Golden Oldies

Sarah Walker as Elizabeth I in Britten’s Gloriana at the ENO, March 1984

of the Harewood clan, the request was readily heard. Britten was, after all, the country’s most accomplished living composer. Nor is it true that the royals were a bunch of musical illiterates; certainly not where the Queen Mother and her two daughters were concerned.

There was, however, one blunder. The Covent Garden première on 8th June 1953 should have been before the great and the good of the arts world, not the ‘stuffed pigs’ (Britten’s phrase) of the Diplomatic Corps, party-wearied aristocrats and ‘Official London’. Peter Pears said it was like singing to an empty auditorium.

The gossip columnists had a field day with this embarrassing first-night ‘failure’; as did, sad to report, a number of leading music critics – including those of the Times and the Daily Telegraph – whose relations with Britten were far from cordial.

Worse, 1953 was the year in which Churchill’s Home Secretary, David Maxwell Fyfe, launched his McCarthystyle campaign to rid the country of what he called the ‘plague of homosexuals’.

Since just about everyone of importance involved with Gloriana was carded for investigation – the composer, the librettist, the lead tenor, the Royal Opera’s general administrator and others besides – there’s little doubt that the public ridiculing of the opera was being encouraged from within government itself.

I hold no truck with the argument that the subject – an ageing queen proud of her rule, yet riven within by both private passion and continuing fears for the security of her people – was unsuitable to the occasion. Gloriana is a greater, less ephemeral piece than that.

It’s an opera that needs to be both seen and heard. And nowhere better than on the DVD of Colin Graham’s celebrated Sadler’s Wells staging which English National Opera revived during George Harewood’s time as managing director.

Mark Elder conducts, with Sarah Walker catching every facet of the Queen whose realm and personality Plomer and Britten so memorably distilled.

GOLDEN OLDIES RACHEL JOHNSON THE STONES V THE BEATLES

Since the sixties, anyone with a pulse has been either a Stones or a Beatles person. This division – far more than Blur v Oasis – was and is the great cleavage of rock ’n’ roll. You could not be both.

This has led to an argument that has dragged on for six decades as to which band is ‘better’. It hotted up nicely the other day (I find our rock legends often throw out these grenades when they either have a world tour to publicise or are about to turn 80, or both).

Roger Daltrey was the latest to back the Beatles over the Stones, whom he called ‘a mediocre pub band’. Oof!

You will remember that last year Paul McCartney – celebrated by Hunter Davies in this issue on the occasion of his 80th – said of his rivals, ‘They’re a blues cover band – that’s sort of what the Stones are.’

If I had to take all the Beatles music or the Stones music to my desert island, I would find it almost impossible to choose. It’s like arguing about whether cats are better than dogs (they’re not, obviously), but with one vital difference.

The Stones played their first gig 60 years ago, on 12th July 1962, at the Marquee. A new book by Lesley-Ann Jones, The Stone Age: Sixty Years of the Rolling Stones, salutes the anniversary.

I first saw the Stones live at Wembley in the summer of 1982 for the Tattoo You tour. Being a pushy sort of person, I pushed my way to the front, and there I stood, wilting in the heat, for many hours till the Stones pranced on and the entire stadium surged forward and I thought I would be crushed to death.

They are playing dates in the UK again this summer (Hyde Park, London, and Anfield Stadium, Liverpool). I’m trying to score a VIP pass this time, so I’m not trampled underfoot again.

This is the important distinction, which I thank a former Rolling Stones WAG, Jo Wood, for putting so pithily when I interviewed her last year and asked about Macca’s ungracious comments.

‘I can’t believe they’re still arguing about it after all these years – who’s better, the Beatles or the Stones,’ Ronnie’s ex said. Then she quoted back Mick Jagger’s mild riposte to Macca: ‘Well, we’re still filling stadiums and you don’t have a band.’ Touché!

The Stones are playing across Europe to celebrate ‘60 special years together’. The official website, I note, describes them as ‘the greatest rock-and-roll band of all time’.

Mick is turning 80 too next year, and while the Stones are selling out Hyde Park, sadly all that’s left of the Beatles is Ringo and Macca.

‘See them while you can, kid,’ Jo Wood advised me, sagely . ‘As my mother told me on her deathbed, none of us gets out of here alive.’