As I write I am listening to a BBC R3 Broadcast of Richard Strauss Salome live from the Met. Karitta Mattila is sounding suitably sexual and truly is the virago men have fantasies about. Many of us have favourite recordings of this masterpiece of mania in music: my own has Cheryl Studer in the title role. She sends a shiver down my spine each time I listen.
Last week I enjoyed Rhinegold. Many of us unable (or unwilling) to get to the Opera Houses of our cities look forward to these Met broadcasts. And each week I am struck by the same thought: we are enjoying a matinee performance. My question: when was the last time we experienced a live matinee performance of an opera here in England?
There is the annual ‘in
the round’ extravaganza from the Albert Hall each spring, but other than that I know of no other afternoon performances. Yet the Met has one each week. If the Americans can do it, surely we could at least try. But, there is an attitude problem here. Radio Three sustains this chimera that opera is only for the evenings. We never have opera in the mornings, and very seldom in the afternoons. Am I the only opera lover alive to enjoy Parsifal with my cornflakes, mid-morning coffee and lunch?
One problem few opera companies ever seem to address is the ordeal we opera lovers have of getting to and from the House. When I went to the opera each Saturday evening, the joy of the music was soon eclipsed by the bleak turmoil of Kings Cross Thameslink. Only Alberich could survive in such a place. Some operas finish so late it is literally impossible to get the last train home, while others can transport you from the joys of the Sussex Downs only to leave you in the wastelands of Victoria, having to fight for a taxi to get you either to civilisation or preferably home.
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That reminds me of my most surreal of all opera-going experiences, the train breaking
down at Haywards Heath. My friends and I sat on the platform there, drinking our remaining heel-taps of champagne, eating left-over smoked salmon and singing our own version of the Drinking Scene. La Traviata had been our joy for the evening; it was 1987 and Marie McLaughlin a very fine Violetta. But British Rail managed to turn our joys into a nightmare, and I have never travelled back the same night from Glyndebourne since.
So, what can be done? Some of us choose to live some distance away from the Opera Houses of England, and yet are we to be ever denied the joys of live opera? Last year, I went to the Oxford Apollo to see GTO’s Carmen. Much as I enjoyed the evening, braving the rival gangs of town and gown outside the theatre afterwards has inclined me never to go again.
I, for one, am happy to lobby Radio Three asking them to broadcast a wider range of music in the day, including opera. If "Disgusted from Tunbridge Wells" sends in his complaints, fair enough. At least they have tried.
This could start a whole plethora of correspondence. What would constitute an opera suitable for enjoying in the Mornings? And, indeed, why is there such excessive horn in the prelude to the levee scene that opens Der Rosenkavalier? I know they are at it in bed, but Strauss leaves nothing to the imagination.
Otherwise, I will continue to save my pennies. Then I can go once more to Wexford or Verona or Salzburg. There I can enjoy a late (or indeed very
late) evening at the opera, and then walk to my hotel without fear of being mugged.
Anyway, enough of this. Next Saturday at the Met we have a matinee performance of Die Walkure. A bottle of virtual champagne to any reader who can say whether this has ever performed as a matinee here in England.
John Turner
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