Philip White, ‘It was all totally by chance ...’: a Decade Working as an Assistant Chorus Master at the Bayreuth Festival

I didn’t even think I liked Wagner very much. While I had been training at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, Scottish Opera had embarked on a Ring cycle directed by Richard Jones. As a student I had obtained entry to the dress rehearsal of Rheingold with Sally Burgess as Fricka, Willard White as Wotan. To be honest, I was quite glad when it was over. Then, in my first full-time professional job, I assisted Scottish Opera music director John Mauceri in Die Walküre. My role was to sit behind him and hand him strips of paper to be thrown into his full score, marking places to return to in the orchestral notes session. I remember sitting through Act I and thinking that if what I now know to be Hunding’s leitmotif were to be played one more time I would scream.