How long should one work? How long is a piece of string? Some people (including me) slip gratefully into early retirement, others like their jobs so much they never want to retire.
Job satisfaction and money are the main drivers and many people in the Arts get so much job satisfaction sometimes they never retire. Plácido Domingo’s path to retirement wended from tenor to baritone to conductor; conductors continue into old age commanding the respect of orchestras; Clint Eastwood, Brad Pitt, The Rolling Stones etc are box office catnip.
Sopranos become mezzo-sopranos until the only role left is the Duchess of Crakentorp in La Fille du Régiment; as you know a non-singing part. Mezzo-soprano, Rosalind Plowright, turned seventy last month. She has been an international operatic phenomenon since the 1970s and is ripe for that Chiltern Hundreds of opera. Actually La Fille comes back to Covent Garden this summer.
My second trip to Opera Holland Park was a lot better than Manon last week. It was Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera. By the middle of the 19th century Verdi knew how to compose a popular opera. Like other successful composers he has a template and sticks to it: dramatic orchestration, catchy choruses, moving arias, ensemble arias, and a singing corpse at the end. The OHP production in suits and soft hats recalled Jonathan Miller’s Rigoletto and worked almost as well.
In Act II the cast and chorus troop off to consult a fortune-teller, Madama Arvidson. You’ve guessed, it was sung by Rosalind Plowright and she brought down the tent. It was a bravura performance and worth going to OHP just for Act II.
Well, once you are there do stay for the last Act; the masked ball. The set is a little austere so the contrast when exotically attired guests arrive at the ball is marked. It is as spectacular a back-drop as you could hope for on the small Holland Park stage but of course Verdi’s composition outdid fancy costumes and stage smoke. Pure opera.
