Finally Harry Rollo’s Great Perf in Vienna «

Finally Harry Rollo’s Great Perf in Vienna

Friday 24th July 2015

So much incident both before and after Harry Rollo’s triumph in Vienna, reaching a climax on the Saturday night before we boarded for London on the Sunday. For instance Rufus Pitman said one of the Titans in the Kunsthistoriches Museum would make a good duvet cover, Reggie condemned Titan’s portraits as ‘not very good’ but homed in on a St Sebastian with unusual arrow configuration – through the forehead is rare, if not unique. Reggie is mad for St Sebastian’s. In the Object Rooms (or Kunstkammer) of the Kunsthistoriches, there was a rock crystal piece that had cost Philip of Spain more than a Titian. ‘But it’s got damaged during washing up,’ Reggie said. There was indeed a terrible crack. ‘At least you don’t have to wash up a Titian,’ Rufus said. I forgot to mention how I solved the just-out-of-the-dishwasher hot butter dish problem in the hotel – by purloining ice cubes from the breakfast champagne bucket! What a brain wave. Anthony Mottram gained Vienna, partly by bicycle. Oh yes, he was there for Harry Rollo’s great perf. We never stopped talking. So many memories, particularly of that living toilet in Business Class on the flight back from Sofia at the time of the Prague floods. That toilet yapped and clattered all the flight long. You could say its seat was loose but that would be dreary. It was a living toilet. In Vienna there was a see-thru toilet in one of the cafés – but not living through. So we moved towards Harry Rollo’s great perf. All the waiters were talking about the previous ones. Vienna is one of the hardest places to penetrate with anything new. But Harry Rollo penetrated Vienna. A Bulti arrived by air from Los Angeles for the perf. ‘Did you stop for re-fuelling?’ Anthony Mottram asked her. We assumed she’d come by private jet but it turned out not. The private jet was to be only for going on to London from Vienna. Then we were gathered for the perf. Previously we’d been up to the roof of the performance house, right inside the chandelier from where eerie tendrils were to emanate during the perf – what were they? The Bulti had a nice little black cardy and a ra-ra skirt in the foyer just before the perf. I would have said it was a Thursday afternoon outfit with no particular house leaping out – a charming modest touch for one so extensive as to wealth. We found that we were seated by chance next to Simeon Bond who’d also gained from London and with whom I’d failed to have tea the day before owing to having to cover Schönbrunn. So we were all flowing together for the great moment. Would we rise to it? Would we be good enough? I think we were. The shimmer and other world began, yet terrible and bringing much of the cruelty of this one in but transformed and somehow better although all having to come to an end, dissolving away … as our magical Vienna was going to do the next day. But before that we were back-stage and then in the restaurant. Harry said, ‘We won’t pay.’ I sat next to the Bulti who described her usual day which was work in the morning, reading in the afternoon and events in the evening. Anthony Mottram had one of Harry’s team who had come from London for the day, plus a grandmother, daughter and granddaughter performing group who were going to perform beside a lake in August. Such a concentration of world-class names! It was a living legend. From without a person would grow faint at the idea of this gathering. But did I mention that the night before, Harry Rollo in a mint-green Marc Jacobs summer shirt with very intermittent decoration, was seated in a bar: ‘What is success?’ he was saying. ‘Whitney Houston? Was she a success?’ What about Amy Winehouse? Really more of a disaster, wouldn’t you say?’ Now in the restaurant he and Mercury Mr Kitten were asking the Bulti how they would know where to go for the private jet when they got to the airport the next day. For they were to be conveyed back to London on it too, you see . She looked very faintly pained and thought for a while. ‘The driver will know,’ she said eventually with such a miraculous, wispy vagueness. A man was standing over us. I thought he must be the patron of the restaurant. He had that look. ‘That picture on the wall,’ I said. ‘It looks familiar. Have you had it long?’ But he was bemused. When he’d gone, Harry said, ‘That was the head of Performance in Vienna. He’s one of the most important people in Vienna…’ where Art counts for something.

And so, the next day our Vienna began to break up. There were more Art visits. We saw the star Cellini item in the Kunstkammer and covered the Italian wing. Neither Reggie nor Rufus Pitman liked the Raphaël despite my clever remarks about it. What we adored was a painting of a Hapsburg palace in the 18th century which is shown to be run down, with weeds growing around it. On my previous visit to Vienna for Dainty Lady TV, the curator of the Kunsthistoriches museum (Viennese version of North Oxford lady don) explained the immense significance of this work but I’ve forgotten what she said. Anyway, it’s immensely significant and thrilling to look at. We passed several times the Sisi museum but didn’t go in. Anthony Mottram boarded for Prague, where he is a ‘consultant’, by train rather than bicycle. Finally Reggie and I were in a holding pattern over Heathrow, gazing down on our beloved homeland but thinking of Vienna, now an empty shell. Harry and Mercury, Mr Kitten had left on the private jet at lunchtime. ‘We’ve arriving at the fashionable hour,’ Reggie said. ‘7.30 on a Sunday evening.’ Hence the delay.