With the
rapid advances that have been made in technology in transmission and storage,
it has become possible to receive in your own home a vast choice of events,
talks, performance that could formerly only been seen and heard by travelling
to the places where they were taking place. They are available in your home to
a very high standard on the equipment that is available, at times convenient to
you.
At the
Metropolitan opera you can hear Ileana Cotrubas singing her famous il traviata
from 1981; On YouTube you can watch the moving journey of the Burial of the Unknown Soldier on 11 November
1920 in Westminster Abbey; Philip Mould’s brilliant talk about portraits of
Queen Elizabeth; Richard Holmes talk at the Bristol Festival in 2015 on the
symbolism of Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner; the most admired Japanese film
Mizoguchi’s Ugetsu Monogatari; the remastered recording of Toscanini’s
Beethoven 7; I find it restful after a busy day to play a familiar work like Va
pensiero from La Fenice; A moment of certainty in an uncertain world.
I heard
Ileana Cotrubas sing Violetta at Covent Garden in 1981 and she has remained my
standard ever since then. I was very
excited to be able to hear her again in the Metropolitan production of 1981 and
realise that my early and uninformed enthusiasm of 1981 was entirely justified.
She fits the role naturally and to perfection.
The horrors
of the first war always hung as a dark cloud over my childhood and beyond. All
families suffered losses, my uncle was severely wounded and was awarded a medal
for bravery. The expectation of life was said to be six weeks from going to the
front. This film, accompanied by mourning music follows the journey from
Belgium to Dover, Victoria, to the Admiralty Arch, the Cenotaph and Westminster
Abbey. Only 40,000 people apparently have seen it.
I learned
from my guide in Japan that in Japan Kenyi Mizoguchi was considered the best
Japanese film director and not Kurosawa, who was considered too influenced by
Western films. His most famous film is
Ugetsu ( potent and mysterious moon after a
rain) Monogatari. It is a ghost story in which characters transition
between human and ghost.
Richard
Holmes is famed for his personal concern for objectivity, researching his
stories himself at considerable discomfort. He retells the story and symbolism of
Coleridge’s rime of the ancient mariner with a careful interpretation
and a review of the illustrations by Dore and others.
Philip
Mould is a popular figure, but here rises above common plaudits to give an
insightful and amusing account of the Royal portraits of Queen Elizabeth II.
Toscanini’s
performance of Beethoven’s 7th Symphony has been remastered and you
can hear it as Toscanini heard it.