Manon: a musical interlude

Once in a while I will treat myself to a trip to the opera. Of course everyone has opinions on that. Sadly, most people think opera is terribly dull, elitist and highbrow. In fact it's pretty much the same price as a football match and I find the whole business of sets, costumes, orchestra, singing and grand theatre anything but dull. And so last night I went to a performance of Massenet's Manon at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden.

Vanessa Stone, the papercut girl accompanied me which made for an especially lovely evening. We both felt the strange sets left something to be desired and spent the intervals redesigning in our minds. I have no doubt we'd have done a better job; perhaps one day we can prove it!

But the big draw was the Russian soprano Anna Netrebko. She has a tendancy to cancel so we were much relieved when she turned up. And she WAS sensational, rich warm low notes at one extreme, with the lazer-like brilliance of her high D at the other. The fact that she's also rather beautiful certainly helped the audience believe in the story of Prevost's young girl, destined for the convent, who is seduced by men and money and becomes the toast of Paris, only to end up arrested as a woman of ill-repute. It all goes badly wrong of course, and she dies in the gutter. I suppose she's a sort of operatic "it" girl, who burns herself out, and is led astray by some very inadvisable men. In many ways the misogynistic elements of the story are just as pertinent today. Nevertheless she herself turns her back on true love, for it comes entwined with poverty.

But the real thrill for me was a new young tenor, Vittorio Grigolo, as the idealistic des Grieux, who is loved and then spurned by naughty Manon. I don't think I can recall hearing such a beautiful tenor voice for a very long time. He's a dashing presence on stage as well, but regardless of looks, he has a stunning voice. His delicate singing in the famous "dream" aria was heart-stoppingly lovely.

At the curtain call there were roars and flowers and stamping of feet, and Vanessa and I came away all topped up with beauty and light and wallowing in the quality of such phenomenal talent. But with a bitter-sweet aftertaste - after all, 'tis a terrible tale...

Wartime Book Bash

Yesterday and today I've been helping the team at Letchworth Arts Centre celebrate their book "I Remember The War". This, you might recall, is a project using real wartime memories, provided by Garden City residents, illustrated by children from six Letchworth schools. The workshops have been described before on this blog (click here), but in brief, the children used pen and ink (a good wartime technique) to bring the memories to life. The Letchworth Arts Centre team then had to squeeze as many of 300 illustrations into an 80 page book as possible. inevitably not everyone made it in. But I hope those children are not too disappointed; they still participated and that's good. And some other images have been made into greetings cards and others are featured in a special exhibition at the Arts Centre.




Everyone has worked incredibly hard on the book and it seems to have been a big success. Yesterday a vintage celebration in the art centre invited first the children then later the people who were themselves children during the war and who provided the poignant and fascinating memories.Today in David's Bookshop, our wonderful local independent bookstore, a huge signing session took place with dozens of children and pensioners finding out together what it's like to be a famous illustrator and having to autograph books. A lovely event, a fantastic project and a brilliant way to celebrate 65 years since VE day. The book remains on sale around Letchworth; if you are remotely local, do go and see the exhibition and get a copy. At £3 it's a war-time priced bargain!

Presenting Bubble & Squeak

I'm really excited to be able to tell you about the beginning of a new collaboration.

Many years ago I met Clara Vulliamy at the Arvon Foundation in Devon. I was tutoring a course there in writing for children with Mark Haddon, and he invited Clara as our guest speaker. Clara and I hit it off immediately, and often bumped into each other a publisher parties. Clara always said the same thing: "write a story for me". I was far too unsure of myself to succeed... until now. At last I've put pen to paper and written a story for her and as the project progresses (slowly) I'll post things here about it.

The project, we hope, will be a series of books and will, for Clara, be the start of an exciting new approach to her illustrations. Clara is, in fact, a superb portrait painter who studied at the Royal Academy in London and I have huge respect for her. Her illustrations inhabit another world, though, and they are full of playful charm and humour, and brilliant characterisation. She is perfect for these stories...

We have been meeting regularly for tea and cake at either the Royal Academy, the National Gallery or the Ritz. It's hard work but someone has to do it.

We called ourselves the Two Cake Club (we never bother with anything healthy, we just always eat two cakes each). There we have sat and eaten the most delicious things and discussed all the various stages of the stories and pictures, and we have bonded over a shared love of vintage techniques and retro style (and cake). The samples Clara has produced so far are divine. The books will be published by Orchard Books in 2013...

And who are Bubble & Squeak? Ah...you just wait and see!