Welcome 2014 Janette Miller in Auckland

2013 has been an exceptional year for me! Quite unexpected and in some ways unbelievable. At the ripe old age of 70 when one's life is supposed to be over and there is nothing left to which to look forward a year pops up and delivers some of the goals that you thought you had missed arrives by magic without you doing a thing.

I have two blogs, one for my family Janette Miller's Strange Life, where I can reminisce  about the past without boring my family stiff, I get very few views but it is good social history and one day a great grandchild might, just might be interested.

This blog is where I get things out of my system so I can be a bit grumbly on occasions, a bit like the character Victor Meldrum who finds life in his mature years unbelievable! This year I shall try to be more positive if I can so I shall take this opportunity of saying just why 2013 has been so strange and yes exceptional and none of it was of my making.

Putting aside that access to enough B12 healed my compromised nervous system and why UK doctors fail to give patients enough injections of a vitamin necessary to do this I shall never understand. The fact that my garden has been ravishing thanks in part to a glorious summer here in Auckland and I watered it, my year has been exceptional because of the patronage and friendship of one man who 56 years ago saw in a tiny 14 year old, mousy, formally uneducated child something that made her special to him.
Although none of us knew it in 1958 this man who at 44 was famous but not a superstar has gone on to icon status and taken all of us who he favoured along with him. 2013 was the centenary of Lord Benjamin Britten's birth and as one of the few left standing who worked with him and knew him I became part of these festivities without lifting a finger.

Nothing could be stranger than finding oneself part of such an illustrious scene 56 years on. If I had been told then that a tiny part in a children's opera would lead to my place in posterity I should never have believed it or that I should have to wait all that time for recognition that what I was asked to do by Britten was quite extraordinary. It still is.

Again this recognition is reinforced because at the time of the actual broadcast of  Britten's masterpiece Peter Morley's 1959 The Turn of the Screw for Associated Rediffusion which was even then an artistic triumph in public was for me a personal family disaster.

Far from my family being proud that their 16 year old relative had the honour of being in this prestigious production my family who gathered expectantly to watch their relative at 11 pm on Xmas Eve  1959 on UK TV hated it. They hated it. They watched in total silence and I could feel the atmosphere going from bad to worse. At the end of Act 1 a stunned family audience were speechless. No applause, no we are so proud of you, just silence. My aunt who was there with a male cousin from Argentina who I only met twice in my life, was shocked. Her grim face said it all.

Nobody said anything. It was after midnight and the TV and tape recorder that had been my Xmas present were turned off. I dared to ask if my family enjoyed it and my aunt speaking for all of them said NO! It was like a funeral. What should have been a joyous occasion was like a funeral. Although my mother had prepared a delicious after viewing meal nobody stayed to eat it. Coats were brought and they all went home. My mother and father too were very subdued about the performance. No praise of any sort was given and we went to bed.  They all returned for a repeat performance for  Act 2 with a similar reaction! Three months later my father wiped the tape as he needed it for his amateur radio.

And yet Britten knew what I had done for him was exceptional. Flora for that was my part, is the hardest role to cast in the opera. It is hard to grasp that casting a girl singer for this role in the 1950's could be so difficult but Britten found it impossible. He had had no idea of how to write for a girl child. Boys yes, he did it all the time but a girl? There were just no little girls who sang in the 1950's. Britten had searched for a child since 1954 and never found one. Henry James' had described Flora as An old, old woman, consequently Britten who was working with an adult Flora made no concessions  and Flora's aria is one of the most difficult to sing in the entire opera as it is high, uses intervals singers hate and orchestrally exposed.  It is terrifying. Britten was brilliant at casting and he knew that for The Screw to succeed theatrically it had to have a child not an adult pretending to be a child. He was so determined to do this that after the original Venice production he would not allow The Screw to be performed again until he found a Flora. He had already auditioned 40 little girls and gave up hope. The Screw remained on the shelf. And then as if by magic I turned up.

Britten knew I was special. He went out of his way to get to know me and help me. He watched me grow up.  I think I may have been the only girl of 19 he ever got to know. Unknown to me I became a favourite. He was so kind. I was given seats for opera's. Invitations to swim, rides alone in the car. He was interested in what I was doing and talked freely as one does to a colleague. I was privileged to be mentored by such a man. I was around Aldeburgh for 5 years and as I grew our friendship deepened.  I knew first he was fond of me as Jennifer Vyvyan told me "Ben is so fond of you Flora", they called me Flora.

My family ensured that I really never enjoyed the success of The Screw.

So it has been somewhat gratifying to discover that the British Film Institute has remastered the iconic recording and shown it  in London to great acclaim in 2013. I am told the print looks magnificent and I am in it. The TV cameramen made me look so beautiful.

Today my family would have been flabbergasted. They were so wrong and so unkind that night 56 years ago. When the BBC asked me recently what my family reaction was the interviewer was shocked. That bit got cut out of the interview. But I do find it incredible that that performance that was just at the start of my career should give me my posterity. I am there in Britten's first TV production for all time for this will always be preserved as it really is his masterpiece. I have been so fortunate. 2013 will be hard to replicate and in fact I don't need to.

Aridane at Glyndebourne What went wrong for me.

A few days ago I watched the live streamed performance of the  Glyndebourne's new production of Ariadne Auf Naxos by Richard Strauss directed by Katharina Thoma. This is one of my favourite operettas. It meant much to me as it was the first opera my soon to be husband took me to see at the ENO in 1971 and we saw it at Glyndebourne that summer in a delightful haze of love and champagne. I have produced scenes from it in Auckland even if I did not manage the whole opera as I could never find a Bacchus. Ariadne could definitely be classed as our tune!

So it was with a mixed anticipation that I awaited this web cast. I had read the reviews that were highly critical but as I have been on the receiving end of many an adverse reviews I was not unduly worried and indeed Act I although quirky, gave me no cause for alarm but then came Act II.

Sometimes in life one can say three words too many! Let me explain. As a director I have to deal with sensitive performers. Opera singers are their own instrument and you have to be careful when you criticise as they are sensitive. As a director I have to ensure they give a good performance so it is no good destroying their confidence. However careful one is sometimes one just says that three words too many and the relationship is all over. The trust is lost and there is nothing you can do about it. The relationship is gone forever. One might just as well pack it in at that moment.

Life is like that too. Sometimes an event or a performance can be life changing and life is never the same afterwards. It usually happens by accident and it never intended to ruin one's life but it happens and it does. As a director and a producer one has a responsibility to ensure that what you present to the public does not become three words too many. If you do you may be guilty of alienating not only this audience but many audiences to come.  I feel that Glyndebourne and Ms Thoma are guilty on this occasion. It ruined Glyndebourne for me and I suspect for many more too. I feel I can no longer trust their judgment.

I have had two events that have haunted me for all my life. Curiously both events have haunted me during the last week. There is nothing I can do about it. They just happened. One happened when I was four. I am still living with that today and will post about that tomorrow and one was this production of Ariadne - not quite so devastating way but still unfortunate.

Now for Ariadne. Normally I can forgive a production that I find distasteful. Maybe this rant will get it out of my system so here goes because this production has ruined Ariadne for me. Every time I see Ariadne or hear it in the future I shall think of its dark side and feel cheated.

There is a fashion in opera these days of reinterpreting works of art in a modern way. It is felt that giving a new slant brings the work into the present and gives it a second life. It is done all the time  with Shakespeare and with costume drama as it is cheaper to mount and costume for the present time and lack of finance can be excused by being relevant.

It is the fashion especially in Germany to look for the Dark Side of works of art and this is what Katarina Thoma has done with Strauss's Ariadne. It must have sounded a wonderful idea. Stage this 18th century opera which is normally  expensive to costume and set it in a small country house in wartime England in 1941 with the Blitz approaching. It could be construed that this was Glyndebourne that was being bombed. It is actually an innovative concept and maybe that is where is should have remained but in the staging of it something went horribly wrong.

What?

The first big error was to mistake  Ariadne auf Naxos for a grand opera. An opera of any sort it is not! It is an operetta, a musical, a fluff of nonsense. Richard Strauss underneath a swathe of orchestration is really a composer of operettas. Even his dark works like Salome and Electra  heard without orchestration on a piano sound like second rate Johann Strauss. Sorry but they do!

Even thinking about presenting its dark side was a colossal mistake. It is like showing the dark side of The Sound of Music or The Desert Song. Everything in life has a dark side if you look for it and this operetta like Die Fledermaus can have one as Hitler trotted it out with constant regularity to encourage the troops. Fine to give it this interpretation in a regular opera house but perhaps not at Glyndebourne.

Why not?

Because Glyndebourne has a very particular atmosphere. It was built by a very upper class Englishman for his wife and it embodies all the worst aspects of the breed. Visiting the old Glyndebourne became the thing to do socially. Tickets were restricted to those in the loop and if by accident a member of the ordinary public  happened to be given one they could not only watch the opera but be entertained by the British upper classes enjoying themselves in the interval sitting in the car park by the Rolls Royce with champers and smoked salmon. They never ventured onto the lawn.

Glyndebourne became the place for romantic evenings such as I enjoyed with Miles. We picnicked on the lawn alone as the upper classes were in the car park! The operas chosen were definitely safe and beautifully produced. One did not go to Glyndebourne to have moments of discomfort  as Peter Hall required in his productions of that time in the 70's one went to be seen!

From the age of 10 until I left Britain in 1975 I went to Covent Garden and ENO practically on a weekly basis but I only got to Glyndebourne twice and once was for Ariadne. It was magical. An evening I shall never forget. One should never go back and I should not have watched this current Ariadne. That was my mistake. I was expecting a comedy and I got a statement about the horrors of the 2nd World War that I had almost lived through. I was in for a grim evening.  I felt cheated.

So where did the production go wrong?

Comedy does not travel well. What is funny in Germany is not funny in UK. We have a very different take on the Second World War and employing a German to make fun of the bombing of Britain was hardly tactful. There is a palm tree that droops in Act I like a floppy penis. Evidently Germans find this hilarious. In UK this went down like a cup of cold sick  as UK actors say of a joke that fails to amuse.

Ariadne is a comedy! Yes it is a comedy. In comedies it is essential that the audience likes the characters. The characters can be unfortunate, murderous tyrants, like the horrid Spode in Jeeves   but they have to be loved and that takes brilliant stagecraft to pull  this off. Comedy needs a lightness of touch and a sense of fun. Ariadne is a comedy.  The cast needs to be superb and this cast looked like amateurs in this area. In the first Act they almost got away with it. Act I deals with the fact that the two opposing companies of serious art and musical comedy find it difficult enough to have to appear together on the same programme  but the shock and horror of having to do  it simultaneously because of the fireworks at 9 pm is too much to bear. It is a truly funny situation and does not need any help from a ultra clever interpretation.

Act II is the performance when the audience watches to find out how these two differing art styles work together in practice. Actually in a traditional production  this happens extremely well because they are all characters are professionals and realists and make the best of the situation. There are some good tunes, a ravishing coloratura show stopping aria and a wonderful ending. One goes away feeling elated and uplifted, even with no champers, that life is worth living, the evening and the expense was worth the effort of dressing up, traveling to Brighton and picnicking in the rain.

We didn't get a performance we got a parade of the horrors of war and shell shock. This production dragged out every dramatic war cliche that one could imagine in a depressing hour of embarrassment. Haven't I been so clever to think of this screamed out as the next cliche was served up.

It was not helped that the cast were past their prime. Comedy is the realm of the young. They can get away with saying the unthinkable with a twinkle in the eye and the excuse that they are young. Out of the mouth of babes! I have done this myself.

The Ariadne may look like the back of a bus diva in Act I, many diva's are, but in the second she has to become and sound like the ravishing young maiden who captivates a God. This poor lady was about as sexy as a 60 year old bus conductor. Having her make love behind a transparent curtain on her back with her legs in the air and a man on top as the final coup de theatre was excruciatingly bad taste for her and the audience. Cringe time.

The soubrette Zerbinetta, who should charm the audience out of their seats, was portrayed as an ageing scrubber with  nymphomaniac tendencies. The poor soprano was much too old and although she did her best nobody could have got away with being tied up in a straight jacked and masturbating at the same time. This was not hinted at but graphically portrayed. Zerbinetta has to be sexy. She can be naughty and like sex but she has to captivate every man in the audience who wants to sleep with her and every woman who would give her eye teeth to be like her. Marilyn Monroe did this perfectly.  No applause at all. This must be a first for this aria but no one could applaud. It was too horrible.  Fancy have a show stopping aria and being directed to do it like this.

Not a hint of comedy was allowed in the entire Act. The horrors of war were laid on with a sledge hammer. The operetta Ariadne  didn't stand  chance. It is a marsh mallow not a charging rogue elephant!

The final insult was that although the horrors of wartime Britain was being depicted with the Luft Waffe bombing Sussex and little Union Jacks pathetically displayed the whole thing was sung in German. It was obvious that Ms Thoma had a very German vision of how the British coped with her countrymen's unsuccessful invasion of our land. That anyone could find this remotely funny or credible is beyond my ken. In fact it was a bit insulting. None of us were playing about producing home made operas at that time as we were all sitting in the dark waiting for an invasion. My father was down on Brighton beach with a rifle and ten rounds of ammunition that did not fit to fight Hitler's Blitz Krieg!

The audience was given the impression that the unpleasant characters deserved their fate and that somehow they were responsible for what happened to them. Fiddling while Rome burned. Anyway by the end of the hour I was drained. It was not so much a moment of discomfort but a century of discomfort.  It was for me truly bad taste. Being English I feel guilty about this!

Sadly I don't think I can ever enjoy this opera again. I am just so cross at what has been done to it. Anyone seeing this for the first time will be put off for life. It might have been intended to make one think but it made me furious. If that is the outcome that was desired it certainly hit the mark.

I always knew that going to Glyndebourne was a mistake for me, I just did not belong but for one night in 1971 it held me under its spell. Now I know I was wrong to go there! It is the epitome of what I dislike about the old class ridden Britain some of whom would have welcomed Hitler. For once it showed the whited sepulchre of class and money that has bought the UK to where it is today. The greed and ostentation of Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme is alive and well and living in Sussex.

I wonder if anyone will be brave enough to ask for their money back? Ariadne Auf Naxos and Glyndebourne will never be the same for me  again.

Ariadne Glyndebourne and The Shock of the New

I have just watched Ariadne auf Naxos by Richard Strauss streamed live from Glyndebourne which is part of their 2013 Summer Opera Season. It is a work I know and love well.

Wow! Courageous and memorable! I suppose someone had to have to do the dark side of Ariadne. Zerbinetta as an real old slapper with graphic masturbation on the top notes sure knows how to kill off the applause. Must be first time ever that this aria did not bring the house down. I realise it was intentional.

 I am glad that this was not the performance I saw in 1971 with Miles. He might not have married me after that! So having got it out of the system we can all take a deep breath and be truly  original and daring and have the next Ariadne on the brighter side. 

I enjoy this opera, well its really an operetta, but really not like this. I go to Benjamin Britten or Fidelio for the dark side. Now there's an idea for young directors, Fidelio in a holiday camp with the guards as red coats and the prisoners as happy campers! Not nasty in sight. It is all a joke!

However I do enjoy seeing  courageous  performances and one should never be afraid of The shock of the new. It must have taken a lot of thought although a party like this could never have been held in the blackout in say 1940 so one must congratulate the director on being brave and original. Strauss is still very much in copyright and the trustees guard it with their lives. I tried to get the rights for a full orchestral midi of September  Four Last Songs with not one note changed and was refused as it was considered an arrangement. They must be turning in their graves with this and I will no doubt have the rights for every September Midi because they consider my work Original in 7 years time!


I live too far away ever to return to Glyndebourne again so it is wonderful to see the operas. The last time I went was off season in 1996. I was staying in Brighton and I took my aunt for a drive so I could at least see the new opera house from the outside.  We drove up only to be shooed off by a most unpleasant woman who treated me like an intruder and told me to Go away, we're not open in a most unfriendly upper class manner. I had travelled from New Zealand and I felt so embarrassed. My English aunt did not know where to look, the woman was so rude.  I mean even to think of it! She certainly put me in my place!

Glyndebourne had and perhaps still has this reputation for being rude and unapproachable. Britten for one hated it and all my dealings, like trying to buy tickets have been unfortunate. It could be relied upon for a good night out  because even if the opera was mediocre the champagne, picnic and setting could always be relied upon. It was amusing so see the upper classes showing off to the rest of us.

The rude lady I met was typical and was not a good advertisement for Glyndebourne which is a shame but the streaming makes me forget and forgive.

So onto the next Falstaff week of 17 June 2013 so watch out. Looks as if this might be in the same mould. I await with anticipation.