Way out West (incorporating Way up North)

Greenhouses to Jesuits

Funny old week, this one. I started with a couple of days helping an old school friend plasterboard his extension ceiling, an activity which requires me to stand on tip-toe with my arms above my head for extended periods.

A couple of days of that was a good warm-up for my next task; the Opera Company I toured most of Europe with last year were making their annual visit to the Great Conservatory at Syon House. This is a date loathed and hated by everyone involved, it's not that the venue isn't attractive, but if all's said and done it is still just a bloody great greenhouse, with acoustics to
match. In addition it is on the final approach to Heathrow, so every couple of minutes another jumbo labours over, and the building is acoustically as well as visually transparent. The gig is staffed by the sort of bone headed but implacable minor aristos who would be terrific if some unspecified natural disaster took place, but are reduced to bloody minded hysteria by putting out 250 chairs.

Last year it rained, oh how it poured, greenhouses don't really have to be watertight, so instead of spilling out over the lawns of Syon with their champagne, our privileged audience colonised the stage. I spent most of my time retrieving glasses from the set. One of the operas we performed; Lucia di Lammermoor, required a performer to be preset on stage (as a corpse) about 20 minutes before the performance began. I was quite surprised that she wasn't handed empty glasses, although they did leave them on her shroud. There is an implicit assumption that anyone not wearing black tie was therefore a servant, and could be instructed to do anything.

Opera in a downpour, even if you are nominally undercover, is not pleasant, we had water running over the piano, through the lights, and of course, though we didn't care too much, over the audience.

This year was much less pleasant, when the temperature outside is around 30 degrees, erecting a set and rigging lights in a greenhouse is guaranteed sauna territory. This year we had the added joyful contribution of an oversexed and confused peacock, oh, forgive me gentle reader; His Grace, The Duke of Northumberland, in his never ending pursuit of the tourist dollar, has equipped his grounds with peacocks.
In the interest of aesthetics, however, he has six cocks and one hen, at this time of year the boys are fully dressed to party, and in consequence there is more testosterone in the air than in a public school changing room.

Our peacock, and it was just the one special needs bird, developed a fascination with the highly polished legs of the piano, and stood for hours, pecking at its reflection.

Nature note; peacocks are related to pheasants, but are, if possible, more stupid. Having finally wedged an idea into their tiny brains, it would seem to be impossible to remove it.

Thing was, peacocks don't really fit in with opera performances, they take up too much room, but if we shooed it out it would pop back in through a window somewhere to have another go at its black shiny three legged rival. Eventually, it thoroughly lost it, and attacked the piano, dropkicking it spectacularly, with the result that somehow, it cut its foot, and then bled everywhere (not nice when you have posh costumes). This was the point where we had to cover the piano legs, not with some victorian anti-eroticicism, but with sheets from the security guards copy of The Sun, a paradox I guess.

For the show the only solution I could come up with was to tape a makeup mirror to a window, fortunately, for one night only, it spent four hours pecking at its reflection, and bleeding all over a bench.

Next day was even hotter, the set was bigger and heavier, and not designed for uneven flagstoned floors, and this time, our friend the peacock was on a special mission. The lovely gardeners at Syon had made an enclosure of overturned tables for the piano, so the little swine had been deprived of quality staring and pecking time for hours before we got there. Unfortunately, when we tried the makeup mirror routine again, he went berserk and tried to smash the window. Standing inside and watching a creature the size of a turkey drop kicking a window is unusual, to say the least.

During the first act I borrowed a tray from the caterers, and put it in a bush strategically at peacock eye level, this was not a huge success, as the performance was punctuated with clangs, and peacock screams.

Ultimately, as it gets dark, peacocks go to bed, and thankfully, this one was no exception, although it did make a final contribution to the opera, when Papageno was seeking out Papagena (it was Flute on the second night, Onegin on the first), that moment of pathos when he has called and heard no response for the third time, he got a response from the bird alright, bang on cue.

Curious the detritus you find after a gig; in one corner we found a small pile of pills and a hearing aid, I can offer no explanation, although, by the look of some of our audience, they were lucky to make it through the performance.

Today was much more civilised, I spent the morning in a Jesuit archive in Mayfair, photographing a 16th century manuscript for The Northern Professor. Although it is a fairly modern building (I mean Victorian/Edwardian), the christian brothers have created a feeling of something much older, there are iron bars, there is evidence of water penetration, such fun. The archivist was a solid american cleric, of what I'm informed is the old school, very easy to get on with, although I was kept waiting for twenty minutes after our appointed time. I suspect this might have been a 'know your place' ruse, as in a similar spirit, I was five minutes early. Still this gave me an opportunity to read about football and faith in Africa, so it wasn't all bad, good to see that the concept of muscular christianity hasn't entirely faded away.

posted by Lampy @ 6/24/2005 07:57:00 pm