MY VERSION OF EVENTS....

I have news: the audience will decide the future of opera. When our season at Opera Holland Park comes to an end, I pore over spreadsheets trying to find reasons why our audience have behaved in the way that they have, and the most concentrated analysis tends to come after seasons during which our house has been full. The theory is this; if we have underperformed, we are programmed to find solutions, but if we have performed well, we are less likely to look for the gremlins that might lose us that ever-capricious audience in a trice – you are never more vulnerable than when you are successful.  Sometimes, though, one can miss the obvious, or perhaps ignore it. In nearly three decades in opera, I have experienced one "boom" in the art form but an almost perpetual "crisis" of confidence, an alarmed perma-reflection on whether we remain relevant as an art form. This introspective brew is spiced by the occasional real crisis, like that recently at ENO, but we never real...

I'm not fully subscribed to the notion that opera has an age problem, inasmuch as I don't find loyal audiences in the autumn of their lives to be problematic. It isn't rocket science to understand that any obsession with new audiences puts you at risk of marginalising the one you have, and in the process of trying to shape it to suit, the very authenticity of the art form you wish to convert new followers to. In opera, our focus is on young people and the New Generation. At this point, to save me wasting time on it, you may go off and Google the myriad reports, studies and initiatives that attempt to address the matter. In essence, Opera Holland Park has accommodated the desire we share with our peers to develop new youthful converts by giving away thousands of free tickets to young people, with work in schools and by providing a family show each summer but until the classical arts become ingrained as a compulsory subject in our primary and secondary schools, the paradig...

In the past couple of weeks the issue of privilege and the Oxbridge divide has been prominent on social media. The argument has essentially been that Oxbridge caters most to the privileged and monied, and further, excludes black students in particular. David Lammy extracted some data from Oxford which he believes shows Oxford is not doing well enough with respect to offering access to bright black and underprivileged students. I am not sure if he is suggesting Oxford is institutionally racist but the inference that Oxford actively excludes black and disadvantaged students is easy to draw from his comments on the matter. The statistics are quite complex and to me don't actually suggest Oxford is doing too badly, but this thread of tweets addresses the specifics very well; https://twitter.com/dr_jsa/status/921140080810569728 To be frank, I am not entirely sure where to start with this discussion because those progressing the arguments against elite universities appear to mi...

The long awaited - and even longer overdue - documentary about the British band XTC felt to many of us who have considered them the best ever group to emerge from these shores, like a simultaneous roar of approval and a shocking great slap in the face, a sharp reminder of what we have lost now that they no longer record together. Apple Venus Vol.1 and Wasp Star (Apple Venus Vol. 2) were released in 1999 and 2000 respectively and together represented the almost perfect distillation of British popular music. I hesitate to just call it "pop" although there are almost unequalled examples of it on both these albums and right through the XTC canon. Andy Partridge's lavishly inventive songwriting, lyrical brilliance and at times almost extra-terrestrial knack for a breathtaking melody or crushingly beautiful harmony seemed to improve and grow throughout the band's 14 album career. It came to a mighty zenith on those final two records.  Followers of XTC were often torn betwee...

As a man, it is wise to tread carefully when involved in debates about gender equality, especially when you are possibly considered part of the problem in the first place. I recently read a piece by Sophie Gilpin ( https://auditionoracle.com/we_need_to_talk_about_women/ ) of Head First Productions in which she charts the number of women heading up small-scale opera companies and then compares it to a list of larger scale opera companies. The difference is stark and only the trenchantly misogynistic or very stupid would dispute the significance of the obvious lack of women at the top of our mid to large scale opera companies. Is it entirely coincidental? As so often happens, reading pieces like Sophie's gives one pause for thought and encourages you to look more closely at your organisation to see how you measure up in the context of the argument. Her piece was about the people leading companies and naturally, since she rightly points out that James and I are both men, there can be...

I'm prepared to accept that I am anti-social. I don't much like people around me, close to me, and certainly not in significant numbers. By significant, I mean greater than five. This may strike you as odd if you have seen me at OHP surrounded by patrons, fulsomely socialising, but please be assured, as the saying goes, I'm drowning, not waving. But it's work. It's habitual and it's just what I do, an act I have perfected over decades and there is a kind if silent terror bubbling away beneath, even when I'm telling everybody to piss-off. It's a terror - or perhaps a profound discomfort - that rises in crowds and situations you might find normal.  I furiously ask myself 'what the bloody hell are these people doing HERE?'. So it is with something akin to frantic haste that I retire to sunnier climates once the season is done, to find some peace, tranquility and a calm space into which I breathe a desperate sigh of relief. This year, one w...

Where do you feel at home? Is it the house in which you live? The city in which you live? The town in which you grew up? A country in which you spent your formative years? Where your friends are, or your work? Could it be a country that you have never lived in? And just what does 'feeling at home' mean anyway? I've been wrestling with this whole idea for at least two years; I had always kind of wondered about it, argued about it with friends and family, but in truth, I have never really felt fully at home in the UK, despite my upbringing there. It isn't a conscious, nationalist thing whereby I have a forced, manufactured connection to the country of my parents' birth (Italy) but is more a visceral, emotional sympathy with all things associated with the place. 'At home' is literally how I feel when I arrive there. In fact, the whole matter is becoming obsessive and I have even written a couple of chapters of a potential book. Right now I am in Sicily, an ...

Myself, Rob, Adam and Harry from the "Footy to Verdi' film will be joining 21 other singers from diverse backgrounds to lead the singing of Abide with Me at the Emirates FA Cup Final on 27th May. The choir has been put together by tenor Sean Ruane's  CHANT Productions on behalf of The FA Collective singing is something we have all done at one time or another in our lives: at school, church, weddings, funerals, during the national anthem and, of course, at football matches. Hymns have a special place in the hearts of any nation, perhaps because of religion or just national pride. How many of us name 'Jerusalem' as their school hymn? Indeed, so prevalent is that piece in our society, so all encompassing is it's role as the country's favourite,  I even know a Scottish church in London where it is permitted to be sung at weddings. Sport and singing are intertwined and have been for many years. Football and rugby fans know this better than most,  a...