ARTE :10.54am

ARTE: 9.45:
Nothing is really working this morning, not a good day for broadcasts, pictures worse than sound. Just to comfort me and my suspicions toward the ruling images!
As ARTE is not working very well I cannot make the recording . So no images kept, but it is going to be reproduced on youtube. Then I decide to follow it on the web, smaller but neater, though the sound here is not perfect. .
So far, concerning this Eugene Onegin rehearsal, I had fun listening to Daniel Barenboïm quoting Sir winston Churchill to point out he does not believe in the modern credo of sports in order to preserve eternal youth! And this while smoking a huge cigar in the taxi on his way to work!
Then few short glimpses at the actual rehearsal supervised by Achim Freyer, looking much younger than I thought. Anna Samuil is really very nice looking! A proper conversation between Daniel and Rolando occured at 10.55 (or perhaps a little bit earlier) .
Rolando was in his posture and they announced coffee-break, so Daniel came and invited him for a cup of coffee and talked about the evening performance of Prokofiev's 'le joueur', inquired about Rolando's shoes (he was bare-feet for all the miming and slow motion dancing) and told him he would be welcomed because there was not a crowd, 'it is not a popular opera, in spite of what is written in the press,'' said the conductor, so Rolando accepted very quietly, perhaps he also did not know this opera very well either. (I have read Dostoïevskil but I ignore Prokofiev's music)
Zap, zap zap! It is the rhythm of this document, so be patient and watch!
1.30pm At last, Daniel and Rolando coming out of lunch and back to rehearsal, but Schumann this time , Rolando being accompanied by Daniel for Dichterliebe, ' Im wunderschönen Monat Mai'
High notes are uneasy and Rolando is working on syllables and consonants to ease the emission, second insight of two seconds, Daniel is making him repeat sounds , another insight, another lieder ,'three seconds', then a little bit more and his voice and piano backgound of two images , his red and floppy long-sleeved shirt with white slogan at the back in whitish capital letters 'ART IS TRUTH' , back to Rolando 'ich grolle nitch'(1.56pm)(fuck, he exclaimed missing a word or something ! He looked darker than ever and tired, very tired. Just before the sad story of two severe drug-addicts. That is the first one he practised:
1. Im wunderschönen Monat Mai (Heine, Lyrical Intermezzo no 1). (In beautiful May, when the buds sprang, love sprang up in my heart: in beautiful May, when the birds all sang, I told you my suffering and longing.)
Then the second one:
2. Aus meinen Tränen sprießen (Heine no 2). (Many flowers spring up from my tears, and a nightingale choir from my sighs: If you love me, I'll pick them all for you, and the nightingale will sing at your window.)
The 1.56..one:
7. Ich grolle nicht (Heine no 18). (I do not chide you, though my heart breaks, love ever lost to me! Though you shine in a field of diamonds, no ray falls into your heart's darkness. I have long known it: I saw the night in your heart, I saw the serpent that devours it: I saw, my love, how empty you are.

Maybe this red shirt is very trendy , I am terribly ignorant of fashion because I am not interested, so to me it is just a floppy lousy tee-shirt and if ART was the TRUTH, I mean , there could have been a solution for all the nasty things which can be witnessed in this long story of a day in Berlin.
Simply since ART does exist on planet earth, have we noticed a sign of improvement for the really lost cases because of what is implied in ART? After watching this crippled woman who recites her poem on the underground all day long and expects some coins , I felt disheartened.
Now I feel tired of these mixed stories of urban lives, we could have guessed all that , it is in Berlin, it could have occured in any European capital city, hopes and despairs, wealthy ones and
utterly poor ones, I keep watching because I want to follow the musicains' life of that 5th of sept 08, the very performance I attended on oct the 12th. For the first time I can actually see an account of it. But the rhythm is chopped and makes it terribly frustrating.
What I found really interesting were the stories of ex East German people and German ones from Russia. Interesting to see that the Stasi Library is opened to any one who wants to enquire and follow those secret documents which often ruined many lives.
I will stop watching soon, my crippled lady has just come up the flight of stairs out of the underground. I am amazed, she must be exhausted after six hours of begging. Jacqueline is worn-out, back in her flat.
2.30 Daniel Barenboïm is teaching his tenor how to say 'no' in Eugene Onegin'
I am waiting for the illustrations ...
2.34 Rolando and Roman Trekel practising,it is the end of act II, last terrible scene where Lenski is going to die: Both tenor and baritone sing the same part, so the words are very important, in each case; first the baritone part:'Shto pokhvalit mi v vas dolzhni!
Moi sekundant?
Vot on: monsieur Guillot!
Ya ne predvizhu vozrazheni
na predstavlyenye moyo;
hot chelovyek on neyizvyestni,
no uzh, konyechno, mali chestni.
' So, let's start!':Shto zh?Nachinat?'
Rolando answers:'Nachnyom, Pozhalui!' Ye, let's begin, I beg you!'
Piano and forte... How frustrating it is., too fast and short!.. Daniel wants contrasts effects on words and tells Roman he has got the choice
Zap, Zap....
2.37 Roman is singing...
Zap...
2.4Roman is singing, one word from Rolando!
Zap
2.43
Daniel repeats the Russian words to Rolando and then to be more explicit translates into Spanish, Rolando has an enthusiastic reaction!
Zap
The kids down the block playing models''cool, sexy, shy', and 'elegant' I loved it!
2.50pm
'nichevo ' Daniel is following and making significant gestures for the singers.
Explanations from the woman speaker giving the names of the singers! A bit late !
Zap
2.58pm Rolando is singing the last aria where they both sing those terrible last words

'Nyet! Nyet! Nyet! Nyet!' Lenski's last words before his tragic death,
which matches the closing of the crematorium until the following monday.
Sadness all over. And that very dark Rolando's appearance in spite of his reddish shirt!
LENSKI, ONEGIN
Vragi!
Davno li drug ot druga,
nas zhazhda krovi otvela?
Davno li mi chasi dosuga,
trapyezu i misli
i dela
delili druzhno?
Nine zlobno,
vragam naslyedstvennim podobno,
mi drug dlya
druga v tishinye
gotovim gibel khladnokrovno.
Akh!
Ne zasmeyatsa l nam,
poka ne obagrilasa ruka,
ne razoitis li polyubovno?
Nyet! Nyet! Nyet! Nyet!
Bye Berlin! Enough for today! Great though to see the Berliners and this amazing town.