MY VERSION OF EVENTS....

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Showing posts from April, 2016

Rome actually welcomes me.

It is uncommon for me to accept waiting time of any kind; queues, airport delays, to be served in a coffee shop. But I am in Italy today. My room isn't ready so the garden, a glass of red and the warm spring sunshine in which Rome's Trastevere basks will soothe my usually fractious mood. Room not ready? No problem, where's the bar and garden? Indeed, something of a surprise met me on arrival a Fiumicino airport. It was efficient, the taxis were abundant and driven by polite Italians, the price was set and people were helpful. What has happened to Italy? I am feeling a bit bereft without the chaos. The police sirens are still from the 1960's and the smell is familiar (musty, damp, exotic tobacco) but It feels organised and outward looking. Still, I'm off to Napoli in August which should restore my faith in this country's pre-eminent reputation for lavish, stylish pandemonium. I am up on a hill, high above Trastevere which means walking into town is a plea

Audiences will decide the future of opera

I have news: the audience will decide the future of opera. When our season at Opera Holland Park comes to an end, I pore over spreadsheets trying to find reasons why our audience have behaved in the way that they have, and the most concentrated analysis tends to come after seasons during which our house has been full. The theory is this; if we have underperformed, we are programmed to find solutions, but if we have performed well, we are less likely to look for the gremlins that might lose us that ever-capricious audience in a trice – you are never more vulnerable than when you are successful. Sometimes, though, one can miss the obvious, or perhaps ignore it. In nearly three decades in opera, I have experienced one "boom" in the art form but an almost perpetual "crisis" of confidence, an alarmed perma-reflection on whether we remain relevant as an art form. This introspective brew is spiced by the occasional real crisis, like that recently at ENO, but we never real

Sometimes, facts really don't matter to people

Since the Brexit vote, and especially since the recent Autumn statement, there has been something familiar nagging at me; the remarkable refusal of Brexiters to accept or acknowledge the facts set out by the government and in the OBR's forecasts. It reminds me of something, a feeling I have had before. I know that the expression post-truth annoys a lot of people, but it is a thing, it really exists. People, for whatever reason can knowingly refuse to accept bare facts when it suits them. It isn't a new phenomenon at all. I am bound to say, moreover, that I have tended to experience it in a malign sense, when the things people want to believe are unconscionable or driven by prejudice of one kind or another. Last night I remembered where it was that I had last seen the phenomenon and it was an experience that left me astonished at the time, but which also provoked in me a genuine disgust for my fellow citizens. I am afraid it is an unpleasant parallel scenario, but it was pro

MY VERSION OF EVENTS....

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Rome actually welcomes me.

Audiences will decide the future of opera

Journalists: keep it simple!

XTC -This is Pop (Documentary, Sky 1)

The Oxbridge divide

My name is Jose Mourinho, and I'm not Special (at the moment)

Gelb and The Met

Women in opera

Sometimes, facts really don't matter to people

New horizons