ANOTHER VOICE
A night at the opera under the shadow of Hattersley and Kaufman
AUBERON WAUGH
Made exuberant by the accuracy of my predictions about the Gulf war, and flush with money from my many successful wagers, I decided to take a party of eight friends to the opera on our last night in Prague. The Marriage of Figaro (Figarova Statba) was showing at the Smetana Theatre, a big production with full orches- tra in a grand theatre, decorated by chan- deliers, white and gold caryatids, all the trimmings. I had set aside quite a large sum of money for this treat, but when I arrived at the box office (there is no other way to buy tickets in Czechoslovakia) I found that the price of eight seats — three in the centre of the stalls, five in a central box on the auditorium floor — worked out at 320 crowns, or £6.40, an average of 80p each.
I should not have been surprised, perhaps. That day we had lunched in an inn outside Prague — ten of us, including two Czechs — on goulash, dumplings, beer, vodka, for a total of 220 crowns, or 44p each. The food, one might as well admit, is pretty ordinary, and I would like to be able to say that the opera was a revelation, a night to remember. Unfortu- nately, this would not be quite true. Although Figaro himself (Pavel Horacek) had a certain charm, and Cherubino (Katerina Kachlikova) showed a pretty bottom when crawling across the stage on all fours, the singing was generally unin- spired and the orchestra, while perfectly correct, lacked verve or any element of oomph. Almaviva (J. Soucek) looked as if he had come out of 25 years down a Soviet coalmine in the Arctic Circle, and his Countess (Z. Jehlickova) stood stock still, with just an occasional twitch of the shoulders, like Edward Heath, to show she was still alive.
On our second day in Prague we were joined by a young Czech woman, who kindly offered to show us around. I shall call her Janna, for that was her name. Elegantly dressed but atrociously under- paid as an academic, she told us that the government planned to build a huge Mozart centre, hiring all the international stars, as a permanent attraction in the city where the composer spent so much time. Janna was passionately opposed to this scheme, on the grounds that no Czech would be able to afford to go, and state subsidies should encourage native talent.
I found myself convinced by her argu- ment, which might as well be applied to our own Covent Garden productions, ex- cept that I have a feeling, borne out by the performance of Figaro, that it will be a long time before the Czechs are once again able to sing Mozart with verve or convic- tion. An elderly neurosurgeon with whom I struck up acquaintance in the box office queue said things were better than before the Revolution: in the old days, only trade union groups and Communist Party offi- cials could get tickets. But I formed the impression that the Czechs have been too much bashed up by 45 years of socialism to find much joy in these frivolities.
Perhaps things seemed different at the moment of the Revolution before the inevitable inflation and explosion of crimi- nality, but I can't see how anything will ever improve if Czechs insist on paying only 80p for the best opera seats. So desperate are they for foreign currency that they even charge a 30 per cent export tax at the customs. Is that a good way to encourage economic recovery? After all these years of Marxist indoctrination, they have no more idea of economics than performing elephants, even forbidding travellers to export any of their worthless, unchangeable currency. But it is their spirit which has been broken, just as spirits seem to have been broken in the socialist north of England, where no alternative to a life of infantile dependency on the state can ever be admitted.
I dwell on the dread shadow of Hatters- ley and Kaufman which hangs over this beautiful city like its famous acid smog for a slightly disreputable reason. Of course one wishes that more people from the north of England could visit Czechoslova- kia and see for themselves what socialism produces, but they would probably be more impressed by the cheapness of the beer. It is because I fear that this war in the Gulf may well achieve what even the poll tax might have failed to achieve (now that we have a nice Mr Major to speak for us) that I have started being haunted once again by the dread spectre of Hattersley and Kaufman. I exclude Kinnock from my nightmares, because he seems an amiable enough person of no consequence. No doubt H&K will make arrangements about him as soon as they come to power. A window in New Palace Yard, perhaps?
What is frightening about the prospect of H&K is that they represent the 'intelligent' aspect of the political Left, and the 'intelli- gent' aspect of socialism no longer has the faintest leg to stand on. Nobody over the mental age of six and a half has a good word to say for the command economy. H&K must rely on deception, slick debat- ing points and Thatcher-style populism to sell the only remaining shot in their locker, which is a redistribution of earnings. Even this is a false prospectus, since anyone who bothers to study table 5:12 in the 1991 edition of Social Trends (HMSO £23.50) will learn that between 1976/77 and 1990/91 the proportion of total income tax revenue paid by the top 10 per cent of earners has risen from 35 per cent to 42 per cent, by the top 5 per cent from 25 per cent to 31 per cent and so on. It is actually true, as some Americans claimed ten years ago, that the lower the marginal rates the higher the revenue. Hattersley and Kaufman have nothing to offer the envy and rancour of their supporters but their tatty, second- hand, unrecycled selves.
It is against all reason that H&K should be handed the country on a plate as a result of the cost of this idiotic war (which, in the unlikely event of an easy victory, might conceivably not be apparent until the election after next). However much we may groan about the horrors of democra- cy, it seemed a system well enough attuned to saving us from the even worse horrors of H&K. Nevertheless, two democratic irra- tionalities have allowed the politicians to lead us into this mess: the American taste for a moral crusade, and the British taste for inflicting punishment.
I am glad that Sir Peregrine Worsthorne has eventually come round to the view that the stakes are higher than anything which would be justified by a moral crusade, or by the pleasures of a swishing cane session. Such pleasures are in any case better enjoyed in private. He now believes it is 'a prudent war, a war that may actually produce some bankable results.' It will bring the West 'rich dividends for some time to come', giving America, through the presence of a standing army in Saudi Arabia, control of the Middle East: 'Be- cause of oil, Arabia is far too crucial an area to be left exclusively to Arabs.'
Does he really believe that modern America has the stomach for such an imperial role? His posture would be a richly comical one if only there were some alternative system of explaining American behaviour. There is no rational explana- tion at all, and we must simply accept that we have been landed in the soup by our own democratic stupidity.
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