Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
General Administrator of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.
On the island
Eight records
Concerto for Double String Orchestra (Part of the Last Movement)
The Academy of Saint Martin in the Fields, directed by Neville Marriner
I've chosen this because I find it music with a strong visionary sense, a music with great spiritual joy and, above all, optimism. And I feel maybe I should have that in my solitude.
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (Quintet)
I have to have some music of Wagner. and Meister singer I would rank high amongst my most treasured operas and from that, please may I have the quintet.
Octet in F major, D. 803 (Adagio)
I do need to take some chamber music with me. I find great spiritual refreshment in listening to chamber music, and I listen to it as often as I can, frequently late at night, after performances at Cotton Garden. Choice incredibly difficult, but I eventually settled on the Schubert octet, and from that the Adager, which contains one of Schubert's most unforgettable tunes.
Jon Vickers and Josephine Veasey, with the Royal Opera House Orchestra conducted by Colin Davis
One of the things I must have on This Desert Island is a love duet. One of my great passions in life is the music of Balios. And therefore I go to the love duet from the Trojans... And this revives many memories for me of a great opera, the performances of which on a professional stage were actually pioneered by Coffee Garden in the second half of the fifties
Don Carlo (Ella giammai m'amò)
Verdi, please Verdi one of the greatest of all operatic composers very much part of one's life if one is immersed in operas I am. Troy's again incredibly difficult, but I think one of Verde's finest hours was that for King Philip in Don Carlo, Ella Jeremiah Mamont, and I would very much like to have that sung by Boris Christoph, please.
Symphony No. 88 in G major (Largo)
Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam conducted by Colin Davis
Haydn remains one of my. Favourite composers. The choice, as you know only too well, is absolutely endless. A composer of such invention in everything that he in every medium that he touched But in spite of that problem, I have eventually decided that I would like the Largo from his Eighty Eighth Symphony. One of those heavenly tunes that he wrote.
I must take one song with me. The range of songs is so wide that it was incredibly difficult, again, to make up one's mind. But I eventually decided that as I was lying there on a starlit evening, that perhaps the most appropriate song not least because it also happens to be one of Schumann's most beautiful songs, one of the many that he wrote for his beloved Clara, would be Mein Schoener Stern.
The Marriage of Figaro (Part 2 of the Finale of Act Two)Favourite
This must be by Mozart, um, for me the greatest of all composers. And I would like something from Figaro, which I regard as one of the finest of all operas. Part two of the finale of Act Two, which I Believed to be one of the most splendid of all operatic finales, the work of a genius, it is marvellous.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:36Did you once have ambitions to be a singer yourself?
Oh, yes, I did, and they were very strong. But, um, fortunately I came to a conclusion early enough that I hadn't sufficient talent to have a successful career and abandoned it.
Presenter asks
3:44What in fact happened when you came down [from Oxford]?
Well, when I came down, I was faced with the possibility, perhaps, of going to work for a an artist agent or work for a firm of music publishers. But what I really decided I had to do was to get some managerial experience... I realised that I was absolutely green manager, and I really didn't know very much. And decided that I really ought to go and get this experience, and in fact, went into industry for a time
Presenter asks
7:11Was [Sir David Webster] an easy man to get on with?
Well, I found him incredibly so. I think this is not a view shared by many, because David was an extremely shy, withdrawn person. But he and I developed a marvellous rapport, and from the very beginning it seemed to me that there was the possibility of a very fruitful collaboration.
The keepsakes
The book
The Oxford Book of English Verse
Arthur Quiller-Couch
Poetry because I enjoy reading poetry. Because in a book of that kind you've got an infinite range of poems, and also I could spend some of the time learning them by heart.
The luxury
Sugared apricots (from Schilling Coffee Company)
I absolutely adore apricots. ... they taste of nectar to me, and I would love to have the largest pile of those you could provide for me, please.
Presenter asks
8:48Did you take over the reins [as General Administrator] with any crusading spirit? Was there any major reform you wanted to make?
I believe that the thing that fired me most at that time was to get much wider dissemination of what we were doing to many people who could never come to Coffengarden because of the place they lived or for other reasons. And equally I was anxious to break down the belief that Coffengarden was an elitist establishment, one created only for the rich and the privileged. and that it was a place accessible to all.
Presenter asks
14:17How far do you plan ahead ordinarily?
We try to keep at least three years absolutely firm, and I like to have the fourth and fifth year ahead in pencil, with at least the new production settled, major revival settled, and the major singers for those particular operas also, if not contracted, certainly very firmly pencilled and ideally inked in.
“what I'm forever saying is today we may be good, but to morrow we've got to be better.”
“I think it's essential that a place like Coffin Garden does not become a museum. I think that everybody who works in an opera house needs the stimulus of new works, new ideas.”
“the tragedy is that it is still insufficient and leaves Coffin Garden in receipt of a subsidy about half that paid to any comparable houses in Europe.”