She’s in the Attic

It’s Saturday night and I’m half watching a German film on “World Movies” which is quite good. I’ve also been chatting with Sue on the phone. I’m off to Melbourne again, briefly, this week which I’m looking forward to. Before she phoned I was half way through writing about seeing Death In Venice this week, the latest production by Opera Australia at the Sydney Opera House.

I first read “Death In Venice” over twenty years ago. It was a university text in first year, I think. I seem to remember quite enjoying it because it was reasonably short and I thought the themes were quite interesting, although of course, there’s something a bit pervy about an old bloke who falls in love with a teenage boy.

As part of our studies, we also watched the famous 1971 movie version, Morte a Venezia, starring Dirk Bogarde. Maybe it was wrong place, wrong time, but I didn’t really enjoy the movie. It goes for 130 minutes. Not much happens. The cinema was stuffy. We’d all have much rather have been outside. So the reaction of a group of 19 year olds in a stuffy university cinema when he finally died? Of course, they cheered! In some ways it reminds me of the story about the urban myth about Pia Zadora’s performance in the stage version of “The Diary of Anne Frank”, which was so bad that when the Nazis came to the house, the audience stood up and yelled: “She’s in the attic!”

This production of Benjamin Britten’s opera of “Death In Venice” at the Sydney Opera House draws heavily on the imagery of the film, with a similar palette of colours and a brooding sensibility, and the character of Tadzio bore a remarkable physical resemblance to the film’s Bjorn Andresen. The music, the performances, all were terrific.

And of course, being opening night, there were a few celebrities in the audience including Dame Joan Sutherland. I was lucky enough to be invited back to the Green Room and there she was. I asked someone if she’d enjoyed the performance to which he replied, well she missed the first half. What? “Yeh, she arrived late and they wouldn’t let her in, so she spent the first half in the Green Room”. Great story, eh?

Also this week, Damien and I went out for dinner at Alio, a nearby Italian restaurant in Surry Hills. Although it’s often been favourably reviewed, neither of us were overly impressed with the meals. They were good, but not great. Okay I guess for $18 entrees and $28 mains. Actually, the entrees were very good, it was the mains that weren’t that impressive. But the service was good and the place has a nice atmosphere.