From one cheese nation to another

food, opera, travel

Between my last two performances of Billy Budd I made a flying visit to Geneva to spend a couple of days with my wife Lucy. She’s rehearsing “Punch and Judy” at the opera, a show which opens at the start of April. It had been three weeks since our last rendezvous and it will be another two before I return there for a week or so when the Britten is done here in Amsterdam. Sorry if you’ve heard all that before but if nothing it serves to remind everyone of the strange way in which opera singers (especially those married to other opera singers) have to conduct their marriages. Our rule of thumb is never to spend more than five weeks apart, even if it’s only a two day catch-up between two chunks of five weeks. I don’t know what we’d do without video calling.…

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Balls

food, travel

It hasn’t all been nothing but opera in the week since we opened. Far from it.
I’ve returned to a few old noshing haunts and tried a couple of new eateries too.

Hemelse Modder on the Oude Waal, not far from Nieuwmarkt, I’ve been to lots of times in the last ten years. It’s always good value with decent rather than dazzling cooking based around top quality ingredients, which is just my bag. There were five of us and we all ate from the three course €29.95 menu, which seems to be the going rate for a set menu in town. I started with some duck confit; wild duck I’m guessing as the two legs were very small but intensely flavoured. Next most of us, including me, had pigeon served with a chicory gratin and proper potato croquettes. I like chicory but some of the others found it too bitter. Pudding was a small chunk of berry crumble that was nothing much to write home about. I should have had their signature pudding “heavenly mud” (the restaurant’s name) – gobs of dark and white chocolate mousse. But all-in-all a fine meal. …

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Dubious stunt

opera, singers
I’ve not held much truck with the way ENO has taken its marketing in the last few years. It strikes me as a combination of X-Factor-esque, panting hyperbole and glossy mag vapidity. And now the Netherlands Opera, faced with plummeting subscriptions, subsidy cuts and a desperate need for box office revenue, has decided to market one performance of Billy Budd as a “Gay Date Night”. …

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Pre-premiere ejaculation

opera, singers

What is it about first nights? Does anyone enjoy them? And in that I include audience members.

Let’s get the audience out of the way first. It’s not such a problem here in Amsterdam but certainly in many continental houses first night audiences are largely comprised of great swathes of punters who have no interest in opera other than seeing it as an opportunity for showing off their newest wife/man/frock/earrings/handbag etc etc. And that’s just the men. You can smell their indifference across the footlights. Try playing comedy to that lot. It’s about as much fun as pinning medals on a Rottweiler. …

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