Mercoledi Musicale

In yesterday's post I mentioned that I have never been a big fan of Bellini and its true that other than I Capulleti e i Montecchi I don't find most of his operas to my taste.  And indeed I find Norma, his biggest hit and best known work,  a bit of a bore - those long lyric lines do very little for me.  However many years ago I was in the audience for one of the great performances of the late 20th century of - you guessed it - Norma.  It was an evening that became legendary in opera circles and remains 37 years later etched in my memory as one of the most incredible evenings I've spent at the opera.

It was July 20, 1974: Montserrat Caballé, Jon Vickers and Josephine Veasey were scheduled to sing the first of several performances of Norma at the summer festival in the old Roman Theatre in Orange.    My friend Bob and I drove up from Avignon - all the hotels in and around Orange had been booked for months and that was the closest place we could find lodgings.  There was excitement in the air - and a Mistral.  That cold, strong, relentless wind that can blow for one or two days and at times a week often reaching speeds of 90km an hour.

We gathered for the 2100 curtain sitting on the stone benches of the ancient theatre, protected from the cold by rented cushions and wrapped in sweaters that we had sensibly brought with us.  The promoters obviously were hoping the wind would drop and delayed the performance for almost 45 minutes - but Mother Nature was having none of that.  So the orchestra clothes pegged their scores to the music stands, the lights went down on a packed house, Giuseppe Patané mounted the podium and what followed was the stuff of legends.  The Mistral was as much a protagonist that evening as the druid Priestess and her unfaithful Roman; indeed perhaps it was the need to fight that constant wind that spurred the singers on to give such magnificent performances. Vickers, never a bel canto specialist, sang with the strength and intensity he brought to all his roles, Veasey was worthy subject of his adoration but at the centre of it all was Caballé giving her considerable all.

Caballé claimed that this was the greatest performance she ever gave and as she listens to the applause you can just catch as slight smile cross her lips.  At that point she, and we, knew that this was going to be something special.

29 giguino - Santi Pietro e Paolo

The Traditions of Christmas - The Queen's Message

We were a family proud of our British heritage and our Commonwealth membership. My father's family were Welsh brought over to Canada through the beneficence of a group of Ladies from Upper Canada bent on emptying the orphanages of Britian; my mother was from a Monarchist-Orange Lodge family in Northern Ireland. Even our passports declared that "the bearer of this Passport is a British Subject." And in our household we celebrated that fact while being proudly Canadian.

On Christmas Day we would gather around the radio to hear the Monarch extended wishes for Christmas and the coming year secure in the fact that we were her proud subjects. In 1957, through the magic of television, it was possible to see the Queen as well as hear her. We didn't have a TV - my father believed it would be the death of family recreation - but for special occasions we headed over to Ma Ware's, an elderly neighbour whose son had give her a TV for her 75th birthday. And this was special occasion.

I can't honestly say I remember that first broadcast but looking at it today I am struck by several things:

How well stage managed it is: the desk to one side, the family photos crowding the table, the direct approach to the camera. It made the young Queen seem accessible and her slight nervousness made her vulnerable at the same time.

How well she is handling this new medium: occasional glances at her notes (this was before teleprompters), playing to the camera and a real sense of communication. And keep in mind this was a live broadcast - the kinescopes were immediately dispatched to all parts of the Commonwealth by RAF jet. And I love the palpable sense of relief at the end when she knows it is over and has gone well.

How much of what she says still applies today. Remove some of the dated references and attitudes and she could be addressing our current world situation. It is a bit frightening that 50 years later we have made much progress but haven't progressed all that much. And there is a certain poignancy in watching this young woman and knowing what the next 50 years would bring her and us.

This afternoon we will sit down and watch her 50th televised message, still members of a much diminished commonwealth, still constitutional her subjects and still seeing flashes of that young woman from 1957. And still sharing her hopes for a better world.

25 decembre - Nativita del Signore