Sentimental Work
One of my earliest memories is from when I was around three years old. I had a ritual with my father before going to sleep every night – some people would read a story, but we would listen to the Commendatore scene from Mozart’s Don Giovanni. We’d sit on the living room floor and I’d ask to hear it again and again, even though I had no idea what it was about. We’d vary it only occasionally: if it wasn’t ‘the warm one’, as I called it, it would be ‘the other one’ – which was Don Giovanni’s overture. I still have a tremendously visceral response to the opera, and to this scene in particular – it’s the most dramatic part of the story, and I was always drawn to the most dramatic, frightening scenes, rather than any of the comic parts.