If you recognize this spot, you will understand why I make a point of stopping there and realise that this picture scarcely does it justice, even leaving aside the skewiff horizon.
Another attempt, at a different angle. It was hazy and late in the day:
It wouldn’t be rural Australia without something like this:
Last Saturday night with D to Opera Australia’s Magic Flute.
Our normal row-A seats had been bumped back a row and we chinned up to an extension stage over the row where we would usually be sitting with no view of the orchestra. It all felt just a little claustrophobic, and that feeling carried over to the set and the various puppets swooping around in it.
The production did not weave the spell on us that it is said to have woven on others. Maybe we were too close. Maybe things were different further back, where the puppets were more of a plus compared to what they would otherwise expect to see. Mind you, I didn’t feel a particularly powerful audience response to the performance.
There were children in the audience but not an overwhelming number. Saturday night is probably not the best night to see the response in that department.
Attracting the children is surely the justification for the substantial cuts (to make things “family friendly”). Why else ditch centuries of theatrical wisdom about the use of an overture? And this, after all, is a very famous and popular overture.
All of this probably means it was not likely to be the performance for me.
It is true (thinking back) that The Magic Flute can almost always be annoying in some ways including in the Mozartean tenor department at least with Opera Australia. Andrew Brunsdon seemed uncomfortable as Tamino – if he wasn’t then I think he should be rethinking his approach.
For me, the last production did a much better job of the second act than the present one does. In this production the ordeals were cut back too much so they lost any real structure and the “tower of fire” bit was a total fizzer.
The title of this post, however, refers to the article in the Sydney Morning Herald, quoted somewhere I am sure by Opera Australia in their publicity (“this production is a triumph”). I’m calling it an article because it is clear that it is not Peter McCallum’s review, because that review included some criticism of the cuts or at least assessment of their effect that this article lacks.
Here are some sample passages:
(1)
The opening-night audience gasped when a flock of tropical birds fluttered over the heads of those in the first few rows. Later, huge bears, pink flamingoes and yet more exquisite birds danced to Mozart’s ”magical bells”, leaving the audience stunned.
(2)
this is a richly-imagined production, sung in modern English and performed with spoken text.
(3)
Among its young cast are future stars.
(1) speaks for itself. (2) is true and probably useful information for newcomers to opera: all productions of MF have dialogue. (3) just seems odd although the language is on a par with “gasped” and “stunned” in (1).
Opinions are expressed, but there is no by-line.
Who writes this stuff?
Late on Monday night, D and I went for a walk around Petersham and Lewisham.
After rounding a few corners and circling a few blocks, we came down Terminus St from Crystal Street. Terminus St runs along the railway line. We could see and now hear a strange contraption moving slowly along the railway track closest to us, festooned with floodlights and orange-vested crew on a flat top bogie. One of the crew wielded a metal wand on the end of a hose against the retaining wall of the railway cutting – it looked something like a high-pressure water cleaner.
D couldn’t see the point of going to such an effort. His view was that it’s not as if “tags” do any damage. I tried in vain to explain the conventional slippery-slope wisdom that graffiti leads to disrespect leads to vandalism. D remained unconvinced.
Oddly enough, D took a sterner view of true graffiti of a political nature (as we climbed the footbridge over Petersham Station, we passed an anarchist example on the opposite side of the line). D thinks that sort of thing should be controlled whereas tags, because incomprehensible to most, are harmless. Perhaps equally and oppositely oddly, I found myself inclined to allow an exception from the conventional wisdom for true political graffiti on the grounds of permissible expression of dissent, whereas I’m really not keen on tags and the great mass of spray-can art which for me have neither sense nor charm. I’m not sympathetic to “leaving your mark” in this way. (Don’t we have social media for that sort of thing?)
Riding past today I saw that the device the railway people were using did not clean the graffiti off, but rather painted over it.
One rationale is presumably to deter graffiti by depriving the practitioners of the gratification of seeing their work displayed. Ironically, it just clears space the next graffitist.
You can see the painting-over technique on channel 7′s report of the death of the young man hit by a train two nights later just a few hundred metres along the track, including (at about 0:53) what is said to be his “tag” on a recently painted-over space.
On the occasion of the new year, a short tally of live performances I attended in 2011.
My records (kept primarily to manage bookings and avoid clashes but yes, Narcissism is an issue) show that I went to :
That’s about the same attendances in total as 2010 and 2009, about 20 fewer than in 2008 when I embarked on what I suspect was in part a blog-induced frenzy of playgoing and when the Sydney Piano Competition bumped up the figure, a few more than in 2007 and 2006 and slightly fewer than 2005, when the Philharmonia’s Bach Cantata series provided a boost. That is as far as consistently maintained records (ie, preserved on this computer; in a sortable Word table for each year) go back.
The thing that puzzles me is my relative neglect of theatre, because in my youth I was quite an enthusiast. It shows in both my attendances and the extent to which they are blogged. Ballet really gets me in for the music. My higher blog rate for opera over concerts can probably be put down to the occasion of the production – concerts seem more generic and I have said most of the meta-musical things I have to say about them.
I anticipate a degree of retrenchment this year, and that’s even before adjusting for the to-me relatively unalluring Opera Australia program – however “democratic” and “Australian” Mr Terracini may claim it to be.
So work is slowing down, and I have had to go early (before the big Xmas/NY shutdown) to the doctor to get a repeat on the latest bout of Champix. (I lack the strength of character that some have to desist unassisted).
During the long wait (time still crying out to be killed by a cigarette or two) there was a bit of excitement. In a momentary flash of red and blue lights and a wail of siren, an unmarked police car made a sudden 3-point turn to the bus stop just outside the Klinik. Next thing, as I wandered out to do some shopping to fill up the wait, I saw two plain-clothed officers. They had a bearded bloke sitting on the curb at the back of the car. He had his shoes off and was taking off his socks. The contents of his pockets (I supposed) – phone, cigarettes, lighter etc – were spread out on top of the back of the car. One of the policemen asked him “So where have you been staying?” The other (detective, I suppose) was talking into his radio or phone.
I didn’t stop to hear if the bloke on the ground answered the question.
I went into a takeaway food bar. It’s never a pleasant sight when someone is arrested and I think there is an instinctive reaction against the inevitable bullying it entails. Sympathy was running high for the man sitting on the curb, though of course no-one had any idea who he was or what he was being taken in for. “What did they get him for?” someone asked. Another answered “For walking the wrong way.” Someone else said: “They should take him somewhere. The [nearby] hotel would have a room somewhere. They shouldn’t just expose him to public humiliation like that.”
FWIW, my view is that, if an arrest is to be made, the police need to secure the arrested person and identify him. Before they put him in a car or take him anywhere they need to check that he has nothing dangerous on his person. If they are going to arrest him, they can then keep his effects and, for example, his phone. All of that has to be done straight away. Questioning other than to determine his identity is probably inappropriate and if you are arrested or for that matter having any interaction with police it is not in your interests to engage in small talk at all. Police often rely on this to get informal admissions which may not later be forthcoming (or to make a few up of their own). Once it is decided to take someone into custody such public exposure should come to an end.
By the time I got back from the supermarket it was all over, at least so far as any street drama was concerned.
Meanwhile, I was struck by the following headline in today’s SMH: Bungle leads to massive drug haul. The story reported that police had seized more than 300kg of pseudoephedrine “from a syndicate that lost track of the shipping containers they were hidden in.”
The drugs, which were seized by the NSW Drug Squad this morning at 12 locations across NSW, were packed into metal tubes and hidden in the containers’ frames, police said.
But investigators believe the syndicate importing the drugs lost track of some of the containers.
The containers were emptied and their contents – including the drugs [my note after reading the press release: this is a little misleading - the containers were empty and the concealed drugs were the only relevant contents] – were sold to legal businesses across the state, police said.
I’m assuming (since it is said to have been seized from the syndicate) that the pseudoephedrine the police have seized is the pseudoephedrine which was not lost track of. I may be wrong about that, given that the story does not refer to any arrests. (Update: press release here.)
If so, it sounds as though somebody has been unbelievably careless. I can only begin to imagine the extent of unbelief in certain quarters and how it might have been expressed.
I suppose the upside is that if you’ve recently taken delivery of a container which includes some metal tubes and get a severe head cold over Christmas, you may not need to find your driver’s licence and an open pharmacy to obtain quality symptomatic relief.
[An alternative hypothesis is that the "syndicate" had reason to believe that the game was up and so declined to pick up the drugs. Police do say that they acted on "information received" but it seems that this was after the containers had been emptied and dispersed.]
Further update, January: Police now say there were 54 containers in all. 26 were found at Padstow on December 22 and a 27th is still at large, as, apparently, are the offenders. Police say they expect to make arrests when the last container is found. It is hard to see why arrests depend on that. It now appears that the tip-off to police was only because someone who bought three of the containers reported to police that they appear to have been tampered with. The seized drugs also included ice and heroin. The claimed total street value is around $200 million.
Pinchgut’s season of Griselda has finished.
I went to the last night. The house was almost full and the audience enthusiastic.
I’m glad I went again. The stagecraft had improved – understandable given the extremely short rehearsal period (I read somewhere 9 days) and the relative inexperience of some of the singers. One tell-tale sign of this is often what they do with their hands. By the last night, that had settled – favourably.
On a second sitting I also found myself more prepared to take the interpretation offered on its own terms.
I make it a rule if I plan to go a second time to have a better seat second time around. Even in Angel Place, that probably also helped.
In between I listened to the broadcast on ABC “Classic” FM.
For the next few weeks you can listen to that broadcast by internet streaming.
I rather liked it in the early days of Pinchgut when next year’s production would be revealed on the final night of the season. It was part of the sport. In the meantime, the hackneyed “eager anticipation” is the only phrase I can summon to mind. {See comment below.]
Next year’s production is Les Indes galantes. I think that is a good choice, musically. I’m not sure how Pinchgut’s budget will run to the -ballet elements. Antony Walker will conduct.
In recent weeks I’ve dropped in to the Conservatorium of Music (aka the Con) a few times to go to the library.
I could hardly fail to notice the various functions bidding farewell to the outgoing dean, Kim Walker. It all seemed a bit OTT, but what the hell – if she had a cult of personality going, she was the Dean and she could cultivate it as much as she liked right up to the end of her tenure. [Her appointment as professor ostensibly at least continues. At her farewell she said that she was taking research leave next year.] After all, it was for a good cause. Some of the brouhaha was to raise funds for the Con, as best I can recall.
The Con is not a separate legal personality. Even if funds are raised for the charitable purposes of the Con, it won’t mean much if in the meantime the funds which the University could otherwise devote to the Con are being depleted.
And it looks like that will be the case, at least so far as the University has to meet the claims now being made by Professor Walker in her statement of claim filed in the Supreme Court, as reported by the SMH here.
In the light of the statement of claim, OTT understates the matter. The word, in its proper sense, is “fulsome” – though maybe not by all involved. (Professor Walker had her supporters and I am sure they were sincere. In the circumstances, you can understand their desire to make a show of their support.) It seems that the university only backed off from removing Professor Walker in late 2008 because she threatened legal action.
Farewells fondly bidden, Professor Walker is now suing the university for rendering her unemployable at an appropriate senior level because of the way it handled what she says (to paraphrase: these are my own words) were intrigues and baseless complaints against her. I don’t doubt she believes that. You can see her quaver a little in her farewell speech on Youtube (from about 7:30 to 13:00 including tumultous applause). She doesn’t spoil it by mentioning the proposed statement of claim, though instructions to draft it must surely have been given by then.
[Incidentally, what is it about Guy Reynolds Noble [Reynolds SC is someone else!] that he has become the compulsory MC for all seasons. Is there nobody else?]
The statement of claim includes the claim (as reported by the SMH) that:
In early 2007, after Walker had been offered a 10 year contract as Dean of the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester in New York State, she was persuaded to stay in Sydney by the then Chancellor, the late Justice Kim Santow, who told her ‘‘that she was unique and able to lead the institution over the next years to the (Con’s) centenary in 2015.’’
So far as lost opportunities are concerned, that looks like a fairly crucial element of Professor Walker’s claim. Obviously, she now regrets she didn’t take the Eastman job. That is because the rumblings of discontent came to public notice and the various allegations against her were made shortly afterwards and that’s when everything went pear-shaped. From Professor Walker’s point of view, as far as I can gather, she declined an offer of a very prestigious job which would have lasted until 2017 because she was told she would have one until at least 2015. Now (it turns out) she’s been shown the door or at least bumped out of the top office as dean and principal (albeit, with a big farewell) and the bad publicity from all that’s gone on means that she won’t get such a job again. It’s too late for her to go back to playing the bassoon.
The awkward thing is that, if any of this hinges on private conversations between Professor Walker and Justice Santow, Justice Santow died in April 2008.
Last night to the opening of Pinchgut’s Griselda.
For some reason, their publicity has been less forthcoming than in earlier years – little of the old internet chattiness and, as far as I can make out, not replaced by twitter or whatever else is newer.
It’s based on an adaptation of the final story of Bocaccio’s Decameron. This involves Griselda’s husband putting her through all sorts of trials before finally accepting her back as his wife. In the operatic version, he is the duke of Thessaly and is driven to this by the popular rejection of the low-borne Griselda as his queen (should that be duchess?). The popular discontent was depicted in part by placard-waving citizens in the aisles. One placard [plot spoiler of a sort] read “Ditch the Bitch.” This got laughs.
That was one odd thing about the production. I don’t think of this as a funny story at all, but it was certainly played for laughs at times. I suppose they had to do something because quite frankly, apart from the possibilities of various twists and turns which provide the occasion for the various arias, for most of the time things got simply worse and worse for Griselda. It’s not a story of any particular attraction and it all seems too contrived to be really moving. Despite that, within the premise of the rather ridiculous plot, there is one scene which moved me, when Griselda, disturbed in her sleep, possibly by the arrival of Costanza, calls out and reaches up as if to her long-dead daughter. Unknown to her, Costanza really is her (not dead after all) daughter. It was a tender and uncanny moment (well prepared by a short piece of “sleep” music), but its effect was lost soon afterwards with a reversion to the comic.
The rearrangement from 3 acts to 2 acts also robbed the trio at the end of the second act (not long after the scene I have mentioned) of some of its effect and detracted from what little dramatic shape the opera has. I think I can see why they did it: it gave them a transformation and a moment with a bit of splendour on a little budget (who would have believed that so much effect could be got from an electric roll-a-door?) and it got everyone home earlier – especially when the evening managed to buck the 7pm-start Angel Place trend.
David Hansen scored something of a triumph in the startlingly high role of Ottone (normally still sung by a woman), a ‘tached baddie who seizes the opportunity of Griselda’s banishment to pay his own entirely unwelcome suit – pressed with threats to murder her son if she will not yield to him.
I think there were some cuts, at least compared to the version I had borrowed on CD from the Con Library. I’ll listen on Sunday night when it is being broadcast on ABC “Classic” FM.
I’m going again on Monday to the last night.
“The facts of this case are so fantastic as to strain credulity but they are true.”
That’s Justice Pembroke’s opening sentence in Adam Shepard in his capacity as Registered Trustee of the bankrupt estate of Dr Neil Gordon Stuart Wallman v Paul Mladenis & Ors [2011] NSWSC 1431.
He continues:
In October 2007 Dr Wallman was a recently divorced, middle-aged obstetrician and gynaecologist with adult children. He approached an introduction agency on the Gold Coast known as Hearts United (the third defendant) seeking love and companionship. On 4 November 2007 he signed an agreement with Hearts United the terms of which seem somewhat one-sided. For a consideration of $200,000 Hearts United promised to provide Dr Wallman, during a three year period, with a personal relationship consultant who would provide him with introductions. The only other services promised were “photo-viewing services” and an “escape package” to the Gold Coast.
2. The agreement referred to terms and conditions that appear to have been non-existent. It also stipulated that refunds were not offered. It may seem surprising that Dr Wallman agreed to sign such a document. It is even more surprising that, before signing the document, Dr Wallman paid a number of lump sums to Hearts United totalling $180,000. He was persuaded to do so by a person known as “Rita”, a sister of Mr Mladenis (the first defendant). Rita did not give evidence but it is obvious that during her lengthy telephone conversations with Dr Wallman to discuss his personal details, in which she canvassed his hopes and aspirations for love and companionship, she was understanding and sympathetic. She was also persuasive. At the conclusion of each telephone conversation she asked Dr Wallman for a large sum of money. Dr Wallman duly obliged, commencing with a payment of $40,000 followed by a series of further lump sums totalling $180,000. When Dr Wallman signed the agreement on 4 November 2007, it recited and gave him credit for the $180,000 he had already paid. Shortly afterwards, Dr Wallman paid the balance due under the agreement.
3. Understandably, the plaintiff, who is the trustee of Dr Wallman’s bankrupt estate, does not seek to recover the $200,000 paid by Dr Wallman pursuant to the 4 November 2007 agreement. But the payment of $200,000 was only the tip of the iceberg.
In early November 2007, Dr Wallman was introduced to “Lily Bolivique.” He fell for her. Mr Mladenis proposed that he pay Hearts United a further $100,000 for a “VIP” package which would cover Dr W’s wedding and honeymoon if he married Lily. A few days later Lily asked Dr Wallman for a loan of $200,000. Mr Mladenis told Dr Wallman that Lily was good for the money and that it would be easier if he paid the money to Hearts United for payment to Lily. Further payments followed – by January 2008 Dr Wallman had paid over a million dollars to Hearts United.
It’s not clear from the judgment how much Dr Wallman saw of Lily (I mean how often he saw her, that is) though she was still around in February 2008 when Dr Wallman saw her in Sydney. Some time after that she disappeared from the scene.
By mid-2009 Mr Mladenis was asking Dr Wallman for money to help him get the money back from “Lily.” Mr Mladenis said he had lent her money too and that she’d “done a runner back to Croatia.” By then Dr Wallman had paid Hearts United over $2 million. Now it became a story of rolling another cheese down the hill.
Back to Justice Pembroke:
[13]…Over the next two years Dr Wallman made many further payments to Hearts United. He was encouraged to do so by express and implied statements by Mr Mladenis to the effect that lawyers were retained in Croatia; that lawyers were retained in Brisbane; that the proceedings against Lily were successful; that Lily had appealed; that the appeal had been dismissed and that the monies were coming. The further payments were needed, he said, to fund the process of recovering the several million dollars that Dr Wallman had already paid.
14. It was, I am afraid to say, all lies. No monies had been paid to Lily and there were no monies to recover. To reassure Dr Wallman, Mr Mladenis provided him with a letter dated 18 March 2009 from a Serbian law firm called Radovic and Ratkovic. The letter was a forgery. The firm did not act on behalf of “Lily Bolovique” and had nothing to do with any fictitious legal process relating to her. Nor were there any Brisbane lawyers acting in connection with the matter. When Mr Mladenis was subsequently confronted by Dr Wallman’s son, who is a solicitor, he asserted that the Brisbane firm of Hopgood Gamin was acting on behalf of Dr Wallman and Mr Mladenis. But Mr Mladenis was curiously unwilling to provide the name of the member of the firm, or the employed solicitor, who was handling the file. He gave a spurious reason for not doing so. The reason for his reluctance was clear. The firm had no instructions. Its supposed involvement was a fiction.
The Mladenises bought cars and real estate with some of the money. None of the money, his Honour found, was paid to “Lily” (though surely she was paid something?). She was not, as she had been held out to be, another client of Hearts United. The only evidence that there was even one other client of Hearts United (a man in WA) was doubtful.
In the meantime, American Express got a judgment against Dr Wallman (presumably for an unpaid credit card bill) and served him with a bankruptcy notice which in July 2010 he failed to comply with. He was made bankrupt in August 2010.
This did not stop Mr Mladenis and, surprisingly, it did not stop Dr Wallman, despite his obligations to his Trustee. Perhaps that factor is why Mr Mladenis said that payments were now to be made to his wife rather than through Hearts United, though there could be other reasons.
In evidence were various sms messages from Mr Mladenis seeking money from Dr Wallman for what he said were his efforts to recover the money from “Lily” and in particular when he apparently went to Croatia via Dubai in Dec-January 2010-11 and to the Philippines in August 2011. It all came to an end on 27 August 2011, as the last few messages show:
Mate on the phone overseas can u transfer 4-400 now – 09-May-11
Hey mate confirmed funds and transactions for wed got confirmation with bank today yeahy can u lend me 6500 till then so i can pay lawyers pls thanks mate – 04-Jul-11
Neil can u transfer 4700 to me now in a meeting pls just do it it will be bk in your acc by 9am tomm explain later – 26-Jul-11
Can u send me 9 k pls with lawyers now – 02-Aug-11
Mate I’m chasing down that bitch in mamilla with some heavy s trying to get her to sigh our money – 26-Aug-11
I know I was just about to ask u transfer me money there’s no one there that can get to the bank till Monday I need to accommodation for the guys and find this bitch we have the add to her condo Fucken bitch the paper work was faxed if not I can get the hard copy for from Rita I need 4750 – 27-Aug-11
So what u can’t transfer anything from your account that’s bullshit – 27-Aug-11
Do the transfer so I can come bk or don’t ask me to help u after u get paper work because that means u don’t want to sort it out together I will get my money my self – 27-Aug-11
If I didn’t give a fuck I wouldn’t have comme here to fuck lily up with to bikers so do it and I will get Rita to give it bk to u with the papers on Monday – 27-Aug-11
What happened? Did the Trustee get on Dr Wallman’s trail? Did Dr Wallman confide in his solicitor son? Judging from the proceedings number, proceedings were promptly commenced or if already on foot, expedited. Justice is rarely so swift.
Of course, Mr Mladenis said there was another story or various other stories to account for the payments. In my experience there often is – something which the gullibile party is meant to feel a bit guilty about which is meant to stop them breaking out of the spiral or seeking help. The whole saga was a far cry from his public professional persona as a man who “enjoys time with the family, surfing and football.” Sometimes embarrassment about gullibility is sufficient.
To quote the judge, again:
44. The plaintiff in this case pleaded many causes of action. He was spoilt for choice. Deceit, misrepresentation, misleading conduct and breach of trust were the central elements. I am satisfied that the plaintiff’s case has been amply proved. In reaching that conclusion I have taken into account the seriousness of the allegations made, the inherent likelihood or unlikelihood of the events in question having occurred and the gravity of the consequences to the defendants that will inevitably follow if I make the findings of fact for which the plaintiff contends. Ultimately the proved facts were overwhelmingly against Mr Mladenis’ implausible explanations. The submissions on his behalf were entirely factual, concerned with the proper characterisation of the events that occurred. Their primary contention was that “the question of how Mr Mladenis has seduced Dr Wallman to part with over $3 million has not been answered”. To the contrary, I think it has. In my view, Mr Mladenis was dishonest. He caused Hearts United to obtain monies from Dr Wallman by dishonest means.
The exact remedies are yet to be sorted out and it must be said that some of his Honour’s expressed reasoning about Mrs Mladenis’s involvement in the fraud and deceptive conduct seems rather broad-brush – particularly so far as it is based on her duty to know or do certain things as a director of Hearts United. In the meantime, a freezing order has been continued over the defendants’ assets.
Postcript
It turns out that Justice Pembroke was wrong and the commenter “Hearts Anon” below was right about Hearts United having clients other than Dr Wallman. See the SMH’s follow up report (now based on more than the judgment, Dr Wallman’s picture from the internet and Dr Wallman’s bankruptcy, also ascertainable from the net) here and also this 2010 press release.
Over the weekend there have been more police shenanigans as the police have moved to shut down attempted resurgence of the Occupy Sydney project.
There is a piece in today’s SMH which trenchantly shows how police conduct is part of a more general high-handedness of police when it comes to control of the streets.
Of course, the Daily Telegraph has taken a more strident anti-protester view which is at one with its general adherence to conservative popularism.
I didn’t go to the demonstration on Saturday – more shame me. My guess is that not all those who went were adherents of the Occupy movement’s rather vague and generalized goals, but were concerned at the rigour and zeal with which the occupiers have been moved on by the police.
I don’t really buy that the individual police involved are merely obeying orders. Of course, the man who gave the order (whoever that man really is) has a special responsibility, but tactical response and riot control police are generally self-selected – they have to want to be the strong arm of the state against its citizens to be where they are.
It’s a well-paid gig – the overtime or time off in lieu (when you can go and do your second job as a private security guard or whatever) will be generous. At a price of a bit of boredom it can’t be that hard to stand around, armed and looking menacingly at a bunch of people sitting on the ground.
As far as I am concerned, these police are wasting their time, wasting our money and abusing our rights.
