Endzeitstimmung.

My time in Hamburg was gradually drawing to a close. I was alone and was basically dead wood. One night, the night of March 31st, to be precise, one of the shapelier female violinists came up to my room after the show and asked to speak to me. Was it true, she asked, that I was leaving? Yes, indeed it was, I said, as I got changed out of my tails and back into civvies. Take a seat, Miss Jones, would you like a drink 'n' all that. We settled down with a glass of white wine each and started talking about everything under the sun. Cigarettes were lit, smoked, extinguished, glasses refilled, more cigarettes lit, and so it went on. We talked about her occasional ménage à trois involving her boyfriend and A.N. Other and how she preferred an extra woman to another man ('far too much work'). We graduated from wine to my Russian vodka stock, started to kiss and caress around 6am...it went no further, but we continued to talk until we both realised we'd created hell on earth for ourselves as it was now 9am: she had to play a concert out of town at 12 noon, I'd put myself down, exceptionally, for the 3pm matinee show with the second cast. I never conducted this performance and now I was going to have to do it with about a litre of vodka in my bloodstream. I went down to the garage, eventually found my BMW 520 and drove home with one eye firmly closed. If I'd been stopped I'd have been banned for life, but it was Sunday morning, after all...I set the alarm for 1pm and collapsed into a coma.

I vaguely remember something happening at some stage, but my most abiding memory of the day was waking at 2.58pm and realising the show I was meant to conduct was scheduled to start in 120 seconds. Trying to sound as level-headed as possible I phoned the theatre, asked to be put through to the stage manager's office and informed them that my assistant would be conducting the show that afternoon (we had a rule by which there was always a backup in the house). Some people thought it was an April Fool's joke. At 6pm I went into the theatre and turned myself in to the Company Manager. "I'm sorry, I have no excuse. Do with me what you will". Not having any previous in the last six years I was let off scot-free, but it was a salutary warning: don't mess around with your work. They didn't say anything like that, I just filled in the blanks for myself. You don't get many chances like that...

There was a Bulgarian violinist in the orchestra, quite one of the most beautiful women I'd ever seen. I remember cursing being married the  first time I set eyes on her and often fantasised about being in bed with her, her on top, looking into my eyes...Anyhow, years later, we finally got talking one evening in the canteen. We left at the same time, walking down to the garage, talking as we went. We stopped by her car and carried on talking until I suggested we continue the conversation somewhere a little more comfortable. She suggested her place, but seemed only interested in talking. I accepted. I followed her in my car and we went up to the flat in Eppendorf she'd bought with her ex-husband. The evening got later and later until it was clear I couldn't drive home. She suggested I share her bed, but without any funny business. You can imagine what was going on in my head and my body at this stage. We settled down and the inevitable happened, if on a minor level. For my part, I was in heaven; I'd lusted after this lady for four years and she was now beside me in bed. Why do these things always happen just as you're going to leave town?

It took a few days for the affair to get started in earnest but when it did I thought I was going to explode with happiness. My fantasy picture was played out in front of me every night, we made love for hours on end; this woman was more fascinating, intelligent and sensual than anyone I'd ever met, and she was mine, or so I felt. There was the illicit thrill of slipping away from work, no-one suspecting anything (they were used to me just leaving on my own) and driving to SM's flat, Steely Dan playing on the car hi-fi. It was an illicit paradise, a relationship to which I gave more than I'd ever given before and which reciprocated. If there was perfection on earth, this relationship with SM was it. I'd drive home in the morning and the cats would always have peed on my bed, their sign of discontent at having been neglected. SM came over one night (as did Maria in her time) after we'd talked on the phone: I would've gone to her but the cats needed attention and I didn't want to risk having nothing to sleep on the following night, so I phoned her and persuaded her to come. During all this period I had unlimited stocks of energy: everything - literally - went into SM and I couldn't have been happier than just being the one to envelop this gorgeous lady every night, every day. Paradise. Paradise lost, soon enough, as reality beckoned. I was to leave Hamburg and Cameron Mackintosh in London had been in touch, wondering if I'd like to become music director of Les Misérables in London. London, yes; Les Mis: no. I hated the piece but desperately wanted the chance to 'go home' and work in my home town, get a sense of where my life was meant to be going , sort out the situation with L in an English-speaking environment and move on. Where was this to leave SM? In my headiest moments she would be at my side, our future would be in London, in more moderated times she would be in Hamburg, waiting for me while I assured her of my continued devotion as my divorce was processed. Everything was up in the air. I went to London for a few days to watch the show and give some kind of reply to CM's management. I decided to do what everyone was advising me to do and accept then returned to Hamburg, where I'd sat for months with no work offers. I returned and found seven job offers on my answering machine having only been gone a few days. Bizarre. I turned down Sunset Boulevard in Niedernhausen (little knowing I'd end up doing it two years later) and accepted the post of Assistant Musical Supervisor on The Phantom of the Opera in Basel, Switzerland. I cockily informed Cameron Mackintosh's office in London that I wouldn't be available until October, knowing full well that if they didn't accept I'd just follow up Switzerland with Niedernhausen, anyway. By this time, Germany was my home; I didn't love it, but it was familiar and I knew my way around it. It would also mean I could stay near SM, if that particular equation were next on the list.

Cameron accepted, so Basel it was to be, with a little trip in the interim to London to meet the man himself, then off to take over the show, just after its Barbican tenth anniversary show at the Albert Hall and its tenth anniversary show at the Palace Theatre, which I would be conducting. The game plan was sorted out; it seemed that L would be coming to London after Switzerland to give our marriage a second chance; I was frantically trying to keep hold of SM and hoping she wouldn't give up because of this latest development. After all, nothing was really holding her in Hamburg, she was prepared to up sticks and try something new, too. Everything was up in the air but first and foremost, money needed to be earned and marriages sorted out. Were they to be pursued or not? If not, which direction was life to go in? The summer of 1995 provided all those questions with answers, and most were not the simple ones we wanted to hear whilst stil in north Germany...