Russian…

This dates back a long way, but I've inadvertently deleted the post…

Way, way back, I met a young Russian waitress on a cruise ship in the South Pacific. She had a daughter, her husband was in jail, she wanted to go and live in Australia. I had contacts there and found her attractive…

Nivea smoothed the way on more than one occasion but it all took a predictable turn at the end. Since then I've been a good boy.

A bit more from Los Angeles

The time in LA was great. Our theatre was the one used in the film Bodyguard, the Pantages, right next door to Capitol Records on Hollywood Boulevard. A little further down was a shop called Guns 'n' Knives. I don't know whether it's still there but it was a bit of a shock to see a place so brazenly devoted to such a controversial, er, pastime.

Aside from seeing Diane Keaton and Rene Russo I can't honestly say that my time in LA - either this or my subsequent one in 1998 - was star-heavy. There was a rather drunken woman in one of our performances who used the atmospheric, lights-down, pre-show moment to declare her seperation from her husband: 'I've put up with your shit for twenty years and I'm not doing it a moment longer. I want a divorce!'. Apart from that, the LA audience was very respectful, attentive and constantly on the lookout for celebrity arrivals right up until the beginning of the show, in the absence of which a freshly-declared divorce candidate is a good second-best.

My Los Angeles road map consisted of driving to the show from Barham Boulevard, south to the art galleries and west to the sea. We spent Christmas Day on Venice Beach, just a couple of years after I'd met Heidi Fleiss at her shop in Santa Monica and got her autograph (nothing else, though) and took other days out to various spots up and down the coast. My all-singing-and-dancing friend from London, Rita Moreno, was never in town when I was there, though she did phone and warn me about the Chicago winter. Her tone was typical Rita: 'M....., why didn't you phone me before, you little shit? I'm in New York, but watch out for the cold in Chicago; there's nowhere colder in the world. It's terrible'. Her husband, Lennie Gordon, has since died, but Rita carries on, more power to her elbow. We worked together on Sunset Boulevard in London. She lives just off that famous, eponymous road in Pacific Palisades. I've been to her house there, but I don't know how much time she spends in CA these days.

Funnily, we met up with friends from London in LA as well as meeting a Frenchman, Hervé, with whom I'm still in touch. A true Lebenskünstler, an untranslatable German word for someone who organises life according to their wishes, regretting nothing and enjoying everything. We spent time at the House of Blues, listening to George Thorogood amongst others, fraternising with Wendy, an English girl whose house in France, thanks to a gas leak, exploded with a few members of her family in it, providing her with the wherewithal to live a life of leisure in Southern California.

No scandal here, I'm afraid. Unless meeting Heidi Fleiss counts.

Los Angeles, November 18th 1997 - January 31st 1998

In diving headlong into my Green Card period I've overlooked a couple of (innocent) cruises, a month as chief conductor of Sunset Boulevard in Germany and inducing a stroke in my mother-in-law when I finally met her at the end of October, 1997. She was so excited that her daughter was finally coming home (with new boyfriend) that she went the whole hog the day after we pitched up and had to be taken to hospital. Thankfully, she turned out OK and is going strong to this day, February 25th, 2012.

I'd been invited to join the music staff of The Phantom of the Opera on tour in the USA. First stop was Los Angeles (yeah, I know: bummer), a place whose legend was bigger than its reputation, but sufficiently honeypot-esque to nearly induce a seizure on the scale of my future mother-in-law's, so off I went. My ex was fabulous and played ball superbly so I could go. Courtesy of Air India (Extract of conversation with booking clerk: "Can I smoke on the flight?" "You can do anything on our planes") I landed at JFK, then Burbank, picked up my little Pontiac Sunfire which was literally waiting outside the door for me, and set off to find Barham Boulevard. "Head straight down to Warner Bros. on Olive and turn right". These seemingly anodine instructions containing words of legend took me to my new apartment, whose complex I then shared with Pierce Brosnan and Brad Pitt (for a while). Coyotes patrolled the car parks, high-octane porn stars showed up at the store for breakfast. I was a long way from home. And loving it.

One of these days…

…I'll get around to talking about touring the USA with The Phantom of the Opera and sharing a house in Providence, RI with ex-cons and heroin addicts, bumping into Diane Keaton on Rodeo Drive and appearing on the Jerry Springer Show. No extra-curricular shagging, though; I was a saint in God's Own Country. How could I behave otherwise, knowing my Green Card may be at stake, arf arf. That year was split between Los Angeles, Providence, RI, Chicago and Minneapolis, and a great time it was, too, not least because our time in Illinois coincided with the very last Seinfeld episode, a deal up there with the capital city's all-conquering Bulls team, led by no other than His Airness himself, who were also crowned champions that year (1998). He retired fairly soon after and seems to have since descended into obscurity. Sport is not kind to its stars.

Some time soon…

There are a few holes to fill, metaphorically speaking, in this story, so do keep abreast of developments should you be so inclined. We've not yet addressed anal sex in the Pacific or appalling shenanigans in the Azores, so don't give up if you've a life to spare or time to barter on eBay; I just need to be ready…

Now it gets serious.

Meeting the lady who has been my better half for the last fifteen years was a sea change in my life, even if the early period wasn't without its ups and downs. Complete and utter fidelity started a little later but has been unchallenged since 1997, so there. The composition of my blood will determine how candid I manage to be in the coming months, so it's in your interests (if there's anyone who reads this) to send me a few crates of the best cuvés available. No return without investment, as you all well know (unless you live in France, where you get everything for nothing anyway, or so it appears).

Andrea and Maria

Must just mention these two before leaving Singleworld. Andrea took a shine to me during my time at Les Mis. I told her I wasn't interested in any type of commitment, having just seperated from my wife but she remained undeterred. It was easy and uncomplicated: Andrea loved every type of sex you could imagine and was easily the most uninhibited girl I've ever known. In the tradition of a fine plasterer it seemed her motto was 'All holes are there to be filled' and her appetite to live this credo was insatiable. She wanted it to go further but I resisted and she ended up backing off, but not before we'd had a wonderful 'one for the road' in my new flat in Highgate which resulted in my having to phone the landlord to replace the bed. Whoever is with Andrea now is a lucky man, indeed.

In a dark and lonely hour at Les Mis I'd contacted Maria, she of Antarctic fame. She replied almost by return, berating my silence, calling me every name under the sun but including a recent photo of herself, all the same. A few days later I picked her up at Heathrow Airport. I'd just left Les Mis and Sunset had still not reared its head, so there was nothing to do all day except...you've guessed it. Maria still refused to have penetrative sex until she'd seen a crispy, new HIV-Negative certificate, so we spent the days finding a hundred other ways to skin a cat. I woke every morning to the most gentle and sensual alarm clock you could imagine and it wasn't long before it was me going off. Maria was incredibly resourceful and permanently thirsty for anything I could provide, so I acted like a perfect host should and kept her glass topped up as often as I could manage it. It was only when I let slip that I'd had another affair since last seeing her that she clammed up, called herself an idiot and promptly flew home. Everything in this London period seemed apocalyptic, nothing seemed destined to endure and I was majorly responsible for that. It was only after meeting my future wife at Sunset that things started to stabilise. Everything in its time, really. We were all adults and we all knew the rules. I might not always have acted honourably but I never lied.

Les Mis and the rest.

...And yet, it was here that my indiscretions were discretely ushered into the antechamber of their demise. Little did I know, but I was soon to meet the latest object of my desires who would prove to be my second wife, fit as hell, brighter than a 100-watt bulb and sharper than a brand-new Sabatier. In short: my match, and welcome, my dear; please come this way. As an aside: as I write, my wife is 40 with the body of an 18-year-old, a fabulous mother to our two daughters and as shaggable as a coked-up, 21-year-old Marilyn Monroe. Envy me; it's worth the effort, however vicarious.


Our first meeting was at Sunset Boulevard: I was Assistant MD, she worked Front of House, yet had to pass me on her way to the Side Bar every evening as I played the vocal warm-up for the cast on stage. One evening, I sat there as usual with my mobile and my cigarettes on top of the piano when she walked by. Then came the comment: "Mobiles and cigarettes; what other bad habits do you have?". I thought: 'I'm in love.' I'm a sucker for feisty women. We agreed to meet to meet at Caffé Nero, on the corner of Maiden Lane and Southampton Row (No idea if it's still there). She (G) was reading a book about Israel; I'd just been there. G was on the verge of going for an interview for a job on the Isle of Bute in Scotland...the message was clear: this babe was soon to be out of here and I had to make some decisions, and fast. She got the call to go North. Was I interested in coming? Duh! But we were still just 'friends'; this could be embarrassing...

We went to Scotland together. The company had - diplomatically - booked two single rooms for us but I had a perma-boner from Euston to Rothesay (those unfamiliar with UK geography, please check the route. Then you'll understand how painful it was). G got the job, we got together, the rest is almost history (I wasn't a complete saint; at least not in the first year) and now I couldn't imagine life any other way. I tell you (providing you want to 'listen'): Making love with someone you know really well just gets better and better, providing you stick to two basic tenets:

1)    You really believe in the relationship:
2)    You both stay fit.

As soon as beer guts and bingo wings make their presence felt, it's over. Fruit, veg and lots of affection. There's no secret. MacDonalds, Ladbrokes and Liverpool FC will kill anyone's sex life. Here's my recipe:

1)   Fresh fruit, cereal and fish;
2)   Excellent wines from the south-west of France;
3)   Oodles of conversation;
4)   Gorgeous children;
5)   Fit wife:


= High-Quality Shagging.

It ain't rocket science. Bonne nuit à vous tous.

Basel, Switzerland, 1995.

So off I flew to Basel to put up the first Swiss production of The Phantom of the Opera. We were put up in a hotel, La Plaza, which, although fairly luxurious, had no experience of guests who stayed longer than 48 hours. This gap in their education proved fatal for them on a number of occasions, but for the time being, everything was OK: the cast, composed of Swiss, Americans, Brits and Germans, was extremely good, the music director a very able man, easy to work with and backed up by an American music staff with a lot of experience under its belt. I'd explore the town on my own, then some of us would take day trips out together, to Ribeauvillé, Freiburg (where my father went to university) and, eventually, further afield to the Alps proper, but other things were afoot in the city itself. Bizarrely, my feelings for SM began to cool almost as soon as I'd left Hamburg, something I couldn't fathom at all. It didn't have anything to do with the women in Switzerland; I got no more special attention there as I did anywhere else. We spoke on the phone and arranged for her to come down. She sensed something was up, but I decided to wait and see how I felt when I saw her before leaping to any conclusions. I picked her up from the station and her mistrust was palpable. Not surprising, really, and I couldn't blame her one iota. We made love, we laughed, we joked but there was something awry. Maybe it was the fact I'd decided to go to London and this was a tacit admission that the passionate period was over; I'd deposited my years of pent-up frustration into her and was now ready to move on. I hated feeling less for her but didn't know how to rectify the situation. Was our age difference suddenly assuming an importance it hadn't, before? SM was, admittedly, nine years older than I, but you'd never have guessed, and I looked young for my age even then. Anyhow, she travelled back to Hamburg with everything up in the air but it was clear to us both that the writing was on the wall. I still had a packed case to pick up from her flat, so it was imperative to remain on at least civil terms. I hadn't forced her to move house, emigrate, leave her job or anything like that, so ultimately any split would just entail healing emotional wounds, wounds which were, it has to be said, pretty deep, such was the intensity of our relationship.

One evening, after rehearsal, a group of us went up to my room and partied. One lady, LB, stayed a little longer than the rest and, after wild 'petting' we ended up in bed. I woke at around 8am with the two beds completely pushed apart, bedding all over the room and no sign of my mate. We caught up later and I found out I'd fallen asleep on the job. This needed to be rectified, not such an easy task I can assure you. Still, we ended up making love on a bench by the river. LB was married and anything we did was to remain sctrictly between us. I don't know to this day if she ever told her husband or not. Anyhow, a little later I found out that the harpist in the orchestra, LG, thought I was rather nice and wanted to get to know me a little better. She spoke only French so I had to dust off what I'd learned in school, and sharpish. Her uncle was a world-famous film director, truly a household name. I never managed to meet any of the family, but our gentle relationship played out my remaining two weeks in Switzerland before heading over to England. L had been in touch from London and smelt a rat one day whilost we were on the phone; LG had knocked on the door whilst we were talking and I'd let her in without making a sound, a pretty stupid move if ever there was one. I should have shown enough presence of mind to greet her as one would a member of staff who has come round to check the mini bar or some such. Still, I didn't and was well rumbled by my still-spouse, as I was to find out later in London.

LG's feelings for me didn't last, contrary to mine for her. We'd had a lovely day out in Geneva where she was teaching and a romantic trip back in the dining car of the Swiss train, accompanied by a plate of parma ham and some red wine. Her last words to me were "Don't forget me", though she pretty much did me, shacking up with a Canadian double-bass player almost as soon as I'd left the country. I understand she's still single to this day, a strange situation indeed, considering her talent and beauty. I had a couple of days back in Basel in early December, 1995, ostensibly to se how the show was shaping up but, in reality, to see LG, who, of course, didn't want to see me. It was a horrible few days, particularly as Les Mis was shaping up to be a political nightmare, so there was no enjoyment about any aspect of being in the Palace Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue in those days.

I went to see SM when I got back to Hamburg. Needless to say, the meeting was short and unpleasant. She gave me my case, saying if I ever found out what had caused an about-face in my feelings, then I should let her know. I drove home to Bahrenfeld, packed what was left of my belongings and drove off to Hamburg's ferry terminal. My furniture was already in storage and waiting for the nod to be delivered somewhere in London, my brother and sister-in-law expecting me sometime the following afternoon in their house in East London. After eight years, the German experience was about to end. There'd been pretty much everything packed into that time: I started out as a single, greenhorn pianist who'd never conducted in his life and was leaving quasi-married, quasi-adulterer, headhunted by the biggest musical theatre company in the world to be musical director of their flagship production. In terms of moving on in life it had been eight years at 100mph, and that was not going to change...

Washington DC 1993

One of the most unusual jobs I've ever done was in September, 1993. I'd just taken over the musical directorship of The Phantom of the Opera in Hamburg when our supervisory team from New York came over to record the entire show with our orchestra but without singers. Apparently, there was wage-based discontent brewing between the orchestra of the Kennedy Centre in Washington and their employers and the smart money was on the players using the visit of the American First National Tour of Phantom to strike and get management to cede. The musical company had no desire to be taken hostage like that and struck pre-emptively by having a version of the show on tape in case there were no musicians to play it. They spent two days recording and went back to the US to face the music.

As it happens, the orchestra did strike and hell was let loose. They managed a couple of performances with two pianos before the musical supervisor started conducting the singers with the tape. A keyboard player was flown in from New York to cover the tricky, recitative-like passages. The audience was informed several times before entering the theatre that the performance would take place with pre-recorded orchestral playing and, should they wish to have a refund would they please claim it before the show started. Virtually no-one left. This happy state of affairs would have continued had the music supervisor not had to leave for another production. The regular conductor (actually my predecessor in Hamburg) could, as a union member, not do it, so they needed someone from outside. It was decided that they'd ask me to do it and, if I accepted, my predecessor would go back to Hamburg for the remaining three weeks of the Washington run. New York phoned me at about 11pm after a show; everything was sorted out with the Hamburg management and all they needed was my OK. So I gave it. Next day I sorted out flight details with the office in NYC, asked them to have a recording Fed-Exed over to Hamburg so I could get started on learning the guide track, sorted out a catsitter and, a few days later, headed off to the airport.

I flew Business direct from Hamburg to Washington. I was not to be paid while in the US as I had no work permit in those days but was generously 'taken care of' with a very good per diem and direct billing in the Four Seasons Hotel in Georgetown, so I didn't have to spend a red cent my entire stay. That was also made easier by the fact that The Four Seasons had the best of everything, so I had no desire to eat anywhere else. We were moved into the Wyndham Bristol for the last few days as the supervisors had left. It was good, but a bit of a come down after my initial palatial accomodation. One of the nicest bits was having a strech limo at our disposal. This was our car. By 'our', I mean the keyboard player and I. Our driver, Sam, was in his eighties and still working to help put his grandchildren through college. Just like in Europe. Yeah, right...

Working with Americans in America is always impressive, particularly after the lacksadaisical, entitlement-polluted attitudes you find in Europe. The message was clear: do right by us and we'll do right by you. It's a simple message and, if followed intelligently, results in a win-win situation. Our collaboration was fruitful and joyous, even if I did have to keep my true identity secret, a strange ituation to be in. I was also assigned a bodyguard, as was the keyboard player, just in case any strikers spotted us and chose to get nasty. It didn't happen, of course, and we had a good laugh with Chris and Jon, who turned into good friends during the time we spent together. We would always enter and leave the theatre by the underground passage which opened out next to the Watergate Hotel and some Embassy. Seeing as it is illegal in the US to picket within a certain distance of an Embassy we always had a free run down in and out of the bowels of the Kennedy Centre, though we were instructed to keep our sunglasses on until inside. It seems a bit OTT in retrospect (did then, too) but it was a wonderful experience.

I finished my time in the US with a few days with my in-laws in New Jersey. Whilst there, we had a DC reunion in Manhattan: Chris, Jon, the keyboard player and I met up and had dinner with my father-in-law. There was a funny story to that evening, too. One of the Christines in Washington, Terri, was due to leave the show after the DC run and start in the show She Loves Me on Broadway. On our reunion night we found ourselves in the same street as the theatre where it was playing, and one of the group said: "Isn't that where Terri is, now?". Just at that moment, who should poke her head out of the emergency exit we were standing in front of but...yes, you've guessed it: Terri. So I said "And here she is: Ms Terri ...." She looked a little nonplussed, so I said "Terri, it's us, from Phantom in Washington DC". "Have you come to see the show?" she asked. "No", I said, we happened to be passing and you came out through that door; it's an extraordinary coincidence". "Do we know each other?" she asked me. "Terri, yes. Until four days ago we were looking at each other three hours every day, sometimes more if we also had a matinee performance. I was the conductor in DC". "OHMYGAAAD! Yes!" Hug, kiss, all that crap. When I told my colleague in Germany about it he went ballistic: "That's SO typical of her! She's not interested in anyone except herself. What a selfish cow" etc etc. I did find it a little strange, to be honest, but maybe I'd never encountered anyone so self-possessed, before.

I flew back to Hamburg a few days later. My most abiding memory of the Four Seasons was the service and the reaction of my room maid when she realised I'd left her a $50 tip (American dollar bills all look alike, you have to be careful). She caught me up in the corridor, went down on her knees and kissed my hand. I didn't know what to think, but it was clear that little bit extra meant an awful lot to her. Washington DC has a high black population and a lot of crime and poverty. I saw some of it when I went out to a suburban theatre performance with, funnily enough, the partner of the bloke replacing me in Hamburg while I was in the US. He knew Washington like the back of his hand but it was still a bit scary on occasions; not the kind of city I'd like to get lost in.

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...

IH

This delightful lady was on the ship's staff between Peru and Bremerhaven. We spotted each other quite early on and I'd already been propositioned by one girl from Berlin and bedded a Viennese beauty before I received the message that IH would like to have dinner with me. Our next port of call was in the Azores (regrettably we'd left it rather late) so we went out for dinner in Ponta Delgada before heading back to the ship to get to know each other a little closer. She was a lady of few words but those that issued from her shapely mouth were considered and insightful. Our first night together was a slow waltz of intimation, seduction, word plays and other games. Once we were finally together she proved herself to be as uninhibited between the sheets as she was discrete out of them. That's always a tantalising combination and we spent every remaining night together until we docked in Bremerhaven, her intimate scent still turning my head, the memory of her deeds still raising my temperature. All these years later and I still get hot under the collar when I think of our time together. Oh, a life on the ocean waves...

Cruises

The Hamburg years were punctuated by amazing cruises on which L and I, together or individually, would perform a 50-minute set once and then sit back and have a few weeks' paid holiday. In that time, either together or alone, we covered more countries than I can actually remember. I noted them all down and it's about ninety: all around the Mediterranean, Scandinavia, Acapulco to Sydney through the South Pacific; Peru to Cap Verde via the northern latino nations and the Caribbean, the Red Sea; Hong Kong to Singapore via Japan, Shanghai, the Philippines, Celebes, Bali and Malaysia etc. A wonderful time. L had done the dirty on me before I joined her in Hong Kong (she'd been on the ship with our friend Klaus a full month before I arrived) but every subsequent cruise I did alone I paid her back. These episodes will merit a few posts on their own, but there's time for all that. My favourite was a particularly intense couple of weeks I spent with IH, a German crew member, who was probably the most intensely stimulating and sexually provocative lady I'd ever had the good fortune to be naked with. More on that, later.

Moribund

By this stage it looked like my marriage was dead in the water, moribund, beyond help and hope. On top of that, one of my darling colleagues who will remain nameless as he is worth, even to this day, less than used lavatory paper, provoked me into resigning from my job as top musical dog at The Phantom of the Opera. The decision to quit was mine alone, but it was the spineless reasoning he used to explain himself when we subsequently worked together again four years later in Mexico City, which really sealed it.

Before leaving for the Antarctic and the gentle embrace of Maria I'd sorted out with the theatre that I would return on January 12th then fly on to Prague on the 15th to start auditioning singers for Phantom. I was to meet said colleague at the theatre just as soon as I arrived in Hamburg. Everything was sorted out, I was missing nothing in Germany, yet a provocative satellite phone call arrived while we were in Argentina to ask when I was thinking of coming back, followed by a protestation of innocence when I returned the call. I flew out of Punta Arenas, Chile, landed in Frankfurt fifteen hours later, caught my connecting flight to Hamburg and went straight into work, not having slept for 24 hours and, having flown east, subjected to appalling jet-lag. Colleague suggested I wait in the canteen as he something to sort out in the office. Eventually he turned up, not wanting to talk about the upcoming cast change i.e. the reason I'd come in to work in the first place and not gone home to sleep. I flew off to Prague a couple of days later, said colleague following on soon after. To cut a long story short, he'd kept me at arm's length concerning the cast change, choosing to discuss any possible changes with the Company Manager (who had no jurisdiction in the selection of artists), all the while lying to me about how long he'd spent in Hamburg preparing this little coup. The shit hit the fan in the Hotel Raphaël in Munich when I put two and two and two and two together and made eight. The extent of this guy's deceit was incredible. I threw the book at him, disturbing the other genteel guests over breakfast that morning, who had to listen to a few tabloid clichés about Germans, I'm ashamed to say...

We got back to Hamburg, I took an appointment with the MD and resigned. She didn't want to hear it. I stood my ground. The company eventually plumped for the default option of my assistant, not having found, in six months of auditions or interviews, anyone who they felt could take the show to another level. It was flattering, but I was not for turning; there was no way in hell I could continue to work with this particular manipulative, subversive arsehole.

It was only in 1999 in Mexico City that I found out why this bloke had behaved the way he had. He said he'd received information from the top floor in New York that I was to be replaced, so he decided to provoke me into resigning rather than see me suffer the ignominy of not having my contract renewed. He managed that quite successfully. He also had the good grace, I must admit, to add that he'd checked back with New York after I'd left if they really would have kissed me goodbye. The answer was interesting: "No way; he was the best music director we'd ever had for the show". Go figure, eh? This bloke, let's call him RF, as those are his initials, disgusted me ultimately only for his own lack of backbone and obsession to be an apparatchik. He ended up getting fired but still puts up Phantom productions, mostly in 'emerging economies'. He tried getting in touch a few times after Mexico, but I never replied to his mails, the main reason being they were always of the same ilk: looking for information but never revealing anything about himself. My days of playing with an open hand were long gone, as was any contact with this louse. Live and learn.

No shagging in this post, sorry about that. That'll change soon enough; we're working up to Switzerland, a fertile pasture after the self-destructive Endzeitstimmung of the last months in Hamburg.

Maria

I mentioned a certain Maria in the last post. I met her on another cruise ship, this time one which was sailing around the Antarctic. We flew to Rio de Janeiro, then down to Punta Arenas in Chile (where I currently am, funnily enough, but actually in Santiago, sixteen years later) where we joined the ship. First of all I developed an 'understanding' with another girl who then started to play the 'I've got a boyfriend' game. Maria stepped up to the plate and wasn't interested in adolescent mind games. After a rather liquid evening in one of the ship's bars we went down to her cabin to see what other watery substances we could generate, not emerging until after lunch the next day. We missed the first land excursion but being in bed with Maria was compensation enough, a lady who didn't like to waste a drop of what she inspired. She stayed on the ship when I flew back to Germany but we were to see each other more than once again after that. The next time I heard from her was months later when she phoned out of the blue as L and I were in the middle of a relationship crisis meeting. L was only back in Germany for three days and Maria picked her moment to get in touch with supernatural virtuosity. It also helped the talks, too, loosening L's tongue about what she'd been up to whilst I was thinking I was the only miscreant...

Married, but alone.

Despite being newly 'single', I had no urge to fool around. I was married and still believed that one should not do that kind of thing, even if opportunities were manifold, and they were. I was young, well-mannered, good-looking and successful. And, to all intents and purposes for the majority of the people I met and worked with, single. I chose to ignore a lot of the clumsier come-ons, not wishing, as one does, to shit on one's own doorstep. Still, one night, I caved in. Big time.


There was a group of about five of us out one evening after the show. I still remember saying something stupid to one of the Australian dancers, who didn't warrant my gauche behaviour; I'd miscalculated her feelings for me, or, at least, her own set of morals. It took years for that to heal, and I freely admit acting like a twat. Nonetheless, one of the other girls, a sassy, emotional New Yorker, made her feelings for me quite clear. She looked like one of the girls from Sex and the City and sang like Barbra Streisand. We talked, and how...I ran her home. We talked in her kitchen until 6am, when it became time to go to bed. I undressed her and caressed her. She went exploring. It was heaven. We didn't go to sleep until about noon, sticky, sweaty and wet. Then we started again. Hot, musky and sticky, until we could no more.

Afterwards, I had a pang of conscience. We talked the next day. I was sorry, I was married, this couldn't continue. There were tears. I found out a couple of years later that I needn't have been so conscientious; L had done the dirty on me a good three months previously and not just the once, either. I got this information from her then paramour, Klaus, as we later sailed towards Venezuela on a cruise ship. Klaus, L and I had met years before on a cruise and hit it off famously. Klaus turned out to be L's first refuge when things were not going sparklingly with me. I was incredibly grateful to him; life with L was so much easier and better with her after they'd had their affair and took the edge off Maria's call to me when L and I were in the midst of our final summit meeting, but more on that, later.

Looking back on those extraordinary few years, I'm surprised any of us surfaced from them without at least some form of mild STD. We desperately thrashed around in search of the truth and a better way to lead our lives, taking way too many other people emotional hostage as we went. Interestingly, a lot of the women I encountered in that period have been back in touch recently.

Newly married

The problems with being being married and sharing a workplace are the fact that things can go downhill for one person, up for the other and that you never leave work behind you. You take it home, you take it to bed, you talk about it over breakfast and you live it until alcohol finally opens the door to slumber the next night. It can be fun, it can be hell on earth.

The bald fact of the matter was that things started going uphill for me very quickly at Phantom  and downhill for L, who was, nevertheless, a pillar of the production, rehearsing and singing the lead every day for a month as her colleagues recuperated from illness, an ever-present, ultra-reliable and good member of the production. The only thing was that the Creative Team didn't see her as a lead role 'chairholder', if you like; she was fine as a fill-in, even if this filling-in lasted for weeks on end and enabled the company to continue earning shedloads of cash by not having to cancel performances, but that is, I suppose, life. Eventually, when I was in the top conducting job, the Team came clean about why they didn't want my wife as N°1. It was the reason which would crush any woman, particularly one who earns her living on stage, and I couldn't tell her, at least not then. I told her years later, I think, when we were in the middle of our final, defining row, our tongues loosened by too much wine. Three years of confused bile was regurgitated and distributed randomly to anyone who cared to listen. A vile evening, in all respects. But that was 1995, and we were still newlyweds in 1992.

L was finally informed that there was no more contract for her at Phantom, but Cats were looking for a Jellylorum/Gumby cover, and would she be interested. It was an elegant exit and she went on to become a well-loved member of that show. Cats eventually reached its sell-by date, too; she felt no longer challenged and wanted to try her luck elsewhere. The situation between us was not rosy, so she decided to go back to the USA and try her luck on Broadway. Armed with two major credits, her chances couldn't be that bad. We'd been living in a huge flat in Blankenese, a wonderful Hamburg neighbourhood. The flat was expensive, so we moved to somewhere a little smaller and a lot cheaper when L moved to Cats. This enabled us to save a bit more, then she headed back across the pond. We'd done some cruise gigs together in the years leading up to her departure, so whe had a good money-making contact if Broadway didn't work out immediately. I'll get on to the cruises in my next post; the really were something special. In all senses...

I stayed in Hamburg with the two cats, Norman and Tara. Life was different, and soon became unrecognisable.

Time to meet the family.

I celebrated the week before going to the USA for the first time to meet my new in-laws by getting chicken pox. Not bad at 29, eh? I just cleared travel fitness by 24 hours and off we went. In those days, you could smoke on planes, so everything was OK. It was also ten years before radical Islam decided to change the way we travel, so there was no turning up at the airport six days before your flight was due to leave, either. Travelling in those days was a pleasure, even if it was linked to a marriage that should never have come to pass, but there you go. L's family were delightful and made me very welcome. Years later, when we split up, I felt I'd miss her parents more than her. This trip was the first of many I'd make to the USA: New York, New Jersey, Washington DC on business, two music theatre National Tours etc etc. Between 1991 and 1999 the USA and I were close friends; our relationship began as a backdrop to my first engagement and ended in December 1999, when I boarded a flight from Minneapolis to Reykjavik, bringing down the curtain definitively on our tempestuous, eight-year long affair. There were times when I adored America and times when I loathed and despised it; it was a wonderful place to work but the most boring place on God's earth if you didn't have anything to do. I felt there, more than anywhere else I've ever lived, that if I wasn't being noticeably productive my social stock would fall at least 100 points. The pressure to work and to be seen to work was immeasurable. This was easily fulfilled in DC and on tour; not so easy in Minneapolis, where I was truly a freelance musician, looking around for any kind of work which might rear its head. My savings were slowly diminishing but there was a steady trickle of gigs coming in, but nothing remotely sustainable. That's when I booked a single flight Minneapolis - Paris via the Icelandic capital.

Despite our differences even at this early stage, L's and my sex life was pretty damned good. She loved to fuck, and fuck hard: one night, we did it eight times; she came eighteen times. We watched porn videos together, she loved it front and back and adored being spanked. We still managed to split up twice more before finally getting married on August 15th, 1992. Her family came over to England for the ceremony and we all headed off to Wales and Ireland on our honeymoon, taking in Tom Jones' homeland (for Aunt Dorothy) and southern Ireland for my in-laws, whose grandparents had left the country for the USA at the beginning of the twentieth century. Our families actually came from neighbouring villages in Westmeath. British soldiers pointed guns down our throats as we crossed the border into Ulster from Donegal and our landlady in Portrush fell in love with my new brother-in-law. All in all, it was an unforgettable week, particularly for my wonderful in-laws, who will never forget the fabulous time they had in the UK and Ireland. L and I flew back to Hamburg while her family trudged off to Heathrow's Terminal 1 for their flight back to Newark, NJ. Only then did things start to go seriously downhill.

Slippery slope

It was clear to me by now that L was interested but I was having none of it. I'd still run her home but drive off to my other life afterwards. One night in the car, though, things went further than planned and although I didn't think too much of it, one post-orgasmic female colleague clearly felt that life had taken a new direction. She phoned me the next day as if we were nascent lovers. I'd just got off the phone to the star and my head was elsewhere. L was audibly peeved "...you put your finger in me one night then pretend nothing ever happened?") and I, not wanting to provoke any bad feeling at work, decided to try to polyfilla over the cracks. As anyone with half a brain knows only too well, you can't keep everyone happy all the time, so I quickly decided, in the general public interest, that if anyone was going to suffer then it would be me. I discretely disentwined myself from the star's emotional embrace and L and I got engaged on October 3rd, 1991. I found out later in Roosevelt Park, NJ, that she hated the engagement ring I'd given her; it was 'too small', not 'flashy' enough and the fact that I'd asked an old flame's advice concerning keeping the cost down didn't go down too well, either. Let's face it, my heart wasn't in it from the beginning but I was too much of a masochist to just let it drop. I also had no confidence in my own judgement; L told me that if I broke it off with her I'd regret it for the rest of my life, and I believed her. I convinced myself that everything would improve once we'd got things sorted out. After all, we were both two intelligent, attractive and talented human beings; how could it not work? Well, where shall we start...?

The Phantom of the Opera, summer 1991

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.