One of my former employer's masterstrokes was building a brand new, 2,000-seat theatre, hiring Wagnerian tenor legend Peter Hofmann and still managing to get back in the black after a mere twelve months. Phantom in Hamburg was a huge deal: Peter Hofmann was still a huge name in the classical world (all the while maintaining his pop career) and all stops were pulled out (of the Phantom's organ?) to make this show a success. The marketing department worked overtime to sell the idea of a quasi-opera - it's a musical, not an operetta, after all - to an audience still unfamiliar with the nuanced difference. Cats you could sell easily as a dance show, Starlight Express, still selling out in Bochum after all these years, was successfully launched as a poppy, roller-skating spectacular. Selling the idea of a semi-serious musical entertainment as neither opera nor operetta was a more difficult task. In the end, they decided to play it straight and sell it as a serious work of art. The bet worked: Phantom sold out eight times a week for over 90% of its ten-year run in Hamburg. Considering Peter Hofmann was only on stage for the first fourteen months of the run the efforts of the marketing department cannot be praised too highly.
The music director, J, and management made me feel very welcome and I played my first show on the keyboard after about a week. All of a sudden, J panicked and told me I had to conduct earlier than anticipated. I blitzed the score day and night for a week or two and stepped up and conducted the show from memory one Sunday afternoon in July, 1991. The cast included Tim Tobin, Hartwig Rudolz and Silvia Krüger, whose husband, Klaus Florian Vogt, played first horn that day. Anyone familiar with the world of opera will know that last name: a few years later, Klaus gave up his job as horn player in the Hamburg Philharmonic and went on to become one of the busiest Wagnerian tenors on the circuit, a regular at the Bayreuth Festival, the New York Met, Covent Garden and Vienna, amongst others. Quite a career change.
For the first time in a long time I'd found myself single. I was approaching thirty and felt the time was right to maybe grow up. One of the cast members, an American girl called L, caught my interest. She was feisty, entertaining, talented and single. Maybe a bit brash for me, but worth a little investigating. I started hitting on her, she realised, remained civil, and that was it. Eventually, her dad came to visit. We were introduced and got on famously. After he left, L's attitude towards me changed completely. She started to seek me out, wondered if I could drive her home etc. Basically, the tables were turned but I'd lost interest. In her heart of hearts, she wasn't interested but must have adored her father so much that his opinion counted for more than her own feelings. I write this in hindsight, years later...Anyhow, I'd run her home then drive off and meet up with former girlfriends from my Cats time. The girl who sang the lead opposite Peter Hofmann had started making demands on my time, too. She needed to put an album together and wanted me to help her select from the songs her producer had sent for her approval. We ended up spending a lot of time together, all of it, sadly, platonic, but I was obsessed with her; she had a star quality you couldn't define. L had disappeared off my radar, but you must never underestimate a Jersey Girl. She now had a mission and it was to be my destiny to obey.
Thursday, 31 March 2011
Wednesday, 30 March 2011
All good things must come to an end
I was slowly getting the feeling it was time to leave Cats. Two assistants had come and gone and I was always required to jump in and do their job until a new appointment was made. One day, I asked why I was permanently passed over for this promotion and the reply steeled my resolve: "Because you're more useful to us where you are. You play the show, you play rehearsals, you conduct, you coach German and you play for the ballet classes. You wouldn't have to do even half of that if you were permanent assistant conductor". "So, being multi-faceted counts against me. If I were more limited, I'd have a better chance of moving up?" "Basically, yes."
So, I served them an ultimatum: If they were not able to guarantee me promotion the next time the job came up, I would leave. I'd see if I could move over to The Phantom of the Opera, which was just opening a mile or so down the road. Failing that, I'd move back to England. One thing was certain: I was not going to be used as a multi-talented doormat; I had too much self-respect for that.
The upshot was that they didn't want to guarantee me the position. I spoke to the Artistic Director of the company and told her I wanted to move to Phantom if there were something free. The new music director of that show came to watch me conduct a show and the job was mine. Within two years I became chief conductor and music director of that production, the biggest Lloyd Webber show in the world at the time, but that's by-the-by. Cats hired three people on full-time contracts to replace me.
Moving to Phantom changed a lot of things in my life. I was to meet my first wife and start playing with the big boys: Cats was a great show to start off on, but Phantom was the one that garnered international attention in those days. Moving from the Reeperbahn to the Stresemannstrasse turned out to be a longer journey than originally thought...
So, I served them an ultimatum: If they were not able to guarantee me promotion the next time the job came up, I would leave. I'd see if I could move over to The Phantom of the Opera, which was just opening a mile or so down the road. Failing that, I'd move back to England. One thing was certain: I was not going to be used as a multi-talented doormat; I had too much self-respect for that.
The upshot was that they didn't want to guarantee me the position. I spoke to the Artistic Director of the company and told her I wanted to move to Phantom if there were something free. The new music director of that show came to watch me conduct a show and the job was mine. Within two years I became chief conductor and music director of that production, the biggest Lloyd Webber show in the world at the time, but that's by-the-by. Cats hired three people on full-time contracts to replace me.
Moving to Phantom changed a lot of things in my life. I was to meet my first wife and start playing with the big boys: Cats was a great show to start off on, but Phantom was the one that garnered international attention in those days. Moving from the Reeperbahn to the Stresemannstrasse turned out to be a longer journey than originally thought...
Monday, 28 March 2011
Ingrid
Now it's time to tell you about Ingrid. Astrid and I had split up and the annual Cats party was about to happen. This was basically an excuse for every desirable (and some not-so-desirable) young ladies to put on a short black number and get up on a makeshift stage and sing to the inebriated masses. Not everyone was a performer, though; the usherettes came along, too, and were often much more 'talented' than their stage-dwelling counterparts. There weren't many straight men in the production in those days, but we'd all noticed this one: she looked innocent and debauched in equal measure; large, green eyes, long, unkempt hair and an enormous mouth. Her off-duty dresses were often even more provocative than her musky allure. In short, she was fascinating, and nobody really knew how best to approach her. The answer was, of course, the simple, direct way, but more on that, later.
I turned up at the party with Uli. He'd made the acquaintance of a certain Frauke, who'd already indicated her interest in his mind by tossing him off just outside the stage door. Discretely, of course, but all the same. So up they turned and we got talking. Various Grizabellas, Bombalurinas and Rumpleteezers strutted their stuff on stage while I looked around for company. There she stood, alone, tending a drink, looking innocent, lost and yet debauched in aforementioned equal measure. The time was right. I walked over to her and picked her up. Literally. Scooped her up off the floor and carried her, Rhett Butler-style, into the stairwell. 'What are you doing? And who are you?' Her questions were certainly legitimate, so I told her: 'I'm *****, and I've been wanting to do this all evening. What's your name?' 'Ingrid'. We started to kiss, then laid down on the floor, where our nascent relationship became ever more 'caring'. Various party revellers stepped over us, around us or just plain waited until we'd finished. This was, after all, a showbiz party and no behaviour was deemed excessive. Or unexpected.
I eventually ran Ingrid home. It was 5am and I was so drunk I had to drive with one eye closed. I had her phone number, but knew I'd see her in the theatre before long, anyway. I had some free time coming up, so thought 'what the hell'. When I saw her next, we went off after the show to Meyer Lansky's (any Hamburger worth his salt knows this bar), ordered a couple of Pisco sours and sealed the deal to go to Paris for a week. We could catch up with P, my friend from Koblenz. He was now a dancer at the Lido, living with his girlfriend, a Dutch girl called Wilma, who was the vedette at the Paradis Latin. All we needed was a pair of train tickets; we'd sort everything else out once we got there. After all, it wasn't going to be high season.
Ingrid and I got to know each other pretty well in the time leading up to our departure. She loved sex, had no inhibitions, and sucked and swallowed with the best of them. Apart from anything else, she would also want to do it at the drop of a hat. We spent hours in her garret, inhaling each other's pleasure and scents, our desires and urges. We managed to hold off in the couchette department of the train, but christened our hotel room very rapidly. It was located in the 12th arrondissement; I found it over breakfast that morning, just after we got into Gare de l'Est.
We met up with P shortly after, round at his place in the 15th. 'Jeez, mate, where did you find her? Hitchhiking?' P was, to put it mildly, a bit dubious about Ingrid. True, she had gypsy blood but was an honest as the next man, so to speak. He ended up getting on very well with her, though. In my mind, nothing was ever going to come of the relationship; she and I were together for the sake of fun; I had no intention of settling down. Germany was not my country and there I would not stay; so primitive were my thought processes at the time. An Ingrid, an Astrid, or, indeed, an Anyone, was never going to tie me down. This changed, of course, and sooner than I imagined, but that didn't work out, either. Anyhow, that's a much later post.
Ingrid and I stayed together fr a while after Paris. None of the relationships of that time seemed particularly serious: the women weren't pushy until the chips were down, the men cruised through life from day to day without much heed for the morrow. Each union had a 24-hour flashpoint period, then life went on as normal. It culminated in her coming round to my flat one evening and leaving a livid note on my desk. My poor flatmate had already fielded two other women that evening, and, for my sins, I can't even remember why, save for the fact I do recall dating three women at the same time. For some incredible reason, they all learned of each other's existence on the same day. I was lucky to get off so lightly, but maybe I say that with the consciousness of a now faithful, married, risk-averse father. This all happened half my life ago, so to speak; it's incredible to think how much we can change.
I turned up at the party with Uli. He'd made the acquaintance of a certain Frauke, who'd already indicated her interest in his mind by tossing him off just outside the stage door. Discretely, of course, but all the same. So up they turned and we got talking. Various Grizabellas, Bombalurinas and Rumpleteezers strutted their stuff on stage while I looked around for company. There she stood, alone, tending a drink, looking innocent, lost and yet debauched in aforementioned equal measure. The time was right. I walked over to her and picked her up. Literally. Scooped her up off the floor and carried her, Rhett Butler-style, into the stairwell. 'What are you doing? And who are you?' Her questions were certainly legitimate, so I told her: 'I'm *****, and I've been wanting to do this all evening. What's your name?' 'Ingrid'. We started to kiss, then laid down on the floor, where our nascent relationship became ever more 'caring'. Various party revellers stepped over us, around us or just plain waited until we'd finished. This was, after all, a showbiz party and no behaviour was deemed excessive. Or unexpected.
I eventually ran Ingrid home. It was 5am and I was so drunk I had to drive with one eye closed. I had her phone number, but knew I'd see her in the theatre before long, anyway. I had some free time coming up, so thought 'what the hell'. When I saw her next, we went off after the show to Meyer Lansky's (any Hamburger worth his salt knows this bar), ordered a couple of Pisco sours and sealed the deal to go to Paris for a week. We could catch up with P, my friend from Koblenz. He was now a dancer at the Lido, living with his girlfriend, a Dutch girl called Wilma, who was the vedette at the Paradis Latin. All we needed was a pair of train tickets; we'd sort everything else out once we got there. After all, it wasn't going to be high season.
Ingrid and I got to know each other pretty well in the time leading up to our departure. She loved sex, had no inhibitions, and sucked and swallowed with the best of them. Apart from anything else, she would also want to do it at the drop of a hat. We spent hours in her garret, inhaling each other's pleasure and scents, our desires and urges. We managed to hold off in the couchette department of the train, but christened our hotel room very rapidly. It was located in the 12th arrondissement; I found it over breakfast that morning, just after we got into Gare de l'Est.
We met up with P shortly after, round at his place in the 15th. 'Jeez, mate, where did you find her? Hitchhiking?' P was, to put it mildly, a bit dubious about Ingrid. True, she had gypsy blood but was an honest as the next man, so to speak. He ended up getting on very well with her, though. In my mind, nothing was ever going to come of the relationship; she and I were together for the sake of fun; I had no intention of settling down. Germany was not my country and there I would not stay; so primitive were my thought processes at the time. An Ingrid, an Astrid, or, indeed, an Anyone, was never going to tie me down. This changed, of course, and sooner than I imagined, but that didn't work out, either. Anyhow, that's a much later post.
Ingrid and I stayed together fr a while after Paris. None of the relationships of that time seemed particularly serious: the women weren't pushy until the chips were down, the men cruised through life from day to day without much heed for the morrow. Each union had a 24-hour flashpoint period, then life went on as normal. It culminated in her coming round to my flat one evening and leaving a livid note on my desk. My poor flatmate had already fielded two other women that evening, and, for my sins, I can't even remember why, save for the fact I do recall dating three women at the same time. For some incredible reason, they all learned of each other's existence on the same day. I was lucky to get off so lightly, but maybe I say that with the consciousness of a now faithful, married, risk-averse father. This all happened half my life ago, so to speak; it's incredible to think how much we can change.
Sunday, 27 March 2011
Off to England with Uli.
One of the most enjoyable things about being young, free and single is the ability to up sticks whenever you feel like it without needing to justify your absence, apart from to your employer, of course. My friend Uli and I decided to have a week's driving holiday in the English Lake District, so I got hold of a book which summed up our goal perfectly: it was called Beer, Bed and Breakfast and was a more than worthy copanikon on our trip. We left Hamburg late one night after a Cats performance, arriving FAR too early for our ferry crossing in Hoek van Holland, waking up freezing with aching bladders and furballs in our mouths from dossing down in the car park between 2am and 6am. I had no idea you could get from Hamburg to the North Sea coast so quickly.
After staying the first night at my Mum's place, we motored north to Kendal, where we located a hostelry, booked ourselves in, did a bit of sightseeing then repaired to the pub for an evening's serious libation. Thus was the pattern set for the week. The countryside was breathtaking, the people friendly and the after-hours lock-in at the Black Cock Inn in...I can't remember exactly where...debilitating. Only later in the week, when we arrived in London, did I notice that the car had started lurching a bit. I put it down the its age and thought no more of it. We stayed a night at a friend's house in Honor Oak before driving back to Harwich. Their children were, as they always had been, absolutely nauseating: ill-mannered, ignorant, dreadfully spoken and devoid of any social grace. The two dogs behaved slightly better than the kids, even if one, after I'd laughed at it getting stuck in the cat flap, bounded over to me and soiled my crisp, new white shirt with its muddy paws. It really seemed to do it on purpose, quite dispassionately; 'Here' it seemed to say, 'That's for laughing at me'.
The holiday was a great success and, once back in Hamburg, I took the car in to be examined. I'd driven for a full week with a two-inch nail sticking out of one of the tyres. When I think back to the speeds we got up to on the motorway it makes my stomach churn. Word to the wise: buy a BMW; you'll be safe even if you've got hardware sticking out of your tyres.
After staying the first night at my Mum's place, we motored north to Kendal, where we located a hostelry, booked ourselves in, did a bit of sightseeing then repaired to the pub for an evening's serious libation. Thus was the pattern set for the week. The countryside was breathtaking, the people friendly and the after-hours lock-in at the Black Cock Inn in...I can't remember exactly where...debilitating. Only later in the week, when we arrived in London, did I notice that the car had started lurching a bit. I put it down the its age and thought no more of it. We stayed a night at a friend's house in Honor Oak before driving back to Harwich. Their children were, as they always had been, absolutely nauseating: ill-mannered, ignorant, dreadfully spoken and devoid of any social grace. The two dogs behaved slightly better than the kids, even if one, after I'd laughed at it getting stuck in the cat flap, bounded over to me and soiled my crisp, new white shirt with its muddy paws. It really seemed to do it on purpose, quite dispassionately; 'Here' it seemed to say, 'That's for laughing at me'.
The holiday was a great success and, once back in Hamburg, I took the car in to be examined. I'd driven for a full week with a two-inch nail sticking out of one of the tyres. When I think back to the speeds we got up to on the motorway it makes my stomach churn. Word to the wise: buy a BMW; you'll be safe even if you've got hardware sticking out of your tyres.
Saturday, 26 March 2011
By the way...
If anyone out there does stumble upon this blog, I suggest you read it from the beginning. It's an uncensored, personal diary, so if you want to sift through my underwear, you'd better start where I tell you so we all get maximum satisfaction.
As...the woman of my dreams, at the time.
This seems as good a time as any to tell you (me?) about As...; I'm even listening to Donald Fagen, who turned out to be my continual companion in those days, even if he released this particular album in 2005.
So, to resume: I went up to As...'s office with her to pick out a dressing gown. This lady was just my type: slightly older, bright and oozing sex. Being young, free and single I had one thing on the brain the whole time. That's not changed, but its manifestations have, by the way. As...was slightly shorter than I; her hips were shapely, her breasts full and her face gorgeous, a grin never far from her moist, red lips. Beautiful women are never in short supply in the performing arts, so As...was one more babe in the list I was privileged to encounter every working day. I paid her my 35DM and went on my way.
A few days later, our Old Deutoronomy had his farewell performance. He'd been with the show for four years and had decided it was time to do something other than sit on a tyre and sing Moments of Happiness in German to an audience that was likely to go off after the show and pay for a blowjob a few yards further down the Reeperbahn. His decision to leave the show so soon after encountering As... was instrumental in shaping the subsequent twelve months of my life, little did he know of his deed at the time. I'd played keyboard that evening and went down to the canteen after the show, only to find it fuller than normal. No wonder, Walter was leaving and his fans were there to pay hommage.
I sat at a table near the counter, noticing As... as I planted my backside on the chair. We nodded and smiled at each other in recognition. God, she's sexy, I thought to myself, but did no more than light a Marlboro and sup on my Flensburger Pilsner. I eventually got into conversation with As..., who had, up until then, been talking to her neighbour. "Are you American?" she asked. "No, I'm English"; I detected a slight shift in her mood as she wiggled a little on her seat and bent closer over the table. From that moment on, the evening was ours; no-one interrupted our conversation; we wouldn't have heard them even if they'd tried. I was transfixed by As... and she certainly didn't seem to be seeking out anyone else's attention. We laughed, joked and flirted, then eventually, we decided we both wanted to leave at the same time.
My flat was located no more than fifty yards behind the Cats stage door. My BMW 520 sat in a parking space nearby. As a joke, I asked As... to drive me home. Fortunately her car was close by and we climbed in. Just as she engaged first gear she asked me which direction she should take. "Stop right here", I said "Here?". "Yes, it's here". We'd gone precisely 25 yards and were now sitting outside my front door. A beat, then she burst into fits of laughter. The ice was not only well and truly broken between us, it had been fed into a blast furnace. The only question which remained was who was going to go through the formality of taking this encounter to its next logical, inevitable level.
We started talking about her situation. Mine was pretty straightforward: 27 years old, single guy, horny. There's not much to add to that, is there? As... had been divorced but had remarried a mere six months before we'd met. She had a daughter from her first marriage but, as it transpired, was less than enamoured of the situation she'd let herself in for half a year previously. We talked and talked, examining all possible states of mind, expectations and hopes for the future; why she'd remarried in haste, what kind of man her new husband was and all the rest. About two hours later, I leant over and kissed her full on the lips. She didn't back off, just let out a little moan and buried herself in my embrace. We sat there in each other's arms for about half an hour. "What's next for you?", I asked. "I don't know", she replied; "I have to think". "I'm there for you. You have my number, you know where I live. If you want to run away, you know where to come". This was no empty bravado, this was real. I meant it. I found her sexy as hell, but I wanted more than just her body. I wanted this woman's confidence, her devotion. And I wasn't prepared to squander the chance nor the feelings she could have for me. I was hooked. She was 12 years older than I yet I hadn't been this ga-ga since my Manchester days (bless you, Candace...). We eventually parted, yet we were on the phone to each other the next morning.
That evening, As...jokingly 'drove me home'. There was a makeshift car park opposite my flat; lots of alterations were being made to Hopfenstrasse and Kastanienallee at that time: the St. Pauli Astra Brauerei was being renovated, many houses in Hopfenstrasse were being renovated, so unexpected mini-wasteland car parks were springing up all over the place. It was in one of these that As... slipped her tongue into my mouth, then unzipped my trousers and sucked me dry. It was all I could do as a gentleman to return the compliment. As our passions rose, so our precautions dimished. My previous reluctance to invite As... back to the flat so as not to put my flatmate in an awkward position (another Cats employee and frequent collaborator of As...) disappeared, and we moved our soon-to-be nightly amorous sport into Hopfenstrasse 2, first floor. As... was completely uninhibited and visibly and audibly enjoyed every kind of heterosexual nocturnal pursuit I put her way. Her imagination was not lacking, either, clearly relishing exploring every nook and cranny of the male body, brandishing her omnipresent smile and curious tongue like triumphant tools in the pursuit of love and physical proximity.
Eventually, all came out with her husband and I was apparently in mortal danger from him and his friends. She lined up a new house with her daugher and arranged a fly-by-night morning move, when hubby would be at work. I went and helped; a team of six of us helped to get all her possessions out of the house in the space of an hour. God knows how we managed it, but we did. Soon after, As... and her daughter moved into a little terraced house opposite Helmut Schmidt and it was here that our iniquities unfolded, day after day, night after night until a stupid misunderstanding drove us apart.
Without wishing to bore anyone about our sexual activity over the following twelve months, it was impossible to spend more than two hours in As...'s company without us engaging in some form of sexual activity; either the whole nine yards in our bedroom on the top floor or improvised oral sex in the kitchen after or during lunch, dinner or whatever, a raised dressing gown during the evening's teeth-cleaning. It didn't matter. Somehow, we were put on this earth to fuck each other and fuck we did. It never got boring; to have any part of As...'s divine body in my mouth or attached to any other part of my anatomy just seemed the natural and right order on earth, as normal as sleeping, eating and drinking.
One day, we went to Worpswede, an artists' village in Lower Saxony. As... needed to check out a couple of candidates for the manufacture of Phantom artefacts. We were booked into a hotel for the night. By now, not even As..., who, at first, had seemed slightly nervous about being seen in public with a boyfriend who was, quite obviously, younger than she, cared who saw us. We entwined our hands over dinner like star-crossed lovers, kissed shamelessly over the aperitif and made no secret of our haste to go up to our room once dinner was finished. I remember that particular night as the few hours of the most mind-blowing sex I'd ever had in my life. It was all because my feelings for As... were running so high, knowing, at the same time, that she felt EVEN MORE for me. If there was ever a recipe for eternal happiness, then that is it. Ladies, you know what you have to do. You men, too.
OK, so now you're all going to round on me. "Why did you split up?" In a few words, it was the age difference. I convinced myself it would not work long-term and, after about a year, started to put a little distance between us. As... had talked about moving in together, but I didn't feel this would ultimately be right, at least not for me. I was determined to get married once, have childeren (probably) and fit right into society's expectations, if not my own. The relationship with As... was phenomenal, but we were both still young and pretty. Years would have to pass and complications would arise. I certainly wanted to settle, but was still young and hadn't encountered the woman I felt encapsulated what I was looking for in a wife. Had As... been ten years younger, there would have been no question, and we'd have probably been together today. But even as a horny 27-year-old, certain preoccupations gain the upper hand, even if they may be misguided.
I missed a date at As..'s place; a friend had come round in a state of flux and I'd played agony uncle while he poured out his soul on my kitchen table. The phone had rung, but I'd ignored it, not even thinking who it could be. Only later did I remember the date and realised it was probably As... We spoke the following day. I went round to her house and, by way of a greeting, she pushed me against the sink, unbuttoned my trousers and sucked me dry even before asking why I'd forgotten our date. She then boycotted a production of A, My Name is Alice I'd put on at another theatre in Hamburg, preferring to go and see The Enemy in my Bed at the cinema. In my post-adolescent mind, these were all reasons enough to split up, so we saw each other no longer. Our respective lives continued and I hope hers remained as invigorating as the section I'd been privileged to know. God bless you, Astrid.
So, to resume: I went up to As...'s office with her to pick out a dressing gown. This lady was just my type: slightly older, bright and oozing sex. Being young, free and single I had one thing on the brain the whole time. That's not changed, but its manifestations have, by the way. As...was slightly shorter than I; her hips were shapely, her breasts full and her face gorgeous, a grin never far from her moist, red lips. Beautiful women are never in short supply in the performing arts, so As...was one more babe in the list I was privileged to encounter every working day. I paid her my 35DM and went on my way.
A few days later, our Old Deutoronomy had his farewell performance. He'd been with the show for four years and had decided it was time to do something other than sit on a tyre and sing Moments of Happiness in German to an audience that was likely to go off after the show and pay for a blowjob a few yards further down the Reeperbahn. His decision to leave the show so soon after encountering As... was instrumental in shaping the subsequent twelve months of my life, little did he know of his deed at the time. I'd played keyboard that evening and went down to the canteen after the show, only to find it fuller than normal. No wonder, Walter was leaving and his fans were there to pay hommage.
I sat at a table near the counter, noticing As... as I planted my backside on the chair. We nodded and smiled at each other in recognition. God, she's sexy, I thought to myself, but did no more than light a Marlboro and sup on my Flensburger Pilsner. I eventually got into conversation with As..., who had, up until then, been talking to her neighbour. "Are you American?" she asked. "No, I'm English"; I detected a slight shift in her mood as she wiggled a little on her seat and bent closer over the table. From that moment on, the evening was ours; no-one interrupted our conversation; we wouldn't have heard them even if they'd tried. I was transfixed by As... and she certainly didn't seem to be seeking out anyone else's attention. We laughed, joked and flirted, then eventually, we decided we both wanted to leave at the same time.
My flat was located no more than fifty yards behind the Cats stage door. My BMW 520 sat in a parking space nearby. As a joke, I asked As... to drive me home. Fortunately her car was close by and we climbed in. Just as she engaged first gear she asked me which direction she should take. "Stop right here", I said "Here?". "Yes, it's here". We'd gone precisely 25 yards and were now sitting outside my front door. A beat, then she burst into fits of laughter. The ice was not only well and truly broken between us, it had been fed into a blast furnace. The only question which remained was who was going to go through the formality of taking this encounter to its next logical, inevitable level.
We started talking about her situation. Mine was pretty straightforward: 27 years old, single guy, horny. There's not much to add to that, is there? As... had been divorced but had remarried a mere six months before we'd met. She had a daughter from her first marriage but, as it transpired, was less than enamoured of the situation she'd let herself in for half a year previously. We talked and talked, examining all possible states of mind, expectations and hopes for the future; why she'd remarried in haste, what kind of man her new husband was and all the rest. About two hours later, I leant over and kissed her full on the lips. She didn't back off, just let out a little moan and buried herself in my embrace. We sat there in each other's arms for about half an hour. "What's next for you?", I asked. "I don't know", she replied; "I have to think". "I'm there for you. You have my number, you know where I live. If you want to run away, you know where to come". This was no empty bravado, this was real. I meant it. I found her sexy as hell, but I wanted more than just her body. I wanted this woman's confidence, her devotion. And I wasn't prepared to squander the chance nor the feelings she could have for me. I was hooked. She was 12 years older than I yet I hadn't been this ga-ga since my Manchester days (bless you, Candace...). We eventually parted, yet we were on the phone to each other the next morning.
That evening, As...jokingly 'drove me home'. There was a makeshift car park opposite my flat; lots of alterations were being made to Hopfenstrasse and Kastanienallee at that time: the St. Pauli Astra Brauerei was being renovated, many houses in Hopfenstrasse were being renovated, so unexpected mini-wasteland car parks were springing up all over the place. It was in one of these that As... slipped her tongue into my mouth, then unzipped my trousers and sucked me dry. It was all I could do as a gentleman to return the compliment. As our passions rose, so our precautions dimished. My previous reluctance to invite As... back to the flat so as not to put my flatmate in an awkward position (another Cats employee and frequent collaborator of As...) disappeared, and we moved our soon-to-be nightly amorous sport into Hopfenstrasse 2, first floor. As... was completely uninhibited and visibly and audibly enjoyed every kind of heterosexual nocturnal pursuit I put her way. Her imagination was not lacking, either, clearly relishing exploring every nook and cranny of the male body, brandishing her omnipresent smile and curious tongue like triumphant tools in the pursuit of love and physical proximity.
Eventually, all came out with her husband and I was apparently in mortal danger from him and his friends. She lined up a new house with her daugher and arranged a fly-by-night morning move, when hubby would be at work. I went and helped; a team of six of us helped to get all her possessions out of the house in the space of an hour. God knows how we managed it, but we did. Soon after, As... and her daughter moved into a little terraced house opposite Helmut Schmidt and it was here that our iniquities unfolded, day after day, night after night until a stupid misunderstanding drove us apart.
Without wishing to bore anyone about our sexual activity over the following twelve months, it was impossible to spend more than two hours in As...'s company without us engaging in some form of sexual activity; either the whole nine yards in our bedroom on the top floor or improvised oral sex in the kitchen after or during lunch, dinner or whatever, a raised dressing gown during the evening's teeth-cleaning. It didn't matter. Somehow, we were put on this earth to fuck each other and fuck we did. It never got boring; to have any part of As...'s divine body in my mouth or attached to any other part of my anatomy just seemed the natural and right order on earth, as normal as sleeping, eating and drinking.
One day, we went to Worpswede, an artists' village in Lower Saxony. As... needed to check out a couple of candidates for the manufacture of Phantom artefacts. We were booked into a hotel for the night. By now, not even As..., who, at first, had seemed slightly nervous about being seen in public with a boyfriend who was, quite obviously, younger than she, cared who saw us. We entwined our hands over dinner like star-crossed lovers, kissed shamelessly over the aperitif and made no secret of our haste to go up to our room once dinner was finished. I remember that particular night as the few hours of the most mind-blowing sex I'd ever had in my life. It was all because my feelings for As... were running so high, knowing, at the same time, that she felt EVEN MORE for me. If there was ever a recipe for eternal happiness, then that is it. Ladies, you know what you have to do. You men, too.
OK, so now you're all going to round on me. "Why did you split up?" In a few words, it was the age difference. I convinced myself it would not work long-term and, after about a year, started to put a little distance between us. As... had talked about moving in together, but I didn't feel this would ultimately be right, at least not for me. I was determined to get married once, have childeren (probably) and fit right into society's expectations, if not my own. The relationship with As... was phenomenal, but we were both still young and pretty. Years would have to pass and complications would arise. I certainly wanted to settle, but was still young and hadn't encountered the woman I felt encapsulated what I was looking for in a wife. Had As... been ten years younger, there would have been no question, and we'd have probably been together today. But even as a horny 27-year-old, certain preoccupations gain the upper hand, even if they may be misguided.
I missed a date at As..'s place; a friend had come round in a state of flux and I'd played agony uncle while he poured out his soul on my kitchen table. The phone had rung, but I'd ignored it, not even thinking who it could be. Only later did I remember the date and realised it was probably As... We spoke the following day. I went round to her house and, by way of a greeting, she pushed me against the sink, unbuttoned my trousers and sucked me dry even before asking why I'd forgotten our date. She then boycotted a production of A, My Name is Alice I'd put on at another theatre in Hamburg, preferring to go and see The Enemy in my Bed at the cinema. In my post-adolescent mind, these were all reasons enough to split up, so we saw each other no longer. Our respective lives continued and I hope hers remained as invigorating as the section I'd been privileged to know. God bless you, Astrid.
Thursday, 24 March 2011
Soon, I promise...
I'll post my memories of the sublime As... very soon. The time has to be right. It'll be worth it, so do call in if you're passing. If not, I'll just enjoy the reminiscences on my own...
Briefly back to A...
I nearly forgot to mention: One evening, A and I, under the guise of needing to check the new synthesizers in the orchestra box, went and bonked our way through the entire backstage area, ending up on the stage, just by the famous tyre. There was no show that evening, by the way, except for the one we provided for the ghosts and spiders of the Operettenhaus. A word to the wise: be careful when screwing on a raked stage; it kills your knees.
Wednesday, 23 March 2011
As...
I'd seen quite a few Cats dressing gowns around the theatre and decided, as one naturally does when having too much money in your pocket and beer in the bloodstream, that I needed one, too. But where could I get them? 'Oh, you need to see As...'. Finally, after two or three days, someone pointed her out to me as she stood in the canteen queue, waiting to buy a coffee. I made my move:
'Are you As...?'
'Yes, why?'
'Because you have something I desperately want'
(impish grin) 'What's that?'
'Dressing gowns'.
Cue meltingly sexy giggle and an offer to come to her office after her coffee break. She'd been remarried for six months and all this was was a healthy flirt between a 27-year-old single man and a thirty-something sex bomb. Yeah, right.
If you want to know what happened next, I suggest you check this blog again, soon. It was mind-blowing, and I don't want to scribble it down glibly in a few minutes.
'Are you As...?'
'Yes, why?'
'Because you have something I desperately want'
(impish grin) 'What's that?'
'Dressing gowns'.
Cue meltingly sexy giggle and an offer to come to her office after her coffee break. She'd been remarried for six months and all this was was a healthy flirt between a 27-year-old single man and a thirty-something sex bomb. Yeah, right.
If you want to know what happened next, I suggest you check this blog again, soon. It was mind-blowing, and I don't want to scribble it down glibly in a few minutes.
Tuesday, 22 March 2011
Life after A.
...Basically carried on as before. Conducting the show was great fun and many of us would round off every evening either playing gigs in St. Pauli's clubs and bars or just going to Medusa and try to scam free pizzas off the coke-snorting proprietor. We basically kept that dump of a restaurant going for many a night, particularly as they used to get mileage out of their advertising slogan: The Restaurant Where The Cats Eat. However, once they were full of other punters, they treated us like dirt. One day, I was so fed up with their behaviour that I went downstairs to the loo and kicked all their suspended ashtrays off the wall. The owner would never have clicked it was me had he not come down to sniff some Columbian marching powder. He screamed at me but didn't ban me, knowing full well he'd lose a lot of custom if I took my clan with me. In the end, once I'd done it a third time, he did ban me. Medusa is still there and so am I. Whether or not the owner is, though, I wouldn't like to guess.
Shortly after all this, I decided I needed a Cats dressing gown. This moment was to prove decisive and ushered in the most intense period of shagging I think I've ever known. Her name also started with A, but was as far removed from the other as it was possible to be. She was beautiful and slightly older than I, with that look in the eye that only ladies of a certain age and experience can master. I benefited from the lot, but I gave as good as I got.
Shortly after all this, I decided I needed a Cats dressing gown. This moment was to prove decisive and ushered in the most intense period of shagging I think I've ever known. Her name also started with A, but was as far removed from the other as it was possible to be. She was beautiful and slightly older than I, with that look in the eye that only ladies of a certain age and experience can master. I benefited from the lot, but I gave as good as I got.
Sunday, 20 March 2011
Reunification
The Berlin Wall fell and nylon-clad East Germans, brandishing their 200DM 'Welcome Money' came flooding over to look in the windows of innumerable porn shops on the Reeperbahn, their Trabi cars stinking out our orchestra pit in the Operettenhaus and even becoming my direct neighbours, but the big news of the autumn was that I was banging A, a colleague from Munich; very pretty, with pert breasts, but a pathological liar and closet lesbian. Complicated? You could say that. She had shagged her way through half the theatre before sharing my new flat adjacent to the Herbertstrasse, that famous brothel-rich thoroughfare in Hamburg's St. Pauli neighbourhood. Even while she was under my roof she invited men back ("They're just friends, you know") and proceeded to keep me awake, not through her noise, but through her attempted discretion. One day, though, I'd decided I'd had enough. I was out with Uli, my best friend to this day, and we decided to celebrate the night in style.. I linked up with Doro, a former flame and Good-Time George ("Kein Kind von Traurigkeit", as she so expertly put it), Uli headed off home with his choice and Doro and I went back to the Hopfenstrasse with evil intent and fire in our loins.
A was a notoriously light sleeper and Doro the loudest lover I'd ever known. Just the thought of paying back my tenant for the emotional torture of the previous three weeks made me hornier than ever before. Doro and I cracked open a bottle of white, took off our clothes and lit up a couple of cigarettes. It was 2am and there was damage to be done. We drank, smoked, sucked, licked and fucked our way through to dawn, Doro providing a soundtrack that would have done any of the Reeperbahn's noblest establishments proud. I heard A get up at about 9am, slamming doors and muttering about how inconsiderate people were. I saw her that afternoon, when she had the nerve to reproach me for my dreadful behaviour. She, of course, had never put a foot wrong, but so it is in the minds of the unbalanced. She moved out into her own place soon after, right after I'd had a visit from one of her other previous 'friends' who wanted to put the record straight with me i.e. dispel the lies he knew she'd told me about him. I'd known him considerably longer than I'd known her, and her face as we sat down over a beer after the show that night was a study.
A had tried to get me arrested. Every time I'd been to her place prior to her sharing my flat she'd attempted to get me blind drunk, knowing full well that the police always kept an eye out for WL - numberplates in Hamburg. I always resisted, recognising her man-hating games and this drove her mad. She never wanted a man to stay the night after fucking (I can't bring myself to say 'love-making', as it wasn't), so you'd shoot your load and have to leave. Yup, that's how romantic it was. She never wanted to expose her tits, either, but I managed to get around that. One day, a very obviously lesbian girlfriend came up from Munich to stay the week and it was clear she resented my existence. Confused times. Twenty years on, and A is still in Hamburg, probably still up to her strange games, even if Uli, who saw her a few years ago, said 'Sie sieht echt scheisse aus'. Back then she was a few years older than me, so she'll be in her mid-fifties, now. Time to grow up, I think. Against this salty backdrop, East Germany was quickly emptying and looking for work in red-light districts all over the Federal Republic, as it was still known. They still didn't know they'd been better off where they were.
A was a notoriously light sleeper and Doro the loudest lover I'd ever known. Just the thought of paying back my tenant for the emotional torture of the previous three weeks made me hornier than ever before. Doro and I cracked open a bottle of white, took off our clothes and lit up a couple of cigarettes. It was 2am and there was damage to be done. We drank, smoked, sucked, licked and fucked our way through to dawn, Doro providing a soundtrack that would have done any of the Reeperbahn's noblest establishments proud. I heard A get up at about 9am, slamming doors and muttering about how inconsiderate people were. I saw her that afternoon, when she had the nerve to reproach me for my dreadful behaviour. She, of course, had never put a foot wrong, but so it is in the minds of the unbalanced. She moved out into her own place soon after, right after I'd had a visit from one of her other previous 'friends' who wanted to put the record straight with me i.e. dispel the lies he knew she'd told me about him. I'd known him considerably longer than I'd known her, and her face as we sat down over a beer after the show that night was a study.
A had tried to get me arrested. Every time I'd been to her place prior to her sharing my flat she'd attempted to get me blind drunk, knowing full well that the police always kept an eye out for WL - numberplates in Hamburg. I always resisted, recognising her man-hating games and this drove her mad. She never wanted a man to stay the night after fucking (I can't bring myself to say 'love-making', as it wasn't), so you'd shoot your load and have to leave. Yup, that's how romantic it was. She never wanted to expose her tits, either, but I managed to get around that. One day, a very obviously lesbian girlfriend came up from Munich to stay the week and it was clear she resented my existence. Confused times. Twenty years on, and A is still in Hamburg, probably still up to her strange games, even if Uli, who saw her a few years ago, said 'Sie sieht echt scheisse aus'. Back then she was a few years older than me, so she'll be in her mid-fifties, now. Time to grow up, I think. Against this salty backdrop, East Germany was quickly emptying and looking for work in red-light districts all over the Federal Republic, as it was still known. They still didn't know they'd been better off where they were.
Friday, 18 March 2011
Cats, Hamburg.
Being a pretty independent sort of person, I wasn't expecting anyone to come and meet me at Hamburg Airport, less still provide me with transport into town. I hopped off the plane and made my way to C...'s and F's place in Harburg, getting up early the next day to go in to work, meet my new employers and get started learning Andrew Lloyd Webber's music.
The welcome I received was more than I'd bargained for: the office was ecstatic to see me, not least because they thought I'd been kidnapped/got on the wrong plane/ended up in an Afghan opium den. They'd come to meet me, you see, brandishing a card with my name on, but I'd apparently just breezed past, not looking out for anyone. They'd provided a car and a hotel, though I knew nothing about any of this. So, apart from saving them money (and, er, wasting their time a bit) they were overjoyed to note I spoke fluent German, thus saving them extra work with the authorities, as I could do it all myself.
I did check into the hotel, right next door to the main railway station, and then soon into a flat in Barmbek before moving back in with C + F, who'd just bought a house south of the city. I learned my keyboard part quickly, then started studying the full score with a view to conducting. As learning curves went, this one was a prize erection and I conducted Cats for the first time a mere two months after joining the show, never having conducted a thing in my life. I must have been cut out for this profession, as three years later I was nominated chief conductor and musical director of The Phantom of the Opera in Hamburg, the youngest MD of that show anywhere in the world at the time. But back to Cats...
Just a few weeks after getting to Hamburg, something pretty momentous happened. It was November 9th, 1989. To the world at large, the date is better known as my brother's 30th birthday, but, unbeknown to many, something else happened that day...
The welcome I received was more than I'd bargained for: the office was ecstatic to see me, not least because they thought I'd been kidnapped/got on the wrong plane/ended up in an Afghan opium den. They'd come to meet me, you see, brandishing a card with my name on, but I'd apparently just breezed past, not looking out for anyone. They'd provided a car and a hotel, though I knew nothing about any of this. So, apart from saving them money (and, er, wasting their time a bit) they were overjoyed to note I spoke fluent German, thus saving them extra work with the authorities, as I could do it all myself.
I did check into the hotel, right next door to the main railway station, and then soon into a flat in Barmbek before moving back in with C + F, who'd just bought a house south of the city. I learned my keyboard part quickly, then started studying the full score with a view to conducting. As learning curves went, this one was a prize erection and I conducted Cats for the first time a mere two months after joining the show, never having conducted a thing in my life. I must have been cut out for this profession, as three years later I was nominated chief conductor and musical director of The Phantom of the Opera in Hamburg, the youngest MD of that show anywhere in the world at the time. But back to Cats...
Just a few weeks after getting to Hamburg, something pretty momentous happened. It was November 9th, 1989. To the world at large, the date is better known as my brother's 30th birthday, but, unbeknown to many, something else happened that day...
Saturday, 12 March 2011
Edgar Lustig-Lendva, Part II
Edgar's father was the Austrian War Minister at some point. A three-star baron.
Edgar Lustig-Lendva
A curious thing happened in Colindale when my mother was about nine years old. She had a cat that fell ill, and my grandmother suggested they take it to that nice new Jewish vet who had just set up surgery in the neighbourhood. They rang Dr. Lustig-Lendva's bell and entered the waiting room. When they were finally shown in, the vet, on seeing my mother, did a double-take, then continued with the formalities. My mother, not being slow to come forward in those days, asked him why he'd stared the way he did. 'Oh nothing, you know; you just reminded me of my best friend from Amsterdam' he replied. 'What was his name?' asked my mother. 'Jan van Wijk. Why, do you know him?' he asked, sarcastically. 'Yes', my mother replied; 'He was my father'.
And that's true. Jan and Edgar had studied medicine together in Amsterdam. Jan had come to England to continue his studies in Cambridge and had met my grandmother on a day trip to the capital. They started seeing each other, then my grandmother fell pregnant. She wrote to Jan in Cambridge to tell him what had happened and, in those days of three postal delivieries per day, got the reply late that afternoon: 'I'll be there tomorrow, we'll get married'. And come he did. Got off the train at Liverpool Street, took the Tube to Kilburn, stepped out of the station and was promptly run over by a London bus, fifty yards from my grandmother's house. You couldn't make it up. And there was my grandmother, an expectant, unmarried teenager in 1931, just the stereotype we love to vilify in 2011, so you can imagine what it was like, then. She finally got married when my mother was seven; our dear Kitty never lacked courage or will.
Just to put that last sentence into perspective: had that bus not rattled down Kilburn High Road at that particular second, my grandmother would have been called Florence van Wijk and would probably have lived an entirely normal, married life with her husband. As it was, she became an unmarried mother in 1931, a teenager to boot. We still love to put the boot in to this category, don't we? Well, let me just list what happened after this 'fallen woman'/''unmoralled teenager' gave birth:
Her daughter (my mother) attended one of the best schools in London (Henrietta Barnet) on a scholarship, went on to work at the War Office and qualified as a librarian. Later, she became Mayor of King's Lynn and West Norfolk, a frequent and welcome guest of Queen Elizabeth II at Sandringham and Buckingham Palace.
My mother's marriage to Philip, a former MI6 agent and sometime Head of German Broadcasting at the BBC World Service, sadly, did not last. One-parent families were rare and frowned upon in the '60's and '70's, but my brother made it to Detective Inspector at Scotland Yard and I, for my part, have conducted at the Chicago Lyric Opera and led a career which has taken me all over over the world, currently working at the Bayreuth Festival (look it up if you haven't heard of it) and, the rest of the year at one of the world's leading opera houses, collaborating with many of the finest singers in the world.
I cite all this not to brag, but merely to show that one-parent families do not only produce benefit-dependent wasters. Everything depends on the parents, certainly; a good protestant work ethic is, sadly, indispensible if you want to get on in life. Just compare Scandinavia and North Africa.
Edgar sent my mother two beautiful Waterford Crystal decanters when she got married. They are still there. He died in the 1970's.
And that's true. Jan and Edgar had studied medicine together in Amsterdam. Jan had come to England to continue his studies in Cambridge and had met my grandmother on a day trip to the capital. They started seeing each other, then my grandmother fell pregnant. She wrote to Jan in Cambridge to tell him what had happened and, in those days of three postal delivieries per day, got the reply late that afternoon: 'I'll be there tomorrow, we'll get married'. And come he did. Got off the train at Liverpool Street, took the Tube to Kilburn, stepped out of the station and was promptly run over by a London bus, fifty yards from my grandmother's house. You couldn't make it up. And there was my grandmother, an expectant, unmarried teenager in 1931, just the stereotype we love to vilify in 2011, so you can imagine what it was like, then. She finally got married when my mother was seven; our dear Kitty never lacked courage or will.
Just to put that last sentence into perspective: had that bus not rattled down Kilburn High Road at that particular second, my grandmother would have been called Florence van Wijk and would probably have lived an entirely normal, married life with her husband. As it was, she became an unmarried mother in 1931, a teenager to boot. We still love to put the boot in to this category, don't we? Well, let me just list what happened after this 'fallen woman'/''unmoralled teenager' gave birth:
Her daughter (my mother) attended one of the best schools in London (Henrietta Barnet) on a scholarship, went on to work at the War Office and qualified as a librarian. Later, she became Mayor of King's Lynn and West Norfolk, a frequent and welcome guest of Queen Elizabeth II at Sandringham and Buckingham Palace.
My mother's marriage to Philip, a former MI6 agent and sometime Head of German Broadcasting at the BBC World Service, sadly, did not last. One-parent families were rare and frowned upon in the '60's and '70's, but my brother made it to Detective Inspector at Scotland Yard and I, for my part, have conducted at the Chicago Lyric Opera and led a career which has taken me all over over the world, currently working at the Bayreuth Festival (look it up if you haven't heard of it) and, the rest of the year at one of the world's leading opera houses, collaborating with many of the finest singers in the world.
I cite all this not to brag, but merely to show that one-parent families do not only produce benefit-dependent wasters. Everything depends on the parents, certainly; a good protestant work ethic is, sadly, indispensible if you want to get on in life. Just compare Scandinavia and North Africa.
Edgar sent my mother two beautiful Waterford Crystal decanters when she got married. They are still there. He died in the 1970's.
Just before leaving Koblenz...
A couple of weeks before we all left Koblenz in the summer of 1989, one of the dancers, Lisa, introduced us all to a friend from ballet school who had just come over for a few days. She was beautiful and charming and her name was Francesca. Lisa told us proudly how Fran's brother was going to become a HUGE rugby star and that Fran was destined for EVEN greater things. Two months later, Francesca was dead, the youngest victim of the Marchioness disaster on the Thames, when forty-five partygoers perished on a pleasure boat struck by a barge. Her brother, Lawrence Dallaglio, went on to captain England at rugby.
Hamburg, September 1989
By this point, my life was split between playing cocktail piano in the Chesterfield Hotel in the evenings, staying with friends in Honor Oak and making sure Stefan and my mother could converse back up in Norfolk. At the end of the week I headed back up, ready to return the rental car to Dover and pick up Stefan's hopefully repaired TR6. And then the telephone rang.
'Could I speak to FrenchFingers, please?'
'Speaking'
'This is Barbara from Cats in Hamburg. We would like to offer you a contract'.
Talk about turmoil. OK, there was a three-month trial period, but you have to be a completely untalented, antisocial tosser to fail that in the music business. I accepted the offer, fixed a date two weeks hence to fly out (they would take care of the booking, the fare, the lot; oh, halcyon days) and set about getting poor old Stefan set up. His English was still at the 'Gut Mornink' stage; my mother's German a throwback to her friendship with a Jewish Baron, Edgar Lustig-Lendva, a vet in wartime London (but that's a post in its own right, coming up right after this one) and centred around property conveyancing: 'Ein kleines Abkommen' doesn't help much in such circumstances; references to post-Nazi property restitution not really being the order of the day when speaking to the modern German confirmed pacifist that Stefan was.
I managed to get Stefan B&B in my old London student digs in Barnes (yes, darling) and a 'date' with a dear friend from Koblenz, Lisa. My former landlady, married to a descendant of Wordsworth, was delighted to accomodate a charming, handsome, blond-haired, blue-eyed teutonic language student and revelled in her contribution to promoting cultural diversity. He subsequently got a kitchen job in the pub next door, The Sun; everything worked out perfectly and I could fly off to Hamburg with a clear conscience. Which I did.
'Could I speak to FrenchFingers, please?'
'Speaking'
'This is Barbara from Cats in Hamburg. We would like to offer you a contract'.
Talk about turmoil. OK, there was a three-month trial period, but you have to be a completely untalented, antisocial tosser to fail that in the music business. I accepted the offer, fixed a date two weeks hence to fly out (they would take care of the booking, the fare, the lot; oh, halcyon days) and set about getting poor old Stefan set up. His English was still at the 'Gut Mornink' stage; my mother's German a throwback to her friendship with a Jewish Baron, Edgar Lustig-Lendva, a vet in wartime London (but that's a post in its own right, coming up right after this one) and centred around property conveyancing: 'Ein kleines Abkommen' doesn't help much in such circumstances; references to post-Nazi property restitution not really being the order of the day when speaking to the modern German confirmed pacifist that Stefan was.
I managed to get Stefan B&B in my old London student digs in Barnes (yes, darling) and a 'date' with a dear friend from Koblenz, Lisa. My former landlady, married to a descendant of Wordsworth, was delighted to accomodate a charming, handsome, blond-haired, blue-eyed teutonic language student and revelled in her contribution to promoting cultural diversity. He subsequently got a kitchen job in the pub next door, The Sun; everything worked out perfectly and I could fly off to Hamburg with a clear conscience. Which I did.
Summer 1989
In the midst of my landlord reneging on an agreement to let the flat to a friend of mine (who was also going to take all the furniture), I drove up to Hamburg with Stefan in his Triumph TR6. It was his pride and joy, despite being draughty and rather noisy. We met C...after the show, who immediately told me the company was looking for a keyboard player and conductor. Would I be interested? Of course I would, but I'd never done that kind of music, before. I was briefly introduced to Klaus, the chief conductor and vague intentions to set up an audition were pronounced.
I needn't have worried, Klaus was as good as his word. Admittedly, he was difficult to get hold of in those pre-mobile phone days, but from my vantage point back in Koblenz after a very enjoyable couple of days in the north I was able to organise an audition for a few days hence. Stefan had also decided he wanted to spend a year in England to learn the language before embarking on his studies. I offered to help him out by putting him up at my Mum's place and started phoning some people who might have work for him in preparation for our arrival, late August.
The next thing to do was go to Hamburg. I don't know whether I thought I'd have a chance, but I was looking for work and Cats had a vacancy. Klaus was charming and positive, but I didn't really feel I'd cut the mustard. Pretty depressed, I phoned a female friend in Koblenz, poured my heart out a bit and got on the train back south. In my mind there was no doubt my time in Germany had come to an end, so I phoned my old agent in London to line up some cocktail piano work for late August.
Stefan had decided to drive to England, so I booked the passage Dunkirk - Dover (I think) and told him we'd need about five hours minimum to get there. I had previous with these routes, but Stefan insisted on leaving later, saying there'd be no problem, the car was fast etc. Blah blah blah as it turned out; the car overheated and broke down in France, fortunately very close to a petrol station. The man in front of me in the queue turned out to be the mayor of the town, so things then went very quickly and efficiently, the car has hauled up onto a trailer and we were ceremoniously deposited in front of the ferry. A later one, of course, as we'd clearly missed our scheduled crossing. We arrived in Dover at 4am and were taken apart by customs. Unsurprising, really: two men in their twenties arrive at 4am, pushing a rather old but seemingly well-maintained sports car. They were very nice about it. We were towed to a nearby Ford garage on whose forecourt we then tried to get a couple of hours' sleep before seeking out a mechanic and a rental car to tide us over until the Triumph was fixed. Stefan's insurance covered everything, so things weren't too bad.
Somewhere around lunchtime we arrived in Norfolk. Stefan settled in quickly and I drove back down to London the following day to start work and sort out Stefan's flat (I'd had some good leads). Everything had to be finished in a week as we had to give the rental car back but even I had no idea how quickly some things could happen...
I needn't have worried, Klaus was as good as his word. Admittedly, he was difficult to get hold of in those pre-mobile phone days, but from my vantage point back in Koblenz after a very enjoyable couple of days in the north I was able to organise an audition for a few days hence. Stefan had also decided he wanted to spend a year in England to learn the language before embarking on his studies. I offered to help him out by putting him up at my Mum's place and started phoning some people who might have work for him in preparation for our arrival, late August.
The next thing to do was go to Hamburg. I don't know whether I thought I'd have a chance, but I was looking for work and Cats had a vacancy. Klaus was charming and positive, but I didn't really feel I'd cut the mustard. Pretty depressed, I phoned a female friend in Koblenz, poured my heart out a bit and got on the train back south. In my mind there was no doubt my time in Germany had come to an end, so I phoned my old agent in London to line up some cocktail piano work for late August.
Stefan had decided to drive to England, so I booked the passage Dunkirk - Dover (I think) and told him we'd need about five hours minimum to get there. I had previous with these routes, but Stefan insisted on leaving later, saying there'd be no problem, the car was fast etc. Blah blah blah as it turned out; the car overheated and broke down in France, fortunately very close to a petrol station. The man in front of me in the queue turned out to be the mayor of the town, so things then went very quickly and efficiently, the car has hauled up onto a trailer and we were ceremoniously deposited in front of the ferry. A later one, of course, as we'd clearly missed our scheduled crossing. We arrived in Dover at 4am and were taken apart by customs. Unsurprising, really: two men in their twenties arrive at 4am, pushing a rather old but seemingly well-maintained sports car. They were very nice about it. We were towed to a nearby Ford garage on whose forecourt we then tried to get a couple of hours' sleep before seeking out a mechanic and a rental car to tide us over until the Triumph was fixed. Stefan's insurance covered everything, so things weren't too bad.
Somewhere around lunchtime we arrived in Norfolk. Stefan settled in quickly and I drove back down to London the following day to start work and sort out Stefan's flat (I'd had some good leads). Everything had to be finished in a week as we had to give the rental car back but even I had no idea how quickly some things could happen...
Friday, 11 March 2011
Vienna, June 1989
C, her boyfriend R and I checked into Pension Suzanne, right next to the Vienna State Opera. The owner was a bit peeved, seeing as we'd been held up in traffic for hours around Frankfurt. We did phone to warn her, but she was in no way mollified. The B&B was, as in later visits to Vienna, full of elderly American Jewish ladies on heritage tours of their parents' (or grandparents') city. The language over breakfast was Brooklyn and Bronx Yiddish, interspersed with English words when more convenient.
The three of us headed off to the Raimund Theater, where the auditions were being held. C bade us farewell and went to warm her voice up, R and I went off for a coffee. Returning about two hours later, I spotted a face in the crowd outside I found vaguely familiar. It was C..., the singer I met at the wedding reception in London after I'd re-emerged from my encounter with Elsa. She hadn't been to Turkey after all, as she'd landed a job in Cats in Hamburg, singing one of the lead roles. She introduced me to her fiancé and insisted I should come up, see the show, spend some time with them. Having friends in Koblenz who were die-hard fans of the show, I knew I'd have no difficulty in finding a bit of company for the trip. I promised to keep in touch about it and put her number in a safe place.
C came out later, having been asked to sing most of the role for the panel. It seemed to have gone extremely well but she was a little too coy about telling us much about it. I didn't know why, but was able to guess. R was due to go back to Koblenz the following day, leaving C and me alone in Vienna together, at least for another 48 hours. I knew she'd come clean in that time so didn't press the point until R was safely on the train.
Sure enough, C and the conductor of Phantom had fallen for each other. She'd always had this thing for men in positions of authority and had often remarked to me how it bothered her that R didn't seem to have any ambition beyond being Assistant Stage Director. Now, it was the real thing. She fancied Mr. Number One, and he fancied her. No matter that he was married with two children, but that's another story. She met up with him each day before we left, though these meetings were, she insisted, purely professional.
We also took a trip out to Otto Edelmann's house on the outskirts of Vienna. One of his sons, Peter, had been a soloist in Koblenz and Otto had always exhorted his son's friends to come and visit should they find themselves in his city. C knew Otto well, so over we went. Such a charming and delightful man! I knew he was famous but didn't realise to quite what degree. He showed me his Golden Discs, photos with Karajan etc. A lovely afternoon, all in all. I've just been given one of his Bayreuth recordings from 1951 in which he sings Hans Sachs.
Before the Koblenz season finished, C got her call from Vienna: the role was hers. She busied herself with preparations, I prepared to leave town for good, but not before making that trip to Hamburg with my friend Stefan. I spoke to C... and everything was fine. We were to go up just as soon as the season finished.
The three of us headed off to the Raimund Theater, where the auditions were being held. C bade us farewell and went to warm her voice up, R and I went off for a coffee. Returning about two hours later, I spotted a face in the crowd outside I found vaguely familiar. It was C..., the singer I met at the wedding reception in London after I'd re-emerged from my encounter with Elsa. She hadn't been to Turkey after all, as she'd landed a job in Cats in Hamburg, singing one of the lead roles. She introduced me to her fiancé and insisted I should come up, see the show, spend some time with them. Having friends in Koblenz who were die-hard fans of the show, I knew I'd have no difficulty in finding a bit of company for the trip. I promised to keep in touch about it and put her number in a safe place.
C came out later, having been asked to sing most of the role for the panel. It seemed to have gone extremely well but she was a little too coy about telling us much about it. I didn't know why, but was able to guess. R was due to go back to Koblenz the following day, leaving C and me alone in Vienna together, at least for another 48 hours. I knew she'd come clean in that time so didn't press the point until R was safely on the train.
Sure enough, C and the conductor of Phantom had fallen for each other. She'd always had this thing for men in positions of authority and had often remarked to me how it bothered her that R didn't seem to have any ambition beyond being Assistant Stage Director. Now, it was the real thing. She fancied Mr. Number One, and he fancied her. No matter that he was married with two children, but that's another story. She met up with him each day before we left, though these meetings were, she insisted, purely professional.
We also took a trip out to Otto Edelmann's house on the outskirts of Vienna. One of his sons, Peter, had been a soloist in Koblenz and Otto had always exhorted his son's friends to come and visit should they find themselves in his city. C knew Otto well, so over we went. Such a charming and delightful man! I knew he was famous but didn't realise to quite what degree. He showed me his Golden Discs, photos with Karajan etc. A lovely afternoon, all in all. I've just been given one of his Bayreuth recordings from 1951 in which he sings Hans Sachs.
Before the Koblenz season finished, C got her call from Vienna: the role was hers. She busied herself with preparations, I prepared to leave town for good, but not before making that trip to Hamburg with my friend Stefan. I spoke to C... and everything was fine. We were to go up just as soon as the season finished.
Thursday, 10 March 2011
Decline and Fall - Autumn 1988
CB and I got a little train to the top of the Zugspitze, Garmisch's highest peak. About a hundred yards or so from the top, the train actually went inside the mountain, giving the whole journey a sort of James Bond-type feel. The view from the peak was magical: snow-capped Alps as far as the eye could see, bright sunshine and no wind. We sat with our mugs of hot chocolate on the viewing deck and marveled.
Later, sitting in the train back to Munich, CB suddenly got up and sat on the opposite side of the carriage. She insisted she was fine, but I knew something was wrong. A few of my friends at work had warned me about her past, but I insisted, with the assurance of a man in love, that she'd changed, she was over it (whatever it was) and that she was different, now, to which one of them said "Right, the way she was different every other time it happened". Their words came back to me in the train that evening and I started to feel unsettled.
Back in Koblenz, we still saw each other, still slept with each other, but not as often, and not with the same passion as before. Our nights together became fewer, her behavious ever more distant on those occasions we were together. This was only going one way, and I had no game plan to protect myself. When it came, I put a brave face on it, comforted by her declaring she "didn't want any kind of relationship, and probably wouldn't for a long time". Two days later, she was cuddling up to one of the actors in full view of everyone. Their relationship blosommed, they got married and she eventually had a child, which she promptly abandoned, running back to England and leaving the little thing with its father. This happened a couple of years later, but I saw CB when she came to audition in Hamburg for the show I was conducting. She behaved as if nothing had ever happened since we split: no mention of her abandoned actor husband or the fact she was a mother. All very strange.
Needless to say, I cursed her after she broke up with me. I had to see her every day at work, play the piano while she danced, and it was torture. Time did heal the wounds, but not until I'd left town the following summer. CB was my last romantic encounter in Koblenz; I had neither the stomach for another nor sufficient respect for the species to even have a one-night stand. My feelings went on hold and I turned all my efforts towards getting another job, as far away as possible. I'd already handed in my ten-month notice (yup, that's how long you have to give in certain theatres) so I knew I wasn't going to be there for another season, but things started dovetailing rather nicely in June, 1989. We never normally had any days off in the ballet, but this month we had five, all in a row. I'd just heard about them when my American neighbour, C, came in to tell me she'd been offered an audition for the Viennese production of The Phantom of the Opera and would I like to go down there with her? Incredibly, the audition fell in the middle of those five days, so I didn't hesitate. If there was ever a sign, then this was it. A few days later, we were back in her Peugeot 206, heading for the Austrian capital.
Later, sitting in the train back to Munich, CB suddenly got up and sat on the opposite side of the carriage. She insisted she was fine, but I knew something was wrong. A few of my friends at work had warned me about her past, but I insisted, with the assurance of a man in love, that she'd changed, she was over it (whatever it was) and that she was different, now, to which one of them said "Right, the way she was different every other time it happened". Their words came back to me in the train that evening and I started to feel unsettled.
Back in Koblenz, we still saw each other, still slept with each other, but not as often, and not with the same passion as before. Our nights together became fewer, her behavious ever more distant on those occasions we were together. This was only going one way, and I had no game plan to protect myself. When it came, I put a brave face on it, comforted by her declaring she "didn't want any kind of relationship, and probably wouldn't for a long time". Two days later, she was cuddling up to one of the actors in full view of everyone. Their relationship blosommed, they got married and she eventually had a child, which she promptly abandoned, running back to England and leaving the little thing with its father. This happened a couple of years later, but I saw CB when she came to audition in Hamburg for the show I was conducting. She behaved as if nothing had ever happened since we split: no mention of her abandoned actor husband or the fact she was a mother. All very strange.
Needless to say, I cursed her after she broke up with me. I had to see her every day at work, play the piano while she danced, and it was torture. Time did heal the wounds, but not until I'd left town the following summer. CB was my last romantic encounter in Koblenz; I had neither the stomach for another nor sufficient respect for the species to even have a one-night stand. My feelings went on hold and I turned all my efforts towards getting another job, as far away as possible. I'd already handed in my ten-month notice (yup, that's how long you have to give in certain theatres) so I knew I wasn't going to be there for another season, but things started dovetailing rather nicely in June, 1989. We never normally had any days off in the ballet, but this month we had five, all in a row. I'd just heard about them when my American neighbour, C, came in to tell me she'd been offered an audition for the Viennese production of The Phantom of the Opera and would I like to go down there with her? Incredibly, the audition fell in the middle of those five days, so I didn't hesitate. If there was ever a sign, then this was it. A few days later, we were back in her Peugeot 206, heading for the Austrian capital.
Wednesday, 9 March 2011
Life in and around CB
CB and I kept our relationship secret, or at least we didn't tell anyone, preferring, as you do at that age, to let people guess, gossip and find out in their own time. We spent every break from rehearsal in bed, returning to either her or my place in the evening to continue our exploration of each other's bodies until work reared its head again the following morning. It was hedonistic bliss: we talked, drank, smoked and made love until we decided to start the whole cycle again. I was 26, and heaven had arrived on a plate.
One evening, the night before a public holiday, we went for a pizza and spent the time in the restaurant writing erotic messages on each other's hands and arms. At midnight, we decided to go to the railway station and take a train somewhere. The destination didn't matter. The only train leaving Koblenz that night was for Munich, so we decided to go via there to the Bavarian Alps. It was a ludicrous idea, but logic could wait. Curled up in each other's arms we got to Munich at 8am, had breakfast and took a connection to Garmisch-Partenkirchen at around ten. Little did I know, but this day was to be our last together.
One evening, the night before a public holiday, we went for a pizza and spent the time in the restaurant writing erotic messages on each other's hands and arms. At midnight, we decided to go to the railway station and take a train somewhere. The destination didn't matter. The only train leaving Koblenz that night was for Munich, so we decided to go via there to the Bavarian Alps. It was a ludicrous idea, but logic could wait. Curled up in each other's arms we got to Munich at 8am, had breakfast and took a connection to Garmisch-Partenkirchen at around ten. Little did I know, but this day was to be our last together.
Tuesday, 8 March 2011
Back to work with sweaty ballerinas, September 1988
Actually, that doesn't sound so bad, does it? The only downside was having to invent all that music I mentioned in an earlier post.
I got back to Koblenz to find, mercifully, my flat in one piece. Things instantly got even better when I found out that L had come over with Chris's girlfriend for the beginning of the season and was keen to take up where we'd left off. So take up we did until we could take no more and she had to go back to the UK. A few days later I was sitting in the canteen and one of the ballerinas, CB, came and sat opposite me. We'd known each other for a year but had never really spoken that much. In any case, I wasn't on the conscious look-out for a relationship at work, so this chat was purely social and pleasant. Or so I thought at the time.
CB and I chatted for ages until they decided to close the canteen, so we left, talking, and I walked her home, where she lived with her boyfriend, who worked at the theatre. Turning round, I went home and thought no more of it.
CB started to seek out my company and it was clear that there were problems within her relationship. Nothing dramatic, just the usual stuff that people in their mid-20's have to deal with when they find their feelings changing. In the end, a friend and I helped CB move into her new flat, we stayed for a beer and went home. CB said she'd probably be coming into the centre for a drink and might ring my doorbell. Fine, no problem. She was gorgeous, but I never thought she could be interested in me.
Around midnight, my bell rang. I let CB in. She came up the stairs and told me she was terribly tired. I went to pull the sofa bed out in the sitting room and came back to ask if she'd like a drink before turning in. This was when everything changed. She was already lying naked in my bed and wondered how long I was going to be before I joined her. My head was literally spinning; I'd never been with anyone so beautiful. All the Koblenz ballerinas were incredibly feminine with fabulous bumps and curves; the ballet master liked his women to be sensual and he'd certainly done me an incredible service. We slept for maybe two hours, but I, for one, wouldn't have minded if I hadn't closed an eye the whole night. This was the start of an amazing, life-changing month with CB. No, it didn't end well; how could it?
I got back to Koblenz to find, mercifully, my flat in one piece. Things instantly got even better when I found out that L had come over with Chris's girlfriend for the beginning of the season and was keen to take up where we'd left off. So take up we did until we could take no more and she had to go back to the UK. A few days later I was sitting in the canteen and one of the ballerinas, CB, came and sat opposite me. We'd known each other for a year but had never really spoken that much. In any case, I wasn't on the conscious look-out for a relationship at work, so this chat was purely social and pleasant. Or so I thought at the time.
CB and I chatted for ages until they decided to close the canteen, so we left, talking, and I walked her home, where she lived with her boyfriend, who worked at the theatre. Turning round, I went home and thought no more of it.
CB started to seek out my company and it was clear that there were problems within her relationship. Nothing dramatic, just the usual stuff that people in their mid-20's have to deal with when they find their feelings changing. In the end, a friend and I helped CB move into her new flat, we stayed for a beer and went home. CB said she'd probably be coming into the centre for a drink and might ring my doorbell. Fine, no problem. She was gorgeous, but I never thought she could be interested in me.
Around midnight, my bell rang. I let CB in. She came up the stairs and told me she was terribly tired. I went to pull the sofa bed out in the sitting room and came back to ask if she'd like a drink before turning in. This was when everything changed. She was already lying naked in my bed and wondered how long I was going to be before I joined her. My head was literally spinning; I'd never been with anyone so beautiful. All the Koblenz ballerinas were incredibly feminine with fabulous bumps and curves; the ballet master liked his women to be sensual and he'd certainly done me an incredible service. We slept for maybe two hours, but I, for one, wouldn't have minded if I hadn't closed an eye the whole night. This was the start of an amazing, life-changing month with CB. No, it didn't end well; how could it?
Monday, 7 March 2011
September 1988 - July 1989: Introduction
I'll get around to writing more fully about this year, but it started with an electric love-shock, a hedonistic high I don't think I'll ever experience again (nor want to, probably), an abyssal disappointment, then a fortuitous encounter in Vienna followed by a seemingly wasted trip to Hamburg and a triumphant return to the UK which lasted all of seven days. I loved this year, it had everything to get every brand, colour and consistency of juice flowing, and flow they did. I'll never forget this particular year, my springboard to what really mattered.
Friday, 4 March 2011
Summer 1988
We got to London in C's Peugeot 206, but not before I'd inadvertently thrown the map out of the window on the Belgian motorway system. This was before we got lost in Brussels.
It turned out to be the summer that shaped the next twelve years of my life, as I was contacted by a big producer of musicals to maybe take part in an upcoming foreign production of The Phantom of the Opera. They gave me a ticket for the London production and I instantly knew what direction I wanted my professional life to go in. No more ballet piano for me come the following summer; I was going to hand in my resignation as soon as I got back to Koblenz (you still had to give ten months' notice, hence the forward planning). C and her recently-arrived boyfriend managed to get a couple of standby tickets and felt pretty much the same way as I. Our instant, simultaneous love for this form would prove to have legs...
Apart from pottering about London, we all took a trip out to Stonehenge and visited Salisbury, the beautiful city where I spent most of my first six years, my bedroom overlooking the cathedral. We tracked down 96, Exeter Street but our other address, 48, Culver Street, had been turned into a multi storey car park. I calculated that we must have parked pretty much where my bedroom used to be, as the view through the windscreen rang more than just a few bells.
Stonehenge had started becoming Elf 'n' Safety conscious; cordons were up and 'Though Shalt Not' was written on quite a few walls. I still remember it as a three-year-old, when we were able to run over and play on the stones as if it were Druidworld. Now, I gather, you aren't even allowed within twenty yards of the things.
Back in London, I got an invitation to a wedding. A gay American friend from college was getting married (for obvious reasons). He was there with his companion, she was there with her boyfriend, and I met someone called Elsa. Slightly older but oozing charm, erotic and, yes, sex, we got to know each other a lot better very quickly in one of the spare rooms. High on the atmosphere and the forbidden fruit I felt I was going to explode. One of Elsa's virtues was her complete absence of morals once she'd taken her clothes off. I couldn't phone her, as she was married but how I wished I could have. She went on holiday soon after; by the time she'd returned, I was back in Germany.
Someone else I met at that party, albeit completely platonically, was a former fellow student from the RCM called C...She was going off to Turkey to sing in a nightclub for a few months and promised to call on her way through Germany. She never did, and only about a year later did I find out why when our paths crossed in Vienna, an encounter which sealed the prelimenary steps towards musical theatre I'd just made a few days previously, but that's for a later post.
It turned out to be the summer that shaped the next twelve years of my life, as I was contacted by a big producer of musicals to maybe take part in an upcoming foreign production of The Phantom of the Opera. They gave me a ticket for the London production and I instantly knew what direction I wanted my professional life to go in. No more ballet piano for me come the following summer; I was going to hand in my resignation as soon as I got back to Koblenz (you still had to give ten months' notice, hence the forward planning). C and her recently-arrived boyfriend managed to get a couple of standby tickets and felt pretty much the same way as I. Our instant, simultaneous love for this form would prove to have legs...
Apart from pottering about London, we all took a trip out to Stonehenge and visited Salisbury, the beautiful city where I spent most of my first six years, my bedroom overlooking the cathedral. We tracked down 96, Exeter Street but our other address, 48, Culver Street, had been turned into a multi storey car park. I calculated that we must have parked pretty much where my bedroom used to be, as the view through the windscreen rang more than just a few bells.
Stonehenge had started becoming Elf 'n' Safety conscious; cordons were up and 'Though Shalt Not' was written on quite a few walls. I still remember it as a three-year-old, when we were able to run over and play on the stones as if it were Druidworld. Now, I gather, you aren't even allowed within twenty yards of the things.
Back in London, I got an invitation to a wedding. A gay American friend from college was getting married (for obvious reasons). He was there with his companion, she was there with her boyfriend, and I met someone called Elsa. Slightly older but oozing charm, erotic and, yes, sex, we got to know each other a lot better very quickly in one of the spare rooms. High on the atmosphere and the forbidden fruit I felt I was going to explode. One of Elsa's virtues was her complete absence of morals once she'd taken her clothes off. I couldn't phone her, as she was married but how I wished I could have. She went on holiday soon after; by the time she'd returned, I was back in Germany.
Someone else I met at that party, albeit completely platonically, was a former fellow student from the RCM called C...She was going off to Turkey to sing in a nightclub for a few months and promised to call on her way through Germany. She never did, and only about a year later did I find out why when our paths crossed in Vienna, an encounter which sealed the prelimenary steps towards musical theatre I'd just made a few days previously, but that's for a later post.
Early 1988 to summer.
The rest of my first German season pottered on quite pleasantly: boat trips on the Rhine, the odd train trips up to Köln and down to Frankfurt, lots of socialising and the occasional visit from friends from England. The end of the season proved to be quite interesting, though...
One of our dancers, a Brazilian called J..., received a visit from his sister. She was a photo model, and not because she was classically beautiful. She had an extraordinary androgenous look and could have been a man or a woman, depending on your own perception of her appearance. She was absolutely delightful and struck up a friendship with B, one of my direct colleagues; a friendship which, predictably enough, ended up in the sack. This was curious, as many suspected B of preferring his own gender, but maybe the Brazilian model's look satisfied his curiosity and desire to conform at the same time.
A little while later, she left. B then struck up a relationship with J..., the brother. He insisted it was platonic, but no-one was fooled, nor did they care. Things came to a head when the sister announced she as coming back to visit B at the end of the season, in early July...
In the meantime, plans were afoot for the Theatre Open Days. B and I were to supply the accompaniment to a performance of La Cage aux Folles (seriously) on two pianos; there were to be public song recitals, open ballet classes, the lot. I was marked down to play for the ballet on stage and to accompany a baritone in a lunchtime concert. This would have posed no problem had I not made the acquaintance of L, an Irish girl visiting a friend in the orchestra at that time.
Her friend was a percussionist, a great bloke from North London who had taken time out from the LSO to get a bit of continental orchestral experience. He, his girlfriend (a friend of L's), L and I went for a pizza after the performance of La Cage. Much wine later, L decided it would be a good idea if I walked her home. Being the good Irish girl she was, she'd brought a bottle of Jameson's whiskey with her to Germany, just in case they'd never heard of it in Germany. We set about finishing the bottle then celebrated nakedly until about 8am, at which point I had to get up and prepare for the second Open Day. Still dressed in my DJ and black tie, physically destroyed and hung over, I ran back to my flat to find the music I needed for the ballet class and subsequent recital. Playing in front of 500 screaming schoolchildren at 10am when you're still blind drunk with one eye closed so you can focus, is no fun. Believe me. Concentrating so hard that you hit the right notes in the right order makes you sweat like a pig, you're dying of thirst and you just wish that everyeone would just go away and leave you in peace so you can go and curl up in a ball in bed. It went OK, though, but there was also the matter of the Schubert recital to get through. A strong coffee in the canteen didn't help matters; it just seemed to send the Riesling and the Jameson's on one last triumphant lap of honour around my body. In front of 300 people, I closed my right eye and struck up the first bars of Der Wanderer...Since that day, I've never touched a drop before having to go on stage.
The best was still to come, though. The second Open Day was also the last day of the season. I was leaving for England the next day with my American neighbour and wouldn't be back for six weeks. J... was living with B across the road but his sister was coming and didn't know about the love triangle that had sprung up in her absence. J asked if he could spend the night on my sofa before he and his sister headed back to Brazil for the summer. No problem, I said, but you'll have to be out by nine, when I leave for England with C. Deal.
There was a little party at B's place after the evening concert. The two Brazilians were there, J... leaving earlier with my spare key so as not to go mad with jealousy, seeing his lover fondling his sister. L showed up, too! I was really happy to see her and she came home with me around midnight. Two sweaty and moist hours later, my doorbell rang. It was the Brazilian model, seeking asylum from B's lunacy. He'd confessed everything to her (after they'd made love, of course) and she, appalled, went off to look for her brother. They shared the sitting-room sofa while I crawled back to my Emerald beauty.
The only thing was, I needed to leave at 9am the next day. L, J and his sister were still out for the count and couldn't be roused. In the end, I left notes for them all, telling them where to leave the spare key and reluctantly closed the door behind me on three people I hardly knew, fast asleep in my flat that I was now basically leaving open for six weeks while I went abroad.
One of our dancers, a Brazilian called J..., received a visit from his sister. She was a photo model, and not because she was classically beautiful. She had an extraordinary androgenous look and could have been a man or a woman, depending on your own perception of her appearance. She was absolutely delightful and struck up a friendship with B, one of my direct colleagues; a friendship which, predictably enough, ended up in the sack. This was curious, as many suspected B of preferring his own gender, but maybe the Brazilian model's look satisfied his curiosity and desire to conform at the same time.
A little while later, she left. B then struck up a relationship with J..., the brother. He insisted it was platonic, but no-one was fooled, nor did they care. Things came to a head when the sister announced she as coming back to visit B at the end of the season, in early July...
In the meantime, plans were afoot for the Theatre Open Days. B and I were to supply the accompaniment to a performance of La Cage aux Folles (seriously) on two pianos; there were to be public song recitals, open ballet classes, the lot. I was marked down to play for the ballet on stage and to accompany a baritone in a lunchtime concert. This would have posed no problem had I not made the acquaintance of L, an Irish girl visiting a friend in the orchestra at that time.
Her friend was a percussionist, a great bloke from North London who had taken time out from the LSO to get a bit of continental orchestral experience. He, his girlfriend (a friend of L's), L and I went for a pizza after the performance of La Cage. Much wine later, L decided it would be a good idea if I walked her home. Being the good Irish girl she was, she'd brought a bottle of Jameson's whiskey with her to Germany, just in case they'd never heard of it in Germany. We set about finishing the bottle then celebrated nakedly until about 8am, at which point I had to get up and prepare for the second Open Day. Still dressed in my DJ and black tie, physically destroyed and hung over, I ran back to my flat to find the music I needed for the ballet class and subsequent recital. Playing in front of 500 screaming schoolchildren at 10am when you're still blind drunk with one eye closed so you can focus, is no fun. Believe me. Concentrating so hard that you hit the right notes in the right order makes you sweat like a pig, you're dying of thirst and you just wish that everyeone would just go away and leave you in peace so you can go and curl up in a ball in bed. It went OK, though, but there was also the matter of the Schubert recital to get through. A strong coffee in the canteen didn't help matters; it just seemed to send the Riesling and the Jameson's on one last triumphant lap of honour around my body. In front of 300 people, I closed my right eye and struck up the first bars of Der Wanderer...Since that day, I've never touched a drop before having to go on stage.
The best was still to come, though. The second Open Day was also the last day of the season. I was leaving for England the next day with my American neighbour and wouldn't be back for six weeks. J... was living with B across the road but his sister was coming and didn't know about the love triangle that had sprung up in her absence. J asked if he could spend the night on my sofa before he and his sister headed back to Brazil for the summer. No problem, I said, but you'll have to be out by nine, when I leave for England with C. Deal.
There was a little party at B's place after the evening concert. The two Brazilians were there, J... leaving earlier with my spare key so as not to go mad with jealousy, seeing his lover fondling his sister. L showed up, too! I was really happy to see her and she came home with me around midnight. Two sweaty and moist hours later, my doorbell rang. It was the Brazilian model, seeking asylum from B's lunacy. He'd confessed everything to her (after they'd made love, of course) and she, appalled, went off to look for her brother. They shared the sitting-room sofa while I crawled back to my Emerald beauty.
The only thing was, I needed to leave at 9am the next day. L, J and his sister were still out for the count and couldn't be roused. In the end, I left notes for them all, telling them where to leave the spare key and reluctantly closed the door behind me on three people I hardly knew, fast asleep in my flat that I was now basically leaving open for six weeks while I went abroad.
Tuesday, 1 March 2011
The rest of that first year.
As provincial towns go, Koblenz was a good place to start learning how to be a foreigner. I only got abused once ("Come over here, take away our jobs etc blah") and that was in a late-night chip shop, but one character from the theatre should have had a monument in his honour. Let's call him Georg (for it was he). He's dead, now, and good riddance. Georg spoke German and Italian ("Such a fine race, the Italians, until they lost the plot") and only warmed to my nordic appearance once I'd proved I could speak fluent German. Georg was a Nazi of the old school and made no pretence to hide it. On April 20th, 1988, Georg came into the canteen before morning rehearsal with a broad grin on his face. I asked him how he was. 'Wonderful, young man. And do you know why? Because today is HIS birthday! Listen young man: this morning, I got up at seven o'clock, put on my old uniform, stood in front of his portrait in my sitting room and proclaimed "Happy Birthday, mein Führer!" What a man, what a leader! This country has been going downhill ever since his demise, young man. The fact you are here is evidence of that!' This last part was said half-jokingly, but let's stress the 'half' part of that, shall we? Georg died a few years ago, presumably enjoying a send-off by saluting, leather-clad Übermenschen like you see in Santiago and Buenos Aires from time to time. RIP, you old bastard.
George Bush Snr. in Koblenz
I can't remember whether it was in my first or second year in Koblenz that the then President of the USA, George Bush, came to town. My American neighbour, beside herself with excitement, dragged me along to witness hoards of serious, Ray-Banned Secret Services aides jogging alongside the Leader of the Free World's limo before the man himself climbed out and held a speech about, well, I don't really remember that either, to be honest. The event was held at the Deutsches Eck, the north-facing promontory where Rhine joins Mosel and host to a splendid spiked-helmet-type monument whose inscription reads: "Never Shall the German People be Divided, Should you Remain Honest and True". The flat-topped mausoleum lookalike used to be crowned with an equestrian statue of Kaiser Wilhelm. The Americans, though, on the last day of World War II decided to revert to playground behaviour, trained a cannon on it and blew Kaiser Bill half way to the Lorelei. A petition was already in place in those days to have him replaced with a like model. Years later, a Düsseldorf businessman put up the readies and gave his horse a leg up to regain his rightful place in German history.
All this took place in the run-up to the fall of the Eastern Bloc, Reagan later exhorting Gorbachëv to 'tear down this wall' while Honecker put his fingers in his ears and went 'lalalalalalalalala', organising massive celebrations in honour of the DDR's 40th anniversary. Not two years later, sitting in a squalid East German café just over the border from Lauenburg an der Elbe, did I remember all this as I looked at my sugar packet which proudly proclaimed communism's 40th anniversary on German territory. The Wall had fallen, collective euphoria was still high and the East Germans didn't know whether they were coming or going, as evidenced by the fact they found my dented, ten-year-old BMW the height of urban chic ("Äh, geiles Auto, Mann!")
Bush's appearance in Koblenz was strategic and symbolic. Mighty international European waterway meets slightly lesser international waterway where effigy of former central European Emperor got his balls blown off by a transatlantic cannon of peace. Military intelligence had it that borders were going to be opened and a new Europe would emerge, so where better to appear than a rather ugly monument which by night becomes THE gay meeting place in Rheinland-Pfalz? Sound illogical? Not when you consider the de facto capital of Europe is now Brussels, and if you're not happy with the Old Bailey's decision you can always take it to Strasbourg.
All this took place in the run-up to the fall of the Eastern Bloc, Reagan later exhorting Gorbachëv to 'tear down this wall' while Honecker put his fingers in his ears and went 'lalalalalalalalala', organising massive celebrations in honour of the DDR's 40th anniversary. Not two years later, sitting in a squalid East German café just over the border from Lauenburg an der Elbe, did I remember all this as I looked at my sugar packet which proudly proclaimed communism's 40th anniversary on German territory. The Wall had fallen, collective euphoria was still high and the East Germans didn't know whether they were coming or going, as evidenced by the fact they found my dented, ten-year-old BMW the height of urban chic ("Äh, geiles Auto, Mann!")
Bush's appearance in Koblenz was strategic and symbolic. Mighty international European waterway meets slightly lesser international waterway where effigy of former central European Emperor got his balls blown off by a transatlantic cannon of peace. Military intelligence had it that borders were going to be opened and a new Europe would emerge, so where better to appear than a rather ugly monument which by night becomes THE gay meeting place in Rheinland-Pfalz? Sound illogical? Not when you consider the de facto capital of Europe is now Brussels, and if you're not happy with the Old Bailey's decision you can always take it to Strasbourg.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)