It’s been a whirlwind trip to London and we packed a lot in. On the second day I met up with an old friend and colleague that thanks to this blog I was able to reconnect with. He asked me a question that put into sharp focus that there might be an end game to think about when it comes to a career, and that is:
What is my repertoire “bucket list”?…..
This is not a Starbucks commercial but a photo of me with Peter Selwyn my former accompanist from my student days in London whom I wrote about in this post. The post eventually got to him and to cut a long story short, after 13 years we met up last Saturday here in London!
It was three hours of reminiscing and catching up, hearing about people we both knew, people I hadn’t thought about in a long time and then the talk turned into what now and what next. He is pursuing Opera conducting and spent 6 years in Germany as Head of Music and Kapellmeister at the Nuremberg Opera, conducting over 20 operas. He also spent 3 summers at the Bayreuth Festival as musical assistant on the centenary Ring Cycle! He’s back and building his career in the UK, soon to move to Yorkshire with his wife Emily Segal (a terrific Pianist) and their two children. Talk about a small world, when I mentioned how my co-blogger Bill recently conducted the new production of Porgy and Bess in Lyon, he told me that two of his friends sang in it!
I myself love conducting Opera but it was not something I set out to do and consequently I have not done that many. Yet a strange thing happened when Peter asked me: So what’s on your list to conduct, your top 10?
At first I was stumped, I had never thought of a to conduct list and when he heard me stumble and stammer not knowing where to start, he quickly rattled off his list, Opera after Opera with the ultimate goal of conducting the Ring Cycle. My brain is racing and I’m thinking Mahler Symphonies, Britten’s War Requiem but honestly I have never thought of a list. When I finally mustered the courage to construct one, it started with 3 Operas: Peter Grimes, Magic Flute and Jenufa. It was as if I had been denying a true desire to pursue conducting Opera! Yet thinking about it now a week later, these were my favorite Operas that I saw as a student in London, and like in any place I visit after being gone a long time, those kinds of memories come back to me.
Watching Opera is truly exhilarating, but Opera conducting is…. well as close as one can get to the feeling of directing traffic in Mexico City! In fact I have directed and conducted 3 semi-staged Operas, and that was like being at a 4 way stop with everyone trying to move at the same time! Not that I want to exclude it in the future, I did love the experiences, but I love all types of conducting from Ballet to Broadway, and all repertoire form Monteverdi to Montavani, it’s all good (well I do have my least favorites, another post for another time!).
I don’t think I have a top ten, just a hole in my bucket and I’m happy to keep pouring away hoping it never fills up! Cheers Peter, it was great to catch up, I wont leave it as long next time!
I didn’t get to a Prom although I watched the opening concert on TV, complete with color commentary! Lisa and I saw a drama, a musical and a comedy and each were phenomenal:
At the National Theatre (er) Jeremy Irons plays former British PM Harold McMillan in Never So Good a riveting play about this misunderstood figure. Along with his towering performance the huge and brilliant cast and panoramic staging was an immersive experience. Ian McNeice who played the town crier in the HBO series Rome was hilarious as Winston Churchill
Alexia Khadime (pictured left) plays the witch Elphaba in the West End production of Wicked . Her voice is like a moon landing! The show is tons of fun, visually spectacular, but it is all about Alexia who has the kind of voice that stops you in your tracks, we were blown away, I hope she releases an album.
Finally we went to the Criterion Theatre (er) and underground gem in Piccadilly Circus built in 1871 – 1873, it served as a broadcast location during the WWII for the BBC as being underground made it safe from the blitz. There we saw the 39 Steps a stage adaption of the Hitchcock film with 4 actors playing 139 roles. Hilarious, inventive, farcical, I don’t know how they pulled it off, sometimes they were in character for seconds before changing not just costume, but gender also!