SOURCE: "Orgy in Covent Garden," in Saturday Book, Vol. 27, 1967, pp. 146-61.

On the first day's rehearsal I asked the stage manager if there was a chance of getting free tickets for any of the six scheduled performances of Moses and Aaron. He nodded with weary resignation: 'For this old thing?' he replied. 'Don't worry; they'll be giving them away in hundreds. Nobody will come. You'll see.'

His words summed up the general atmosphere of gloom and despondency. Schoenberg, undoubtedly the most non-popular composer of the day, was the darling of a small clique of intellectual musicians, but the general public didn't know his music or want to know. He had invented twelve-tone serial music, that strange and inaccessible world of sound, and Moses and Aaron was regarded as the supreme achievement in that world. Schoenberg died in 1951, leaving Moses and Aaron unfinished. Berlin and Zürich had recently presented the two acts of the opera cautiously stylised in production, but these had seemed to confirm what Schoenberg had always said—that it was unstageable.

The prevailing feeling in the Covent Garden company was that here was one of those rather tiresome and boring acts of piety which state-endowed theatres occasionally feel they have to perform to justify their position. 'They've got to do stuff like this,' it was explained to me, 'otherwise they get their grant cut.' The expectation was that there would be a small amount of respectful attention from the intellectual Press, a fair-sized audience on the first night consisting of the critics, the regular first-nighters and those peculiar people who actually like Schoenberg, a chorus of reverent hallelujahs from the critics, and total indifference from the public, who would be merely waiting for Callas in Tosca. For the remaining performances there would be five empty houses. The company could then breathe a long sigh of relief, their painful duty done, and the whole production would be quietly dropped and forgotten.

Just how wrong can you be? Who could have known that Moses and Aaron would be the most spectacular smashhit of the season, that tickets would become the hottest black-market property in London, hotter than Olivier's Othello, hotter than Fonteyn/Nureyev, hotter even than Callas? Who could have forseen the orgy of newspaper vulgarity it would provoke? Who could have known that it would be the most joked-about, talked-of event of the season, that all-night queues would be fighting for the few standing tickets, that questions would be asked about it in Parliament? Nobody could have foreseen any of this, neither Sir David Webster, nor William Beresford, the press officer, nor Georg Solti, the conductor, nor Peter Hall, the producer, nor any of the three hundred singers, actors, dancers, guardsmen and animals involved.

It wasn't only that the company didn't think it would be a success. They didn't even like it, neither principals, chorus nor orchestra. The chorus really hated it, for the burden on their shoulders had been by far the heaviest. For nearly a year, working overtime under the loving but relentless discipline of their chorus-master, Douglas Robinson, they had sweated and groaned and cursed over those complex twelve-tone rhythms and those outlandish atonal harmonies, surely the most difficult choral music ever written. Now, at the end of a long and exhausting season, they were tired and irritable. In time many came to like it more, or at least to dislike it less, for increased mastery over the score revealed unsuspected beauties, and, by the end of the season, Schoenberg had made many converts.

The instigator and prime mover behind the venture was Georg Solti, who, since he had heard a recording in 1961, had conceived a passionate desire to stage Moses and Aaron at Covent Garden. By early 1964 the production was ready to be set up and several important decisions had been made. It would be cast entirely from the resident company; no need to import expensive foreign stars. It would be sung in English, and David Rudkin, author of Afore Night Come, was commissioned to prepare a translation of Schoenberg's libretto. And, since the theatrical problems were as complex as the musical, it seemed logical to engage a team of theatrical experts. Peter Hall was approached; the idea appealed to him, and he agreed, bringing a trio of Aldwych Theatre associates: Clifford Williams and Guy Wolfenden to assist in the direction, and John Bury to design the set and costumes. Peter Hall was no stranger to opera production. He had produced John Gardner's The Moon and Sixpence at Sadler's Wells some years before.

All were in agreement on one important point. The stylisation of the two continental productions would not work. The staging must be as realistic as was permitted by the resources of the Royal Opera House and the restrictions of the Lord Chamberlain. In view of the excessive demands made by the libretto this decision was not lightly taken; but Schoenberg had wanted realism and the instructions in the score had been specific.

After the procession the slaughtermen kill the beasts, throw hunks of meat to the crowd … wine streams forth everywhere, general drunkenness, heavy stone jars are hurled around … four naked virgins strip before the Calf, the Priests seize their throats, plunge the knife into their hearts … a naked youth darts forward, seizes girl, rips the clothes from her … naked people shrieking and screaming run past the altar.…

Nevertheless, Peter Hall was to insist repeatedly that this was not a sensational opera.

Rather than impose a further physical burden on the long-suffering chorus, it was resolved to engage a special team of actors and actresses to cope with the more strenuous aspects of the orgy scene. Over a period of many weeks hundreds of actors auditioned in the Amphitheatre Crush Bar at the Opera House. Divided into groups of six, they improvised energetically such diverse scenes as the building of the pyramids, the crossing of the Red Sea, and the ritual sacrifices round the Golden Calf. From these forty were chosen. They were a strangely assorted group, widely differing in age, colour, nationality and theatrical experience. Almost all of them, however, had one thing in common: they had not acted in an opera before.

Even for Covent Garden, which is accustomed to mounting its operas on a grand scale, Moses and Aaron was going to be exceptionally lavish, and the statistics cautiously released by the press office had a Cecil B. de Mille flavour … 150 chorus, 40 actors, 40 guardsmen, 20 children, 20 dancers, 12 animals; the total number involved including the principals would be just short of three hundred. It was a pity that no mention was made of the amount of timber in John Bury's set or the amount of towellene required for three hundred costumes.

On May 10, 1965, the rehearsals started in the London Opera Centre. This enormous building, formerly a cinema, lies halfway down the Commercial Road, sandwiched between building sites, docks and factories. It is not an attractive district. The Centre houses the Opera School, a recording studio, a huge workshop, paint-dock and scenery-store, and a vast rehearsal room the size of Covent Garden's stage. A steep metal ramp covered the entire floor of what had been the stalls—this was John Bury's set in embryo. Rows of tiered seats covered what had been the stage. The actors sat on the ramp and the chorus on the seats, gazing at each other in mutual curiosity. Peter Hall climbed on to a nearby stone altar.

He called everybody on to the ramp and grouped them round the various steps, rostra and altars. 'Now in this scene,' he explained, 'Moses and Aaron appear at the back of the stage and move across and then down centre. You must all turn and see them, and there is going to be a blinding sun which shines down on top of you. You're terrifically excited by it, and you're all in ecstasy. So let's start.'

Georg Solti, in purple shirt and sun-glasses, started to conduct. John Constable, the repetiteur, started to play on the Bechstein grand. Forbes Robinson and Richard Lewis, as Moses and Aaron respectively, appeared and moved down into the mob at a stately pace. Singers screamed out their welcoming chorus of joy, dancers twisted and gyrated, actors shuddered and reacted with ecstasy. It was all very impressive.

'Please remember,' said Peter Hall when we had finished, 'that I simply can't give you all individual directions for every moment of the play or we'll be here for two years not two months. You will all have to improvise, and I'd much rather you overdid it and forced me to cut you down, than underdid it and compelled me to call for some action. I shall have to rely on you all to use your imagination and initiative.'

We did it again and again, and at 1.30 we broke for lunch. The basement canteen was a large one but it wasn't used to dealing with crowds like this, which were to throng it thrice daily. During these long, hot, sunny lunch-hours the pubs and cafés within a mile radius were crowded with singers and actors, to the polite bewilderment of the locals.

In 'The Prospect of Whitby' a group of choristers, safe from the ears of authority, were complaining loud and long. It became speedily clear to anybody who happened to be listening that although a few English, Scots and foreign singers had infiltrated their sacred ranks, the great bulk of the Covent Garden chorus were Welsh. With all those Dais, Owens, Morgans, Griffiths, Blodwens and Gwyneths, the Rhondda valley reigned supreme. 'You can keep this bloody opera, man.… But it's not music, whatever they say; where's the bloody tune?… You can't sing it.… My voice is cracking, I can feel it.… Nobody will come, only a bunch of short-arsed phoneys.… Give me Faust any day, give me Carmen, now there's real music.… One good thing, man, we'll never have to do it again.… Oh, it's back to Cardiff for me, man, I'm telling you.… ' The voices floated musically over the beer tankards and hot sausage rolls.

That evening, with the opera company performing Otello at Covent Garden, the actors had the Opera Centre to themselves. Grouped comfortably round the Bechstein they listened to John Constable playing Act 2 while Peter Hall gave a running commentary on the action. 'This is where the Golden Calf is dragged on … this is where you get drunk … this is where the animals are slaughtered and you all eat the bloody meat … this is where the naked youth sacrifices the naked girl. Schoenberg says in the score that they must be as naked as the conventions of the stage permit. This is where the Golden Calf is destroyed and somebody runs on and says, "Cave, Moses is coming," and you all run off.

'Now I want you to hear the same music in full score because it sounds so different from the piano.' He put on the record. The music sounded unbelievably ugly, harsh and ear-tingling. 'It's terrific stuff this,' he smiled, 'it's the most gut-stirring music ever written and it starts where the Rite of Spring leaves off. But don't forget, this is not a sensational opera, and I don't want Fleet Street to get the idea that there's nothing to it but a long sexual orgy. So please don't talk about it.'

Over the next four hot dusty weeks the singers, actors, and a special contingent of Scots Guardsmen, looking uncomfortably out of place in their army blazers and winkle-pickers, sweated it out, and what slowly took shape was not only the production but the nature of the problems involved. The basic difficulty in opera production never changes. By its very nature opera is a highly artificial art-form. A realistic opera, strictly speaking, is a contradiction. But somewhere down the line there is a compromise where the conflicting demands of drama and music can in part be satisfied.

From the start Peter Hall decided that this was not to be one of those productions in which the singers contented themselves merely with singing and left all the acting to the actors. This was to be total theatre. Actors were to sing, or, at least, seem to. Singers were to act, or seem to act. 'I want you all to do everything with such conviction,' he said, 'that the audience must be incapable of deciding who are the actors and who are the singers.'

The actors were given copies of the libretto and instructed to learn the words of the choruses so that they could silently mouth them to give the illusion that they were singing—a process known in the profession as 'goldfishing'. But they really would join the spoken and shouted choruses, and long exhausting rehearsals were held so that their shouting synchronised with that of the chorus. As for the singers joining in the acting, this wasn't so easy. Many singers, especially the older ones in the chorus, are hidebound by the long-established formal conventions of opera, as any theatre producer has found to his cost, and most of them are happiest when standing centre-stage with their eyes firmly fixed on the conductor. It would be necessary to coax them with subtlety and cunning. So it can be seen that Peter Hall's major problem wasn't so much theatrical as diplomatic.

The invention of television has made things easier, for closed-circuit TV enables the conductor to be seen on any number of monitor sets placed in the wings. Singers can turn left, right and even upstage and still see him. Even so, there were difficulties. 'Ladies, I want you all to move down right and kneel behind the altar,' Peter Hall would say. A howl of dismay would rise. 'But, Mr Hall, we can't see the conductor. How can we sing if … '

'All right, don't worry, we'll sort it out.… Now, you gentlemen, would you move away down left?… Thanks.… Now, ladies, can you see Mr Solti?'

'Thank you, yes we can.'

'Good. Now, gentlemen, I want you to cross the stage.

'But, Mr Hall, if they do that we can't see anything.…'

'Please don't panic, ladies, we'll sort it out. Actors, I want you to rush down and mingle with the ladies here.…'

'But, Mr Hall, I don't want to be awkward but I really can't sing with all them actors rushing between us. Up-sets me, it does, and we can't see Mr Solti. Really, I've never had to go through anything like this before.'

'Don't worry, ladies, please don't panic. We'll get it all sorted out.'

The pledge of secrecy made on the first day didn't last long, but this surprised nobody. A secret shared by three hundred people has, one supposes, a limited term of life. For the first month the outside world knew little about what was happening in the Commercial Road, and nothing appeared in the papers apart from the formal announcement, with cast lists, that the opera was to be presented in June and July. But by early June whispers were heard in Fleet Street that something interesting was happening in the Opera Centre. The Evening Standard was the first in the field. A photographer was sent to investigate and take rehearsal pictures. Next day a picture of Yvonne Minton, Morag Noble, Elaine Blighton and Elizabeth Bainbridge was published with the caption ORGY IN COMMERCIAL ROAD. The story went on to say that these ladies were to sing the parts of the four naked virgins.

The secret was out. Every newspaper editor loves an orgy, and when a few days later the Press was formally invited to take pictures of the animals on hire from Chessington Zoo who were making their first appearance in rehearsals, an army of photographers and reporters turned up. An event which ordinarily would have caused only a ripple of interest in Fleet Street was now covered by every paper in the country. While six donkeys, goats, kids, three horses, a camel and a Highland Shetland bull were ceremoniously paraded across the stage, the cameras clicked and flashed excitedly. (The bull, it later transpired, was actually a cow, and had to withdraw from the 1966 revival owing to pregnancy.)

At the beginning of June the company moved into the Royal Opera House for the last weeks of rehearsals. Every morning an army of blue-denimed stage-hands erected John Bury's set and every afternoon they removed it. New props appeared daily: a huge unfinished statue of Moses, a section of a pyramid, hundreds of gold trinkets and jewels, the Golden Calf mounted on rollers, the animals' carcasses and the blood-stained meat. This had to be eaten; it looked disgustingly realistic and tasted—disgusting.

Finally the Sacred Phalluses appeared. The High Priests bring these on to the stage during the climax of the orgy scene and give them to the six dancing boys, who strap them on and perform a very sensual, phallic dance. Out of the depths of hiserotic imagination John Bury had produced what looked rather like carnival hats: they were long and pointed, they were painted with cheerful, multicoloured stripes, and they had little paper tassels attached to the point. The actors thought they were very funny and charming; but not the chorus.

The first distant rumblings of mutiny were heard. From canteen, pub and dressing-room outraged chapel-going voices could be heard complaining with high moral fervour. 'I know he's a clever young man and all that but … those phalluses aren't very nice, are they?… obscene, I'd say … disgusting, I call it … downright immoral … my wife's coming and my married daughter and they'll want to know what they are, well, it's going to be a bit embarrassing having to explain, isn't it?' Fortunately, the voices of Morality and Good Taste were overruled. John Bury's phalluses stayed and were greatly admired.

A source of more open mutiny was the blood. This had been cleverly faked by the ever-resourceful property department who, after several false starts, had produced a liquid which had the right colour and consistency and looked horribly realistic (the recipe was and still is a closely guarded secret). It was warm and smelly and the taste of it on the tongue and the feel of it on the skin was literally sickening. Buckets of it had to be thrown over the company, actors and chorus had to wallow in it, lick it, drink it, and smear it on their faces and near-naked bodies.

This sort of thing is one of the less attractive aspects of theatrical life; actors are frequently required to undergo unpleasant ordeals like this; they are used to it and can take it in their stride. But the chorus found it more difficult. 'Don't come near me with that, young man,' snarled one elderly female chorister, as she saw the blood bowl approaching. 'Mr Hall, I'm not having that stuff on my face and that's flat … it makes me sick … I won't be able to sing.' Protests rose from all sides.

There was physical danger, too. John Bury's steeply sloping metal ramp was very slippery, especially when covered with blood and wine. Bruises, grazes, cuts, strained tendons began to occur with alarming frequency, and one unlucky dancer almost wrenched his big toe off when he caught it in a narrow slit near the footlights. The ramp was then covered with a variety of substances including sand, and little lumps of hard cork. The final surface was not comfortable either for rape or dying, but at least there was no more slipping.

Meanwhile on the other side of Floral Street the wardrobe department was busily turning out three hundred biblical costumes which had to be ragged, torn and stained with blood and muck. 'You don't call those costumes, I hope,' said Wardrobe contemptuously. For people whose expert skill enables them to produce anything from Salvador Dali creations for Salome to gorgeous Regency gowns for Callas or the incredibly elaborate eighteenth-century dresses for Rosenkavalier, these loincloths, these strips of black towellene, were a frustrating anti-climax. Wardrobe looked a little happier when the four high priests came for their fitting: they were to be dressed in white-and-gold robes with gold turban and scarlet waistband which looked rather splendid. But these had to be dirtied in their turn till they looked as drab as the others.

The Press was now becoming deeply interested in the goings-on, and the most extraordinary rumours began to circulate. Is it true, asked Fleet Street indignantly, that the animals are to be killed and a fresh bunch led to the slaughter at every performance? Nonsense, said the Royal Opera House, firmly. In fact the only casualty during the whole venture was the camel who was led on to the stage during one particularly hectic rehearsal, surveyed the proceedings with unutterable contempt, deposited his candid opinion of Moses and Aaron on to the floor, slipped on it as he was led across, and crashed through the ramp on to the stage floor some fifteen feet beneath. Bleating piteously, his head and hump could be seen projecting through the hole. The risk of the same thing happening during a performance was too great: he was clearly not satisfied with his part, so he was released from his contract and returned to Chessington Zoo.

Is it true, asked Fleet Street excitedly, that four girls from a Soho strip-club are to be engaged to replace the four virgins? No comment, said Covent Garden primly. But now it can safely be revealed that the four ladies of the Opera company had not been happy about stripping off and singing their extremely difficult quartet with their backs to the conductor. Peter Hall invited four girls from the highly respectable Astor Club to watch a rehearsal and asked them if they would like to muck in? They would and they did. Thenceforth it was they who were stripped by the high priests, raped, and ritually sacrificed, while the four ladies sang their quartet from the safety of the wings. Peter Hall has always believed in special-isation where possible.

Is it true, asked Fleet Street apprehensively, that the Lord Chamberlain, perturbed by the rumours, was going to send a representative to the public dress-rehearsal and that even at this late stage the entire production might be forcibly abandoned if what he saw exceeded the legal definition of decency? Not true, retorted Covent Garden, for only that very morning Sir David Webster had received a letter in which the Lord Chamberlain had expressed his complete trust in the discretion and good taste of the Royal Opera House management.

Is it true, asked Fleet Street lasciviously, that people are going to run about in the orgy scene completely naked? You can come and see for yourselves on the first night, replied Covent Garden loftily. In the final week Fleet Street stepped up the pressure and proceeded to give Covent Garden the full gutter-press treatment. It was gripped by such a Moses and Aaron frenzy that it seemed nothing else was happening in the world; whenever you opened a paper there were pictures, stories, interviews, cartoons, gossip, rumours, each sillier than the last, ORGY NIGHT AT THE OPERA.… NAKED VIRGINS SHOCK CAST.… PUBLIC WILL NOT STAND FOR THIS ORGY.… REMARKABLE ORGY BUT DO WE WANT TO PAY FOR THIS? screamed the headlines. In a last-minute attempt to damp the fires of sensationalism Peter Hall announced: 'Don't get the wrong idea; my orgy is quite tame.' Reporters and photographers, rigidly excluded from rehearsals and frustrated by Sergeant Martin and his vigilant front-of-house staff from infiltrating the theatre, fell back on the timehonoured practice of haunting the stage-door and the Nag's Head opposite, taking pictures of the company as they went in and out, and furtively begging for inside information.

It was this which led to one outbreak of violence. A photographer from one of the national papers was attempting to take a picture of the four strip-club girls when his operation was interrupted by one of the singers who suddenly charged angrily at him. 'This is a serious work of art,' he cried angrily. 'You're just cheapening and vulgarising it.' The photographer stated that he was only doing his job; an argument rose; tempers were lost. The singer seized the camera and attempted to destroy it; the photographer clung to it like a limpet; they scuffled and grappled all the way down Floral Street, and were stopped only by the chance appearance of an astonished Sir David Webster who had just stepped out for lunch. The singer was calmed and the photographer was placated: apologies were exchanged and they parted calmly if not amicably. Happily for all, the editor of the newspaper was persuaded not to print this story.

But it wasn't all strippers and orgies. The Friends of Covent Garden assembled one Sunday evening at the Opera House to hear a symposium on the opera and extracts from the score. So many turned up that the amphitheatre and gallery had to be opened to accommodate them. Forbes Robinson and Richard Lewis sang extracts, and those who spoke on different aspects of the opera included Georg Solti, Peter Hall, John Bury and Egon Wellesz, a former pupil and friend of the composer. Solti ended by saying, 'This is difficult music, very difficult. But if you listen hard it becomes easy. Soon it becomes like Mozart opera.'

The public dress-rehearsal was held on Saturday morning, June 26, and was well received. Amongst the invited audience was Frau Gertrude Schoenberg, the composer's widow, who said, 'What a pity my Arnold is not alive to see this; he would have liked to see it done like this.' When Peter Hall was introduced to her he asked: 'I hope you don't feel that we have gone too far.' 'On the contrary, young man,' she replied firmly, 'in my opinion you have not gone far enough.' She thought that the orgy scene was tame but a move in the right direction.

This was not the opinion of some of the Friends of Covent Garden who had been present: they thought the production was 'sickening' … 'excessive' … 'horrible'.… 'They've gone too far,' said one to the Evening Standard. 'Everything was just thrown at you. There's no subtlety. It was revolting.' One anonymous correspondent seemed to agree with this. He wrote to Peter Hall saying he was disgusted at the things which were being done in his name and would call down the vengeance of heaven on the entire venture. It was signed 'God'.

The night of the première arrived, Monday, June 28, 1965. It was a perfect summer's evening, hot and dry. By six-thirty the streets round the Opera House were jammed with people and slow-moving traffic, not only singers and audience, but sight-seers, first-night celebrity-spotters, ticket-scalpers (one pair of stalls was sold for £100), and the general public who wanted to see what was going to happen and to be there when it did. Was it imagination or was there an unusually large contingent of policemen on duty, walking down Floral Street, grouped round the stage-door, and guarding the front entrance? Probably there was, for a rumour was circulating that a hostile demonstration was being planned and that the evening might end in a riot.

Who could be planning this? one wondered. The Friends of Glyndebourne, perhaps? One thought of all the famous riots of musical history: Tannhäuser, Electra, Salome, Rite of Spring. Was Moses and Aaron to be added to this distinguished list? Would women stand and scream that they had been insulted? Would they throw things on to the stage? There was an electric tension in the air, a terrifying sense of expectancy and foreboding, 'I've never known anything like it,' said the oldest stage-hand gloomily. For once one felt glad that Bow Street police station was so near.

The first-night audience included not only many international celebrities and all fashionable London but operatic administrators from all over the world, anxious to see if a realistic Moses and Aaron was a practical proposition. They did not have to wait long for an answer. Few people, least of all the singers, realised how short the opera is. Even with a long interval it scarcely lasts two hours, and by 9.25 history had been made. From every point of view the performance was superb: the musical and technical difficulties which had made the final week's rehearsals so stormy and frustrating all melted away as if by magic. Forbes Robinson and Richard Lewis and all the other principals gave magnificently assured performances, and the Lost Tribes of Egypt sang and acted with a passionate fervour which fully justified their reputation as one of the finest operatic choruses in the world. Welsh puritanism and middle-class inhibitions were flung aside; they threw themselves into the orgy scene, blood, phalluses and all, with an abandon which astonished and delighted everybody.

At the end the audience, which had been on the edge of its seats with excitement, cheered for twenty minutes. If anybody had come to make trouble they clearly stayed to applaud, for not a single hostile note marred this glorious sound. It was a very gratifying, very emotional experience for everybody concerned. This was the final accolade. Here was an unknown and difficult opera performed by the resident company without a single international star name, and their reward for a year's hard work was a standing ovation which even Callas might envy.

The evening finished with an orgy of another sort in the Crush Bar for the company and several hundreds of Covent Garden's most intimate personal friends. Large quantities of delicious cold food and vin rosé were consumed, and the feasting continued into the small hours, by which time early editions of the papers were available. Fleet Street had gone hysterical with joy; it was a paen of triumph … ORGY NIGHT AT THE OPERA.… THAT WAS QUITE AN ORGY FOR 31/6.… AN ORGY BUT NOT EROTIC.… HURRAH FOR THIS FIRST-CLASS ORGY. Later, the Sundays, weeklies, monthlies and quarterlies had their reservations, but by and large one thing emerged clearly: Georg Solti's dream had come true. He and Peter Hall had been proved triumphantly in the right. Never again would Moses and Aaron be regarded as unstageable.

Two days after the final performance the full company and orchestra conducted by Georg Solti gave a special concert performance at the Proms. From the back of the promenade I looked at their familiar and well-loved faces, now looking strangely different in their white ties, dinner-jackets and long evening gowns. The bloodstained desert seemed a hundred miles and a thousand years away. They sang better than ever, and the listeners, released from the distraction of stage spectacle, were able to concentrate on the music as never before. It was a profoundly moving experience. I remembered how ugly and meaningless the music had seemed when I had first heard it. But I had heard it every day for three months, and familiarity had bred understanding and love. Now my ear could accept Schoenberg's atonal harmonies so completely that I wondered how I could ever have found them difficult. I remembered that Solti had said, 'Soon it will be easy, like Mozart opera,' and he was quite right. But I felt I could almost go further. Now, large portions of it were easy—like Gilbert and Sullivan.