Serial Monogamy

I'm in the middle of 6 months working with the same director. Normally I go from project to project with a different boss on each and I've always liked that. In fact, when I started, I couldn't imagine wanting to work with the same person more than once (and there have been a few with whom I've been very glad I haven't had to).

There is a lot to be learnt from working with different people; different styles, different approaches to the music and the art form, different ways of working with artists, and the different teams they have around them. Those differences have always been immensely enjoyable and challenging.

Most of my work over the past, and coming, few years has been with three or four particular directors, and it has been very enjoyable to be part of their teams. I've learnt something tangible from each of them and also felt I have been able to offer something different to each one. There seems to be a silent agreement that I am allowed to see other directors and they are permitted to work with other assistants, but we never speak of them!

The director I am currently working with is someone whose work I have known well and loved since I first became infatuated with opera 25 years ago, and with whom I have had the privilege to work several times over the last 8 years.

During that time I have learnt the benefit of working regularly with the same team. There are a certain amount of short cuts that can be taken because of an awareness of their personalities and knowledge of their style, but most of all I feel I get closer to the nitty gritty of what they are aiming at and feel I am increasingly able to offer them valuable help and utilise my own skills to a good end.

I always feared this would stop me getting my own work as a director and perhaps it has. There is certainly that danger. People assume you are somehow involved full time with each director, living in their pocket, married even, and with a direct line into their inner mind which (sometimes) I know full well they haven't made up yet. Thus all the questions they don't quite dare ask directly to the man himself come flooding to me. People also assume that you are totally satisfied by being close to these great people and that that will have replaced any ambition or creativity one ever had oneself. Well, I'm incredibly lucky and grateful to work with these people and hope to continue to do so, but that isn't the case.

Having said that, I am enjoying these collaborations more and more and feel that they are equipping me with ever more valuable skills. I look forward to each further job and the continued relationship I have with each director. And particularly to the shows which it is my privilege to revive - each is a valuable gift.

I feel as if this time is something of a 'golden time' - either a time that I will look back on and think "that was when things were at their best" or " that was when things really began to happen.". Who knows. Time will tell.

Location:New York

New York, New York

To New York for the revival of Kommilitonen at the Juilliard School of Music.


I mentioned a few posts ago that my former passion for big cities has wained massively. Whereas I used to devour each new city voraciously and revisit known ones enthusiastically I have found my interest severely diminished. I have scarcely been bothered to explore recently and have endured rather than enjoyed my time in places which I once loved.

It was with some trepidation that I arrived in New York this time as I have adored this city since the first moment I stepped of the bus onto Madison Avenue and walked across to Central Park. Every street sign, every district, every building was familiar to me from TV and film and to discover how they fitted together was immensely exciting. What I discovered was a huge city of little villages. A crowded metropolis with lots of space. A manic city that never sleeps which was nonetheless relaxed. A city of contrasts.

I was afraid that this time I would find that the love affair was over.

New York, however, is a cleverer lover than I had given her credit for. She turned on the sunshine, polished all the windows and swept the sidewalks welcomed me into a ridiculously trendy and gorgeous hotel, and made me feel revived passion for an old love.

New York, New York - so good they named it twice.

Farewell...

...to the London Coliseum and all the wonderful folk at English National Opera. The revival of The Passenger  was a great working experience for me and the audience reaction to this remarkable piece and production truly special.

Almost there

The Passenger at ENO - Concert Scene

We're in the final stages of preparing the revival of The Passenger at English National Opera. Last night was the Piano Dress Rehearsal and tomorrow the Orchestral Dress Rehearsal, so my job is all but over.

It has been great to revive this show with an almost totally new cast and a new conductor. The differences between this revival and the original production are subtle and interesting, with new aspects of the score and the characters coming out. This makes me very lucky - far from me being the one to 'teach' the show to a new cast, they have taught me more about it. I have gathered more depth of knowledge about this fabulous piece which I will carry with me to the next revival in Tel Aviv in 2013. As with the other show which I have revived several times, Death in Venice, each revival is more rewarding and fun than the last so I a looking forward to the bigger journey with The Passenger; after Tel Aviv to Houston, New York, Chicago and beyond.

The experience has been made all the more rewarding by the calm and experienced hand of conductor Sir Richard Armstrong and by the unsurpassable stage and technical team at the Coliseum. It has been a great experience.

As to the production, well I'm very proud of this revival and I can't wait to see the London audience experience it.

Here's a link to a piece in today's Guardian about The Passenger.The Passenger - English Nation Opera

The Passenger preview

Rehearsals are going well for The Passenger at English National Opera.

This piece is humbling to all of us involved so there is a very special atmosphere in the rehearsal room - a mix of excitement, concern to get it absolutely right, and awe at the subject matter and strength of the piece.

The production is also stunning. An intelligent, grown-up show. We are all feeling the pressure to do our utmost.

After two weeks in the rehearsal room, and with three principal singers tooing and froing to other opera houses for performances, we have reached a point where the whole show is on its feet and working. The excellent, and incredibly quick, ENO chorus have take to their role with enthusiasm and attention to detail. The excitement for us all is growing.

I have had enormous fun being responsible for the production up to now. I enjoy putting a show back together for a revival, and I love being the one in charge (doesn't every director!). The original director comes next week to add his magic to the mix and I'm excited to see his reaction to this cast. I'm confident he will have lots to say, as is only right, and I am looking forward to seeing the show grow further under his guidance.

Cruising

I moan a lot about my job. There are downsides. I don’t get home for months on end. I don’t see my partner for months on end. I rarely see my partner AT HOME. It’s difficult and many relationships don’t survive that stress. Many of my colleagues also have the added complication of children and I am in awe that anyone manages to make that work in this crazy business.

However for me there are rewards. I travel a lot and see the world from a unique perspective ie not as a tourist most of the time but as a temporary resident of each location.

Occasionally for my partner or I there is the reward of visiting each other whilst we work and for me, this week, that means a cruise on the Mediterranean. Yes I know, not bad thank you very much.

I’m on board the Disney Magic, flagship of the Disney Cruise Line, and quite the prettiest vessel out here in the azure sea at the moment. There are some ugly bricks afloat and, though many must be spectacular inside, few are beautiful ships. Each time another vessel comes into or out of port by the Disney ship, their decks are full of jealous punters taking pictures of the beautiful lines of the Magic. It was modeled on the classic British Cruise Liners of the 20’s and 30’s - the Queens - so it can’t go wrong.

The name Disney raises a smirk amongst most Brits and the comment ‘what on earth would you want to do that for?’ However to Americans Disney is a trustworthy brand and a guarantee of quality and service. The Americans are right - it is exceptional, with every member of the family from toddler to Gran expertly catered for. So as I write I am sitting in the adult only Quiet Cove area, replete with pool, jacuzzi, bar, coffee shop, a classical guitarist playing nearby, a matchless view of the Mediterranean, and a martini by my side. There are all sorts of kid-centric crazy things going on barely yards away (and I’m delighted for them) but since I can neither see them or hear them I am very happy thank you. Why would I want to do this? Let me count the reasons!

The Med Cruise has been a reminder of how lucky I am with my other travels though because, of course, it is something of a whistle-stop tour. At most one has a few hours in each destination and with the best will and the most energy in the world, there is only so much of Rome one can see in a few hours. And one is not seeing it at its best in the crowded August heat, cheek by jowl with the rest of the world’s tourists. The circumstances do not endear one to one’s fellow man.

Much of my early travel were done when I was with the Swingles. Then we would often fly into a city in the morning, check in to the hotel, and have a few hours to sleep or explore before the sound check and concert. Frequently we would be on our way early the next morning. I became expert at haring round a city in two and a half hours, seeing all the sights, taking in a museum of two, and generally getting my bearings. In truth, it worked and I would take in a great deal in these short jaunts. I vividly remember something of almost every room in the Picasso Museum in Barcelona, despite staying barely 45 minutes.

Much of the world I saw this way and it has at least given me a firm impression of where I would like to revisit when I have the time and the money - yes well let’s not dwell on how likely that is, but it was a great opportunity none-the-less.

Perhaps now I am older I don’t have the energy or thirst to devour a city this way. Perhaps they all become alike in a way when you can’t really get under the skin of them. I prefer the way my job now allows me to gently feel my way into a different lifestyle and enjoy the near-reality of being a temporary resident of many places in the world.

But will I pass up the opportunity for another chance to taste-test the world aboard the Disney Cruise Line? You bet I won’t! Another Martini? It would be rude not to!

London again

I'm in London for 24 hours. A quick visit to audition extras for the upcoming production of The Passenger at English National Opera. Much much more about that later, but I wanted to quickly share this talk from the always excellent Ted.com by the artist Janet Echelman. This helped keep me occupied on the tedious journey from Zurich and is a reminder to keep ones mind open to new and challenging creative possibilities.

For more, visit her website www.echelman.com/

 

Endings

Bregenz Lakefront in late evening

My time in Bregenz is swiftly drawing to a close, and I haven't blogged since the very beginning of it.

I've been working on the world premiere of Achterbahn (roller-coaster in German) by British composer Judith Weir, and a roller-coaster it has been indeed.

Judith chose a Sicilian folk tale for her subject, a tale of Tina and her journey to understand and accept the role of Fate in her life.

As with all new pieces, when there is no bank of knowledge or performance tradition behind it there is a difficult journey of discovery to make. When it is the very first time the public will see this piece, the choices one makes take on increased weight. So not an easy process, but one which has resulted in a charming piece and beautiful production. I will revive it in London next year at Covent Garden and it will be interesting to see how a little time changes both the process and the final result.

The Summer in Bregenz has been a bit of a wash-out, like much of Europe so I haven't made my usual cherished trips into the mountains. The countryside here is stunning and the Bregenzerwald and the Walsertaal are both well worth the effort to visit. Waking up to the distant sound of the bells on goats clanging down the mountain, the bubble of a mountain stream, and someone chopping wood miles away is a rare reminder of the true pace of life now sadly sped up in most of our existences. I'm sad to leave here without a fix of mountain life.

Also taking my time and mind has been another ending.

I began this blog 18 months ago for the reasons I outlined in my first post, but primarily as a way of keeping in contact with my Father, who was undergoing chemotherapy at the time.

Dad enjoyed travel immensely, though didn't get to see as much of the world as he would have liked. He was amazed and delighted at the places we, his children, were able to visit and the way in which we became citizens of the world. He often said that he was part of a transition generation. He came from a smallholding on the Isle of Wight and the expectation was that he would work on the land and lead a life with a small circumference.

Education, increased communications, and National Service gave him a thirst for more and he educated himself over many years to become a fully qualified architect and member of the professional classes - quite a journey from his basic beginnings. When he was small the few miles to next town was a journey and the trip to the mainland and adventure. He lived to visit much of Europe, Israel, and planned to travel to Canada - things his parents and grandparents could barely conceive.

This blog was a great way of sharing with him things that I had seen, done, or was experiencing, and I was able to talk about things which we would never have discussed. He enjoyed it immensely and always commented on each new post.

Sadly my Father lost his battle with cancer - a cancer ironically brought on by exposure to asbestos, part of the process of progress from which he benefitted so much - two weeks ago. In sorting through his effects we have found many items of family archive - photos, birth certificates, documents and letters - which help build the bigger picture of our family life. These are wonderful and tangible things which we will continue to cherish.

However, how much of our records today will reside on a hard-drive and who will bother to go through them? A folder of e-mails is hardly tangible or wonderful.

It seems to me that things like blogs become more important as, although they are electronic, they are documents which gather experience, emotions, and human life in a way that few other things do today.

So my resolution to myself, to the memory of Dad, and to the archive of the future (should anyone be interested) is to try to be more disciplined and regular with my blog entries. Some may, like Dad, enjoy an insight into my experiences which they cannot share physically, and someone in the future may find it a quaint window into a time gone by. And I will keep benefitting from the often cathartic and always positive process of documenting my weird and wonderful passage through this life.

David Kearley 1930 - 2011

The Summer Job

Straight from the recording studio at the BBC's new Media City home in Manchester to Bregenz for what has become a semi-regular gig. The concert went well, despite my singer's paranoia, but I was glad to get my head and my car back on the road and head to the warm and lovely South.

Bregenz is a special place. At the far Western corner of Austria it nestles at the foot of the mountains by Lake Constance. Though it is only a small town, each year it hosts a large and important international opera festival set on the huge stage on the lake (see my post a couple of months ago) and inside the arresting modern Festspielhaus.

I'm staying a little way above the town on the slopes of the Pfaeder, the mountain which looms directly over the town, and have beautiful views down the considerable length of Lake Constance. My nearest neighbours are a small herd of cows whose bells, real bells, clang throughout the day and evening, their various tones giving an audible sense of the relative size of the animal. A lovely musical noise.

Out of retirement.

I'm coming out of retirement and singing for my super again. I don't very often have either the opportunity or the desire to do this any more, but there are some pieces which I have performed over the years which I cannot resist the opportunity to reprise. Tonight's piece, Dream House by American composer Steven Mackey, is one such as I performed the world premiere in Amsterdam in 2003, the American premiere in Boston in 2007, and recorded the piece two years ago in New York. I'm not ready to let anyone else do it yet.

So tonight we are performing the piece at the brand new Media City in Salford, home to the BBC Philharmonic, who will be accompanying us. The piece calls for one solo voice (the unbelievable Rinde Eckert) and ensemble of four (Micaela, Heather and Mike from the wonderful Synergy Vocals plus me, an erstwhile member), a quartet of electric guitars (Catch Electric Guitar Quartet from Amsterdam) and a very full symphony orchestra. It's loud, puzzling, exciting, and ultimately joyful and great fun to perform. Steve is conducting so it's going to be a great night.

My career as a Director took over from singing many years ago now, and I frankly don't maintain my voice properly, so these rare gigs are very scary. I become the worst kind of paranoid singer, worrying about every catch of phlegm in the throat, every little tickle, and terrified that the top of the voice will not come out right or at all! This piece involves many styles of singing too, from the close harmony work I did in Swingles, to some sections that require full out singing. It is challenging rhythmically and you really need to know the voices around you.That kind of quick switching between vocal styles of production is difficult.

It is interesting to come back to a piece every few years as it demonstrates how once's voice changes over time. Sections that used to be near impossible or cause worry are now easy, where as some simple passages which I used to be able to easily float are now very problematic. The muscles change and harden with age (and underuse!).

Each time I sing again, which works out to be once every 18 month to 2 years, I swear 'never again'. I don't particularly like myself as a performer and, were I directing me, I really wouldn't like me! However it does me good each time to remind myself what the performers I work with in my other life have to go through. It's a good exercise and every director should try it.

Wish me luck - the panic is rising!

Blackbirds update

Three little blackbird chicks making an appearance just before I left! Beautiful to see up close. Shame I won't watch them develop, but at least I've seen them.

Precious days at home

I'm entering my last precious day at home before heading to Bregenz (via Manchester) for the Summer.

In this game, home takes on almost mythical status as a place of refuge, a touchstone, shangri la - all because one rarely gets here! We give up many things for our profession which everyone else would consider normal, but of course  experience huge benefits in return. For me though the ache to really develop the garden and to have animals around the house again gets more and more acute.

There has been some consolation in this brief time at home in the form of a pair of blackbirds who have become regulars. Last year they nested (though I know not where) and raised a couple of fledgelings in our back yard. Early this year they nested in the discarded Christmas Tree, which I was tardy to dispose of, and again raised two ugly and noisy chicks who fluttered and squawked behind the many pots until they could fly away. The handsome Mr Blackbird was kept busy feeding them until they were bigger than he.

Barely before this year's fledgelings have taken to the wing, and whilst her partner was still busily sating the appetite of their first brood, Mrs Blackbird was pulling her old nest to pieces and building another. This time she chose a clematis growing from a pot and clambering messily over trellis in the backyard for cover. The nest is a deep construction - almost a foot - which clings precariously to the wide-weave trellis and the thin, brittle clematis.

She has happily built despite our constant interruptions and, for the last week, sat snugly in her nest awaiting the occasional visits of Mr Blackbird who lets her fly off for a few minutes, fetching her back sharply if he thinks she is taking too long.

We have sat out just three feet away from her for many hours enjoying the Summer Sun and she seems quite unconcerned. In fact checking in with Mrs B first thing in the morning and last thing at night has become an enjoyable habit. Quite like having a pet.

I shall miss seeing how this latest brood (?) develops and it will be left to our visitors to see Mrs B feed and raise her chicks.

I hope she comes back next year.

The set of Andre Chenier taking shape

A brief trip to Bregenz this week. This will be my fourth summer at the Austrian Opera Festival set on Lake Constance and famous for its huge outdoor opera arena.

I will be working on the premiere in the indoor theatre of a new opera by Judith Weir called Achterbahn or Miss Fortune and the purpose of this trip was to see elements of the set in situ on the stage and make sure everything is working the way we want it to. The sculptural design by Tom Pye looks wonderful on the huge stage of the Festspielhaus and I'm looking forward to the project immensely.

Meanwhile outside on the lake, the giant set for this year's opera am see is taking shape. The set takes months to build and it is always exciting to see a new leviathan slowly rise out of the lake, there to remain for two years before slowly being dismantled.

A brief, but tantalising trip, then back to London for stage rehearsals of A Midsummer Night's Dream at the London Coliseum.

London Two

Back in London and missing the Disney version of reality. Yes really. The 'Disney Difference' as they call it, is a powerful drug and it takes a while to detox and get back to reality.

Fortunately I am working on another exciting project  Midsummer Night's Dream at English National Opera with the American Director Christopher Alden.

Christopher has a unique imagination and always takes an oblique slant on stories which one thinks have been thoroughly explored before. His concepts often make one think 'that will never work' but they always do, frequently brilliantly. The last piece I worked with him on was Tosca and he took a skewed approach to that old warhorse which brought it zinging alive as it never has before for me. In fact I never want to see it done another way.

Dream will have an equally challenging approach, but we can already see that this too will be brilliant. The whole cast have come onboard with the concept wholeheartedly and are enjoying the challenge of the Alden approach.

Living the Disney Dream

There is no reason to visit the Caribbean, except the guaranteed sunshine, the jewel blue water, and beaches with pure white sand the consistency of caster sugar. Ok, so there are three really good reasons to visit the Caribbean! However, if you are looking for culture and interesting destinations this is not the place for you.

I’m aboard the Disney Dream - the third, and largest, of the Disney Cruise Line fleet. This is a trip to visit Jeff - the payoff of being apart for so long is the perk of a free cruise. The ship is only in its seventh week of operation so everything has that wonderful new yacht-varnish smell. To be fair to Disney’s unparalleled standards of maintenance it will still have that smell in ten years time.

Disney manages to strike everything right on the nose - the perfect experience for kids, whilst having excellent values, but also a great experience for the adults. The overall quality of everything on offer, and of everything you see around you onboard, mean you feel pampered but without the pretensions that sometimes accompany this type of experience.

I’m on two short back-to-back cruises, visiting only Nassau and Disney’s own island Castaway Cay, both in the Bahamas.

Nassau is, on first look, much like any other Caribbean cruise destination - an excuse for more shopping identical to the last destination. There is a taste still of the old colonial town there with the Government buildings still in use, and the uniforms of the police and army having a familiar look, but there is not a great deal else to see.

By exploring off the main drag a little I managed to find some beautiful, if run down, old buildings. It is predominantly shabby. It could be a quaint place if it didn’t have 10,000 cruise passengers flooding the streets every day, but then without those visitors there is no saying how much more shabby things would be.

There is the upmarket resort of Atlantis  on Paradise Island which I will be visiting on my second stop in Nassau later in the week. I’ll report on the other side of life in the Bahamian Capitol.

Kommilitonen Review

Great review in the Guardian! Click here.

Kommilitonen!

Kommilitonen opened on Friday night. A great night. The Academy Theatre was packed with the great and the good who responded enthusiastically to a fine performance from the students. This is a good piece and I hope it continues to have a life long after the RAM production is finished.

I spent most of Friday in meetings with gratifyingly enthusiastic colleagues from the Juilliard School in New York, who will revive this production in November. We are all looking forward to working with a new set of students on the piece, and also looking forward to a month in one of my favourite cities!

In between meetings I managed to grab an hour watching some of the RAM Bass players in a masterclass with Matthew McDonald, the young Australian Principal Double Bass of the Berlin Philharmonic. It put a big smile on my face! Great stuff.

Birth of an Opera

Today is a special and rare day. I'm sitting in the auditorium at the Royal Academy of Music listening to the Sitzprobe of the new opera 'Kommilitonen'  by Peter Maxwell Davies and David Pountney on which I have been working for the last month.

A Sitzprobe (literally 'sitting rehearsal') is the first time the orchestra and the singers get together to put together the piece musically. It's always an exciting rehearsal because everyone sings their best and you begin to get a real sense of the what the performance will be like after the hard work of stage rehearsals.

In this case it is doubly exciting as no-one has ever heard this piece put together with orchestra. Max's score is complex, layered and very theatrical so the 'birth' we are witnessing this morning is a wonderful event. I can't wait to put singers, orchestra and production together tomorrow.

I've been lucky enough as a performer and director to work on a number of world premieres and it is a great experience. You feel like you are carving stone - creating something which will live on. Of course as a director your physical production will not live on - it will at some point end up in the bin and live only in people's memories. But the music will still be there to be taken on by a new team of artists and performers.

I quite like the fact that our physical production, out theatrical experience, is only for the here and now. We are creating something which has a fleeting life in the ear and on the eye and gone in an instant, but which can influence the brains and hearts of our audience forever. I mentioned a couple of blogs ago that the Director for this piece, David Pountney, ran English National Opera when I worked there as an usher and was responsible for most of my early operatic experiences. My brain and heart were definitely changed by those experiences. It's great to be present as he and Max create a piece which I am sure will have a strong influence on the audience and an indelible impact upon the young performers involved.

For more info about this production read David's article in the Guardian here.

The View

I'm gradually coming round to a truce with London. Hating the crowds, loving seeing old friends. I'll blog more soon but meanwhile, here's the view from my flat here - the view is as huge as the apartment is small!



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Time to get back on the horse

Since returning from Toronto I've had an extended 'holiday' mostly at home. It's an occupational hazard for every freelancer - one is always either fighting to successfully tessellate entries in the diary to make the most of every opportunity, or staring at vast expanses of white paper. I've just had 3 months of the latter, thanks to a couple of potential projects falling through, but as the next 12 months or more look like they are pretty full-on I haven't minded too much.

So now I'm winding back up to working speed and my first few months will be in London. As a kid I could not wait to move to London. LONDON - it was all I wanted. My plan was to be a double-bass player in an orchestra, have a nice big apartment somewhere in Central London (yeah right!) and live happily ever after. I didn't know e exactly what this life would be like, but when as a 15 year old I sat in the Royal Festival Hall listening to the LSO and John Lill play the first Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto I sensed a flavour.....an atmosphere.....an intangible something that summed up how I believed life in London as a musician would be.

Well things don't quite work out that way do they. I was hopelessly naive and woefully unprepared for music college. Though fiercely independent in many ways at 18, I was poorly prepared for and poorly in control of my education as a musician. I had always been an instinctive musician which led my teachers to think my knowledge was much greater than it was. So the reality was a struggle and I waited in vain for someone to offer me the strong mentoring that I needed. Too late I realised that mentors are rare and special people.

My first part-time job as a student was as a ticket-tearer for the Barbican Concert Hall - great for a musician as I got to see concerts by word-class artists 4 or 5 times a week. A great opportunity and also a great eye opener. There was the occasional mind-blowing concert - and there were acres of work-a-day concerts. I remember watching the RPO play all the Beethoven symphonies but finding the performances lacklustre, as if the performers were a little bored by having to play these pieces again. My impression may have been unfair, or they may have well been bored with Beethoven.

That's not how I imagined it. That's not how I thought it would feel.

I quickly realised that the life of the professional double-bass player was not for me. I've recently rediscovered my love for that instrument and started playing again for my own amusement and it is truly wonderful to feel the vibrations of the bass going through one's body. It's sonority suits me, and so does the slightly melancholy aura that surrounds it, but though I certainly wish I could play better, I've never regretted leaving the instrument behind.

My next part-time job opened up a whole new world to me - a ticket-tearer again, but this time at English National Opera. This was the late 80's and the Coliseum was under the directorship of Peter Jonas, David Pountney, and Mark Elder and it was an exciting place to be. Each night we had a full house, full to the extent that many nights there would be four rows of people standing at the back of the Dress Circle to watch. The place was vibrant, challenging, and fun.

The other stewards comprised largely of other music students and musicians at the beginning of their careers hand-picked (and he turned me down first time I interviewed!) by the House Manager Peter Helps who demanded a tight and professional attitude to the work from us, but also expected that we did not want to spend our lives being ticket-tearers. So it was a crowd of young people all of whom got a huge amount from their time at the Coli and from exposure to some of the best opera performances of the time. My colleagues from that time I now know as professional singers, designers, composers, repetiteurs, musicians and one Radio 3 presenter. Pretty good going.

The whole atmosphere of the company was positive and the opportunity to watch a stable of performers work their way through performance after performance of production after production gave me the education which I had missed at music college. And mostly it taught me the extraordinary power of the human voice when coupled with challenging theatre. That was the word I knew I had to be part of from then on and I rediscovered that special atmosphere that the orchestral world had not quite delivered for me.

Life has led me all over and roundabout since then and the reality of a career in opera means that I am in danger of becoming jaded and cynical ("becoming!?" I hear you cry).

My first job this year will be to work with David Pountney - the Director of all those early productions which influenced me so - at the Royal Academy of Music on a new opera for students by Peter Maxwell-Davies. The job brings everything about those early years in London back to me in one package and with it the responsibility to try and not disappoint the expectations of another generation of students.

My second job this year will be back at the Coliseum working with Christopher Alden on a new production of Britten's 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'. It will be the first time I have worked for English National Opera since I tore my last Dress Circle ticket in 1990, and I am looking forward to being back there. The company has changed enormously in the intervening years and is once again riding high, and the theatre itself (my favourite West End auditorium) has had a major face-lift but I'm hoping it will be like rediscovering a long-lost old friend.

As for London itself - I left the city over four years ago now and discovered a whole new and wonderful quality of life in Yorkshire. Since then I have visited the city very little (though at one time I thought I would never leave it) and hated it every time: the noise, the bustle, the lack of time for necessary human interaction, the expense!

However, having struggled to get my head around the fact that of the next 18 months I shall be spending 7 in the city, I have now decided to treat it like any other job - a great opportunity to discover and live in a wonderful new environment. I'm going to try to forget the London I knew, and see what I can discover about this foreign city. A challenge - but let's see if I can find again a whiff of that intangible something which grabbed me as a 15 year old.