Posted on: August 14, 2024 in: Opera Holland Park
One hundred and six productions over all twenty years – you could say I know a thing or two about Opera Holland Park.
It’s the last night of a season very early on in the orchestra’s time with OHP, and we’re all waiting anxiously for Mike Volpe to give his traditional wrap-up speech to the entire audience cast and crew. Silence. We, CLS, are unsure whether we’ll be invited for the next season, and so when he finally gets to the bit about the orchestra, he gives us a sly smile then says that he will be welcoming us back. He then turns dramatically towards me, and says “except for the bloody horns” in front of everybody. I jump up in mock indignation and gesture to my section to leave the pit. All in good humour, it was swallowed up in applause and laughter. And delight.
[L-R: Mike Volpe, Mark Paine, Tim Caister, Sue Dent, Clare Lintott, James Clutton]
A unique delight of OHP, apart from the Arctic blast on the backs of our necks for at least three hours a night, apart from the peaco*cks at sundown, apart from the knock-your-socks off repertoire singers and productions, and apart from the friendliest most supportive management team led from the top by James Clutton, what grabs me the most is the immediate in-house connection we players have with the singers – soloists and chorus. And even better, thanks to the layout of the “pit”, if I have a solo with say the tenor, more often than not I can have direct eye contact with him as we soar through our phrases together. What other opera house gives you that? And I am convinced it makes me play differently, play better. That’s really special. And unique.
Much has been rightly said about OHP’s pioneering and defining verismo repertoire, where they go and others either fear to tread, or simply haven’t a clue. I’ve done about sixteen so-called verismo operas and they’ve all been hair-raising! I’ll never forget doing L’amore dei tre re by Montemezzi in 2007 and 2015. First time round I swear no one took a breath either on stage, in the pit or in the audience for a good half hour before – and here’s the spoiler – the final fatal shot. Literally unforgettable. And what about the sheer almost physical blaze of sound with which I gioielli della Madonna by Wolf-Ferrari thumped us in 2013? And blood spurting all over the wall at the end of Francesca da Rimini by Zandonai in 2010? And what other opera company would even attempt let alone triumph producing an earthquake onstage, as in La Wally in 2011?
OHP has introduced, even swept me into the special sound world of Janáček, in Jenůfa, Kát’a Kabanová and The cunning little vixen. The power of characterisation in these operas, and the quality of OHP’s principal singers, blew me away, season after season. And omg the first horn part of Kát’a did the same … almost unplayable, it was a wonderful challenge.
It’s a fact of nature, especially around Holland Park, that in summer at around 10pm the twilight fades, the peaco*cks start their bed-time chorus, the temperature plummets, and the soprano starts to die. And it’s then that we wind soloists usually have the most demanding delicate and exposed stuff to play. If our fingers or lips will even move. They don’t teach that in Music College.
I love the classics, I love the ten Verdis we’ve done, the ten Puccinis, the four Mozarts. I love the three Tchaikovskys, all with the strongest music: Eugene Onegin three times with that marvellous duet with the soprano in the Letter Scene; Iolanta in 2019 with a dream team cast, The Queen of Spades 2016 with the Countess’s terrifying walking sticks. I love the wall dripping blood in Macbeth 2005. And the real glass harmonica in Lucia di Lammermoor 2012. A massive highlight was Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos 2018, with Zerbinetta’s coloratura aria sung from a giant swing, and our instrumental virtuoso lines all gorgeously rich. I love the two Lakmés done eight years apart, the company maturing so very much between them. And I love too the more modern operas OHP has risked, Britten’s The turn of the screw, Adamo’s Little women, Dove’s Flight and most recently the absolutely outstanding Itch. Wow. When other companies are tightening their belts or withdrawing into survival mode, OHP does the opposite and commissions a brand new opera. Don’t tell anyone but it was probably the stand-out highlight of my two decade career there.
I love the Young Artists scheme OHP pioneered long ago, and from which now it is reaping deserved rewards. I count among my close professional friends the singers and conductors who have come up through it.
As you can see, I could go on and on.
Last, how can I forget that moment in 2009, just before Roberto Devereux was to start, when Richard Bonynge sighed to me, “upstaged by her yet again!” as the great Joan Sutherland took her seat in the auditorium to rapturous spontaneous applause? My all-time hero, and I even got her laughing about her marrows at the after-show party!
OHP. It’s the place where it all comes together.
Mark Paine, 2024
Back to all news
