Sydenham music festival in LONDON

http://www.sydenhammusic.net/
Because conductor Robert Trory and Nina Whitehurst (his wife and violonist) are dear to my heart, here is a link to the musical month they organise around music and friends.
The young and talented cellist who opened the festival was playing at la Roque d'Antheron last summer! Robert recognised in her interpretation she belonged to his 'musical family'. He met her after her concert, and invited her to his festival!
I could not make it this month, sharing their passion for music and creation and go to London. Perhaps next year?
Another great expectancy...
Press article:
See what's on in south-east London and north Kent, plus add your own events listings fo

Sydenham International Music Festival director talks about this year's event

12:04pm Tuesday 19th May 2009

comment Comments (0) Have your say »


Conductor and Sydenham International Music Festival director Robert Trory talks about the musicians playing as part of this year’s programme and which famous composers the event will commemorate.

I have for a long time now, wanted to programme the Shostakovich Cello Concerto and last year on holiday in the south of France I heard the sensational young Serbian cellist Maja Bogdanovich. Bringing her immense musical talent, and much glamour besides, to the Sydenham International Music Festival this year became a must do for me. She opens the festival on May 24, fresh from her acclaimed debut recital at the Carnegie Hall, New York.

I have also been able to invite to Sydenham again the prize-winning virtuoso Russian violinist Sergey Dogadin who will perform the Beethoven Concerto.

Sergey has already established a special place in the hearts of the local audiences, many of whom will remember his first visit at the age of 15.

Now all of 20 years old, his international career is flourishing and his first recital CD has been issued and will be available to purchase at the concert. Sergey plays in the closing concert on June 21.

Maja Bogdanovic http://www.majabogdanovic.com/

Hold me tight....

Amazing moment March the 3rd.
After Werther
Bastille Paris

just a thought...

Is a cyst on a vocal cord like a blister on a toe?
Easier to avoid having blisters by wearing proper shoes.
isn't it possible to make a cyst disappear just by keeping quiet and silent and relaxed?
Better than facing hospital and all .
Nobody will dream of having a toe cut off when a blasted blister on it makes walking painful.
I keep wondering all sorts of solutions because ...the body normally is a fantastic machine in itself....
Meanwhile summer is on its wings, and heat, and noise from the yards and back gardens at night.
A crop of pomegranates in autumn? that will be a treat if the flowers are not blown away
by the mistral...

Après un rêve...

"Après un rêve. Op. 7, no 1 (1878). Musique de Gabriel FAURÉ (1845-1924). Poème de Romain Bussine (1830-1899) d'après une poésie toscane"

Dans un sommeil que charmait ton image
Je rêvais le bonheur, ardent mirage
Tes yeux étaint plus doux, ta voix pure et sonore,
Tu rayonnais comme un ciel éclairé par l'aurore;

Tu m'appelais et je quittais la terre
Pour m'enfuir avec toi vers la lumière,
Les cieux pour nous entr'ouvraient leurs nues
Splendeurs inconnues, lueurs divines entre vues

Hélas! Hélas, triste réveil des songes
Je t'appelle, ô nuit, rends moi tes mensonges,
Reviens, reviens radieuse,
Reviens, ô nuit mystérieuse!

Another melody which belongs to my musical treasure box, sung by Rolando in 2004
first New-york recital at Lincoln Centre (I think,so this is live). It is youtube this amazing source of delight past and present.

Après un rêve. Op. 7, no 1 (1878). Musique de Gabriel FAURÉ (1845-1924). Poème de Romain Bussine (1830-1899) d'après une poésie toscane


Teresa has just written she loved it, so 'delicate and intimate, Rolando's rendition'is
Dreaming,...
Paul Klee Bunter Blitz and Picasso ,Blue period, le couple

Night-owl youtube

I discovered this real video work of art last night and felt a pang in my heart!
So real, true to what I think I know and guess about him.
Passion, night- walks in urban cities.
Books, more books.
Music on the pavements everywhere,
real music that is.
And his voice....
Patience required until Nov 2010, this is another great expectation!
Remember: never think you can get what you cherish in a wink of an eye.
This trailer is fantastic, worth waiting for the real film of this special Night owl.
Meanwhile keep playing this ...
Yes, a night-owl who has several lives and not enough time to fulfill all his dreams.

I could watch these 3'15 for ever.
And listen to him non stop.
It could be the Prague concert where he gave 150% of his heart soul and voice to his audience (as always) .

Mirèio-IV- the drama, the poem, the music;

This beautiful aria is at the last act and reveals the tenor's ability, unusual to have it at act V, really.
Still, it is celestial so to speak as Vincent asks the angels'protection for his beloved .
This is not following the actual story in the poem, it is more the spirit of it.
What motivated Mirèio's journey to the Saintes -Maries -de la mer is what Vincènt told her during their first long meeting on the mullberry.
He told her Tavèn (masco in Provençal, because she has magic spells) can cure sunstroke, and also the influence of The saintes if anything happens to their love, or to one of them, all they have to do is to meet at the Chapel.
The three Maries (Jacobi, Salomé, Magdelene) are in popular faith traditionally very important.
The position of this chuch in Camargue, by the sea, is also the end of important pilgrimages for the gypsies every year. The three Maries are believed to have come down river rhône in a frail boat and settled by the sea after JC's death. They were worshipped by sailors and farmers for protection, solutions to problems could be found by miracles in this Chapel .
Mirèio sets off to the Saintes in the poem because her father has refused Ambroise's proposal for his son. Maître Ramon wants to choose the richest husband for his daughter, not a poor basketweaver! Mirèio has told both parents that she will stick to her choice (she has refused three pretenders). In the opera the only one who matters is Ourrias the rich cowherd.
She stands out as a more modern character than in the opera. She opposes her will and eventually decides to escape at night to join her lover at the Saintes.( As they promised to do if nasty things happened to one of them).
It is not the fight with Ourrias, like in the opera and knowing that Vincèn is wounded and being looked after by Tavèn in her Val d'enfer, which makes her decide to flee the mas. It is her opposition to her father and her strong love to join Vincent.
This aria is then in the spirit of the poem as Vincent goes to the Saintes because he has heard she fled from home to their meeting point.
Crossing that sunny and desertic space without her hat,( she left in a terrible turmoil
so forgot her hat) was fatal . This long walk is both successful in the poem and in the opera. It will be the end of my journey with Mirèio and Mireille!
Alain Vanzo was a fine Vincent on opera stages. Here is this celestial rendition.
I could not help dreaming when I saw young Sebastien Guèze that Rolando could sing this part with the intense feelings he puts in his singing. Being a fantastic Romeo,
he could be an equally charming Vincent! This part is said to be less difficult for
tenors. So may be one day....sweet dreams! Rolando singing Vincent, perhaps in Marseilles opera-house, by the sea! And his obsidian hair and looks will suit Mistral's young hero!

Mirèio-III-Marseilles Opera house Sun 24th

This is la Crau.
Where Mireille met her fate. A stony desert where hardly anything grows.
End of summer it is possible to see some light bluish saladelles in some places, nearer
to shores.
And this is Tavèn!
Marie-Ange Todorovitch was a fantastic old and weary witch.
Here she is at the stage-door. Her fans were waiting! I simply love her warm and very musical voice. She is a fantastic mezzo. She sang Charlotte with Rolando and I appreciated her rendition better than S.Graham in Paris. Her voice is larger more coulorful and she has got mellow tops and vibrant low range which I really enjoy.
She is a very good actress too. In this role she was hardly recognisable! she got tons of applause!

Mirèio -II- At Marseilles Opera on sunday the 24th

Sébastien Guèze at the curtain call.
The audience loved him. I really got moved by his singing at 3rd act and onwards. He gave a fine 'ange du paradis' which revealed he could change his forte emission for other more confident and moving tones. He is a promising young tenor, nice-looking too.
Mireille is a young Korean soprano, Hye Myung Kang, colorature and dramatic,that fully appeared in 4th act, very intense and dramatic, when she goes through that stony desert, la Crau and because she fled from home at night she forgot her hat and met her fatal end far from the witch Tavèn who is the only human being in contact with weird magical creatures and has got spells and knowledge to literally take the sun out of your head and body; that is what Vincent tells Mireille in canto II when she is flushed by the discovery of her passion for Vincent. He thinks the sun is responsible! Sort of warning for what is going to happen in Canto VIII, when she will get sunstroke, too far from the protection of her parents and Tavèn.
(...)"Sabe,dis,uno vièio, aperamount i Baus
(lè dison Tavèn): vous asaigo
Bèn sus lou front un got plen d'aigo,
E lèu, di cervello embriaigo,
Li rai escounjura gisclon dins lou cristau.(...)
(I know an old womam called Taven who lives in les Baux hills.She presses right on your forehead a glass full of water, and swiftly, from your drunken brain, the bewitched sunrays spring out of the crystal)

Passion a la Rolando at' Cafe de nit' in Barcelona ....

I cannot resist this romantic dream created to be eaten, yes!
Inspired by Singer!
Dried fruit tart 'à la Rolando'
Enjoyable just now and certainly at tea-time!
http://elcafedenit.blogspot.com/

Personal props....and more!

This is my "collection" for a rainy day!
Big hug to the Head Villazonista Teresa and her fantastic energy to gather the Villazon power all round the world.
My precious signed document: like my passport to Monteverdi!

Monteverdi rediscovered.

When I listened to Testo sung by Rolando, in this precious Monteverdi Combattimento, with Patrizia Ciofi, Topi Lehtipuu and
Le Concert d'Astrée, charismatic Emmanuelle Haïm, conducting and playing, I rediscovered Monteverdi !
So much life and emotion, nothing boring like I thought it was with some other past renditions.
Then I had to go and listen to the concert they gave at Saint-Denis Festival, June 08.
I was there, in this huge long nave , not near the stage ...but under the charm.
I had already told Rolando Combattimento suited his voice and asked him to sign that precise aria," Notte....alta memoria".. which he did...at the Liceù coming out after Manon...another memorable night at the opera....
But before that concert in June, I had to set off for Venice and see where Monterverdi composed and lived.
So here are a few shots of my musical pilgrimage,nothing unusual about it,really.
Very simple and moving,his tomb at the Frari's
so modest compared to others in the same place.
Red roses, always...scores on the music stand, always, sempre!

Just a thought...

Time to play (in my mind ) Combattimento, that passage when his voice starts soaring and does that precious arabesque which suits so well the meaning...one of my favourite aria sung by Singer for All my seasons.
"Notte, che nel profondo oscuro seno
Chiudesti, e ne l'oblio,fatto si grande:
degne d'un chiaro sol, degne d 'un pieno
teatro opre sarian si memorande!
Piacciati ch'indi il tragga, e'n bel sereno
alle future età lo spieghi e mande.
Viva la fama lor, e tra lor gloria
Splenda dal fosco tuo l'alata memoria.

o légère hirondelle

Sumi Jo is fantastic, so light and bright, like the bird she is singing about!
This 'valse ariette' was not entirely sung by the sweet Korean soprano,Hye Myung Kang who was Mireille yesterday at Marseilles opera house. It is optional and written for Marie Miolan-Carvalho
The bright and light coloratura embroidery is here fantastic
Mireille: Gounod 1864 libretto :Michel Carré (adapted from translation in French of Mistral's poem Mirèio)
Title role:Marie Miolan Carvalho-
"Valse ariette':
"O légère hirondelle,
Messagère fidèle,
Vers mon ami vole gaiement
Et conte-lui mon doux tourment!
Parle-lui pour moi-même
Et dis-lui que je l'aime
Vincent peut croire à mon serment !
Vole, vole gaiement!"

Mireille: 150 th anniversary of its publication

1859: publication of this poem in Provençal and dedicated to Lamartine .(XII cantos)
Mistral became then popular in Paris, because Lamartine wrote enthusiastic comments about his poem. Mirèio is a love poem and a Greek tragedy in a sense.Mireille is the landlord 's daughter, wealthy and pretty. She is protected by her father Maître Ramon and her mother. The property called 'le Mas' enables her to be also secure in this realm,and nature around is protecting her as well. Women in the Mas are busy with feeding silkworms, as this was the period of silk production,"In the 18th and 19th centuries Provence experienced a boom in sericulture that would last until the First World War, with much of the silk produced being shipped north to Lyon. Viens and La Bastide-des-Jourdans are two of the communes of Luberon that profited the most from mulberry plantations that have since disappeared. Working at home under the domestic system, silk spinning and silk treatment employed many people and increased the income of the working class"
The finest love scene takes place around and on the mulberry.
Part-I-



Cant II: 'La culido' (la cueillette- leaves picking)
Miréio is gathering leaves to feed her silkworms, she is on the mulberry and catches sight of Vincent passing by.
Like his father, he weaves and mends reed-baskets,he goes from farm to farm, gets to know lots of people and places and tell tales: Mirèio is his faithful audience, she longs for his visits and stories!
Listening to his tales is like coming out of the Mas, getting a bit of fresh air out of her parents' sight:
"Nautre,sortèn jamai de nostre pijounié" .( we,folks, never go out of our pigeon-hole)
When she will flee out of her 'pijounié' because of her forbidden love for Vincent on her way to the saintes-Maries de la mer, a fatal omission will lead her to death. The sun is at the heart of this tragic tale.
Now, from the mulburry, she cannot help calling him:(in Prouvençau words have more music and meaning)
'-O Vincèn, ié faguè Mirèio
D'entre-mitan li vèrdi lèio,
Passes bèn vite, que!' (...).
He will soon join her in the tree, helping her and chatting, comparing their lives. No doubt he is much poorer than her, lives in a shabby little place by the Rhône, his mother died, his younger sister, Vinceneto, is already a servant in a farm in Beaucaire.
Mirèio is curious about Vincenette: does she look like her brother? naturally Vincent while describing his sister compares her to Mirèio, both long healthy hair but, different colouring , she is blonde and blue-eyed!
His physical attraction to Mirèio comes out, Mirèio is nicer:
"_Mai vous, de quant sias pu poulido!"(..) ( but you, you really are prettier)
While gathering leaves in the same canvas bag, first physical encounters, their hands joined:
"Elo emai éu trefouliguèron;
D'amour si gauto s'enflourèron,
E touti dous au cop, d'un fiò noun couneigu
Sentiguèron l'escandihado"(...)
(they both shivered, the blush of love flowered on their cheeks,they both felt at the same time the burning fire breaking out inside)
I wish I could paint the next scene!
Mirèio notices a nest, wants to fetch it, Vincent gets it! and then the branch gives way, they are in each other arms, Mirèio actually tells him she loves him, he cannot believe her because of their social differences, but she becomes serious and tells
him she could die if he does not respond to her love. Moved by her sincere feeling he then declares his passion for her:
calls her his princess, his enchanting fairy! he could do anything for her:
(...)"Tame,o chatouno encantarello,
Que se disiés: Vole uno estello!
l'a ni travès de mar, ni bos, ni gaudre foui,
l'a ni bourrèu, ni fiò, ni ferre
Que m'aplantèsse ! Au bout di serre,
Toucant lou cèu, l'anariéu querre,
E dimenche l'auriès, pendoulado à toun coui."(...)
(I love you so much !oh! my enchanting pretty maid that if you asked me to get a star, crossing seas, woods, risky water-falls would not bother me ! I would go and get it at the top of highest summits,touching the sky,
and it would be round your neck next Sunday!)


Vincent calls the birds 'pimparrrins' which is unkown to Mirèio, probably because she comes from another background, more educated and wealthy, not the labourers or itinerant workers like Ambroise and his son, he has to name the bird again to be understood:"De bèu sarraié blu"(beautiful blue tits!) they both know the saying about catching a nest and getting married in the year, provided none of the chicks escape before getting in the cage!
(We Would not dream of doing such thing like putting blue tits in a cage...)

A silent visitor

I do not know how I became aware of that visit. I stopped doing what I was busy doing underneath and stared at my visitor. We were both unknown to each other.I liked it !

Io conosco un giardino . (Pietri: Maristella)

Nearly the end of May. Summer is on its wings here. Irises are over. Apple-blossoms and cherry-blossoms too. Jasmine is starting. I cannot help hearing this tune and his voice
when I happen to do something in my tiny giardino, jardin,garden,garten,hortus, plante,jardim,niwa..Red geraniums are striking the heat-arrival.
My rhododendrons are still flowering.I borrowed the tune from YT. Very curly and shining
hair like obsidian, vivid contrast with that red velvety top. Sweet, sweet melody for dolce voice.
Without children around the place,the little garden is asleep. Soon they will arrive!

The video is no longer available.
Go to the new post to find the aria!go to the newest post

Back home, on the web, Daniel Mermet 05 on the radio

Here is what I wrote in my mother-tongue;
le 29 octobre 2008 - 11h29,
J’écoute cette émission. Je reviens de mon premier voyage à Berlin. Au Mémorial Colonnade dans une des salles, chaque mur témoigne pour un pays d’Europe, Il y a Babi-Yar pour les Juifs d’Ukraine, avec le film de l’armée allemande, ce ravin dans la nature, la suite évoquée ici.
Lorsque j’étais devant ce film muet c’est l’Adagio de Chostakovich qui prédominait dans ma tête, parce que c’est par la musique que cet épisode m’est parvenu.
L’émotion de ces instants radiodiffusés est inouïe. Oui, l’horreur est humaine et continue.
Merci pour ces témoignages.


2007-08 2008-09 Lister par Thèmes

Accueil - 2004-05 - émissions de Février
Babi Yar
Le mercredi 2 février 2005





Nouvelle diffusion du reportage de Daniel Mermet avec Yacob Kapper et Rebecca Esclavick.
Traduction : Zoé Varier
Le souvenir des 33.000 Juifs d’Ukraine sauvagement massacrés en 1941 par les nazis dans le ravin de Babi Yar, dans les environs de Kiev.

Back to Babi-Yar. Shostakovitch 13yh symphony adagio

At the Colonnade monument in Berlin ,sitting and watching that silent film, that music came back to my mind.

The blue door...

Being as it is, my "home-made' pictures and videos which are on these virtual pages
will mean very little elsewhere, and on these pages I will try to use my 'home-made'
stuff!
About this Blue Door, with last Christmas decoration...the only Mexican Consulate next to a famous Opera-house:Marseilles Opera house...coïncidence....

This is My Singer for All My Seasons! Berlin Staatsoper Unter den Linden

Roso

What moved me even more were Schumann's Dichterliebe He sang in tthe fisrt part. He was coming back after seven months of silence, which He explained later: singing operas, recitals, jumping on planes, plunging into life and art with the same passion, giving time to his fans after performances,His incredible energy gave way and His voice suffered.So He vanished for a while. I had to be in Barcelona to welcome Him back.
Heine's love poems are very fine lines, moving and ironical, gosh !He was so intense! so
dolce and brilliant when necessary.The audience was holding its breath, though clapping when the piano has to say more at the end of each poem!a little bit disturbing...
At the end, after great waves of emotion had rocked Singer of All Seasons and us, he gave a present to the catalan audience:
I've never heard in any opera-house where I have been so far, the deep 'oh' that shook the entire audience when He said 'Roso', miracle of joy for them, for me an unknown treasure at that very moment!

object width="425" height="344">

ouvre tes yeux bleus Rolando Villazon

Singer for all season is back to a silent period.
Because his voice is a dream to my ears
whenever and where ever I have seen Him.
This is my first video choice dedicated to HIm.
My musical wanderings these last three years were often guided by His Season,.
D. and I were in Barcelona on that memorable Jan 13th 08.
Singer For All Seasons was at that important date too!
Back to 2008, that evening at the Liceù!
I will go back to Berlin soon.
I had a date with Him too...in Berlin.

Now this is the monument in Berlin where I spent an afternoon of peace and silence with lots of youngsters from all over the world. The remembrance rooms are underground, and time sort of vanishes . I sat in one room on one of the stones, listening to the four stories , one for each photo on the walls. One story inspired Shostakovitch. I stared at the photo of that ditch, saw the soldiers, the bodies. Reality out of time. Time.

This has not an obvious link with my arrival in Berlin on a sept morning. It is the opening scene of Maria Stuarda at Fenice, shot on Sun the 3rd. The next setting sort of puzzled me, I thought the stage-director must have toured the same places as me in Berlin, I was a bit shocked at that instant link I made. And I saw the morbid theme straight away. Death of Mary Stuart ,Queen of Scots announced at first start of Donizetti 's Maria Stuarda and death in Europe being immortalised by this monument.