Charles Mackerras: A Musicians' Musician

Simultaneously the musical director of ENO, guest conductor at the Royal Opera House (a delicate combination), chief guest conductor of the BBC, and a jet set musician flying between Prague, Vienna, Sydney, New York, San Francisco, Charles Mackerras's career has been permanently in top gear.

Nancy Phelan has discovered some exotic branches to his family tree: Stanislaus Poniatowski, the last king of Poland; Isaac Nathan, for whom Byron wrote the Hebrew Melodies. Mackerras was born in the USA and raised in Australia, one of a large, expansive family. He was musically precocious: we are told of his marionette Ring (abridged, one assumes), and his concern with textual authenticity. In 1947 he came to England, and straight to Sadler's Wells (as second oboe). A Prague scholar- ship followed, together with marriage and his discovery of Janáček, whom he was soon introducing to England. Next came a move to Hamburg, as principal conductor: it is instructive to read of the shortcomings he discovered in the German opera scene.

Then came the Coliseum appointment. By now he was conducting all over the world, and had indiscreet tales of such temperamental stars as Franco Corelli, Birgit Nilsson, Jon Vickers, Pavarotti. Now, too, Mackerras was beginning to have to cope with the idiosyncrasies of 'producer's opera": Lavelli's Faust in Paris, Ruth Berghaus's Don Giovanni for WNO. Now too came the controversies about ornamentation in Opera, culminating in Winton Dean's onslaught upon the much-acclaimed Julius Caesar.

But, workaholic though Mackerras is, there's still a private, complex and endearing man behind the public image. Home life is a surrealist bedlam: jet travel is infinitely more peaceful. He has never quite bridged the gap between music and ordinary living. Life dream, and at home he wanders around in it like an amiable, absent-minded professor, headphones on ears, half-glasses on nose, exuding good-natured vagueness. He is a man of many contradictions: eager to act, but a hopeless procrastinator; scholarly but credulous; affable, yet shy; said to be abrasive, opinionated, impatient and tactless, and yet friendly, enthusiastic, easy-going. generous. Nancy Phelan gives us a well rounded account of a fascinating man and a remarkable career, and, in the appendices, Mackerras himself elaborates his views on conducting, ornamentation, and the interpretation of Handel, Mozart and Janáček. A Discography by Malcolm Walker completes the volume.

Nancy Phelan, a cousin of Charles Mackerras, was born in Australia of Irish descent; her family lived near the sea, and music, books and sailing were the most important elements of her childhood. She dropped out of university to come to England and has been a keen traveller ever since. She married, had a daughter and lived in England until 1946 when she and her husband moved to Australia. There she worked as a literature organizer for the South Pacific Commission, which involved much travelling in the Islands. After five years, she left her job in order to travel further afield and write. She also practised and taught Hatha Yoga. She has travelled all over Europe, the East and the Mediterranean, also to the USA, and USSR and South America.

She has written 6 travel books, 3 novels, as well as autobiographical works, and books on Hatha Yoga in collaboration with her teacher. In Australia she lives in the Blue Mountains in a Victorian house with a beautiful garden where she has a tower in which she writes.