Fifty years ago, I was at the centre of an
Unfortunate Incident at Covent Garden Opera House.
On May 4th I caught the night
bus from Notting Hill at 3.30, arrived
in Bow Street at four, and was 264th in the queue for tickets to
hear Callas and Gobbi in Tosca.
Orderly queue, as always, but alas the queue leader had only brought 280
tickets, and made the mistake of telling late arrivals that they could just sign
his book, safely go away, and return later to take their places. After a while,
he went off himself for a slow half-pint at the Nag’s Head. Sure enough more and
more late- and later-comers came to join the end of a queue which they were
surprised to find considerably shorter than they had feared. At half-past seven
or so those who had left, returned, shocked that ‘their places’ had been taken by other opera
enthusiasts extremely reluctant to give them up. When the queue-leader returned
at a quarter to eight or so, he was quickly surrounded by unhappy queuers. The discussion
became extremely heated, and despite
typically humorous attempts to break the tension (‘If you don’t shut up, all
we’ll get is tickets for Moses und Aron!’,
one wag shouted) I began to fear that the incident might eventually be
concluded in the courts across the road. Only the appearance of the much-loved
and usually amiable Sergeant Martin, the Major-domo of the House, quietened
things down. You didn’t argue with Sgt Martin, late of the Guards.
I got two tickets for the first Tosca after the Royal gala performance,
and turned up on July 12th to
find another Unfortunate Incident had occurred: Madame Callas, having sung for
the Queen, had decided that enough was enough, and gone off to Paris about
other business. However, once George Pretre raised his baton we still heard a marvelous
Scarpia from Gobbi and an excellent Tosca from Marie Collier.
The refund the management arranged, on the
spot – queue at the box-office as you leave - was extraordinarily generous: we got
£3 15s back on our £5 stalls tickets , which was a help later in the year when
I was 82nd in the queue for a Fonteyn-Nureyev Giselle, and Cinderella
at Christmas with Helpmann and Ashton as the Ugly Sisters. In the end,
everything comes to he who queues.