robin Purchas Aviva & Gerald Raingold Mala & Michael Rappolt Jane & Graham Reddish Philip & Caroline Remnant Ali Smith & David Rendell Anthony Richards Maj Gen Nigel Richards Mrs Caroline Rimell Judith Roberts Miles & Vivian Roberts Miss Anne Robertson James & Catharine Robertson Kristina Rogge Ruth & Daniel Rosenfelder

Catharine & David Ross Richard Ross Kate & Tom Rossiter Mr Alan Roxburgh Joan & Lewis Rudd Prof & Mrs D Russell-Jones Alicia & Ray Salter Ian & Wendy Sampson Mr Andrew Sanders Simon & Abigail Sargent John Schofield Gwenllian Scott Rupert Sebag-Montefiore Prof Lorna Secker-Walker Nicholas Segal Mr & Mrs Matt Sharman R Y C Sharp Rob & Felicity Shepherd David Sheraton & Kate Stabb Professor David & Mrs Gillian Silverman Mr Andrew Simon Jeremy Simons Sir Jock Slater Richard & Amanda Slowe Russell & Julia Smart Robin & Phyllida Smeeton Christopher Smith Dr S L Smith Lady Mary Snyder Gregory Spence David & Unni Spiller Peter William Stansfield Dr John Stephens Tim & Marion Stevenson Christopher & Tineke Stewart Geoff & Juliet Stranks Ian & Jenny Streat • Mrs Judith Strong Toby & Fiona Stubbs John R Sturgis Sir John & Lady Stuttard • Liliane Sutton Mr & Mrs Richard Sykes • Helen Tarsh Dick & Janice Taverne Dr Helena Taylor Mrs Patricia Taylor Simon & Alison Taylor Mr & Mrs T J Taylor Mrs Vivienne Taylor Richard & Lynne Taylor-Gooby Dr Davina A Tenters Major David Thomas MBE A J & Mrs V E Thompson • Mrs A J Thorman

Tom & Di Threlfall Mr Rupert Tickner Mr & Mrs George Tindley CT Rachel & David Townsend Brian & Audrey Trafford Tessa & Clive Tulloch Mr Douglas Umbers John Uzielli Elizabeth van Ammel L C Varnavides Mr Tony Walker Lady Walker Mrs Jane Wallace George & Pat Wallace Heather & Andrew Wallis Dr Sarah Wallis Mr & Mrs AJ Ward Peter Ward Raye & Simon Ward Anne & Peter Ware Guy Warrington Philip & Annie Watson Katherine Watts Niels Weise Stephen West & David Tarry Richard & Susan Westcott Mr Roger Westcott Joy M Weston G Westwell Donald & Audrey White Tony & Fiona White Mr & Mrs Howard Wilkinson Penelope Williams Prof Roger Williams CBE & Mrs Roger Williams Abu Khamis • Richard Worthington John Wosner John & Linde Wotton His Hon Judge Peter Wulwik Mrs L Wynne-Griffith Mrs N Zarach and 47 anonymous donors

The £92,780 contributed by the School of Plato paid for the set of La Bohème

23

PIMLICO OPERA

IN PRISON & PRIMARY SCHOOLS

PIMLICO OPERA IN PRISON

& IN PRIMARY SCHOOLS

Pimlico Opera aims to use music and drama to advance personal development, particularly with younger people and those who are less fortunate or have troubled lives. Artistic excellence is an essential part of achieving this aim.

IN PRISON 2015

I

t is 27 years since Pimlico Opera went to jail. In March the collaboration with HMP Isis, Woolwich, was the first with young offenders. The cast of Our House, the Madness Muscial, was predominantly prisoners, with a few professional actors and the great man himself – Suggs – who wrote many of the songs. He remarked “It’s been interesting watching the dynamic of the kids. They’re all explosive characters, it works like a nuclear deterrent. They all know what they’re capable of and they’re keeping a lid on it. I respect them for that, and for the feeling of loyalty toward one another. I’ve seen them grow definitely.

More patience, in listening; being treated like professionals, they’ve become professional; remarkable really in only five weeks. I’m amazed and proud”.

SCHOOL

Pimlico Opera has taken more than 50,000 public into prison, 1,000+ prisoners have participated, whilst 9,000 prisoners have seen a show.

CLASS

NAME

PRIMARY ROBINS

PRIMARY ROBINS AUTUMN 2013

The project is startling in its simplicity and startling in its effectiveness and it is probably something that happened in every primary school 40 years ago: the class sitting round the piano . . . learning traditional songs.

Each one of them has a weekly half hour singing class.

From the outset there has been an overwhelmingly positive response.

The project was nominated as a finalist for the Music Teacher Excellence Award 2014.

SC H OO L

CLASS

NAME

PRIMARY ROBINS AUTUMN 2014

Project leader Annabel Larard is expanding the project further and soon there will be 1,800 Robins singing.

At the end of last term, the Robins at Redbridge school gave a concert for parents on a day when Ofsted happened to visit. The inspectors gave the Robins a mention in their report. ‘Pupils from all backgrounds are offered very rich educational experiences designed to raise their aspirations and broaden their minds. For example, the inspectors saw pupils engage deeply in an operatic performance of very high quality.’

The Robins at Winnall Primary School sang at Winchester Cathedral in an event to mark the centenary of World War I. Their renditions of ‘Keep the Home Fires Burning’, ‘Pack Up Your Troubles’ and ‘Tipperary’ raised the roof.

June 5th is BBC Music Day and 90 Primary Robins, team up with the BBC Concert Orchestra and Bryn Terfel at The Grange in a live broadcast on BBC Radio 3.

SC H OO L

CLASS

NAME

PRIMARY ROBINS SPRING 2015

PIMLICO OPERA

IN PRIMARY SCHOOLS

S C H OO L

Primary Robins par ticipate at no cost to either the schools or the parents. The company receives no public funding and was founded in 1987 by Wasfi Kani.

CL ASS

NA M E

PRIMARY ROBINS SUMMER 2015

Each term the Robins sing from a specially-prepared Song Book which includes musical notation.

(It is not intended to teach the children to read music, but some see the pattern of how they sing and what the dots do.)

In September 2013 Pimlico Opera pioneered a new project with disadvantaged children at schools within disadvantaged communities.

In this academic year there have been 1,200 children participating in Hampshire, Kent and Durham.

The Monument Trust

The Walter Guinness Charitable Trust

Underwood Trust

The G C Gibson Charitable Trust

Capital Group

Matthews Wrightson Charity Trust

The Ingram Trust

Victoria & John Salkeld

The Bernard Sunley Charitable Foundation

Jeremy & Rosemary Farr

Anonymous

Tom & Sarah Floyd

Derrill Allatt Foundation

J & D Goldie-Scot

The J C Green Charitable Settlement

Mr & Mrs Will Hillary

Mr & Mrs Rupert Hambro

Martin & Jane Houston

The Batchworth Trust

Simon & Virginia Robertson

The Bromley Trust

Victoria & John Salkeld

The Coral Samuel Charitble Trust

Brewster Maude Charitable Trust

The Hilden Charitable Fund

The Eric & Margaret Kinder Charitable Trust

The John Coates Charitable Trust

The Hiscox Foundation

The Boltini Trust

Donald & Rachael Stearns

The BGS Cayzer Charitable Trust

The Mageni Trust

The Geoff & Fiona Squire Foundation

The Melville Charitable Trust

Charles Hayward Foundation

Jonathan & Karen Bourne-May

The City & Metropolitan Welfare Charity

The Cleary Foundation

The County Durham Community Foundation

The Friends of Music in Winchester

The Mackintosh Foundation

The Glebe Charitable Trust

Ian & Clare Maurice

The Holmes Family

David & Amanda Leathers

The Edenbeg Charitable Trust

The Foxley Trust Francis & Nathalie Phillimore The Tansy Trust Simon & Meg Freakley The Dyers’ Company

and 155 individuals who signed up as Jailbirds, Governors & Judges

The Fishmongers’ Company The Saintbury Trust The Swan Mountain Trust Anonymous The D’Oyly Carte Charitable Trust The Ernest Cook Trust

25

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All rights reserved. Entities within the ICAP group are registered as applicable.

27

P U CC I N I

L A BOHÈM

S PON SORED BY ICAP plc their eleventh year of support

CONDUCTOR ∙ STEPHEN BARLOW ≈ Mr & Mrs Peter Nutting DIRECTOR ∙ STEPHEN MEDCALF ≈ Christopher & Anne Saul • DESIGNER ∙ JAMIE VARTAN MOVEMENT ∙ LYNNE HOCKNEY LIGHTING DESIGN ∙ PAUL KEOGAN

BOURNEMOUTH SYMPHONY ORCHESTR A

E

Libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, based on Scènes de la vie de bohème by Henri Murger First performance 1 February 1896 at the Teatro Regio, Turin Performances at The Grange on June 6, 11, 14, 19, 27, July 11, 17

RODOLFO ∙ GIANLUCA TERRANOVA ≈ François Freyeisen & Shunichi Kubo a great poet

Mimì’s Pink Bonnet

MARCELLO ∙ BRETT POLEGATO ≈ Roger & Kate Holmes •

≈ Raymonde Jay •

SCHAUNARD ∙ QUIRIJN DE LANG ≈ Mr & Mrs Ernst Piech

≈ Niall & Ingrid Fitzgerald

Mi Chiamano Mimì

a great musician

COLLINE ∙ NICHOLAS CRAWLEY ≈ Mr & Mrs Richard Morse • a philosopher

Che Gelida Manina

≈ George & Caroline Goulding • •

BENOIT ∙ NICHOLAS FOLWELL ≈ Diane & Christopher Sheridan • the bohemians' landlord

MIMI ∙ SUSANA GASPAR ≈ Anthony & Carolyn Townsend • • ≈ indicates generous suppor t

• indicates suppor t at the festival’s inception in 1998 • indicates suppor t of the 2002 Appeal

a great painter

a seamstress

ALCINDORO ∙ NICHOLAS FOLWELL ≈ Diane & Christopher Sheridan • a rich old man

O Soave Fanciulla

≈ Jane & Paul Chase-Gardener • Musetta’s Aria

≈ An Anonymous Supporter Colline’s Overcoat

≈ Sir Roger & Lady Gifford

MUSETTA ∙ KELEBOGILE BESONG ≈ her arms Tessa & John Manser • ; her legs, Christopher Swan PARPIGNOL ∙ ROBERTO ABATE ≈ Dr Jonathan Holliday & Dr Gwen Lewis • • a toyseller

CUSTOMS SERGEANT ∙ ROBERT GARLAND CUSTOMS OFFICIAL ∙ ANDREW BROWN

29

L A BOHÈME Rodolfo lives an impoverished life with his artist friends.

He meets and falls in love with consumptive Mimì and they begin a love affair. His friend Marcello is reunited with Musetta who had left him for an elderly gentleman.

Rodolfo and Mimì part; she finds a rich protector. The artists have returned to their old life when Musetta brings Mimì, on the point of death, to their attic. Mimì and Rodolfo are reconciled before Mimì dies.

Act 1 An attic; Christmas Eve Young bohemians, the near-destitute painter Marcello and poet Rodolfo try to keep warm by feeding the stove with pages from Rodolfo’s latest drama. Colline, a philosopher, and Schaunard, a musician, join them, bringing food, fuel and funds. The landlord, Benoit, comes to collect the rent. He is plied with wine and thrown out. The friends leave for the Café Momus, but Rodolfo stays back to finish an article he’s writing. There is a knock; the visitor is a neighbour, Mimì, whose candle has blown out. Rodolfo relights it. Mimì is about to go but realises she has lost her key. They search for it and their hands meet. They tell one another about their lives.

Rodolfo’s friends shout from outside, urging him to join them.

Mimì and Rodolfo embrace and leave for the café.

CHILDREN Archie Cliff Hermione Mitchell

Act 2 The Café Momus

Olivia Morgan-Finn

Rodolfo introduces Mimì to his friends. Marcello’s former sweetheart, Musetta, makes a noisy entrance on the arm of the elderly but wealthy Alcindoro. Trying to gain Marcello’s attention, she sings a flamboyant song and sends Alcindoro on an errand. She falls into Marcello’s arms and tells the waiter to charge everything to Alcindoro. Soldiers march by the café, and the bohemians join in the high spirits of Christmas Eve.

Tom Mason

DINNER INTERVAL

Oliver Winter Joseph Burdge Honor Fisher Amelia Lott Felix Synnott Isla Knatchbull Edward Umbers Lucy Walker

Paris, 1865 Charles Marville (1813–1879) Paris, 1925 Eugène Atget (1857–1927)

Act 3 The outskirts of Paris A customs official admits women to the city.

Mimì arrives, searching for the place where Marcello and Musetta now live. She tells the painter of her distress over Rodolfo’s incessant jealousy. She says she believes it is best that they part. When Rodolfo appears, Mimì hides nearby, though Marcello thinks she has gone. Rodolfo, too, confides in Marcello: Mimì is fickle and he wants to separate. Pressed for the real reason, he breaks down, saying that her coughing can only grow worse in the poverty they share; he’s desperately afraid she will die from her illness.

Overcome with tears, Mimì stumbles forward to bid her lover farewell. Musetta and Marcello quarrel, hurling insults at each other. Mimì and Rodolfo recall past happinesses and decide to remain together until spring.

Act 4 The attic; some time later Rodolfo and Marcello lament their loneliness.

Colline and Schaunard bring a meagre meal and to lighten the mood the four dance.

Paris, 1911 Alfred Stieglitz (1864–1946)

Musetta bursts in to tell them that Mimì is outside, too weak to come upstairs. Rodolfo carries her in. In order to buy her medicine Musetta will sell her earrings and Colline his overcoat.

Left alone, Mimì and Rodolfo recall their first meeting and their happy days, but she is seized with violent coughing. The others return; Mimì drifts into unconsciousness and death.

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BOHEMIA: A STATE OF MIND? Since the early-1800s, the bohemian has been the hero of the stories the West has wanted to hear about its artists: stories of genius, glamour and doom. Elizabeth Wilson quests the shifting meanings of a bohemian lifestyle.

H

enry Murger, who in the mid-1800s wrote the stories and the play on which Puccini was to base his opera, insisted that artistic Bohemia could exist nowhere but in Paris. By the time La Bohème had its first performance, there were bohemian cafés and enclaves in many European cities and in New York and San Francisco as well. Bohemia, as one German writer said, was less a geographical location than a state of mind. Indeed, by the early years of the 20th century there existed in Munich a bohemian subculture even more radical than Parisian, while Arthur Ransome was of the view that London’s Bohemia was more real and genuine than that of Paris, which, he felt, had become a tourist’s playground rather than a genuine artistic scene.

Yet there was always something about Paris which attracted artists and writers, and there were certainly good reasons why it gave birth to the first true Bohemia. Paris, the German critic Walter Benjamin wrote, was the ‘capital of the 19th century’. It was not only a political capital, it was an industrial and artistic capital, and the site of a huge and ancient university. Everything became drawn to it, and it became the overheated source of all social, intellectual and artistic expression. The Goncourt brothers wrote in their diary: We talked about the absence of intellectual life in the French provinces, compared with all the active literary societies in the English counties and second or third-class German towns; about the way Paris absorbed everything, attracted everything, and did everything; and about the future of France which, in the circumstances, seemed destined to die of a cerebral haemorrhage.

Murger began writing about himself and his friends in 1846, but it was not until his short journalistic pieces were turned into a play that the idea of Bohemia took Paris by storm.

This was in 1849, in the aftermath of the 1848 revolution, and the febrile mood swings of the bohemians, their intense joys and desperate miseries, reflected the post-revolutionary mood as the hopes of the radicals were fading. The uprising had been bloodily defeated and by 1851, when Murger’s bohemian pieces appeared in novel form, Napoleon III was in the ascendancy.

During his reign, the period of the Second Empire, political censorship and repression meant that dissent was displaced onto cultural and social life. Works by both Flaubert and Baudelaire were prosecuted for obscenity, yet it was a vibrant

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These models were young women, and by 1910 they were not afraid to appear in the Café Royal unchaperoned. Respectable and conventional young ladies could not have done so, but emancipated art students such as Nina Hamnett did, and so did Nancy Cunard, saying ‘My mother [Lady Emerald Cunard, a well-known society hostess] is having an affair, and I can do as I like’.

In Murger’s time, however, the Parisian café was

Woman in a Riding Habit (1856) Gustave Courbet (1819–1877) Paris, 1860 William England (1830–1896)

The café and salon social life of the bohemians was not merely a pleasure: it was a necessity.

The poor students and aspiring journalists, painters and actors huddled into their cheap attic rooms where – as Murger described – there was no heating, little furniture, no comforts. The warmth, light and refreshment of the café provided a welcome alternative. For the price of a cup of coffee you could sit with your friends as long as you liked, read freely provided newspapers and magazines, and eat a meal for a few centimes. This was the tradition all over Europe. The Austrian writer Stefan Zweig recalled that in fin-de-siècle Vienna over 200 papers and periodicals were commonly to be found in the average intellectuals’ café. The café therefore provided free education and a cosy home from home. Various circles were formed round dominating figures (such as the painter Courbet) and the conversation important and exciting. For intellectual and artistic workers, cafés constituted a kind of labour exchange. In the café the journalist could meet his editor, the actor could make contact with directors, as could playwrights and illustrators. In the 1920’s the café still performed similar functions. One writer recalled the Romanische Café in Berlin as the place where advertisers, film directors, reporters and photographers went to strike a deal in 1929. And a decade or so earlier the Café Royal in London was where artists went to find models to sit for them.

Paris, 1866 Charles Marville (1813–1879)

and innovatory period in the arts, and Paris was the Mecca of every aspiring French artist and attracted many from abroad as well.

a masculine enclave. Such celebrated upperclass hostesses as Louise Colet and Marie d’Agoult, successful authors in their own right, held salons, as did official mistresses; Appollonie Sabatier, for example, who was kept by a wealthy banker, gave a weekly Sunday dinner for a glittering circle which included Baudelaire and Théophile Gautier.

The grisettes, as depicted – and sentimentalised – by Murger and Puccini, were altogether different. The term grisette came from the dresses of grey (gris) material worn by the Paris seamstresses. These young women were of humble origin, but more refined than the average workingclass girl. Like so many others who landed in Bohemia, their class position was somewhat indeterminate, and many may have hoped that a liaison with a student from a rich or at least professional family would help them up in the world. Murger’s Mimi was based on the woman with whom he fell in love and who died young and tragically; she had also been involved with a semi-underworld character, to whom at one time she had been married. The more robust Musette was modelled after the mistress of one of Murger’s cronies, the writer Champfleury.

Dissatisfied with the poverty of the life of an artist’s model, and with a mother and sister to support, she later left Bohemia to become a full-time prostitute. To Champfleury’s chagrin she amassed a small fortune in this way – only to be drowned while crossing the Mediterranean to Algiers.

Murger’s Bohemia was already a sentimentalised version of a world that was both more robust and more complex than he would allow. Puccini’s version presents a similarly two-sided but incomplete picture of the artistic demi-monde. On the one hand there is the frantic gaiety of drinking, singing and wenching; on the other, the grinding poverty and the artist’s repeatedly dashed

hopes and labour so often in vain.

Murger’s sentimentality devalued the rich, productive world of the café and the atelier and contributed an abiding and persistent stereotype of artistic life, or at least of Bohemia, as ultimately inauthentic. Bohemia has come to suggest artistic failure and artistic pretention. It is the scene for the would-be artist wishing to play the part of genius, rather than actually setting to work.

It is a fantasy world in which every failure can become his own hero. Bohemia has become a seductive but somehow tawdry caricature of creative aspirations.

The bohemians – many at least – despised and rejected bourgeois conformity, hypocrisy and materialism. Baudelaire and Gautier, for example, hated the bourgeois. The Munich bohemians hated the authoritarian German society and its patriarchal family customs even more violently. It was in Munich that the ‘sexual revolution’ began to be discussed and put into practice. Frieda von Richthofen, who became the wife of D H Lawrence, experienced that subculture. Partly through her influence on Lawrence the ideas of the Munich circles arrived in England.

Yet, in a curious reversal, the bourgeoisie flung back the accusations Bohemia had hurled at them. In the popular mind, it was the bohemians who were false and hypocritical, who claimed to believe in ‘free love’ and ‘art for art’s sake’, but were really as much on the make as everyone else. This is as true today as it was a hundred years ago. The tabloids still sneer at the ‘so-called art’ of piles of bricks in the Tate, modernist architecture is still reviled, there are still anti-experimental music claques to boo at new music.

It is exactly a hundred years ago since Oscar Wilde was sentenced to hard labour. Although the hysterical horror

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View from rue Champlain 1877 Charles Marville (1813–1879)

surrounding his downfall was occasioned by his homosexuality, his humiliation also signalled the defeat of the aesthete and the artist by the philistines. La Bohème was first staged in Britain two years later, when the Café Royal was still reeling from the Wilde scandal. Although sad, Puccini’s portrait of Bohemia was reassuring, not only in being safely heterosexual but also in making of it a young man’s world. Bohemia could be accepted as a phase, a sowing of wild oats, youth having its fling before settling down.

This Bohemia, then, charming and romantic as it is, draws the sting of its critique of bourgeois society. We weep with Rodolfo, but in our heart of hearts we know he will eventually settle down.

To that extent, today, we are perhaps all bohemians.

PROFESSOR ELIZABETH WILSON is Professor of Cultural Studies at the University of North London; she is the author of Bohemians: The Glamorous Outcasts. This article appeared in the Royal Opera programme in the 1990s.

“Bohemia is the preface to the Academy, the Hospital or the Morgue . . . or the preface to steady work and a bourgeois existence.” Henri Murger

Paris urinal, 1876 Charles Marville

Although the ‘classic’ Bohemia of Murger and Puccini is no longer with us, the idea the bohemians developed of life as spectacle and of ourselves as performers on a public stage, still invests urban street life with excitement and charm. Mass culture continues to resist the avant garde, but many sections of society mark themselves as different by distinctive forms of dress and aesthetic taste.

Rooves, 1929 Michel Seuphor (1901–1999)

Thus, Bohemia is often remembered and written of with nostalgia, which permits us to forget the much deeper bitterness of Baudelaire and Wilde dying in middle-aged poverty, of the suicide, madness and self-destruction that featured too often in its particular demi-monde.

It also diminishes its amazing artistic innovation and political radicalism. For Bohemia was a rich world, which encompassed great and mediocre artists, brave and irrepressible women as well as victims, entertainers, clowns, philosophers and a host of flamboyant characters who, by simply living at a heightened pitch, gave something valuable to society.

LA VIE DE BOHEME

by Barriere & Murger Act 1 Sc 8 V Rodolphe arrives in the attic of Marcel and Schaunard

(taking one by one Colline's books from the bench) Chemistry, Mechanics, Physics . . . that is a lively library . . .

RODOLPHE MARCEL

That is because Colline is the studious child and dreamer of la Bohème.

RODOLPHE

La Bohème?

MARCEL La Bohème – its boundary to the north: hope, work and gaiety; to the south: necessity and courage; to the west and east: slander and the Hotel-Dieu RODOLPHE

Thank you – I don’t really understand

MARCEL Would you like a second lesson on La Bohème? It’s easy – as you have before you two natives of that country.

SCHAUNARD

La Bohème – it’s us!

RODOLPHE You? MARCEL That’s to say, all those driven by an obstinate vocation to take up art with no means of existence except art itself; their spirit kept alive by their ambition which sounds the advance and leads their assault on the future. Their survival each day is a work of genius, a daily problem. But, should a little luck come their way, you can also see them luxuriating in most extravagant fantasies, loving the youngest and the most beautiful, drinking the best and the oldest and never finding enough windows through which to throw their money.

SCHAUNARD Then, when their last ecu is dead and buried, they’ll again dine at the table d'hote of luck (where their table is always laid) and hunt from morning to evening that ferocious animal which one calls the 100 sou piece . . . intelligent people who would have found truffles on the “Raft of the Medusa” MARCEL

They do not know how to take ten paces on the Boulevard without meeting a friend.

And thirty paces, no matter where, without encountering a creditor.

SCHAUNARD

MARCEL And when January comes, pockets full of colds, hands covered in chilblains, they philosophically warm themselves with their furniture.

It is what the modern people call “downsizing through the fireplace”.

SCHAUNARD

RODOLPHE In truth, messieurs, your carefree bravery, your joyous philosophy intrigues me – never leave

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PUCCINI’S WOMEN Fiona Maddocks catalogues a few of the many

I

n his own words a hunter of wildfowl, good librettists and attractive women, Puccini was one of life’s great romantics, though his wife might have preferred the term lothario, philanderer or worse. He was rich too, with enough wealth in modern terms to earn him a place at the lower end of the Sunday Times Rich List (worth around £130 million at the time of his death, it has been calculated). He usually got what he wanted.

Famous, debonair, a driver of fast cars and speed boats, he turned heads and boasted of his many affairs, often falling for the sopranos who sang his heroines. Even in later years, he could not resist a pretty smile or the chance of a secret liaison, or preferably two at the same time.

Scandal, and in once particular instance tragedy, were a backdrop to his life, though he was often cowardly in dealing with the situtations he found himself in, mostly of his own making. A keen correspondent, he poured his feelings out in hundreds of letters to numerous women, leaving behind a paper trail of literal evidence and several broken hearts.

ELVIRA GEMIGNANI

GP and their son Tonio c 1893

Elvira c 1885

Elvira Gemignani, an amateur singer, was his pupil when they met in 1884. She was married with two children and soon ready to divorce her husband to marry Puccini, though it would be more than two decades before her relationship with him could be legitimised. To add to the outrage, her husband was an old school friend of Puccini’s. The lovers eloped to a village outside Milan, taking with them Elvira’s daughter Fosca but leaving her baby brother with his cuckolded father.

Soon the couple had their own child, Antonio, and settled in tempestuous cohabitation in the fishing village of Torre del Lago on Lake Massaciuccoli in Tuscany. Good-looking, big boned, of ample proportions according to one description, Elvira has been portrayed as a scourge and a hot-head, on one occasion disguising herself in one of her husband’s three-piece suits in the hope of trapping one of his illicit lovers in a night-time rendezvous. Puccini referred to her as his ‘policeman’, complaining that she ‘sneered’ at the very mention of the word ‘art’. They were hardly soul mates. Clearly Elvira had a tough time and her jealousies, though on one tragic occasion wrongheaded, usually had good foundation. Despite all these tribulations, she remained his wife to the bitter end.

1899-03 CORINNA (Maria Anna Coriasco) While Tosca was in rehearsal in Turin, Puccini met a young law student, or teacher, known as Corinna (later revealed to be Maria Anna Coriasco) and began a secret affair – not so easy given Elvira and her daughter Fosca’s insistence on travelling with him. Corinna was about 20, he was in his forties. Their meetings took place in various cities he had excuse to be in, as well as a house in woods near Torre del Lago where he would pretend to Elvira he had gone hunting, which in a real sense he had.

All went well until the pair were spotted at a railway buffet in Pisa. When Elvira got wind of the affair, she resorted to desperate measures, including chasing the lovers to one of their secret hideways, leaping in front of her horse and carriage and stabbing Corinna with her umbrella. Elvira ended up

in a ditch. Undeterred – the composer had achieved his goal and gone home satisfied – Elvira stormed back to the Villa Puccini and attacked him with her fists and fingernails. When asked what had happened, he explained he had fallen in a bramble-bush.

The affair came to an abrupt end when Puccini and his wife were nearly killed in an automobile accident in 1903. With a belated stroke of gentlemanly good behavior, Elvira’s husband Gemignani died the very next day, leaving her free at last to marry Puccini. Urged on by his anxious, scandalfearing publisher Ricordi, Puccini and Elvira swiftly, if not wholly enthusiastically, tied the knot. Corinna, although not so pure herself – Puccini was enraged to find his ‘virginal’ mistress had other lovers – was left to rage (and paid a settlement).

GP, Elvira, Fosca after the accident ca April 1903

Maria Anna Coriasco 1882–1961 (Tombstone picture)

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Toto Leonardi (husband of Fosca), Antonio Puccini (GP’s son), Doria Manfredi, Fosca (daughter from Elivra’s first marriage) with Elvira junior, Sybil Seligman, David Seligman. Toto’s marriage was crisis-ridden and relations with GP strained. He died in 1938 after a robbery.

David & Sybil Seligman and Puccini, 1907 David came from a San Francisco banker’s family who founded an outpost in London in the 1800s.

He later translated into English GP’s shor t poems. He had many affairs

Puccini, Sybil Seligman and Carlo Carignani 1907

Sybil Seligman was a beautiful, cultured English hostess, born into a rich business family near Hyde Park and married to a banker. She and Puccini had an affair but then, wisely, decided a life-enhancing friendship was a better bet. Sybil remained his confidante for the rest of his life, advising him on libretti, translating, debating, sending him flowers when she thought he needed them. They had an intimate understanding right up to his death. She was kind to Elvira too, though one doubts the favour was returned. Some of his 700 letters to Sybil, possibly sanitised, were translated and gathered in a volume entitled “Puccini among friends” by her son, Victor Seligman.

Sybil Seligman 1868–1936 Charcoal drawing by Boldoni ca 1895

1904 SYBIL SELIGMAN

1908-9 DORIA MANFREDI

Egypt 1908

After a summer in Egypt, Puccini was back home in Torre del Lago working on La Fanciulla del West (1910) when Elvira began to suspect him of having an affair with a young and devoted servant girl, Doria Manfredi, originally employed to help care for the invalid composer after his injury in the automobile accident. Elvira banished her from the house and slandered her to anyone who would listen, to the girl’s helpless dismay.

Puccini wrote to Syblil Seligman of his sadness, his inability to work and his reliance on sleeping pills – yet he seems not to have done much to rectify the situation or to speak up for the wronged servant.

Soon after, shamed by the scandal, Doria poisoned herself and, in Puccini’s own words to Sybil, “died after five days of atrocious agony”. Her family demanded a post-mortem which revealed that she was a virgin.

Doria’s tombstone picture She died at 2am on 28 January 1909

If this did not prove, entirely, Puccini’s innocence (the doctor who carried out the investigation had been best man at Elvira and Puccini’s wedding), it certainly put Elvira squarely in the dock. She was charged with blasphemy and sentenced to imprisonment, saved only by Puccini’s intervention: he paid damages, the charges were withdrawn and, unsurprisingly, the relationship between Elvira and the composer, who now demanded complete freedom to do as he wished, never fully recovered.

Left Probably June 1903, four months after the accident. The car has been repaired.

Left to right Fosca, Doria Manfredi (in her Sunday best), GP, Elvira and Fosca’s first daughter Franca.

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She admired his work and showed the kind of adoring sympathies he had never enjoyed from Elvira. In summer 1911 they met illictly – presumably swathed in sun-protective disguise – on the beach in Viareggio, Puccini having refused his usual retreat to the mountains to escape the extreme heat, which he hated.

Elvira, GP and Antonio, Torre del Lago ca 1912

Accounts describe him skimming the waters in his luxury speedboat, from Torre del Lago over the lake and down the fossa to see his mistress in Viareggio. He toyed with the idea of buying land for a house, with or near her, but it came to nothing.

Despite simultaneously being in correspondence with a Hungarian woman, Blank Lemdvai, he does appear to have been truly attached to the woman he called “Josi”. When war broke out, her status as an ‘enemy alien’ meant she had to leave the country. Puccini, somewhat pusillanimous over affairs of the heart, may have been relieved to have a ready-made excuse to end the affair.

1911 GP and Silvio Peluffo, the new chauffeur during the Doria crisis.

(After the accident the old chauffeur, Guido Barsuglia, emigrated to California returning to Torre del Lago close to his death) Josephine von Stengel, c 1916

Josephine von Stengel, a great comfort to Puccini after the Doria affair, was 35 when she met the composer, 17 years her senior. Separated from her husband, she had two young daughters and was soon prepared to set up home with Puccini, who was not quite so ready, bruised by scandal and wanting only to work quietly with the reassurance of some loving, clandestine distraction when he needed it.

Josephine von Stengel ca 1919. During the War she had several meetings with Puccini in neutral Switzerland. Sybil, germanophobic, didn’t like her.

She died early and is buried in the cemetary of Bologna

1911-7 JOSEPHINE THE BARONESS

1921 ROSE ADER

GP and Rose Ader (1890–1955), ca 1921 Puccini tried to get her an engagement at the Met, without success

He ended the affair, saying he could offer her no future. At the time he was writing Turandot, and seems to have had her voice in mind for the role of Liu, though the pathos of the character more readily brings to mind poor Doria Manfredi. Owing to her Jewish background, Ader was forced to emigrate in 1933, eventually settling in Buenos Aires in 1949 where she remained, as a teacher, until her death.

Rose Ader, c 1925

The Austrian Rose Ader was a light lyric soprano, who made her debut in 1915 and sang the title role in Suor Angelica (Il Trittico) at the German première in 1921, as well as Bohème in Rome (she can be found on YouTube singing Mi chiamano Mimì, sweet voiced and accurate). It was probably the last of his flirtations with one of his singers. She was 31, he was double her age.

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The story of Pucccini and his ‘little gardens’ as he always called his lovers, continues to grow. In 2006 Paolo Benvenuti, a director researching the Doria Manfredi story for his film Puccini e la fancuilla, learned about a man who claimed to be the illegitimate son of Puccini and Doria’s cousin, Giulia. Alfredo Manfredi was born in June 1923, 15 months before his father’s death from throat cancer, and died in 1998, in complete poverty. This complex saga involving a dusty suit-case in a cellar, some old film stored in a biscuit tin, 40 lost letters and, as a subplot in which Puccini’s stepdaughter Fosca was caught in flagrante with one of his librettists, suggests Doria was entirely innocent. The lively Giulia, a possible prototype for Minnie in La Fanciulla del West, was the focus of the composer’s attention all the time. It would be the perfect, impassioned subject for an opera – if only Puccini were here to write it.

Giulia Manfredi in 1969, aged 80

Giulia’s husband, Emilio’s tavern at the lake.

Giulia worked there as a waitress

GP probably with Emilio and Giulia Manfredi at Lake Massaciuccoli, 1908

FIONA MADDOCKS is Music Critic of the Observer. Her book on Harrison Birtwistle, “Wild Tracks - A Conversation Diary”, is published by Faber.

Giulia Manfredi, 1910

1908-1924? GIULIA MANFREDI

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S H I F TI NG F ORTU N E S The interweaving fates of Teyve and Tchaikovsky and Puccini and Saint-Saëns as Europe swings between harmony and discord 1835 Saint-Saëns (SS) born: father of Norman

ancestry, mother of Jewish ancestry but raised a Catholic, as was her son 1840 May Pyotr Tchaikovsky (PT) born 1845 SS début recital, Paris. For an encore,

he offers any of Beethoven’s 32 piano sonatas from memory 1850 Jewishness in Music Wagner’s antisemitic

census categorises Berdychev Jews as liquordealers, clerks, houseowners, merchants, artisans, idlers. Aleichem’s father went there to find a wife when the children’s mother died of cholera. 60 miles away was Brailov, where Tchaikovsky holidayed in the house of his patron, Nadezhda von Meck 1873 Oct SS first visit to Algeria where around

essay published anonymously

200,000 French have settled. Resumes work on Samson et Dalila under Liszt’s persuasion

1853 Opening of Algiers opera house

1875 Nov SS in Moscow. PT + SS “performed

Elisha Otis invents a ‘safety elevator’. If the hoisting ropes fail, the car is locked in place

a whole short ballet on the stage of the Conservatory’s auditorium: Galatea & Pygmalion.

40-year-old Saint-Saëns was Galatea and interpreted, with exceptional conscientiousness, the role of a statue, whilst the 35 year-old Tchaikovsky took on the role of Pygmalion..”

1858 Dec Giacomo Puccini (GP) born 1859 Mar Tevye’s creator, Sholom Aleichem, born in Voronko, Ukraine. “Voronko is small but beautiful and full of charm. With strong legs you can traverse the entire village in half an hour.

It has no railroad, no sea, no tumult – it hosts two fairs a year, founded by Jews for the purpose of stimulating business and making a living.”

1861 Landowners can no longer sell or transfer serfs, or remove their children

Mar Tannhäuser Paris 1868 Première of Die Meistersinger von

Nürnberg Munich. In the opera French art is held up as corrupting German art SS begins Samson et Dalila as an oratorio but his librettist Lemaitre suggests an opera Commercial production of typewriter with qwerty keyboard 1869 Wagner expands Jewishness in Music under his own name 1871 SS on active service in the siege of Paris

Dec PT to brother Anatoly: “I have become great friends with Saint-Saëns, a splendid and intelligent Frenchman, who may be able to do me some important favours with regard to propagating my fame in Paris.”

Aug Inauguration of Bayreuth Festpielhaus. SS is received by Wagner at Wahnfried; Tchaikovsky is not

1876

Puccini and two friends walk the 20 km from Lucca to Pisa to hear Aida (and walked back) 1877 Apr–Sep PT’s miserable marriage

Dec Première of Samson & Dalila, Weimar 1878 Jan PT refuses to represent Russia at the World Fair in Paris. “It would be unbearable for me to have to stand humbly in front of SaintSaëns, say, and sense his patronising glance ... when in my heart of hearts I consider myself to be a whole Alpine mountain higher than him.”

but then leaves for England, the first of 179 trips abroad to 27 countries

1879 Mar Première of Onegin, Moscow

1872 PT reviewing a Moscow concert: “I love

1881 Russia’s Jewish population at around

Moscow as the Laplander loves his snowfields and smoke-filled yurts, as the mouse loves his hole, and the Jew his native Berdychev.” A

1880 Jul SS performs for Queen Victoria

5 million. Most lived in ghettos within the Pale of Settlement – provinces of west and south-west

A British viewpoint likening the imperial ambitions of the European powers to the catching of fish ca. 1899

1882 GP to great-uncle Nicolao Cerù “My

studies are going well . . . The cold up here is worse than in previous years: . . I'm asking you for a favour. I must study in the evenings . . . my room is cold I need a bit of heat. I've no money . . . I need help to buy one of those cheap charcoalburning stoves that give out a lot of warmth . . ” 1883 Feb Death of Wagner

Jul GP to his mother “I have a fortnight's board and lodging to pay, and if I come to Lucca I shall need 20 lire to redeem my watch and tie-pin which are enjoying the air of the mountain”.

(Monte di pietà = pawnbroker) 1884 GP’s first opera Le Villi. GP begins affair

with piano pupil Elvira Gemignani. She is married and lives with her husband 1886 Antisemitic Jewish France by Édouard

Drumont sells 150,000 copies in a year Elvira is pregnant by GP. She leaves her husband

1888 Launch of National Geographic Society

PT meets Brahms. Receives life annuity from the Tsar but bemoans lack of recognition “Nobody reads about me in the papers in Russia. It is a great pity. The point is not that I have been favoured with the attention of the European public, but that in my person attention has been paid and honour has been accorded to the whole of Russian music, to all Russian art.”

Makes his first conducting tour of Europe.

Paris: “I found many glories but little money.”

1889 Mar Eiffel Tower completed. GP visits

Jul Ricordi sends GP to Bayreuth “armed with a pair of scissors . . . to make the necessary cuts to Meistersinger and alter it, like a suit of clothes to fit the good people of Milan. But the Milanese want the exact same suit that the Germans have worn until now” (Music critic, Depanis) 1890 Apr GP to his brother “In September I am moving house . . . They are putting me out

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of here for playing the piano at night. Now that they've given me notice, I'm fairly going at it” Oct Samson première, Paris. In the 1890s Saint-Saëns spent much time on holiday, travelling overseas, composing less 1891 9mg of cocaine per glass of Coca Cola

GP and Elvira are living at Torre del Lago Expulsion of Jews from St Petersburg and Moscow. 20 million evicted from Moscow. A million emigrate to North America 1892 Feb Samson première, Algiers Mar Samson première, Carnegie Hall 1893 GP “I worked till three o'clock this morning [at Manon] . . a bunch of onions for supper . . . I am sick of this constant struggle with poverty!”

Feb Première Manon Lescaut, Turin. His first great success Jun SS + PT collect honorary doctorates from Cambridge July GP to a member of Ricordi’s staff “I give you notice that I have bought a bicycle – payable by monthly instalments. You will have a visit from the manager .... will you please pay on my behalf 70 lire as the first instalment and 50 lire every month afterwards” Sep Samson première, Covent Garden Oct PT rehearses SS Cello Concerto No. 1 for a concert in St Petersburg. He is dead before the concert takes place 1894 Aleichem writes Tevye the Dairyman

Edmond de Goncourt proclaims Paris salons to be “infested with Jews and Jewesses.” Around 40,000 Jews live in Paris, well-integrated into society, and 45,000 Jews live in Algeria Oct Dreyfus convicted and imprisoned Nov Nicholas, aged 26, crowned Tsar of Russia Dec Paris Salon du Cycle includes two cars.

France has 20 cars in use

1895 SS first trip to Saigon

Proust of SS “He understands how to rejuvenate a formula . . . He borrows charms from Beethoven and Bach . . . at every moment he instills bursts of inventiveness and genius into what seemed to be a field bound by tradition.”

Giacosa (co-librettist of Bohème) to Ricordi “I must confess that I am sick to death of this constant redoing, retouching, adding, correcting, piecing together, enlarging here, reducing there.

If it had not been for my friendship with you and because I am fond of Puccini I would at this hour free myself of my obligations.” Ricordi called Puccini Doge because of his imperious manner towards his librettists 1896 Feb Première La Bohème, Turin, conducted by 29 year old Toscanini

Founding manifesto of Zionism, The Jewish State, by Theodor Herzl 1897 Oct Bohème première, Covent Garden

Wilde reflects on his imprisonment of 1895 “I wanted to eat of the fruit of all the trees in the garden of the world . . . And so, indeed, I went out, and so I lived. My only mistake was that I confined myself so exclusively to the trees of what seemed to me the sun-lit side of the garden, and shunned the other side for its shadow and its gloom.”

1898 1st Paris Motor show

J'Accuse by Emile Zola. Dreyfus vindicated May Puccini in Paris rehearsing Bohème “An invitation to dinner makes me ill for a week.

I am made like that and cannot be changed at nearly 40 years old. . . . Verdi has always pleased himself in these matters and in spite of that has had not such a bad little career” Jul GP to Ricordi “Please send me a bottle – not large – of the usual Stephen's Blue-Black Ink.” 1899 Jan GP in Paris "Today I have been to lunch

with Dreyfus, with whom I also dined yesterday.”

1900 FIAT factory heralds the dawn of Italian industrialisation. Turin Motor Show

Apr Paris Duel (no1) Michel Ephrussi fights a duel with swords with Count Guy de Lubersac over anti-semitic remarks towards Robert de Rothschild Jul GP “Last night Bohème was given with great success at Covent Garden. I am going into the country tomorrow with Rothschild. I have had enough of London. It is cold here; quite like autumn (though it is July!)”

Three-wheeler by Léon Bollée, Le Grand Palais, Paris, c 1895

SS travels to South America

May The Italia Automobile Club mounts a show in Milan’s public gardens. Puccini sees a De DionBouton 5 CV and buys it: his first car Oct Santos-Dumont flies around the Eiffel tower in a dirigible 1902 Oct Paris Duel (no2) The last duel of honour

in Paris. Car maker, de Dion, is the protagonist in a row concerning the Dreyfus Affair and Judaism.

New York Times: “The Marquis de Dion slapped M. Gerault Richard’s face and the latter kicked the Marquis’s shins . . . Seconds called at M. Gerault Richard’s office this afternoon . . . The Marquis has a reputation of being a good swordsman and a good shot. His opponent is rather heavy.” . . .

1902 Puccini fined for speeding on the Via Aurelia 1903 GP buys a Clément-Bayard, his second car

Feb GP is seriously injured in a car accident on a night-time journey from Lucca to Torre del Lago. The car, driven by the chauffeur, went off the road, fell several metres and flipped over.

Elvira and Tonio were flung free; the chauffeur suffered a fractured femur. GP was pinned under the car and his leg badly broken. During his

The crumpled car.

GP refused to go to hospital

Jan Puccini hurries to Milan for Verdi’s funeral

GP (lying) is transported by boat from the lakeshore villa of Marchese Ginori-Lisci across Lake Massaciuccoli to Torre del Lago

season includes Bohème and Samson. Through architecture and cultural life, French colonial towns re-create Paris

1903 The ditch at Vignola di San Macario, 3 miles from Lucca

1901 Jan Opening of Saigon opera house. First

47

1903 Pogroms in Kishinev (Chisinau)

Walter Rothschild in his zebra carriage.

Albert Hall, 1895

recovery over many months he was smoking 30 cigarettes a day and was found to have diabetes

Flat Iron building "is equipped with six rapidrunning Otis hydraulic elevators and has its own steam and electric plants furnishing heat and light to tenants free of charge" John Summer creates the Typhoo tea brand Giuseppe Marconi links New York with England by wireless telegraph communication 1904 Tevye offers his daughter to Lazar Wolf in

Stop your cruel oppression of the Jews Flohri 1904

85,046 immigrants arrive in New York

marriage

London Symphony Orchestra formed as a cooperative 1905 Sep Einstein publishes Theory of Relativity

Oct Debussy La Mer première, Paris Dec Strauss Salome première, Dresden & Lehar Merry Widow première, Vienna

Striking workers derail a train, St Petersburg, 1905

GP agrees to end his five year affair with Maria Anna Coriasco (Corinna) and marry Elvira

SS denigrates Debussy, Strauss and Stravinsky

Fictional shtetl Anatevka is burned Oct In response to the Revolution, the Tsar signs a manifesto granting basic civil rights. He is “sick with shame at this betrayal of the dynasty” GP buys more cars: Sizaire-Naudin, an Isotta Fraschini AN 20/30 HP and some FIATs 1906 Aleichem leaves Russia for US

SS (71) makes two month début tour of US

The Flat Iron building under construction

SS “Decadence in art is not synonyous with inferiority . . . the woman who has lost the first flower of her youth, or the fruit that has just surpassed perfect ripeness: are they less flavourful? Inferiority comes later, when the fruit is spoiled, when the woman grows old. Still there will always be those who love old women and mushy pears.”

GP in Paris to Ricordi “Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande has extraordinary harmonic qualities and the most delicate instrumental effects. It is very interesting in spite of its colouring which is sombre and unrelieved like a Franciscan's habit.”

Debussy "If one did not keep a grip on oneself one would be swept away by the sheer verve of the music. I know of no one who has described the Paris of that time as well as Puccini in La Bohème."

1908 Oct Model T Ford brings affordable travel

British merchant uses a local woman as transpor t West Bengal 1903

Vincenzo Lancia, a Piedmontese working for FIAT in design, construction and testing, decides to go it alone

The Doria Manfredi affair Schoenberg’s pupil, Webern, graduates

Benito Mussolini works for the local Socialist Party and edits their newspaper L'Avvenire del Lavoratore (The Future of the Worker) Sep Freud travels to US to deliver lectures on psychoanalysis. On docking in New York, Freud is rumoured to have remarked to Jung, “They don’t realise that we are bringing them the plague” 1910 Jan A live transmission from the Met of

Cav and Pag with Caruso as Canio heralds the birth of public radio broadcasting. New York Times: “Arias were trapped and magnified by the dictograph directly from the stage and borne by wireless Hertzian waves over the turbulent waters of the sea to transcontinental and coastwise ships and over the mountainous peaks and undulating valleys of the country.”

1911 Aug GP buys a motor boat and races around

Lake Massaciuccoli. "The tremendous explosion of the engines brought the villagers to their doors .... as the boat skimmed across the lake [and] startles the birds from the marshy hedges." By boat he travelled from Torre del Lago to visit Baroness Josephine von Stengel (Josi), his mistress for eight years. “He would go speeding across Lake

First flight across the English Channel. Blériot lands near Dover 1909

had, in July, flown over the Channel

Vincenzo Lancia, c 1920

1909 GP travels to Brescia to see Blériot fly. He

49

1912 May Joseph Stein born. He writes the

‘book’ for Fiddler on the Roof 1913 May Première of Rite of Spring, Paris SS: “Don’t talk about beauty, it’s no longer fashionable”. GP "The work of a madman. The public hissed, laughed – and applauded"

May Aleichem dies 1917 Duchamp’s Fountain (the urinal) rejected in New York 1919 Agatha Christie writes The Mysterious

Affair at Styles, her first whodunnit Mar Mussolini founds the first Italian Combat Leagues (Fasci Italiani di Combattimento) Toscanini runs unsuccessfully as a Fascist parliamentary candidate in Milan. He becomes disillusioned with fascism and repeatedly defies the Duce, refusing to display his photograph or conduct the Fascist anthem Giovinezza at La Scala. “If I were

capable of killing a man, I would kill Mussolini.”

Oct GP from Grossetto “you will be staggered by the beauty of this place . . . Bordeaux of 1904, grapes from Lecce, tobacco from Brazil, and Abdullah cigarettes. Boats, motorlaunches, motor-cycles, every kind of tackle for fishing, everything you want for fowling.”

Aug Puccini is a pall-bearer at Leoncavallo’s funeral – despite a tempestuous relationship. Leoncavallo plastered a score of Manon Lescaut with indications of plagiarism on Puccini’s part

1919

1920 Coco Chanel launches Chanel No. 5, the first perfume to feature a designer’s name. Perfume “is the unseen, unforgettable, ultimate accessory of fashion. . . . that heralds your arrival and prolongs your departure” 1920 Korngold Die Tote Stadt première, Hamburg. GP praises the wunderkind “He is exceptionally talented, has a formidable technical knowledge and superb musical ideas…He has so much talent he could easily

FIAT factory, Turin, 1922

Massaciuccoli's calm blue waters to Viareggio, by way of the canal of Burlamacca”

GP commissions Vincenzo Lancia to construct a car for driving on country terrain

Ar thur Burrows The first BBC News Reader, 1922

give half away — and still have enough left for himself ”. Korngold is lured to Hollywood and nurtured by Warner Brothers

very kind to me everywhere . . . In every shop where I give my name they either ask for autographs or line up and bow to me as I go out. In short, we are popular, but old”. However, he finds himself a new mistress, Rose Adler Mar Peat workings destroy GP’s tranquillity at Torre del Lago “the morning siren is now supreme.

It is disgusting”. He decides to build a new house at Viareggio on land he had bought in 1915. It was then a small fishing village where in 1822 Shelley’s body had been washed ashore and cremated in the presence of Byron Nov Fascists win seats in parliament Dec SS, aged 86, wintering in Algiers. Has a heart attack and dies

Traffic Signal at Fifth Avenue / 34th Street, 1922

1921 GP "Paris is beautiful but it tires me. They are

GP argues with Tonio about the radio aerial on the roof of his new house. It is removed.

Picasso Three Musicians completed, Paris German reparations fixed at $33 billion 1922 UK production of the Austin 7 car

Opening of FIAT’s Lingotto factory, Turin, with a test track on roof Oct March on Rome brings Mussolini to power.

GP to Adami “what do you think of M? I hope he will prove to be the man we need. Good luck if he will cleanse and give a little peace to our country” Nov GP in Vienna to Adami “I wonder if Mussolini wll introduce a little order into our national economy.

I hope so" Nov Carter finds Tutankhamun’s tomb 1923 Yehudi Menuhin, aged 7, debuts with San

Francisco Symphony Orchestra. His parents

Circuito di Milano Italy, 1924

Oct BBC founded

51

Boys of Ardingly School, Sussex, at the star t of the Christmas holidays, 1926

Moshe and Maratha had moved from Belarus to New York in 1913 via Palestine

Lunaire and meets Arnold Schoenberg.

AS “I am proud he was interested in me”

Jun GP to Adami “At Varazze I bought a motor-boat that does over 25 miles an hour. It is the boat that won the races at Monte Carlo and I shall have it in 10 days. If you come we shall have some cruises and sail away into the far mists.” GP collaborates with engineers to design a motorcycle

Oct Puccini hunts for the last time on the lake. Still troubled with a sore throat, a “benign growth, papilloma” is diagnosed and treatment advised in Brussels or Berlin

The fascist party in Viareggio makes Puccini an honorary member and sends him a membership card (which he keeps) Nov / Dec Puccini meets twice with Mussolini to promote a project to establish a national theatre in Viareggio. It never came to fruition 1924 Sheldon Harnick, lyricist of Fiddler born

Jan GP’s throat bothers him: “the tiny little pimple is trying to strangle me” Spring GP buys his last car, a Lancia Lambda May GP travels to Florence to hear Pierrot

4 Nov GP drives his Lancia Lambda to Pisa railway station to take the train to Brussels for throat surgery: radium treatment and the removal of his larynx. He dies 29 Nov 1928 Jerry Bock, composer of Fiddler born º 1945 Apr Milan, The Times: “The corpses

of Mussolini, his mistress, Clara Petacci and 12 Fascists are on display in Piazzale Loreto with ghastly promiscuity in the open square under the same fence against which one year ago 15 partisans had been shot by their own countrymen". The corpses are hung upside down outside a garage. One woman fired five shots into Mussolini’s body shouting: “Five shots for my five assassinated sons”

53

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55

TC H A I KOV S K Y

EUGE NE ONE

S PON SORED BY B ELL POT TINGER

CONDUCTOR ∙ GIANLUCA MARCIANO DIRECTOR ∙ STEPHEN MEDCALF DESIGNER ∙ FRANCIS O’CONNOR LIGHTING DESIGN ∙ PAUL KEOGAN CHOREOGRAPHER ∙ LYNNE HOCKNEY ASSISTANT CHOREOGRAPHER ∙ DAVID MURLEY

BOURNEMOUTH SYMPHONY ORCHESTR A

GIN

Libretto by the composer and Konstantin Shilovsky, based on Pushkin’s novel in verse First performance 29 March (17 March O.S.) 1879 at the Maly Theatre, Moscow Performances at The Grange on July 10, 12, 15, 18

MADAM LARINA ∙ ANNE-MARIE OWENS ≈ Sir David & Lady Plastow • a widow and mother of . . .

TATYANA ∙ SUSAN GRITTON ≈ Francis & Nathalie Phillimore • OLGA ∙ REBECCA AFONWY-JONES ≈ An Anonymous supporter • indicates suppor t at the festival’s inception in 1998 • indicates suppor t of the 2002 Appeal ≈ indicates generous suppor t

FILIPYEVNA ∙ REBECCA DE PONT DAVIES ≈ Nic Bentley • the family retainer

EUGENE ONEGIN ∙ BRETT POLEGATO ≈ John L Pemberton • who has recently inherited a nearby estate

LENSKY ∙ JUNG SOO YUN ≈ David McLellan his friend; engaged to Olga

MONSIEUR TRIQUET ∙ JEFFREY LLOYD-ROBERTS ≈ Andrew & Caroline Joy • • PRINCE GREMIN ∙ ALAN EWING

His aria Lyubvi fse vozrastï pokornï ≈ Stephen Gosztony & Sue Butcher •

ZARETSKY ∙ LUKASZ KARAUDA A CAPTAIN ∙ RYAN ROSS The Waltz at the Larina ball ≈ Stephen Gosztony & Sue Butcher • The Polonnaise in St Petersburg & the horn solo in the Letter Scene ≈ John & Carol Wates •

57

E U G E N E O N EG I N Tatyana, a dreamer, falls in love with the glamorous Onegin whose arrogance conceals an inability to love.

The peaceful household is destroyed when Onegin kills his friend Lensky. Years pass and Onegin meets Tatyana, now married to a prince. Her poise entrances Onegin.

But he has missed his moment.

Act 1 On the country estate of the widowed Madam Larina, they celebrate the harvest. Madam Larina’s daughter Olga teases her older sister Tatyana for avoiding the fun; she prefers romantic novels. Olga’s fiancé, the poet Lensky, arrives with his friend Eugene Onegin. Onegin asks Tatyana how she tolerates the boredom of country life. Unnerved by his good looks and elegance, she struggles to answer.

In her bedroom, Tatyana persuades her nurse Filipyevna to speak about her own marriage. Tatyana admits she is in love. Alone, she sits up all night writing a passionate letter to Onegin. At dawn she gives the letter to Filipyevna to deliver.

In the garden. Tatyana and Onegin have a difficult conversation.

He has received the letter and his response is measured.

He admits he was touched by her letter, but predicts that he would quickly tire of her and can, therefore, only offer friendship.

He leaves with words of advice: that she take better control of her emotions.

A shor t pause . . . please remain seated

Act 2 Some time later It is Tatyana’s name day and a party is underway. Onegin dances with her but is bored by the guests’ provincial ways.

Annoyed with Lensky for having dragged him there, Onegin dances with Olga whose head is turned by his charm. Monsieur Triquet serenades Tatyana with a song he has written for her. The dancing resumes and Lensky erupts in jealousy and quarrels with Onegin for flirting with Olga. Larina begs them

to calm down, but Lensky cannot curb his rage.

Onegin accepts his challenge to a duel.

Lensky waits for Onegin at the appointed spot.

He reflects on the folly of his life and imagines Olga visiting his grave. Onegin finally arrives, and they agree that the duel is pointless. They would prefer to laugh together than to fight, but honour must be satisfied. Onegin kills Lensky.

DINNER INTERVAL Act 3 A few years later; a ball at the Gremin Palace, St Petersburg Onegin has wandered the world seeking meaning to his life. He has found nothing and is back where he began, socialising. He sees Tatyana, bearing herself with great dignity – no longer the country girl – and the elderly Prince Gremin introduces her as his wife.

Onegin is in love with her.

Tatyana receives an impassioned letter from Onegin. He rushes in and falls at her feet. With poise, she asks if it is her status that makes her attractive now. The days when they might have been happy have passed. Onegin reiterates his love. Faltering for a moment, Tatyana admits that she still loves him, but she will not leave her husband and ruin her life.

Sergei Kolesnikoff (1889–1947)

Onegin is alone regretting his foolish past and an empty future.

TCHAIKOVSKY ARTICLES from previous programmes are on the website: Duel in the snow Railway Timetable Tchaikovsky’s death: suicide or cholera?

Galina von Meck remembers

59

What did Caesar have for tea?

Whether the subject of a painting, a social pastime, a sweetener for tea or a cure for athlete’s foot, Michael Fontes lifts the lid on Russian jam making.

H

ow do you know it’s a Russian ballet? Easy! The dancers come rushin’ in and then go rushin’ out again. And how do you know it’s a Russian opera? Because it starts with a group of girls pickin’ fruit, and Madame Larina makin’ jam on a portable stove.

Producers often leave out that portable stove, but it’s there in the libretto to Eugene Onegin. Perhaps, as nouvelle-vague producers, they are determined to set the opera in Hitler’s bunker, or a Central-American mental hospital. Or maybe they just can’t think what a Russian nineteenth-century portable stove might look like, though there’s one in Vladimir Makovsky’s painting Jam-making in The Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow. It shows exactly what Madame Larina is doing.

Makovsky was friendly with Tchaikovsky and painted his portrait. The jam-making picture, dating as it does from 1876, may even have given Tchaikovsky the idea for the opening of the opera. Tchaikovsky started his libretto in 1877.

Making Jam (1876) Vladimir Egorovic Makovsky (1846–1920)

Jam preserves the goodness and deliciousness of fruits. We can enjoy them, albeit in altered form, long beyond their short season. Cheese performs a similar function for milk. In

Pushkin’s novel, the Larin’s jam-making acts as a symbol of their Russian rural domesticity, their lack of aristocratic breeding and pelf, the quality which makes it hard for Eugene to accept them, and turns him snobbishly away from Tatyana. He holds her country ways against the sweet girl. The St Petersburg dandy, who only eats in restaurants and great houses, cannot see beyond her rustic habits and archaic Russian customs. The French of the time often said that St Petersburg was more French than Paris.

Onegin has tired of the city, and, inheriting his uncle’s country estate, thinks he will find solace in the countryside. But the fault lies more deeply in him than he realises; he quickly tires of the country too.

It all seemed new -- for two days only -the coolness of the sombre glade, the expanse of fields, so wide, so lonely, the murmur where the streamlet played...

The third day, wood and hill and grazing gripped him no more; soon they were raising an urge to sleep; soon, clear as clear, he saw that, as in cities, here boredom has just as sure an entry, although there are no streets, no cards, no mansions, no ballrooms, no bards.

Yes, spleen was waiting like a sentry, and dutifully shared his life just like a shadow, or a wife.

Sydney Smith, the English country parson and wit, sent by his bishop to a living deep into Yorkshire, said, after a year or two, that he had ‘no relish for the country; it is a kind of healthy grave’. He also commented he’d been sent ‘so far out of the way, that it was actually twelve miles from a lemon’. Pushkin doesn’t mention lemons at all, so this means of thickening jam may have been closed to the Larins. If so, they will have needed, when wanting thick jam, either under-ripe fruits,

or those naturally rich in pectin, like apples, plums, or gooseberries. Indeed in Chekhov we hear much talk of gooseberry jam Lebedev in Ivanov mentions having ‘barrels of the stuff ’. And one of Chekhov’s greatest short stories is, after all, called Gooseberries.

The Russian Mrs Beeton, Elena Molokhovets, in her A Gift to Young Housewives (1861), generally known as The Molokhovets, starts her section on jam recipes: Berries or other fruits intended for jam must not be overripe. The weather must be clear and dry, not rainy, when they are gathered, and they must be used the very same day.

She provides recipes for jams from a wide range of fruits, including the obvious classics: strawberries, raspberries, and cherries – old Firs in The Cherry Orchard remembers the time when they made cherry jam from the cherries in the orchard. He holds the fact that they no longer do so as indicative of their decline.

The naturally frugal Russians of the country loved to scavenge from wayside plants and bushes, so The Molokhovets includes recipes for jams from many kinds of wild berry, including barberries (unpopular with farmers then as now because they can harbour Wheat Rust), and rosehips. It even adds such exotica as ersatz ginger jam made from watermelon rind, and lettuce jam derived from the Tartar practice of preserving root vegetables in honey. The recipe for The Molokhovets Rose Blossom jam can be found at the end of this article.

Onegin refuses a country drink offered him by the Larins in Chapter III of the Pushkin.

English translators usually call it ‘bilberry wine’ to echo its rural flavour and to compensate for English tastes and habits. In doing so they emulate the miracle of Cana in Galilee, for the drink is actually lingonberry water.

61

Lingonberry Vaccinium vitis-idaea Sea Buckthorn Hippophae rhamnoides Sergei Kolesnikoff (1889–1947)

Lingonberries grow on low bushes all over Northern Europe, and play an important role in Scandinavian and North Russian cuisine. You can collect them on the Yorkshire moors along with bilberries. They give quite a tart jam, as suggested by one of their alternative names, Mountain Cranberry. Rich in benzoic acid they are excellent for treating fungal skin infections. For this reason northern jam-makers, and maybe this was the Larins’ practice too, don’t heat the berries to boiling point, but just sufficiently to make the runny jam called Varenye. This explains why you will have noticed Russians spreading runny jam between their toes before puttin’ on their socks.

Like most Russians of the country, the Larins will have collected many different kinds of berry: Cornelian berries like small hard plums, from the dogwood Cornus mas; autumn-olives, bright-red too, containing seventeen times as much lycopene as tomatoes; sea-buckthorn, reputed to cure almost every known ill, but particularly effective against arthritis and stomach complaints.

To make jam with such berries the Russians added apples, which provide the pectin without spoiling the taste. Buckthorn jam was particularly prized, being sweet and sour, spicy and silky, all at once.

One of the great wonders of Pushkin’s verse novel is the way he projects the reader as well as himself into his story. He doesn’t so much identify with Eugene as befriend him. We find ourselves invited to join Pushkin and Eugene as the novel unfolds. We become bystanders rather than readers, and Pushkin himself is as much a participant as a story teller. Thus when Eugene goes to a ball, early in the novel, Pushkin makes us sense his impetuosity by saying that we should all hurry to catch up with him.

That isn’t our immediate worry: we'd better hasten to the ball, where, in a cab, and furious hurry, Onegin has outrun us all.

The novel has many moments when Pushkin talks of Onegin as of a close acquaintance.

He even left us a drawing of himself and Eugene leaning on the parapet of a bridge over the Neva.

for the probable consequences of his actions led to his death in a duel which feels to us now uncannily close to the absurd duel in the novel, where Eugene kills his friend, the ingenuous and sensitive young poet, Lensky.

Evgeny stood, with soul regretful, and leant upon the granite shelf; he stood there, pensive and forgetful, just as the Poet paints himself.

In the novel we are invited to tea at the Larins with Pushkin and Eugene. From his time in the country, Pushkin would have been familiar with rural cooking, and thus with many country jams, for jam plays a lead part in the Russian tea ritual. The samovar – an enormous kettle heated by a central vertical pipe filled with hot charcoal – provided the hot water for the tea as well as the warmth for the pot which sat upon it. The tea in the pot was often unpalatably strong and needed to be let down with hot water from the tap in the samovar itself.

Pushkin had an estate, Mikhailovskoye, now called Pushkinskiye Gory, 250 miles south of St Petersburg, to which he was exiled for two years after the police intercepted a letter in which he wrote that he was taking ‘lessons in pure atheism’. He would have been familiar with life in the country, and with Eugene’s boredom.

Escaped from social rhyme and reason, retired, as he, from fashion’s stream, I was Onegin’s friend that season.

Much of Pushkin’s behaviour at the end of his short life suggests that he was acting out an imagined rather than a real existence, like a person in a novel; that fiction and fact were overlapping in his mind. His disregard

The Russians often sweetened their tea with jam. Each tea guest had his own saucer of jam, with its teaspoon. They either put the jam directly into the tea, causing it to change colour and become weirdly, some say disgustingly, sweet, or they put the jam on their tongues and sipped the tea through it. Some preferred to sweeten their tea by drinking it vprikusku, sucking it through a lump of sugar.

63

“Let's go.” The friends, all haste and vigour, drive there, and with formality are treated to the fullest rigour of old-time hospitality.

The protocol is all one wishes: the jams appear in little dishes; What may not be immediately obvious is why Madame Larina is making jam outside, rather than in her kitchen. At first sight this would appear to have every disadvantage: hundreds of small winged creatures would concentrate their attention on the hot pan; wasps and hornets would dive like stukas into the boiling sugary mass; sterile conditions for potting could not be ensured, and sitting by a charcoal brazier in mid-summer would be insufferable, and so on.

The answer to this little riddle comes to us from Tolstoy, another great writer who knew all about the sensual pleasures of country life: one of the serfs on his estate bore him a son, and the cooking scene in Anna Karenina reveals the author’s considerable knowledge of the technical side of jam-making. Like Pushkin, Tolstoy regards jam as exemplifying rural cooking and, by extension, the true country way of life, something essentially Russian as opposed to the French ways of the great city.

In Anna Karenina, the young Princess Kitty Shcherbatskaya, recently married to Konstantin Levin, a landowner, has left the great city to come to live on his country estate, where she is getting to know and understand his housekeeper, Agafea Mihalovna. Together they are making jam,

by Kitty’s method, which is new to Agafea Mihalovna and distrusted by her, without water. We feel that this new method exemplifies the changes the old housekeeper, Levin’s childhood nurse, will have to endure as a result of the arrival of the young mistress.

At the start of the chapter we are told that the scene takes place on the terrace.

Agafea Mihalovna her face heated and angry, her hair untidy, and her thin arms bare to the

elbows, was turning the preserving-pan over the charcoal stove, looking darkly at the raspberries and devoutly hoping they would stick and not cook properly. The princess, conscious that Agafea Mihalovna’s wrath must be chiefly directed against her, as the person responsible for the raspberry jam-making, tried to appear to be absorbed in other things and not interested in the jam, talked of other matters, but cast stealthy glances in the direction of the stove.

Later in the scene, Dolly, Kitty’s sister, calls to mind how delighted her children will be with this jam.

“I'll do it,” said Dolly, and getting up, she carefully passed the spoon over the frothing sugar, and from time to time shook the clinging jam off the spoon by knocking it on a plate that was covered with yellow-red scum and bloodcoloured syrup. “How they'll enjoy this at teatime!” she thought of her children, remembering how she herself as a child had wondered how it was the grown-up people did not eat what was best of all – the scum off the jam.

This tells us that one reason for making jam outside was that at least one jam would be fresh for tea, one of many, almost certainly.

In Ivan Bunin’s story Sukhodol, so many jams are served for tea that the guests cannot possibly sample them all.

Just as we like to prepare hot foods outside on a barbecue, the Russians enjoyed al fresco cooking of jam. In Pushkin’s time, it would have taken them away from the army of serfs attendant upon the kitchen, and it was a simple way by which they could contribute to their own domestic economy. And it was fun.

However, don’t think the jam was for immediate consumption only. Any left over in the pan would be potted. At the end of Tolstoy’s chapter, the old countess gives details of how best to do this: ‘put some paper over the jam, and moisten it with a little rum, and even without ice, it will never go mildewy’.

Just in case you wish to emulate the Larins and try some proper Russian jam, here is the

recipe for Rose Blossom Jam, from A Gift to Young Housewives (1861), the famous Molokhovets: Gather wild rosebuds that have only just blossomed, or, preferably, buds of cabbage roses (Rosa centifolia). Cut off and discard the white ends of the petals, weigh out 1 lb of petals, transfer to a colander, and scald with boiling water, using a spoon to prevent them from floating. Plunge the colander into cold water with ice, so that all the petals are covered, stirring and turning them around on all sides. Repeat this process three times, first scalding with boiling water and then rinsing with cold water. From this the jam will be thick and squeak on your teeth. Thoroughly squeeze out the water from the petals and place them on a dish.

For 1 lb petals squeeze the juice from 2 large, thinskinned lemons and sprinkle on 1 glass fine sugar.

Thoroughly mash the petals with the lemon juice and sugar. Then take the remaining sugar, adding for each lb of petals at least 2 lbs sugar and 2 glasses of rosewater or, lacking that, ordinary river water. Boil the syrup thoroughly, skim, and add the prepared rose petals. Cook over a low fire. If the aroma is too weak, add 2 drops of rose oil. When the rose petals are tender and no longer float on top, the jam is done.

This recipe yields 2 lbs jam.

The Molokhovets gives no sort of caveat about using river water. A cook in modern Britain probably needs to improvise at that point in the recipe.

MICHAEL FONTES was a master at Winchester College for for ty years. He now runs Les OrchidĂŠs de Najac, studying and photographing the wild flowers and butterflies of Najac in Aveyron, France. He has been writing for the festival programme every year since 1999.

The extracts from the Pushkin verse novel quoted here are from the translation by Sir Charles Johnston.

Sergei Kolesnikoff (1889–1947)

Unlike the Russian Easter Cake from a famous recipe, this jam does not need to be taken to the cathedral to be blessed by the archbishop. It can be eaten immediately.

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proud to Support GranGe park opera.

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Sandbourne are

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FIDDLER

O N TH E

RO

S P O N SO R E D BY TH E C LO R E D U F F I E LD F O U N DATI O N

•

with The Boltini Trust •, Harry Hyman & The Nexus Group

CONDUCTOR ∙ DAVID CHARLES ABELL ≈ Tom Busher & Elizabeth Benson DIRECTOR / DESIGNER ∙ ANTONY MCDONALD CHOREOGRAPHER ∙ LUCY BURGE COSTUME DESIGNER ∙ GABRIELLE DALTON LIGHTING DESIGN ∙ LUCY CARTER SOUND DESIGN ∙ SEBASTIAN FROST ASSISTANT DIRECTOR ∙ DANIELLE URBAS

B BC CONC E RT ORC H E STR A

OOF

Music by Jerry Bock, lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, book by Joseph Stein based on Tevye the Dairyman by Sholem Aleichem First performance 22 September 1964, Imperial Theatre, New York Performances at The Grange on June 4, 5, 12, 13, 18, 21, 25, 26, July 2, 3

TEVYE THE DAIRYMAN ∙ BRYN TERFEL ≈ James and Beatrice Lupton • • GOLDE HIS WIFE ∙ JANET FULLERLOVE ≈ In celebration of the life of Eve Mitchell • •

• indicates suppor t at the festival’s inception in 1998 • indicates suppor t of the 2002 Appeal ≈ indicates generous suppor t of the role or

TZEITEL ∙ CHARLOTTE HARWOOD ≈ Heike & Darcy Munro HODEL ∙ KATIE HALL CHAVA ∙ MOLLY LYNCH ≈ Gareth & Janet Davies

their daughters

YENTE THE MATCHMAKER ∙ REBECCA WHEATLEY ≈ Simon & Victoria Robey MOTEL THE TAILOR ∙ ANTHONY FLAUM ≈ Mrs T Landon • • ; scissors, Anonymous • PERCHIK THE STUDENT ∙ JORDAN SIMON POLLARD LAZAR WOLF THE BUTCHER ∙ CAMERON BLAKELY ≈ Richard & Pamela Jacobs • FYEDKA ∙ CRAIG FLETCHER MORDCHA THE INNKEEPER ∙ RICHARD WOODALL ≈ Mr Damon & The Hon Mrs de Laszlo • FRUMA-SARAH ∙ GEMMA MORSLEY ≈ Mr & Mrs Grant Gordon THE

RABBI ∙ RICHARD REAVILLE ≈ David & Clare Kershaw

THE

CONSTABLE ∙ ≈ Adam & Lucy Constable

GRANDMA TZEITEL ∙ HELEN OGDEN THE FIDDLER ∙ HOUCHENG KIAN

THE

BOTTLE DANCE ≈ Jeremy & Rosemary Farr

69

F I D D LE R O N TH E ROO F Tevye, the father of five daughters, is trying to maintain his religious and cultural traditions, while outside influences are encroaching. Three of his daughters wish to marry for love and their choices of husband drift from the customs he cherishes. The village receives news that Jews are being cleared from the region.

Act 1 A Russian shtetl, Anatevka, in 1905 Tevye, the milkman, describes his village, Anatevka, and the role of God in keeping balance in the villagers’ lives. We meet Tevye’s daughters who joke about the village matchmaker, Yente, and whether she will find them palatable husbands.

Yente arrives to suggest the village butcher, Lazar Wolf, as a match for Tzeitel, the eldest daughter. Tevye contemplates life as a rich man.

Perchik, a student, arrives with news of a pogrom in the nearest village. Tevye invites him to his family Sabbath.

Motel, a tailor, is in love with Tzeitel and tries to ask Tevye for her hand in marriage. His nerves get the better of him and they sit down together to welcome the Sabbath.

Tevye heads to the tavern to meet Lazar Wolf and finalise a marriage agreement with Tzeitel. Tevye is jubilant, but there is a mixed reaction at home. His wife Golde is delighted; Tzeitel explains she wishes to marry Motel. Tevye reluctantly agrees.

Villagers gossip about the changes in village life. Chava, the second daughter, is taunted by some Russians. One of their number, Fyedka, tries to speak to her.

CHILDREN

The whole village is invited to Motel and Tzeitel’s wedding celebrations. Golde and Tevye reflect on how quickly their children have grown up.

James MunneryTyler

Russians storm the happy festivities, causing mayhem.

Phoebe Venturi

DINNER INTERVAL

Hari Bravery

Isabelle Bravery Maisie Tween Bella Donald

Act 2 Perchik and Hodel are in love and he explains that he must leave the village for Kiev to work for the Revolution. They agree to marry. Tevye breaks the news to Golde.

Gossip spreads through the village that Chava and the Russian Fyedka have been seen together.

Hodel is going to join her beloved Perchik who has been exiled to Siberia.

The Constable brings news that the village will be destroyed in three days and the villagers evicted. They begin packing and bid farewell to Anatevka.

Tzeitel and Motel travel to Warsaw before moving to America; Hodel and Perchik are in Siberia. Chava tries to say goodbye to her father but he refuses to acknowledge her. She leaves “Since restrictions have been with Fyedka. on the ownership of agricultural The villagers depart, their lives as precarious as . . . land and not on cattle, they . . . a Fiddler on the Roof have not prevented Jews from producing and selling dairy products and the Jewish Milkman is very much a part of the shtetl scene. Richer dairymen have their own cows. Few milkmen own a horse and usually the pails are carried on a shoulder pole for early morning delivery. If, in the summer heat, the pole rubs the skin off the milkman’s arms and shoulders, he carries the pails in his hands, trusting that by the time the hands are worn raw, the shoulders will have healed.”

After all, he did promise to return, did he not? 1927 Roman Vishniac (1897–1990)

Poland 1930s

A new sewing machine arrives at Motel’s shop. Fyedka and Chava, having had to keep their affair secret, decide to marry.

When Tevye is told he proclaims Chava dead to the family.

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BECAUSE OF OUR TRADITIONS . . .

A first for Grange Park Opera: a Consultant on Jewish Customs. Elkan Pressman has observed and steered the production towards an authentic version of Tevye’s traditions

Zero Mostel, the first Tevye, had harboured fears that the show would be seen as “too Jewish” for commercial success.

And he worried some more when he heard two Grosse Point matrons whispering a shared concern, wondering “how the Jews would take it”. The show’s lyricist, Sheldon Harnick, has confessed to “running scared” that the show might be “too Jewish, too serious and too long”. On the other hand, Sister Mary Immaculate of the National Catholic Theater Conference saw an early performance and liked it so much that she made a block booking for the following year’s Conference, asserting that it would run forever and that it was “the most catholic small 'c' - show” that she had ever seen.

Boy with a Toothache, Slonim, Poland 1937.

His tattered book is school proper ty. Roman Vishniac

S

hirley Maclaine saw a production of Fiddler on the Roof in Tokyo in the 60s. Moved by the performance, she hurried backstage after the show to congratulate the Tokio Tevye (we are told by Topol in his autobiography). She told him that she had enjoyed seeing the show in New York and London, but that his performance that night had surpassed both. He was surprised. “Is it doing well in England and America?”, he asked. “Are they interested in the story?” When he heard of its favorable reception, he expressed further surprise: “But it's so Japanese,” he explained.

So why is it that thousands have “come away dancing” from performances in five continents over five decades? Perhaps the answers can be found in the title of the show and in its first scene. Tevye seems to put the show’s cards on the table in his first few words: “Because of our traditions,” he explains, “everyone here knows who they are, and what God expects them to do.” Tevye himself is the creation of the Yiddish writer Sholem Aleichem, and those few words from Tevye need to be examined in the light of who Sholem Aleichem was and what his place is in the history of American Jewry.

Who, then was Sholem Aleichem? Simply summarised, he was a Yiddish writer from the Ukraine, who first arrived in New York in 1906, acquired a reputation as ‘the Jewish Mark Twain’

Jewish schoolchildren in Mukacevo, c 1935–38.

Roman Vishniac

As for Topol himself, he opens his autobiography with this early appraisal: “The first time I saw Fiddler on the Roof I nearly fled from the theater with my hands to my ears . . . It reeked both of the old Diaspora, as represented by the the Russian Pale of Settlement, and the new one, as represented by New York: it seemed to reflect some of the worst features of both” To be fair, he did see it again later, loved it, loved Mostel’s performance, and “came away dancing”.

Abandoned Russian village, Karelia 2009

“The shtetl believes that the world brought into being by the Almighty, is made for man – not man for the world. Human welfare is paramount and takes precedence over all else. Dietary laws are superseded by health requirements. Major commandments may be modified under stress of mortal danger.�

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(although Twain was once heard to describe himself as ‘the American Sholem Aleichem’).

His stories of life back in Southern Russia struck such a chord with the American Yiddish-speaking immigrant community that when he died, a crowd estimated at 250,000 gathered for the funeral procession in a public display of Judaeo-American unity and pride that firmly established the Jewish place in the treasured American Melting Pot. Over the next four to five decades, there were a number of theatrical productions of aspects of Sholem Aleichem’s work, but perhaps the Fiddler story really begins in 1949, when Rodgers & Hammerstein acquired an option to create a Broadway musical from a play Tevye's Daughters. But it turned out they were too busy creating Anna and the King of Siam, and they allowed the option to lapse. Would these two geniuses of German-Jewish stock have ever grasped the essence of the Yiddish folk-humour and the salt-of-the-earth humanity of the Tevye

stories? Would they have ever respected the heroic pathos of a community where “every one of us is a fiddler on the roof ”? Mike Todd (born Avrom Goldbogen to Polish-Jewish parents), the next option holder, might have done better. But that one never got off the ground either.

In the end, it was the creative team of Bock, Harnick and Stein that in 1961 produced a script that persuaded the director-producer Hal Prince to grasp the nettle. Refusing the request to direct their show, he explained that as a Jew of German origin (and essentially middle class), he wasn’t really the man for the job, but that if they could get Jerome Robbins (né Rabinowitz) on board, he might review his decision and join the team as producer.

Robbins had long struggled to make sense of his Jewishness – and this was his opportunity: “The drama of the play” he wrote in notes for himself, “is to watch a man carefully treading his way between his acceptance of his sustaining belief (that way of life which is centuries old,

In 1939, as Hitler’s shadow fell across Europe, on the other side of the Atlantic, on a potato farm in Jericho, Long Island, Maurice Schwar tz was creating a por trait of the iconic Eastern European Jew in the Yiddish film Tevye der milkhiker

practiced as if it were still in the Middle Ages, which protects & defends him & makes his life tolerable) and his wry questioning of it within the confinements of the belief. . . . He ducks and weaves with the events around him . . .his traditions and the questioning of it”.

who may have lived centuries apart, edited as though they were in the same room having a live discussion. That is the woven fibre which acts as a backcloth to Tevye’s struggle for and with the Tradition which Jerome Robbins decreed to be the core of the Fiddler story.

It was this analysis that led him to jettison the show’s proposed opening number, a song called We've never missed a Sabbath yet, and to replace it with the now iconic Tradition.

To illustrate a more trivial aspect of the struggle for and with the Tradition, it may be helpful to consider the history of Gefilte Fish, a traditional minced fish dish whose Jewish authenticity is unquestionable. Indeed, if you visited the homes of my great-grandparents on a Sabbath, you would have seen dishes that looked very similar in all the homes.

But they would not have tasted the same.

The stewed carp would have been stuffed with minced white fish in all the homes, but the version served in the Latvian homes of my paternal grandparents would have been sugar-free and probably a bit peppery. The version to be tasted on my mother’s side of the family might have looked the same, but the predominant taste would have been the taste of added sugar.

In so many ways - particularly in ‘Jewish’ ways, Robbins was distant from the world of his father, but he was proud to say that the show was “a glory for my father - a celebration of & for him”. Perhaps Robbins understood that the glory of Jewish Tradition is not really about the passing on of traditional practices or beliefs, but it is about the passionate debate which always hangs around those practices – however painful those debates may become.

In one of those debates of around 2nd century AD, the Talmud records the intervention of a Heavenly Voice to say that both sides of the argument were “the words of the Living God”.

How adaptable can you get?

The essential text to be studied by an earnest seeker after Jewish truth is not a book of laws but a library of debates. This library is known as The Talmud: a short title to summon up 37 volumes, more than 6,000 pages, nearly 2 million words. It records the views of people

What happened when the families settled in London? Carp was less readily available, and the dish was no longer a fresh-water fish stuffed with minced fish. It was just minced fish balls – except on special occasions when carp was served with the traditional minced fish stuffing. But I can clearly remember

75

A farmer of Upper Apsa, 1939, Roman Vishniac In 1648 a group of Jews crossed the Carpathian Mountains seeking refuge from the massacres of Bohdan Khmelnitsky. In this bleak, desolate par t of the world, they founded the village of Upper Apsa where they grew the same type of corn Columbus brought from the New World

my father’s mother complaining (jokingly?) that her son had betrayed her by eating and – God forbid – enjoying the sugary version served up by my mother. Another change in London is that, under the culinary influence of the Jews from Spain and Portugal who were to be found in England (but hardly at all in the USA), a fried version emerged which has now become the predominant version in the UK – but which is to this day relatively unknown amongst American Jews.

Holocaust survivor sanding a rolling pin to make matzoh, Displaced Persons’ Camp, Germany, 1947 Roman Vishniac

Another example from my childhood involves the place of singing in Judaism. In our home, any Sabbath or festival meal involved the energetic singing of Hebrew songs between the courses. It offered a spiritual dimension to the meal unsurpassed by any more conventional prayer experience.

My father had, I now realise, a fine baritone voice, and for some years I assumed that all Jewish fathers sang well and that communal singing was at the heart of Jewish family life.

Imagine my shock when I found out how wrong I was! But it illustrates the fragile basis on which ideas of “tradition” can be founded. And one should always remember that Sholem Aleichem’s writing style was never completely devoid of irony.

After all, the centrality of the matchmaker in the marriage culture of Jews was not exactly given to Moses at Mount Sinai.

A more – dare I say – important example of the centrality of debate in the development of Jewish Tradition is at the centre of the development of a Code of Jewish Law. The most authoritative version of such a code was compiled by a 16 th century Spanish Rabbi, Joseph Caro. By way of respectful response, his Polish contemporary, Moses Isserlis, published a commentary whose main focus seems to be to point out the differences between Caro’s descriptions of particular practices and the way they are performed in Poland and regions around. As a result, studying Caro’s original Code often means studying the variations of Isserles at the same time as the original. It is therefore often the differences which make it interesting to students.

Since the village of Anatevka is primarily the creation of Sholem Aleichem, and its stage existence only started in 1964, we do not “know” anything about it for certain, but it is fair to assume that it is to be modeled on Sholem Aleichem’s home village – also not far from Kiev, and that the style of Judaism practised in Anatevka is also that which is generally labeled Hasidic. It is, however, right to point out that local Rabbis had considerable autonomy in some areas of practice and that local custom reigned supreme in other areas. Therefore, speculating about precise details in a fictional village in the early 20 th century may be a fairly silly pastime.

ELKAN PRESMAN has acted as cantor in synagogues of all kinds since 1953 and continues to today. His wide exper tise in Jewish liturgy and practice is founded on 6 childhood years spent at a “chassidic” school, an Oxford degree in Classical and Modern Hebrew and an undimmed enthusiasm for the literature of Rabbinic Judaism.

READING & SOURCES From the Fair, the autobiography of Sholem Aleichem The Worlds of Sholem Aleichem Jeremy Dauber Tevye the Dairyman Sholem Aleichem Life is People the culture of the shtetl Mark Zborowski &

Elizabeth Herzog A Vanished World Roman Vishniac

77

After morning services on the Sabbath, Kazimierz, Cracow, 1937 Roman Vishniac

DROHICZYN TO LONDON

A memoire dictated in London in the late 1960s by BS (b 1913), the last born of 23 children. She remembers her family, the Cossacks and a fur-collared coat that went missing and was found.

B

orn in Drohiczyn near Pinsk, my father (b 1870) was a great Hebrew scholar.

He used to read for other people, and from Sifrei Torah [the Holy Books]. I remember a very big party at Simchat Torah [festival] in our house which was next door to the synagogue. Mother was very young, about 16½ when she married and she was very beautiful. But father suffered from asthma and mother spent her time looking after him as he was always ill.

parents’ home. My father dressed in a white kittel and my mother looking like an angel – you felt as if the Shechinah [settling of the Divine Presence of God] was on her head. The whole atmosphere was very wonderful and very solemn. I can see how mother looked, and how she cried as she lit the candles for Yom Kippur. After the fast, lots of people came to the house; it was like a banquet and father took great pride in mother. “Doesn't she look wonderful?” he would say.

They were at first very wealthy, with a large business from which grain was sent to all the villages and towns around, living in a large house, with servants. We attended State school and had no difficulty as Jews to get into them. But we did not have Jewish holy days free. The Jewish community consisted of between 3-4,000. [Drohiczyn is 100 miles west of Pinsk and 80 miles east of Warsaw.

The 1897 Russian census records 21,000 Jews out of the total population of 28,400.]

I remember Pesach [passover] and the Seder conducted by father. We always had guests, among them two or three non-Jews who could also sing the Hebrew songs. On Simchat Torah [which celebrates the annual cycle of Torah law-readings] there were crowds of people, a huge cake, dancing and singing overflowed into the streets till late at night.

A house with a lilac tree of a middle-class Jewish family in Carpathian Ruthenia, 1937, Roman Vishniac

I remember particularly Yom Kippur in my

My father and mother were lovers till the day they died; they were very, very close: never quarrelled. When the maid was out mother was never allowed to do a thing. If

she tried, father simply looked at the children and they immediately jumped up to serve her. Mother was the more orthodox but father was the scholar. He taught me Rashi [the commentary on the Talmud by Shlomo Yitzchaki, a medieval French rabbi].

Brother Albert (b 1892) was said to be a difficult child and boy, always getting into trouble, often fighting, returning home with clothes torn. As I was born after Albert left home, I did not know him well. [Albert lived in Jerusalem with his grandparents in 1904– 6, then Jaffa, and then Alexandria – where he became a chemist/pharmacist – until 1916 when he came to Manchester to take a degree]. I was still a baby, perhaps three or four, when in Albert came as a young man on a visit – he came from Egypt. My parents were very happy to see him and he brought a small toy samovar and cups, and a doll. He was like a god to us and often sent us money I remember the Rabbi – he was like a saint.

People came from all over the world to ask his advice and help. He was an ordinary blacksmith from a small village. My sister had a beautiful coat, for which Albert had sent the money. It was navy blue with a fox collar.

She was an excitable type and she lost the coat. It was a tragedy – like losing a fortune.

We went to the Rabbi and he told us that a peasant of such and such a village had taken it and we went to him and got the coat back.

Yet the Rabbi could not even sign his name.

However, the town prospered from him. His sons built three houses and the village was able to put up a new hotel.

Life in Prouzynov [to where we moved] was quite different from life in this country.

There, there was much more friendliness and helpfulness and there was a common sharing of everything which is missing here. You felt you were not alone. Everyone watched arrivals by train and if a stranger came, he was given

hospitality. If the visitor was from America or England he was looked upon as a god.

When I was a small child, I had smallpox (a brother and sister died of it). I recovered but was left looking terrible with a pock-marked face. After I left school I helped mother at home for a year, and went with father to Pinsk where he had to have an operation. Then in the First World War the Russian Cossacks came and burned down all we had and we became very poor. The Cossacks treated everyone badly, assaulted and raped girls and women. Mother was worried very much about the older girls. The whole period was a frightening experience. We ran away to a small village. It was very, very cold – deep snow everywhere and not enough to eat, but at least we had escaped the Cossacks.

We lived in huts. People slept on hammocks.

It was a very difficult time: the snow was heavy and all we had was 4oz of bread a day for each person. You pay for these kind of experiences when you get older - you pay with ill-health. This went on for a couple of years and then father’s health improved and business became better.

[In the late 1920s or early 1930s] Albert came for a few days to visit. That visit I remember very well. The whole town came out to welcome him – he was by that time a rich man according to our standards. He was received as if he was a prime minister.

He asked me what I would like to do and I told him I wanted a profession and was very interested in skin (because of the trouble I had with my own). Albert had already started [a branch in England of a French firm] dealing in perfumes and other beauty preparations and he sent me to a hostel in Paris called the Rothschild Pension and to study at the Academie Scientifique de Beauté for a couple of years. We were not allowed to go out much; my brother Norman was already in Paris.

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German storm troopers force Warsaw ghetto dwellers to move.

Albert bought a house for our parents in Prouzynov. Bobba, my elder sister married a man in Prouzynov and they kept a hotel there and at this time our parents retired from business. In 1933 father asked to see me and I went there but had to leave him – though he was very ill – because my visa expired. I travelled back through Berlin and went to the Bristol Hotel. I saw signs Farflichte Juden [damned Jews] and not a single Jewish face. I was terrified and went to the station immediately and took a train to the Hook of Holland. [BS joined Albert in England where she stayed]. Albert wanted to fly out a heart specialist to father, but when he came, he saw it was too late and useless. A week later father died of dropsy. Mother was with him day and night.

The entire Jewish population of Prouzynov was killed by the Nazis. Bobba and her husband refused to leave when they had the chance because their sons were still studying and they all perished.

One Jew, a doctor, who was somehow not killed, escaped by dressing as a nun.

[When Albert died in London in 1971 his son was running the cosmetics firm in England.]

The baker’s sign reads Very Good and Beautiful Challahs for the Sabbath, Egg Challahs also

[In the Second World War] Norman was a prisoner-of-war from the French army and when finally released he had nothing at all. When Albert met him in Paris, he took off his raincoat and gave it to him. Unlike Albert, brother Norman had no formal education but he prospered. He has made perfume for very famous people such as Lady Milford Haven to give to the Queen as a wedding present. [Norman stayed in Paris.]

Bakery, Kazimierz, Cracow, 1937 Roman Vishniac

Mother went to live with Bobba in Prouzynov.

My other sister Sheinshe Berechevits with her husband and family went over to Israel in 1937 or 1938 – just in time. [BS was in England].

GO LDE ’ S SA B B ATH E V E

Left Waiting in line for the mikvah (ritual bath) Right The mikvah, a pool of clear running water, is inside this bathhouse. Barpathian Ruthenia, 1937 Roman Vishniac

For the shtetl housewife, Friday, Sabbath Eve, brings anxiety: Sabbath may arrive before all is ready. The fear is sharpest when the routine must be fitted into the daylight hours of midwinter. She wakes up earlier than usual . . .

F

irst she pours over her hands the ‘fingernail water’ – the ritual ablution that must start each day; she says a short prayer and puts on her oldest dress, her work apron, ties a kerchief over her head and rolls up her sleeves.

Before the family is awake she fires the oven and inspects the hallah dough that she set to rise last night. She feeds the family as they appear and bundles the boys off to school. She begins to clean the chicken she bought yesterday, watching for forbidden flecks of blood that would raise doubts whether it was kosher. If that did happen she would have to hurry to the rabbi asking the question and waiting until the rabbi, after studying the chicken and the relevant laws, declared “Kosher”.

The fish, also purchased on Thursday, must be cleaned, chopped, seasoned, prepared.

All the rest of the Sabbath food must be prepared. For after sundown, no fire may be lit, no work may be done. There will be noodles, that the housewife kneads, rolls the thin sheet into a long floury coil, slices it and spreads the fine slivers to dry. She braids the hallah dough into twists and before placing them on the hot bricks throws some dough on the fire and says a prayer.

From sunrise to sunset the day is a race with

time. The housewife darts from broom to oven and back, peering, stirring, prodding, dusting, giving commands to her daughters.

The hallah has been lifted out with a longhandled shovel and glazed with white of egg.

The loaves are high and light.

When the men return from their shops and market stalls, bundles of clean clothes will be ready for them. The shammes calls through the streets of the shtetl “Jews to the bathhouse”. There they will be cleansed by three ceremonial immersions in the pool of living water, the mikvah.

At last the housewife, with house and family furbished for the taste of heaven on earth, turns to preparing herself. The men return from the bath house, still racing against time – for they must be at the synagogue by sundown.

She replaces the kerchief by the wig or sheytl that covers her cropped hair, her splashed cotton dres is replaced by the Sabbath dress of black silk and enriched with jewelry. The ideal Sabbath jewel is a necklace of pearls.

It is said that even if hard times forced one to pawn her pearls, she might hope to have them back for the Sabbath. “On Monday morning, mother returned her pearls to the pawnbroker and then on Friday night he would bring them to her again”.

81

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83

SA I N T-SA ËN S

SAM SON E T D

S P O N S O R E D B Y A S Y N D I C AT E led by David & Amanda Leathers • • with Sir Winfried & Lady Bischoff, Philip & Mary Ling and two anonymous donors • • •

CONDUCTOR ∙ GIANLUCA MARCIANO ≈ William & Kathy Charnley • • DIRECTOR ∙ PATRICK MASON DESIGNER ∙ FRANCIS O’CONNOR CHOREOGRAPHER ∙ NIKKI WOOLLASTON LIGHTING DESIGN ∙ PAUL KEOGAN

BOURNEMOUTH SYMPHONY ORCHESTR A

DALIL A

Libretto by Ferdinand Lemaire. First performance 2 December 1877 at the Staatskapelle, Weimar in a German translation Performances at The Grange on June 20, 24, 28, July 4, 9, 16

SAMSON ∙ CARL TANNER ≈ his left half, Noreen Doyle ≈ his right half, Judith Lawless & Kevin Egan His aria: Israël! romps ta chaîne ≈ Johnny and Marie Veeder • •

ABIMELECH ∙ NICHOLAS FOLWELL OLD HEBREW ∙ CHRISTOPHOROS STAMBOGLIS ≈ Barbara Yu Larsson • HIGH PRIEST OF DAGON ∙ MICHEL DE SOUZA ≈ Mrs Peter Cadbury PHILISTINE MESSENGER ∙ EDMOND CHOO ≈ indicates generous suppor t

• indicates suppor t at the festival’s inception in 1998 • indicates suppor t of the 2002 Appeal

DALILA ∙ SARA FULGONI ≈ Ruth Markland Her aria Mon coeur s’ouvre à ta voix ≈ Nerissa Guest

TENOR PHILISTINE ∙ ROBERTO ABATE ≈ David & Simone Caukill BASS PHILISTINE ∙ MATTHEW THISTLETON ≈ Keith & Lucy Jones, Nigel & Viv Robson, Barry & Anne Rourke CHILD ∙ CARTER JEFFRIES A JEW ≈ Brian & Jennifer Ratner THE ORGIASTIC RITUALS ≈ Tony & Tracey Bugg •

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S A M SO N E T DA LI L A DIRECTOR'S NOTE Two words dominate the libretto of this opera: Love and Hate: L'amour et La Haine. A third word is threaded through the text: Revenge.

The period of composition coincided with Wagner's antisemitic essay (initially published anonymously) Jewishness in Music and the rise of French antisemitism during the Third Republic.

Act 1 Oppressed and persecuted by the Philistines, the Hebrews gather to pray and debate their best course of action. They accept Samson to deliver them from their suffering at the hands of the Philistines.

Abimelech, a Philistine official, threatens and insults the Hebrews. Tempers flare, the people riot and in the ensuing chaos, Abimelech is killed. The Hebrew uprising has begun.

The Philistine High Priest, leader of their cult of Dagon, arrives to discover the corpse of Abimelech and curses Samson’s prodigious strength. He swears vengeance on the Hebrews, promising the total destruction of their race.

The Old Hebrew and other elders greet the victorious fighters, led by Samson. They give thanks to God. Dalila and some Philistine women arrive to honour the victorious Hebrew partisans. Dalila reminds Samson of their past love. Despite the dour prophecies of the Old Hebrew, Samson, mesmerised by Dalila’s charms, accepts her invitation to spend the night together.

Act 2 Dalila’s dwelling The High Priest offers Dalila money for Samson’s capture, but she refuses it, revealing her hatred of the man and her determination to take her revenge on him.

Samson arrives and is filled with foreboding. Dalila is welcoming, but he declares that they must end their affair – he has dedicated himself to God and his people. Samson’s

Footbridge over Chłodna St. Warsaw Ghetto, 1942

resistance is broken down and he admits that he still loves her.

After all his bad faith towards her, Dalila cannot believe him unless he reveals the secret of his strength to her. Samson refuses to disclose the nature of his bond with God. Infuriated, Dalila berates Samson and runs into the house.

Samson hesitates – then follows her inside.

Dalila signals to the Philistine soldiers outside.

They rush in to capture Samson. They bind him – and blind him.

DINNER INTERVAL

Warsaw Uprising: the world’s first feature film assembled entirely of documentary materials

Homage to Catalonia

by George Orwell

Act 3 Captured and blinded, Samson is used as a slave by the Philistines. As they busy themselves with preparations for the rituals of Dagon, Samson hears the voices of the Hebrews reproaching him for his betrayal. He offers his own life to God in exchange for the deliverance of his people. God is silent.

The Philistines rally to celebrate the rites of Dagon. The High Priest and Dalila preside over the proceedings. Priest and people taunt Samson; Dalila mocks him, describing the intimacies of their affair. Her love, she says, was all an act: she intended to betray him from the start.

Philistine rituals celebrate Dagon’s victory over the Hebrews, the total destruction of the Hebrew race and a triumphant Philistine Nation.

Samson is led into the centre. He prays aloud for the strength to strike at his captors. Calling on the God of his Fathers to strengthen his resolve, Samson sacrifices his life to destroy the cult of Dagon.

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ROCKOX’ PRIDE Lucrezia Walker exposes layers of meaning and nuance in Rubens’ fabulous masterpiece

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e’re looking at a spy story. One of the oldest. The Old Testament Book of Judges relates the story of Samson, brought down by the Philistines. Knowing his weakness for desirable women the Philistines recruit Delilah as their secret weapon, to seduce the Israelite hero Samson, discover the secret of his strength, and destroy him.

Delilah’s the bad girl and an enemy agent. The Book of Judges tells how Delilah repeatedly tempts Samson, asking always where lies his strength. Each time he tells her an untruth; each time it is revealed as a lie. It’s foreplay in print. He tells her his strength can be curbed by binding him with fresh bowstrings; then that new ropes will disempower him. He is bound in bowstrings and rope. And escapes from both.

Finally, such is his desire for Delilah, that Samson divulges the true secret of his strength: his hair. Rubens’ Delilah has conveyed this fact to the Philistines in hiding.

Samson and Delilah (c 1609–1610) Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640)

It’s the haircut which brings him down. And it delivers the way into Rubens’ painting. The barber’s curved fingers are the coiled focus of attention around which the rest of the painting unfolds. Paintings freeze the moment. Here the lock of hair held in the fingers of the barber’s left hand, articulated to suggest the enhanced delicacy needed for a covert cut, is the signal for the drama about to unfold. In shorthand it spells out who’s who: secret haircut of powerfully-muscled man sleeping on lap of lady in red.

We, the viewer, and also the reader, have adopted by osmosis the story – whether through biblical reading or Tom Jones’ ballad – that the name Delilah is synonymous with femmefatale. A re-reading of the Old Testament passage in the Book of Judges chapters 13-16 tells how Delilah went repeatedly to visit Samson. With each encounter she gets to know Samson better. With every encounter something changes. She begins by playing at being attracted, and ends with . . . well what does she end with? She starts out as a spy. Her mission is to find the enemy and make him fall in love with her. It’s not hard.

During the pretence of falling in love, something shifts. By the time Delilah has driven Samson as wild as the skinned animal covering his loins with desire, she herself has changed. The person she initially saw as the enemy has become the lover.

By sleeping with the enemy Delilah sets in motion a complex change: Samson becomes not simply the pretend lover, but the real beloved.

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This is the core of Rubens’ great composition: Delilah’s emotional ambiguity. Step back a moment to look at what Rubens shows us.

A large painting of a man and a woman who have just made love. He has fallen into deep sleep in a moment of post-coital collapse. His desire has been sated, after a sustained pitch of built-up longing. He sleeps, vulnerable, on her lap, light from unseen sources caressing the skin on his back: as did Delilah’s hands some seconds earlier.

If Samson occupies the right, in his comatose state of innocence, then Delilah occupies the left, the sinister side. She is robed in carnal blood-red. The space around the scene scooped about by rich purple hangings and rich furnishings. A statue of Roman love gods Venus and Cupid in the niche behind the amorous pair provide an achronological piece of information that this is a love scene.

Unlike naked Venus and unlike Samson too, Delilah is still dressed. She’s not a nude, draped by a gauzy sheet. Her breasts are exposed but not free. They are crushed by fabric, tightly pulled above them. Her clothes have been pushed up, and her state of partial undress suggests a rough handling, a rampant desire that has preceded the moment of conquest. Her golden curls are as bright as the golden robe below her, and lit by the candle held aloft by an ancient crone, foil to Delilah’s youthful beauty. Like us, everyone in the painting but Samson, knows what’s going on; has witnessed it all. Samson, driven by an ever-increasing pulse of desire, has been oblivious to anything other than the fire in his loins. And will now pay the price.

Cut to Delilah. Rubens does not show her triumphant. Job done. She is not looking down at the vanquished Samson with a triumphant expression of victory. Her expression is ambiguous, and no two of us will read it in quite the same way. On the one hand, literally, she tenderly caresses the

skin on his bare back. The other moves away from him. Her body language too mirrors her ambiguity; her torso leans away from him, her head tilts tenderly over him. The moment we now look at is a moment of interiority.

What is Delilah feeling? Unlike anyone one else in the painting – Samson, sleeping it off, the barber concentrating on making a cut without waking the sleeping hero, the old woman holding the candle steady, or the Philistines pushing their way into the room hell-bent on taking him prisoner – Delilah registers a mix of emotions. She knows that her actions have led her lover to his downfall.

She has slept with the enemy in order to bring him to his knees. And the enemy had become the beloved. What has she done?

Rubens’ painting is so much more complex than the simple depiction of a temptress.

He has painted a moment of psychological introspection to a well-known biblical passage in which bad girl brings down good boy. Well, perhaps not good boy, but hero of the Israelites, the man given supernatural strength by God so that he can combat his enemies and perform heroic feats like slaying a lion bare-handed and destroying an army with the jawbone of an ass.

Rubens has thought about, and taken us with him into the mind of Delilah, where complex emotional shifts have affected her feelings as pretence morphs into something real. Is that why Rubens shows on Delilah’s bared breasts the physical effects of sexual arousal?

Add to these thoughts notions of patriotism and nationhood, betrayal and tribe to see that Rubens is showing a nuanced emotional register of ambiguity where sex and desire, nationhood and self are played out in the expression of a woman.

Rubens had just returned home to Antwerp when he painted this. He’d been in Italy for eight years, working for aristocrats and noble families in the great cities of the Italian

The painting was commissioned by Nicolaas Rockox, burgomaster of Antwerp, for his town house in 1609-10. Was he too thinking about notions of king and country, nation and tribe?

Were thoughts about recent religious wars played out in the Spanish Netherlands infiltrating Rockox’s mind? Was this really a painting about the power of sexual desire given the gloss of respectability by its putative political dimension?

Samson and Delilah detail Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640)

peninsula, and for the King of Spain. He was a polyglot, fluent in five languages, and a painterdiplomat in the employment of monarchs where his mastery of word and image could be used in diplomatic missions: to suggest war might be a bad idea, and good things prosper in times of peace. He had travelled much in the first eight years of the 16th century from country to country, speaking a different language in each one. Perhaps back in his homeland ideas of nationhood, country and patriotism infiltrated his thoughts as he painted Samson & Delilah.

How well it would have looked in Rockox’s study above his fireplace, with the light from the window on the left falling onto the scene.

See how the flames of the torch and candle are blown from an imagined breeze and how the glow of the fire mirrors the burning desire in the hero’s breast.

Het Pelsken: Helena Fourment in a Fur Robe (1638) Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640)

LUCREZIA WALKER is an independent ar t historian and former Lay Canon at St Paul’s Cathedral.

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WAS SAINT-SAËNS GAY and what the hell?

Saint-Saëns’ private life has given rise to many rumours and much speculation. Michael Fontes probes the contradictions surrounding the celebrated pianist, composer and conductor.

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his was sometime a paradox, but now the time gives it proof. Maybe scholars have become less shy of raising the issue. Janine Huas in L'Homosexualité au temps de Proust includes a section on famous homosexuals of the Belle époque which contains a chapter on Saint-Saëns, ranking him alongside Oscar Wilde and André Gide.

This is how she presents her case:

Reynaldo Hahn (1907) Lucie de Rothschild (1863–1916)

The composer suffered smothering female domination from infancy. His father died when the boy was three months old, and he was brought up by his mother, Clémence, and her widowed aunt, Charlotte Masson, who gave him his first piano lessons. His technical talent matched that of Mozart, and his prodigious musical memory became evident at a very early age; the two women cosseted him and broadcast his genius. His mother was at once his sharpest critic and most enthusiastic admirer. She was reading any letter he received until he was in his twenties.

When, aged 34, the composer expressed concern about playing alongside Lizst in Weimar, Clémence’s letter back to him struck her characteristic tone: Dear friend, Your letter was waiting for me when I came in from Mass. You make me sick with your cowardice. I thought you a man, but I was wrong; you're just a soppy chicken.

I despise you. What a disgrace for me: I thought I'd raised a man, not a girl of bastard stock. Be brave, then! Lift up your head; play as you were meant to play, as an artist of great talent. You will play well, or I deny you as my child. If you're going to play badly, don't play at all. Write and tell them you're a dope and return home to me. Come now, my child, chin up! Be a man, and a man of genius; you know you can, when you want. The good Lord never abandons the sincere and upright man. Art comes before everything.

If dominant mothers turn boys gay, then Saint-Saëns was gay.

Saint-Saëns travelled widely, all over the world, but most frequently to the countries of North Africa, including Egypt, where he was royally – literally – received. When he died in 1921 at the age of 86, people estimated that he had spent between four and five years of his life, in all, in Algeria, his preferred place of work. André Gide in the second part of Si le grain ne meurt explains that Algeria was, at that time, a favoured visiting place for French homosexuals seeking languid and compliant Arab boys.

The works show a fascination with the seduction of strong men, like Hercules (Omphale’s spinning wheel, The Youth of Hercules), or Samson. This suggests a sickly, or physically weak, gay man’s fascination with male strength. His music indicates that he was interested in the seduction of men by women rather than vice versa.

The composer was frequently blackmailed, and his name is in Paris police files.

He himself quippingly admitted his interest in young men when he said, 'Je ne suis pas homosexuel, je suis pédéraste'.

He proposed to his wife, Marie-Laure Truffot, twenty years his junior, through her brother – Will you be my brother-in-law? Jean Truffot was a young pianist he had met at the Piscine Deligny on the Seine.

His treatment of his attractive young wife displayed shocking coldness: he refused to have a honeymoon or to set up independent house with her. He took her home to live with Clémence, who proved jealously quick to make her life difficult. Finally Saint-Saëns walked out on Marie-Laure, after six years of marriage, leaving her a note telling her to return to her parents. They never saw each other again. Marie-Laure came to the composer’s Paris funeral in deep black, and died in Bordeaux in 1950, aged 94.

Proust took umbrage at Saint-Saëns’ very obvious interest in his young Venezuelan boyfriend, the composer Reynaldo Hahn. In the early volumes of Proust’s huge novel, the narrator alludes often to a haunting musical phrase by the fictional composer Vinteuil (Twenty eye). We need no great familiarity with Proust’s puns to see that he’s talking of the composer whose name can sound like Five senses. In the 1890s Proust had written complimentary articles in Le Gaulois on Saint-Saëns, and offered him, early in their acquaintance, the ‘homage of a respectful passionate admirer’. Much later, after the composer’s fling with Hahn, Proust explained the Vinteuil source by saying that it was ‘a charming but finally mediocre phrase from a sonata for piano and violin by Saint-Saëns, a composer who I do not like’.

Hahn, who was openly gay, stated that SaintSaëns went to North Africa to ‘hide a vice to which he never made the least allusion’ and added that his valet, Gabriel Geslin, was ‘a faithful domestic, and perhaps more than that’.

Saint-Saëns clearly enjoyed and courted the company of young men. His pupils at the école Niedermeyer, where he taught the piano inspirationally from 1861 to 1865, were often close to him, and some, like the

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good-looking Gabriel Fauré, became friends for life. The Fauré-Saint-Saëns correspondence sees the older man calling Fauré ‘mon gros chat’, and, later on, becoming fond of Fauré’s two sons, Emmanuel and Philippe, even sending them extravagant presents, in one case a telescope, to encourage their intellectual interests.

Emmanuel was to become a leading French biologist. Saint-Saëns also developed such a crush on the adolescent Lithuanian pianist, Leopold Godowsky, that he tried to adopt him, until Godowsky revealed that he was unwilling to change his name to Saint-Saëns.

Paris Opéra 1892

Saint-Saëns was frequently dismissive of women.

In a letter to Fauré he said he had resigned from the Conseil Supérieur of the Conservatoire because it had become packed with ‘newspaper editors, theatre directors and women’.

Saint-Saëns got on extremely well with Tchaikovsky, whose taste for young men was famous, and famously indulged. They both enjoyed cross-dressing, and even danced a ballet, Galatea and Pygmalion, together, in private except for the pianist Nikolay Rubenstein who provided the accompaniment. Saint-Saëns was Galatea and very good as the statue apparently.

The great mezzo, Pauline Viardot, younger sister of Maria Malibran, tells us that Saint-Saëns loved dressing up as a girl in their family charades, and that he had a wonderful line in impersonations of great female singers of the time.

Samson at the treadmill (1863) Carl Bloch (1834–1890)

Put like this Jeanine Huas’s case appears persuasive, but things were not entirely as she presents them. We need to look closer.

Certainly his mother ruled Saint-Saëns despotically and made Marie-Laure’s life a trial, but we shouldn’t read much into the composer’s apparent neglect of his wife. The fact that he fathered two boys shows that he was not the sort of homosexual for whom conventional relations are distasteful. Two tragic personal disasters coloured his marriage. First, their elder boy, André, was killed, aged two and a half, in a fall from the window of their fourth-floor Paris flat: Clémence Saint-Saëns was resting, Marie-Laure

was preparing to go out, and the maid had opened the window for fresh air while she did the ironing. Nobody kept an eye on the little boy. The shock of this horrible accident rendered Marie-Laure incapable of feeding the younger boy, Jean-Francois. They couldn’t find a wet-nurse to suit him, and he died of pneumonia six weeks after his brother.

The composer’s musical life, as composer, virtuoso pianist, organist – maybe the greatest organist of all time – and conductor, took him all over the world, and meant that he had very little time for his family. He expected his wife to look after the children.

She must have found the reproaches of her husband and his mother unbearable in her grief, and we should not be surprised that the marriage came apart.

Saint-Saëns did, however, come close to marriage with other women before committing himself to Marie-Laure. He nearly proposed to the great Swedish soprano, Christina Nilsson, but thought better of it when he heard her say she found Mozart 'boring'. He did actually propose several times to Augusta Holmès, the composer.

He was extremely attached to two of his female composition pupils, Clémence de Grandval and Marie Jaëll, the pianist and composer, who dedicated her first piano concerto to him. In his letters home from abroad he usually commented on the beauty or otherwise of the local girls, but then so did many closet homosexuals, to put, as they thought, people off the scent, in a time when both the law and social taboos made such measures expedient.

The sort of homosexual who is interested in languid adolescent Arab boys is not the sort of homosexual who is excited by the prominent muscles of Hercules or Samson. Janine Huas needed to make up her mind about this.

Saint-Saëns worried continually about his health. Frail as a child, he remained frail as a man, by his own account; not that he allowed frailty of any kind to interfere with

his blistering work schedule, or his foreign tours. In his letters he complains of suffering in every corner of his frame. The state of his knees will soon deprive him of the pleasure of his daily walk; his fragile bronchial condition requires warmth and, above all, clean air. Many French people took refuge in Algeria for the winter, to escape the smoke of Paris and the cold. Only some went there for other reasons.

After the family tragedy, the composer became increasingly eager to get away, and to shake off his famous persona: he travelled as Charles Sannois, and often as a general merchant, or a carpet seller – the Captain on one ship believed he was a Jewish diamond merchant. The mystery he created about himself provoked elaborate local speculation.

In Las Palmas the authorities wondered if he was a spy, a view confirmed by the hotel maid, who peeping through the keyhole had seen him writing strange hieroglyphs, obviously a code. Although the authorities had agents follow him everywhere, they reported nothing truly suspicious, and Janine Huas gives no source for her claim that he was seen in gay cafés and homosexual brothels. Nor does she explain her statement that the composer was immensely wealthy; she seems to believe the article in L'Eclair of 25th March 1890 that a distant cousin had left him 4 million francs (about £10m in 2015 sterling) from the sale of the island of Caprera to the Italian government. Saint-Saëns did receive a legacy in 1877 from his friend Albert Libon, Director of the Paris Poste, but that was for 100,000 francs (c. £250,000 (2015)). It freed him from financial worries for many years, and caused him to dedicate his Requiem to Libon.

Blackmailing of homosexuals was a profitable local industry in Paris at the time. Constantin Radziwill, original of Proust’s Prince de Guermantes, told Robert de Montesquiou, one of the models for the Baron de Charlus, that he paid out personally, each year, about 70,000 francs (c. £175,000 (2015)). The

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Samson and Delilah (c 1500) Andrea Mantegna (c 1430–1506)

false rumour of enormous wealth in L'Eclair did Saint-Saëns no favours. Several louche individuals threatened to ‘expose’ him. On each occasion he went immediately to the police, hence the ‘police record’ people delight to mention.

his works he turned to classical antiquity for inspiration. The fact that pederasty was socially acceptable in ancient Athens may have inspired whoever invented the supposed quip; but SaintSaëns was a deeply private person who used his frequent jokes more to hide his personality than to reveal it. Usually high-spirited and companionable, short (five feet seven), fussily dressed except when wearing his Algerian pyjamas, and bearded, he turned himself in old age into a walking monument to French music. He’s unlikely to have said such a thing, particularly if it was true.

As for the supposed admission of pederasty, nobody produces documentary evidence.

Saint-Saëns wrote widely, on subjects as diverse as astronomy and ancient musical instruments.

He believed passionately in the importance of music to education, and tried to foster French music in particular, in order to bolster national pride after the humiliation of 1870; Wagner was a tough act to match.

One of the few recorded occasions where he was explicit about his sexual tastes came when he met John Philip Sousa, the march king, at the San Francisco Exhibition of 1915.

Sousa recalled: ‘Saint-Saëns and I became the best of friends. We used to wander about the grounds together and he seemed always to have an eye for lovely womankind. Slim beauty seemed to make little impression on him and when one with territorial expansion hove into sight he would nudge me, calling my attention to “yonder beaming beauty!”. Here we have better evidence that anything cited by Mme Huas, but we shouldn’t think it decisive.

Saint-Saëns liked to stress the importance of classical civilizations. A republican and an atheist, he frequently said that he considered the ancient Greek and Roman republics to be the high points of human governance. Often in

MICHAEL FONTES was a master at Winchester College for for ty years. He now runs Les Orchidés de Najac, studying and photographing the wild flowers and butterflies of Najac in Aveyron, France. He has been writing for the festival programme every year since 1999.

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John Philip Sousa standing with Camille Saint-SaĂŤns c 1915

UP, UP & AWAY! Alexander Creswell transforms the interiors of Grange Park every year with his beautiful mysterious hangings. This year he has installed a silk voile facsimile of his painted ceiling above the stairs inside the House – take a look after the performance.

As an artist, Alexander Creswell is known for breaking barriers.

For 2015 he has broken through to the sky, creating the first ceiling painting to be seen for decades – and quite probably the first ever as a watercolour on paper. Originally commissioned by a collector in New York, this sky-breaking watercolour is stretched onto carbon fibre; as ever Creswell is blending tradition with cutting edge technology.

“The ceiling paintings of the settecento had long inspired me as an artist to attempt painting in that tradition, to break away from reality and to do so in watercolour on a large scale. I wanted an architectural framework for a play of light and sky which lifts the soul high above the everyday, not a picture of somewhere, not a mere souvenir.

This new ceiling painting represents a fresh horizon for me, perversely for the simple reason that it has no horizon. Being a view upwards though imaginary architecture to an infinite sky, it has a perspective which relies on the third dimension of the vertical, released from the terrestrial. This view has no subject as such, no representation of reality other than the sky and sunlight, and it requires no title to explain what it is.

The Great Ceiling

watercolour on paper 60 x 102 ins / 152 x 270 cm On view: Stand D20 Hirschl & Adler Galleries at MASTERPIECE, London, 25th June – 1st July 2015 For tickets email: info@alexandercreswell.com

When the painting was still unfinished, we installed it on the ceiling of my studio to test its effect. Unencumbered by accuracy and correctness - which are hard to assess while lying on the floor – the painting became a fresh image, beguiling and surprising. Everything in our terrestrial world is related to the horizon, our level and our balance. Without it we are unsure, dizzy, fumbling. However looking up at a ceiling painting our imagination can fly and we can soar like a bird, if only with our eyes and imagination – up, up and away!”

Alexander Creswell MMXV

100

PATRON Lord Ashburton KG

CHIEF EXECUTIVE

HEAD OF LIGHTING

TRUSTEES

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

LIGHTING PROGRAMMER

GRANGE PARK OPERA Simon Freakley Chairman

GENERAL MANAGER

LIGHTING HIRE

Wasfi Kani OBE Michael Moody

Joanna Barlow Tony Bugg Iain Burnside Emma Kane Hamish Forsyth Wasfi Kani

Helen Sennett

ENDOWMENT FUND William Garrett Chairman

Charlotte Pomroy Louise Tipping

Heike Munro Wasfi Kani Mark Lacey Marie Veeder

PIMLICO OPERA John Derrick Chairman

Fiona Maddocks Ian Maurice Dr Shirley Radcliffe

COMPANY SECRETARY

Jeremy Farr

HAMPSHIRE OPERA COMMITTEE

Vanessa MacMahon Chairman Fiona Alsop Julia Chute Jo Gammell Gail Taylor Sally Reid METEOR BOARD

Carolina Lane Samuel Atiko Arthur Kay George Meagher Fred Gifford Belle Lupton Kitty Vaughan Jack Gardener

Dan Last

Sarah Brown White Light

SYSTEMS & DATABASE MANAGER CHIEF ELECTRICIAN

Chris Campbell

Paul Hyland

BOX OFFICE MANAGER

DEPUTY ELECTRICIANS

Caroline Sheahan

BOX OFFICE & DINING

PRODUCTION MANAGER

Alison Ritchie

COMPANY OFFICE ASSISTANTS

Rosanna Sutcliffe Holly Wade

Adam Johns Joe Sheppard

º SETS

Bohème, Onegin Fiddler on the Roof

WARDROBE MISTRESS

ARTISTIC ADMINISTRATOR

Scenery constructed and painted

by Set up Scenery

CREATIVE & VISUAL DESIGN Additional scenic painting

by John Waterworth Rebecca Thomas PRESS & PRIMARY ROBINS

Annabel Larard º

HEAD OF MUSIC

Philip White

ASSISTANTS CONDUCTORS

PROPS SUPERVISOR

Abby Louise Price Lizzie Marshall º

Alyson Fielden Assisted by Katie Griffin DRESSERS

Cara Kingsley Teri Saunders student placement COSTUME HIRE

Cosprops Angels Costumiers º FRONT OF HOUSE

Jill Hardy

LONDON COMPANY MANAGER LONG MARQUEE SUPERVISOR

Bernard Davies

STAGE MANAGERS Philip White Fiddler Maite Aguirre Bohème,Samson Jude Cound Fiddler Lizzie Chapman Bohème Patrick Milne Onegin Erin Shepherd Samson REPETITEURS Suzie Erith Onegin Jeremy Cooke Bohème DEPUTY STAGE MANAGERS Seann Alderking Fiddler Kim Battistini Bohème Philip Voldman Samson Samantha Kerrison Fiddler Sergey Rybin Onegin Patrick Milne Chorus repetiteur Laura Page Samson Emma Doyle Onegin LANGUAGE & TEXT

WIGS

Scenery constructed by

FINANCE OFFICER

Scott Cooper

Additional Costume Makers

Anne Nichols Jackie Hallet Pauline Parker Lal Drbo Roxy Cressy Karen Crichton Roxanne Armstrong Elspeth Threadgold Sue Pearl Roxy Cressy Kate Arveschoung

Darren Ware Wig Room Ltd Assisted by Pav Stalmach-Ware Helen Keelan Wig Mistress

Scenery constructed and painted

by Visual Scene

Adrian Snell painted by Chris Clark Samson et Dalila

Annabel Ross

Emilia Zagnoli– Student Sewer Eleanor Freeman Student Sewer

Diana Hargreaves GROUNDS

Richard Loader John and Victoria Salkeld David Manston sweet peas TENT KEEPER

Michael Sennett TRAIN

Steve Penn Gordon King

EGGCUPS volunteers ASMs Michael Corbridge Fiddler Sue Brown Sir David Davies Matteo dalle Fratte Bohème Louise Quartermain Bohème Henrietta Cooke Jennifer Hunter Fiddler Sonja Nerdrum Samson THE RESTAURANT Samantha Gardiner Samson Pru de Lavison PRODUCTION ASSISTANTS Bella Burton Eugene Onegin Steve Dean Catherine Stokes Manager Inge Hunter Danielle Urbas Fiddler Natasha Sennett Deputy º Angela Larard Harry O’Sullivan Bar manager David Murley Onegin COSTUME SUPERVISORS Susie Lintott º KEARNEY’S EVENT Caroline Hughes Sue Paice TECHNICAL STAGE MANAGER CATERING David Kearney Bohème & Samson Caroline Perry Declan Costello Marcel Taylor Yvonne Milnes Onegin Jane Powlett DEPUTIES Rachel Woodhouse Fiddler Clare Read PRINTING Sylva Parizkova Cantate Communications DEPUTY COSTUME SUPERVISOR Jo Seligman Scott Darkins John Good Ruth Young Bohème, Samson Di Threllfall John Sherrard Roxanna Armstrong Fiddler Champagne Laurent-Perrier STAGE TECHNICIANS Fiona Parker Onegin Wine Stone Vine & Sun Niall Mulcahy Décor Alexander Creswell COSTUME WORKROOM Sam Court Janna Bannon Cutter Anthony Forde Roslyn Moreton Maker Anthony Bobb-Semple Kim Jones Maker Dominic Kelly Bethan Lloyd Student Sewer John Waterworth FOUNDING CHAIRMAN

Charles Mutter Leader Rebecca Turner Peter Bussereau Chereene Allen Helena Casey Lucy Hartley Kate Robinson Freddie August Harriet Davies Patrick Roberts SECOND VIOLIN

Michael Gray Matthew Elston Marcus Broome David Beaman Daniel Mullin Rustom Pomeroy Anna Ritchie Fran Richards

VIOLA

OBOE / COR ANGLAIS

TIMPANI / PERCUSSION

Timothy Welch Robin Del Mar Nigel Goodwin Helen Knief Clive Howard Sarah Malcolm

Victoria Walpole

Alasdair Malloy

CLARINET

KIT / PERCUSSION

Derek Hannigan Duncan Ashby BASS CLARINET

Duncan Ashby

CELLO

Benjamin Hughes Katharine O’Kane Matthew Lee Josephine Abbott Ben Rogerson

Stephen Whibley ACCORDION / CELESTE

Mark Bousie GUITAR / LUTE / MANDONLIN

Huw Davies

BASSOON

Jane Sibley

º

HORN

GENERAL MANAGER

Mark Johnson Tom Rumsby

Andrew Connolly

TRUMPET

DOUBLE BASS

Dominic Worsley Stacey-Ann Miller Andrew Wood

Catherine Moore David McCallum John Blackshaw

FLUTE

TROMBONE / EUPHONIUM

Ileana Ruhemann Sophie Johnson

Mike Lloyd

THE BOURNEMOUTH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA FIRST VIOLIN

Amyn Merchant

VIOLA

Tom Beer Leader Jacoba Gale Mark Derudder Eva Malmbom Kate Turnbull Judith Preston Karen Leach Nigel Giles Magdalena John Murphy Gruca-Broadbent CELLO Jennifer Curiel Jesper Svedberg Tim Fisher Philippa Stevens Kate Hawes Orsolya Kadar Laura Kernohan Garry Stevens Joan Martinez Alba Acevedo SECOND VIOLIN Calum Cook Carol Paige Coral Lancaster Raja Halder Desmond Neysmith Penny Tweed Stephanie Oade Sophie Cameron DOUBLE BASS Vicky Berry David Daly Lara Carter Nicole Boyesen Rebecca Clark David Kenihan Eluned David Nickie Dixon Janice Thorgilson Jane Ferns Anya Birchall

FLUTE

HORN

TIMPANI

Anna Pyne Robert Manasse Jenny Doyne

Geoff Prentice

Owain Bailey

Nicolas Fleury Ruth Spicer Robert Harris Kevin Pritchard Edward Lockwood

OBOE

TRUMPET

PICCOLO

Edward Kay Holly Randall COR ANGLAIS

Rebecca Kozam CLARINET

Kevin Banks Christine Roberts BASS CLARINET

Andy Harper BASSOON

Emma Selby Tammy Thorn Meyrick Alexander Ruth Rosales CONTRA BASSOON

Kim Murphy

Chris Avison Peter Turnbull Darren Moore Rob Johnston Toby Street TROMBONE

Kevin Morgan Robb Tooley Richard Cross

PERCUSSION

Alastair Marshallsay Sacha Johnson Tim Barry Nigel Shipway Kiyomi Seed HARP

Eluned Pierce

BOHEME, SAMSON, ONEGIN

FIRST VIOLIN

F I D D L E R O N TH E ROO F

THE BBC CONCERT ORCHESTRA

º CEO

Dougie Scarfe HEAD OF CONCERTS

Heather Duncan ORCHESTRA MANAGER

BASS TROMBONE

Adam Glynn

Kevin Smith

LIBRARIAN

TUBA

Kim Matthews

Andy Cresci

SENIOR STAGE MANAGER

Scott Caines STAGE MANAGER

Jack Imrie

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BIOGRAPHIES

DAVID CHARLES ABELL Conductor Fiddler on the Roof Born in the USA, David Charles Abell’s career spans opera, musical theatre and symphonic music. Recently, he conducted Sweeney Todd (ENO), Kevin Puts’ Silent Night (Cincinnati Opera and Lyric Opera of Kansas) and Porgy and Bess (Cincinnati and Cape Town Opera). David conceived and conducted the Sondheim 80th birthday celebration (BBC Proms) and has given the French premieres of four Sondheim musicals: Sweeney Todd, Sunday in the Park with George, Into the Woods (Théâtre du Châtelet) and Follies (Opéra de Toulon). His London credits include the 10th and 25th Anniversary concerts of Les Misérables and the world premiere of Lloyd Webber’s Love Never Dies. Other Proms appearances include last year’s War Horse Prom. Recordings include Jonathan Dove’s Tobias and the Angel, Diana Damrau’s Forever and Something’s Gotta Give with Simon Keenlyside and Scarlett Strallen. Future plans include Kiss Me, Kate (Opera North) and concerts with RPO and RLPO. REBECCA AFONWY-JONES Olga Eugene Onegin Studied at GSMD and RCS. Was a Scottish Opera Emerging Artist and sang the title role in its touring production of Carmen, Fox Cunning Little Vixen and Countess Ceprano Rigoletto.

Roles also include Cherubino Figaro, Akhrossimova War & Peace, La Muse/Nicklausse Les Contes d’Hoffmann and Komponist Ariadne auf Naxos.

Following her debut as Geschwitz Lulu, Rebecca became an Associate Artist at WNO where highlights included Anna Kennedy Maria Stuarda (UK and Muscat), Flora Traviata & 4th Virgin/Sick Woman Moses und Aron.

Engagements in 2014/2015 include Weir’s Sleeping Mat Ballad commissioned by WNO, Messiah (Usher Hall), Louhi Swanhunter (Opera North), Mozart Requiem (London Mozart Players), Nelson Mass (St Alban’s Choral Society) and Mahler 2nd Symphony (Bridgewater Hall, Manchester). Subsequent engagements include Lola Cavalleria Rusticana (WNO).

STEPHEN BARLOW Conductor La Bohème Studied at Trinity College‚ Cambridge and GSMD and was a co-founder of Opera 80.

Current Artistic Director of the Buxton Festival, recent and future projects include La Cenerentola (Stuttgart), Koanga (Wexford), Lucia di Lammermoor, Louise, The Jacobin, The Barber of Baghdad, Intermezzo, La Colombe and La Princesse Jaune (Buxton); Peter Grimes, Boheme, Falstaff‚ Norma, Capriccio‚ Rusalka, Tristan und Isolde, Pique Dame & Carmelites (Grange Park Opera); Les Contes d'Hoffmann (Beijing); Otello (Birmingham) Rape of Lucretia (Irish Youth Opera) and

Midsummer Night’s Dream (Guildhall). He has appeared at Glyndebourne, ROH, ENO, Opera Northern Ireland, Scottish Opera and Opera North as well as conducting his own opera King (Canterbury Cathedral) and his Clarinet Concerto with Emma Johnson and the Ulster Orchestra; Rake’s Progress (Reisopera); Carmen, Faust and Nabucco (Australia) and Bluebeard’s Castle (Auckland Philharmonia). Recordings include Joseph James’ Requiem with Sumi Jo and his own composition Rainbow Bear with his wife‚ Joanna Lumley‚ as narrator.

KELEBOGILE BESONG Musetta La Bohème Already having a successful career in South-Africa, Kelebogile recently made her role debut as Aida (Malmö). She sang Violetta Traviata (Opéra national de Montpellier) and her role debut as Contessa Figaro (Tampere Opera). Future engagements include Contessa (Orchestra of the 18th Century on a Dutch tour) and Fiordiligi Così fan tutte (Bregenzer Festpiele). Kelebogile will represent South-Africa in the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition 2015. She is the proud recipient of the 2012 Standard Bank Young Artist Award in Music and in 2013 she was awarded Africa’s Most Influential Woman in Business & Government (Arts). Kelebogile was a finalist of the 32nd Belvedere Singing Competition 2013, at Nederlandse Opera.

CAMERON BLAKELY Lazar Wolf Fiddler on the Roof Theatre: Mr Lucas/Mr Scruton The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole (Leicester Curve); Thenardier Les Miserables (Queens); Bamatabois Les Miserables 25th Anniversary Concert (O2 Arena); Sam Mamma Mia! (international tour); Stacey Smash (Menier Chocolate Factory); Lester Home and Beauty (Lyric); Howard Over the Moon (Old Vic) Louis Personals (Apollo) Charley Where’s Charley?, Badger The Wind in the Willows, Puck A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Rosencrantz Hamlet, Peter Romeo and Juliet, Nathaniel The Taming of the Shrew (Regent’s Park Open Air); Carmelo The Promise (Orange Tree); Listen to the Wind (King’s Head) Ian An Evening with Gary Lineker (Riverside Studios); Chittelow Half a Sixpence (West Yorkshire Playhouse) Ronald Gamble Thark (Watermill) Roderigo Othello (Theatr Clwyd).

Film: Graves’ Photographer King Ralph, Hunt Saboteur Splitting Heirs, Big Rocker Julie and the Cadillacs. TV: Lord Chamberlain Galavant (ABC). Recordings: Galot Bernice Summerfield: Everybody Loves Irving, Colonel Jago and Litefoot: Encore of the Scorchies.

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LUCY BURGE Choreographer Fiddler on the Roof Lucy was a principal dancer with Rambert Dance Company 1970–85 and she also performed as a guest artist with Rudolf Nureyev. She danced for all the major British opera companies.

Previously Rusalka, Queen of Spades (GPO). Recent work includes: L’Enfant et les Sortilèges (Bolshoi), Manon and Der Ring des Nibelungen (Nationale Reisopera,), Gerald Barry’s Importance of Being Earnest (NI Opera); Maria Stuarda (Opera North); Meistersinger (WNO and ENO), La fanciulla del West (ENO), Ariodante (Aix-en-Provence), Les Contes d’Hoffmann and Lohengrin (Munich, Hoffmann ENO); Gloriana and L’heure Espagnole/Gianni Schicchi & Ballo in maschera (ROH); Carmen (Opera North & Salzburg); La Favorite (Graz); Ariadne auf Naxos (Glyndebourne) and Current: Oresteia (Globe) and in 2016 a new Midsummer Night’s Dream (Kobbe) and Rusalka (Scottish Opera).

GABRIELLE DALTON Costume Design Fiddler on the Roof Designs for Grange Park Opera include Don Quichotte, Idomeneo, Rusalka (Associate).

Recent Work includes: The Marriage of Figaro, Ruddigore, La fanciulla del West, Joshua, La Voix Humaine/ Dido and Aeneas, Les Noces, Ruddigore, Carmen, Let ‘em Eat Cake and Of Thee I Sing (Opera North); Carmen (Vlaamse Opera and Salzburg Festival); Associate to Antony McDonald for The Ring Cycle (Nationale Reisopera); Magical Night and The Red Balloon (ROH2 and tour); A Doll’s House (Young Vic/ West End/BAM New York), Joe Turner’s Come & Gone (Young Vic); Three Water Plays (Almeida Opera Festival); Le Nozze de Figaro (Opera National de Bordeaux/Genoa, Tel Aviv, Champs Elysées Paris and Barcelona); A Chain Play (Almeida Theatre); Turandot (Nationale Reisopera) and Barber of Seville (Savoy Opera). Next year Gabrielle designs costumes for a new Falstaff (Vienna State Opera).

LUCY CARTER Lighting Designer Fiddler on the Roof Trained in Dance & Drama at Roehampton Institute and in Lighting Design at Central School of Speech & Drama. In 2008 she won the Knight of Illumination Award for Dance, for Chroma.

Recent designs: Finta Giardiniera (Glyndebourne); Maria Stuarda (Opera North); Lohengrin (WNO, Polish National Opera); Adventures of Mr Broucek (Opera North/Scottish Opera); Dido & Aeneas and Acis & Galatea (ROH/Royal Ballet); Parthenogenesis (Linbury); Imeneo (Opera Ireland); Absence of War (Headlong); Emil and the Detectives, Blurred Lines and Medea (National); Ubo Roi (Hampstead); Wastwater (Royal Court); The Crucible (Abbey Dublin); Outlier and The Most Incredible Thing (Sadlers Wells & New York); Chroma (Bolshoi Ballet, National Ballet of Canada, San Francisco Ballet, ROH); L’anatomie de la Sensation (Paris); Atomos, FAR and Entity (Random); Yantra (Stuttgart); Limen, Infra Woolf Works, Ravengirl, Live Fire Exercise and Qualia (ROH); Dyad 1909 (Random/Sadlers Wells); Dyad 1929 (Australian Ballet); Still Life (Scottish Ballet); Invitus Invitam (Royal Ballet).

QUIRIJN DE LANG Schaunard La Bohème Quirijn was born in the Netherlands and graduated from the Department of Biology at the University of Amsterdam and then studied at the Milanese Scuola di Musica and the Curtis Institute, Philadelphia. He has sung Graf Capriccio, Yeletsky Queen of Spades and Clavaroche Fortunio (GPO). Most recent and future engagements include Demetrius Midsummer Night’s Dream and Count Almaviva Figaro (Opera North), d’Arlange Vert-Vert (Garsington Opera) and Ponchel Silent Night (Wexford Festival). Quirijn worked with ENO, Scottish Opera, De Nederlandse Opera, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie, De Nationale Reisopera, Grand Théâtre de Luxembourg, De Vlaamse Opera and Combattimento Consort Amsterdam. His repertoire includes Guglielmo Così fan tutte, Papageno Zauberflöte, Harlekin Ariadne auf Naxos, Pantalone Love for Three Oranges and Dandini La Cenerentola.

NICHOLAS CRAWLEY Colline La Bohème Nicholas studied at RAM and Royal Academy Opera. Past engagements include Zaretsky Onegin and Helmsman Tristan und Isolde (Grange Park Opera), Larkens La Fanciulla del West and Night-watchman Meistersinger (ENO) and Basilio Barbiere (OHP). Plans include Guglielmo Così, Escamillo Carmen, Basilio Barbiere, Sleep, Corydon and Winter Fairy Queen, Petrus & bass solos St John Passion (Nationale Reisopera) and Bottom Midsummer Night’s Dream (Stadttheater Klagenfurt). Nicholas was a member of the ensemble at Glyndebourne.

REBECCA DE PONT DAVIES Filipyevna Eugene Onegin Highlights this season include Aunt Kaye Anna Nicole (ROH), The Marchioness La Fille du Régiment (Teatro Real Madrid) and Ruth Pirates of Penzance (ENO). Recent engagements include Mrs Sedley Peter Grimes (Grange Park Opera and Opera North), Auntie Peter Grimes (ENO), a return to the Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris for Jack’s Mother Into the Woods, Mother Wagner Dream (WNO), Old Lady/Elaine Sunday in the Park with George (Théâtre du Châtelet) and Geneviève Pelléas et Mélisande (Aalto Musiktheater, Essen).

MICHEL DE SOUZA High Priest of Dagon Samson began his musical training with the Canarinhos de Petropolis boys’ choir, then graduated in organ from the University of Rio de Janeiro, where he continued to study singing. He completed a Master’s degree in Opera at RSAMD followed by a year as an Emerging Artist at Scottish Opera where he sang Forester Cunning Little Vixen, Escamillo and Marullo.

He was a member of ROH Jette Parker Young Artists Programme, 2012/14, singing Schaunard La Boheme, Captain Eugene Onegin, Angelotti Tosca, Flemish Deputy Don Carlo, City Crier Gloriana, Servant Capriccio, going on to sing Mandarin Turandot, King El gato con botas, Morales Carmen, 1st Night-watchman Die Frau ohne Schatten, Baron Douphol Traviata, Angelotti, 2nd Commissary Carmélites. Other roles include Don Giovanni, Guglielmo, Count Figaro, Belcore L'elisir d'amore, Marcello Boheme and Valentin Faust. Michel is part of the ensemble at Grand Théâtre de Genève.

ALAN EWING Gremin Eugene Onegin Alan Ewing began his working life much in demand by the world of renaissance and baroque music with concerts for Sir Roger Norrington, Philip Pickett, Andrew Parrott, Paul McCreesh, Marc Minkowski and Les Musiciens du Louvre and William Christie and Les Arts Florissants. He has sung for ROH, ENO, WNO, Netherlands Opera, Berlin Staatsoper, Zurich, Karlsruhe, Strasbourg, Opera National de Lorraine Nancy, Lille, Nantes, Opera Colorado and at the Festivals of Salzburg, Lucerne, Aldeburgh, Maggio Musicale and New Zealand in a wide repertoire including Osmin, Sarastro, Ochs, Bartok’s Bluebeard, Rocco, Ferrando Trovatore, Sparafucile, Leporello, Kutuzov War and Peace, Fafner, Polyphemus Acis and Galataea and title role Sweeney Todd. Future engagements include performances at ROH, Barbican Centre, Lincoln Center, New York and Teatro Arriaga Bilbao.

ANTHONY FLAUM Motel Fiddler on the Roof studied at RAM and graduated with distinction in Musical Theatre. He was a member of the National Opera Studio 2012-13, where he was awarded the Nicholas John Fellowship.

He sang Lensky Eugene Onegin (Grange Park Opera Rising Stars), Tchekalinsky Queen of Spades (Grange Park Opera) and Valjean Les Misérables (Pimlico Opera). Engagements this season include Nemorino L’elisir d’amore (OTC, Dublin), Scaramuccio Ariadne auf Naxos (Opera Project), Macduff Macbeth (Scottish Opera), an Opera Gala with the RPO, Last Night of the Summer Proms and Spectacular Classics (Raymond Gubbay) and the Leeds Castle Classical Concert.

CRAIG FLETCHER Fyedka Fiddler on the Roof Tained at RADA. His theatre credits include: Sleeping Beauty (Park Theatre), Midsummer Night's Dream (Stafford Open Air Festival), Boy Meets Boy (Jermyn Street Theatre), Mamma Mia (Prince of Wales Theatre), Time Of My Life, Aladdin (Watford Palace). Television credits include: Mr Selfridge (ITV), Casualty, Doctors (BBC). Film credits include: Matterhorn.

NICHOLAS FOLWELL Abimelech Samson Benoit & Alcindoro Boheme Nicholas has sung Alberich Ring for Nationale Reisopera, Opéra d’Angers-Nantes, Opéra de Dijon, Den Nye Opera, WNO and Scottish Opera.

International career highlights include Dreieinigkeitsmoses Mahagonny (Nantes), Koroviev Der Meister und Margarita

by York Höller (World première, Paris), Ottokar Der Freischütz (Zwingenberger Festival) and Marullo Rigoletto (Frankfurt). He made his ROH début as Harašta Cunning Little Vixen, returning to perform Nachtigall Meistersingers and Antonio Figaro. His many roles for ENO include several world premieres alongside standard repertoire.

Recent engagements include Filip The Jacobin (Buxton Festival) and Priest in the world première of The Trial

by Philip Glass (Music Theatre Wales), with whom he also sang Charles For You and The Doctor Punch and Judy. Future engagements include Antonio and Ortel Meistersinger (Glyndebourne).

SEBASTIAN FROST Sound Designer trained at GSMD. Previous productions for Grange Park Opera include Peter Grimes, Les Carmelites, Queen of Spades and Idomeneo. Other theatre designs include White Christmas and Annie (West Yorkshire Playhouse), Calamity Jane (national tour), Queen Coal (Sheffield Crucible), Drunk (McOnie Company), The Witches (Chichester), The Good Person of Sichuan (Mercury Theatre, Colchester) James and The Giant Peach and Fame (UK tours), The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe (Kensington Gardens), Decade (Headlong), Great Expectations (ETT), Antony and Cleopatra (Liverpool Playhouse), Little Shop of Horrors (Birmingham), Riff Raff (Arcola), A Christmas Carol (West Yorkshire/Birmingham Rep), All the Fun of the Fair (Garrick/UK tour), The Common Pursuit and Total Eclipse (Menier), Glass Menagerie (Apollo), Sunday in the Park With George (Menier/Wyndham’s), Carnival (Venice), Trainspotting (UK tour), Tonight’s the Night (Victoria Palace), Boy Band (Gielgud), Kat and the Kings (Broadway and Vaudeville), Summer Begins (Donmar) and Colour of Justice (Victoria Palace).

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SARA FULGONI Dalila Samson sang title role Rinaldo for Grange Park Opera in 2000 and returned for Adalgisa Norma, Clairon Capriccio, Brangäne Tristan und Isolde, Paulina Queen of Spades, Suzuki Madama Butterfly, Mere Marie Les Carmelites and Dulcinée Don Quichotte.

Elsewhere she has appeared at ROH, WNO, ENO, La Scala Milan, Teatro Comunale di Bologna, Teatro Petruzzelli, San Francisco Opera, Dallas Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Canadian Opera Company, Gran Teatre del Liceu Barcelona, Palau de les Arts Valencia, Opernhaus Zürich, Bayerische Staatsoper, De Nederlandse Opera, De Vlaamse Opera, Geneva Opera, Opera National du Rhin and La Monnaie Brussels. She has recorded for Decca, Philips and EMI. Sara began the season in the world premiere of Nicholas Lens’ Shellshock Requiem (La Monnaie). She appeared as Judith Bluebeard's Castle (Orquesta di Castilla y Leon) and will perform Pierrot Lunaire (Penarth Chamber Music Festival) and Mahler Symphony No 3 (Bergen Philharmonic).

SUSAN GRITTON Tatyana Eugene Onegin Highlights this season include Ellen Orford Peter Grimes (Iceland Symphony Orchestra), War Requiem (Orchestra of the Teatro Réal Madrid), Beethoven 9 and Ah! perfido (Melbourne Symphony Orchestra), Messiah (RLPO) and recitals at the Oxford Lieder Festival and at the Barber Institute, Birmingham.

Notable operatic appearances include Liù, Micäela and Marenka (ROH); Ellen Orford (La Scala, Opera Australia & Tokyo); Governess and Female Chorus (Aldeburgh); Countess Madeleine (Grange Park Opera); Konstanze (Bayerische Staatsoper & Deutsche Staatsoper); Fiordiligi, Vittelia Rodelinda and Blanche de la Force (Bayerische Staatsoper); Elettra (Netherlands Opera); Donna Anna (Opéra de Montreal & Bolshoi); Theodora (Glyndebourne) and Countess Almaviva, Fiordiligi and Vixen (ENO). Her work on the concert platform spans many periods and styles and she collaborates regularly with conductors such as Rattle, Harding, Pappano, Norrington and Elder.

JANET FULLERLOVE Golde Fiddler on the Roof Janet is a graduate of Mountview Academy. Theatre credits include: Shakespeare in Love (Disney/Sonia Friedman Productions at Noel Coward Theatre); Fortune’s Fool (Old Vic); Taming of the Shrew (RSC); The Beggar’s Opera (Open Air Theatre Regent’s Park); Fabrication (The Print Room); Macbeth (Shakespeare’s Globe Trust); Cheryomushki (Lyric Hammersmith); Sweeney Todd, West Side Story, Facade, Marriage of Figaro (Pimlico Opera); Shouting at Shadows (Cheltenham Everyman/Sixth Sense). Film includes: Longford; Tomorrow La Scala!. Television includes: Tipping the Velvet, The Jack the Ripper Diaries. Voiceover includes: The Plant Hunters, The Wild Duck. When ‘resting’, Janet knits and nurtures chickens, dogs and veg patch at an Appenine farmhouse in central Italy that she is restoring with her husband.

KATIE HALL Hodel Fiddler on the Roof Katie trained with National Youth Music Theatre and recently appeared as Johanna Sweeney Todd (ENO). She was a boot camp contestant in the search for Nancy I’d Do Anything and was a final round contender for Andrew Lloyd Webber’s search for the Eurovision entry Your Country Needs You (BBC). Katie played Cosette Les Miserables (Queen’s Theatre, international tour and O2 for 25th anniversary concert), Christine Phantom (Her Majesty’s and RAH) and Cameron Mackintosh’s all-new production (national tour). This was followed by Maria West Side Story (National Tour). Workshops include Maria Anna Miller Schikaneder directed by Trevor Nunn. Film credits include Les Miserables (Working Title Films) directed by Tom Hooper.

SUSANA GASPAR Mimi La Bohème Portuguese soprano Susana Gaspar joined the Jette Parker Young Artists Programme in September 2011 and represented Portugal in the 2013 BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition.

She made her ROH debut as Barbarina Le nozze di Figaro, followed by Countess Ceprano Rigoletto, Giannetta L’elisir d’amore, First Innocent Minotaur, Papagena Die Zauberflöte and Voice from Heaven Don Carlo. Other roles include Serpina La serva padrone and Euridice Orfeo ed Euridice. She recorded Les Nuits d’été and Aurore Le Portrait de Manon (Opera Rara). Plans include Haydn’s Die Schöpfung under Dudamel, concerts with the Orquestra Sinfónica do Porto Casa da Musica, LSO and CBSO.

CHARLOTTE HARWOOD Tzeitel Fiddler on the Roof Charlotte trained at Mountview.

Theatre includes: Elena Slipping, Diane/Jean/Julie Screenplay and Box/Urszula Cox and Box/Boks and Cocks (Stephen Joseph Theatre), Kerry Jackson Get Got (Edinburgh), Leia Dawkins Loserville (West Yorkshire Playhouse, Garrick Theatre), Vivienne Legally Blonde (Tour), cover Amalia Balash She Loves Me (Chichester) and Gloria Flashdance (Shaftesbury). Workshops include Sarah T'ain't a Bird, Lady Agatha The Admiral Crichton, I Can't Sing!, Rosie Build Me Up Buttercup, Ange X (Mercury Musical Developments). Concerts include The Night of 1000 Voices (RAH). Film & tv includes: Flick Down Flew the Doves (Workshop), Gabby Hollyoaks (Lime Pictures).

Most recently Twyla Kill Me Now (Park Theatre).

LYNNE HOCKNEY Movement / Choreography Eugene Onegin & Boheme Lynne trained at Royal Ballet School. Her choreographic career has encompassed opera‚ theatre‚ film and television‚ working with directors as diverse as James Cameron‚ Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sir Peter Hall.

Most recent and future engagements include her own production of La Cenerentola (Erfurt), Hall’s Cenerentola (Glyndebourne and Berlin) and Otello (Castleton Festival) both as Revival Director; Der Rosenkavalier (Bolshoi Theatre); Giulio Cesare (Erfurt); Traviata and La Vie Parisienne (Magdeburg); Billy Budd (Opera North and Reisopera); Don Quichotte (Nederlandse Opera); Tancredi‚ Iolanta‚ Francesca da Rimini and Orfeo ed Euridice (Theater an der Wien); Otello (Korean National Opera); Otello and William Tell (Graz); The Maiden in the Tower (Buxton Festival); Jenufa (Glyndebourne); Jenufa, Boheme and A Little Night Music (Malmö) and Eugene Onegin (Opera de Lyon and Grange Park Opera). Her film credits include The Village‚ Titanic‚ True Lies‚ Town & Country‚ Wild Wild West and Rocky & Bullwinkle.

PAUL KEOGAN Lighting Designer Lighting designs for Grange Park Opera include Don Quichotte, Les Carmelites, Eugene Onegin, Idomeneo and Queen of Spades.

Other credits include Maria de Buenos Aires (Cork Opera House), Wake (Nationale Reisopera), Therese / La Navarraise, Christina Regina Di Svezia, Snegurochka, Penelope and Susannah (Wexford Festival), Makropulos Case, Un ballo in maschera and Der fliegende Holländer (Opera Zuid), The Lighthouse (Montepulciano), Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, The Silver Tassie and Dead Man Walking (Opera Ireland) Magic Flute (Korea National Opera), Blasted and Afterplay (Crucible Sheffield), The Walworth Farce (Landmark Productions Ireland), Mistletoe & Crime and Mixed Marriage (Lyric Theatre, Belfast), A Streetcar Named Desire (Liverpool Playhouse), Twelfth Night (Liverpool Everyman), Our Few and Evil Days and The Risen People (Abbey, Dublin), Molly Sweeney (Gate, Dublin), Before it Rains (Sherman Cymru/ Bristol Old Vic), The Hairy Ape (Corcadora, Cork), Penelope (Druid, Galway), Cassandra and Hansel and Gretel, (Royal Ballet), No Man’s Land (ENB).

HOUCHENG KIAN Fiddler Fiddler on the Roof Houcheng was born in Paris, and started learning the violin at age 5. From 2002 to 2007 he studie at the Conservatoire of La Rochelle, before entering the Conservatoire of Bordeaux where he graduated in 2011. He continued his studies in Paris with Nathalie Chabot, Régis Pasquier and Olivier Charlier.

Last December he joined the Royal Academy of Music studying with Tomotada Soh.

JEFFREY LLOYD-ROBERTS Triquet Eugene Onegin Born in Wales, Jeffrey read music at Lancaster University before studying at the RNCM. Concerts include performances with the CBSO, BBC SO, BBC Philharmonic, Orquesta Sinfonica de Barcelona, Musikfabrik, Malaysian Philharmonic and with conductors including Matthias Barnett, Sir Simon Rattle and Vassily Siniasky. He has worked regularly with all the major UK opera companies and made his debut in Salzburg singing Erik Die fliegende Höllander. He has sung at the Cheltenham Festival, Edinburgh International Festival and the BBC Proms, most recently with the UK premiere of Birtwistle’s Angel Fighter in 2011. Recent and future engagements include Julietta (ENO), Arthur Gawain (Salzburg Festival and BBC SO), Billy Budd (Glyndebourne in the US) and revivals of title role Peter Grimes (Opera North) and Anna Nicole (ROH) as well as a new production of Mahagonny (ROH).

MOLLY LYNCH Chava Fiddler on the Roof is from Cork, Ireland and is a recent graduate of the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, having previously studied at the Cork School of Music. Roles whilst training at CSSD include Polly Peachum The Beggars’ Opera and Genevieve The Baker’s Wife. Molly also trained with the National Youth Music Theatre UK, playing Jennifer The Dreaming at the Rose Theatre, Kingston. She recently appeared as part of the ensemble in Sweeney Todd (ENO) and Zofia Soviet Zion (The Lost Theatre and The Jewish Museum).

GIANLUCA MARCIANO Conductor Samson & Eugene Onegin Gianluca Marciano has been increasingly in demand since his operatic debut with Croatian National Opera in 2007. He has strong ties with the opera houses in Zagreb, Minsk, Sassari and Prague, and, within the UK, ENO, Grange Park Opera, Longborough Opera and ECO. He is currently Artistic Director of the Al Bustan Festival in Beirut. Marciano’s engagements last season included Ernani (Lithuanian National Opera), Madama Butterfly (ENO) and Traviata (Grange Park Opera). Highlights of the currents season include his Opera North debut conducting Traviata; a return to ENO for La Boheme; Carmina Burana and Pagliacci in Moscow; and Norma (Al Bustan Festival).

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PATRICK MASON Director Samson Patrick Mason is a freelance director of theatre and opera.

He has had a long association with the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, which culminated in his tenure as its Artistic Director from 1993-1999. He has worked extensively with writers such as Brian Friel, Tom Murphy, Tom Kilroy, and Frank McGuinness. His production of Friel’s Dancing at Lughnasa ran in the West End and on Broadway and won him an Olivier nomination and a Tony Award for Best Director. Opera work includes productions for Wexford Festival Opera, WNO and ENO, as well as productions for Opera Zuid, Opera Ireland and Buxton Festival. In 2000 he was awarded an honorary doctorate by Trinity College Dublin in recognition of his contribution to Irish Theatre. He is currently an adjunct professor in Drama at University College Dublin, and was conferred an honorary doctorate in 2013.

ANTONY MCDONALD Designer/Director Fiddler on the Roof is a Royal Designer for Industry.

Part of the British team of designers winning the Golden Triga at Prague Quadrennale 2003 for Ballo in maschera (Bregenz) and in 1991 for Hamlet (RSC).

Winner of Set Design Award for Opera - International Opera Awards 2013. Work as Director/Designer: Wonderful Town, Rusalka, Queen of Spades (Grange Park Opera); Midsummer Night’s Dream (Hyogo Arts Centre, Kobbe, Japan), 2016; Tristan und Isolde (Opera national du Rhin) Lohengrin (WNO, Polish National Opera); Gerald Barry’s Importance of Being Earnest (NI Opera), L’Enfant et les Sortilèges, (Bolshoi), The Ring, Manon and King Priam (Nationale Reisopera), Maria Stuarda (Opera North); Knot Garden, Aida, Samson et Dalila (Scottish Opera). Current and recent designs: The Bakkai (Almeida); Macbeth (St Gallen); La Finta Giardiniera (Glyndebourne); Ein Reigen (Vienna State Ballet); Makropoulos Case (Frankfurt); The Gambler (ROH); Cunning Little Vixen (Netherlands Opera); Billy Budd (Frankfurt, Amsterdam) and Julietta (Paris, Geneva, ENO).

STEPHEN MEDCALF Director Eugene Onegin & La Bohème Stephen was Director of Productions at ETO and Head of Opera Production at GSMD, where he was awarded the Queen’s Medal for education.

For Grange Park Opera, he has directed Magic Flute, La Fanciulla del West, Capriccio and Eugene Onegin. In 2005, he earned the Premio Abbiati Italian critics’ prize as Director of the Year. Current and future engagements include Manon Lescaut (Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía Valencia and Asociación Bilbaina de amigos de la Ópera in Bilbao),

Falstaff (Accademia della Scala on tour to Royal Opera House Muscat), and Aida Landestheater Niederbayern.

Previous work includes new productions at Teatro alla Scala, Teatro Lirico di Cagliari, RAH, Wexford Festival, Opera North, Salzburger Landestheater, Glyndebourne, Teatro Regio di Parma, Théâtre du Châtelet, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Teatro Real de Madrid and ROH. FRANCIS O’CONNOR Designer Eugene Onegin & Samson Francis trained at Wimbledon School of Art. Productions include Midsummer Night’s Dream, Love’s Labour’s Lost and Written on the Heart (RSC). Designs include Beauty Queen of Leenane, Translations, The Cripple of Innishmaan, The Silver Tassie (New York and Broadway); Fortunio, Eugene Onegin, Capriccio, Fanciulla, Magic Flute, Don Giovanni, South Pacific & Iolanthe (Grange Park Opera); many collaborations with Garry Hynes, Druid Theatre, Gate and Abbey in Ireland.

Recent work: Carmen (Biel, Switzerland); Oklahoma (UK tour); also Noye’s Fludde (Lowestoft); Rusalka (Nürnberg and Monte Carlo); Pinocchio (Bonn), Moses (St Gallen); Silent Night (Minnesota); Flying Dutchman and Wut (Bern); Benzin (Chemnitz); Vert-Vert, Die Entführung, La Perichole, Turco in Italia, Midsummer Night’s Dream (Garsington Opera); Orfeo et Euridice, Maria di Rohan, Luisa Miller (Buxton Festival). Awards include two Irish Times Awards, Boston Globe and Critics’ Circle Award.

His designs for the opera Pinocchio were nominated for the Faust Prize, Germany.

ANNE-MARIE OWENS Larina Eugene Onegin was born in South Shields and studied at GSMD and NOS. Her vast operatic repertoire has included Brangäne, Amneris, Azucena, Herodias and Santuzza and she has worked with many of the world’s great opera companies and conductors. Anne-Marie is also in demand on the concert platform, where she performs the works of Mahler, Vaughan Williams, Elgar and the choral works of Verdi, Mendelssohn, Mozart and Beethoven. For Grange Park Opera she has sung Prioress Les Carmélites, Countess Queen of Spades, Auntie Peter Grimes and Jezibaba Rusalka. Recent appearances include Mahler 8th Symphony with the Philharmonia and in Porto, Beethoven 9th Symphony (RPO), Mrs Herring Albert Herring (Toulouse), Mrs Sedley Peter Grimes (Hamburg), Brangäne Tristan und Isolde (Nederlandse Reisopera), Mrs Grose Turn of the Screw (Vienna Konzerthaus and Théâtre du Capitole Toulouse) and Grandmother Buryjovka Jenufa (Scottish Opera).

BRETT POLEGATO Onegin Eugene Onegin Marcello La Bohème Finished first among the men at the 1995 Cardiff Singer of the World competition. His career has encompassed over fifty roles at prestigious venues including La Scala, l’Opéra National de Paris, Glyndebourne Festival Opera, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Houston Grand Opera, Teatro Real, Concertgebouw Amsterdam and Carnegie Hall. He has made a name for himself in a number of dramatic roles, most notably Eugene Onegin and Don Giovanni, Conte Almaviva Figaro and Pelléas Pelléas et Mélisande. Highlights of the 2014-15 season include Kurwenal Tristan und Isolde (Opéra National de Bordeaux); Lieutenant Audebert Silent Night (Calgary Opera); and Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (CBSO). Further ahead he will sing major roles for Seattle Opera and the Théâtre des Champs Elysées.

JORDAN POLLARD Perchik Fiddler on the Roof Theatre credits include: Phantom of the Opera (Asia Tour, The Really Useful Group), Almost Eurovision (Glynn Nicholas Group and QPAC), Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (Harvest Rain Theater Company). Concerts include: The Ten Tenors (Frog in a Sock Ltd) and Movie Magic (Queensland Pops Orchestra). Opera credits include: Dirty Apple (Opera Queensland) and A Midsummer Nights Dream (Queensland Conservatorium of Music).

CHRISTOPHOROS STAMBOGLIS Old Hebrew Samson was born in Athens and won the Maria Callas Scholarship to GSMD. He went on to the Accademia Rossiniana and subsequently appeared throughout Italy and Germany. He participated at the opening concert of the Athens Megaron and appears there regularly as he does with Greek National Opera and the Odeon of Herodes Atticus. Recent debuts: ROH, Metropolitan Opera, Carnegie Hall, Grand Théâtre de Genève, Opéra de Nice, Caramoor Festival, Teatro Real Madrid, Concertgebouw Amsterdam. Other appearances include Deutsche Oper am Rhein, Teatro Verdi di Trieste, Rossini Opera Festival Pesaro, Teatro Greco Taormina, Teatro Verdi di Pisa, Teatro del Giglio di Lucca, Teatro Sociale di Como, Teatro Giocosa di Savona, Teatro Verdi di Sassari, Opéra Théâtre d’Avignon, Garsington Opera, Strasbourg Festival and Festival Barocco Fano. Future plans include Don Basilio (Glyndebourne) and Ramfis (Bayerische Staatsoper).

CARL TANNER Samson Samson Carl recently sang title role Otello (Pittsburgh Opera) and returned to the Metropolitan Opera, New York for performances of Canio Pagliacci/Tiriddu Cavalleria Rusticana and Radames Aida, a role he previously sang at Staatsoper Hamburg, Bayerische Staatsoper, Edmonton Opera, Deutsche Oper Berlin and Semperoper Dresden. Previously he has sung Hermann Queen of Spades and title role Peter Grimes (Grange Park Opera). He made his debut at Washington National Opera as Captain Ahab Moby-Dick and at Deutsche Oper Berlin as Cavaradossi Tosca, a role he previously sang at the New National Theatre in Tokyo, Greek National Opera and in his debut at ROH. Future engagements include Luigi Il Tabarro (ROH) and Radames (Opera Colorado).

BRYN TERFEL Tevye Fiddler on the Roof The Welsh bass-baritone Bryn Terfel has performed in all the great opera houses of the world and is especially recognised for his portrayals of Figaro, Falstaff and Wotan. Bryn is also known for his versatility as a concert performer with highlights ranging from the opening ceremony of the Wales Millennium Centre, BBC Last Night of the Proms, and the Royal Variety Performance to a gala concert with Andrea Bocelli in Central Park, New York. He is a Grammy, Classical Brit and Gramophone Award winner with a discography encompassing operas by Mozart, Wagner and Strauss, and more than fifteen solo discs including Lieder, American musical theatre, Welsh songs and sacred repertory. Performances in 2015 include title role Sweeney Todd (ENO), Mephistopheles La Damnation de Faust (Opera de Paris), Scarpia Tosca (Monte Carlo Opera) and concerts to celebrate his 50th birthday at RAH and Wales Millennium Centre.

GIANLUCA TERRANOVA Roldolfo La Bohème was born in Rome and has performed at Teatro alla Scala, Los Angeles Opera, Opera Australia in Sydney and Melbourne, Grand Theatre of Shangai, Grand Theatre of Honk Kong, Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Teatro La Fenice Venice, Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, Arena di Verona, working with conductors James Conlon, Myung Wung Chung, Nicola Luisotti and Zubin Mehta, among others. Recent engagements have included Duca Rigoletto (Rome Liège and Leipzig), Alfredo Traviata (Duisburg) and Edgardo Lucia di Lammermoor (Genova). He was the face and voice of Enrico Caruso in the Italian TV-movie Caruso, la voce dell’amore. In October 2012 he released his first solo album: Gianluca Terranova canta Caruso (EMI).

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JAMIE VARTAN Set & Costume Design La Bohème Jamie trained at Central School of Art. He was part of the British submission to the Prague Quadrenale in 2007 for Carmen (Cagliari). In 2012 he won best design Irish Times Awards for Misterman (Landmark Productions, Galway Festival, St Anne’s New York and National Theatre) and in 2013 best design for Village Romeo and Juliet, (Wexford). Current and recent opera: world premiere The Last Hotel (Edinburgh Festival 2015 and tour); Falstaff (Oman); Manon Lescaut (Valencia); Cristina, Regina di Svezia (Wexford); Falstaff (Parma); Carmen (Lisbon); Betrothal in a Monastery (RCS and Scottish Opera), L’isola Disabitata (ROH Young Artists, Hobart Festival); L’amore dei tre re (OHP 2007 & 2015); Pirates of Penzance (Scottish Opera).

REBECCA WHEATLEY Yente Fiddler on the Roof is a singer, actress and presenter, best known for her portrayal of Amy Howard Casualty (BBC).

Other Television includes Cathy and Gwyneth in Doctors (BBC), Head teacher Kerching!, Nightclub Singer Pie in the Sky, Kelly Martino Wycliffe, Penelope A Pinch of Stuff and Presenter Kick the Habit and BBC Music Live.

She has also been a regular presenter for The Wright Stuff and a Loose Women panellist. Theatre: National tours: Anita Girls Night the Musical, Rachel Wardle / Lea Hunter Pickwick Papers, Dawn Steaming, Annie Wilkes Misery, Deborah and Linda Mums the Word. West End: Julie Johnson Bad Girls, Mrs Sherman Fame the Musical, Barbara Big Pants and Botox. Rebecca has performed her one woman cabaret show at The Pheasantry, Crazy Coqs and Edinburgh Festival among others.

PHILIP WHITE Head of Music Philip was Chorus Master of the Royal Danish Opera from 2004 to 2012 and for the last ten years has been Assistant Chorus Master at the Bayreuth Festival. In 1995 he was Assistant Chorus Master on Moses and Aron (Théâtre du Châtelet) and was invited back as Chorus Master for Oedipus Rex, Le Rossignol and Parsifal. After working with the Chorus of Radio France on Britten’s Spring Symphony he was nominated their Associate Chorus Master in 2001. He has notably prepared the chorus for Deutsche Grammophon’s recording of Messian’s La Transfiguration de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ, Bizet’s Ivan IV, Honegger’s La Danse des Morts, Benvenuto Cellini (EMI), Théâtre du Châtelet’s production of Tannhäuser and Sting’s album Sacred Love. Since leaving Royal Danish Opera Philip has worked as Guest Chorus Master for Scottish Opera, Opéra de Lyon, Longborough Festival Opera, ENO, and Moses und Aron (WNO).

NIKKI WOOLlASTON Movement Director Samson As choreographer credits include: Porgy & Bess (Royal Danish Opera), King’s Speech (Wyndhams & UK Tour), Backbeat (Duke of York’s, Toronto, Los Angeles), Rigoletto (OHP), Traviata, Butterfly, Tosca and Carmelites (Grange Park Opera), Oklahoma! (Chichester), Wuthering Heights (UK Tour), Marguerite (Haymarket Theatre, and Japan), Kismet (ENO), The King And I (UK Tour), Nymph Errant (Minerva, Chichester), Vivien Ellis Awards (Her Majesty’s Theatre) and Breathless (ITV Drama). As a director, assistant director, associate choreographer and rehearsal director, credits include: Gypsy (Chichester and Savoy) Anton and Erin's Christmas Cracker (RAH), West Side Story (Pimlico Opera), She Loves Me (Chichester) and Shoes (Saddler’s Wells/Peacock Theatre). Mass movement choreography credits include: Glasgow and Manchester Commonwealth Games; London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games; Ajyal Youth Film Festival (Doha) and The Big If (Hyde Park).

JUNG SOO YUN Lensky Eugene Onegin Recent engagements include Rodolfo Boheme (Danish National Opera)‚ Mainfroid and cover Henri Vêpres Siciliennes (ROH)‚ Macduff Macbeth (Opera North)‚ Nadir Pêcheurs de perles‚ Rinuccio Gianni Schicchi‚ (Opera Holland Park)‚ Ruggero Rondine (Opera di Peroni)‚ as well as covering Raimbaud Robert le Diable (ROH)‚ title role Faust (Opera North), title role Werther (Scottish Opera). Further engagements include Edgardo Lucia and Remendado Carmen (Clonter Opera), title role Werther (Les Azuriales)‚ Hoffmann Les Contes d’Hoffmann‚ Prince Love for Three Oranges and Lensky Eugene Onegin (RSAMD).

SARAH O'CONNELL Born East Sussex, trained Legat School.

Credits: Onegin (Glyndebourne and Grange Park Opera), Manon and Andrea Chénier (ROH), Phantom of the Opera 25th Anniversary performance, Dream (Ballet Wales).

DANCERS GRAZIANO BONGIOVANNI

DYLAN WADDELL

BIANCA HOPKINS

LAUREN POULTON

Born Catania, studied at Accademia Internazionale Coreutica. Joined Baltic Dance Theatre. Credits include No More Play, Six Dances & Chopinart.

In 2014 joined Chantry Dance Company.

Born Brisbane, trained at NZ School of Dance. Credits include Paris Opera, Phantom of the Opera, Swan Lake (Royal NZ Ballet), World of Wearable Art Show. MurleyDance’s Object of my Affection, Hail Brittania, & Balletten’s Noddebø Præstegård.

Born Townsville, Australia, trained Fiona Munroe School of Dance & New Zealand School of Dance.

Credits: Madame Butterfly Peter Jackson's King Kong, Street Dance & Quintett. Her most recent performances have been with the Royal Opera in Faust.

Born Enfield, studied at Central School of Ballet. Credits: Swan Lake (ENB, RAH), Les Vêpres Siciliennes (ROH), Giselle (National Ballet of Cuba), Juliet, Helena, Myrtha & Belle (Ballet Cymru).

CARMINE DE AMICIS Born Avezzano, Italy, trained at Italian National Academy of Dance (Rome), joined MAPDANCE (Chichester), currently dances for Tavaziva Dance.

Performed works by Kerry Nicholls, Gary Clarke, Yael Flexer, and Liz Aggiss.

JAMIE EMMA MCDONALD Born Glasgow, trained at Legat School of Dance, Creative Dance Co & Millennium. Credits include Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake (international tour), Corps de Ballet Phantom (UK tour); Silver Jubilee Gala (National Youth Ballet, Sadler’s Wells).

ROSS MCLAREN Born Lindsey, North Lincolnshire, trained Millennium Performing Arts. Credits: Singin’ In The Rain (Châtelet), Annie (New Zealand Tour), 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony, dancer in The Muppets...Again!.

REBECCA SCARROTT Born London. Credits: Tsar’s Bride, Anna Nicole (ROH) & Rinaldo (Glyndebourne).

Forever Crazy, Cabaret, Phantom & Falco Meets Amadeus.

REECE CAUSTON Born King’s Lynn, studied at Central School of Ballet. Joined Matthew Bourne’s New Adventures and toured Swan Lake internationally for 14 months after graduating.

EMMA HARRIS Born Aldershot. Credits: Ace of Clubs, Timon of Athens, Chicago, Rattigan's Nijinski, Phantom of the Opera, Joseph, Evita, West Side Story, On Your Toes, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Cats. Ballet: Swan Lake, Nutcracker, Romeo & Juliet, Cinderella, Dream. Captain America, Phantom 25th Anniversary.

JACK MITCHELL Born Greenwich.

Trained privately with members of ENB and at Performers College. Recent work: lead male ballet dancer par tnering Amber Heard in Tom Hooper’s The Danish Girl, starring Eddie Redmayne.

THOMAS SNEE Born … and trained at Royal Ballet School. Credits: National Ballet of Canada, ENB, Cork City Ballet, Gandini Juggling, Constella Ballet Orchestra and guest performances in Japan.

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ANDREW BROWN Graduated from RNCM. Credits include NankiPoo Mikado, Marco Gondoliers, Alexis Sorcerer, Pete the Swede Paul Bunyan, and chorus (BYO).

JONATHAN COOKE Studied at the RCS. Credits include Ruggero La Rondine, Le Mari Les Mamelles de Tiresias (RCS) and Tamino Magic Flute (Young Opera Venture).

OLIVIA BARRY Born Essex, studied Birmingham Conservatoire. Credits include Rossweisse Walküre (Fulham Opera) Mercedes Carmen (Opera Up Close) Grimes & Spades (Grange Park Opera)

FELICITY BUCKLAND

STEPHANIE EDWARDS Born Leicester, studied at RCM & RWCMD. Credits include Barbarina Figaro & Papagena Magic Flute (ETO), Kate Pinkerton Butterfly (Opéra de Baugé). Plans include Mozart’ Requiem (RFH).

ELEANOR GARSIDE Born Oldham, studied at Manchester University & RNCM. Credits include Belinda Dido & Aeneas, Atalanta Xerxes, Miss Wordsworth Albert Herring, Yum Yum Mikado, Mabel Pirates

GEORGIA BISHOP Born Jersey, studied at Trinity. Credits include Carmen Carmen, Dorabella Così fan tutte (PuzzlePiece Opera)

EDMOND CHOO Born Melbourne, Australia. Sudied at Opera Australia.

Credits also include ROH, ENO, WNO & Opera Holland Park.

FAE EVELYN Born in Durban, studied at University of KZN & RNCM. Credits include Mozart Mass in C Minor (Bury Bach Choir), Contessa Marriage of Figaro (OperaUpClose).

SOPHIE GOLDRICK Born in Sydney, studied at the University of Western Sydney & RNCM. Roles include Olga Onegin, Fox Cunning Little Vixen, & Giardiniera Carmen.

ROBERT GARLAND Born Northamptonshire Studied at RWCMD & RAM. Credits include Figaro Figaro, Guglielmo Così fan tutte, Papageno The Magic Flute & Belcore L'elisir d'amore.

CHORUS

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ROBERTO ABATE Born Perth, Australia, studied at Wales Academy. Recently work: Bandit Don Quixote (Grange Park),Fenton Falstaff, Luigi Tabarro & Gherardo Gianni Schicchi (Fulham Opera)

Born Reading. Studied at RNCM. Credits include chorus at Grange Park Opera & Opera Holland Park, Cherubino Marriage of Figaro (Opera Up Close).

CHRISTOPHER JACKLIN Born Chester. Trained at RCM & ENO Opera Works. Credits include Narrator Paul Bunyan (BYO), Grosvenor Patience (RCMIOS, Musée D’Orsay), Figaro Barber and Belcore L’Elisir d’amore (OperaUpClose).

EMILY KYTE Born London, studied at GSMD. Credits include West Wind East o’ the Sun, West o’ the Moon (Tête-a-tête), chorus Paul Bunyan (BYO), Cunning Peasant & Adventures of Pinocchio.

ANNABEL MOUNTFORD

KATIE HAINBACH Born Dublin, studied at GSMD. Credits include Florence Pike Albert Herring, Hermia Midsummer Night’s Dream, Mother Hansel & Gretel, & Third Boy Magic Flute

MATTHEW KIMBLE Born in Bedford, trained at GSMD. Credits include Albert Herring, Tamino Die Zauberflöte, Don José Carmen, Orpheus Orpheus in the Underworld, Beppe Pagliacci & Gastone Traviata.

BECCA MARRIOTT Born London, studied at Trinity. Credits: Tosca (Soho Theatre), Amelia Ballo in maschera, Dido Dido & Aeneas, Elvira Giovanni, Contessa Figaro.

ALEX OTTERBURN Born London, studied at RAM. Credits include Curio Giulio Cesare and Don Giovanni. Plans include Onegin Onegin (Dartington Summer School).

FIONA HYMNS Born in Dorset, studied at RNCM. Credits include Terinka Jacobin (Buxton Festival); Adina L’Elisir d’amore (Pint-sized Opera) and Lidochka Cheryomushki (RNCM).

Nadia & Rosa for Helios Collective’s Toi Toi.

JEROME KNOX Born London, studied at RCM. Credits: Don Pomponio La Gazzetta, (RCMIOS), Masetto Giovanni (Co-opera), Nick Shadow Rake's Progress (ESO), Auden Journeying Boys (RCM). Plans include Leporello Giovanni.

STEPHEN MILLS Born Basingstoke, studied at Birmingham Conservatoire. Credits include Sam Kaplan Street Scene, Bastien Bastien und Bastienne, Gherardo Gianni Schicchi & Chevalier Carmelites.

SAMUEL ORAM Born Gloucestershire, studied Birmingham Conservatoire & RCM. Credits: chorus Götterdämmerung(ON).

Count Figaro, Marquis Carmelites, Demetrius Dream, Simone Gianni Schicchi, Strephon Iolanthe & Balstrode Grimes.

CHORUS

Born Hong Kong.

Studied at RNCM & RCM. Credits include 1st Fairy The Fairy Queen (Glyndebourne), Agilea Teseo, Eurilla Il pastor fido (London Handel Festival);

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LUCILLA GRAHAM Born Glasgow, studied at RNCM. Credits include Mercedes Carmen, Angelina La Cenerentola and Amastre Xerxes.

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MATTHEW THISTLETON Born Manchester, trained at RNCM. Credits include Snug A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Colline Boheme (Opera on Location) Cendrillon, Turco.

Chorus Peter Grimes and Queen of Spades (GPO) & Theseus Dream (RNCM).

RICHARD SHAFFREY Born Dublin. Credits include Albert Albert Herring, Schoolmaster Cunning Little Vixen, Tenor Flatpack (Ulysses Opera) Tristan und Isolde, Macbeth and Zauberflöte.

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KIRSTY TAYLOR-STOKES Born Stafford, studied at RAM. Credits include Cockerel Cunning Little Vixen, Female Chorus Rape of Lucretia, Violetta Traviata (Opera South)

CHORUS

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CHORUS

MATTHEW PALMER Born Surrey, studies at GSMD. Credits include Demetrius, Belcore, Schaunard, Guglielmo & Papageno, Messiah (18c Concer t Orchestra); Matthew Passion (National Festival Orchestra).

SIMONE ANGEL Born in London Credits: Liesel The Sound Of Music and Minnie Fay Hello Dolly.

Calamity Jane, My Fair Lady, Wizard Of Oz, Fiddler On The Roof and Annie.

VIVIEN CONACHER Born Sydney, studied at RCM. Credits include Chorus (Opera Australia, Wexford), cover Penelope Il Ritorno d’Ulisse (Iford), and Filipyevna Onegin (Bloomsbury Opera).

SEUMAS BEGG Born Perth, studied at RNCM. Credits include Albert Herring, Carmélites, Streetcar Named Desire, Mathurin L’ivrogne Corrige (RNCM) and Monostatos Flute (Young Opera Venture). Plans include Spoletta Tosca.

JESSICA COSTELLOE Born Dublin, studied at Juilliard, NYC. Credits include Zita Gianni Schicchi Genevieve Long Christmas Dinner, Oberon Midsummer Night’s Dream, Mercedes Carmen. Kate Pinkerton Butterfly.

DAVID BOOTH Born Dundee, studied at TCM & RAM. Credits: Wedding Singer Threepenny Opera (RFH and Théâtre du Champs Elysées), Dr Who Prom (RAH), ensemble La Traviata, bandit Don Quichotte (Grange Park Opera).

SIMON GILKES Born Sydney, studied at RCM Credits: ETO, Scottish Opera, Sydney Chamber Opera, Tête a Tête, Size Zero Quint Turn of the Screw, Grimoaldo Rodelinda, Arnalta Poppea, & Schoolmaster Cunning Little Vixen.

HARRIET KIRK Born in Berkshire, studied at GSMD. Credits include chorus Peter Grimes & Queen of Spades (Grange Park), Rosina Barbiere, Tisbe Cenerentola, Third Lady Zauberflöte & Sorceress Dido & Aeneas.

PAUL MILOSAVLJEVIC Born Hobart, studied Tasmania University, Sydney Conservatorium.

Credits include Opera Australia, Netherlands Opera, WNO. Tamino, Alfredo, Cavaradossi Tosca.

MATTHEW HOWARD Born Nottingham, studied at TCM. He sings with Stile antico, I Fagiolini, Tenebrae, Hanover Band, and Brabant Ensemble, and at Westminster Abbey, Westminster Cathedral, St Paul’s Cathedral, St Bartholomew The Great.

LUKASZ KARAUDA Born Poland, trained at Academy of Music in Lodz. Credits include Gianni Schicchi, Figaro, Junius Rape of Lucretia, Steward Dove’s Flight, Dancaïre, Morales & Zuniga Carmen.

KRYSTAL MACMILLAN Born Perth, studied at West Australian Academy & RAM. Credits include Sandman Hansel & Gretel, Mary Warren The Crucible (Australian premiere), Blanche Carmelites (WAAPA), Cavalleria Rusticana, Pagliacci, Peter Grimes (WA Opera).

GEMMA MORSLEY Born London, credits include Carmen (Opera South East), Maddalena Rigoletto (Opera Loki), Flora Traviata & Second Lady Magic Flute (Zeist Festival), & La Ciesca Gianni Schicchi (Fulham Opera).

THOMAS ISHERWOOD Born in Hertfordshire.

Studied at RNCM & GSMD. Credits include Balthazar Amahl & the Night Visitors (NSO Orchestra of Abu Dhabi) & Sweeney Todd (Manchester University)

FELIX KEMP Born Kent, studies at Trinity Laban.

Engagements this season include the bass solos in Dvorak’s Stabat Mater (Leeds), Coronation Mass (Tunbridge Wells), and Schuber t Lieder in a public masterclass with Graham Johnson.

GERAINT MILES Born Pontarddulais, studied at RWCMD & RAM. Credits include GFO, GTO, WNO, Raymond Gubbay, Garsington, OHP, SO, ON & ENO. Customs Officer Boheme (GTO/Channel 4), Sacristan Tosca (Opera East), Guglielmo Così (RAM) and Lord Arthur Saville Lord Arthur Saville’s Crime (King’s College).

ADELE O’NEILL Born Pontarddulais, studied GSMD. Credits include Moses und Aron and Lohengrin (WNO), Traviata (LFO). Elisabetta Maria Stuarda, Adina L'Elisir, Adele Fledermaus (Burry Port); Mimi Boheme, Antonia Hoffman (GSMD)

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DANIEL JOY Born Surrey, studied at RCM & GSMD. Credits include Albert Herring (GSMD); Kozak Statkowski’s Maria, Gherardo Gianni Schicchi & Poor Horn Player Village, Romeo & Juliet (Wexford); Duca Rigoletto & Goro Butterfly (Opera Brava).

CHORUS

SUSANNA HEARD Born Macclesfield, studied at Trinity. Credits include Giulietta Capuleti e Montecchi (Opera Undone) & Mercedes Carmen (Puglia). Plans include Marenka Bartered Bride (New London Opera Players).

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HELEN OGDEN Born Manchester, studied Chetham’s and RNCM. Was a chorister at ENO for eight years. Currently a chorister at WNO, ENO & Scottish Opera. Credits include Tosca, Santuzza Cavalleria Rusticana and Suor Angelica.

RICHARD REAVILLE Born Nottingham, studied at RNCM. Credits include GFO, ENO, WNO, Scottish Opera, Opera North, Bayreuth Festival, Netherlands Opera, & Opéra de Monte Carlo.

DANIELLA VARADI Born in Sheffield. Credits: Baba Rake's Progress (OperaCoast), Terynka Cunning Little Vixen, Lay Sister Suor Angelica, Sorceress Dido & Aeneas, BBC2 Line of Duty. Dancer Opening Ceremony London 2012 Olympics.

LAURA WOLKLEWANOWICZ Born Canberra.

Studied Canberra SoM, Australian Opera Studio & ENO Opera Works.

Credits: Aida, Santuzza Cavalleria, Madama Butterfly.

NICOLE OPPLER Born London, credits include Mother Madama Butterfly (Grange Park), covers Amneris Aida, Sabine Fledermaus (Opera de Baugé), Annina Traviata (GPO), Emilia Otello (Vox Lirika) & Mercedes Carmen (West London Opera).

RYAN ROSS Born Rock Rapids, Iowa, studied at Southwest Minnesota State University, California State UniversityLong Beach & WIAC. Future engagements include Germont Traviata & Marcello Boheme (Barga Bel Canto Festival, Italy).

GARY WATKINS Born Fochriw near Merthyr Tydfil, studied at Welsh College of Music & Drama, having begun vocal training whilst still an officer in South Wales Police.

Credits include ROH, & WNO.

RICHARD WOODALL

IRIA PERESTRELO Born Porto, Portugal, trained GSMD. Credits: Susanna, Adele Fledermaus (Warsaw), L’Arlesiana (Wexford), Moth Midsummer Night’s Dream (Barbican) Zerlina, Despina (Zêzere Arts Portugal), Cis Albert Herring (Silk Street Theatre), 1st Maid Matthew Passion (National Theatre).

AMY SPRUCE Born Melbourne, studied at Melba Conservatorium and Melbourne Opera Studio. Credits include Isabel Pirates of Penzance, Bertha The Grand Duke, The Gondoliers, Princess Ida & Iolanthe (The Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Company, Buxton/ Harrogate).

SIDONIE WINTER Born London, studied at RAM and National Opera Studio. Credits include Wexford, Opera Nor th, BBC Singers, Aldeburgh, and soloist for New D’Oyly Car te and at the Proms. Debuted as High Priestess Aida (ROH) & has performed at RFH and RAH.

Born Solihull, studied at Middlesex University & GSMD. Member of D’Oyly Carte Opera Company. Credits: ENO & Opera North, Bartolo Barber & Figaro; Alfonso Così, Leporello Giovanni.

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HELEN OGDEN Born Manchester, studied Chetham’s and RNCM. Was a chorister at ENO for eight years. Currently a chorister at WNO, ENO & Scottish Opera. Credits include Tosca, Santuzza Cavalleria Rusticana and Suor Angelica.

RICHARD REAVILLE Born Nottingham, studied at RNCM. Credits include GFO, ENO, WNO, Scottish Opera, Opera North, Bayreuth Festival, Netherlands Opera, & Opéra de Monte Carlo.

DANIELLA VARADI Born in Sheffield. Credits: Baba Rake's Progress (OperaCoast), Terynka Cunning Little Vixen, Lay Sister Suor Angelica, Sorceress Dido & Aeneas, BBC2 Line of Duty. Dancer Opening Ceremony London 2012 Olympics.

LAURA WOLKLEWANOWICZ Born Canberra.

Studied Canberra SoM, Australian Opera Studio & ENO Opera Works.

Credits: Aida, Santuzza Cavalleria, Madama Butterfly.

NICOLE OPPLER Born London, credits include Mother Madama Butterfly (Grange Park), covers Amneris Aida, Sabine Fledermaus (Opera de Baugé), Annina Traviata (GPO), Emilia Otello (Vox Lirika) & Mercedes Carmen (West London Opera).

RYAN ROSS Born Rock Rapids, Iowa, studied at Southwest Minnesota State University, California State UniversityLong Beach & WIAC. Future engagements include Germont Traviata & Marcello Boheme (Barga Bel Canto Festival, Italy).

GARY WATKINS Born Fochriw near Merthyr Tydfil, studied at Welsh College of Music & Drama, having begun vocal training whilst still an officer in South Wales Police.

Credits include ROH, & WNO.

RICHARD WOODALL

IRIA PERESTRELO Born Porto, Portugal, trained GSMD. Credits: Susanna, Adele Fledermaus (Warsaw), L’Arlesiana (Wexford), Moth Midsummer Night’s Dream (Barbican) Zerlina, Despina (Zêzere Arts Portugal), Cis Albert Herring (Silk Street Theatre), 1st Maid Matthew Passion (National Theatre).

AMY SPRUCE Born Melbourne, studied at Melba Conservatorium and Melbourne Opera Studio. Credits include Isabel Pirates of Penzance, Bertha The Grand Duke, The Gondoliers, Princess Ida & Iolanthe (The Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Company, Buxton/ Harrogate).

SIDONIE WINTER Born London, studied at RAM and National Opera Studio. Credits include Wexford, Opera Nor th, BBC Singers, Aldeburgh, and soloist for New D’Oyly Car te and at the Proms. Debuted as High Priestess Aida (ROH) & has performed at RFH and RAH.

Born Solihull, studied at Middlesex University & GSMD. Member of D’Oyly Carte Opera Company. Credits: ENO & Opera North, Bartolo Barber & Figaro; Alfonso Così, Leporello Giovanni.

T H E N U T T E RY

Inspired by John Julius Norwich’s propensity for collecting odds and ends

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Old Stockholm telephone tower, constructed in 1887, a metallic structure built to physically connect about 5000 telephone lines. It was destroyed by a fire in 1953

TH E G R A N G E 1976 W I L L I A M ROB I N SON ’ S BOY H OOD M EMOR I ES

As a teenager, I and a friend had decided to go for a bicycle ride, which we did every now and then, exploring the countryside and architecture around Winchester. We tended to have little clear plan, but see how far we felt like going. On that particular occasion I remember us noticing that we were going close to a large grey (parkland) area on the map that was titled The Grange.

I remember that we had just gone through a very dense cloud of thunderbugs – which are horrible on a cycle.

We were on a road which ran around the edge of the park and came across an open gate. “Why not?” we thought to ourselves, so went up the track. Eventually we came across the house itself. Huge and imposing architecturally, the grey monumental stone appeared even more oppressive and uncompromising in that no light came from inside. Plants were growing up to the steps and out of cracks in the stone. We slowly walked up to it, ready to bolt if there were any sign of life, but it was completely quiet. Eventually we were able to look through some of the windows, through gaps in the shutters. I do not remember much of the interior save that it was dark, dusty and completely unloved.

We sat on the steps under the portico and talked about the changes in fortune that can happen.

Then we cycled off.

Sunday 23rd August, 1959 Some of the 150 Auxiliary Firemen from Hampshire, Bournemouth, Portsmouth and Southampton taking part in a Rescue Exercise at The Grange

In 1966 the Alresford Fire Brigade tackle a fire in the thatched roof of the changing rooms at the War Memorial Swimming Pool

TO E S , RU F F S & R A P I E R S fr om L A D I E S’ M AG A ZI N E A N D L I T ER A RY G A ZE T T E , (1832) by SA R A H J OSEPH A B U EL L H A L E

Portrait of a Woman (1628) Michiel Jansz van Mierevel (1566–1641)

The fashion ran on square toed shoes in the reign of Mary and a proclamation was issued ordering that no person should wear shoes more than six inches square at the toes. In the succeeding reign of Elizabeth, the royal authority was again exercised. Stow remarked “In that time he was held the greatest gallant that had the deepest ruff and the longest rapier: the offence to the eye of the one and the hurt to the life of the subject that came by the other, caused her Majesty to make a proclamation against them both, and to place selected grave citizens at every gate, to cut the ruffs and break the rapiers’ points of all passengers that exceeded a yard in length and a nail of a yard in depth of their ruffs.”

[Knife crime]

TH E K I O S K O RG A N fr om T H E SU LTA N ’ S ORG A N by J OH N M OL E

Close to the Topkapi palace, Istanbul, is a kiosk (a Turkish word) in which was housed a Present from the Virgin Queen to Sultan Mehmet III.

ON T H E HO U R • birds sing and flutter in a holly bush • trumpeters play and talking heads speak the time • Queen Elizabeth raises her sceptre and planets revolve around her • 24 hr clock and sun’s position, phases of the moon • bells play 4-part melody • keyboard plays on its own or manually • pipes play five songs

The Present was a carved, painted and gilded cabinet containing a chiming clock with jewel-encrusted moving figures combined with an organ, which could play tunes on its own for six hours (or be played conventionally).

The Present was dismantled and sent to Constantinople in early 1599 with its four craftsmen: 24 year-old Thomas Dallam the organ builder, John Harvey, engineer, Michael Watson, carpenter and Rowland Buckett, painter.

On their six month odyssey they encountered storms, volcanoes, exotic animals, pirates, brigands, Moors, Turks, Greeks, Jews, beautiful women, barbarous men, kings and pashas, armies on the march, janissaries, eunuchs, slaves, dwarves and finally the most powerful man in the known world, the Great Turk himself.

The Sultan was so impressed that he offered Dallam a permanent post (the remuneration package included two virgins) and England was granted vital trading concessions.

6 feet

• clockwork and bellows powered for six hours • oak case: carved, painted, gilded

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ART HISTORY

Elitism is often a criticism flung at the opera. Angus Kennedy is not frightened to take sides in what he calls “the Herculean struggle between aesthetic excellence and the hydra of access . . . If I equate your Veronese to my knitting, then we become equal in the very insignificance of our judgements.”

“Shapes that seem alive Wrought in hard mountain marble, will survive Their maker, whom the years to dust return!

Thus to effect cause yields. Art hath her turn, And triumphs over Nature.” Michelangelo Buonarroti, Sonnet XVII, The Artist and His Work

T

here is a remarkable picture of an elderly, avuncular, Matisse: wielding his scissors; cutting out paper shapes.

Seeing the artist at work, it could be anyone.

There’s nothing arcane or painterly or remotely distancing about it. It reminds me of the cut outs I used to make as a child: paper-chain soldiers holding hands. All children seem to be mini-Matisses: taking to art spontaneously and naturally. Parents look fondly on their fridge-framed daubs as

the self-expression of their nascent genius.

We hear repeatedly that art must be open to us all, especially the ‘hard to reach’, and the arts in general are endowed with almost magical powers: they are instruments to cure loneliness, combat dementia, civilise inner-city youth.

Contemporary discussion about the arts is best viewed as a debate between excellence and access, with excellence fighting a decidedly rearguard action. Institution after

We need art because we cannot experience our own experiences

Matisse drawing the Stations of the Cross with the aid of a bamboo pole in the interior of the Chapelle de Rosaire at Vence 1950

Great art starts with a recognition of our existential loneliness and looks to help us on our endless journey towards being together

institution goes out of its way to show just how trendy, how relevant it is: the Proms goes ‘urban’; the National Gallery embraces ‘selfies’. In much of the post-war arts establishment there has been a sustained reaction against a certain stuffy kind of arts elitism. Some of it was deserved. After all, why should the arts only be for a certain ‘sort’ of people? High art has no need to be snobby.

This democratising charge into the sacred citadels has come though at a cost. Access to art is not a matter of being given a state-funded seat on the bus. Art may transport us in delight – sometimes – but arrival at any particular destination is never guaranteed. Despite all the talk of making art accessible, the reality is that art is not being

liberated: rather, it is being put to work.

The instrumental approach to art rests on a belief that art is a cause and can be effective in transforming us. If so, the art itself takes a logical back seat: as mere means to an end.

The quality of the orchestra matters less than the ‘result’: be it an increase in ‘cultural capital’ or a boost to the creative economy or just the fun of taking part. Access has come to trump questions of excellence and those that lament this find themselves cast once again as elitist.

Art though – far from being thrust upon us – must be something we choose to pursue ourselves. We must choose freely: the impulse has to come from within. Furthermore, what we choose, or maybe what we should choose, the art we should fall in love with, is

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what is good, what is excellent. If making us good were the point, then all that matters is the outcome: the greater the impact the better. Art in this view becomes a weapon.

Something to shatter and shock, challenge and confound. Not something to love.

It is useful to think about aesthetic excellence in terms of love because nothing is more discriminating than the way in which love picks out just one beloved out of all the fish in the sea. There’s no fuzzy cultural relativism when it comes to love: to say I love you means I love only you; not I love you for this and you for a bit of that and you for whatever it may be. The artistic tradition we have inherited – the canon – is an expression of such discriminating love of beauty and truth. It is the accretion of individual judgements over thousands of years: each one an attempt, in Kant’s suggestive phrase, to “woo the consent of others to its own particular perspective”.

Art that is excellent is art that we have judged over time to be excellent. It is not that a particular painting or book, say, is good in an objective sense, but nor is it simply a question of subjectivity and individual taste.

A reasoned judgment is one that can have a wide validity. The history of those reasoned judgements gives us a tradition which forms a touchstone of beauty we can use to assess new works of art that aspire to be canonical.

They need to be original of course but their originality is in reference to that tradition and is enabled by it. Those few artists, writers and composers – and they are precious few – who do manage to create something original only manage it after years of hard work, immersing themselves in those who have gone before. In copying. And copying again.

Today it is the art that seems to be put to work and the artist who is at play like a child.

The traditional virtues of learning from the masters and applying oneself seriously to the arts are disdained in favour of letting

our creativity run free and just ‘taking part’.

Museums and concert halls and even libraries all now have outreach programmes: another expression of the belief that art should come and grab you, rather than you learn to love it.

In this desire to impact the greatest audience numbers possible, no wonder that art starts to take on an increasingly diverse, multicultural, mix-up mash-up form. In the art world of whatever works, the buzzwords are informality, relevance, messiness, spontaneity and fun.

This new form of all-are-equal artistic elitism – and its adherents are quite convinced that it is they who are right and the traditionalists quite quite wrong – is behind the view that we should celebrate Matisse as some kind of late-blooming radical with his turn to ‘painting with scissors’ in the 1940s. Yet Matisse had always been one of the most classical of French painters in the early twentieth century: self-consciously working in the tradition of Chardin and Poussin.

He had trained himself through decades of daily visits to the Louvre to copy the masters. It was, in fact, a Chardin, the Pipes and Drinking Pitcher, that he copied first and it is arguably a major influence (in the use of blue) on his famous Blue Nude of 1907.

That painting outraged sensibilities but was a spur to Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon themselves cut outs rendered in paint – and to Matisse’s late Blue Nudes of 1952: collages cut out from coloured paper, his gouaches découpés.

Both Matisse and Picasso still operated within a tradition of Western high culture and fine art in particular. Matisse’s Dancers of 1909-10 is a harmonious tribute to Pollaiuolo’s Battle of the Nudes. Matisse worked very hard at creating an effect that looks playful and he was always experimental and innovative. But he innovated within a tradition of very great ancestry: in particular in the long running debate from the Renaissance between colore

Still Life with Pipe an Jug (1737) Jean-Baptiste-Simeon Chardin (1699–1779)

and disegno. It is this that makes him one of the great artists: he found his way to be counted among their number – he found an original path to conformity – rather than taking the easy route of refusing to engage with them.

Unfortunately, that is the route taken by so many contemporary artists who seem to find themselves much more interesting than anything that has gone before them.

In the final years of his life Matisse worked on the Chapelle du Rosaire de Vence on the French Riviera, designing the interior, the stained glass windows and the decorations.

This was no last-minute departure of a man afraid of death: no Pascal’s wager. Matisse employed cut outs in the creation of the stained glass and viewed the chapel as the capstone of ‘an entire life of work.’ Just as art should be something to be treated as a sacred gift and consecrated in temples

of culture, so too is it fitting that artists have traditionally worked on the creation of temples. Art represents the attempt to sacralise a world we hold in common.

Unlike the pre-Enlightenment immaturity of religious fanaticism and iconoclasm, born of the inability to distinguish between images and reality, when we win through to reason, then we start to appreciate and conserve the arts. In doing so we show that we are appreciative of God in a new – and secular – way. We recognise the divinity within ourselves: human beings with the power to create the world in which we live.

Art is the mark of that humanity: it represents what we leave behind as markers and memorials to our ongoing struggle to escape the dominance of nature; it is the story of our endless pursuit of freedom. Sometimes art is seen as something that can help us to

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ANGUS KENNEDY is convenor of the Institute of Ideas’ educational initiative He writes on the philosophy and politics of freedom and is the author of Being Cultured: in defence of discrimination. And he is an amateur lover of professional opera.

Large Composition with Masks (1953) Matisse (1869–1954), National Gallery of Art, Washington 11 ft 7 in x 32 ft 8 in It may look childish, but not everyone is a Matisse

Matisse, like Bonnard, loved cats. He lived at Villa le Rêve with Minouche and Coussi, who it is said, had an “M” for Matisse on his forehead.

One of the greatest symbols of that struggle is St Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Michelangelo became capomaestro there in his seventies: 41 years after its foundation stone had been laid in 1506. Despite the slow progress of the work to date, he did not choose to start again, but instead pulled together the plans of both Bramante and Raphael and improved upon them in the process. The massive dome has long outlasted its architects – such is the triumph of art – but knowing the history of its creation, we see in it too the story of how men have created a world fit to live in. And we may also remember how Michelangelo suffered and stretched himself to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, on which his divine genius gave life and form to God’s creation of man.

Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907) Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Museum of Modern Ar t, New York

‘live the moment’: an existential safety valve as it were, something that can compensate for our inability to ever really be there. I think it is better seen as an expression of our being historical. It shows how we have worked ourselves over to become human and how we work at our art until it is right, until it ‘fits’, and holds up a mirror to our freedom.

J O H N LE W I S

VS

LO R D H OWA R D D E WA LD E N

My Lord, Your noble kinsman, the Duke of Portland, was presented at Welbeck with an address of congratulation on his 50th Birthday; and in acknowledging he said, “he had tried to realise that property had its duties as well as its pleasures. The pleasures of ownership were manifold, and the duties of ownership were multimanifold and very difficult to accomplish. He could only try to do his duty, and he trusted he had done so to some extent.”

Now, if your lordship did but share these sentiments, I should not be driven to call public attention to a state of things which affords a striking illustration of the crying need for drastic reforms in the legal relations of landlord and tenant.

Under the feudal laws which, unhappily, still obtain in this country, you, Lord Howard de Walden and Seaford, on the 21st year of your age, owing to the accident of birth, inherited political power as a life-long legislator, coupled with this, as a landowner you stepped into enormous unearned wealth, created entirely by the community in general and the occupiers in particular.

The Duke of Portland said ownership has both pleasures and duties; of the pleasures, indeed you, with the energy of your youth, have tasted freely, as witness your lovely villa at Monte Carlo, your steam yacht, your motors, your racehorses, your palaces in London and the Country. You are now no longer a youth, and I can fairly ask you to recognise the reasonableness of my request that you should yourself inspect these premises, when I will show you clearly how injuriously to your reputation as a landlord & a gentleman I, as your tenant, have been treated by your solicitors & those who are pleased to call themselves your Board of Management.

I am, my Lord, your Lordship’s Obedient Servant.

John Lewis

John Lewis (1836-1928) in the 1920s He was nearly 70 when he went to Brixton prison

OPEN L E T T ER FROM J OH N L E W I S TO LOR D HOWA R D DE WA L DEN

Thomas Evelyn Scott-Ellis, 8th Baron Howard de Walden, 4th Baron Seaford (1880–1946)

by SPY, 17 May 1906

The founder of cosy department store John Lewis engaged in a 23 year battle of operatic proportions with his ground landlord, Lord Howard de Walden. The ‘elderly draper’ wanted inserted a shop window in Cavendish Square contrary to the terms of his lease. In 1903 Lewis was sent to Brixton Prison for three weeks for contempt of court and used the publicity to campaign for leasehold reform. On release he erected placards (text below) in his store windows, goading de Walden to sue for libel – which he did in 1911. Lewis was found guilty, but the jury awarded damages of just a farthing. Lewis’ son transformed the business into a partnership: the profits distributed to its employees.

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CRYSTAL SPAN BRIDGE

MEMOIRS OF HADRIAN

JELLICOE & COLERIDGE architects with OVE ARUP engineers 1963

by MARGUERITE YOURCENAR

The proposed Crystal Span on the site of the existing Vauxhall Bridge was commissioned by Pilkington in order to investiage and promote the use of glass in buildings.

It is subdivided into three layers. At base level run two three-lane carriageways; above this is a service road with parking (approached by ramps from either bank) and the superstructure is encased in a glass box. “The civic nature of the site” wrote the committee, “must preclude a purely commercial building”.

The proposals therefore included a gallery of modern art on the northern pier balanced by a luxury hotel on the southern pier. In the centre is a skating-rink, while the base of the superstructure is given over to retail – ‘in the form of a modern bazaar’ – connected by escalators and a moving footway to either bank.

The roof is laid out as a series of gardens, with sheltered courtyards and viewing platforms. In the centre is an open-air theatre.

The concept has resonance with the proposed Garden Bridge.

The cost of the structure in 1963 was calculated at £7,000,000.

The length of the bridge is 298.5 metres, the width 38.7 metres and the height 50.7 metres above high water.

Just when the gods had ceased to be, and the Christ had not yet come, there was a unique moment in history, between Cicero and Marcus Aurelius, when man stood alone. . . .

Some five and twenty aged men, their withered hands interlinked to form a chain, would be enough to establish an unbroken contact between Hadrian and ourselves.

Hadrian: I have never been opposed to voluntary departure from life, and had considered it as a possible end in my hour of crisis before Trajan’s death.

M A R S E I L LE VALERIUS MAXIMUS

The inhabitants of Marseille show a serious and disciplined character . . . A supply of hemlock is conserved by the public services for those who can satisfy the [Council of ] Six Hundred of the reasons for their desire to die . . . so a means to this end can be offered to whoever, having known enough either of happiness or of unhappiness, wishes to avoid that the one should cease or the other continue.

PE N G U I N S RUSKIN TO CHARLES ELIOT NORTON (1860)

“I find Penguins at present the only comfort in life. One feels everything in the world so sympathetically ridiculous; one can’t be angry when one looks at a penguin.”

Rothschild is proud to support Grange Park Opera Active support for the arts has been an enduring feature of the Rothschild family through the generations. Today, this includes a partnership with Grange Park Opera.

We advise a wide range of families, entrepreneurs, charities and foundations, and aim to preserve and grow the real value of our clients’ wealth. For over 200 years, our freedom to offer objective advice and commitment to personal service have combined to build value for our clients; shaping wealth for generations.

Helen Watson, Head of UK Private Clients 020 7280 5000 or helen.watson@rothschild.com Image: Detail from the letterhead of a Viennese society for music and theatre, which received financial support from the Rothschild family in Vienna in 1891.

Courtesy of The Rothschild Archive.

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Think property, think Savills

Savills is proud to support Grange Park Opera and wishes you a wonderful season Steven Moore Savills Winchester 01962 841 842 smoore@savills.com

savills.co.uk

Charles Chute London Country Department 020 7016 3780 cchute@savills.com

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