7 .1■1■5■Bmi, pera Rake-off
Rodney Milnes
_ . .
By the end of the evening I was so out of sympathy with the new production of The Rake's Progress at Glyndebourne that I asked my Aunt Jennifer, who came as my guest, to write the notice. She reports:
"It was a lovely warm afternoon as we motored down, and we arrived in good time to walk round the gardens, which were looking simply gorgeous. It was Midsummer's Night, of course, and one half expected to see fairies popping out of their little holes and gambolling
round the shrubbery. I was terribly excited to see so many people from that picture about David Hockney (he did the sets, by the way) that Rodney tried to dissuade me from seeing he said I wouldn't understand it, but there were some unusual parts in it that were very sensitively handled. I recognised that nice-looking Peter Something-or-other, the co-star, wearing a white suit that looked rather lived-in. Heseemed to be on his own, and I was worried that no one was going to talk to him.
"Just before we went in, we passed a pretty gel who seemed a bit under the weather. Someone thought she'd tripped over, but I expect she'd taken something that didn't agree with her. Anyway, the first part of the opera went quite smoothly, and during one of the many pauses I saw Peter (what is his name hasn't he just directed a picture, too?) move to sit closer to David and I just knew the evening was going to be a success.
"Imagine our surprise in the supper intervalto find a huge buffet laid out by the ha-ha. It must have been provided by David for his friends, as I recognised a lot of them from the picture. I hope it wasn't too vulgar of us to pitch camp just next door and take a peek. There was the biggest pile of lobsters ever, but as no one touched them, perhaps they were plastic (like the production, as Rodney said acidly). But there was side after side of smoked salmon, and corks popping
merrily. Rodney thought it was a bit ostentatious for these hard times, but he's such a kill-joy. David has made all his own money, so why shouldn't he spend it? There, it takes one of the new-poor to be generous.
"Anyway, there was Celia Birtwistle looking radiant (I'm told she absolutely loved the opera), and someone wearing a frock I saw only last week in a shop window costing £220. Then there was that New York art dealer with the beard, Henry Kissinger I think, and Mo McDiarmid in a smashing shirt, and Udo Kier who is the new Warhol superstar, and another young man in a white suit (goodness, I hope men are not as sensitive about these things as we women are). John Cox was there too, the producer, and someone had asked Bernard Haitink, the conductor, but he looked a bit out of place. Perhaps he doesn't speak English. I didn't see any of the Glyndebourne management, but I expect they were having their own party somewhere else.
"Rodney says I must mention the opera. He thinks it's a precious pastiche, as pointless as it is puerile, but he will get carried away with alliteration. There are some killingly funny lines in the libretto; dear Wystan always was such a tease, though I don't agree with Rodney that he teased people into taking this rubbish seriously for far too long. The music jogs along quite pleasantly until the long last scene, when the audience got very fidgety. I always say you can't fool a Glyndebourne audience.
"Thetis Blacker, who does that super Batik, had a small part and did it awfully well. Luckily she doesn't have much to sing. Jill Gomez was sweet as the heroine, but I couldn't hear all her words. Leo Goeke, a handsome American, was the hero. Thetis made a great show of taking his shirt off, and I was worried for a moment that there was more to come, but as Rodney reminded me, they were only teasing. Donald Gramm played theDevil as a kind old uncle; I don't understand why, but Rodney says you have to be different nowadays.
"David's sets were all in four primary colours, just like a child's paint-box, and cross-hatched like old engravings so original. The costumes were the same, so you couldn't always see the singers too clearly. There was a round of applause for one of the scenes, and the woman next to me said 'Alt! C'est jolie'. You get all sorts at Glyndebourne nowadays.
"We had a perfectly miserable drive back, with Rodney muttering on about Glyndebourne lending itself to this sort of spectacle, wondering what old Mr Christie would have thought (he'd have had a jolly good laugh, especially if it sold tickets), and making a list of all the operas they could have done if they weren't wasting time on this 'camp hogwash'. Sometimes I think he's losing his sense of fun. Having. just read this, he says it's indistinguishable from one of his own reviews and that he'd better get that crack in before somebody else does."
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