Hansel & Gretel – Engelbert Humperdinck
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Theatre Royal, Glasgow – 4 February 2012, Scottish Opera

Just a dozen or so years before Engelbert Humperdinck wrote his most famous opera, the world was tasting saccharine for the first time. The great danger with Hansel and Gretel is that it will taste much the same. Bill Bankes-Jones’s production of Hansel and Gretel for Scottish Opera managed to find enough that is dark and sinister to ensure that we were not overwhelmed by sweetness but still managed to produce an evening where the sheer beauty of the music leads the production from beginning to end.

Things began promisingly. The overture was played in its entirety with the curtain down and no business going on on-stage. There was no scene setting. No drama. Nothing at all. Well, nothing except the house lights being dimmed but not extinguished, whilst a blue curtain glimmered in front of us. The effect was simple but glorious and took us straight into dreamtime.
When the curtain did eventually rise, we found Hansel and Gretel at home in a rather strange log cabin with great soaring pillars made from planks of wood rising far out of sight.

Kai Rüütel and Ailish Tynan made a fine pair as the title characters. They worked very well as brother and sister, sharing one another’s strengths (and also, curiously, having similar weaknesses). Ultimately their parts are essentially all about duet work and it was possible to feel an immediate bond between their voices. Each had a warm resonance that was perfect for the exquisite beauty of the score. However, together with Shuna Scott Sendall’s Gertrude they each struggled a little in the diction department and occasionally one was thankful for the surtitles, even though the piece was being sung in English. Ms Rüütel and Ms Tynan’s larked about the stage for a bit and seemed every bit the naughty children they were supposed to be.

Note to all theatre directors – knitting on stage can’t be faked. Either one can or one can’t. If one can, one can spot a mile off one who can’t.

It was not until Paul Carey Jones appeared as the children’s drunken father that anyone really owned the stage. His voice was full of personality – lively, sparky and filling the theatre with no-nonsense power. He was a joy to listen to and his appearance seemed to give the whole production a confidence that one had suspected might otherwise be lacking.
Down in the pit, the orchestra seemed to be enjoying Emmanuel Joel-Hornak’s conducting. There was certainly none of the petulance and tuning problems that were on show just a couple of week’s ago at Prokofiev’s Betrothal in a Monastery. Somehow Joel-Hornak managed to produce one sublime moment after another. One might question the wisdom of some of the dynamic markings. The singers would have stood a better chance had things been kept down a notch, particularly during the first two acts. Notwithstanding this, the overall impression was of resplendent elegance and I’ve not enjoyed hearing Scottish Opera’s orchestra as much for quite a while.

Once Hansel and Gretel had been packed off to the wood, the truly sinister aspects of the production started to become evident. The tall soaring columns that had formed the basis of their cabin in the woods now of course became soaring tree trunks. The were vast, rock-solid structures soaring high out of sight beyond the proscenium arch. All the more shocking then when they began, oh so very slightly, to move. Gradually one realised that all the trees were moving. That this began almost imperceptively made it all the more effective. At first one wanted to nudge one’s companion and ask whether they’d seen the tree move too. Soon it became apparent that not only were the trees moving but they were hemming in the children. Altogether creepy, one was left feeling a shiver running up and down one’s expectations.

Soon the Sandman (Miranda Sinani) had appeared and was encouraging the children to sleep and their big number, the Evening Prayer was soon upon us. The siblings did us proud, their voices shimmering heavenwards and being rewarded eventually by a bunch of fourteen rather striking angels who came to watch over them whilst they slept.

After the interval, Marie Claire Breen’s Dewman was waking up the bairns with a sprinkling of glitter and an impressive clear voice that one would swap one’s alarm clock for any day. Ms Breen and Ms Sinani made one wish afresh that Humperdinck had given these characters more to do. The first appears and puts the children to sleep and the second appears and wakes them up and that’s your lot.

Soon we were off to the gingerbread house and meeting the Witch, Leah-Marian Jones for the first time. Here again, the director managed to bring out the darkness of the piece by presenting us with a sugar-coated villain. Ms Jones looked for all the world like a cross between the Sugar Plum Fairy and Miss Truly Scrumptious. It was not hard to see why children would have been attracted to her and when her wicked ways became evident it was all the more shocking.
Ms Jones made the most of all that was asked of her. Her voice was full of surprising spells and wonderful charms. She was a big character and her evil was all too believable. When finally dispatched into the gingerbread oven, her then amplified voice rocked the theatre with its chilling death screams.

All ends well, of course. All ends very sweetly. Indeed, sweets litter the stage. All ends so sweetly in fact that we have to have a chorus of children saved from the witch’s clutches. One can’t help thinking that the Pied Piper is the better story.
Still, the children on the stage were obviously enjoying themselves and their contribution ended what had been a lovely evening. The music is delicious from beginning to end; the best of the singing luscious and the set striking and very clever.
This is so obviously an enjoyable show that it is surprising that Scottish Opera are only performing it on seven dates and these divided between Glasgow and Edinburgh only.

Aberdeen and Inverness must go hungry.

I listened to the news at 7 am – you always need to listen to the headlines when doing these things in case Something Has Happened. If Something Has Happened you know that things are going to change and that it is an exciting morning. Today I realised during the news that Something Had Indeed Happened but happened 60 years ago. Sixty years ago today HM became the Q and I’d forgotten to mention her in the script. That was easily sorted and we managed to slip in a petition for the people of Syria too.

All gathered in Wellington Church (where such services are done in Glasgow) we then had a full run through. You run through the whole service about an hour ahead to check for timings. Then whilst the choir have a cup of tea you agonise about which sentences need changing or cutting in order to hit the time slot right when you do it live. This service usually preceeds the pips, which can’t be shifted. As it happens, today we were in the middle of the cricket (and no doubt annoying the cricket fans) and so the pips were put aside.

Even though I’ve no doubt that I was the most hated man in Middle England when I interrupted the commentary, it was nice to get a direct handover from the cricket team.

Indeed when someone was complaining on twitter about the service interrupting the game, I noticed the following tweet from @Aggerscricket – yes, the great Aggers himself:

would rather be listening to belting hymns than watching this slow torture!

That’s the spirit.

I only realised recently that the different bits of virtual St Mary’s are all more connected than I had formerly thought. Online prayer on a Saturday, the diaspora of St Mary’s folk scattered to the four corners of the world, the radio audiences, the website and blog readers, the video sermon watchers, the email newsletter receivers and (soon to come) Friends of St Mary’s are all part of the way that the congregation has an identity that is not directly about being physically present in the building.

Today’s Daily Service was part of that, and you can listen to it online for the next six days at this link.

0945 on Radio 4.

Long wave only, so fire up your steam powered radios.

Part of the problem that we have over things like this is that we often pray in the church as though the choice ultimately is made by God. It isn’t though. If it were that easy, we would just look for the person who can be judged to be most obviously prompted and called by the Holy Spirit and dismiss the rest. It isn’t like that. Everyone who makes it to this stage of an Episcopal election feels called to put themselves forward. Everyone has gifts and talents and skills that the church would affirm as God given. Every candidate feels the urgings and prompting of the Holy Spirit. That’s why it can be such a bruising business.

The truth is, the electors of the diocese have the primary responsiblity for making a choice. They get to choose the person that they will call in God’s name, to take up the post. I don’t believe that their task is simply to select the person that God has already thought of. God isn’t in the business of letting us off making tricky choices. The task of selection falls to the electors not the holy dove.

So, prayers and blessings upon them as they meet today. For the electors and the candidates. Also for those who have previously indicated an interest in the post but who have not made it to this stage.

They all meet again next week to choose, if they can, a new Bishop of Edinburgh.

It was just before I started videoing sermons, but I did have an audio copy.

You can find the text here and listen to the the audio here.

I’m not sure that the church has moved on a great deal in the time since then though there are far more people saying the kind of things that I was saying then.

There was a great opening speech from Rae Cahill of the Scottish Youth Parliament. Then, very much enjoyed hearing Rabbi Mark Solomon of the Edinburgh Liberal Jewish Community. Great and very moving speeches also from a couple who are caught in the bind of being required to divorce before one of them can legally be recognised in a changed gender, even though they wish to remain married.

Half time entertainment from the Edinburgh Gay Men’s Chorus and then it was on to some rousing stuff from MSPs from all the Scottish Political parties.

The clear message was that this isn’t an issue of party politics, it is an issue of consensus politics. Scotland has moved to a point where a majority of people believe that the law needs to be changed to allow gay couples to wed on the same basis as straight couples.

That majority runs through the membership of political parties and is apparent in the membership of Scotland’s main churches. It is an idea whose time has come and last night’s reception was a hugely encouraging step along the journey to equality.

Was great to meet up with MSPs, congregation members, fellow bloggers (including Caron Lindsay – yay!) and all manner of people of goodwill from all over Scotland. The place was packed out and people were in high spirits. One of those events when you can smell that change is on it’s way.

Huge respect to the Equality Network for bringing it all off and getting the press release together showing that all the opposition party leaders in the Parliament are now on board. (The SNP can’t comment as the Executive is still in a consultation process, though Alex Salmond’s support is on record too).

I do like being in a congregation where you can speak from the pulpit about exorcising the demons of the Bible and commanding them to be quiet, as Jesus did with demons. In some places, if you preached a sermon like this one, the Jenny Geddes’s of this world would be sharpening up their stools.

I did enjoy preaching this one. I did keep them hanging on to the end for a laugh, but it was worth waiting for.

Fifteen or so years ago, I was in training to become a priest. Now, there was much that was poor about my training and much that I disliked. It was one of the least creative times in my life and quite certainly, I think, the most unhappy period of time I’ve ever known.

However, sometimes I have to remind myself that there were some good things that happened to me during that time. There were new experiences that I had. There were new things that I learned. The fact that it was largely despite rather than because of those attempting to form me as a priest is something that I’ll probably never let go of. However, even then, some things that they asked me to do were good.

The best of these for me were always the pastoral placements. Off you went to this church or that church, to this priest or that priest to gain experience of being with God’s people.

I loved it. Whenever I was out of the training institution and out on placement I thrived. I loved being with people and then as now, people in all their diversity fascinated. Their endlessly diverse experiences of God were compelling and that diversity in the way that people experience the divine remains one of the key things that keeps me beguiled by the holy and held in the hand of God myself.

I want to remember my second placement this morning. I had successfully completed a congregational placement. Now it was time to be sent to something different.

They thought about sending me to a prison. But that didn’t work out. Then it was going to be a hospice, but they didn’t have vacancies for students then. So, almost by default, my placement was found for me. I was sent to the Royal Edinburgh Hospital – the local psychiatric hospital.

And this morning, I want to reflect a little on some of the things that I’ve learned since then about mental health, mental illness and mental wellbeing, in the light of the gospel that we have just read together.

You see, I find the gospel that we’ve just heard really quite difficult to read aloud in church.

It comes right at the beginning of Mark’s gospel and it presumes a world in which, most of the time, I don’t think I inhabit. The presumption that Mark makes is that everyone reading his words will quite uncritically accept that there was this man who was possessed of a demon and that Jesus had a verbal tussle with the demon who eventually left the man. And then all was well. And Jesus became famous not for being Godly, not for being kind, not for feeding the hungry or preaching wise words (as Matthew puts near the beginning of his gospel). No – Jesus becomes famous, Mark implies, for being the person who could deal with demons.

Now, I rationalise this kind of language. You’ve heard me do it often no doubt. I believe that we have to think about the demons that are in us collectively in society – racism, bigotry, homophobia and all the presumptions that make us think us more worthy of grace, favour or love than someone else are all demons that rightly need to be exorcised.

And I don’t find it difficult to read these stories as a parable of what needs to be cast out of the church or a blueprint for what needs to be exorcised from society.

But that is perhaps to give into the temptation to avoid looking at the more difficult questions that this gospel reading raises.

How is to be read along with those for whom it seems very real. For whom it seems as though they are possessed by something malevolent that will not let them go?

I have no simple answer. Indeed, I have more questions than answers sometimes.

I remember the person who said to me from a wheelchair that the bible is not always a good book for disabled people to read.

There are presumptions in it that are not healthy – that physical or mental disability is caused by sin to start with, that mental disturbance is all about unclean spirits to be going on with and that in a spiritual battle between good and evil there is a risk of evil winning.

I’ve come to the conclusion that those presumptions are some of the demons that lurk in the pages of the bible.

Those things after all, are not true.

And we won’t be safe and whole as a diverse people of God until and unless we name those demons and demand, like Jesus that they are silenced.

But there I go reading the gospel as though it is an allegory again.

What about the folk I met when I was on placement in Edinburgh those years ago.

What did they teach me about wellbeing and health?

Well, they taught me that sometimes people need medical intervention. They taught me that sometimes people need a place of safety. They taught me that very many people in life get to stages where they cannot cope with who they are and how they perceive the world. And they taught me that modern medicine has things to offer. Modern counselling has things to offer and modern drug therapies have things to offer.

They also taught me one of the few lessons about priesthood that has stayed with me through my ministry which is that one of the key tasks of the priest. It is to be able to go to places where one might normally be frightened and in the name of God put aside that fear for the task of saying to people “You are already loved”.

When I am with people at times of grief, I know it is my task to say “you are already loved.” When I am with people who are struggling with who they are or where they find themselves, I know it is my task to communicate somehow or another the words, “you are already loved”. When I am with people who feel rejected, or hated, or lonely, or sad, or bewildered, or confused, or angry, or misunderstood, that is what I have to offer.

“You are already loved”.

When I was on that placement in Edinburgh all those years ago, I was put into a group with a bunch of people who were finding it hard to hold on to the same sense of reality that most people have. Their perceptions were odd. Disordered some would say.

We’ve learned to be wary of labelling people as mad. Or at least I hope we have.

But one young man in that group used to call what was up with him craziness. It’s just my craziness, he would say. Whatever way he was seeing the world – and some of the ways he saw the world were quite unique to him – it’s just my craziness, he would say.

After 12 weeks working with the chaplaincy in that hospital, I had to say goodbye to the group.

Why are you leaving us, he asked?

I told him I was wanting to be a priest and tried to tell him why I had been there. I tried to communicate that reality – that he and they all were already loved.

He said, What? I heard you talk about wanting to be a priest weeks ago but took no notice. I thought that was what was wrong with you. So you are actually going to be a priest? I thought that was just your craziness speaking.

It still is.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

Prokofiev’s Betrothal in a Monastery is seldom staged in this country. This production by Scottish Opera in collaboration with the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland worked reasonably well as a showcase for the singing talents of those on stage. However, no persuasive case was made for the piece itself and the staging was sloppy and careless from the outset.

One of the oddest things about this opera is its title. Though several couples do indeed end up wedding one another in a monastery, the monastery itself plays no part in the plot other than as a setting for a bunch of monks to carouse and throw pillows at one another. The actual plot itself is merely a case of one or two mistaken romantic identities.

The curious thing about this opera is how busy it feels. No one dies, no one falls in love, no one cross-dresses and despite the presence of considerable numbers of people on stage in religious orders, no-one gets their head chopped off. Yet, though little really happens, one is somehow left confused by the goings on. There are perhaps too many characters. Prokofiev’s librettist apparently did not know when to stop.

It was obvious from the beginning that Rodula Gaitanou the director was struggling to make any sense of the plot. We were greeted at first with the outside wall of a building with signs pointing in one direction towards the monastery and in the other to a convent. It looked like a very convincing entrance to an Italian public toilet. This facade then rose to reveal what was inside.

Now, one might expect to find a monastery inside a monastery wall but no, that would be too simple. Inside this monastery wall was a fish restaurant and a large cast partaking of fish whilst the two protagonists, fish merchant Mendoza and his friend Don Jerome made the bargain on which the plot, such as it is, turns.

However, even before this grand reveal, all was not well. On entering the theatre it was possible to see from the dress circle, members of the cast on the far side of the wall and even if they had not been visible their bobbing shadows were easily seen on the left hand side wall. This was the first example of poor lighting design which was to dog the whole show. Shadows kept appearing and light kept on being reflected, from those not yet on the stage.

However, no-one goes to the opera to see the lighting design. So what about the singing?

Here we were on slightly surer ground.

Andrew Tipple’s Mendoza and Rónan Busfield’s Jerome sang the opening movements very well. The trouble is, this section is a lengthy paean to fish and fishing, and neither the music nor the words take us very far into the plot for a very long time.

Things did hot up considerably when we met Kim-Lillian Strebel’s Lousia and her paramour, Emanoel Velozo’s Don Antonio. Miss Strebel’s voice was articulate, confident and clear as a bell. Meanwhile, Velozo’s tenor was pure and promising. The several repeated duets that they have had a staggering and unexpected beauty. By the end of the evening, Velozo had seemed to have lost some of his earlier shine, making one wonder whether he needed to work a good deal more on his stamina.

The other young couple also had much to offer. Anush Hovhannisyan had seemed to have an ordinary, workaday kind of voice as Clara until the moment when she was called upon to masquerade as a nun. In that moment, she seemed utterly transformed. The suddenly sublime tone that she found was unexpected but not unwelcome and apparently heaven sent.

Miss Hovhannisyan was playing opposite Mikhail Pavlov’s fantastic Don Fernando. Pavlov had the most striking voice of the evening. He was rich, polished, plenteous and an utter joy to listen to.

Amongst the other singing parts (23 are listed in the programme as having singing credits) the one most in need of singling out was Andrew McTaggart’s Don Carlos. It would have been good to hear more of him and hard not to think we won’t in the future.

Down in the pit, all was not well. The orchestra of Scottish Opera were joined by 20 or so of the Royal Scottish Conservatoire’s musicians. Together they seemed intent on proving that they could play either quietly or in tune but never both at the same time.

Notwithstanding the problems coming from below, there is a lot of time to fill when no-one is singing. Back up on stage, a company of punks had been introduced to proceedings. It is hard to know why the punks were there or indeed to know whether the reason the whole production had been thrust into the early 1980’s was simply to include a bunch of punks. However, for whatever reason, we had punks aplenty. Their offering was a series of choreographed poses and dance movements which, though at first seeming affected and jarring, did eventually draw one in and which did seemed to offer something compelling and interesting. Kally Lloyd-Jones’s choreography is to be congratulated.

By far the most impressive part of this production was the final ten minutes. Prokofiev’s inspired request that Don Jerome accompany his singing by playing a complex accompaniment on musically tuned glasses caused the audience collectively to lean forward, stare and open their mouths as one, in astonishment. This was closely followed by a dramatic final chorus – the stage almost overflowing with the full cast singing and striking dramatic poses in the manner of Adam Ant and Diana Dors in the Prince Charming video of blessed memory. It was a glorious end to a production which, notwithstanding some fine singing, had been troubled from the beginning. It is probably better to save the best until last. However, it had been a long and uneven journey to get to the place where we eventually arrived.

Scottish Opera’s collaborations with the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland are an interesting and compelling idea, exposing the Conservatoire’s students to the pressures and rigours of a professional production. Though in this case, the whole was less than the sum of its parts it is to be hoped that these collaborations continue long into the future.

You can watch it here: