My life, as reflected in these posts, has been very Glass/Orphée centric over the last month. For me it has been a time of searching and discovery, of excitement, and of joy at making new friends. And now, it's over. There would be a sense of let-down were it not for the fact that I have found a new enthusiasm for opera. My dear friend Lea was upbraiding me recently when I was grumbling about having had a surfeit of Puccini, and Verdi, and bel canto, and "all that stuff." After a pause she said "It sounds like you don't even like opera any more!" and I found myself thinking "Could this be true? Do I really not like it as much as I thought?" Then I went to the first orchestral dress rehearsal of Orphée and it was like tasting a perfectly ripe but astringent grapefruit after a week of eating nothing but chocolate. It revitalised my love of all opera. I'm back on board. Thank you, Mr Glass.


Sesame Street celebrated its 40th birthday last week!
Can it really be that long? Did that street really open for business in the same year that Neil Armstrong landed on the moon? And hundreds of thousands of young and old got wet and muddy at Woodstock? And the Archies stormed the charts with Sugar Sugar? I guess so. As my small tribute to this national treasure, I bring you, gentle readers, Plácido Flamingo.

Those of you familiar with this blog will know that I am a keen supporter of anything that manages to combine music and young people, so when Ingrid Arnett, Community Relations Director for the Portland Youth Philharmonic Orchestra, wrote to me telling me she is an Operaman fan and asking me to attend the orchestra's upcoming concert (details below) I immediately cleared space in the appointments book, and emailed my grateful acceptance. I then looked online to see what information I could find about David Hattner, the orchestra's relatively new conductor, and was disappointed at the paucity of information available. I called Ingrid and asked whether I could meet Maestro Hattner for a chat, and offered him the choice of his place as a venue (his office and coffee) or mine (Jake's Grill and a glass of wine) and was encouraged when he chose Jake's. We met last week.

Let me begin by telling you that Maestro Hattner is punctual, friendly, passionate about his job - and almost frighteningly bright! Before getting to the more formal stuff I spoke with him about his fandom of the New York Yankees, and how he squares his conscience and reputation for being a nice guy with his support for the designated hitter rule (he was almost abashed), the New York Jets (we both agree that Mark Sanchez is going to make a fine professional quarterback) and his being a closet ten-pin bowler (he likened it to golf. Umm, okay...). We then chatted for almost two hours about many topics and here is a sample taken from our discussion.

Thank you for joining Operaman, Maestro. Tell me something about your early family life and how you came to music.

A couple of weeks ago, at the urging of Bob Kingston, I watched the documentary on Philip Glass called 'A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts'. Overall I enjoyed it enormously. There was one mildly jarring note. Right at the beginning of the film, Glass is heard as a voice over, saying (and I paraphrase) "There's lots of music in the world. There's the Beatles and Beethoven and lots of other music. You don't have to listen to mine. You don't want to listen to my music? I give you permission. Go listen to something else. I don't care." It was that last phrase which struck me as not just incongruous but almost arrogant in its tone of dismissal. And now, this just in - he may have said it but he doesn't mean it!

On Monday evening I went to the first orchestral dress rehearsal of Orphée at the Keller. Mr Glass was there and Chris Mattaliano took the trouble to introduce me to him. We chatted just for a few moments but he still managed to be humourous and engaging. I had been invited together with five other journalists/bloggers to sit down for an hour and chat with Mr Glass the following morning and my brief meeting at the rehearsal made me look forward all the more to seeing him and having a chance to chat with him at greater length.