Kate on opera, Eugene Onegin and some ‘slightly dodgy plays’

Q. What is your favourite song/album and why?

A. They alternate but at the moment I really love The Ink Spots’ song ‘If I Didn’t Care’. Instantly evocative.

Cecilia Bartoli’s ‘Non piu mesta’ from ‘La Cenerentola’ is vocal fireworks from start to finish, but is also just an expression of such unselfconscious joy. Her voice is impossibly free and fast.

‘The Monster and Me’ by Best Boy Grip probably takes the top spot for song of all time. Sincere, wavering vocals and the story of a young woman caught in a toxic relationship. Chilling.

Q. What is your favourite film and why?

A. Again, they alternate! But I have a massive soft spot for ‘Topsy-Turvy’, depicting the experiences of Gilbert and Sullivan producing ‘The Mikado’. The personal drama backstage, the anxiety about reception, the threat of failure but also the promise of success - for me, this is all very relatable. I also adore ‘Computer Chess’, which is just a very pure film about nerds!

Q. What is your favourite piece of classical music and why?

A. At the minute I can’t get enough of Tatyana’s letter aria from ‘Eugene Onegin’, which features a young woman agonising over how to tell her crush she has feelings for him. I am someone who goes for productions over recordings: Barry Kosky’s take with light hovering over Tatyana’s fidgeting hands while her back is to the audience is unexpected and bewitching!

Q. Who is your favourite artist (eg van Gogh) and why?

A. The grandmother of performance art, Marina Abramovic. She revolutionised live art. I like that her pieces work as descriptions as well as experiences, i.e. She stood still while her lover aimed a tense arrow at her, centimetres away from her heart. Marina Abramovic is premiering a new work, ‘The Seven Deaths of Maria Callas’ with Bayerische Staatsoper this month.

Q. What is your favourite play and why?

A. Ibsen’s ‘An Enemy of the People’ is up there. State incompetence and a culture of cover-up and denial feels strangely relevant at the moment.

I also loved Fionnuala Kennedy’s ‘Removed’ about the experiences of young people in care in Northern Ireland. One of the best shows for young audiences I’ve ever seen.

Possibly controversial but I often prefer opera settings of plays to the plays themselves... So whilst I prefer Shakespeare’s ‘Macbeth’ to Verdi’s version, Verdi’s ‘Falstaff’ (for me) is way superior to the source material, Shakespeare’s ‘Merry Wives of Windsor’. Slightly dodgy plays often make fantastic operas. The really great masterpieces tend to be resistant to musical adaptation.

Q. What is your favourite musical and why?

A. Bernstein’s ‘Candide’ based on Voltaire’s novella is arguably opera... It presents astonishing parodies of classical music (‘Glitter and be Gay’ is a hilarious take on Gounod’s jewel aria from his opera ‘Faust’) but more than this, it is just a very rich picture of an arbitrary and chaotic world, its protagonists struggle to reconcile with a benevolent God.

I’ve been thinking about this work a lot in light of Covid-19 and the understandably mixed messages we’re all receiving from those in power attempting to make sense of the global pandemic. ‘Let our Garden Grow’ - the show’s finale - seems as good a motto as any in the current climate of uncertainty.

Q. What is your most special moment in the arts and why?

A. I really, really love television. There’s a scene in the 1960s-set ‘Mad Men’ when the protagonist, Don, is making a home video of his daughter’s birthday party while ‘Voi Che Sapete’ is playing on the radio. He catches a married couple stealing a kiss. It has an unbridled sweetness and intimacy about it. I go back to this episode all the time. It’s called ‘The Marriage of Figaro’ and brilliantly captures the sense of powerful men of that time feeling an entitlement to come on to and harass young women - much like the ‘droit du seigneur’ at work in Mozart’s masterpiece.

Q. What ‘classic’ just doesn’t do it for you?

A. I’m not in love with all of opera’s fallen women coming to sticky ends. I really struggle with Manon starving in the (Louisiana...) desert. I’m uneasy with all of Puccini’s ‘Little Women’ - female principals who die in the course of opera, usually because of some calamity involving a man.

‘Turandot’ features a young slave-woman, Liu, who refuses to name the Prince that once ‘looked kindly on her’ - she is tortured and kills herself rather than risk giving him up. Repulsive!

Q. What have you been reading/watching/listening to/revisiting during the Coronavirus period?

A. I’ve been drawn to things I find comforting, so Alan Ayckbourn plays, Howard Menken Disney soundtracks and Star Trek Voyager. In terms of opera, I’ve been listening to a lot of Monteverdi. It’s really ravishing stuff and the interplay of voices is unmatched.