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A few weeks ago Sir Alexander McCall Smith visited Portland from his home in Scotland. For those of you for whom that name rings no bells let me explain that he is famous on two different fronts. As an author he has written a very successful series of books whose theme is The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency. There have so far been nine of these novels all of which are set in Botswana and revolve around not only the solving of mysteries but the eccentricities and foibles of the characters involved. A series is in preparation for broadcast on BBC television, so I imagine that we may expect to see it here a few years down the road. In addition to his authoring, Smith is the founder and driving force behind the The Really Terrible Orchestra. This group of players whose enthusiasm greatly outweighs their technical ability or musicality was founded by Smith in 1995 as "an inclusive orchestra for those who really want to play, but who cannot do so very well. Or cannot do so at all, in some cases." This orchestra has developed something of a cult following, particularly in Edinburgh where it regularly performs at the annual Edinburgh Festival under what it describes as the distinguished baton of Sir Richard Neville-Towle. Indeed so popular have they become that a guest gig is much sought after, as evidenced by the fact that when they performed the Major-General's song from Gilbert and Sullivan's HMS Pinafore they had a real Major-General to sing it. Sir Alexander wrote a charming column for the New York Times recently entitled “And The Band Played Badly.” I recommend that you read it and give yourself a smile to get the week off to a happy start.

All of which leads me to why I am writing about Sir Alexander here and now. He has turned his attention to opera. Not just listening to it or writing about it either. He has founded an opera company with its very own opera house (not surprisingly perhaps named the No. 1 Ladies Opera House) in Gaborone, the capital of Botswana. I say “opera house” but really it is a converted garage (please keep your quips about the Keller Auditorium to a minimum here, folks). I first read about this in the Daily Mail and you too may read the article here. At a time when those of us who are into the opera world find ourselves obsessing over Peter Gelb and the Met broadcasts or Anna Netrebko and her pregnancy, it is so very refreshing to be reminded that this art form, because its attraction is so very visceral and emotional, is capable of reaching out to everyone. I do hope Smith finds the support and enthusiasm in the community to make this venture a success. This is about as grass-roots as an opera company can be and I find the whole venture very exciting. I shall be following their progress and you may expect reports.

Reading about this opera house made me think of another and not dissimilar venue. A few years ago when returning from a few days of cultural craziness at Burning Man, Holly, Elizabeth and I stumbled upon the Amargosa Opera House in Death Valley Junction, Nevada. This charming but very funky little place is run by an amazing character named Marta Becket. She discovered this building while on a trip to Death Valley in 1967, renovated it and has been performing there ever since. This year marks her 40th anniversary. I would just love to host a dinner for her and the redoubtable Sir Alexander McCall Smith. For all their differences I'll bet they would have much to discuss and similar experiences to share and laugh about. If you ever find yourself in Death Valley Junction, stop by and say hello. They really don't make 'em like Martha any more.

Very well. I have kept you in suspense long enough and will now answer your silent question "What the devil is a picture of Marilyn Monroe doing on Operaman's blog?" A number of reasons, gentle reader, none of which has anything whatever to do with opera. The first is that that picture is so very, well, Summer-y, don't you think? Barefoot and sitting on a roundabout and all. C'mon, don't you just want to hand her a cold glass of lemonade and bat the bugs away so they don't disturb her? And then I liked that she is reading James Joyce's Ulysses. Dumb blonde? Okay, hands up - and be honest now - how many of you have read Ulysses? That's what I thought. And as Holly, who sent me this picture, pointed out she is at the very end of the book and must be reading Molly Bloom's soliloquy and one really does wonder what she made of that! This photograph was taken in 1956 at a time when Monroe was dating the playwright Arthur Miller whom she married later that year so perhaps that volume belonged to him. Marilyn and I share the same birthday, though she was born somewhat in advance of me. We don't have much else in common. For instance I was never crowned the annual Artichoke Queen in Castroville, California, as she was in 1946.

Enjoy your Summer and try to keep cool this week. Oh, and do enjoy your July 4th. I was in Fred Meyer's yesterday where they have what they call “fireworks” but aren't really (but they are intended to aid in your celebrations). Am I the only person struck by the irony of all of those having been made in China?

Can it really be that Portland Opera's season opener La Traviata is less than three months away?

Finally, Summer! In the four and a half years I have been in Portland I have grown to really enjoy this city. But I won't lie to you...I am still having trouble with the weather. Between the seemingly endless drizzle of England and the torrential rains of Asia I seem to have lived the vast proportion of my adult life in wet-weather zones when what I really like is Marin County's climate. Still, Rose Festival Week is over so the rain has let up temporarily and we are having some glorious days. So, what with it being Summer time and all, I am not feeling the urge to raise complex, intellectually challenging/stimulating topics; I thought I'd go with lighter fare for a week or two. Switch the Sancerre for a crisp Pinot Grigio. Listen to old Dylan albums and hold off on worrying whether Deborah Voight has lost some of the power in her voice along with all that weight. Of course should you have a subject in mind that you would like me to address don't hold back.

In last week's post I touched upon whether Gilbert and Sullivan is opera. In a comment posted by Lorin Wilkerson he suggested that there be further discussion on the whole what-is-opera topic and asked "...it seems like there are so many shades of gray, and it's a bit confusing. Why would you be able to see "Porgy and Bess" or "Sweeney Todd" at the Royal Opera House, but I can't imagine seeing "South Pacific" or "West Side Story" there. Where is the dividing line? Thematic material? X% of the total number of words sung as opposed to spoken? It's something I've never really been able to figure out..." I promised to address this further this week.

More of that later.

For a couple of weeks I had been hearing commercials on AllClassical for the University of Portland production of The Pirates of Penzance. I was tempted to attend as I have had much fun at previous Mock's Crest productions so when conductor Professor Roger O. Doyle left the customary bribe under a wine coaster at Jake's Grill I cleared the decks for Saturday evening ,called Elizabeth who is a big Gilbert and Sullivan fan and hot-footed it to the Mago Hunt Theater.

"Is G&S opera or...?" Elizabeth began a chat about our date. Don't get her wrong. She knows her opera in general and her G&S in particular. This was more a "So, under what particular operatic rubric does G&S fall?" -type question. Light opera? Operetta? Musical theater, perhaps? And how does one come to a proper conclusion?

One could have been forgiven for believing that the near canonization of Al Gore had been brought to a suitably impressive ending over the last eighteen or so months with his being awarded an honorary fellowship of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, prizes in Spain and Sweden, several honorary doctorates, the Sir David Attenborough Award for Excellence in Nature Film-making and an Emmy. Top those off with the conferral of last year's Nobel Prize for Peace and that's a pretty good year by anyone's reckoning. Short of his achieving something truly spectacular - winning Dancing With The Stars, say - it seemed to me as though Mr. Gore's post-presidential-candidature days had pretty much run their course. I had reckoned without them wacky folks at La Scala, Milan who have just announced that they have commissioned an opera. From the book of the documentary-movie of the slide-show of the same name they are to bring you An Inconvenient Truth. The work is to be written by Giorgio Battistelli artistic director of Verona’s Arena opera foundation and a man described as "a composer very much in tune with contemporary themes, including the environment.” I am having a great timewondering who is to be cast in the role of Mr. Gore. Nathan Gunn, perhaps? Who knows, perhaps crowning all of his other achievements Gore himself is a barihunk and will play and sing the role himself.

None of the above should be taken as suggesting I don't admire and respect Gore personally. I do. Very much. And I loved the movie An Inconvenient Truth. Somehow, though, making it an opera just seems a bit silly.

This post is not a continuation of my rant last week about Regie but thoughts on the topic stemming from correspondence over the last few days. You will have seen that my previous post was met with a comment by a correspondent identifying herself only as 'grrlpup'. She made a most astute observation about Regie to which I replied. Shortly after that I received an email from her which really got me thinking. With her permission I quote it here:

"Some people think that Falco only did Rock Me Amadeus, but that is not right!  I think after you see his interpretation of Titanic, you'll agree he could be the man to redeem opera regie.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ToYWrHuNFTE&feature=related

This picture has nothing to do with today's subject. I just thought that an occasional glimpse at a peaceful pastoral scene would help keep my blood pressure within tolerable limits while I write this post. For a while now I have been meaning to talk with you about something I consider a suppurating carbuncle on the body politic in general and opera in particular. I refer to Regieopera. The spur for me to write about this now is the imminent arrival of Gerard Mortier at the helm of New York City Opera. M.Mortier is a fan of Regie. Good luck, New York!

Every now and again when Portland Opera has produced an opera in a style not entirely in the traditional mold I have heard from my seat in the Keller Auditorium and above the jingling sound made by the rattling of expensive jewelry mutterings the essence of which is "Why do they have to mess around with something that was just fine to begin with?" I have heard the expression of similar opinions at the Met simulcasts over the more plebian sound of the crunch of popcorn. Now, I am by and large a traditionalist and not much given to messing with the tried and true though I can take the odd bit of modern dress if I must. But when I hear rumblings among the populace just because everything doesn't look like Zeffirelli designed it I say to myself "Think yourselves lucky that you don't live in Europe where they have Regie!"

The English National Opera has mounted a production of the opera Punch and Judy by Harrison Birtwistle. I was at the world premier of this work which took place in the Jubilee Hall, Aldeburgh in 1968. Benjamin Britten had commissioned the piece but together with Peter Pears walked out of the premier mid-performance. Some people have tried to put a gloss on this somewhat unfortunate occurrence by saying BB was ill that day. I was with him that day. He wasn't ill. He just hated the piece. I think it was the unremitting violence which got to him. Well, that and the fact he thought the music was "crap.”

I went to hear the Oregon Symphony Orchestra play Mahler's 9th Symphony last week. I don't know what has got into that crew but they were smokin'!! Time after time in that huge work Mahler hangs the players out to dry making them negotiate fiendishly difficult passages in a most exposed way so there is nowhere for them to hide. Every clam is going to sound with the resonance of a metal triangle being dropped on a concrete floor. This performance was amazing. I left the hall drained but exhilarated.

Notwithstanding a very busy week which included rehearsals for Aida, the Annual dinner for Camerata members and a meeting of the Board of Directors of the Portland Opera, the General Director of the Opera, Christopher Mattaliano, took the time to sit down with Operaman and discuss some issues of vital interest to the continuing health of opera and the security of our country. Okay, I lied about homeland security. Who doesn't? But we did talk opera. When I say he sat down “with” me I use the word in its chronological rather than geographical sense. I was at home with a sheaf of notes and a beer and Mr. M was at a car wash somewhere. We had an interesting chat.

Operaman: let's start with the easy stuff, Chris. Encores - yes or no?
C.M. I think it's something you decide on a case-by-case basis. If a singer has just nailed a particularly wonderful aria and the audience wants to hear him or her sing it again and if the singer is prepared to do it and the conductor is okay with it, why not? There's a very long tradition of encores in opera. I know some houses have a no-encore policy but I don't have such a policy here in Portland. It seems to me it is a part of what can make a night at the opera a very special experience.
Operaman: Juan Diego Flórez got lots of ink last week for taking a bis of “Ah! Mes amis” at the Met. Apparently Peter Gelb contacted him weeks before the performance to arrange how they would deal with an encore and finally it was decided that there would be a telephonic hot line from Gelb's box and a red light on the conductor's podium to give him the go-ahead. Are you okay with that?

I have just learned that last night (Tuesday) Juan Diego Flórez reprised 'Ah! Mes amis' his Act I aria from La Fille du Regiment currently in production at the Met. My informant tells me that his ovation was significantly more enthusiastic than that which greeted his performance of said cabaletta on Saturday. So. That's two bis in three performances - or, as patrons in two other well-known New York venues are won't to say, he's batting .667