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.