Ed McLachlan
‘I must say, this is the most hostile desert I’ve ever explored’
Viewers interested in trivia will enjoy the fact that the part of Peterson was originally offered to Harrison Ford. Margaret is played by Sophie Turner, who, as Sansa Stark in Game of Thrones, was similarly attuned to familial violence. Todd is played by Patrick Schwarzenegger, son of Arnold and great-nephew of JFK. On top of all this, the Netflix documentary’s editor, Sophie Brunet, ended up having an affair with Peterson. Neither the docuseries nor the drama draws any conclusions to account for the mystifying hold that Peterson has over his children. As Kathleen’s sister says in the trial, ‘I have no idea who the hell Michael Peterson was then, or is now’ – and neither do I. You can hear even more about the death of poor Kathleen Peterson, including an extended interview with
the odious Michael, in an 18-episode BBC podcast called Beyond Reasonable Doubt. Also beyond reasonable doubt is that we will soon be treated to The Staircase: The Musical and a Christmas special, The Staircase on Ice.
MUSIC RICHARD OSBORNE GLORIANA – FOR ELIZABETH I & II I have only the vaguest memory of where I was when President Kennedy was assassinated. I’ve almost no recollection of the Cuban Missile Crisis when nuclear Armageddon supposedly threatened. But I can still see my young self walking slowly down a dank tree-lined avenue on the morning of 6th February 1952, after the headmaster’s
announcement that the King had died and there’d be no more school that day. Why I remember it quite so vividly has never been entirely clear. Is it because, as the years pass, the image has been refreshed by the recognition of just how momentous the occasion was? Not so much the end of one reign, but the inauguration of another under which it has been both a privilege and a blessing to spend the greater part of one’s life. In the closing scene of Benjamin Britten’s great coronation opera Gloriana, Elizabeth I reflects, ‘I count it the glory of my crown that I have reigned with your love, and there is no jewel that I prefer before that jewel.’ Afterwards, an off-stage chorus murmurs the opera’s haunting refrain, ‘Green leaves are we, red rose our golden Queen.’ Gloriana was conceived shortly after the king’s death, while Britten and Peter Pears were on a post-winter skiing holiday with George and Marion Harewood, in the west Austrian resort of Gargellan. It was Britten who had introduced the young opera-loving 7th Earl, first cousin of the new Queen, to the Viennese-born pianist Marion Stein, who had fled Nazi-occupied Austria in 1938. After a day of ‘wild & eccentric skiing’ in Gargellan, the conversation turned to national operas. Smetana’s The Bartered Bride was mentioned, as were several Russian epics and Verdi’s Aida, which Britten particularly admired. ‘No such English opera,’ lamented Britten. ‘Well, you’d better write one!’ rejoined the 7th Earl, throwing down the gauntlet. Harewood mentioned Lytton Strachey’s Elizabeth and Essex: A Tragic History, which he’d recently read. True, the story had already yielded one operatic gem, Donizetti’s Roberto Devereux: theatrically compelling, albeit a touch free with the historical actualité. Britten and his librettist, the poet William Plomer, would be more meticulous, supplementing Strachey with a close reading of J E Neale’s classic 1934 biography, Queen Elizabeth I. The libretto, said Britten, should be ‘crystal-clear, with lovely pageantry but linked by a strong story about Queen & Essex – strong & simple’. The result is a masterpiece of distillation. Married to Britten’s superbly crafted score, the libretto serves well the intended aim of creating a ‘national’ opera which remains first-rate music-drama in its own right. Britten asked that the piece be part of the official coronation programme. Given that the Queen’s Private Secretary, Sir Alan Lascelles, was also a member The Oldie June 2022 67
