Could Sydney build a Frankfurt sized opera house?

Frankfurt opera house is 'Klein aber fein' (small but elegant). The acoustics in the hall are excellent and while it is big enough for a substantial audience it is not so big as to be overwhelming.

Sydney could solve both it's opera house acoustic problems and not-enough-music-venues problems by building a small house such as this and using the Sydney Opera House for miked performances.

Der fliegende Holländer in Frankfurt

Erika Sunnegårdh sings Senta

I saw the Flying Dutchman in Frankfurt on Thursday. It was a very satisfying performance.  The costumes and set design were timeless, the costumes just old fashioned enough and the set chaotic enough to fit into several epochs, so instead of thinking about them you listen to the music. I can't think of a better recommendation for an opera production. The set designer's master stroke was a gigantic revolving propeller which appeared as a backdrop whenever the ghost ship was about.

All the singers did credit to their roles. 

Erika Sunnegårdh was a marvelous Senta. Some years ago I took part in a crowdfunding project which was started to enable her to make a CD so I was interested to see her on stage. I discovered that she can act as well as sing and the role of Senta suits her voice. She was a delight to watch.

Slate and quartz

Weisel

The small village of Weisel, like many of its neighbours on the hills overlooking the Rhine River, has a lot of houses with slate rooves (Ziegeldächer) which is not surprising since slate mines are common in the area. They have been closed as they are no longer an economic proposition.

It was mined nearby and the remains of the mines are still visible.  The slate is interwoven with quartz and black and white rocks seem to ooze from the mine sites. 

Slate and quartz

Slate pile

Satu Vänskä and Locatelli

Today I heard the most extraordinary piece of music. Satu Vänskä played the Locatelli Violin Concerto in D Major at Angel Place Concert Hall in Sydney. It was wonderful inspiring playing of a fiendishly difficult work (I think you have to see it performed to appreciate the achievement) and I would have gone to a second concert just to hear it again but unfortunately today was its last performance. I hope she revives it and tours it elsewhere in future. 

Ruth Crawford Seeger (left)
with sketch of Satu playing her music.

In my opinion Satu is changing  the way people view female performers by scheduling and playing a work such as this. The first piece on the program was the Crawford Seeger's Andante for Strings which somehow underlined the message. Ruth Crawford was creating marvellous music when she married Charles Seeger, became Pete Seeger's step-mother, had children of her own and was then consumed by 'other duties'.

After the Locatelli piece the woman sitting next to me said she was lost for words and I am sure she spoke for many in the audience. 

Go Satu!

Mt Ruapehu painting

Mt Ruapehu - waterccolour

When I was in New Zealand last year a snowstorm hit the Central Plateau just before I got there. The desert road opened just before I drove north from Taihape and the mountains were as beautiful as I have seen them.

Sun shone on the snow-covered slopes as I drove very slowly along the icy roads and I stopped to paint a watercolour of the view across to Mount Ruapehu.

Red canvas beginning

The painting was a pretty good approximation of what I saw except that the tussock grass was not as bright as it remained in my memory.

Earlier this year I painted Ruapehu again based on the watercolour. This time I used acrylic and a palette knife which seemed appropriate considering the rocky angular structure of my subject. I started with a red canvas as there has been so much red-brown in the desert scene.  

Mt Ruapehu - acrylic on canvas

Music, coffee, etchings, art

Coffee grinder with (Wagner) music

At Art School in 2008 I had a wonderful time in the print workshop. 'Print' as in etching, intaglio,aquatint, relief ... not print as in photocopying.

Before spending time in the print workshop I had thought that multiples of etchings were as easy to produce as photocopies, that one turned the handle several times and out would pop several etchings, all the same. Little did I know. (If you do see etchings all exactly the same, with multiple colours, then you are  looking at work of a print-master.)

I worked like a crazy and learned a great deal. One of the etchings I made was of a coffee grinder - with some of Wagner's music in the background (of course).

The other day I found the  coffee grinder cutout I worked from and was about to throw it away. Then I discovered it has a charm of its own.

Coffee, coffee, coffee.

As my print teacher Neil Emmerson told me, the product is sometimes an e-product - and that's fine!

Neil is celebrating 10 years at Dunedin Art School this month with an exhibition of work by teachers and students.

 

Contentment

The garden today

Sometimes Mother Nature sends a perfect day. Today is one of those.

The sun is shining but it is not too hot, the air is gentle with just a slight mumour of movement in the lemongrass leaves to show we are not living in a vacuum, the bees are buzzing, Sasanqua flowers drop onto the lawn and a little bird just flew down to suck the nectar from a flower on the little bottle brush bush I planted a couple of years ago as bird feed.

I just hung out the washing feeling a sense of deep contentment.

Harsh southern sun

Exposure to our harsh southern sun fades cotton materials very quickly. I made chair covers five years ago to protect my newly upholstered chairs from children's messes but it turned out the children were not a problem but rather our harsh sunlight was. The bright coloured cotton batiks I used faded so much the covers became unsightly.

Same material, different sun exposu

The blue dye faded almost away

This time I covered the chairs as protection against the sun. I have had new material (light coloured and sturdy) to re-cover the chairs for a while, but not the time for the project. While I waited, I used the project as a sleeping potion, falling asleep trying to figure out exactly how to cut the new cloth. A tired mind found it an insolvable problem but when I actually laid out the material this Easter weekend it turned out to be very simple. (If you are having difficulty falling asleep, try figuring out a mathematical problem.)

Try figuring out how to cover a chair - it will send you to sleep

Bright, even when the sun is not shining

Swimming on the windowsill

Window sill in need of some paint

The first thing I did when I moved into this house was to paint all the window sills.  However our brutal sun ages paint quickly, especially parts exposed to the western sunshine and in six short years the western windowsills have lost much of their original paintwork.

Today I began the repainting job. If I had realised what difference it makes to the feel of the rooms I might have repainted earlier (or maybe not). This has been an unplanned but rewarding Easter Friday project. 

Ceramic swimmer on the repainted windowsill.

Bach Violins Concertos (and Haydn) with the ACO

Playing Haydn

Packed hall, mouse-quiet intent audience, immersed musicians, warmly-felt rousing applause.  This week's evening of Bach and Hayden with the Australian Chamber Orchestra was a winner and the audience was glowing as they left the concert hall.

The Bach Concerto for two violins (Richard Tognetti and Helene Rathbone) and Concerto for three violins (Richard Tognetti, Helene Rathbone and Satu Vanska) were examples of instruments/musicians playing in absolute accord ... but then the whole of the ACO does this with aplomb.

Horns, oboes and bassoon (baroque bassoonist Jane Gower) joined the orchestra for the Haydn. Haydn has to be played really well for me to enjoy it, and this was played really well.

Vale John Clark aka Fred Dagg

 The unforgettable Fred Dag

There is no one like him and he will be sorely missed.

Horrible Harriet - 'awesome' but LOUD

Horrible Harriet set at the Sydney Opera House

Horrible Harriet is a children's theater piece currently at the Sydney Opera House Drama Theater.  It is based on the book of the same name by Leigh Hobbs, or perhaps one should say 'loosely based on' because the seven year old I was with said it was 'nothing like the book'.  That it was not like the book didn't seem to matter though as she later reported to her parents that 'it was awesome'.

There were only three actors in various guises and I couldn't help but admire their energy. You need lots of energy if you want to keep a whole mob of youngsters concentrating for over an hour.

There were also lots of songs - VERY VERY LOUD SONGS AND MUSIC. When I later related the deafening noise levels to my young charge's parents, her father remarked: "Oh all music mixers are deaf, that's why!"

Cyclones, sharks and pouring rain

Rain ... surprisingly hard to capture in a photo

Cyclone Debbie has smashed its way through northern Queensland and is now bringing floods to Queensland and heavy rain to NSW. Even here, just north of Sydney, it is belting down but fortunately the rain clouds are forecast to move offshore during the night.

People are warned constantly not to try to drive through flood waters, but still they try and still they need to be rescued. Fortunately no drownings have been reported as a result of Cyclone Debbie. (Addendum 3 April: three people have been reported drowned.)

Perhaps the warnings will be better heeded now that a picture of a shark washed inland during the cyclone is being circulated. There is is, sitting in the street waiting for dinner. 

From ABC news online:
the caption reads
'Authorities have warned
people not to swim in floodwaters'

Faded flowers

My mother was an avid gardener with a wonderful garden. She loved flowers, particularly roses, and enjoyed having them in the house. She had a lot to choose from, so she always discarded flowers that were past their best and I grew up thinking wilted flowers were only good for the compost.

I have since learned differently. My friends in Hamburg leave their flowers in vases long after my mother would have thrown them out and I have learned to appreciate them as they fade.

Last year in Hobart I saw the most magnificent vase of slowly (or fast?) fading irises in a memorable antique store. The hedge of lovely white roses in front of the shop had initially attracted me and inside the door I discovered a shop full of the quaint, the old and the preposterous. And the wilted irises. 

Daniil Trifonov in love

Daniil Trifonov plays

"It isn't about rapport with the audience, but total obsession with the instrument," said a man beside me to his friends. We were all waiting to cross the road after the Daniil Trifonov piano concert at Angel Place last night.

Yes, exactly, I thought. Those were the words I had been seeking.

I had made a few little pencil sketches of Trifonov as he began his concert but as time passed I found myself writing words instead.

Caress, I wrote.  Prayer, Abandonment, Touch, Determination, Structure (during the Shostakovich Preludes and Fugues), Gentleness, Love.

Love. Yes, that is it really. Trifonov loves his instrument, is in love with his instrument.

Virtuoso pianist Martha Argerich is reported as saying of Trifonov, “What he does with his hands is technically incredible. It’s also his touch—he has tenderness and also the demonic element." 
I wondered what exactly we would hear and now I know:  a pianist in love with his instrument - with everything else irrelevant.

Wildlife and cobwebs

Long-tailed tit by Robert E Fuller
copied from his website

If you want a different perspective on cobwebs, have a look at the latest post by the wildlife artist Robert E Fuller.

He writes a wonderful blog about his observations of birds and other wildlife near his studio in rural England.

Scroll down his site to see videos he has taken by putting cameras in hollow logs and the like.

Here in NSW and the spiders are busy spinning their autumn webs.  It would be nice if the long-tailed tits Fuller describes could fly over here and take a few with them.

Blue Tulips as Paperback

Yaay! I got my copy of Blue Tulips: A Love Story in the mail today!

It is looking good ... quite a hefty tome at 430 pages.

Blue Tulips: A Love Story is a book that demonstrates how potent Wagner's music can be as a love potion (and aphrodisiac!)

 Blue Tulips: A Love Story is now available as paperback

Available in the UK at: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0987312219

Available in the US at: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0987312219?ref_=pe_870760_150889320

Available as e-book at: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00B1T64E0

Wagner's Music as Love Potion

Wagner's Music as Love Potion? Blue Tulips: A Love Story is a book that demonstrates how potent this love potion can be.

Blue Tulips: A Love Story is now available as paperback

Available in the UK at: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0987312219

Available in the US at: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0987312219?ref_=pe_870760_150889320

Available as e-book at: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00B1T64E0

Murder, Redemption and King Roger

One would not normally compare a chamber orchestra with an opera company, but I happened to see the Australian Chamber Orchestra and an Opera Australia production within days of each other this month, so here is my take on them both.

In the nineties OA put on a wide variety of operas from a wide variety of composers with wonderful singers, mostly Australian. It was an exciting company. Then the management changed and every production seemed to be a reality TV show. Perhaps someone thought it was the way to win a younger audience but avid opera fans drifted away. I got a subscription to the Australia Chamber Orchestra instead and discovered a vibrant  band of passionate players who have so enriched my life that I can only thank OA for sending me in their direction.

I had chosen to see Opera Australia's production of King Roger because it was billed as 'something different' but I probably wouldn't have gone to the ACO Murder and Redemption concert if I had not had a series subscription because it included American folk songs and I couldn't imagine how they could be combined successfully with a classical offering. So I expected more from one concert than the other.

Unfortunately I found King Roger underwhelming. The music itself is worth hearing, but I found the production too similar to other over-sexualised or pop-culture OA offerings. The program notes described how the composer Szymanowski struggled with his homosexuality, so a reference to this would have been understandable, but the surfeit of writhing and thrusting male dancers that was presented made me feel as if I was watching an American sitcom where every facial gesture is overdone. My seat-neighbour was similarly under-impressed, telling me he had seen the Edinburgh version which interpreted the opera as the struggle of transformation. It sounded like the one I would have preferred to see. I have seen several concert performances of opera since I gave up my AO subscription and find them much more satisfying than overblown productions.  I read however that the current La Traviata is a winner, so perhaps I shall have to give OA another try. 

In comparison, Murder and Redemption with Finnish violin-wizard Pekko Kuusisto leading the ACO way overshot my expectations. Folk songster Sam Amidon sang his songs with becoming naturalness (in  the best American folk song tradition) but what surprised me was how they complemented the classical pieces by Janacek and John Adams.

I am not sure why exactly, but Amidon's songs gave the ACO's passionate version of Adam's Shaker Loops a special zing.

The ACO has exceptional curatorial skills and  this program was just another example.

I sat there wishing I had brought my 17 year old music friend with me.  If you want to induce that generation to go to a classical concert, this was the sort of music you would choose.

Cockatoos are clever birds

You think you have outwitted the cockatoo, but then he shows you otherwise. Y