Why the Scottish Government shouldn't give £1m to golf

I write this from the perspective of someone who loves Golf. I respect its history, am delighted its origins are Scottish, love that it is a game largely free from cheating and drug problems, and where the rules, and sportsmanship, are held so highly. You'll never see a golfer diving in the box.

I am also not anti-wealth. People with outstanding skills, at the top of their game, should be rewarded according to the market. The problem is when the market stops functioning, or has no relationship to the reality of the world around it.

Have you ever heard of Morten Madsen? Probably not. Well, he won 63 000 euros at the Portugal Open for coming joint 4th. He's earned over half a million euros in the last year, and he's currently 191st in the World Golf Rankings.

Not bad for a golfer you're unlikely to have heard of.

Like many golfers, he's probably sponsored. He'll wear branded clothing advertising golfing manufacturers, sun glasses, banks, finance companies, cars or holiday destinations, often simultaneosly. If he's good enough, he'll be paid just to turn up at an event with "appearance money."

Yesterday, I read that the Scottish Government has helped secure the future of the Scottish Open by giving it £1 million pounds of taxpayers money each year until 2020. Prize money for 2015 is £3 million, then it'll rise to £4 million by 2018.

Many will say that that this million pound investment is a good investment. The Scottish Open is a big event, people travel to it, they stay in hotels, they drink beer and then (presumably under the influence of the beer) buy bad jumpers and even more ridiculous trousers.The Scottish Open gives people an outlet to spend their money, which is good for the (service) economy.

I say that Golf can look after itself. There have been a lot of column inches about how the golf world has struggled since the Credit Crunch. As long as there is prize money of £3 million for a single (relatively small) event, there isn't a problem as far as I'm concerned. Something like The Open will have prize money in the region of £5.4 million. There are 51 events advertised on the European Tour website in 2014. The Sponsors include BMW, HSBC, Rolex, Aberdeen Asset Management. Strikes me that Golf might be struggling to increase the prize money at an above inflation rate, but if prize-money was cut by 10%, presumable poor old Morten would only have received 450 000 euros.It doesn't seem to me that professional golf is struggling. It seems to me that it can look after itself.

Others will say that if the Scottish Government hadn't stepped in, the European Tour would have threatened to remove the Scottish Open from the calendar. Here is the real problem. Whether it's banks or Insurance Companies or Sport, governments are threatened, almost blackmailed, by business. How many times have we heard, "You can't increase tax on those who earn over £150 000, or all the talent will leave the country." "If you don't subsidise this event, it'll not happen."

I say, let the Scottish Open leave if it threatens to leave. I think the tour would be poorer off without the event. If golf is struggling, then it shouldn't have to threaten to withdraw events; it should be grateful that the event is happening at all.

I think that tax payers money should be used to the benefit of the tax payer. Schools, hospitals, public services  (maybe even the Arts!!)....all the things that we're being told that there just isn't the money for.

But there's enough money to boost the prize money for a golf tournament from £3 million to £4 million, right?

Just had a great deal of fun. Was in a Starbucks in Germany, and, because Starbucks is a multinational, they insist on asking your name wherever you are on the Blue Planet, and then daub it on the side of the cup with a felt tip pen like a piece of urban art. I'm sick of them spelling Walker wrong...I've had Wokke in Portugal, Warcher in Germany and Wauka in Amsterdam. So, I thought, I'll call myself Manure. Then I sat back, and took an absolute age to claim my Venti Latte, and enjoyed enormously the increasingly shrill cries of, "Manure" "MANURE!"   "VENTI LATTE fuer MANURE". It was pronounced almost right, if you squinted a bit with your ears.

I'd recommend it to you all.

That's Manure spelt with an M.

A Walking Holiday Part 2 (Revenge of the Sith)

I apologise for my last walking post, which finished mid-stream, was written in complete haste and had a rather obvious lack of spirituality contained within it. This one is no better, but I'll start off with some Goethe. When Faust asks what Nature does, she answers,

"So at the roaring loom of Time I ply,

And weave for God the garment that you see Him by."

After Beinn a Bhuird (pedant) I met up with some teachers from Stewart's Melville. 2 of them, Iain Crosbie and Graham Wilson had taught during my time at the school, whilst Malcolm Garden is a fellow cellist who I knew through many Mahler symphonies, and he has subsequently joined the Classics department. We decided on Lochnagar, and the day started with rainbows and uncertain weather. We bumped into a family extraordinarily ill-clad for such a hill on such a day, and they seemed utterly clueless as to which way the hill was. At the parting of the paths before the slog up to the famous corrie, the father asked which way it was, despite the fact that the cliffs of Lochnagar were clearly keeking over the ridge. It was like standing in Paris close to Mr Eiffel's metal thing and asking, "Ou est le Tour Eiffel?" I felt such a killjoy when I asked, "Are you sure you've got enough clothes to be going up?" I really hate the over cautious killjoy know-it-alls you sometimes meet on the hill. 2 examples. My lovely lady and I did Schiehallion on a beautiful winter's day, and, as is my custom, I like to go up late to catch the setting sun and return by dark....you get the loveliest light, and you see the stars. Anyway, we were constantly hassled by walkers descending who admonished us about going up a hill so late." It'll be dark soon," etc etc yawn yawn bugger off. Example 2 was on the Lairig Ghru when I met a man with the heaviest and most lopsided rucksack I've ever seen. He was clearly struggling, but explained that he had a bivvy bag for possible benightment and a tent for indefinite benightment as well as every other piece of gear known to modern mountaineering. Not only was his day probably miserable and slow, but his risk of injury was probably twice that of someone going light.

It was a real joy to walk with Iain, Graham (both Munroists.....501 and 502 I think) and Malcolm. And, being good teachers, I still learnt some things from them. When I've seen other people's rubbish on the hill, I've had a tendency to tut tut, but perhaps, at best, try and bury or hide the offending item. Iain Crosbie takes a bag with him to carry off other people's detritus. I thought this was highly admirable and I'm going to do the same (carried 2 empty, rusting cans of condensed milk out from Altanour Lodge the next day). If Nature is going to weave the garment, it's up to us to patch up the occasional pulled threads.

Needless to say, the weather really improved, and the ill-equipped family, rather than being found under 6 feet of snow, quite happily made it to the summit (now clear) and presumably back......and they'll moan about being hassled by a holier-than-thou St Bernard.

The paths have been radically improved on Lochnagar, and the descent down the Glas Allt is now a very well drained path; don't remember it being quite as good last time.

The only picture taken all day of the cliffs!!

Teaching is such an important profession, and yet it seems it's not treated at times with the respect it deserves (unlike many other countries). You don't forget a good teacher. They can inspire you in a way which can change the direction of your life. I might not have had the love of the hills which I have, had I not had the chance to experience them through my school's very active outdoor education project.

A Walking Holiday Part 1 (A New Hope)

Last month, I was able to take a few days off and, for the first time in ages, have a proper period in the hills. I had a variety of companions, including no-one (I had the biggest argument with him) and some very good weather (providing I stayed East.....had hoped to get to Fort William, but the forecast was always grim west of the A9. Maybe after it's dualled, the weather will improve). Decided to use the bike wherever possible, and had some big days. Probably averaged 30km on 3 of them.

I wanted to start off in the Monahliath. Hadn't been there for years, and was concerned that I might not get back before the wind turbines march in.The light was mixed, but you still get that extraordinary sense of space. real MAMBA country, and a true centre of Scotland. You could see Glencoe down Loch Ericht and Loch Trieg, the Cairngorms, Ben Wyvis and a lot of the Western Highlands from Ben Nevis area all the way up through Shiel, Affric, Cannich, though I have to admit in that direction, it was a bit fuzzy both visually and geographically.

It must be a nightmare to navigate in a white out on this territory. Really featureless, but the fence posts help.

The next day was a cracker on Beinn Bhuird. The bike came into its own; absolutely eats up the miles up to the path at the top of Glen Quoich (and faster on the way back). The new path up Beinn Bhuird is an absolute joy; great angle, well drained, fairly direct and such an improvement on that horrendous bulldozed track which has almost disappeared. Well done NTS.

It's just such a vast area the summit of Beinn Bhuird, as is the neighbouring Ben Avon. The corries scalloped out of it are really beautiful, though I didn't have time to go over to the ones on the north side. The light had been a bit mixed up until the summit, and then it just became perfect, and you had that enormous and wonderful sense of space and big sky.

You really feel very small in this landscape. It's an absolute joy to walk in.

New Video

New Video talking about the closing concert of the Edinburgh International Festival. In interview with Kate Molleson. Find it on the video page or here:     http://youtu.be/MKgslPPyDsY

Review of Naxos CD Walker/Harris/APO

Nice review.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501119&objectid=11283797

Nice review

Every few years or so, with mind-numbing regularity, the argument is trotted out again, usually by politicians: school holidays are too long, particularly in summer. Today's teenagers are listless and stuck to computer screens, we're told. They're wasting July and August, and may as well be in the classroom, getting even better (allegedly) at sitting tests and doing examinations.

Really? Only recently I've seen three high quality events, all relying on groups of young people voluntarily working in teams from early morning to late evening, in an immersive residential setting lasting up to a fortnight. A fine, varied choral concert and a bristling, innovative production of Shakespeare's Macbeth were the result of the first two projects.

The third produces a concert marking 21 years of the Ulster Youth Orchestra, held on Saturday evening at an Ulster Hall packed with friends, family and supporters. The stage is packed too, with nearly 100 players from schools and colleges all over Northern Ireland, plus music stands and instruments. It's quite a spectacle.

The programme is ideally chosen to give young players a chance to really get their teeth into some proper classical music-making, not the quickfire soundbite selections favoured in 'pops' concerts, which can lose their tang as quickly as a tab of chewing-gum, and aren't much more nutritious.

It opens with an effervescent account of 'Dance of the Comedians' from Smetana's opera The Bartered Bride. It's a performance bubbling with confidence, especially in the scurrying violins of the introduction, the sharp dynamic attack, and tight ensemble playing.

Those impressively high levels of confidence bespeak hours of skilful preparation with sectional coaches. They're evident again in the violins' ripe romantic phrasing of the big tune opening Tchaikovsky's 'First Piano Concerto', the item following the Smetana.

The soloist here is Michael McHale, fresh from his American concerto debut playing Mozart in Minneapolis, with the storied Minnesota Orchestra. McHale is an alumnus of the UYO, and just a decade ago played cello in the desks opposite, where he now commands a concert Steinway.

McHale is one of those musicians who seems incapable of making an unmusical gesture: every phrase has been carefully weighed and considered, and slots naturally into the overall architecture of the piece that he is playing.

That’s not to imply that his approach is somehow calculated or lacking in spontaneity. The animated middle section of the Tchaikovsky concerto’s ‘Andantino semplice’ movement is marvellously puckish in his hands, and the finale goes at a tremendous clip (‘with fire’, as the composer directs), building to an adrenaline-pumped explosion of octaves at its conclusion.

The orchestra matches McHale’s beguiling mix of tenderness and intensity at every turn, with lovely solos taken by flute, cello and oboe in particular.

Part two of the concert is devoted to a selection of numbers from Prokofiev’s great ballet Romeo & Juliet. Already in ‘Montagues and Capulets’ there’s much evidence of the telling preparatory work done by the players in workshops and rehearsals.

The searing dissonances of the opening statement have an appropriately emblazoned quality, while the extreme dynamic contrast with the muted strings that answer is precisely registered. When the main ‘knights’ music kicks in, the violins dig trenchantly into their signature melody, articulating with real bite and character.

That sets the tone for a vividly colourful traversal of the nine movements selected. There are many highlights along the way – the punchy unanimity of the slashing chords launching ‘Folk Dance’; the pliantly executed string tenuti in ‘Madrigal’; the perky swagger the players find in the ‘Masks’ episode.

There is more excellent solo playing too, from first violinist Katherine Sung in particular, who leads the orchestra with decisiveness and clarity throughout the evening.

A sustained crescendo of applause deservedly greets the musicians at the Prokofiev’s conclusion. Scottish conductor Garry Walker seems disarmed, almost embarrassed by it, but he shouldn’t be – his own part in the achievement of this year’s Ulster Youth Orchestra cohort has clearly been massive.

In fact, he is my favourite sort of conductor: unassuming, invariably precise and helpful in his directions, and totally focused on the music and its message. His unstinting commitment, and that of his young players, produces a wonderfully heartening evening of classical music-making.

Land of the Mountain and the Blood

I have a great deal of time and respect for those Scots (and other property owners in Scotland) who wish for the country to become independent. I think, with some notable exceptions, the quality of the debate has been friendly, informed and serious. The abuse that some have received on both sides of the debate from trolls and unpleasant people has been condemned by those with more than two neurons to rub together. There is no place for abuse in this debate.

I have, however, felt the increasing need to state my position, and argue politely for what I think is right for Scotland. 

As anyone who knows me will be aware, I feel intensely Scottish. Scotland has given me a strong sense of place and identity, and I place my love of the Highlands higher than anything else in life other than that I feel for my family, and that includes music. Music, family and Scotland's mountains combined make for a fairly heady experience.

If asked on a document as to what nationality I am, I frequently state, "Scottish." I see this not to be in any way at odds with being "British."

I've long puzzled over why nationalism and politics go together. I can understand it when people think they can run their country better because of a linguistic problem. The Hapsburg Empire would seem to have been doomed to failure because it ruled over so many languages, and sought to rule in German. I understand, having a German wife, that language is more than just a way of being understood. It's also a framework for thought, and therefore one thinks differently in different languages. Misunderstandings can occur not just because people don't understand each other, but also because the think differently when they speak in translation or in speaking each other's language. Germans sometimes have a reputation for brusqueness when the speak English, but this is only because they don't use conditionals so much in German, so when they speak English, those of limited experience appear a bit direct,  and by our standards rude.

So a linguistic  political Nationalism I understand.

I might even understand a "race" or religious Nationalism, as I suppose is exemplified by some States in the Midle East. I'm going to avoid the minefield that this subject is by saying that once again, it clearly doesn't apply to Scotland.

Is Scottish Nationalism not just an emotional state? It's not an intellectual position, is it? Or scientific? If it were scientific, would we not be giving a vote in the referendum to Scots who don't live in Scotland? And here is the central point of my argument against Independence....when politics and emotion go together, it can be a dangerous cocktail, as we've seen across Europe. I'm not suggesting that the SNP are in any way comparable to some of the Nationalistic excesses in Europe of the last 150 years. But surely a decision on the future of Scotland as important as this must be made on economic, intellectual and objective grounds, not because we feel that as being Scots we have a better chance of running our country well.

The Nationalists used to point to Iceland, Ireland and Norway as models for Scotland's independent future. For obvious reasons, they now just point to Norway. Norway is radically different from us economically, and maybe is how Scotland should have been run in the past, but we are where we are today. It's like the Irish politician lost in rural Eire who asks for the way to Dublin, to be told ,"Well, I wouldn't start from here." We have a massive national debt, which we must take our share of and take a share of the blame for. It's not just those south of the border who have been living outwith their means. Remember that the worst casualties of the Financial Meltdown were RBS and Bank of Scotland. Norway has little debt and large financial reserves, has never pretended to posture on the world stage as a leader, and has avoided spending billions on armed forces and expensive, protracted  foreign wars. These are all things to admire, about Norwày,and perhaps reason to want an Independent Scotland 150 years ago. And I can see why Nationalists say that that could be our better future (I'd believe it more if they didn't want to remain in Nato). Scotland and Norway's economic positions are radically different, and our situation is much more precarious. You might as well compare ourselves to America as Norway.

Another thing which convinced me to vote No are the, what I consider, unrealistic promises beings made by the Yes campaign, and the certainty they have that they will be able to negotiate everything to their desire., seemingly without compromise.

Take currency union for example, a relatively new venture for the Nationalists...they used to have their eye on the euro. They say we'd have it, the Chancellor (Tory), Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Liberal), Civil Service (Independent) and Governor of the Bank of England have all either said no or expressed doubts about it. London scaremongering claim the SNP. Maybe. But the First Minister of Wales and The First Minister of Northern Ireland also say they wouldn't accept it. And would you want your interest rates, VAT etc set in London if your economy diverges from that of England (which is probably what in an Elysian future the Nationalists would envisage)? In the euro zone at the moment, interest rates are going down. In the UK,they're threatening to go up. Different countries need different economic packages at different times. I would respect the Nationalist position far more if they wished to be truly economically independent from London. This half way house is an emergency position because the euro is seen as being a vote looser.

Then there's the issue of membership of the EU, another thing far from certain. All the Eurocrats say we'll have to reapply, and if we reapply according to the Shengin agreement, we'll have to take on the euro; any new state must.

It is not in David Cameron's interest to fight for the Union. By letting Scotland go, the Conservatives would be the natural party of government south of the border. I'm not willing to declare my political allegiances here, but I've never voted Conservative, and can't see myself doing so. But I admire Cameron for fighting for a principle he believes in. Historically, Scotland has received more from the exchequer than it put in, and when the oil runs out, which it will, this is likely to remain the case. Never was there such a good time for the English to disengage amicably from their northern cousins. But to the eternal credit of the English, and despite considerable provocation, they have a strong admiration and fondness for us Scots which is frequently unreciprocated. We cheer for Uraguay and their rabid forwards. Could you ever imagine English supporters in the Uraguay end cheering against Scotland ?

Final point.  The greatest flowering in Scotland's history was The Enlightenment. This came about because we had the most educated, literate populace in Europe. It didn't start to register until after 1707, when wealth and opportunity was created by the exposure to the markets, both home and abroad, of the English Empire. Without this, Watt, Adam, Smith, Hume et al would have remained unsung and isolated figures on the periphery of Europe. Best not to forget that we will always remain geographically on the fringes of Europe....one thing which no one other than tectonics can change.

We are better off together. 

Arts Desk Crit of Vixen

Arts Desk 23 June 2014

The Cunning Little Vixen, Garsington Opera

Human yearning trumps animal cutesiness in Daniel Slater's thoughtful Janáček

by David NiceMonday, 23 June 2014

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Vulpine romance: Victoria Simmonds's Fox courts Claire Booth's VixenAll images by Clive Barda for Garsington Opera

Rolling hills with beech-rich woods sloping upwards from a wide valley: the Wormsley Estate has more than a little in common with glorious Hukvaldy in Moravia, where Janáček was born and ended his life, and where in old age he once again saw "his" vixen. With an admirable independence of mind that seriously underrated director Daniel Slater has gone against the grain inside the fabulous pavilion where Garsington’soperas now resound. Instead of extending the natural scene, Robert Innes Hopkin’s simple but original designs paper the walls of the inn where most of the action takes place with leaf patterns, opening out to laddered, stylised forest, and Slater sheds animal cutesiness in favour of the human predicament.

Our vixen is a foxy and enigmatic young woman who comes and sits at one of the bar-room tables. Is the protagonist Forester whose dream ends the opera attracted to her animal nature? Is there love at stake? It’s kept vague, but the bigger picture is a fine clarification of an issue Janáček, with typical whimsicality, introduces at rather a late stage in the drama – Vixen Sharpears’ identification, in the minds of three disillusioned older men, with the adored Terynka who ends up getting a fox muff from the poacher Harašta. The scene where Priest, Schoolmaster and Forester slide around a winter landscape in hapless pursuit of the ideal usually comes across as an incoherent mess but thanks to the way it's played, with the vixen coolly amused by the follies of the opposite sex, it works impressively. It also makes a convincing end for a first half which, for once, comes to a halt at the right place (rather than the vixen’s wedding, which leaves less than half an hour of drama after supper, as at Glyndebourne).

All focus, then, is on the vixen and her one-time captor. Gone are the dragonfly ballets and the visual equivalents of the music’s forest murmurs, which leaves the stage a bit empty at the beginning and end, depending very much on whether the two leads and their dance doubles can carry it. Claire Booth is a riveting revelation in the title role, her spirited Czech inflections ringing out at every turn. We can’t take our eyes off her captivating personage from the minute she sits down wistfully in the first scene. As she explodes into life, her tongue-in-cheek feminism goes vivaciously hand in glove with killer instincts.

The victory over rampant rooster and his knitting harem of hens (pictured above) has all the comedy it needs, but rightly nature raw in tooth and claw turns nasty when Sharpears sets about Harašta before he shoots her(Booth with Joshua Bloom's Harašta pictured below), a bloodying well in tune with the sexual ferment of Slater’s male-female confrontations. That only underlines the tenderness of the big love scene with Fox Golden Mane (Victoria Simmonds, as compellingly man-like as the other cross-dressing animal roles in Hopkins’s superlative costume designs), the vulnerability of Booth’s vixen in love as touching as it should be. The offspring in woolly hats, barkers’ dozen perhaps, are enchanting, but it’s only in the forest nuptials that Slater allows the stage to be anything like as busy as Melly Still’s rather cluttered Glyndebourne vision.

Parallel to the happy natural love story are the dream pas de deux of a superb dance duo, Chiara Vinci and Jamie Higgins (pictured below), fluent and sensuous in Maxine Braham’s spare but lovely choreography. A handful of the interludes are slightly mistimed, like the climax of the vixen’s turning into a young woman, and the final scene doesn’t quite come off, though again the restraint is admirable.

The problem here is that the stalwart Grant Doyle is perhaps too young and not charismatic enough to convince us of the wisdom of older age which we need to see in the Forester’s enlightenment, his understanding of the natural order of things. The Forester’s cronies, HenryWaddington’s Priest and Timothy Robinson’s Schoolmaster, are too much between two ages to suggest the disillusioned sense of having missed any chance at happiness. And this, after all, was old man Janáček’s most important thrust.

All three sing well, but need to realize that you don’t have to force your projection in this admirable acoustic, where the voices can always be heard over the largest orchestra yet engaged at Garsington. Draw them in rather than push out could be the lesson here. The playing under Garry Walker’s expert thrust is mostly first-rate, and I don’t suppose the premature horn entry or later the vanishing trumpet which nearly sabotaged the endgame will happen in future performances. That penetrating oboe sound rising from the shallow pit turned out to be none other than the superb Melinda Maxwell’s, and the limited number of strings makes for mostly pellucid textures with woodwind nature-noises clearer than I’ve ever heard them.

Admirable, too, is Walker’s drive with the short-lived human ecstasy burst of the second-act scene change between inn and forest landscape, one of the great melodies Janáček presents and then discards. Funny people, those Garsington punters: I could end with a catalogue of weird remarks about lack of tunes, incomprehensibility and so on as we exited. But since I was treading air through the beautiful, lantern-lit sweep of landscape, I’ll leave you with my own thoughts of country-house opera done at a very high level indeed.

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The Cunning Little Vixen at Garsington until 12 July

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An early entry in David Nice's blog on a visit toHukvaldy

Crit from the FT of Vixen.

Financial Times 23 June 2014

The Cunning Little Vixen, Garsington Opera at Wormsley, Buckinghamshire, UK – review

By Richard Fairman

The rolling hills at Wormsley make an ideal backdrop for Janáček’s opera

©Clive Barda/ArenaPAL

Claire Booth in 'The Cunning Little Vixen'

The temporary, glass-walled theatre that Garsington Opera erects each year for its summer season affords long country vistas. The rolling hills of the Getty estate at Wormsley make an unusually evocative backdrop for an opera – ideal for Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen, the life-and-death tale of Vixen Sharp-Ears and the forest community around her.

This is the first of Janáček’s full-length operas to be put on by Garsington Opera. Although the rather prosaic sets indoors do not match the visual poetry outside, Daniel Slater’s production treads a fine line between comedy and touching drama, and there is a high-quality cast.

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In Janáček’s hands, the animals in this opera seem almost more human than the humans themselves. Slater’s production handles this as delightfully as any, clothing the baby frog in wellington boots, the hens as washerwomen (producing outsized eggs down a chute) and Vixen Sharp-Ears and her mate, Fox Golden-Stripe, in jackets lined with fox fur. The human and animal worlds come even closer when the Forester starts to dream of the Vixen as his perfect, young, liberated woman. Slater has the ballet sequences showing dancers as their doubles in a tender relationship – not whatJanáček asks for, but an imaginative way of exploring a deeper emotional layer to the opera.

Claire Booth is a marvellously vital Vixen, singing and playing with an energy that makes her the life-force of the opera. As her shy beau, the Fox, Victoria Simmonds captures the burgeoning romance between them touchingly (there is no doubt who will wear the trousers in this family) and a whole menagerie of lively young performers plays the forest wildlife. The human characters are no less strongly cast with Lucy Schauferas the Forester’s Wife, Timothy Robinson as the Schoolmaster, Henry Waddington as the Priest and Joshua Bloom as the poacher.

In the close acoustic of Garsington’s opera house every detail of Janáček’s music, from strumming harp to crawling low bassoon, sounded in close-up and the conductor, Garry Walker, kept the performance on its toes. As Grant Doyle sang out sonorously in the Forester’s closing paean to nature, the sun was setting outside over the Wormsley estate, art and nature in sync. Janáček would have approved.

Garsington crit from "The Stage."

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The Cunning Little Vixen 

Published Monday 23 June 2014 at 10:34 by George Hall

New to Garsington’s repertory is Janacek’s moving opera drawing parallels between the lives of humans and those of forest animals, as well as the interaction between them; it seems a natural choice for a venue set in the midst of a country estate and surrounded by beautiful woods.

Claire Booth, right, in The Cunning Little Vixen

Photo: Tristram Kenton

And so it proves in Daniel Slater’s thoughtful staging. Presenting animals on stage can be perilous, but with the help of Robert Innes Hopkins’ canny costuming there is a concentration here on what humans and animals have in common. The set manages to suggest both the village inn, where the menfolk relieve their boredom by drinking, and the forest itself.

The human story of the villagers - perfectly exemplified by Timothy Robinson’s touching Schoolmaster, Henry Waddington’s worldly Priest, Joshua Bloom’s bumptious poacher Harasta and, especially, Grant Doyle’s expertly sung and superbly acted Forester - comes into sharp focus in the foreground.

Yet the central animal performances - Claire Booth’s complete realisation of the Vixen, Victoria Simmonds’ knowing yet initially shy Fox, and Bragi Jonsson’s harrumphing Badger - are visualised with style and conviction.

Slater also binds the two worlds cleverly together, with the aid of entrancing work by two dancers in particular: doubling the main characters in Maxine Braham’s sensitive choreography, Chiara Vinci dances the Vixen, beautifully offset by Jamie Higgins, who dances the Forester.

As well as a plethora of smaller roles, there’s also excellent group work from the pupils of Old Palace School and Trinity Boys Choir as the minor denizens of the animal kingdom.

Presiding musically over the show is conductor Garry Walker, who shows a profound understanding of the colours and textures of Janacek’s idiosyncratic writing, and draws exceptional playing from the Garsington Opera Orchestra. It’s an undoubted success for the festival, and a production that will surely win many new admirers for this life-enhancing piece.

Production information

Garsington at Wormsley, Buckinghamshire, June 22-July 12

Composer/librettist:

Leos Janacek

Director:

Daniel Slater

Design:

Robert Innes Hopkins (set, costume), Tim Mascall (lighting)

Technical:

Susan Hamilton (casting), Andrew Quick (production), Katherine Wilde (company manager), Paul Carr (stage manager), Estelle Butler (wardrobe), Sam Floyd (head of lighting), Richard Muller (wigs)

Conductor:

Garry Walker

Cast includes:

Grant Doyle, Lucy Schaufer, Timothy Robinson, Henry Waddington, Joshua Bloom, Alexandra Persinaru, Claire Booth, Victoria Simmonds

Producer:

Garsington Opera

Running time:

3hrs 15mins

Production information displayed was believed correct at time of review. Information may change over the run of the show.

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Guardian crit of Cunning Little Vixen

Emotional charge … Anna Harvey as Lapák, Claire Booth as the Vixen and Katherine Crompton as Chocholka in The Cunning Little Vixen. Photograph: Tristram Kenton for the Guardian

Guy Dammann

Monday 23 June 2014 15.07 BST

One of the crucial scenes in Janáček's The Cunning Little Vixen takes place in a country inn, where the connection is drawn explicitly between the escaped Vixen, whom the Forester captured as a cub, and the village beauty Terynka, haplessly pursued by the Schoolmaster. Terynka is frequently discussed but never seen in the opera, yet inGarsington's ravishing new production, directed by Daniel Slater, we do meet her: in the opening scene she slinks through the inn, brandishing red shoes and fox-fur collar, pouting moodily at her old flame, the married Forester.

 The hens - part of a fabulous ensemble cast. Photograph: Tristram Kenton for the Guardian.

It's a wonderful opening, whose powerful emotional and sexual charge is fully borne out in the action that follows, and Slater's decision to blur the tragicomic lines between the animal and human characters is entirely to Janáček's point. Lines are also blurred in Robert Innes Hopkins's charming, economical set, whose ivy wallpaper dresses indoor and outdoor scenes (and is shown peeling and mouldy in the final autumn scene), and in the quirky, dressing-up-chest quality of the costumes: the mosquito's wings are torn umbrellas, its proboscis a petrol-can funnel; the chickens' combs are inflated red washing-up gloves.

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Claire Booth heads up a fabulous cast with a knockout performance in the title role. Her voice is well suited to choppy writing, but her command of the role's irrepressible passion exceeds even high expectations, and the scene in which she reflects on having found a true mate is almost unbearably moving.

She is well matched by Grant Doyle's powerfully sung and subtly acted Forester, and supported by excellent performances in the minor roles, especially Timothy Robinson's Schoolmaster and Lucy Shaufer as the Forester's Wife. Garry Walker's handling of the music is sharp-eared, to say the least, and he and his superb house orchestra remain totally alive to the score's nervous, tumbling surface throughout – as well as to the darker currents bubbling underneath.

• Until 12 July. Box office: 01865 361636. Venue: Garsington Opera at Wormsley, Stokenchurch.

• Tags:
• Opera,
• Classical music,
• Garsington Opera,
• Festivals

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Elitism in the Arts Part 2

Delighted to hear that Tony Hall is wanting to use the BBC Orchestras in an ambitious and broad ranging project in Primary Schools. An excellent idea, which I hope government might match in terms of commitment. My hope would be that all those kids undoubtedly inspired by access to an orchestra would be given genuine opportunities in the State System to further that motivation.

I may have misunderstood, but the BBC website says, " Classical Music should not be for an elite or a minority, Tony Hall will say." I agree, but this is already pandering to a misconception in the minds of the public(and the media).

Let me explain. There is nothing elitist about Classical Music. To go to a concert, sit in the best seats and have a drink at the interval almost certainly costs less than watching a Premiership football match. Nobody says football is elitist. Because fewer people go to Classical Concerts doesn't mean it's elitist either; it just means fewer people (and the media) are interested in Classical Music. You can access music now in a totally democratic and free way, whether with spotify or youtube. Access has never been easier.  If you try and get access to highlights of a football match on youtube you'll either have to watch it in grainy confusion or with an commentary in Arabic ( often very good).

Please don't confuse minority interest with elitism. And the more we get out to state schools all over the UK, the quicker we can turn that minority into a majority.

Elitism in the Arts

Both the new Culture Secretary and Harriet Harman have had a recent pop at the Arts for being elitist, and particularly Classical Music. I have to admit as to finding this very disappointing indeed, and  it shows a complete misunderstanding of where the fault lies.

  I do not know a single musician who wishes the Classical Music industry to be elitist. We couldn't care who sat in our audiences as long as they come. Most musicians earn an appallingly small salary for doing a demanding, highly skilled activity which has famously antisocial hours. It is not uncommon for a musician to start early in the morning to get themselves to a concert venue hundreds of miles away from where they live for an afternoon rehearsal and evening concert, then drive themselves home afterwards and all for considerably less than £100 pounds. A Plumber would charge £100 for the callout. A Doctor would tell you to phone NHS 24/7 for the same amount, and a perhaps it's best not to say what a Banker might think. Musicians might have started out as being from middle class backgrounds, but their salaries make them very much working class. It's the same for artistic management, often understaffed, underfunded and undervalued.

At the same time that the government complains about elitism, it is taking away funding from instrumental tuition in schools. We have the ludicrous situation where a teacher whose primary instrument is the cello has to teach small groups of children how to play the violin in 25 minutes, filling out progression forms throughout. This almost certainly results in many able and talented kids not getting the attention they deserve, despite the best efforts of the teachers. Only through private lessons is a student likely to prosper to a competitive level, and as we know from research, our audiences consist of a high percentage of people who played an instrument to a reasonable standard at some point. If you want to diversify our audiences, then spend more money on inner city music provision.

Music speaks to everyone. There are no barriers to music. It's an international language which moves us in a way that often speech cannot. Its strength is in its unspecific and enigmatic nature. Music per se cannot be elitist any more than an apple is elitist.

Orchestras have already stepped into areas where school music services have been withdrawn. Orchestral education projects are much more prolific than they were 20 years ago, but often the legacy of these extraordinary events is not followed up by our state school system because there isn't the money or political will to support it. Remember, the Arts aren't a neutral issue for politicians; they're potentially a vote loser if you're seen to be too keen on them.

If you want to change the profile of our audiences, then you need to change the way that Classical Music is taught in schools.

Plug Festival

Just had a very intense but enjoyable week doing the Plug Festival at the Royal Conservatoire. A whole series of pieces by established composers and students are all thrown together in a veritable smorgasbord of contemporary music, ranging from the relatively conservative to the most advanced extended techniques known to man. Martin Bresnick from the US was over, and I enjoyed doing his Fantasia on a Theme by Willie Dixon. There was a bit of frantic amplifying of it in the time we had, but we got there. The other pieces were by student composers from the RCS or Paris Conservatoire, and showed the vast differencesin styles which young composers can provide.

Red Note Ensemble were joined by students from the RCS in a side by side collaboration. Hopefully the students will learn from the experience, and see how quickly difficult repertoire often has to be put together in the profession. You either have to be well prepared or unbelievably quick at learning.

Everest Disaster

It's very difficult to know what to write on hearing that 16 high altitude guides (they weren't all Sherpas) have been killed. These men are truly remarkable in terms of the work they do. They go up at the beginning of every season, fixing ropes, securing the passage through the notorious Khumbu icefall, and in so doing expose themselves to the Russian roulette of the seracs and tottering icefalls which lie above, not to mention the fragile snow bridges which lie below. Without the infrastructure which they have to build or reinstate year on year, many of the climbers who pay to ascend the mountain would struggle to get above base camp.

It must take great courage to repeatedly expose yourself to objective danger. I know that when I've done it, it messes with my mind.

London Sinfonietta the tops.

Just had 2 great days with the London Sinfonietta players doing  a project which will culminate at Huddersfield this November. Nice to work with specialists in the contemporary field who subdivide. Makes life very easy for me, as does their virtuosity in some pretty difficult repertoire .

Times, they is a changing

Now on Twitter as well. You can get me @garrywalker74. Catchy, I think. Really wanted to be @garrywalker642875660917839563498788654324576, but someone had taken it already. That's what happens when you are behind the times.

Just about to do the Rite

First post; sitting with Jack Liebeck in Cafe Gandolfi and getting my head in gear for the considerable challenge of the Rite of Spring.

New website

Welcome to my new website!