Aida boxed?

 

 

   

 

Dozens of Ukrainians protest in front of the Liceu for the presence of Anna Netrebko at the inaugural 'Aida'. ARA

I could hear the Liceu before I saw the doors.  This was not music permeating from the inside, but a demonstration outside.  A group of protesters were (loudly) making their views know about the Liceu’s choice of Russian singer to take the lead in their production of Aida.

     Anna Netrebko is alleged to be fairly closely aligned with Putin, and although she has made various statements about the present situation, those protesters felt that neither she, nor the Liceu had taken strong enough action to show their rejection of the on-going conflict in Ukraine, and also of the accused war criminal and murderer Putin, in his continuation of the war.

     I did speak to one of the protesters and expressed my sympathy for his position but also said that I would be going inside and be a part of the audience.  I said that I would speak to a manager to make my attitude clear, but I felt that I was acting with the cost of my seat in mind, and not with the prompting of my conscience.

     I suppose the trouble is that all of we ‘right thinking’ people have made our positions clear: we do not support Putin in his invasion and his war, and we want to see the conflict resolved as soon as possible.  But, apart from expressing opinions, what have we actually done?

     I did speak to a member of the management, who said I should speak to Public Relations and that somebody would be available at the end of the show.  And that was enough to enable me to enter the theatre, having done (that word really should be in inverted commas) more than most, merely by voicing something to somebody!  Not much, but more than nothing.

     As I sit in the front row of the audience, I get an unobstructed view of the orchestra and as Aida is one of the grand Grand Operas, it was encouraging to observe a very full pit and know that there would also be on-stage and off-stage musicians swelling the sound.

     The Prelude was brilliantly played by an on-form orchestra conducted by Antonello Manacorda, and the curtain rose to reveal the set designed by Christian Schmidt: a gigantic white revolving box which slowly rotated, showing static tableaux of various figures.  The box had different sides and opened out during the performance and had projection shown on it, but the basic stage form for this ‘grand’ opera was fundamentally stripped-back tedious.

     The Egyptian and Ethiopian setting of the piece was both referenced and ignored.  We were invited to view the spectacle through a twentieth century perspective with soldiers dressed in unforms and fatigues, but were also presented with priests who wore costumes that suggested Christian Orthodox or Coptic influences, while the Priestesses suggested something Islamic.  The waving of a large black flag at one climactic point in the production and the singing of praises to the Egyptian goddess Isis also made me think that it was a reference to ISIS!

     I have no objection to updating a classic piece of operatic repertoire, but I like to have a certain coherence in the directorial viewpoint, and Shirin Neshat did not give me that in her presentation of events.

     What conflicts were we supposed to be following?  The violence on stage and on film was neither engaging in a narrative sense nor gripping in theatrical terms.  There was a confusion between the literal and the figurative and we were left wondering what was real and what was metaphorical in theatrical terms.

     This confusion was shown best in the final scene of the opera when Radames and Aida are locked in a claustrophobic tomb – which was presented in a large open space carved into the cube and Aida’s presence was ‘revealed’ by the opening of a circle of unexplained black veiled figures, who, after the reunion made their way off stage via two convenient doors.  Why didn’t Radames and Aida follow them? 

     But this was just one instance when the logic of the stage was not followed.  In the scene with Radames being revealed as a traitor there were enough characters on stage (and at hand) easily to stop the escape of Aida and Amonasro, and to capture them.

     Ritual and stagecraft, reality and convention constantly clash in this vision of Aida, but not productively.  The scene changes were done behind the curtain and the exposed apron strip was occupied by a procession of characters from soldiers, through priests to what appeared to be corpses – in the performance I saw the latter got a slow handclap form some members of the audience and scattered boos as by that point in the opera we had all become irritated by the self-indulgence of the director.  The conductor had to turn around and give a stern look into the darkness to quell the mutiny!

     But the music was excellent.  The playing of the flute solo at the beginning of Act III the prelude to the Nile scene was superb; the six on stage fanfare trumpeters was electric, and the wall of sound that came at the most triumphant moments was almost overwhelming.  Indeed, I did feel that at times the balance between an enthusiastic orchestra and gutsy singers was a little too much in favour of the instrumentalists rather than the soloists, but overall, it was an exceptional music performance, conducted with precision and a close attention to detail by Manacorda.

     Netrebko commanded the role of Aida, though I thought her quasi-balletic movements were more stylized than they needed to be, given the apparent realism of the depictions of conflict, but she was confident in all registers, and her extended high notes were breathtaking.

     Ivan Gyngazov as Radames was a more than equal partner to Netrebko, as was Artur Rucinski as her father Amonasro.

     Ekaterina Semenchuk as Amneris was excellent, though her voice is not entirely one I feel comfortable with as it has a harsher element in it to my ear.

     Moises Marin as the Messenger made the most of his set piece with a voice that had power, lyricism and depth.

     I felt that George Andguladze as the King was slightly under-sung, but he had some stiff competition on stage!

     The Chorus was excellent, but they were not asked to do very much in theatrical terms, and were more static than necessary, unless that was part of the ‘idea’ in some way.

     This was an excellent musical performance inside an indifferent production, where the inherent difficulties and contradictions in an ill thought-out or perhaps over-thought producer’s vision detracted from making this a truly satisfying evening.

 

Play Real, or Live Real?

 

Yet another heart stopping mobile phone warning about adverse weather conditions, especially shocking when it comes out of the blue – literally, clear skies and sunshine, that make a raucous alarm even more surprising.

     We have had a number of these alarms recently and it really does sound (literally) as if the political powers that be are collectively covering their respective asses.  To be fair we are also treated to pictures of horrendous flooding or giant-sized hailstones or equivalent, but elsewhere.  Not in our immediate area.

      I would always agree that it is better to err on the side of caution and to give general warnings where necessary, even if the bad weather conditions could be localized a little more precisely – but, there again, we do have transport options that make our locality wider than our houses.

     I have now been informed that the ‘alarm’ was to tell us that the period covered by the previous ‘alarm’ was now over and we could relax.  That it going to make my fraught drive into the centre of Barcelona, just a little bit more restful.  As if!

     I will have to wait for tomorrow to find out why swimming was cancelled this morning.  And I asked Chat, and it appears that the closure was a Generalitat instruction that all sporting activity was to be closed until 3pm today.  Everything explained.  But a day’s swim missed.

 

As a general point, it is significant that I am turning more and more to Chat for information more than Google or the other search engines, in spite of the fact that Google has made the search more like Chat, and it is possible to have the ‘conversations’ as you search that make the job of research so much more interesting.

     The problem as I see it is one of trust.  For example, when I asked about the pool closure this morning, I got an answer with enough subsidiary information and illustration to allow me to believe that it is genuine and accurate.  As indeed it was.  But my checking for sources was cursory and my faith in the accuracy – and the willingness of ‘my’ version of Chat to tell me if something is not fully checked out – is becoming increasingly fixed rather than tested.

     Google, for example, gave me a totally convincing summation of information about one topic that I was researching which convinced right up until I began testing the sources on which it was basing its descriptions.  It eventually turned out that it did have certain items of authentic information, but it extrapolated from those bases and produced something that was superficially convincing, but basically fiction rather than fact.  But it looked so good and it did list references, that again looked academic until you started testing them.

     Chat does have a qualifier that states that “Chat can be wrong” and that everything needs to be checked, but that has the same strength and reality as the tick that you put at the end of terms and conditions so show that you have read them.  Truth and reality are tricky prospects and AI is making them more and more fluid.

    

Which means that my entry into the blatantly make-believe world of Grand Opera in this afternoon’s performance of Aida in the Liceu, can be seen as somehow more real than the AI world which now surrounds us because, in Opera the artifice is up-front rather than lurking in the background!

 

 

 

Culture Calls!

 

 

 

A laconic message on my phone saying that 8.00 am swimming tomorrow is cancelled.  No explanation.

     Is later swimming OK?  If people have booked later sessions, are they still available?  I could of course phone up and ask, but that seems far too simple a process, while there is fruitless speculation to tempt!

     And lie-ins are not an enjoyable prospect for me.  As I get up at 5.45 am each day for my 6.30 am swim, the fact that I have to stay in bed until 7.15 am on the weekends because of the later starts, is something of a trial, as my body clock is set to get me to rise earlier.  The extra time ‘gained’ in bed is lost to me as I struggle to stay rested and prone.

     And we have just had yet another mobile phone warning about inclement weather for tonight until the early hours – though I do not think that is a factor in the cancellation of the swim tomorrow.  Possibly.

 

Instead, I will concentrate on the performance that I am going to see tomorrow in the Liceu, the first production of the season, and starting with a Grand Opera Blockbuster – Aida!  And this will be the first of the productions that will have a specially produced individual programme just for me – a touch of tautology there, but worth it to emphasise the special nature of the publication.

     Aida is one of those operas that I have seen umpteen times, but I still consider it one that I do not know in the way that I would like to.  Obviously, I can hum along with the famous bits, but the totality of the experience has always eluded me.

     Sometimes it takes a particular performance or perhaps a truly inventive staging of the production to bring an opera firmly into my personal repertoire.   

     Seeing the dress rehearsal of Eugene Onegin in an 1980 WNO production conducted by Mark Ermler with Josephine Barstow and Tom Allen, with sets by Michael Yeargan and directed Andrei Serban, took an opera I had never heard before and made it an immediate part of my world.  I still remember the real corn stalks in the opening scenes, the floating window for Tatyana’s dream, and the gleaming white carpet for the final duel in the snow!

     Or an equally arresting production, which I again first saw in a dress rehearsal, of WNO’s 1978 production The Makropulos Case, with astonishing sets designed by Maria Björnson, the production directed by David Poutney and conducted by Richard Armstrong, with Elizabeth Söderström as Makropulos.  Once seen, so known; and what some might regard as a difficult opera to take to on a first hearing, rapidly became the opera that I have probably heard and seen the most!

     It is when I remember productions like these that I think of what might be my Perfect Opera Season of a dozen or so productions. 

     Here are the first six that came to mind, in no particular order:

 

The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny – Brecht/Weill

Four Saints in Three Acts – Virgil Thomson

Akhnaten – Philip Glass

A Midsummer Night’s Dream – Benjamin Britten

La Boheme – Giacomo Puccini

 

When I feel strong enough, I might attempt to draw up the other six candidates for inclusion!

 

 

Football or Opera?

 

 

 

There is, of course, no reason that one could not enjoy both, and such people do exist.  But the generality of one audience does not usually have same enthusiasm for the experience of the other.

     Both Opera and Football (the Association sort and NOT the American version) both have drama galore; there are strong narratives to both; emotion runs high – and you can go on makings lists of similarities and make yourself sound like a harassed PR person trying to justify the submission to some sort of funding agency emphasising how wide ranging the attraction of the activity is to all sectors of society.

     I am not here to state that one is intrinsically better than the other, though I obviously have my prejudices, and the last time I paid for a ticket for football was ten years before the black snows. 

     In fact I can actually remember the tickets that I have bought: there was a Wales versus Yugoslavia match in Ninian Park – the team and the location shows just how long ago that was; another time when I was backpacking in Scandinavia I bought a ticket for a first division Finnish football match in the Olympic Stadium in Helsinki because I happened to be staying there as it doubled as a Youth Hostel – and if that was the First Division, then even to my untrained eye, I would hate to think what the lower leagues were like.  In more recent years (relatively) I bought a ticket for Catalonia versus China in the Camp Nou (before the reworking and rebuilding) Stadium – whereas with Opera, my tickets for the next season 2026-27, in the Liceu, have already been purchased.  So, if you follow the money, I come down very firmly on the Opera side of the equation.

      However, it is fairly easy to ignore Opera if you are not interested in it.  It is much more difficult to ignore football, considering that the Season for the game now appears to extend through 365 days a year, and its coverage on television, in the newspapers, and general advertising is omnipresent.  And I find it very difficult to ignore (as much as I want to) FIFA-Corrupt sickening experiences like the World Cup and the prostitution of FIFA to the whims of a corruptly indifferent American President.

     In our household the fortunes of Barça are of some import, and it is much easier to fall in line with the clear preference/prejudice and at least show the minimum of interest.  It also helps that Barça is, to put it mildly, a fairly successful club, so that one is supporting a usually winning team.  And supporting Barça also affords one the pleasure of having an Instant Enemy in the form of the much-hated Real Madrid.  As a person who knows little of football, I take my cues from the utterances of my partner and mouth, sometimes surprising, nuggets of ‘informed’ analysis about the game!  And however little I know about The Game, I now know more than I ever did before, and am therefore able to take more of an informed interest in watching the ball as it is kicked around the field.

     As with most things, apart from Conservatism and Jazz, the more you know, the greater your sympathy or at least interest and tolerance.

     For me, the more pressing debate is between Opera and Orchestral Concerts.  Again, following the money that I pay for tickets, you would have to say that my preference is for Opera as that is by far the more expensive pursuit of mine, but I know that if I had to make a decision about which mode to follow I would probably opt for the Orchestral Concerts.

     And one thing that Football and Orchestral Concerts have in common is that both last about 90 minutes – whereas things like Cricket and Opera can go on for what seems like for ever!

 

3 days in 1

 

SUNDAY 1^st October

 

Five years ago, to the day, we were in our local medical centre.  Not for any treatment, but rather for Toni to be able to cast his vote in the referendum about Catalan independence.  On that day, we made our way through crowds of people flocking around the doors of the medical centre and spilling onto the closed road in front.  We walked past police who were there, but not doing anything positive or negative, merely being there.

     The mood inside the centre was fairly febrile with the volunteers staffing the voting stations constantly looking around to see if the police were going to do anything more proactive.  The plastic, translucent, ballot boxes were guarded like precious jewels and were able to be whisked away at a moment’s notice if it seemed like they were in danger of being impounded by agents of the Spanish government.

     News about other polling stations filtered in throughout the day, where the peacefulness of our experience was not matched by the police violence and thuggery that took place in the name of Spanish democracy!

     The scenes of police aggression against people peacefully trying to cast a vote was shocking, and as more stories began to be told about the day, the anger was palpable.  The gleefully heavy-handed ‘policing’ ordered by the conservative PP (the most corrupt political party in western Europe) government in Spain, did irreparable harm to the reputation of the government and the country.  And the extended victimization of the leaders who took part by use of a highly questionable judicial procedure and blatantly partisan judges did nothing to repair the damage.

     North of the Pyrenees the ‘legal’ ‘justification’ for the prosecution and later condemnation of the leaders of the referendum and their consequent imprisonment was treated with astonished contempt, and all other European countries rejected the shaming demands by the Spanish Government for extradition of the self-exiled leaders of the referendum movement, political and social.

     In the five years since the referendum was held, where an overwhelming majority voted in favour of independence, most people would say that the political situation has worsened, and not just as far as the question of independence for Catalonia is concerned.

     The influence of Vox, the far-right party, has grown and there are areas of Spain where the far-right is in government, working with PP to ensure a right-wing majority, or with Vox forming the largest party in its own right.

     Of course, in Catalonia, PP and Vox are treated with the disgusted contempt that they so richly deserve, with their parliamentary representation being so small that they do not even have the numbers to form their own grouping within the Catalan parliament – but nationally, it does look as though the PP with the help of fascist scum like Vox and an equally contemptible right-wing party, the C’s, could have a majority in the next general election for the national parliament and oust the so-called “Socialists” that are in power at the moment.

     Although Catalonia does have a majority of independence representatives in the Catalan Parliament, the politicos have not declared independence and have worked with the national government to get the referendum leaders out of jail and have decided to proceed via negotiation rather than via confrontation.  Which sounds reasonable enough, until you start looking at the history of the conflicts between central government in Madrid and the government and people of Catalonia.

     The question of whether there is a majority in favour of independence in Catalonia is moot.  In Catalan parliamentary terms, the majority is clear; in terms of the general population of Catalonia, the figures are ambiguous.  To which the response might well be, “Then put the question to a vote!”  A vote that would be accepted by all sides in the argument.

     You have to understand that the “Unity of Spain” is a concept that is written into the Constitution, and some have suggested that any vote for independence by Catalonia would have to be open to the whole of the population of Spain!

     When I was seven or eight years old, my parents brought me to Spain from Cardiff, for my first foreign holiday, to Tossa de Mar on the Costa Brava in Catalonia.  Dad took me to the building site that was the Sagrada Familia and explained to me what the church represented and said, “Catalonia is not Spain!” 

     It is perhaps significant that behind the Civic Buildings in the centre of Cardiff there is a memorial to the Welshmen who fought and died in The Spanish Civil War https://historypoints.org/index.php?page=spanish-civil-war-memorial-cardiff and some of those names are from the area where my father grew up, he would have known the families and, although too young to have fought in the Spanish Civil War, he was of an age to be a member of the armed forces in the Second World War.  The modern story of Spain and its fight against fascism, and especially the heroic struggle of the Republican forces centred in Barcelona against Franco was a story with personal links.  The miners of South Wales were stalwart supporters of the Republic, as were many other workers and intellectuals.  There is a residual affection for the national ambitions of Catalonia and a rejection of the subterfuge that has been used to belittle the valid arguments for statehood.

     But, as always, politics is the art of the possible, and in the complex games that politicians play, the simple questions become enmeshed in the rococo frills of self-interested definitions, so that impetus is lost.

     Catalan politicians make clear statements calling for independence, but their actions are more nuanced and ambiguous – but the rancour of unfinished business is likely to sour Catalan politics for some time to come.

 

 

MONDAY 2^nd October

 

There seems to be a direct correlation between my buying an uninteresting piece of domestic hardware via the Internet and then finding a cheaper version on sale in Aldi or Lidl almost immediately afterwards.  This has happened too often for it to be a mere coincidence, and I begin to suspect a major conspiracy.

     Everyone 'knows' that one’s computer and mobile phone listen to us via voice and keystrokes.  How many times have we volubly prevaricated about cutting the grass or painting the bathroom ceiling with proper anti-mould paint, to find adverts for mowers, strimmers, paint brushes, paint, and those little trays for use with rollers suddenly making their way into the feeds for computer and phone?  And bafflingly, if you do succumb to the purchase of a lawn mower or strimmer, you are assailed by further adverts urging you to buy another one!  What sort of palatial establishments do Amazon, and their devilish associates think we live in, where a single mower is wildly inadequate for our vast lawns?  Why waste computing power on repeat adverts when the product has already been bought?  Such things are beyond the imagining of we mere consumers – perhaps Amazon has a computer-generated list of the things and the number of those things that we are supposed to possess according to their relentlessly capitalistic algorithms, and we are kicking against the weight of untold exabytes of computing power that tell the company what we should have, irrespective of how we mere flesh-carriers think our possessions should be ordered!

     I am sure that there is a sci-fi short story there somewhere - if it hasn’t already been written.

 

TUESDAY  3^rd October

 

Today is the opening performance in the new Opera Season in the Liceu – at least it is the opening concert in Torn A – the subscription series that I have – though I don’t think that this is the First Night.

     The walk from the car park on the Ramblas to the Liceu is getting more and more onerous for me, as I hobble along with my baston and pausing to look into the windows of shops full of tourist crap, as a way of spacing out the effort to get me there.

     I always dress down for the Opera, which is to say that I wear what I always wear, shorts and a t-shirt, unless the weather is really cool, in which case I make the concession to dressiness and sport a pair of jeans.  The weather at this stage of October is still fairly warm, and I type this with the doors to the balcony open to give a cooling breeze!

     The opera is Don Pasquale by Donizetti and, as usual, I have had recourse to my Amanda Holden edited copy of The Penguin Opera Guide to give me an edge as the absurdities of the piece, but it is a masterpiece of opera buffa, and a convincingly realistic narrative is not something that we should expect!

     And, at the end of the week, another (the second) of my Saturday afternoon (early evening) concerts in La Palau. 

     Culture reigns!