An Unseen but all-seeing Presence

If opera and classical music photography has a gold standard, Clive Barda is surely its principle exemplar. For over forty years, his dynamic images have captured some the greatest names in classical music, and have provided a vivid record of successive productions by all of Britain's leading opera companies.

Clive Barda is, unquestionably, the doyen of performance photographers, and Music Theatre Wales counts itself fortunate to have him as its official photographer – a relationship which dates back to the company's production of Michael Berkeley's opera Jane Eyre in 2000 – indeed, who amongst MTWs followers will forget his moody, allusive close-ups of a tightly-corseted Natasha Marsh as the opera's eponymous heroine?

To find out what factors shaped his career and what excites him as a photographer, I meet him on a wintry February afternoon at London's Garrick Club, where he's perfectly at one with his august surroundings – immensely affable, tweed-suited and sporting the trademark bow-tie.

A career as a professional photographer, it seems, arrived almost by chance: as a young man he doubled working in the City by day and studying for a Modern Languages degree by night. And yet, dig deeper and you see that there's a steely determination there, and a capacity for hard work which transformed the purest strokes of luck into golden opportunities. With twinkling eyes he recalls his 'Damascene moment' – a chance encounter in Spain with a young woman, the production secretary of a West Country lifestyle magazine. "She asked me to photograph the harpist Susan Drake for the magazine and I remember that I took them with a Canon Canonet (my first camera, which my mother had given me for my 21st birthday) much loved, but no more than a tourist camera really".

It was the beginning of a series of regular assignments with the magazine, and of rapid camera upgrades. The Susan Drake photos reached the marketing desk of Argo and, hey presto, the classical music recording company commissioned a series of album covers.

The real turning point, however, came in 1970 with an altogether starrier chance meeting with Daniel Barenboim backstage at the Festival Hall. With a characteristic combination of chutzpah and ambition, Clive persuaded Barenboim to spare the time for a photo shoot – and the die was cast. It led to regular work with EMI and gave him access to "all the most amazing names in the world of classical music of the time" including, notably, Yehudi Menuhin and Jacqueline du Pré.

But no opera yet?

"That came in 1974. I was taking photos of an orchestral rehearsal in the Crush Bar of the Royal Opera House and there was an opera dress rehearsal taking place in the main auditorium. I was invited to attend."

Interestingly, he doesn't remember what that first opera was, but he certainly remembers the next one – John Copley's classic production of La bohème with marvelously detailed set designs by Julia Trevelyan Oman and a young José Carreras as Rodolfo. His record of the production cemented his relationship with the Royal Opera House and soon he was to become the photographer of choice for many other British companies.

I wondered what it is that engages him, that makes the difference between a very good photo and one that leaps off the page? I'm thinking here of his electrifying portrait of Simon Rattle - fist clenched and all of a roar as he urges his players on - which graces the cover of Clive's book Performance!. I'm thinking, too, of his iconic photograph of a Dame Joan Sutherland as Lucia di Lammermoor, in bloodstained nightdress and full lamentation, or of the way he has so perfectly captured Natalie Dessay's urchin antics in La Fille du Regiment. The list is endless.

"I want to be creatively stimulated by what I see on stage, and of course it's important to have a rapport with the artists and productions I'm photographing".

But it's not just the personal chemistry that makes a difference. He needs to know each opera he photographs like the back of his hand so that he can anticipate and capture crucial moments and key characters.

When it comes to productions of contemporary opera – Music Theatre Wales's stock-in-trade – they are often an unknown quantity until the vital days in the theatre leading up to the first night. That's why you will see Clive Barda in the run-up to a new MTW production sitting, listening, observing intently and documenting two, three and even four rehearsals leading up to the first night.

Asked what are his most memorable Music Theatre Wales productions, he immediately singles out Michael Berkley's Jane Eyre for its hall-of-mirrors setting, Ace McCarron's atmospheric lig

hting and for Natasha Marsh's grave, concentrated performance as Jane.

He remembers, too, the madcap eccentricity of Lynne Plowman's second opera, House of the Gods and, more recently, the travails and triumphs of that other Michael Berkley opera, For You, which he documented faithfully and vividly during its protracted journey to the stage.

And despite the scores of other productions he must have covered in the meantime, there's something he remembers about each and every one of MTW productions over the last ten years, because he's become like so many of us who work regularly with the company – a member of the family.

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