MY VERSION OF EVENTS....

If the persistent talk of arts cuts has done anything, it has prompted a running discussion on what the arts and culture actually mean to this country.  It is hardly surprising that among professional politicians, the debate is generally split along party lines but even there, some have crossed the floor to argue that it is not as simple as slashing the budget for the arts and expecting the wider public to quietly acquiesce. The Culture Secretary and his shadow recently gave similar speeches expounding the value of the arts and education but each featured stereotyping, both laced their words with powerful economic threat. The problem is that whenever we discuss the finances of the arts budget and the consequent cuts, we are offered one dimensional either-or scenarios; "I would rather money was spent on saving lives" or, from the arts side, "we spend billions on Trident", and so the public is easily manipulated. Governments, of any colour, are given to extrem...

Why OHP decides to promote and work with a particular charity often comes down to personal experience and preference. Playlist for Life, our chosen charity this year (and one we hope to sustain a relationship with) has particular poignancy for several of us in the company. We have been working with dementia patients for quite a while, in care homes mainly, but we were struck by the principle of Playlist For Life because it provides for the period of time we are not there, performing to patients. Dementia is cruel. It robs sufferers of their memories but also their relationships, their personalities and in its more profound stages locks the sufferer into seemingly impenetrable worlds. This is why the work that Playlist for Life do is so important. The apparently simple task of compiling a playlist of music for a sufferer, based upon what family members know of their favourite music and putting it on a personal music device, has shown remarkable results. Sufferers have sparked into li...

World Gin Day couldn't be allowed to pass without our full engagement and so several fine varieties were judged according to age old techniques on Saturday. I cannot quite recall them all.  We are all rather too wedded to fine and delicious embellishments at OHP; James is always ready with a new cocktail or three and we are all looking forward to an evening of whisky tasting soon with our abiding principle being to ensure everybody takes a dram with their Britten. Tonight is all about the Christine Collins Young Artists, several of whom are stepping into the performance of Il barbiere di Siviglia .  It is an exciting evening for  Associate Conductor  Dane Lam,  Associate Director   Fiona Williams  ,  Chlo ë  Treharne,   Rosanne Havel,  Tom Asher,  René Bloice-Sanders  and  Ashley Mercer. They were all brilliant in the stage and orchestra rehearsal I saw recently and it will be lovely to see them performing for a ...

  A version of this (updated) article first appeared in The Culture Section of The Sunday Times 1/3/2014 In reflecting on the course of my own life, I frequently conclude that I was only ever a heartbeat from catastrophe and that by arriving here, in the arts, a miracle of both fate and imposture has occurred.  My childhood in Fulham, the youngest of four sons in a broke and broken Italian family, wasn't a recipe for success and one particular event suggested where my life could eventually end up, depending on what road was taken.  Returning to my estate one afternoon at the age of just ten years old,  a large noisy crowd had gathered between the flower beds and at the heart of this tumult, in what my memory recalls as a cloud of dust, perms and expletives was my mother, clawing, scratching and slapping furiously at another woman.  "I willa fucky killa you!" screamed my Mum.  "My son issa NOT inna fucky borstal!" The woman had made the mistake of suggesting...

So the gravel was fine, but I did get a bit arsey about some clippings that a gardener had forgotten to clear up after a bit of topiary work; un-raked gravel is one thing but gravel peppered with bright green yew is quite another. I coped - just - with that, as well as with the jolly gravel observations of several wags. I asked for that of course. The first night, as my previous blog suggested, is something to be endured rather than enjoyed. Everybody is naturally on (h)edge (bloody yew) but the show went well and the reaction was good so a glass or two of Edradour, Scotland's finest, were taken. Tonight, Fanciulla plays to the first full "normal" audience of the season and on a warmish Friday night, with Puccini's glorious music we should get the full magical effect of OHP in flight. Il barbiere di Siviglia had its dress rehearsal last night and enjoyed a really terrific reaction so hopes are high that the 9,000 odd patrons booked in to see it will have a whale of a ...

There always has to be a First Night of course, but the celebratory, hope-filled kind on which the theatrical industry has become so focused is particularly profound when it not only ushers in a first production, but an entire collected, carefully curated season, as ours does tonight at Opera Holland Park. All of the festivals in Britain will understand; we essentially vanish for nine months and pop up again. In our case, an entire theatre reappears, teased from the ground up, dressed, primped and hopefully improved each year. Having to recreate the space in which we work adds a dimension of anxiety that isn't there when one is opening a production in a "normal" theatre.  So when you visit us tonight - if you are lucky enough to have a ticket - you will be entering not only a world that Puccini created, interpreted and put together by James Clutton the producer, but you will be enjoying it in a place that didn't exist three months ago and over which countless people h...