Golden Oldies

Macbeth (Gezim Myshketa), Lady Macbeth (Judith Howarth); Banquo (Jonathan Lemalu) conducted by Roger Norrington, it was a realisation of ineffable beauty and power.

Aside from some undisciplined choral work in the pastoral first act, Garsington’s new production was every bit as fine, albeit grander and in a darker register. L’Orfeo, along with the tragedies of the ancient Greeks, was what Wagner would later call ‘the complete artwork’. This production, directed with unostentatious skill by John Caird, was as complete an experience as anything you might hope to encounter on that famous hill in Bayreuth. Indeed, the set designs and powerfully atmospheric lighting created by Robert Jones and Paul Pyant were of a quality any director of a Bayreuth Ring might be pleased to own.

Ed Lyon was a superb Orfeo, speaking musically with a perfect blend of virtuosity and vocal heft. The greatest test comes in Act 5 as, bereaved, bereft and angry, Orfeo is pitched back into the Arcadian fields. It’s here, as he grapples with remembrance of times past, that we encounter one of opera’s most powerful and broad-spanned vocal meditations. ‘Follow that!’ Monteverdi seems to say to opera composers yet unborn.

Most versions of the story have the bereaved Orpheus denouncing womanhood, finding solace in the arms of ephebic boys, and being torn to death by enraged Maenads. This is the version Monteverdi set, until Duke Gonzaga revived the entertainment for a womenonly evening at the Mantuan court and requested a Maenad-free dénouement. It’s this that we have today: Orfeo’s erstwhile mentor, the god Apollo, now descending from the skies to whisk heavenward the sullen lad. There’s no fly tower in Garsington’s rural theatre, any more than there was in the Mantuan court. No matter. Our own maestro di cappella, Laurence Cummings, was on hand to don Apollo’s crown and, in a dryish tenor, invite Orfeo to join the immortals. Not that the Maenads are entirely forgotten. There’s a touch of Moorish wildness in Monteverdi’s concluding dance, suggesting that where unruly passions flare, danger will always lurk.

GOLDEN OLDIES RACHEL JOHNSON EVERGREEN BUSH

Vita is brevis and ars is longa, but the careers of pop stars today are even longer – which means I have a heaven-sent opportunity to set the record straight over something I wrote back in 2014.

This was a review of Kate Bush at the Hammersmith Apollo – a ‘residency’ most fans would have killed for and her first live show since 1979. She has not performed since.

What’s so silly is that I too am a Kate Bush fan. Who isn’t? Especially now – and we will come to that. Wutheringuthering-uthering Heights! Babooshka! King of the Mountain!

Not wanting to re-ignite the firestorm, all I will say is I’m sorry I so utterly missed the point of her Before the Dawn live series, her artistic importance and her performance. I stupidly said in my piece that she was no longer the lithe teenager in a leotard who burst forth on an unsuspecting world in 1978 and changed pop music for ever.

Thank goodness nobody noticed. Everyone is again apprised of her rare genius as she is enjoying (‘The world’s gone mad,’ she said to the BBC, on her old-school landline) a recordskittling renaissance. Among her achievements are: 1. Longest gap between number ones. Wuthering Heights went to number one in 1978 and Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) has hit number one 44 years later (it’s also running up the charts in the US). The previous titleholder for longest-ever gap was Tom Jones, for whom a mere 42 years separated Green, Green Grass of Home and (Barry) Islands in the Stream. 2. Longest time taken for a single to reach number one from time of release – ie from 1985 to 2022. 3. Oldest female artist to top the charts: Kate is 64; the previous-title holder was Cher at a mere 52.

And for why this Summer of Kate Bush Love? There’s a scene in Stranger Things (Netflix) of a girl called Max being saved by someone putting a cassette of Hounds of Love into a Walkman and playing her favourite song, Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God), and the rest is now pop history.

Kids all over the planet freaked out, went nuts for it and asked their boomer parents, ‘Have you heard of Kate Bush?’ The scene has had well over half a billion views on TikTok.

Kate Bush has even emerged for pretty much the first time since my ill-judged review to marvel at her own resurrection. ‘I never listen to my old stuff,’ she told the BBC.

Everyone has fallen in love with her all over again, now she’s 64; from sea to shining sea. The younger generation has welcomed her with purer souls than mine, even though she said she was more into kitchen gardening than into kitchen disco.

What a time to be alive!