Grange Park Opera

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17.02.2012

WARM WOOLLEN MITTENS...STEPHEN GADD (BARITONE - SHARPLESS IN MADAMA BUTTERFLY)

1. Your favourite piece of machinery:
The Meccano pendulum clock I built as a boy - it, among other things, inspired me to study engineering and so delayed my progress to music college.

2. The greatest invention in history (excluding above):
The silicon transistor. Now this is spooky: I'm working in Dallas at the moment, and after typing that full-stop I went to a party where I met the former CEO of Texas Instruments in whose laboratory the first silicon transistor was created in 1954. A wealthy man, he's proud to wear a $5 Casio digital watch from the 1980s. The transistor and the semiconductor devices which followed have probably advanced communications and society more than any other branch of technology, ever.

3. Favourite symphonic work (no singing in it please):
Mahler 5.

4. Apart from home, your favourite city just now and why:
Glasgow - Architecture (particularly the blonde sandstone neoclassical terraces, civic buildings, and churches, and of course Rennie Mac's School of Art), cuisine (apart from dining in one of the numerous fine restaurants, I like to get a fix of deep-fried haggis), hills (rather like Winchester, even in the city you can see them surrounding you), nostalgia (it's where I met my wife, Claire Rutter), industrial heritage (there's a fascinating 5-mile trail along the Clyde illustrating 150 years of bridge design).

5. A pre-performance ritual:
Laundering my lucky pants.

6. The dead composer you would most like to chat to:
With a megaphone, Beethoven. One word, "why?"

7. The most beautiful railway journey you have done:
I soon tire of beautiful. I prefer interesting: as a British Rail management trainee in the early 1980s, my interesting railway journeys included sitting in the cabs of a High Speed Train from King's Cross to Newcastle and of an Underground train on the Circle Line, and daily commuting through the ex-industrial landscape around Sheffield.

8. Should we move the clocks forward one hour so we get lighter evenings?
Why on earth not? Does anyone do anything worthwhile before 10am?

9. Kung Fu Panda or Ratatouille? Who is the greater hero?
Who? Roobarb & Custard are more my style.

10. In which past age would you prefer to have lived: 1083 (Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine), 1492 (Columbus sailed the ocean blue), 1897 (Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee)? And where?
1083, in the capital city of England - Winchester, as a stonemason. Construction of the new Cathedral was well under way (immediately next to the Old Minster), and stonemasons were comfortably well-off. In my spare time I do professional historical research (http://docuracy.co.uk), and would like to understand better how the feudal system was introduced and made to work.

15.02.2012

IMPORTANT NEVILL HOLT ANNOUNCEMENT

Your support has been vital to the success of the opera season at Nevill Holt, for which continued thanks from us both. 2012 will be the 10th festival of opera at Nevill Holt and we are delighted that over the years it has built up such a loyal and supportive following. That's why we wanted you to be the first to hear about the plans to broaden the festival, building on the success we've had together and offering more variety in the future.

Nevill Holt will of course continue to showcase the best of the UK's young musical and dramatic talent in this year's opera festival, as we have done together for the last decade. Nevill Holt also wants to host the most brilliant young British talent in other areas, enhancing, we hope, what is available at the festival in future years. This will continue to include opera, and also other forms of music. The initial additional focus will be on art and sculpture, which will be alongside some significant changes to the garden at Nevill Holt to bring something new there in terms of horticulture. In all these areas, the ambition is to show you what some of the extraordinary and cutting-edge talent throughout the UK has achieved in these fields.

After 10 wonderful years working together, we both feel that change (albeit no more often than once a decade!) will keep the festival fresh, and so this will be the last year for Grange Park Opera at Nevill Holt. We are grateful to you for the help you have given.

You will be sent the 2013 Nevill Holt festival programme in the autumn.

But before then, we both look forward to seeing you in July for Eugene Onegin and wish you many more wonderful summer evenings at Nevill Holt. Book Onegin online.

Wasfi Kani OBE and David Ross

10.02.2012

WARM WOOLLEN MITTENS... TIMOTHY DAWKINS (BASS - SURIN IN QUEEN OF SPADES)

1. Your favourite piece of machinery:
Espresso machine

2. The greatest invention in history (excluding above):
Espresso machine!!! (if I can't have the same answer it has to be a cherry stoner!)

3. Favourite symphonic work (no singing in it please):
In the Fen Country - Vaughan Williams

4. Apart from home, your favourite city just now and why:
Sienna - happy times spent there, but mainly because of the coffee!

5. A pre-performance ritual...
Three guesses!!! (Tea will do, but it is a poor substitute)

6. The dead composer you would most like to chat to:
Viktor Ullmann

7. The most beautiful railway journey you have done:
Montreux to Les Avants on the panoramic train with the glass roof - stunning

8. Should we move the clocks forward one hour so we get lighter evenings?
Definitely YES

9. Kung Fu Panda or Ratatouille? Who is the greater hero?
I've never seen any of the movies but will go with Ratatouille as it is a food and I could have a coffee afterwards

03.02.12 Hye-Youn Lee (Soprano - Elettra in Idomeneo) Her favourite things

26.1.12 Claire Rutter (Soprano - Madama Butterfly) Her favourite things

THE OPERA TICKET