The rise and rise of La bohème

I’ve been aware for many years that the catalytic role of Nellie Melba in turning Puccini’s opera La bohème from something of a flop into one of the world’s favourite operas has not been understood. One could read any of the multiplicity of biographies of the composer or the diva without grasping this.

So I was thrilled to be asked to write an essay covering the way she went about it for this year’s programme for Glyndebourne. And delighted to be invited with my wife and ten year old daughter (her first opera) to the dress rehearsal of David McVicar’s superb production on Saturday.

Briefly, this is what happened.

Although La bohème had its première in 1896 in Turin with Toscanini conducting, it was something of a flop. Several other productions followed, including one in England given by the Carl Rosa company.

Melba somehow had decided that Puccini was “the coming man” and arranged to go to Lucca, where the composer lived, to study the role of Mimì with him. There are various versions as to how long she was there, but she worked with him every day on the rôle.

She was already the most famous opera singer in the world and could so easily have taken the opera into any of the leading houses in the world. But she did not do this. Instead she formed a company of her own in the USA and toured La bohème from coast to coast in 1898/99, starting at Philadelphia in the east and finishing in San Francisco.

Only then did she feel ready to take it to Covent Garden, where it was “the hit of the season”, according to Punch.

Then she went on tour with it a second time, again from coast to coast in America, but this time with the Metropolitan Opera, starting in Los Angeles, and arriving triumphantly at the company’s home base in New York on Boxing Day of 1900.

The opera never looked back.

The question is: why is this story not better known, even to opera buffs?

Here she is, singing the duet from Act 1 with Enrico Caruso, recorded in 1907:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COXFBMoTgSw

The meaning of The Duck Song

A good example of the late adopter would be my discovery recently of "The Duck Song".

I say discovery on a purely personal basis, because currently 89 million people have seen it ahead of me on YouTube.

But what does it all mean??

My wife says it’s about the reluctance of children to try new foods.

I think it’s about the need for manufacturers and service providers to be responsive to changing market needs.

When I asked her, our ten year old daughter said “dunno… but it’s meant to be funny.”

Whatever it means, I believe it’s intriguing and has an innate poetry of considerable beauty.

Just in case you haven’t seen it, here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtN1YnoL46Q

What does it mean for you?

Immigrants drive exports

A Danish friend has sent me a fascinating article from yesterday’s Politiken.DK.

What it reveals is that Danish exports to emerging markets have been hindered substantially by language and cultural barriers ‒ and that a major solution has been found in using second and third generation immigrants to Denmark as intermediaries.

Apparently the policy has been so successful that exports from Denmark to Asian, Middle Eastern and South American countries have lifted rather dramatically.

Now a database has been created so that appropriate people can be matched with relevant markets. Says Jonas Ghiyati, “For example, Morocco is difficult to penetrate with only English. A person with Moroccan roots can reverse the language, will have contacts at all levels, knows the culture and system – and how to dodge corruption.”

Wonder how many other countries with multicultural populations (and negative politics/media around immigrants) have tried this approach?

Peace, commerce and honest friendship

I’ve been working around the world now for over forty years and have always had a strong feeling that doing business with, and getting to know, people from other cultures than mine, was a useful thing to do with one’s life.

So I’ve never been able to grasp the antipathy (sometimes bordering on hysteria) shown towards foreigners, globalisation and multinational companies. More than that, my belief is that growth in our own national economy is supported greatly by the presence of motivated immigrants.

Recently I met with the distinguished academic Sir Christopher Ball and, preparing for the meeting, I viewed on YouTube a lecture he gave at the University of Virginia on the university of the future. A theme through his talk was the words of Thomas Jefferson in his Inaugural Address on becoming President of the United States in 1801.

Jefferson committed himself (and the nation) to: “Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations.”

That, for me, is the heart of the matter.

Hold the back page

In June 1957, in my last term at Stoneygate School in Leicester, aged just thirteen, I made my highest score in a cricket match: 110 not out.

What’s more, this was against my previous school in Coventry, whose best bowler (and bat) was Bryan Richardson, one of the finest schoolboy cricketers of his generation. I reached the century lofting him over his head for six.

This was the day that I discovered how news stories work. The Daily Express had sent along a reporter and a photographer to cover the match. The following day, the back page of the paper was covered in action photos of the game. But I was nowhere to be seen. The pictures and the story were all about Bryan.

How could this be?

Of course the Express had covered the game, not because of my prowess, but because young Bryan’s two older brothers, Peter and Dick Richardson, had just been selected to play for England against the West Indies, a first for siblings.

Ah. So that’s how it works.

Saying yes and meaning no

I was doing some creativity training in Tokyo with a mixed group of Japanese and European expats, when one of the British expats, agitated, said: “The problem with you Japanese is that you never tell the truth…”

Needless to say, this did not go down well. I encouraged him to say some more about what he was thinking.

“Well, you guys have a hundred ways of saying yes when you mean no,” he blundered on.

In the break I said to him: “But don’t you know that we do too?”

He was unconvinced.

Here are some of them:

“I agree with you in principle.”
“I hear what you say.”
“That’s very interesting.”
“Yes…” with slight note of doubt.
“Ho, ho, ho – that’s a good one.”
“That’s such a brave idea.”
“That would be excellent…”
“Let’s appoint a task force.”
“We definitely need to think some more about this.”
“Yes, but…”

By the way, it’s not only the Japanese and the British who do this…

Do you have some favourites?

Boom and bust syndrome

The flotation of Facebook and its fall in price the day after reminds me of a workshop I facilitated several years ago for Unilever in Rio de Janeiro (someone has to do it). I fell into conversation with a young American consultant there from Paris.

“My husband and I have invested steadily in so far loss-making companies from Silicon Valley and have made millions,” she boasted.

Probably out to prick her bubble, not having had such a joyous ride, I responded: “My own feeling is that the NASDAQ is going to tumble. Quite soon. 50% or maybe more.”

“No chance!” was her reply.

“But the losses? Not to mention the slowing of growth?”

“The rules have changed,” she responded.

"Don't think so."

And that’s exactly what happened – the following month.

I love the writer Somerset Maugham’s pithy summary in his The Facts of Life:

“How’s the market today,” he asked.

“Booming. Even the suckers are making money.”

From bouncing marbles to bouncing bombs

How did Barnes Wallis come up with the idea behind his famous bouncing bomb? Wallis was the scientist-inventor behind the Dam Busters raid on German dams in the Second World War.

Well, like many children, he had noticed that throwing stones flat on to water causes them to skip. So early in 1942 in his back garden in England he started practicing this effect using his young daughter’s marbles on tin bowls of water.

When he had firmed up his idea, he took it to the authorities (including the now infamous leader of the RAF, “Bomber” Harris), who, typically with breakthrough new ideas, were quite unconvinced. The concept was that a bomb would bounce over water, sinking next to the target – for example a battleship or perhaps a dam ‒ and exploding with great force.

But, convinced that he was on to a major innovation, Wallis pressed on, having to solve a host of consequent engineering and other problems on the way.

Even young people in Britain still seem to know how the dams of the Ruhr were destroyed on 16-17 May 1943 (69 years ago this last week), leading to the flooding and major disruption of the German industrial war machine.

Paul Brickhill’s 1951 book graphically captured the story, later turned into a memorable film ‒ dealing not only with the creative development of the bomb, but also with the courage and skill of the flyers of 617 Squadron.

Perhaps it could be required viewing for all young innovators, covering as it does so many of the issues that are faced by them today.