2025

 It's time for the review of the year. (N.B. The wargames are right at the bottom for those who wish to skip the cultural bits.) One theme running through the year was Bradford 2025, City of Culture. I confess that I was somewhat sceptical before it started - I don't live in Bradford so was viewing it as an outsider - but I must say that I thought it was all very successful indeed. There were thousands of events, of which I went to a mere couple of dozen, albeit that they included most of the major ones, but had a good time when I did. 

Opera: I've seen 21 operas this year, one more than in 2024. For the second year running the best was a concert  performance of Simon Boccanegra, this time Opera North's contribution to Bradford 2025 at St George's Hall. Honourable mentions go to Owen Wingrave at the RNCM, Mozart's Impresario at the Buxton Festival and The Secret of the Black Spider by ON's youth company. The libretto for the last of those is a touch barking, which was also the case in various other productions seen this year. There was one in which one the characters was literally a turd, one in which someone fell in love with three oranges, one in which an AI powered robot took over the world (maybe because the Luddites had failed 200 years before, but then again maybe not), and one in which someone had to keep turning a handle to prevent the end of the world, but decided to take a bit of break instead.

Theatre: Seventeen plays this year, the best being The Railway Children, once again part of Bradford 2025. An honourable mention must go to Wise Children's North By Northwest, but other good stuff included Mary Poppins, Animal Farm and an odd but very enjoyable circus version of Tess of the D'Urbervilles.

Music: Only nine gigs this year, the best being Bywater Call. I am, as ever, contractually obliged to mention Martin Simpson and the same would be true for Fairport Convention except that shockingly I didn't see them. I do have a ticket for a gig in Harrogate in April, so normal service will be resumed this time next year.

Film: I saw 18 films this year, the most for many years. My favourite was the documentary Becoming Led Zeppelin, but the best non-documentary was probably Hamnet, which I saw at a festival although it doesn't officially come out in the UK until next week. I highly recommend it, but take some tissues. Other good stuff included The Ballad of Wallis Island, A Complete Unknown and Sunlight. The last of those is on very limited release, but catch it if you can. It was directed by Nina Conti, of whom more later. I also enjoyed The Choral which was of course not only filmed very locally to where I live, but also the screen play was by the very much still alive Alan Bennett.

Talks: Nine talks, the best of which was on William Morris and Islamic Art. It was a connection which is obvious when someone points it out but which I'm embarrassed to say had passed me by before.

Comedy: I went to sufficient comedy gigs to add a new category this year. The one I'm going to highlight is Nina Conti and, naturally, Monkey; very, very funny. The aforementioned film also features Monkey, but this time she's inside it. OK, I know she's inside the one in the picture below, but the film she's really inside it.

Exhibitions: I viewed a select number of exhibitions this year, i.e. not many at all. My favourite was certainly not the Turner Prize finalists show, which was inevitably terrible. I concur with those who say that the choice of the winner was nothing more than virtue-signalling. The best was probably We Will Sing at Salts Mill although next time I visit the top floor there I shall take the stairs more slowly. An honourable mention must go to Pigeobition in Keighley and that on gladiators at the Royal Armouries.

Books: I read 163 books in 2025, which is a good indication of how much of it was spent being ill. They include a large number of detective novels and thrillers from the past, perfect for not having to think very much. My favourite was a toss up between Passage of Arms by Eric Ambler or A Kiss Before Dying by Ira Levin. There were lots of the type of non-fiction books which are actually relevant to wargaming, but nothing leaps out as demanding recommendation. If I was forced to pick one it would be The Mexican Revolution: A Very Short Introduction by Alan Knight, but whether that is truly relevant to this particular blog is a moot point.

Boardgames: I logged 208 playings of 110 different games. I'll do a separate post on these, but my favourite game remains Dune Imperium and I continue to think that wargamers in general would like it.

Wargames: I managed 29 games in the year including half a dozen or so which I hosted in the annexe. Many of those were multi week games so all in all I spent quite a lot of time playing toy soldiers, which I have to say wasn't the way it felt at the time. Looking back I think the cowboys were what I enjoyed most; even more regression to childhood than usual.

Event of the Year: I lied, wargaming is not right at the bottom. I'm tempted to choose the carwash breaking down with car covered in lather with me inside. Having got out while the necessary fiddling with the controls was performed by the operative, I stayed outside until the wash completed. As I waited another car drew up behind me and the the look on the driver's face as I got back in and drove off was very amusing. He was obviously worried that he had been doing it wrong all his life. 

I also won £25 on the Premium Bonds, which is never to be sniffed at. However I'm going for the day I spent visiting the Andy Goldsworthy Hanging Stones in Rosedale, which now I think about it I could have included under the Exhibitions heading. Access is limited and the location is a bit remote, but it's a great combination of art and a walk in the Yorkshire countryside.. 

Opera in musica

 "Pretentiousness is the mask of worthlessness and weakness." - Rafael Sabitini

It occurs to me that the thing you will all have missed most due to my my erratic posting schedule is my self-appointed role as the leading opera reviewer among wargaming bloggers. I've seen nine so far in 2024, six of them new to me, and so I'm afraid I can't be terribly comprehensive in my catch-up. Instead I'll briefly cover a couple of highlights.

The best of those I've been to, I would say, was the Hallé's concert performance of the original 1857 version of Simon Boccanegra at the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester, which was sensational and got both a standing ovation and rave reviews. I can't tell you how it compares to the revised 1881 version because I've never seen that, although Opera North are doing it in April 2025 and so readers can confidently expect me to post about that this time next year (*). I shall be particularly interested to know if the plot is any more understandable because this one was impenetrable. The most confusing moment came at the end of the first half when, the lady known as Amelia Grimaldi - who, spoiler alert, turns out to be someone else completely - comes on and tells us that she has, offstage of course, been kidnapped and then managed to get away. At this all the other characters, including those whom we know perfectly well both planned and carried out the deed, start singing "Death to Lorenzo". So far so operatic, except that to that point there had been no mention at all of any Lorenzo; nor, yet another spoiler alert, did he turn up in the second half. As opera critic Robert Thicknesse observed, it is "one of those libretti that heroically rises above explaining anything at all".

It was also at the end of the first half that the most memorable thing in Stravinsky's Rake's Progress occurred. It wasn't that I didn't enjoy the music, singing and acting or, to a lesser extent, the direction and design. It was just that the sight of the bearded lady sitting on a large horse with a cardboard box on her head - you can perhaps see why I had my reservations about what was going on in front of me - wondering why there was neither applause nor someone coming to help her down, was very funny. The reason was that the curtain had malfunctioned, the audience therefore had no clue that the act had finished (**) and it took some minutes before those behind the scenes came up with a plan to put us all out of our collective difficulty.

Other highlights included the first performance I had ever heard sung in Russian: Rachmaninov's Aleko set in a hippy commune and also featuring surprise appearances from some characters who had earlier that evening appeared in Mascagni's cavalleria rusticana, only visible to some on stage. Think Banquo's ghost. It was odd, but it worked. Also worth mentioning was Rossini's scala di seta where the silken ladder was represented by a more solid ladder let down into the pit. It was no shock to see the tenor climbing up it, more so to see the conductor do the same when joining the principals to take his bow.

* If the Lord spares me, and if I can be arsed.

** Beyond the fact that the orchestra had stopped playing; it's a good job they weren't on the Titanic.

The Barber of Bradford

 And so to the opera. The last few days have seen the inaugural Bradford Opera Festival, the centrepiece of which was a semi-staged performance of the Barber of Seville, transported to twentieth century Bradford (the sixties perhaps) and with the libretto translated into 'proper Yorkshire'. Naturally, your bloggist was there. Dealing with the last point first, I couldn't help thinking that were I, Heaven forfend, a Yorkshireman then I would have felt rather patronised. However, the packed audience at St Georges Hall, the majority of whom were presumably from God's own county, rather lapped it up. 

I very much enjoyed it: fine singing combined with highly energetic performances combined to easily compensate for the lack of the sort of production values one is more used to. I must, in particular, praise Oscar Castellino who shone in the title role. He has sung with major companies, although I don't think I've ever seen him before. I think I would have remembered an artist whose biography in the programme starts "He was born in a car on a street in Mumbai".

The creators are planning to move on next year to the 'sequel' i.e. Mozart's 'Marriage of Figaro'. My main advice to them would be to get some side title displays in so we can get the full benefit of the dialect and the swearing. Oh, and lose the fourth act.

Sleepwalking

 And so to the opera. I have been out and about for the last week or so, including a brief trip to Glasgow, to which I may return in due course. But most of my time has been spent at the Buxton International Festival, specifically the opera part of it. 

The best thing I saw was an excellent production of Bellini's 'La sonnambula', which transcended the original sexist power set-up in a rather novel, and much appreciated by the audience, twist at the end. Set in a sixties staff canteen - more 'Made in Dagenham' than 'Dinnerladies' - the period details were finely judged; Lisa dropped more than her handkerchief following the arrival of the mysterious stranger. Both musically and dramatically it was very good indeed.

I was less taken with performances of Mozart's 'Il re pastore' and Handel's 'Orlando', although as I'm never likely to get the chance to see either again I am glad that I was able to on this occasion. The singing and playing was very good, but the operas are somewhat slight, especially dramatically. Alexander the Great appears in the Mozart piece and was played as Napoleon, which was amusing even if the characterisation was mainly displayed by him wearing his bicorne sideways. If neither of those pieces gave one the opportunity to be emotionally invested in what was going on on stage that was made up for in the musical 'The Land of Might-Have-Been', in which the story of Vera Brittain in the First World War was told accompanied by, mainly, the songs of Ivor Novello. I thought it all worked rather well, albeit being very reminiscent of many similarly toned plays I saw between 2014 and 2018 as the centenary of the war which didn't end all wars was commemorated. Still, I hope the story of the losses and sacrifices and futility of those years never ceases to have an impact on me, and it certainly did this time. 

Newish boardgames

 Lack of posting means lack of boardgames reviews, which is a shame because I've played one or two good ones. These are the games I played for the first time since I last did a roundup:

Concordia: In the finest tradition of the blog, having said that these are new games let's start with one I had played before a few years ago, but couldn't remember at all. It probably didn't help my memory that we played on a different map, this time Britannia. In my previous review I said that I chose a strategy and stuck to it despite the fact that it was a wrong one. This time I chose  strategy, stuck to it, and it was the right one. Not a bad game.

Dandelions: This is a roll and move game, which is about as old-fashioned a mechanism as you can get. However there are a couple of simple twists which, combined with its very short length, make it a neat little game.

Dune: Imperium: This is the pick of the new games I've played and it's easy to see why it is so highly rated. I don't want to suggest that wargamers are only interested in fighting, but this game combines worker placement with a combat system. You don't have to fight every battle, but you'll have to take part in some if you want to win. The combat part reminds me of Condottiere, which is high praise, in that it's crucial to decide when to go all in and, equally, to judge when ones opponents are going to do the same. Highly recommended.

Endless Winter: Paleoamericans: Another big, heavy new game with a buzz around it. It was fine, but fell a bit short for me. In particular while the first three of the four rounds it is played over were quite meaty in terms of decisions and actions, the final round was a big anti-climax. It also takes up a vast amount of table space.

Glasgow: A game about building the second city of the empire, so lots of tenement tiles. I probably need to give this another go before passing judgement.

Kluster: A strange game, or perhaps activity, with some very strong magnets. 

Lacrimosa: Based on the writing of Mozart's Requiem, so top marks for unusual theme. It's OK, quite reminiscent of Rococo, a game I like. I have a ticket for a performance of the Requiem in May next year; that will probably get a longer review than the game.

Obsession: It is seemingly obligatory to refer to this as 'Downton Abbey the board game', notwithstanding the fact that the game is set in the Victorian period whilst the soap opera - or so I understand, obviously I've never seen it - takes place between the wars. I thought it was a very average worker placement game, but perhaps that was sour grapes after I bust a gut to marry above my station only to find that it was temporary and I had to do it all again the following turn.

Spirit Island: A co-operative game, but better than a lot of others I have played. We successfully defended our island against the invaders, but no real thanks to me as it turned out I had not fully understood the victory conditions so the end came as an abrupt surprise. 

Take it Easy!: Quite an old game - 1980s I think - about laying pipes and using a bingo-style mechanism. I genuinely thought I was doing very well, but it's a spatial awareness game, so it turned out that I wasn't.

Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition: A card game version of the bigger game. I didn't really see the point.

Ticket to Ride: Amsterdam: A twenty-minute version of TtR with the same core mechanisms, but a smaller map and fewer pieces to place. The latter change in particular means there is absolutely no room to mess about; you have to be on it from the start. Very similar, and equally good, is Ticket to Ride: London. 

Villagers: If the original source material for Dandelions is Ludo, then this is Happy Families with Mr Bun the Baker replaced by Lumberjacks, Speelunkers, Freemasons and, well, Bakers. It's fine.

Walkie Talkie: Passes the time until you realise that there aren't any enforceable rules, and it therefore probably isn't actually a game at all.

Ghosts, Zombies and Gypsies

“How on the other hand could I make a reference without a new plunge into the hideous obscure?”

- Henry James, The Turn of the Screw

And so to the opera. I have been to see Britten's 'The Turn of the Screw'. I'd seen Opera North's production about ten years ago, but didn't recognise any of it; old age seems to have some benefits. It was appropriately spooky, the music and singing were top rate and it also involved knitting and puppets; so no complaints from me. I should mention the remarkably precocious eleven year-old who played Miles; I should, but I can't because I have mislaid my programme.

Miles of course dies in the end (sorry for the spoiler, but it's an opera so what else did you expect), but doesn't sing afterwards unlike many others - especially sopranos - do. I have also been to see a zombie themed version of 'Don Giovanni' (if you know the plot then you'll realise that it sort of makes sense) in which Il Commendatore did not just sing after dying, but also after his entrails had been ripped from him and eaten by his murderer. So, more realistic than many operas then. 

Finally, I've seen another Mozart piece - 'The Marriage of Figaro'. I previously saw that one while on my post-divorce exile in the upper gallery so it was interesting to see it up close following my return to the expensive seats. It was well worth it, although I can only repeat my previous advice to the composer: lose the fourth act. On this occasion I not only missed my bus, but on top of that the following one was cancelled; thanks for nothing Wolfgang. 

I'm working like a Trojan

Although clearly not at writing blog posts. Partly that is because the Seven Years War campaign is not currently happening  - not dead, just sleeping - and also I have been, in a small way, engaged in trying to prove that democracy in this country is likewise merely resting with its eyes closed rather than completely moribund.

Indeed, the only thing that has appeared on here recently is a comment from Iain that 'Arms and the Man' was also set in the Balkans. I haven't seen the play for many years; in fact the more I think about it the more it seems to me that I am confusing it with 'Man and Superman' and that I have probably never seen it at all. Shaw's plays do still get produced these days - I have seen both 'Pygmalion' and 'Saint Joan' in the last couple of years - so let's hope it comes round soon.

There are a couple of tenuous connections (and you know that's the way I like them) between the play and the specific opera concerned (which was 'Idomeneo'), with a second opera as well plus a tiny, tiny bit of wargaming relevance. The phrase 'arms and the man' comes from the opening line of the Aeniad, Virgil's poem in which a member of the Trojan royal family sails off after the fall of the city to follow his fate by indirectly both founding Rome and causing the Punic Wars to take place. In Mozart's opera it is another Trojan, Aeneas' cousin Ilia, daughter of King Priam, who, having been brought back as a captive to Crete by Idomeneo, provides the romantic sub plot and causes Elettra, daughter of Agamemnon,  no end of grief; although as I pointed out previously her family have already done more than enough to tip anyone over the edge.

Kurt Weill wrote an opera called 'Der Kuhhandel'. A literal translation of that is 'cattle trading', but a more idiomatic one might be 'horse trading', e.g. of the kind that politicians are prone to. Anyway, the plot about arms dealing actually does prominently feature a cow. Its original English title was 'A Kingdom for a Cow', which is, of course, a Shakespearean allusion. Opera North performed it some years ago, but changed the title to 'Arms and the Cow', a Shavian reference which rather nicely sums up what the work is all about. At the time I rather annoyed my ex-wife by going on at length about how accurate was its depiction of the world of weapon sales based on my own experiences of the same; but let's face it, if I hadn't been that which irritated her then it would have been something else.

Enough of that, let's have Dido's Lament:

Lamentations Chapter 5 Verse 6

And so to the opera. I thought I was done with the Great War now that it's 2019, but I have been to see a production of Vaughan Williams' 'Pilgrim's Progress' which is set on the Western Front and will admit that even though they had missed the centenary boat it all worked very well. In particular I must mention the use of No Man's Land to represent the Valley of Humiliation, with the unburied dead of both sides rising up as the Doleful Creatures. Appolyon, whose part is sung from the wings, was manifested on stage as coils of barbed wire which pursued and hemmed in our pilgrim until he overcame them. By the time he got to Vanity Fair the theme had become less specific, although in my experience the Madam Wantons of this world look and behave the same whatever the setting.

Opera directors presumably choose the setting for the same reason they make all the other decisions: in order to make themselves seem interesting, intellectual and sophisticated. That's not a criticism - if it were your bloggist would be setting himself up for some finger pointing in return - but it does lead to to some slightly strained designs. If there was an award for the most obscure setting then English Touring Opera's 'Idomeneo' might be in with a shout; it's the Balkan Wars of the first decade of the twentieth century. Now we're all wargamers so we've heard of the period, indeed we probably have a half-formed plan in the back of our mind to game it at some indeterminate point in the future, but I not sure how many others in the audience had any real idea as to where and when we were supposed to be. The costumes weren't much help to them being mainly sheepskin waistcoats and baggy trousers - except for the soprano playing Idamante, who looked as if she was playing Buttons in Cinderella - and if they had guessed it they might then have been thrown off track by the sea monster which rather abruptly invades the land and starts eating people. Unusually for an opera these minions are the only ones to die, with the principal characters surviving more or less intact. Elettra goes mad of course, but when you consider that her backstory includes her father killing her sister, her mother killing her father and her brother killing her mother and then himself, then you might think that she's entitled to.

One means of identifying the period being portrayed is by the weapons in use. In 'Pilgrim's Progress' they had Lee Enfields (Germans as well, but let's not quibble), in 'Idomeneo' they didn't bother (probably wouldn't have been much use against the sea monster anyway) and in Macbeth most of them had AK47s, so presumably modern then. Having said that, one poor sap had been lumbered with what appeared to be a fowling piece, one of those that are about eight feet long and intended to be fired whilst lying in a punt hidden among the rushes; I freely admit that the only reason I recognised it was because they have one on display in the Royal Armouries in Leeds. Now no actor carrying a rifle on stage ever appears to have handled one in real life, but on this occasion I think we can cut him some slack, and his constant tripping over it did at least provide some amusement in what is otherwise not a light-hearted piece. Observant readers may be asking themselves whether I didn't see this opera recently, and I did indeed, just a couple of months ago. In that production - as described here - there was a mishap during the fight between Macduff and Macbeth. Well blow me down, but there was a similar incident this time round at exactly the same place. Notwithstanding the fact that everyone has spent the last two hours cradling Kalashnikovs while singing, these two decided to use knives when they came face to face with each other. What was obviously meant to happen was that after dispatching the king Macduff was supposed to bend down, take the crown from his head and carry it to Malcolm, rightful heir of Duncan. What actually happened was that he dispatched him so violently that the crown flew off and rolled across the stage into the orchestra pit and Macduff had to sing his final lines hanging off the edge being handed it back by one of the orchestra. Still, as before, they played on.

Sacre du Printemps

"I haven't understood a bar of music in my life, but I have felt it." - Igor Stravinsky

And so to the opera. I have been to see 'The Magic Flute', where thankfully the Queen of the Night's famous aria was sung beautifully. This was a new production by Opera North, which I enjoyed somewhat more than I had their previous one. All the performances were exceptional - I don't know whether it was deliberate or serendipity to cast an Irishman as Papageno, but I shall never now be able to think of him as anything else - and yet I still don't really like the opera. I have previous form in telling Mozart that he has got it all wrong and I'm going to do so again. None of it makes any sense. The masonic chaps are obviously meant to be the good guys, but they go round kidnapping and sexually molesting women and inflicting corporal punishment on each other. The Queen of the Night is meant to be the baddie, but doesn't do anything except sing and worry about her daughter, while her acolytes rescue the hero from the clutches of a monster that is about to kill him. It's most peculiar.

The plot of 'Katya Kabanova' at least makes sense, but is completely implausible whilst paradoxically at the same time being a bit too close to home for comfort. It also has an out of the ordinary operatic villain in the mother-in-law from hell, who was roundly booed at the curtain call. 

Unpleasant family members feature prominently as well in 'Gianni Scicchi'. I had seen two other productions of this in the last twelve months or so and perhaps that was why this particular one fell a bit flat. In addition there were some strange directorial decisions including the deceased - whose will is the cause of all the trouble - wandering about the stage, and climbing both walls and ropes from time to time despite being dead. 

Almost as confusing was an otherwise excellent concert staging of Marc-Antoine Charpentier's rarely performed Baroque work 'David et Jonathas'. That it wasn't acted out, together with the lack of surtitles and the fact that I have no French made it a bit of a struggle to follow what was happening. According to the programme the piece would originally have been intertwined act by act with a prose play in Latin that developed the characters and moved the plot along; maybe that would have helped, or maybe it wouldn't. What certainly wasn't of any assistance was my preconception that the Philistines were in the wrong. It seems that for this particular biblical story it's the Israelites who were being unreasonable; plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. The role of Jonathan, presumably originally written for a castrato, was played by a soprano and so opera's fine tradition of the leading lady not making it to the end alive was maintained. 

Then there was the one that got away. Whilst there is nothing to compare with a fully staged opera supported by a large orchestra I also rather like watching works being performed in a more intimate environment. I therefore travelled across Leeds in the rush hour to see Opera UpClose perform 'La bohème' at the Theatre Royal Wakefield. I got there in plenty of time, bought myself coffee and cake in the pleasant little cafe and was just thinking to myself how civilised it all was when the lights went out. The power never came back on, the show was cancelled and I had to turn round and come home again. The cake was nice though.

Last, but not least, I have been to see 'The Rite of Spring'. Despite my carefully moulded image as a man of culture I have to confess that I had never previously seen a ballet; I therefore have absolutely nothing to compare this with. I can, however, report that I enjoyed it immensely. The music was loud and powerful (if one is to contrast it with his contemporaries it was less melodic than Puccini, less dissonant than Schoenberg; I was reminded of prog rock, but I'll bet that I was the only one) and there was lots of vigorous and entertaining leaping about on the stage. I had always wondered how the narrative was explained in ballet if there weren't any words. In this case that was rendered moot because there is no story: it is simply a series of pagan mating and fertility rites. It made me wistful for this blog's erstwhile female reader, who always rather liked that sort of thing.

Operatic Queens

"Some may say that I couldn't sing, but no one can say that I didn't sing." - Florence Foster Jenkins

No sooner have I referred to the role of the coarse actor in amateur dramatics, than I have been to see an amateur performance that was very good by being very bad. I have been to see 'Glorious!', the story of Florence Foster Jenkins. My companion for the evening had seen the Meryl Streep film on the same subject and, according to her, it covers the same ground in a very different way. This version was certainly very funny, in particular the transition between the first and second scenes of the second act which was also well directed. I could, however, have done with fewer gay 'jokes'; if there was ever a time when simply saying the word 'pansies' was funny then thankfully it has long gone. Top marks must go to Katrina Wood in the lead role. It must be incredibly hard to sing that badly on purpose if one can sing properly in the first place. Here is Madame Jenkins herself to show what I mean:

I am going to see 'The Magic Flute' soon, and I'm sure that I won't be able to get that rendition out of my head. In the meantime I went to see the live broadcast of 'The Queen of Spades' from the Royal Opera House. Opera directors are seemingly incapable of telling a story straight and this was a high concept production, although I must, grudgingly, say that it largely worked. The main idea was that the composer was on stage throughout, mostly sat behind a piano watching his characters take life, but also with his own story, of his guilt about his homosexuality and his extremely short lived marriage mixed in with Pushkin's novella. If it succeeded it was because they threw the kitchen sink at it theatrically. I was very taken when the male chorus came on stage all dressed as Tchaikovsky, with many of them looking more like him than he did; it was like the occasion when Ernest Hemingway came fifth in an Ernest Hemingway lookalike competition. Here, for the avoidance of doubt, is the real thing:

There is a Mozart pastiche in the ball scene of Act II, and there was coincidentally a reference to 'The Magic Flute' here as well with two sopranos dressed as songbirds alternately wrestling with Tchaikovsky (or possibly with Count Levitsky; it was hard to tell by then) and writhing erotically on the floor together. By no means the most bizarre aspect was when the title character died (apologies for the spoiler, but - once again - it's an opera) they buried her in the piano. Sometimes when things are that weird one just has to go with it. 

Art is a hammer

“The worst illiterate is the political illiterate, he doesn’t hear, doesn’t speak, nor participates in the political events. He doesn’t know the cost of life, the price of the bean, of the fish, of the flour, of the rent, of the shoes and of the medicine, all depends on political decisions. The political illiterate is so stupid that he is proud and swells his chest saying that he hates politics. The imbecile doesn’t know that, from his political ignorance is born the prostitute, the abandoned child, and the worst thieves of all, the bad politician, corrupted and flunky of the national and multinational companies.” 

                                                     - Bertolt Brecht

And so to the theatre and indeed to the opera. Much of October's fare had a more or less overt political message. Brecht's 'Mother Courage and Her Children" isn't just anti-war, but also makes the point that anyone who thinks they can profit from war without being affected by it is deluding themselves. The eponymous vivandière, played in this Red Ladder production by Pauline McLynn of 'Father Ted' fame, isn't to be sympathised with for her losses, but rather criticised for not understanding the reality of the situation in which she finds herself. If I were to offer advice to Brecht (and given that I have previously been known to point out where Mozart got it wrong then why wouldn't I?) it is that the character's name does tend to mislead the audience as to how they should view her. Brecht's trademark Verfemdungseffeckt was on this occasion achieved by it being a promenade performance around a deserted warehouse of the type much favoured by villains in the Adam West Batman TV series.

The reason for the location was that Leeds Playhouse, as it has reverted to being called, is having a year long refurbishment, which also meant that I had to trek across to York to see the latest Northern Broadsides production 'They Don't Pay? We Won't Pay!', an adaptation of the Dario Fo farce 'Non Si Paga! Non Si Paga!' by Deborah McAndrew. I've never been sure if Fo, who was certainly influenced by Brecht, was as much of a straight down the line Marxist as his predecessor, but this play leaves one in no doubt that he believed the problems of the working class to be caused by both capitalism itself and by capital's use of the state's (*) powers of coercion in order to suppress opposition and maximise profits. It's also very, very funny, drawing on verbal dexterity, physical comedy and amusingly out of context props; a coffin in the wardrobe anyone? I was also very pleased to see the false moustache given a twenty first century run out with its comedic validity emerging intact.

Coming back to state repression, this is very much the background setting for 'Tosca'. Opera North have a new production, and it's wonderful. Beautifully sung, with the orchestra on top form, if the bleak ending doesn't make you cry then you have no heart. Whilst we are all pleased to see the death of chief bad guy Scarpia (**), played here as a Gestapo/NKVD type boss, we would be advised to bear in mind another quote from Brecht: "Do not rejoice in his defeat, you men. For though the world has stood up and stopped the bastard, the bitch that bore him is in heat again.".

Opera North's 'Merry Widow' is set in a political and diplomatic milieu, but that is presumably merely because it has to be set somewhere. Even I can't pretend that there is anything substantial in it - despite the many jibes against bankers that make the audience laugh, perhaps in recognition of their own powerlessness against the forces represented by what Marx referred to as money capital (***) - but it's great fun. Let me give a special mention to Amy Freston as Valencienne for combining excellent singing with the occasional cartwheel across the stage, just to show off.


* NB 'State' in this context is not identical to 'nation state'. There are (at least) two distinct strands of Marxist analysis regarding the relationship between nation and capital: state as superstructure (e.g. as per Marx and Miliband, father rather than either son) or state as capital (e.g. as per Lenin and Bukharin). I would suggest Brecht leaned to the former in 'Mother Courage', but feel free to disagree.

** Scarpia was of course based on a real person, one who co-operated closely with the British in Naples. We turned a blind eye to his brutality because it suited us politically. Plus ca change.

*** "What is the robbing of a bank compared to the founding of a bank?" - Bertolt Brecht

Four farting bedposts

"I love traditional instruments, though of course they are anachronisms. Satellites run around our planet, but we still play bassoons. It's ridiculous!"

- Witold Lutoslawski

One of the drawbacks of cultural pretension is that on occasion one's bluff is called. A new acquaintance of mine suggested that I was just the sort of chap to enjoy the lunchtime concerts at the Leeds College of Music. I could hardly refuse without giving the game away, especially when it was explained that entry was free, and by the time she mentioned a bassoon quartet - which would apparently be 'fun' - it was too late to back out. Admittedly at that point I naively assumed that description meant something along the lines of three stringed instruments plus a bassoon. But no, what it meant was four of the bastards all in one place at one time. Why? Who on earth thought that was a good idea? One plausible explanation is that they have to play together because no one else will play with them; and now that I've written that down I realise it sounds very much like every group of wargamers from H.G. Wells onwards.

Speaking of which, I have not yet posted how the Seven Years War pontoon bridge game ended. Well, we won, but without honour. It wasn't a terribly good game overall, but had some interesting moments. My own favourite - which I'm sure other rule sets could achieve as well, but is the sort of thing at which Piquet excels - involved a unit of Prussian infantry marching into contact with a Russian battery. The guns obviously fired, but achieved nothing; the infantry shot at point blank range, but caused no hits; the guns reloaded and shot again; the Prussians fired several times with no result. We - James and I role playing as incompetent Prussian generals - missed a chance to melee because we were focused on a nearby cavalry fight that was going badly, and in the end the Russians calmly limbered up and rode off unscathed. It rather summed up the game.

Anyway, back to the flatulent woodwind. The Genovia Quartet, for it was they, turned out to be not only younger, better looking and more female than any wargamers that I have ever met, but also very talented. I'm not saying that it didn't occasionally sound like halls of residence the morning after eight pints and a vindaloo, but they kept that element to a minimum as they puffed their way through a programme ranging from Mozart via tango and thirties jazz to a specially composed piece that - assuming I understood the charming Spanish lady's accent correctly - was about a hypothetical duck. I both enjoyed it and wondered what it would have sounded like with a different mix of instruments; well, with any mix of instruments at all really.

"The wind
Tempestuous clarion, with heavy cry
Came bluntly thundering, more terrible
Than the revenge of music on bassoons"

                                - Wallace Stevens

Sadly I have no photos of either game or concert, so here is one of my ceiling:

And here is a pre-season warm up of asparagus, buckwheat pancakes and poached eggs:

Arghhhless fun

And so to the opera. I have been to see 'The Pirates' by Stephen Storace, an opera for which the term 'rarely produced' seems rather inadequate; this was apparently the first time it had been seen for two hundred years. I liked it a lot, although that may have been because in reducing the running time by fifty percent for the benefit of cast, musicians and audience alike the artistic director of the company presumably kept all the best bits and lost the filler. He did however also seem to lose the pirates themselves because despite paying very close attention I couldn't work out where they were. True, a customs officer arrived at the end and arrested the wicked uncle, but beyond the common operatic crime of standing in the way of young love it wasn't clear what for; and surely the customs catch smugglers not pirates as a rule.

What was left was a tale of young woman unsuitably betrothed by her guardian, with her maid and her true love's valet conspiring to bring them back together and finding each other along the way. If it all sounds vaguely like the story of, for example, 'The Barber of Seville', that's because it is. Perhaps the missing bits pushed back the narrative boundaries of eighteenth century comic opera, perhaps they didn't. Anyway, not only did Storace (the pronunciation of whose name seems a matter of dispute; he was born in London, but I'm going with an Italian flourish to last two syllables) meet Mozart, but his sister Nancy Storace was the soprano for whom the role of Susanna in 'The Marriage of Figaro' was created, so there is an element of family entitlement to that sort of plot.

Highly recommended, but the run has finished, so you'll need to come back in the early twenty third century.

Yäkatit

Did you know that in Ethiopia the quadrennial intercalation is immediately following August 29th by the Julian Calendar (currently, and for the next eighty years or so, September 11th by the Gregorian Calendar)? I mention it because, it not being a leap year, February seems to have finished.

February wargaming was rudely curtailed by the weather. The weekly game had to be postponed due to a frozen pitch and I can't get out to the annexe because a snowdrift has blocked the back door. I could force my way through it, but I'd get rather wet and cold in the process. What I really need is a snow shovel, but the one that I own is stranded on the far side of the garden, surrounded by tracks in the snow made by, I would guess, a large rodent.

I can get out of the front door however and cultural activities have continued apace. Opera North's Don Giovanni was odd in places, but rolled along nicely and I warmed to it s the evening progressed. It was a revival, but I think the original production occurred at the height of my nomadic lifestyle and so I missed it. It has some fairly odd elements in it such as, for example, time travel. The programme says that this is to represent the fact that the figure of 'the great seducer' appears throughout history in all parts of society. Perhaps he does, I wouldn't know about such things. The orchestra were marvellous as always and, for me, Zerlina was the pick of the singers. I also saw Leeds Youth Opera's inventive take on la Bohème, which was set in the refugee camp outside Calais. Rodolfo was also sung by, and played as, a woman, both of which worked rather well. The kept woman aspects were avoided in the action and the surtitles, presumably because of the young age of some of the performers. The fact that it was not felt necessary to hide a same sex relationship was, I hope you will agree, a sign that not all social progress has yet been lost.

On the theatre front I saw a couple of live broadcasts. Yet another Twelfth Night was entertaining, with Ade Edmondson as Malvolio not as one dimensional as I usually find him. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof seemed to involve a lot more nudity than last time I saw it, but none of the characters were any more sympathetic. I know it’s great art and so that shouldn’t be relevant, but I just kept wanting to slap them all. And don’t get me started on their stupid names. I also saw Birdsong, which of course ought to be the most relevant to wargamers. It’s very difficult to think of a new angle to approach the first day of the Somme, and - unless this is very different to the original book - Sebastian Faulkes doesn’t even seem to have tried. Apparently it was a huge cock-up and the wire hadn’t been cut. Who knew?

The odd uneven time

That was how Sylvia Plath described August, and this year at least she was proved right. It's probably easiest to sum it up by saying that my blogging muse disappeared for a while.

There was some wargaming however: mid-eighteenth century in the legendary wargames room using Black Powder. I continue to enjoy the rules, although the effect of broken battalia seems a bit odd to me. I will no doubt return to this in due course; I bet you can't wait. I have also been trying to work out how I feel about 'Through the Mud and the Blood' now we have had a few games and, finding that I wasn't coming to any conclusion, have decided to put the period on the back burner and do something different next time we are in the annexe.

Your bloggist walks it off

Cultural life always takes a dip at this time of year, but there have been events in places as diverse as Keighley (Ayckbourn) and Salzburg (Mozart funnily enough). Conversely there has been a fair bit of walking and visits have been made to Bracken Ghyll, the Seven Arches and various other places. And I can't leave without alluding to the very funny goings on at the relaunch of river boats on the Wharfe in Otley, although the same political considerations which stopped the local paper printing the photos also preclude me from providing details.

Through the flashing bars

"Deep summer is when laziness finds respectability." -  Sam Keen  

Which is another way of saying that the painting total for July stands at the magnificent total of not a lot. Following the recent game of To the Strongest! I have colour coded the sabot bases used for Celts and Romans, to make it easier to keep track of which command things are in, but that's it I'm afraid.

Idleness has also extended to the blog, if you will excuse my self indulgence, I would like to catch up with other things that I've seen:

Hamilton Loomis: An intriguing blend of blues, funk, soul and jazz. He included a tribute to Chuck Berry, and his choice of 'No Particular Place to Go' rather suited the louche nature of the rest of the set. Like many performers today he's prone to wandering out into the audience and climbing on chairs while playing; wireless connectivity has a lot to answer for.

Dan Baird and Homemade Sin: Their website claims that they are 'classic hard rock', but actually there are significant country music influences. Baird used to be in the Georgia Satellites, although judging from his on-stage comments the split wasn't exactly amicable. It happened in 1990 so, if I may be so bold as to offer some advice: let it go, mate, let it go. The lead guitarist is the spitting image of Steven Toast, but not only could he really play, but he did a neat trick of swinging his instrument over his shoulder and back around in mid-solo, which I had never seen done before. The support band - the exact identity of whom remain a mystery to me - certainly are classic rock, right down to the haircuts and the loon pants. I'm pretty clear that four of them were at university with me and have been cryogenically frozen ever since in the style of Austin Powers. The drummer is a modern day imposter; perhaps something went wrong during the thawing process.

You know, the more I looked at the bass player the more certain I was that we had once put him up for election as treasurer of the student union without telling him about it; a story for another day.

The Endellion Quartet playing Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert, a soothing change from all those guitars.

The Graduate: Having recently seen a stage production I took the opportunity to catch a 50th anniversary screening of the film, which I had last seen many years ago. I can report that it's much better than the play, with Benjamin being a substantially more sympathetic character, although the tassel twirling did lose something from not being in the flesh, as it were.

The Temperature of Sculpture:  This collection of the work of the late Jiro Takamatsu is, like pretty much every show at the Henry Moore Institute, mostly complete tosh. I did however rather like this:

I've already mentioned one of the month's visitors, but the Casa Epictetus was also graced by the presence of this blog's Luxembourg correspondent. He has responded to last year's referendum result in the only sensible way and become a citizen of the Grand Duchy. Sadly my own search for an Irish ancestor has drawn a blank.

Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo

And so to the opera. The third, and for me the best, of the season of fairy tales was Rossini's Cinderella. Whilst sharing the same source as Disney's version this is rather different in that there is no fairy godmother, no glass slipper, no talking animals, no magic at all in fact; the songs are better as well. The principle is the same though: hard done-by but kind and virtuous posh girl is restored to her 'rightful' place in society by vacuous but privileged pretty boy despite the machinations of those around her.

The production is well served by its leads  - including a Prince Charming with the rather excellent first name of Sonnyboy - although they are both perhaps outshone by Quirijn de Lang as Dandini. As mentioned before this run of productions all share a simple set and here it serves in the opening scenes as a dance school. This is an interesting, though one assumes coincidental, nod to the recent production of Strictly Ballroom at the West Yorkshire Playhouse, the main narrative arc of which is itself of course a version of the Cinderella story. Were I really keen to bang on about everything being connected if you look hard enough I would also point out that when Rossini met Salieri in the 1820s he is reputed to have teased him about his reputation as Mozart's poisoner.

Pot66pouri

I've just had a rather disconcerting, but not terribly timely, email from Sainsbury's warning me about the possible presence of salmonella in something which I bought four days ago and ate the following day. I think it's fair to say that I would rather forgo all the bonus nectar points in the world in return for untainted food. However, if this is indeed to be the end of Epictetus then I had better bring things up to date; your grief will only be heightened for not knowing that not only have I been to see the very excellent Dr Bob and the Bluesmakers once again, but that I also won £25 on the Premium Bonds. That should take the edge off a painful death by food poisoning.

Speaking of poisoning, I also saw the latest live broadcast from the National Theatre: Peter Shaffer's Amadeus, a play that takes a Shakespearean approach to the relative importance of historical verisimilitude on the one hand and the dramatic narrative on the other. I've always liked the ironic way in which Shaffer underlined the lesser esteem afforded by posterity to Salieri - and what a performance by Luciani Msamati - compared to Mozart by naming a play in which the former is the main character after the latter. This production  was moving and engaging in a way that the other plays I saw last week most certainly weren't.

I've also been to the seaside, St Annes-on-Sea in fact, improvidently choosing one of the coldest days of the winter for the purpose. I had fish and chips for lunch in the pier café - full name: Cafe on the Pier - at a table overlooking the beach; a cliché I know, but, as I pointed out to the Tofu Lady, one sometimes one just has to let oneself be swept along by the moment. Nearby was this statue, which I photographed with the camera kept in my manbag for just such an opportunity.

There is no point in having a competition because a quick web-search would identify it for you, but I wonder if many people will immediately recognise who it's supposed to be. The first words that I ever heard my ex-wife say - on our first day at business school - were to explain that although she shared this chap's name she definitely wasn't him (a); and yet I still married her. And on the subject of wives, on our visit to Vapnartak James came up with the hypothesis that the second wives of wargamers are far more sympathetic to their husbands' hobby than first wives. Much of the evidence seems to point in precisely the opposite direction, but I have no current intention of putting it to the test.

As the subject of wargaming has been raised I should report that we had another crack at Blitzkrieg Commander II. We had a better grasp of the rules this time and Peter at least seemed to have worked out how to use them to properly coordinate his attacks. They are certainly quicker than Piquet for handling large numbers of units. I'm not an expert on second world war gaming, but then nor am I that big a fan. The problem seems to be that, in the minds of the rule designers at least, the Germans had by far the best equipment; the implication presumably being that tactical superiority was undermined by strategic over-stretch. That may well be true, but it doesn't always make for a particularly satisfying game on the table.

Anyway, that's as may be; I more pressing matters on my mind, namely imminent diarrhoea, fever and abdominal cramps followed by death. Vale!


(a) This was shortly followed by another student asking if despite his surname being Ogden we would refrain from calling him Hilda. Naturally he has been known as nothing else for the last twenty five years.

Mais où sont les neiges d'antan!

 “Die Zeit, die ist ein sonderbar Ding.”

And so to the opera. I'd never seen Der Rosenkavalier before and being both too lazy to do any research and too mean to buy a programme I was surprised to gradually realise that it was a Mozart pastiche, even to the extent of being over long. Still if one is going to find inspiration anywhere then why not start at the very top?

It's not really about the Rosebearer or indeed, as the original title apparently had it, about the Baron for whom he bears the the rose. Instead its central character is surely the Marschallin, a woman sent by her family into marriage with a much older man who willingly sacrifices happiness so others may marry for love. As the Buddha said “In the end these things matter most: How well did you love? How fully did you live? How deeply did you let go?".

Musically the highlight is the trio at the end where the voices of the three sopranos - the male lead is played by a woman and in a Shakespearean twist spends a lot of time pretending to be a woman - combine to mark the turning point in all their lives. For the Marschallin, as she subsequently leaves the stage on the arm of the father of the bride, a recognition that time has passed. As for the wisdom of having an affair with someone the best part of twenty years one's junior in the first place, Strauss and his librettist Hofmannsthal pass no moral judgement; therefore neither will I.

The course of true love never did run smooth

And so to the opera. In fact I've been two nights in a row, which is excessive even for me, although not unprecedented. First up was 'Cosi fan tutte' by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, a young composer who shows much promise. The work wasn't performed much for many years because it was considered immoral; to modern eyes the failing of its story is more due to misogyny than lack of morals. The title means roughly 'women are all the same', an irritatingly immature attitude for a major work of art to profess. The music is sublime though and, as usual, was done full justice by the orchestra of Opera North and the singers. The production was a revival from a decade or so ago, with all the action taking place in a giant camera obscura. This isn't as odd as it sounds and works rather well, but I can vividly remember the tutting from behind me years ago when it was first staged. As an aside there is also a moment to please all those of you - those many, many of you - who appear to have a thing for women dressed in male military attire.

All that the performance of Donizetti's 'L'elisir d'amore' has in common is that it is also a revival, it made me think of 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' (1) and it seems to set out to demonstrate that women are fickle and shallow. So quite a lot in common then. Notwithstanding Mozart's genius, my own taste runs much more to bel canto and so I actually preferred this. Plus it's funnier and has a hot air balloon. Again this is a fine interpretation, with everyone on top form, although I'm going to pick out the female chorus for particular praise.

Returning to Mozart, he and/or Da Ponte might have had somewhat dodgy views on sexual equality, but they did at least give us a character, Despina, who overtly challenges the idea that the rich and idle are entitled to hot chocolate while the workers have to make do with the aroma. Right on, sister.


(1) I have read that the plot of 'Cosi fan tutte' more closely resembles 'Cymbeline', but despite a quote from that play appearing on this very blog less than a fortnight ago I've never actually seen it. There is a production on a the Globe this summer, so perhaps I'll have a chance then.