A Singer’s Life Pt9
“Good morning, and welcome onboard our flight today to… er, where are we going again, Jim?.. er, let’s have a look at the map...oh, yes, Belfast! Well, it’s quite a short flight, I think...er, where are we leaving from again, Jim? Yes, Glasgow, oh yes, just a hop and a skip, it’s hardly worthwhile flying frankly”.
This was the announcement that greeted us when, back in the 80s, the whole of Scottish Opera flew to Belfast for a week’s tour. The banter and repartee continued during the flight, hugely amusing to those who don’t mind flying, but absolutely terrifying for the faint-hearted fliers! It was a fascinating trip, but the slightly uncomfortable feelings aroused by this flight multiplied on arrival. This was during the notorious “troubles” in Northern Ireland at the time, and finding that our hotel, conveniently situated next to the theatre and the wonderful old pub, the Crown, was also the most bombed hotel in Europe was rather disconcerting. It was a modern (for the time) hotel which would have been glamorous in a different setting, but looked foreboding to us.
I was singing the Speaker in the Magic Flute, in a wonderful production by Jonathan Miller, set in a sort of Egyptian library with strong Masonic influences (Mozart was famously a mason), and, in the run up to the first night in Glasgow, had witnessed one of my funniest moments in the theatre. The Queen of the Night (one of the most difficult roles in all opera) had taken ill and a replacement had been flown in from America. We were performing in an English translation, so the small number of available singers was reduced further by the necessity of finding one fluent in English. We were introduced to this lady, a diminutive but feisty gal, and she sang through the two notoriously hard arias very well, and we settled down to start the stage rehearsals. At this point, the director asked her how she was doing memorising the spoken dialogue which Mozart used rather than musical recitatives to move the plot on. She looked up and said: “Dialogue? I don’t do dialogue” in her idiomatic East Coast twang. Directorial confusion ensued. “But, but, there has to be dialogue. It’s part of the opera.” However, she was insistent that she could not both sing and speak in the same evening, as it would ruin her singing voice! Impasse! Finally, after some high-level intervention, it was agreed that she would speak, but only in a breathy sing-song voice – somewhat at odds with the role as a fierce evil figure. She was also extremely uncomfortable with memorising the words, such that, in one of the final rehearsals, she came out with memorable (at least to us) line: “You must take this dagger, Pamina, and kill ….oh (expletive deleted) what’s his name? Sarastro!” How she had managed to sing this part in America without speaking was a mystery to all of us, but it has provided many hours of amusement to me and my friends over the years. She could sing the notes though.
By a happy coincidence, the aforementioned Sarastro was sung by a compatriot of this lady, a huge fellow with a really deep voice and a big personality. This was mostly advantageous, especially in the Crown Bar in Belfast, although slightly less so one day when four of us decided to visit the famous Giant’s Causeway to the north of Belfast. Belfast was still a sort of war zone then, with British armoured cars at many street corners and a strong military presence obvious to everyone. They were there, primarily it seemed, to keep the two warring elements of Northern Irish society apart but the atmosphere was quite tense. We decided to hire a car and drove north through the Protestant section to the coast. The Giant’s Causeway is a magnificent area of interlocking basalt columns, built in legend by the giant Finn MacCool to allow him to fight the Scottish giant Benandonner, who lived across the water on Staffa, in what has become known as Fingal’s Cave, where a similar geological phenomenon can be seen. It is a magnificent place, now a World Heritage Site and we had a lovely day for our visit. On our return, we decided to drive back into Belfast by the Falls Road, in the Catholic area of the city, and the sight of four very big men, including our Sarastro, in a small hired car, invited rather more attention both from the residents and the patrolling British army than we either wanted or anticipated. Needless to say, we were very grateful to find ourselves back in the relative haven of the most bombed hotel in Europe, and slipped over to the Crown for some medicinal Guinness.
Once back in Scotland, we took our American Sarastro to play golf at my parents-in-law’s Golf Club in Helensburgh where his larger than life personality simultaneously annoyed the male members of this genteel club with his loudness and delighted the female members, who loved his old fashioned politeness and courtesy.
Another interesting flight occurred around the same time, when I flew to Warsaw in Poland for a concert with the Scottish Early Music Consort. We were entertaining the unsuspecting Polish public with some mediaeval music and enjoyed our brief stay in the Iron Curtain Communist capital city. The first reforms were beginning to appear, and we felt less restricted than I had been on a previous visit in 1979, but there was still quite a black market, and clandestine currency exchange was rife. The official rate to the pound was high and nobody wanted to pay the full whack, so everywhere one went, slightly dodgy characters would come up saying “Change money, change money?” and would whisk you off to shady corners and money would change hands. We had been told unofficially that this was quite safe, and that the local police were somehow involved in the exchange, but it still seemed a bit difficult and strange. Anyway, books and music scores, which were already reasonably priced, became super cheap, so we bought a lot. It was fascinating watching a country coming out of a strict totalitarian regime, while still remaining a police state.
When we got to the airport for our flight back to Glasgow, it was a very cold and icy morning. Our flight was delayed while they de-iced the wings etc, but eventually we took off, saying Goodbye to Warsaw. Ten minutes in, I observed to my colleague beside me that we appeared to be descending rather than ascending, and she was of the same opinion. Silence from the flight deck and the crew… We descended a bit more, and then appeared to be going in the wrong direction. At this point, an announcement came over the intercom saying:” Ladies and Gentlemen, for technical reasons, we are returning to Warsaw Airport. There is no need to be alarmed.” I became slightly more alarmed as a) I remembered that Lot Polish Airlines didn’t have a fantastic safety record and b) we made an attempted landing that was aborted at the last minute, passing, next to the runway, several fire trucks and safety personnel looking worried. As we took off again, the announcements became non-existent, and mortality reared its ugly head. We descended again in intercom silence, and eventually landed and taxied to the Terminal, where we disembarked. Nothing was said. We were given a lukewarm coffee and finally were told that the aircraft had iced up but had now been de-iced and was ready for departure. This news did not fill us with huge confidence, as this was exactly the procedure which had preceded our first departure. Anyway, with much trepidation and grumbling, we boarded again the same plane that had just had to make an emergency landing! We waved goodbye to Warsaw again, and miraculously arrived back in Glasgow in need of some whisky!
A couple of years later, I was back in Warsaw with the Scottish Theatre Company in a production of the marvellous mid-16th Century play “Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaites” written by Sir David Lyndsay of the Mount. This is one of the marvels of late Mediaeval Scotland and had been famously resurrected in the 1948 Edinburgh Festival by Robert Kemp in a revolutionary “In the Round” production by Tyrone Guthrie with music by Cedric Thorpe Davie, Professor of Music at St Andrews University (indeed my wife’s professor). The play featured many of Scotland’s greatest actors and had several roles that necessitated casting with singers. I played Fund Jennet, a porter and lackey to Dame Sensualitie, whose scruffy attire displayed rather too much of his Fundament (hence the name) to the audience. His main purpose was to provide a bass voice to the lovely music sung by the Dame and her handmaidens. It was an enormous privilege to appear onstage with some of the legends of Scottish theatre in a staging by Tom Fleming, names like Paul Young, Edith Macarthur, Kenny Ireland, Walter Carr, Jimmy Chisholm and Russell Hunter. Daddy of them all was the marvellous Andrew Cruickshank, Doctor Cameron from Dr Finlay’s Casebook, who by this time was 78 and slowing down. He had been a famous Shakespearian actor in his prime and had about him a sense of greatness that age could not sully. He was playing the Abbot among the Lords Spiritual and, for long swathes of the work, slumbered peacefully on the great set largely unnoticed. He did have two grand speeches, the first of which was during a fairly wordy section of the play. The colleague beside him was primed to wake him about 5 minutes before his speech, and it was miraculous to watch this great actor get himself together, and from being basically comatose, to erupt into high energy with a cry of “My Lords, I cry ye Heresy!” A living legend. Sadly, he died two years after this trip at the age of 80. I was lucky to meet him.
After the show, we all repaired to the hotel where the bar was well served by this astonishing assemblage of Scottish theatrical talent. A few drinks later, we all launched into a spirited rendition of the Corries’ anthem “Flower of Scotland”. Our singing backed up by myself, Bill McCue, Rosanne Brackenridge and Eliza Langland, was so powerful that the hotel management came rushing up to us to calm down, as they feared a revolution was underway, and the police were liable to arrive. A surreal moment!
Our return flight was less frightening than my previous experience, although we were confused by being told we were flying back to Glasgow rather than Prestwick. As all arrangements had been made to meet us at Prestwick, we were somewhat put out, only to discover that the Poles had no sign that said Prestwick, so assumed that Glasgow would do. Words were exchanged and at length, Glasgow/Prestwick became our destination, and all was well.
