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The best laid plans....


I had it all planned.
Tonight would have been the 31st opening night of my Opera Holland Park career. And my last, too. I retire from the company on the 30th September this year and I had intended to use the ten weeks of music-making and the conviviality for which the venue is famed as a backdrop to say an awful lot of farewells. Those after show drinks, served in coup, flute and miniature and usually filled with a concoction of James Clutton's invention will be no more. Anxious looks at the weather forecast are gone too (not a loss) but most of all, I have been shorn of the chance to celebrate with all the team after each – always different – adrenalin filled night of wonderment; committed professionals who, like the singers who come off the stage, are crackling with the release of the night's pressures, having made a contribution to the enrichment of a thousand people. After all, that is the particular elixir we crave and it is why we do it.

I'm not dwelling too much on the reasons for it; my last few months have been spent focusing on that and it has been exhausting worrying about – and trying to ensure - the future of the company. We have been, I am pleased to say, successful and today we also announce our plans for the future. I say 'our', but it is more 'theirs' now and I take some comfort in knowing it is in a good place. This is not the place for a post-mortem on Covid-19. Suffice to say I just look ahead and know it will be normal again. Somehow.

The journey I have taken is one I have written about before. OHP was entirely connected to every aspect of my life's journey – it was indeed a life's work. Marriages, divorces, children, and tragedy.

So much tragedy. These were events, both personal and company, whose grief and exquisite pain became expressed and entwined - every time - with our work.

Grenfell wove itself into our company history in the most unwelcome of ways, but we nevertheless rose to our greatest heights both in dealing with it, and in our support of the community through our art. It imposed upon us a duty, too, and it is one the company and I will continue to fulfil. Debbie Lamprell is a name we all carry in our hearts now and her mother is within our protective embrace.

I intend to continue working but I wonder if I will ever find myself in a role that is so all consuming? OHP is a musical enterprise, but it was an 'event' too. The whole experience requires design and detail, creating the crucible for the work to weave its spell. I have said it before, but this industry requires the inversion of your soul – you'd better learn that if you want to make your career in it.

I have, of course, made countless friends among the talented and vivacious opera community – the people who bring it all to life. Working with and among talent – singers, musicians designers, directors and craftspeople – is a reward without end. The depths of connection in a world of creativity are often mocked and ridiculed as artsy affectation -and it can be, of course – but often it is too difficult to explain the unspoken bond, the mood that can overwhelm. My friendships are not reserved for the artists; the patrons will be missed. These are people who 25 years or so ago listened to the ideas I had and believed in them. Many of them are still here, right by the company's side. They have also shared this journey and it has never, ever become something we take for granted. I still stand before them at events and find myself bewildered and humbled that they took those chances on us. Truth be told, they are the ones who built Opera Holland Park once we'd laid the foundations.

Before the year is out I will thank and praise everybody who has anything to do with OHP. My time is not quite done here, but I will be off to stomp in grass of another colour. I want it that way, it is time.  I wanted that final season, though. I wanted to see it with retrospective eyes, to gaze back on our achievements in the midst of new ones and tell myself that, yes, the gobby, truculent street kid had been, occasionally, noisy at the right times. 

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