Proud Europeans

Here are two reasons to be cheerful and proud about Europe in the week following the shock of the Conservatives' election win. On 8 May, actually just before Europe Day, the annual concert in St John's Smith Square with members of the European Union Youth Orchestra and singers from the Liverpool-based European Opera Centre celebrated Latvia's first Presidency of the Council of the European Union. It's also 25 years to the month since Latvia regained its independence from the Soviet Union/Russia.Violinist Kristīne Balanas, featured in the second photo above, was only four days old when that happened, but what a magnificent symbol she is of the musical values which are still so strong - stronger than ever, if possible - in that Baltic country. All images of St John's and the 12 Star Gallery in Europe House over the way by the excellent Jamie Smith.

Four days after the concert, one of the very best exhibitions ever to have graced the 12 Star Gallery opened in style. I think you can see that German artist Thomas Ganter is a delightful chap from the top shot above and the one below; everyone tells me so, and I have the pleasure of finding out for myself next week. He told J he had worked for a year on the portraits for UNKNOWNS, the show co-hosted by the European Commission Representation in the UK and the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany, thrilled at the prospect of what the venue stood for.

And the true Mensch he is can be summed up in two large-scale portraits which satisfy hugely on the aesthetic, moral and social levels. Man with a Plaid Blanket, a portrait of a homeless windscreen cleaner for which Ganter won the 25th annual BP Portrait Award, isn't in the show; it's currently in Wales and belongs to the Historisches Museum Frankfurt.

I long to see it in the flesh, as it were, because reproduction can only give a small idea of the scale and the finish, and the way the subjects in the pictures I saw come out of the canvas. I did see and wonder at the large (off-)centrepiece in the 12 Star Gallery, The Unknown Health Worker commissioned by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and contributed to The Art of Saving a Life. I presume Ganter wrote the text accompanying its reproduction in the booklet:

This painting represents those women and men in every country who do their best to reach families and offer life-saving services including immunization. The portrait is inspired by a photograph of a health worker in eastern Nepal, who was in the midst of climbing up and down steep hillsides in the Himalayas to reach all children with measles, rubella and polio vaccines. She carries the vaccines in the cold box slung on her shoulder. It can be considered a 'monument' for the unknown health worker, to appreciate their hard work and their importance for all of us.

I wonder how and where she is now.

On the same wall are seven smaller portraits of citizens Ganter invited in off the street to sit for him: a street worker, a nanny, a lumberjack, a gipsy, a twin, a chemist and a clown.

Another wall has family portraits, including Ganter himself in uncharacteristically fierce, Viking mode (see further up), while round the corner is an ink jet printed collection of heads from Ganter's sketchbooks,

a rather different work, Still Life with Fur, and the head and limbs of a man wearing a silver bracelet.

I couldn't attend the opening - I went to see the pictures last Friday, and will go again tomorrow, which is, alas, the last day - but I know those people below. That's the great Andrew Logan of Alternative Miss World fame, down for the 12 Star's 10th anniversary exhibition, and our Sophie Sarin back from Mali and shivering as I write in a basement prison cell for the sake of exhibiting her MaliMali fabrics at the House of Reform, part of Clerkenwell Design Week (more below). Sophie, incidentally, was the very first artist to exhibit at the gallery when the EU Representation lived in Storey's Gate.

This man is familiar, too: Vasily Petrenko in St John's Footstall after the 8 May concert, with three admiring graces. I guess he was partly there because of the Liverpool connection, but he also, of course, conducted the EUYO in one of the best concerts I've ever heard, at last year's Proms.

The concert got off to a spirited start with Suzy Digby conducting choristers of the London Youth Chamber Choir up in the right gallery in Artūrs Maskats' Midsummer Song for voices and percussion.

Could have done with more of them, but that was delicious. Balanas made a fine impression with fellow Latvian Ainārs Rubiķis conducting in Sibelius's light Op. 117 Suite for violin and string orchestra, but suggested incipient perfection duetting with soulful accordionist Māris Rozenfelds in Maskats' Midnight in Riga: such tone, such intonation! And it was fun to see them finally visibly warming, even smiling, to each other. Piazolla's swooning Oblivion rounded off that gem-like sequence. Shame there's not a shot of the two Latvians together, but here's Rozenfelds.

The young opera singers gave us the first scene of Sibelius's The Maiden in the Tower - wish we could have had it all - and a sequence from Rossini's Eduardo e Cristina, woven into the programme on the slender context that Sweden is its setting and Baltic countries were the theme. The pastiche opera with music from Ermione seemed more remarkable, on this evidence, for its cor anglais solo than for the vocal writing, but in the first aria the poised Héloïse Mas showed surprising contralto tones, very useful in Rossini.

I dare say that last year's Greek programme made for a more enthralling unity, but only because it was the best of a series at the very highest level. And of course we stood on both occasions, with some pride, for the 'Ode to Joy' theme from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.

Addendum: I seem to have given poor Sue a turn to think that our Sophie might have been locked up. She's been reassured below, but I might as well add a photo with the observation that while walls make a prison - the original use of the House of Reform in which Clerkenwell's Platform is housed - decoration makes a temporary home, despite the damp. Goddaughter Rosie May and I dropped in yesterday afternoon on our way to the ENO Carmen and I took pics, ostensibly for La Sarina's Facebook and Twitter pages, but I can't see those, so here's one of the better results of an ad hoc photoshoot commandeered by MaliMali's originator,  surrounded by her fabrics and with a super photo behind her of Dembele by the Bani river.

Worth repeating: all 12 Star Gallery and St John's Smith Square images by Jamie Smith.

Deller, VW and the Melodians

That's acclaimed artist Jeremy, not late countertenor Alfred, and his masterly fusion of music and image in the 'English Magic' film which is currently part of his British Pavilion exhibit at the Venice Biennale*. I'm indebted to old friend and frequent commenter Howard Lane for drawing my attention to it. Howard and his daughter Rowan headed to Venice as part of the amazing Melodians, an English/Trinidadian steel band from south London whose talents Deller engaged for his genius selection of British sounds and sights. Here they are on a wet Abbey Road zebra crossing having recorded the soundtrack in an appropriately famous UK institution.

I could hardly believe my ears as the film proper got underway with the mystic chords of the Romanza from Vaughan Williams's Fifth Symphony rippling on steel. That's another one in the eye for the Ukippers who would claim VW and Elgar as their own. It not only sounds exceptionally haunting in that arrangement by the Melodians' conductor Anne Hornby, but it somehow fits with the two other choice transcriptions, of 'Voodoo Ray' by A Guy Called Gerald and 'The Man Who Sold the World' by David Bowie.

There's no need for me to interpret for you the haunting juxtapositions Deller finds between birds of prey and VW, claws of natural and mechanical kinds, the timely exuberant human bounce on an inflatable Stonehenge or the selective images of the Lord Mayor's Show to the Bowie (title not irrelevant - and did you know the army paraded tanks through the City on that day? I didn't). Just watch the 14 minute film here (the Vaughan Williams for the birds begins one minute in). Then watch it again. A little masterpiece, and the EP might be worth buying

Howard commends Jeremy Deller as a Thoroughly Good Bloke who was happy to share the Venice limelight with his steel banders. Here they all are outside the Pavilion. Howard is peering over shoulders at the back; Rowan - how she's grown since I last saw her - is third from the right of the sitters.

Hearing the Bowie again serendipitously coincided with a delightful blog entry from dear Sophie in Mali, who has been getting hotel staff turned bogolan workshop assistants Baba and Papa dancing to Bowie - and they are very choosy, I know, about what non-Malian imports they will embrace (the DVDs we took of Fawlty Towers had them in stitches about their very own irascible hotelier). This photo of our Sophe wearing her MaliMali designs (of course, never the one to miss an advertising opportunity, for I can't believe she drifts around the hotel in that ensemble) jigging with Baba belongs to her blog, but if I put it up here too, it will make me jolly just to look at it.

This is irresistible to dance to, too: Lulu's Bowie-approved cover version of 'The Man Who Sold the World'.

 A couple more YouTube specials to make you smile. I have a feeling that if Austria had entered 23-year old Martin Piskorski, ex-Vienna Boys Choir member currently training at the European Opera Centre in Liverpool, for the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition, there might have been a tenor in the final. The below, his moment in the sun, was THE goosebumps moment of the diplo-mate-facilitated Europe Day Concert 2013 at St John's Smith Square, with Laurent Pillot conducting the great European Union Youth Orchestra.

To celebrate the Irish presidency, some rarities had been unearthed, including the Overture and an aria from Stanford's Shamus O'Brien. Who knew? The Overture is a gem worthy of Sullivan at his absolute best -  I hope not to demean Stanford by saying so - and I'll probably put it up on another post. And young Piskorski has the money note in the big phrase towards the end of 'My heart is thrall to Kitty's beauty'. The instant 'bravo' at the end comes from my guest Debbie York, and she knows what she's talking/singing about.

I could kick J as much as myself for not finding out more beforehand about last night's concert to inaugurate the Lithuanian presidency, also at St John's. 'Some accordionist', he'd said when I asked who was performing, not knowing more - this is THE accordionist of the moment with his charismatic band, Martynas Levickis, just signed up to Decca. Whether he is more than a good player - ie up to the standards of the phenomenal Mythos Duo whose Petrushka transcription is my CD of the year so far - I can't yet tell, but he certainly has musicianship and charisma. This is such a moody picture of him duetting with the band's handsome violinist yesterday, courtesy of the Lithuanian Embassy. And I missed it!

Levickis sprang to fame, unlikely as it may seem, on Lithuania's Got Talent in 2010, competing alongside  the likes of a man who played tunes on his teeth. He baffled the half-witted audience and judges by playing Piazzolla's Libertango, but readily played something more obviously crowd-pleasing, and of course much less interesting, on request. 'This is more like it' gurn the lardier versions of Ant and Dec from the wings. Anyway, he won.

*And I'm afraid it's usually been a 'his': only two female artists in 40 years. Shame on you, British Council.

A diva for Europe

It's Europe Day today, and with senses still reeling from Saturday's Don Carlo at the Royal Opera, I propose that as a German Greek, already legendary soprano Anja Harteros (photographed here by Catherine Ashmore for the Royal Opera) should sing a great hymn of reconciliation - probably by that other, self-styled German Greek by temperament rather than by blood Richard Strauss. We'll have four for the price of one to conclude.

This woman is phenomenal. Everything I wrote about her Covent Garden debut in 2008 still holds good: the spinto strength, the Desdemona-perfect floating of Verdi's more ethereal high lines, the grace and focus of the acting. I expressed my anguish then that she wasn't signed up on the spot for the role of Elisabetta di Valois in Verdi's most comprehensive operatic masterpiece. Until last week, we had to endure the very fitful, unsteady technique of Marina Poplavskaya in the role (alas, the first run of Hytner's production, which grows on me, was the one to be filmed*). At last, five years later, Harteros's Elisabetta joined Kaufmann's infante for what turned out to be one night only

as well as the top-notch Philip of Ferruccio Furlanetto and Marius Kwiecien's legato-miraculous Posa (actually looking at the nationalities of the principals - German, German-Greek, French, Polish, Italian, British - aligns well with today). That most attractive baritone seemed happy to put a Brokeback spin on the buddy relationship, and why not? Let's have a solo shot of Kwiecien too, since we can.

I'll add no more to what I wrote, trying to keep superlatives to a minimum, on The Arts Desk except to echo a commenter on the Royal Opera website who declared that the penultimate scene of Kaufmann's Carlo and Harteros's Elisabetta sitting on the monument of Carlo V rather like weary children, cautiously joining hands and almost whispering their final hopes of meeting in a better world, would remain with him forever.

Unfortunately the phenomenon is not to be repeated this run; after that precious evening came the announcement that Harteros had acute tonsillitis and would not be fulfilling her remaining two scheduled performances. She is not, alas, part of the Royal Opera's plans for the next five years.

I've already put the YouTube excerpts from Act V in the much less interesting Bavarian State Opera production up on The Arts Desk, but - this time skipping the aria, which is less perfect than it was on Saturday night - there's no harm in enshrining that great final duet here.

At the risk of repeating myself, I have to note that 'Ma lassù ci vedremo in un mondo migliore' usually makes me weep - even with Poplavskaya and Villazon - because when Mattila and Alagna sang it in the Bondy production, I was there in the company of my dear friend Trude Winik. She used her National Socialist Compensation Fund money from the Austrian government - a long overdue gesture to the loss of her family in Treblinka - to buy two boxes at the opera for her closest friends (the rest of the money went to Save the Children). It was her last outing; she died at the age of 87 some time afterwards.

I'm off this evening to a Hibernian-inspired potpourri celebrating the Irish Presidency of the EU, from Flotow and Wallace to Grainger's Molly on the Shore and Wagner's Liebestod, that last utterance of a wilde Irische magd. The classy visitors are the singers from the European Opera Centre and the European Union Youth Orchestra conducted by Laurent Pillot.

Which makes this a good place to point out that most of  the pleas to sign petitions I get from Avaaz and Greenpeace are to support European laws which the UK government constantly seeks to block - the latest being the move to veto pesticides which are held responsible for the dramatic decline of bee populations. The following is part of what James Sadri of Greenpeace wrote in his victory letter of 'the world's first continent-wide ban on these chemicals'. Text in bold is his doing.

'Someone who has nothing to be proud of is the UK environment minister Owen Paterson, who not only voted against the ban, but lobbied on behalf of chemical giants Syngenta and Bayer to try and stop it going through. Paterson in a private letter even promised Syngenta that his "efforts would intensify" in the run-up to the vote.

'Well, Mr Paterson, you lost. The bees won.

'We know the current UK government has a disastrous track record on protecting our world - from climate change to bees. That's why so much of our work on this campaign has focused on mainland Europe, where we managed to shift big countries like Germany who yesterday gave the ban their critical backing.'

Let's hope it holds good beyond the two-year moratorium. In the meantime, remember Teresa May wants us to be the only country other than BELARUS not to be part of the European Convention on Human Rights (I don't know what's happened to this, but I do know that the Queen's Speech yesterday included May's other proposal to restrict NHS access to migrants. Cameron's much-vaunted bill for same-sex marriage was nowhere to be found, a special pity since it would have been fun to hear the words fall from the old queen's lips).

Remember also that George Osborne stood alone against 26 other EU finance ministers who voted to cap bankers' bonuses. Remember the neo-Nazis and defecting BNP supporters behind the smug grinning face of Nigel Farage, who seems to charm the journos into thinking he's a Good Bloke (though they might recall this. UKIP probably think it shows statesmanship; I find it abusive and bullying).

Just remember. These are difficult, dangerous times, and it's all too easy to scapegoat the EU for sundry woes (actually, why not just try the bankers?) But I would recommend all protest voters - probably not readers of this blog - to look at the small print of what they might be getting instead.

But enough. Let's have that German Greek hymn of harmony from Harteros and Strauss. I was going to leave it at 'Frühling' from the Four Last Songs,  in consonance with this especially beautiful late spring/early summer we're having, and thought the final sunset might not be appropriate for Europe. Unfortunately the first song's not embeddable by itself, so be compelled by Harteros with Jansons conducting the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and stay the course.

*which rules out a DVD this time round. But why not a CD set? Pappano has the clout with EMI, though it would be costly to take it into the studio. But by then Christine Rice might be well enough to have a shot at Eboli, as originally intended. I think, against the odds, she could actually be rather good.

Flag-flying on Europe Day

No. 10 Downing Street, it was baldly reported, wouldn't be waving the gold stars on the blue background, as apparently it had under a different regime the previous 9 May; only Vince Cable's lot would set a good example. Cameron's cravenness seemed to be a concession not only to the anti-European wing of the Tory party but also to those dismal organs of supposed popular opinion the Express and the Mail. Not to mention the thousands, it seems, who hate the idea of Europe so much they want to put a bomb under the European Commission Representation in London (as gleefully reflected in a dodgy Telegraph article which I won't give the benefit of a link).

Fortunately, I'm told, the Europe Day celebrations in St John's Smith Square, which has Europe House - the former Thatcher HQ - as neighbour, were marred last Monday by not much more than a stink bomb. I was far too Fotherington-Thomas in mood to notice, having skipped down Whitehall after my first Verdi Macbeth class looking for blue flags, not finding one but then coming across Parliament Square, where Westminster Council had done the 9th of May proud by flying the banners of all the member states as well as their symbol of unification. And how good they looked in the declining sun of a perfect Spring evening.



The light was also picking out the tower of the original Westminster Abbey, so often overshadowed by the Wren-Hawksmoor west end:


And so, past the Slovenian Embassy proudly waving the blue-and-gold as it always does, to Smith Square and its upturned footstool.


Very well, so Dickens thought it was some 'petrified monster, frightful and gigantic, on its back, with its legs in the air', but I like it and have so many fond memories of fine concerts there. The Europe Day concert, performance-wise, was certainly in that happy league, and the 13-year-old Liszt's one-act opera Don Sanche, wisely abridged for the occasion, occasions a bit more than amazement at the competence of its young master, chiefly a memorable tenor aria which I reproduced at the foot of my Arts Desk 'buzz' piece about the event and am happy to regurgitate here. No credit's given to the tenor, but he's good.



Catchy, no? More so than the duffer output of Donizetti, at any rate. For more detail, see the TAD article; I'll leave you with a shot of the excellent young soloists from the European Opera Centre along with the beaming players of the European Union Youth Orchestra - whose cellos and basses found fun even in their endless V-Is - conducted by Laurent Pillot (no, I wasn't snapping during the performance; this one's a publicity shot commissioned by the hosts).


Worth reporting that, although I don't much like standing for anything except a great performance, the EUYO's pure rendition of that orchestral portion of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony serving as Europe's 'Ode to Joy' brought many people not only to their feet but also to the brink of tears. Not me, but still I could see the good in welcoming an anthem that celebrates not narrow nationality but universal brotherhood.