Lenten abstinence

In the spirit of my Tosca costume and my weekly Lenten incantations against the sins of the flesh, I went to Paris this week and ate a dozen oysters and a steak tartare. The trip wasn’t made for this reason – there was a genuine work-related reason – but it was certainly this meal that made a lasting impression. Things were already feeling a little unsteady as I sat in a traffic jam on the M1 coming back from Luton airport. By 24 hours later, there was a definite backlash in the tummy department. Undeterred, I set off for Matthew’s stag night the next afternoon. Six hours later, I had made several emergency stop-offs, consumed three quarters of a packet of Immodium, slept for an hour at Keele service station, and was staring at a road closed sign in the middle of the Peak District, with only a vague idea of where on Earth I was going. Perhaps somebody upstairs was making a point about my non-compliance with the Lenten fast. Either way, by the time I got to the stag festivities, I was only able to manage a Diet Coke. These are the sacrifices we make for our pals.

By way of recompense, the next day was a performance of the John Passion in Hertfordshire. Rarely has a piece of music proved to be such a self-fulfilling exercise in penance. The tenor soloist is offered the Hobson’s choice of singing either the Evangelist or the two fiendish arias. Either will leave you bleeding from the throat, and neither is particularly audience pleasing. In fact, the second aria regularly comes in at an extraordinary ten minutes long, by which time the audience are getting their sole pleasure from wondering whether or not you are going to make it unscathed. I did, but doubt it was particularly beautiful. As it is about Christ’s agony, perhaps that was all right. I just wish Bach didn’t take the concept of word painting so literally. Bach clearly had a personal vendetta against his tenor, and conversely seems to have been rather taken with his alto, to whom he routinely gave the best tunes. The Alto gets to stand up twice, deliver a couple of the greatest audience pleasers of the Baroque period, barely break into a sweat, and look smug. Evangelist and tenor aria soloist get to exchange wounds at the end. And my favourite part of the John Passion is the end. This is because the final words refer to praising endlessly. After two and a half hours of implausibly difficult yodelling to the accompaniment of scraped cat-gut, this is surely proof that Bach had a sense of humour, if a somewhat dark one.

At the end of the concert, I had the choice of a three-hour drive back up to Derbyshire to admire the depth and breadth of my friends’ hangovers, or to drive home in the certain knowledge that William would demand that I woke up at the crack of dawn. I chose the latter, and William didn’t disappoint. At least I’d taken the morning off church, and so had a glorious hour and a half on my own.

Missing church services. What an excellent idea for a Lenten fast.

The end of Tosca

Tosca has finally taken her last death leap at the Albert Hall, and thank goodness she seems to have stayed dead this time. Cavaradossi died too, of course, but the effect was somewhat diminished by his later appearance in the pub. The suspension of disbelief had been rendered difficult anyway, as in an early performance his dodgy wig had fallen off just as the firing squad dispatched him. Sadly, the wig was not given a separate bow.

The full glorious experience of the Gubbay chorus was neatly captured by a Times Journalist who briefly shared my dressing room desk. ‘Like a rugby changing room, but more camp’ apparently. There was not a lot for us to do in Tosca, but despite the enormous amount of wasted time, it was great to find myself back with my chums, as well as making some new ones. Glyndebourne starts in a fortnight, so the treadmill really gets going in earnest then. And a full twelve months of back-to-back Carmens begins. At least there’s a lot to do in that opera, but I suspect that by this time next year even the sniff of a toreador will be enough to bring on palpitations. And they’re a sweaty lot.

My flat looked briefly as if things were getting sorted out. The Poles moved in, work was done – it was great. And it was never going to last. The guys dealing with the contents seem to have gone completely AWOL. Five minutes before I was due to meet them in Tooting, they rang to say that they were in Brighton. I am not at all sure that this can be put down to the failure of a Sat Nav. As things currently stand, these guys have thrown away 90% of my belongings, hidden the other 10%, not showed me any paperwork to show what they’ve done, and then proved impossible to find for four months. My gathering nervousness is perhaps not entirely surprising. Still, Thames Water is due to have a look at the drain tomorrow, so perhaps I shouldn’t relinquish any belief in miracles just yet.

William is enjoying a pleasantly bizarre period of development. He has just run up to me and asked if I had a big face. I have also been required to provide the voice for pretty much every inanimate object in the house. His taste for anthropomorphism has even extended as far as having conversations with his buggy. These are episodes that must surely tempt a few passers-by to consider calling the authorities. And this might not necessarily be a bad idea. George Phillipson at the City of London School has just sent me the department photo taken last term. An alarming transformation does seem to have taken place recently.

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For a boy brought up as an atheist, this is a worrying development. Especially as I've had to intone the litany at church for the last fortnight. "From fornication and all sins of the flesh, Good Lord deliver us". Indeed.