Opera, Gardening, Politics, Cats....

BRITISH ECOSOCIALISTS PLAN CLIMATE AND CAPITALISM SEMINAR

[From Socialist Resistance]
Planned for Saturday September 12, Climate and Capitalism is the first seminar organised jointly by Green Left and Socialist Resistance, the ecosocialist currents in two of Britain’s left parties, the Greens and Respect. This energetic and open day of discussion will bring experts, campaigners, radical activists and others together. The event will be in the Friends’ Meeting House, London, NW1 (at Euston).

The plan for the day

After registration at 10, the opening plenary will be addressed by Romayne Phoenix, from Green Left, and Ian Angus, editor of The global fight for climate justice, a new book being launched next month. Romayne is a Green councillor: Ian is one of the Socialist Resistance advisory board.

Before lunch, at least three workshops will be held, all with plenty of time for questions and discussions, to give the context for the combined economic and ecological crises. Amongst those planned are:

1. Crisis and the response: with Sean Thompson, author of new pamphlet on the Green New Deal, and the Scottish Socialist Party’s Raphie de Santos, co-author of ‘Socialists and the Capitalist Recession’
2. Gender, ecology and ecosocialism: with Sheila Malone, co-editor of ‘Ecosocialism or Barbarism’
3. Alternatives to the market: with a panel invited including Derek Wall, former principal speaker of the Green Party

The interaction and sharing of experience will deepen in the afternoon, where participants in major struggles for climate and social justice will be speaking. The discussions will include:

1. Voices from the Global South: facilitated by Ian Angus
2. Direct action and prefiguration; with speakers from British direct action campaigns
3. Sustainable cities; with invited experts including the Campaign for Free Public Transport
4. Alternative production: with speakers from the Swedish and British trade union movement struggles for sustainable manufacturing.

The closing plenary will provide an opportunity to see how anti-capitalists in Respect, the Green party and elsewhere on the left can deepen their co-operation – both in the run up to the Copenhagen demonstrations at the end of this year, and next year’s general election. ‘Socialist Resistance’ editor Liam MacUaid will discuss strategies for uniting reds and greens while Green Left’s Andy Hewett will discuss the tasks going forward to Copenhagen. The event will close at 5.30pm.

How to register

You can register in advance and make two savings: get one-third off the price of your ticket, and a further two pounds on the cost of the book being launched at the conference. Tickets cost 6 pounds unwaged (4 in advance) and 12 pounds waged (8 in advance). To register, make your cheque payable to ‘Resistance’ and post it to PO Box 62732 London SW2 9GQ.

Find out more

Visit http://ecosocialism.org for updates on the event. You can register on that site for updates, and to take part in the preparations of the event. If you have any questions or comments send an email to seminar@ecosocialism.org.

Cast

Violetta...............................................Renee Fleming
Flora...................................................Monika-Evelin Liiv
Marquis d'Obigny.............................Kostas Smorignas
Baron Douphol................................ Eddie Wade
Doctor Grenvil..................................Richard Wiegold
Gastone............................................Haoyin Xue
Alfredo...............................................Jospeh Calleja
Anina.................................................Sarah Pring
Giuseppe..........................................Neil Gillespie
Giorgio Germont..............................Thomas Hampson
Messenger.......................................Charbel Mattar
Servant...............................................Jonathan Coad

Chorus and Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, conducted by Antonio Pappano

Such a wonderful performance, with a dream cast and conductor! Right from the first note of the prelude, Pappano conjured incfrediblyh wistful sounds from the orchestra, and the entire performance was of this high standard.
Renee Fleming was the best Violetta I have seen in years, looking beautiful though fragile, as Violetta should. She gave a very nuanced performance in Act I, pensive in fors'e lui and frenetic in Sempre libera, with a sub-text almost of hysteria, as she acknowledges that she knows she is dying, and is determined to enjoy what life remains to her. I was delighted that she and Pappano didn't leave a space for the audience to applaud between the two halves of the aria!! (They did at the rehearsal...my view is that it spoils the continuity by interrupting Violetta's train of thought).
Calleja as Alfredo was perhaps less subtle and sensitive in Act I, but then he is playing a rather unsubtle and insensitive young man, so this was in character! Certainly he sang the high notes of his Act II arias with ringing confidence.

Thomas Hampson brought his usual mellifluousness of tone and elegance of person to a character with whom the audience usually has difficulty in sympathising.

I've never heard anyone sing "Amami, Alfredo" with such passion and desperation, and the orchestra reflected Violetta's feelings with equal intensity....I had already started to cry during the scene between Violetta and the father, but this literally had me sobbing. (I didn't bother to try to control it, as nearly everyone else in the audience, at least near me, was crying too!)
I'll just make a few comments about the production. It's a 'conventional' production, i.e. set in the nineteenth century, but I don't have a problem with that!! In the first act, Violetta is wearing a white dress, which one might have thought was unsuitable for a woman in her profession, but (a) it's a beautiful dress and Fleming looks gorgeous in it (b) in fact the statement she is making is..."I can afford this". When she comes to Flora's party in Act II, she is wearing a equally expensive and bejewelled black dress.

After the shocking scene in which Alfredo throws the money at her, the father gives her his hand and escorts her from the room - this wasn't done in the production before, could it have been Thomas Hampson's idea? It's this sort of detail that makes or breaks a production. The point is that just after Alfredo has thrown the money and she collapses, the father offers to help her and she turns away, but then later she accepts his help....
The Prelude to Act III was unbearably poignant - of course, as I intimated, I had already started crying long before. "Addio del passato", of which she gets both verses, was heartbreaking, I am sure that she and the orchestra deserved the applause but for me, I just sat in stunned silence!

I'm very happy with the garden..obviously it has benefitted from the rain! I have the best Sweet Peas I ever had...and soon I will have a feast of tomatoes, pepper, beans and peas. I am growing broad beans for the first time...last year I had some delicious runner beans, but actually I prefer broad beans!
I also have some delicious radishes!

Oddly enough, I never used to be all that keen on radishes before! Obviously they are best when they come fresh from the garden and you eat them straight away!

The rain yesterday did the garden a lot of good - although I am afraid some of the more fragile plants may have become waterlogged and rotten!

The black lilies have started to flower, they look like this...

(This isn't the actual photo, which I haven't developed yet...just posting this as an example, and will post the the 'genuine article' next week!)

In concert:
Jospeh Calleja
Joyce DiDonato
Thomas Hampson
Vasko Vassilev, violin
Antonio Pappano, piano

(Sorry the graphic of Pappano is so small, I hoped they'd all be the same size!)

This was a programme put together at rather short notice by Pappano and his colleagues..originally it was to have been a recital by Villazon and Pappano, then Villazon cancelled and Hvorotsovsky took over, then HE cancelled!! Fortunately, Thomas Hampson and the others are in London at present, Hampson and Calleja are appearing in LA TRAVIATA, and Joyce DiDOnato is rehearsing for IL BARBIERE DI SIVIGLIA. The violinist Vasko Vassilev is Concert Master of the Royal Opera House Orchestra.
It was a very varied programme, which served as much as anything else to demonstrate Pappano's range and versatility as a pianist. Calleja began the recital with three songs by composers of verismo opera, of which I preferred the third, 'A Vuchella' by Franceso Paolo Tosti, a setting of a poem by Gabriele d'Annunzio,
http://www.recmusic.org/lieder/get_text.html?TextId=250
as this gave not only Calleja but Pappano the opportunity to demonstrate his virtuosity in the piano reduction of the score. Not all operatic arias survive this treatment, and I felt they chose their programme very well.
Johyce DiDOnato then sang Rossini's La Regata Veneziana, which was written with piano accompaniment.
And then Thomas Hampson sang Mahler's LIEDER EINES FAHRENDEN GESELLEN, which for me was the high point of the first half of the programme. Hampson is IMO the greatest Mahler interpreter around today, and I was delighted that he had chosen to perform Lieder...earlier in the pub with friends we had been speculating upon what they would choose to perform, and I said Hampson would probably do Mahler, and I was right!! Because I thought he would do something he had rehearsed, if not performed, with Pappano, and it was a very passionate, involved performance by singer and pianist.
After the interval, the violinist Vasko Vassilev performed two pieces by Tchaikovsky, the secons of which, 'Scherzo' from Souvenir d'un lieu cher was another virtuousic demonstrating of the resources of both violin and piano. He followed this with Rachmaninov's Vocalise.
Calleja then sang a not very interesting extract from Massenet's Le Cid - I find Calleja a pleasant enough singer, but never particularly involved or interesting. Perhaps the choice of repetoire has something to do with this.
This was followed by Joyce DiDonato in the Willow Song from Rossini's OTELLO, again of course in a piano reduction. Is it possible that Pappano made the piano reduction himself? He reproduced the harp music from the prelude exquisitely, making it sound almost like an actual harp.
I haven't finished my euology of Pappano's pianistic virtuosity! Having accompanied Hampson in two less well-know American songs (one of which Hampson discussed on Music Matters on Radio 3 last Saturday...Harry Thacker Burleigh's 'Ethiopia Saluting the Colours', a setting of Walt Whitman), he accompanied DiDonato in 'Can't Help Loving Dat Man' and 'Somehwere over the Rainbow', and he does jazz piano well also!!
The recital finished with Bizet's Au fond du temple saint, sung by Calleja and Hampson.
They all deserve our thanks and congratulations for compiling such an adventurous programme at such short notice.
Can you guess whether I am looking forward to seeing LA TRAVIATA next month??!!

Some of you may already have seen this article in the Guardian....it transpires that the Holocaust Museum shooter has/had links with the BNP.
La lotta continua!/ La lotta continua!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/11/holocaust-museum-shooting-bnp-von-brunn

Of course, if "they" are sent "home", we will have no public transport, hardly any health service, no catering industry.....

And where is "home", anyway? Many members of ethnic minorities were BORN here....and so were their parents.

I take it the BNP is not aware of the fact that the reason "they" are here is that their countries were invaded and colonised by Europeans - not just the British - and stripped of raw materials to enrich the imperialist powers!

I am delighted to say that the fightback against the Fascists has already started....look at this!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/8091666.stm

I am a life-long advocate and practitioner of non-violence...but I cannot say I am sorry that Griffin has been pelted with eggs on his first public appearance after his shameful election to the European Parliament.
It transpires that, though he was uninjured, one of his bodyguards appears to have assaulted one of the protestors...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jun/10/bnp-protest-assault-charges

And there was another protest in Manchester today...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/8093259.stm

Why do I think we should protest in the strongest possible terms against the election of Fascists to the European Parliament? Were they not democratically elected?
Well, yes, but SO WAS HITLER. He manipulated the democratic process to get himself elected so that he could then destroy the democratic process. It indicates, I suppose, that democracy carries within it the seeds of its own destruction...
If we confine our protests against the Fascists to non-violence, unfortunately they will be ineffective...I am really distressed when I contemplate what the future might hold for those of us who have always believed in peaceful protest....

It is worse, I am afraid...GRIFFIN has gained a seat too. I went to bed at 2 o'clock this morning thinking it couldn't get worse, and at least Caroline Lucas and Jean Lambert had retained their seats...then I was woken by a phone call at about 8 o'clock, and my worst fears were confirmed.
I think we have to re-double our campaign against the Fascists now, much as I feel inclined to just sit and cry.....this is a sad day for Britain.

The BNP (Fascist party) has its first MEP.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8088133.stm  

However, at least the Green MEPs Jean Lambert and Caroline Lucas have retained their seats.