La Bohème en banlieue - more on YouTube

The Bohème from Bern is now generating unofficial clips such as this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LEMmnooPZg

and a few more like it.

The DVD is (apparently) due out tomorrow, 1 November. Serial number is 5106-951, cost 35SFr (about £21).

Order direct from

http://www.tsrboutique.ch/-p-821/boheme-banlieue.html

Church Unity?

Amid all the kerfuffle following Pope Benedict’s apparently generous olive branch to the “beloved sister” (yer wok?), what seems to have rattled the Vatican most was the observation by (the excommunicated) Hans Küng (Guardian 27 October) that all a Roman Catholic priest desirous of connubial bliss had to do now was come across the Tiber to the Anglican church, get married, and go back, for the following press release was issued today:

CLARIFICATION BY THE DIRECTOR OF THE HOLY SEE PRESS OFFICE, FR. FEDERICO LOMBARDI, S.J., ON SPECULATIONS ABOUT THE CELIBACY ISSUE IN THE ANNOUNCED APOSTOLIC CONSTITUTION REGARDING PERSONAL ORDINARIATES FOR ANGLICAN ENTERING INTO FULL COMMUNION WITH THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

There has been widespread speculation, based on supposedly knowledgeable remarks by an Italian correspondent Andrea Tornielli, that the delay in publication of the Apostolic Constitution regarding Personal Ordinariates for Anglicans entering into full communion with the Catholic Church, announced on October 20, 2009, by Cardinal William Levada, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, is due to more than “technical” reasons. According to this speculation, there is a serious substantial issue at the basis of the delay, namely, disagreement about whether celibacy will be the norm for the future clergy of the Provision.

Cardinal Levada offered the following comments on this speculation: “Had I been asked I would happily have clarified any doubt about my remarks at the press conference. There is no substance to such speculation. No one at the Vatican has mentioned any such issue to me. The delay is purely technical in the sense of ensuring consistency in canonical language and references. The translation issues are secondary; the decision not to delay publication in order to wait for the ‘official’ Latin text to be published in Acta Apostolicae Sedis was made some time ago.

The drafts prepared by the working group, and submitted for study and approval through the usual process followed by the Congregation, have all included the following statement, currently Article VI of the Constitution:

§1 Those who ministered as Anglican deacons, priests, or bishops, and who fulfill the requisites established by canon law and are not impeded by irregularities or other impediments may be accepted by the Ordinary as candidates for Holy Orders in the Catholic Church. In the case of married ministers, the norms established in the Encyclical Letter of Pope Paul VI Sacerdotalis coelibatus, n. 42 and in the Statement “In June” are to be observed. Unmarried ministers must submit to the norm of clerical celibacy of CIC can. 277, §1.

§2. The Ordinary, in full observance of the discipline of celibate clergy in the Latin Church, as a rule (pro regula) will admit only celibate men to the order of presbyter. He may also petition the Roman Pontiff, as a derogation from can. 277, §1, for the admission of married men to the order of presbyter on a case by case basis, according to objective criteria approved by the Holy See.

This article is to be understood as consistent with the current practice of the Church, in which married former Anglican ministers may be admitted to priestly ministry in the Catholic Church on a case by case basis. With regard to future seminarians, it was considered purely speculative whether there might be some cases in which a dispensation from the celibacy rule might be petitioned. For this reason, objective criteria about any such possibilities (e.g. married seminarians already in preparation) are to be developed jointly by the Personal Ordinariate and the Episcopal Conference, and submitted for approval of the Holy See.”

Cardinal Levada said he anticipates the technical work on the Constitution and Norms will be completed by the end of the first week of November.

Another sister church sister

A small piece in Church Times today:

New head of EKD elected

BISHOP Margot Kässman was elected as the leader of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) at its synod in Ulm, Germany, on Wednesday. She has been Lutheran Bishop of Hanover since 1999, is 51, and divorced.

It couldn't happen here, of course - a woman, at the head of the established church?

Church Times online

The on-line archives of Church Times, a priceless resource for those interested in churchy things of an Anglican nature, have hitherto been denied to those of us who get the paper from our newsagent unless we coughed up another sub, which on principle we have refused to do.

Then a few weeks ago, worried no doubt by the impact on its direct subscribers of the postal strikes, CT offered them free access to the online version and the archives, in what appeared to be a temporary measure.

It seems that this offer has become permanent.

At £65 a subscription is exactly the same price as 52 issues at £1.25 from the newsagent, with access to the archives thrown in, as well as access to the online CT (in case the paper copy gets lost in a corner of a little red van.)

Our subscription form is already in the post.

La Bohème en banlieue - still on Arte [outdated post with non-functional links]]

The stunning production of Bohème live from the streets of Bern last month was only supposed to be viewable online for seven days, but one is delighted to report that it's still there,

at

http://www.arte.tv/fr/Echappees-culturelles/La-Boheme-en-banlieue/Revoir-l-opera/2851048.html

Even if you don't think you're interested in opera, give it a try (the opera starts eight minutes into the 151-minute programme.) The last scene, at about 131 minutes, is intensely moving. And yes, the Endstation bus was hired for the production (probably the biggest prop ever), but the principals mainly used scheduled bus services to move from location to location. The block of flats whose interior and exterior were used as locations is regarded locally as a ghetto block, but that didn't stop a couple of dozen of the residents from being given walk-on roles. The orchestra played in a shopping centre while the cast moved from location to location (usually by scheduled bus services or trams) and sang with headphones and mikes. Each principal had her or his own sound technician just off-camera, and between them they had worked out codes of gestures for such messages as "give me more orchestra", or "give me more me". What was almost unbelievable, considering the technical and human complexity of the production, was that it all went off without a single (noticeable) hitch.

Once or twice in my life telly has done something that spectacularly justifies its existence, and this production - which went out live on Arte, SF and other channels to Switzerland, France, Germany, Austria and Italy, and to the rest of the world as streaming video - elevated the wretched goggle-box to a height of new respectability and worthiness.

The DVD is due out in November. It will have a programme about the making of the show (in two versions - German and French) as well as the opera itself. It will probably be available online from Arte.

More information when I have more details de source sûre; di fonti secura; aus erste Hand; ex ore equi. (Dunno the Greek.)

Also worth a look: the announcement of this joint Arte-SF production from Maya Boog's (ie Mimi's) agent.

http://www.imt-agency.com/pages/gb-maya-boog-schweizer-fernsehen-la-boheme-29-septembre-2009.html

Nasty neologisms

Well, we lost the battle over flammable, didn't we? It was predicted at the time (early 1970s) that sooner or later some unlettered PR person for a children's nightie manufacturer would coin the word inflammable, believing that it meant "No, it won't burst into flame if little Nathan (or, as it might be, Victoria) stands too close to the electric fire." And now I have seen the word applied to sofas. Usage that denies etymology is fraught with perils.

Not so dangerous, but equally unpleasant, is the now ubiquitous adjective homophobic. It is used to describe people who hate, or even just dislike, homosexual people, but both elements derive from the Greek (phobos, fear, and homos, same), so all that silly word means is "fear of the same". It would be a useful adjective to apply to those worthy people who get a fit of the wobbles when the programme they are watching on the telly turns out to be a repeat after all, but that is not how it is used.

The language could certainly do with a word that clearly meant "hatred of people who are sexually attracted to people of their own sex", but homophobia simply doesn't do the job. It, and its adjective, are not words. They are labels, which come with a whole set of prejudices inherent in the gum on the back which save anyone actually having to think.

Words like homophobia and flammable do not come into the language spontaneously. They are invented words which sound and look right to tabloid journalists and advertisers. They creep into our brains like viruses, because they are the product of people whose sole job is to manipulate our minds by their cunning use of language. And they are succeeding, to the extent that some of us can no longer distinguish paedophiles from paediatricians.

I used to be a child, which is why I am worried. Without language, whom should I trust?

checkout operators

I can hardly believe it, but checkout people in our supermarkets are the new untouchables, the lowest of the low. They have to take every insult but smile back, because the new ethos of our secular society is that the customer is always right, and it's perfectly OK to bully checkout operators if you are a customer. They don't have any comeback, and don't we know it?

A French woman wrote a book about the insults she had had to put up with in her time behind the tills, and it became a best-seller (among whom, you might ask. Other checkout operators?) Here's a BBC report:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7984859.stm

It came home to me today, when some wizened scrote of a male said something nasty to the woman in charge of our till, and she was visibly shaken. She asked us if she could refuse to serve offensive customers. Sad to say, but she can't. She has to sit there and take it.

This was in Sainsbury's. I have to ask Sainsbury's what you are doing to protect your checkout operators from bullying by customers, whom you consider always to be in the right.

Could some of your personnel people perhaps read this book by a French woman, and make your supermarkets a safer and nicer place for the good people who run your tills and rake in your loot?

And possibly even sell the book, for the sake of your staff?

Choirstalls column Nov 09, n't

[This article should have been appearing in the November parish mag, but there isn't enough space. At least, that's the editor's excuse]

I don’t like driving. My imagination is far too vivid to allow me to be a happy, contented driver. I was all right until I was nearly killed by a sheep. The sheep wasn’t driving, don’t get me wrong. It was lurking behind a small boulder on the high moorland road between Owdham and Huddersfield, just waiting for a motorist to pass with his mind on other things, and I was doing 69.9 mph when it took it into its head to leap (or bound) forth in order to savour the grass on the other side of the A62. And I’m sure, in that moment of panic braking, that I caught a malevolent gleam in its eye – “Go on, hit me, sunshine, and it’s a £400 fine and three points. Oh, and a new car. If you’re spared. Meeeeee-ehr.”

I have been extremely wary of sheep ever since, and have been trying to reduce their numbers by a process known as eating.

So when my beloved intimated that a nice self-catering holiday in St Oswald’s land would make a change from the usual G-Line jaunt I smelt a rat, and my right leg (the one with the foot on the end that I use to press the accelerator pedal) starting playing up, as it does when it senses danger.

Now I’m all in favour of visiting those bits of Northumberland within an easy bus journey from the temporary pied-à-terre, but it was evident from the determined expression on beloved’s face that I was in for a lot, and I mean a lot, of driving.

We had bought a satnav thing at my insistence (well, I wanted one, because it’s a gadget, and male choirpersons love gadgets because they’re something to play with during the sermon, and beloved grudgingly agreed.) Emily is wonderful! She’s got a tremendous sense of direction, and she isn’t fazed by anything: “You have driven over a cliff. Make a U-turn as soon as possible”, she says, and I just love her to bits.

Emily, I had hoped, would make even the A1 bearable. The A1, if you don’t know it, is a road that you can’t avoid if you are aiming for St Oswald’s land, and it is populated by self-propelled suicide vehicles whose sole aim, dodgems-like, is to take you out, and themselves with you. And what did Emily of the soothing voice say? “A1. Continue 40 miles...” The A1 gives me nightmares. It is far, far worse than the A588, a road also populated by murderous missiles weighing a ton and travelling at 69.9 mph.

En route we stopped off at Hexham (I am getting to the point, honest) and bought some books, including one about Interesting Churches. It is the sort of book that chaps who collect stamps and go train-spotting and hang net curtains with scalloped hems in the windows of their garden sheds write. Any book about Interesting Churches that mentions Grace Darling as “Grace Darling, the heroine” without supporting information demands, like the Orange Brick, intense scrutiny by a choirperson with a thick notebook and a sharp pencil to hand. And yes, this questionable tome, for which I forked out the price of a bottle of Gordons, was obviously written by a train-spotter and/or stamp collector, for it is all about buildings and bits of buildings. Now church buildings are very useful things for keeping congregations dry when it’s chucking it down or for hanging bells at the top of the towers of, but that’s where their function ceases (unless you’re a trainspotter, architect, antique dealer, or beneficiary of the Pevsner estate). An Interesting Church, surely, is a church with a congregation of 500, a Sunday School with 150 children, a choir of 1,000 and a thumping great five-manual organ to go with it, and a parish share of 49p. Oh, and a few clergy here and there to remind us of what it’s all about.

The most Interesting Church I ever saw was the one Holy Noely, the young priest who assisted at our wedding, had when he moved to Australia. It was the Church in the Carport, for it was in a carport that services were held while the interesting church building was going up. If you saw the Alan Whicker programme with the green tree frog climbing up the parson’s vestments, that was Holy Noely (The Rev’d Noel Allen, who sadly Entered Immortality a couple of years ago, and what a cracking expression that is, Gromit. From Evita, I believe.)

But to move on. Evensong seems to be catching on once more. It must worry the telly people no end, the church poaching their viewers, because they’ve responded by running the Forsyte Saga again. Broughton has an Evensong, Morecambe has one, and now Cockerham is trying it out, with some early signs of success (tip: announce at the family service that the raffle prizes will be awarded after evensong, and any not claimed will be distributed among the congregation present. It worked a treat at Cockerham – there must have been 50 people in the congregation and 20 in the choir.)

There was an extra evensong at Morecambe a few Saturdays ago with the children and young people who’d had another day of singing and fun with the infectious Rachael thingy and Marilyn what's-it from our branch of the Royal School of Church Music. We dropped in on our way back from Northumberland and stayed for the service. It was good to see four of our young people from Snozzies there. There was an impossible amount of music for youngsters, some of them only eight, to learn in a day, but they rose to the occasion like seasoned professionals, to the delight of a tiny congregation and the amazement of the new Rector. Our youngsters are so important. They, not interesting buildings, are the future of our living church.

And they even made the 40 miles of the dreaded A1 a distant memory.

Diwali

If you were born into one of the monotheistic Abrahamic traditions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) then you probably won't be celebrating Diwali, the Hindu festival of light, which has just started.

A sneaky confession here - my favourite Hindu god is Ganesh, the elephant-god. You do not muck about with Ganesh, or you're in serious trouble.

Hindu gods, unlike our monotheistic gods, have a habit of dropping in for a chat or a quick trample, and, although venerated, they are approachable if you have the right gifts to offer.

It isn't quite C of E, of course, and Hindus don't do Evensong, as far as I'm aware, but wouldn't it be wonderful to share the festival of light with other people of faith?

PS

That was going to be it, but writing it has sparked off an old memory, viz, sc., and to wit:

Years ago an Indian classical musician from Rochdale was invited to give a 'recital' as part of the season of monthly concerts that ran for many years in Heptonstall parish church. It was a wonderful evening. There was incense, there were rags, and before each rag he explained the scale that was to be used, and how scale and the subdivision of the beat was employed, and I was agog at this glimpse this wonderful musician had given me of music from a completely different culture.

The following week the PCC resigned en masse because a non-Christian had been playing heathen music in church.

That is us. And that is how others see us.

Heroes

Chums know what I think about the telly, or soma, as a real writer and thinker presaged it. But just occasionally something on that huge box in the corner catches your attention, will-ye, nill-ye, and tonight it was John and Pauline Prescott and Brian Sewell. Brian Sewell is outrageous, but only because telly has made him so, and he loves the limelight, and I bet he's never given a yobbo a good thump in his life, but before telly made him a class-hate figure he was a very sound art critic, and that is what he still is.

Telly loves people who are outrageous, and it turns them into entertainers and celebs, and I do wish sometimes that people who are really interesting would do a Prescott or a Cantona when telly people grope them up, and smack them one in the gob. Cantona did it to a yobbo, and John Prescott did, too, and that is why they are on my hypothetical Christmas card list, because we desperately need people who do daft, wrong things for the very best of reasons - most important of which is defeating yobbism. It is wonderfully un-PC, and what better could anyone say than that?

La Bohème-en-Banlieue v. Evita at Blackpool

Lots of food for thought this week, music-drama-wise.

The production of Bohème from Bern on Tuesday marked a whole new direction for opera, even more than did the Traviata in Zurich last year. Both productions broke out of the confines of the opera house and took to the streets, and after these two pioneering productions (and the experiments in live broadcasting of stage productions in London to giant screens in public places) the future of opera is assured, thanks to new technologies and, much more importantly, people in theatreland who are excited by their vast potential of possibilities.

Meanwhile, in Blackpool, there has been a short run of Evita, and we had booked for the matinee, today being our 43rd wedding anniversary. I have been sneering at Andrew Lloyd Webber for years, aided and abetted by knowledgeable barytons familiers anglais des scènes européennes, whose musical education we had to eat bread and cheese for for 15 years to fund, but the score for Evita is quite Puccini-like in many respects, such as in the use of little leitmotives which serve to give thematic unity.

There was nobody famous in the cast. Eva (Rachael Wooding) comes from Doncaster; Perón (Mark Heenehan) from New Jersey; and Magaldi (James Waud) from nowhere, this being his first professional role (where has he been?) Che (Seamus Cullen) is a seasoned performer of, er, rather pop-py stuff and Gospel, but boy, can he act! He has the gift of attracting the audience's attention before the spotlight finds him.

Any production of Evita has to fight the echoes of the film (possibly the best thing Madonna ever did), and you see the similarities in the costumes and the hairstyles - not because this production copied the film, but because both it and the film strove for authenticity in the detail and arrived in the same place. But film is film, and stage is stage, and creating the illusion within the confines of a small box without a front, in real time, is what makes theatre more demanding, and, I think, more satisfying.

Rachael Wooding's Eva was a tremendous piece of character acting, at least equal to Madonna's Eva. The ambiguities in Maria Eva Duarte's life as Evita (were her concerns for the poor and for women's suffrage genuine, or was she a cynical manipulator?) are important to the drama, and an actor has less than two hours to create a compelling picture of a poor girl with ambition who rose to be the darling of a troubled nation. Ms Wooding pulled it off. Madonna didn't, quite.

To start with the only negative comment: the Latin sung by the ensemble sounded terribly English, what with all those un-Italian diphthongs, but in all other respects they were terrific, with a precision in their movement which many an opera chorus could learn from (these people have to dance and act as well as sing).

Robin is far too young (and snobby) to have noticed the close connections between ALW and Puccini, and he won't discuss it, because he knows best (of course. And why? Because that's how he was brought up to think.) He says ALW is worthless. I say ALW is doing exactly what Puccini did -stagecraft, melody, heightened emotions, music theatre, the rest.