Melbourne grand finale

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"Carmen", Australian Opera, John Bell, State Theatre Victoria

On my last night in Melbourne I have a ticket to see the last performance of “Carmen” by the Australian Opera at the State Theatre. There are banners and hoardings all over town advertising it. I’m drawn to it in the first place because the Shakespearean actor and director, John Bell, is directing it, his second foray into opera. I last saw him as Shylock in a theatre-in-the-round performance of “The merchant of Venice” at the Canberra aquarium in the early 1990s.

I dine beside the river – baked fish is tough, and meringue on dessert burnt. Not an auspicious beginning to the evening. I arrive early and find my door. As I look around I notice something familiar – a few of the Shoalhaven paintings of Arthur Boyd panelling the wall. I say to the usher “Are they originals?” They are. “They’re worth millions of dollars, and no one even notices them. And look. There’s a woman leaning on one.” She calls her boss who goes and charms the woman into apology. When I check the next morning I discover that there are not only fourteen Boyds, but a number of John Olsens and Roger Kemps at other entry points to the theatre. (The links don’t show the actual paintings in the theatre: it’s almost impossible to track down information about them.)

Then the doors open and I find myself looking down and down and down into the plush redness of the theatre. I clutch the wall as I descend steeply to my seat in the front row of the balcony, with a solid rail protruding in front of it to prevent me tipping myself into the auditorium in my enthusiasm for the performance. I’m at the side, but I have an excellent view of the stage and of the orchestra. The theatre fills, and the noises of anticipation increase: chatter and the tuning of instruments.

The curtain lifts on a scene I recognise from Sue’s photos of Havana: Bell has set his “Carmen” amongst the gangsters and military police of Cuba. I’m not sure my seat offers the best acoustics, but it gives me plenty of room and a good view as the story unfolds: Carmen playing her charms for all they’re worth and sensing her doom; Don José lovesick and savage; Micaëla demure and determined; Escamillo arrogant and self-obsessed. The chorus of boys is charming, one lad in particular tumbling and playing to the audience with delicious self-confidence.

The highlight for me, perversely, is a flute solo in the overture to the second half, but I also love the energy of the dancing; the shiny purple garb of the chief gangster; Don José’s battle between love and duty; and Carmen’s uncompromising desire for freedom.

Photos are snaffled with thanks from https://simonparrismaninchair.com/2017/05/05/opera-australia-carmen-review-melbourne-2017/

The singers are Rinat Shaham as Carmen; Dmytro Popov as Don José; Shane Lowrencev as Escamillo; and Stacey Alleaume as Micaëla.

Following my nose

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Bill Henson, Federation bells, murals, photography, sculptures

Today I have plans: a prowl through six lanes known for their street art. On the way to Hosier Lane I encounter three anorexic gentlemen, besuited, briefcased, and eternally waiting to cross at the lights; a foretaste of wall-and-footpath art; and a few other pieces of street art.

I’m not the first to enter Hosier Lane, camera at the ready, at 7.30 this morning. Two young men with far more sophisticated equipment than me are already scrutinising every image.

 

The walls are covered, but the pavement isn’t neglected.

Pursuing my project of failure to read maps, I can’t find the next lane on my list and my nose leads me across the railway lines towards parkland with an Aboriginal-sounding name. Birrarung Marr, river of mists, is the way the Kulin Nation refer to what we, colonial toadies, named Melbourne. As I cross a long pedestrian bridge I hear a fugitive sound and suddenly I’m  in the presence of gong-like music. The source is a collection of  thirty-nine upturned bells controlled, if you must destroy the magic, by a computer, and installed to celebrate the centenary of federation. Enchanted, I walk amongst them feeling peace in the heart of the city, and forget all about laneways. I’m eager to see what else my nose will lead me to.

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I amble along the river. A three-legged tiled sculpture by Deborah Halpern called “The angel”. An old stone drinking fountain. A stubby wooden wombat.  A mosaiced and graffitied elephant. Birrarung Wilam (River Camp) designed by Inigeoys artists Vicki Couzens, Lee Darroch and Treahna Hamm, an Aboriginal circle of stones carved with animal images. An Aboriginal totem pole and pavement engravings. A playground featuring children’s drawings. A splendid red in art and nature. My nose is serving me well.

 

My stomach suggests it’s time for breakfast, so I cross the vast expanse of tiles in Federation Square to a meal that satisfies both hunger and my aesthetic sense.

Where to next? There’s a photography exhibition at the NGV, so I cross over to the Arts Precinct and wander around the sculptures surrounding the two buildings, including a lumpy one by Rauschenberg and and a glorious female by Henry Moore.

I go into the gallery through the back door under a stained glass ceiling,  look down on a sparkling chandelier, pass a buxom woman and a quizzical man, and enter the darkness and light of Bill Henson’s photographs, of which my representations are feeble. For a better look, click here.

 

The second photographer I visit, William Eggleston, is a portrait specialist capturing the feel of a period.

It’s now time for what’s billed as a Garden River Cruise, the only disappointment of my Melbourne visit. There are far more river works than gardens, or is it just that I’m suffering overload?

 

And so … back to the apartment to wash my hair and finish my tiny bottle of Grand Marnier.

Ferry on the Yarra

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bridges, ferry, Williamstown

The day my friend leaves, I need solace. What better way to get it than riding a ferry for two hours in the breeze and sun. We cruise through the industrial heartland of Melbourne, under a number of the sixty-eight bridges that span the Yarra. Cranes, containers, sheds, cement trucks, and towers line the river, and city buildings rectangle into the sky. We pass the development of Docklands: low townhouses that would set you back a cool $3 million, and cheaper apartments in tower blocks. The occasional black swan rides our wake. After an hour we reach a forest of masts in a marina, heralding Williamstown, with its inviting colonial history and glimpses of interesting architecture. Not for today. I settle in a seat just behind the captain for the return journey: his window is open; the breeze becomes brisk; and the sun challenges tired eyes.

I disembark in late afternoon Melbourne bustle, and head back to my 20th storey apartment which has a panoramic view over Victoria markets and out to a twist in the river. I watch the city lights take over from sunset-rimmed clouds, pleased with my day and its echoes of the working waterway of Gdańsk.

PS My tribute to the van Gogh exhibition seems to have disappeared from the Reader. Here’s the link if you want to join the master of brush strokes in Melbourne.

Behind the scenes at the Australian Ballet

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Australian Ballet Production Centre, costumes, sets

Who would suspect, looking at this industrial building in the industrial area of Altona, that it houses the magicians who make scenery and costumes for the Australian Ballet, and all the rich relics of past performances?

Image from http://concepty.com.au/portfolio/the-australian-ballet-production-centre/

It houses a collection of costumes and sets valued at $40 million, and provides work space for set construction and scene painting. As we enter the office space the first thing I see are costumes for “Snugglepot and Cuddlpie”, Mr Lizard and a gumnut baby’s cap, a classic Australian story we were reading to the twins in Warsaw. 

Then an extraordinarily knowledgeable guide leads us into the construction area.

Image from http://concepty.com.au/portfolio/the-australian-ballet-production-centre/

The company is on tour at the moment, so the work area is empty of people. What remains are stacks of sets for innumerable ballets. The guide tells us of the complexities of set design for a touring company. Different sized stages at different venues mean that sets have to be constructed so they can expand or contract to fit. The Sydney Opera House stage is the smallest: he’s quite scathing about this national icon’s inadeqacies for ballet. A production of “Alice’s adventures in Wonderland” is imminent and we walk through stacks of its sets.
We move out of this vast warehouse room, past a neat array of brooms hanging on the wall and a basketball hoop with skid marks on the floor where the artisans relax, into the storage space for costumes. En route we peep in to see a wigmaker at work, crafting an intricate white (arsenic-free) 18th century wig, strand by individual strand, up to two weeks intensive work for one wig.

Wigmaker at work (not the one we saw): image from https://australianballet.com.au/the-artists/artisans/costume-atelier: see here for an interview about wig making 

And then we are amongst rack upon rack of costumes, an archive of all the performances of the Australian Ballet since its formation in 1962. Each new performance is designed anew, so costumes are rarely re-used. Our guide lifts tutus from the racks and shakes them right side out, pointing out details created in response to the demands of the costume designer: perhaps “the underneath layer needs to show like this.”  We walk up and down rows of silk, brocade, velvet, faux fur, lace, flannel, feathers, tulle and even digital prints in every imaginable colour. We hear stories of designers who require a very specific fabric that takes ages to source, and of delays on delivery when volunteer seamstresses are called in to race against the clock stitching on final lace details. If you think tutus are always delicate tulle, let me disabuse you. We saw one made out of the mesh from air-conditioning ducts sent to an automotive painter to stain it black. 

Once I believed ballet costumes were mere impressions. How wrong I was. These are haute couture.

https://australianballet.com.au/the-artists/artisans/costume-atelier

http://www.ausballetstory.com.au/2012/01/1-september/

Stacked against the wall are boxes full of head-dresses: the millinery team creates tiaras, hats, jewellery and shoe buckles, using sparkling crystals and beads and often basing their creations on exhaustive period research. 

Image from https://australianballet.com.au/the-artists/artisans/costume-atelier

The tour over, we step out of this enchanted space, where the magic of performance is created, into an ordinary Melbourne day and head back to the Arts Precinct for lunch.

Four seasons with Vincent van Gogh …

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National Gallery of Victoria, van Gogh

… and a vast crowd of other people. You can see the line through the water-sheeted window. And that’s at opening time. Two hours later, when I try to retrace my steps for a second look at favourites, the crowd inside the gallery is  impenetrable.

I bypass a video setting the scene for the artist’s seasons; his collection of other people’s prints, which he used as a kind of text book; and, more reluctantly, a room full of Japanese prints from the NGV’s archives, although I allow myself to be waylaid by one image.

I manage to steal a march on sequential viewers and I share each painting with maybe five people. Photography is permitted which no doubt riles camera-free viewers, but I don’t feel as if I snaffle more than my share of looking, and I manage to capture the glorious thickness and dexterity of the master’s brushwork without being abused.  It’s no wonder people flock. Reproductions don’t begin to do justice to the colour and texture of the originals. 

I am surprised to feel an affinity with this man from a different place and period. Every member of my family has at some time made their living from seasonal work so I enjoy his portrayal of potato diggers and reapers as one enjoys a portrayal of the familiar.

He relishes the seasons as I do, especially after my Warsaw experience of a complete northern hemisphere year.

He is most familiar to me when he paints grass and bark: I’m not alone in my pleasure in such things. He says about his own method “I follow no system of brushwork: I hit the canvas with irregular strokes which I leave as they are … The flowers are just little licks of colour.”

I can say, as Van Gogh hoped viewers would, “That man feels deeply, and that man feels subtly.”

This day is my friend’s birthday. We continue celebrations with dinner on the Colonial Tramcar as it cruises the back streets of the city: beautiful food, and a candle and a carriage-full of people singing “Happy birthday” with dessert.

Flinders Street Station

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Flinders St Station, homeless, Mirka Mora mosaic

There aren’t many railway stations I’ve encountered that that deserve a post of their own: this grand one does. Flinders Street Station covers two blocks in the heart of Melbourne right beside the river. It’s under renovation, so some of its glory is cloaked in scaffolding. The mural, a mixture of painting and mosaic, was created by Mirka Mora, a prominent Australian artist and part of the Heide circle: it dominates the river end of the station. The grandeur offers a home to one of the many homeless people living rough in the centre of this beautiful city: his bedding reminds undisturbed just under three public phones.

Walk around the ‘hood

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architecture, Elwood

My friend chose the location of our apartment because it’s in a neighbourhood of Edwardian houses. An amble around showed us far more than Edwardian, interspersed with plenty of Modern Undistinguished.

The Dandenongs by steam

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bark, Dandenongs, Gembrook, Puffing Billy

I enjoy myself doing most things, but the day we go on Puffing Billy I have fun. Having been issued with our commemorative cardboard tickets – Rosemary remembers the sound of them being clipped – we prowl up and down the platform experiencing a journey back to our childhood as we recognise letterboxes and weighing machines, watch the conductor ring his bell, listen to the organ grinder (a gesture to tourists: I don’t remember his original on Eastwood station), scrutinise pistons, worry a bit about burning coal, admire the gleam and gravitas of the engine, and grin at the noise of steam and whistle. The engine driver notes our glee and takes our photo.

As we chug through ferntree gulleys, over trestle bridges, and past cleared farm land, breathing in the toxic fumes of steam, we stick our feet out the windows and break two rules from long ago: the admonition of signs on trains that read “Keep wholly within the car”; and the strict rules for behaviour in public advocated by Miss Cahill head mistress of Hornsby Girls’ High School.

At Gembrook we have two hours to prowl around. The station offers reminders from the past and spectacular bark and a short walk takes us to the perfect place for lunch amongst tall trees.

The afternoon turns chilly as we head back to Belgrave on the final stage of our journey to Gembrook and the past.

St Paul’s Cathedral

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Grace Petyarre, mosaic, refugees, St Paul's Anglican cathedral, stained glass

The most distinctive thing about St Paul’s Anglican Cathedral is its sign welcoming refugees, an unusual sight in an unwelcoming Australia. This does something to minimise my discomfort with church riches.

This discomfort doesn’t stop me enjoying beauty, any more than pollution and coal stopped me enjoying Puffing Billy. I enter the church through a spectacular stained glass doorway. Inside, a friendly volunteer explains the images: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and their animal symbols, and a sunburst representing the conversion of St Paul.

But that’s not the only stained glass.

A storyteller lurks beneath one window, and retells the story of the widow’s son brought back to life by Jesus. Her retelling sends shivers up my spine, not so much because of the miracle as because of the reminder of Sunday School days in my youth.

Another reminder of my youth, this time of primary school social studies lesson, is a bas-relief of Edith Cavell, a nursing heroine and martyr in World War 1, the reason why we dropped into the cathedral in the first place. She helped both German and Allied soldiers, motivated by strong Anglican beliefs. The Church of England commemorates her in their Calendar of Saints on 12 October, which goes part-way to explain her presence here.

There is poetry in the list of materials used in this Gothic Transitional (whatever that is) building: a lot of them from Victoria. Sandstone from Barrabool for the outside. Pyrmont sandstone for the spires. Inside, cream Waurn Ponds limestone banded with Malmsbury bluestone, both from Victoria. The floor materials are imported: marble, granite, alabaster, and patterned tiles. The ceiling is New Zealand kauri.

Then there are mosaics, light catching on the gold tiles.

Details are a bit more manageable than all this grandeur: the painted pattern on the organ pipes; the decorations on a stone arch; the carved timber; the rich design of the tiles; the golden eagle overlooking a vase of flowers; and a lovingly cross-stitched kneeling cushion.

There is an Aboriginal presence, a painting by Gloria Petyarre from the Anmatyerre community near Alice Springs and winner of the 1999 Wynne prize. It’s called “Bush medicine leaves” and shows fallen leaves from each season, offering different healing properties.

Wordless walks: away from home

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China Town, Parramatta, Queen Victoria markets, Yarra River

Sydney

Cloudscapes from the bus

Mothers Day dessert for four family mothers

My sister(in-law’s) porch garden

Lunch with an old friend: pomegranate seeds floating in champagne

Sydney water building: Parramatta

Melbourne: the Yarra River

Melbourne: China Town

Melbourne: Queen Victoria Markets