Hello folks,

Apologies, I’ve been away from the blog for a while. Anyway, things are moving along nicely here. The paperback of “The Magus of Sicily” came out at the beginning of April, while this years’s Nathan hardback “The Venetian Redemption” will be out on July 2nd. Meanwhile, I’ve been cracking on with next year’s Sicily book (and I’m having a really good time with this one so far), and I’ve got a few events coming up in the near future that I’ll post about shortly…

I also found time for a trip to Bologna in order to meet up with my mate Tom Benjamin, who very kindly put me up for the night as we went to see Goblin performing “Profondo Rosso” to a live screening of the film (yes, I know the image is from “Tenebre” but they did that as the encore). And that was a quite a thing. The whole film, a short break, and then an hour of greatest hits. Nearly all of this was magnificent although I’m not sure “Suspiria” really works without bouzouki. Nevertheless, a memorable evening and it’s always a pleasure to revisit the film.

And then, just last night, Caroline and I went off to La Fenice to see “Lohengrin”. Now, Fenice is not something we do that often (I think the last time might have been for “The Flying Dutchman” a couple of years ago, an opera that I’ve still never managed to see a completely satisfactory version of). The reason is that neither of us really like sitting in the cheaper box seats craning round at ninety degrees to the stage, whilst the stalls are more comfortable but horribly expensive. Still, “Lohengrin” was the only mature Wagner opera I’d never seen and so we were going to give this a go.



The good things : well first of all, the programme is a fine thing at a very reasonable ten euros; lots of lovely historic photos, essays and even a complete libretto. So well done, Fenice. Can’t fault it at that price.

Elsewhere, I’ve got to say that musically this was magnificent. Thrilling, soul-shattering stuff with sublime moments of stillness. Chiara Mogini’s Ortrud took most of the applause at the end; but hats off also to Brian Jagde’s unflagging, tireless Lohengrin and a nicely thought out performance from Dorothea Herbert as a traumatised Elsa (presumably suffering PTSD following the loss of Gottfried).

That’s the good stuff. What about, well, the less good stuff?

Well, we’re firmly in “Director’s Opera” territory here and I used to have a higher tolerance of this than I do now. Because the problem with Director’s Opera is that you find yourself drifting off, stroking your chin and thinking “yes, I see what they’re trying to do here, and that’s all very clever” instead of – and this is really kind of important – actually concentrating on the music and the drama.

This was all visually striking, I’ll grant you, but some of it just doesn’t seem to have been properly thought out. The three rotating rings that hover above the stage at the beginning of Act III are a nice idea visually but they’re also continually shining light into the eyes of the audience. And, of course, there’s the ever present problem of the events on stage fighting against what’s actually being sung. Swords are constantly referred to when there aren’t any. Lohengrin says he killed Telramund in self-defence, when we’ve already seen him cutting his own throat at the beginning of the act. Oh, and I’m sure the “boat pulled by a swan” thing is difficult to pull off on stage but the solution – Lohengrin dragging a coffin marked with a swan image – sorry, it just reminded me of the beginning of Corbucci’s “Django”.

And this is a shame because a lot of this is thoughtful and does make sense. The mentally broken Elsa. The physical appearances of Gottfried at key moments. And the final scene where Elsa, literally blinded by Lohengrin’s revelation, sightlessly grasps her way to embrace the now fully-restored Gottfried, has the requisite emotional impact.

Musically, then, a definite 10/10.

Staging-wise, a more modest 6.5.

But churlish to complain too much. Most of this was thrilling. And it was worth every last cent.

Right, that’s all for now. I’ll try not to leave it so long next time!