Flashmob in the British Museum

What does a flashmob do when it gets inside the British Museum? Why, naturally they sing Thomas Tallis's 40-part motet Spem in alium. The British Renaissance masterpiece took BM visitors and staff by surprise yesterday around 5pm. Apparently the security guards did some frantic conferring, but enjoyed the music far too much to stop the importunate singers.

Conductor Katie Hawks, who masterminded the event, said: "It was amazing singing such an incredible piece in such a special place. Perhaps it might remind our silent museums that music is very much part of enlightenment... Lots of people were bowled over by the experience."

Here's what happened (sound quality's not brilliant, but you get the idea):

Khatia's Faustian Dream

"Listening to Khatia Buniatishvili is like watching a high-wire artist with no safety net. She divides audiences because she takes so many risks, sometimes choosing tempi which prove impossible or volumes that send the piano out of tune. But her more lyrical playing is peerless; increased discipline will make her into an extraordinary musician." (JD in the Indy, Jan 2011)

Buniatishvili, 23 and from Georgia, is currently on the Borlotti-Buitoni Trust's Young Artists programme plus BBC New Generation Artists and will be giving a solo lunchtime recital in this year's Proms.

Without further comment I'd like to offer you this short film she has made re the Liszt B minor Sonata. Discuss.

And in the news today...

* Glyndebourne is filming Die Meistersinger this afternoon and it will be webcast live and free on The Guardian's website. It's also to be shown in the Science Museum in South Kensington. Stephen Moss will be doing a live Meisterblog and tweets are invited, as on the first night, with the hashtag #diemeistertweeter. There's a treasure-trove of supporting articles and webcasts on the site. Details of the streaming, interview with Vlad etc, here.

* In similar vein, Norman Lebrecht makes the point in today's Telegraph that all of a sudden the issue of access, access, access is no longer relevant. We have access, thanks to webcasts, cinecasts and the Big Screens, and apparently this, our very own wet and soggy island, is where the future of opera is being carved. (Discuss...)

He also had a high old time at the ENO's new Nico Muhly opera Two Boys, which I had not initially planned to attend. Had it been sold as a "Susan Bickley is Helen Mirren in Prime Suspect" opera (as every man and his cat has been saying that it is since the premiere on Friday), I'd have booked in at once. But from the marketing it sounded like a niche thing that was fashioned for young gay blokes who live online; therefore it mightn't be interesting for married, female, 40-something technotwits... There shouldn't be a problem getting in, though. When I checked the website on Thursday to see if there were seats left for Monday, the place was less than half full. If all is well up north (we have difficult family issues at present), I may go. Alternatively I might catch up with DVDs of another wonderful woman detective: Brenda Blethyn as Vera in the ITV series based on the absolutely brilliant Geordie detective novels by Ann Cleeves, if said DVDs are yet available.

* This morning @MalteseTenor Joseph Calleja was on the Andrew Marr Show on BBC1, singing 'E lucevan le stelle'. Michael Gove, our education minister - currently trying to avert a strike by teachers this week - was listening from the sofa, where he'd been trying to say he wasn't really intending to exhort parents to strike-break. He applauded enthusiastically... Feel the power, Micks. Let the people hear the music. Let the people learn music, too, at school. Music for all, please: right here, right now.

Speaking of opera and the internet, Calleja shared my blog on his Facebook fan page the other day. Aw shuks. Can you imagine a world in which Richard Tauber had internet access?

Psst - want a legal high?

If so, sit back and turn up the volume. Listen to Joseph Calleja singing 'E lucevan le stelle' from Tosca (on Youtube, below). Then imagine being just four metres away from him as he does so. That, dear reader, is how I was privileged to spend my lunchtime. If they're going to crack down on 'legal highs', as some newspapers are reporting today, then what are they going to do about tenors?



Calleja has grown up: the Maltese falcon is flying. I heard his first CD some years ago - bel canto arias in what seemed a pleasing, light, precise voice. So I wasn't prepared for what hit us today when Decca put on a showcase half-hour performance by him in the Royal Opera House's crush room, to preview his new album 'The Maltese Tenor'. At about 32, he's not a slender, tender tenor type, but instead a big, bullish, walking soundbox imbued with roaring charisma. By the time he'd finished his programme, mostly Verdi and Puccini, I reckon the entire gathering was head over heels in love. Afterwards the chat was mostly about how unbelievably lucky we felt to be there to hear such an artist at all, let alone at such close quarters. And we all want to go and see him in Malta, his homeland, where he has just founded a new festival.

This is a major, major star in the making. If he's coming to a stage near you soon, you don't just want a ticket; you need one, fast. And you can follow him on Twitter at @MalteseTenor. Hope you love him as much as we did.

SOLIDARITY - and why Hans Sachs was right

The LPO and Vladimir Jurowski, filmed at Glyndebourne and introduced by Martin the Chairman, play 'Solider of Orange' in solidarity with our arts friends in the Netherlands, where culture is being threatened with excision by a government that's crucially propped up by Geert Wilders and his far-right "Freedom Party". Orchestras around the world are moving to show their solidarity. The anthem is an underground song from the Second World War. On the stage you can glimpse the Meistersinger set.

It's time to ditch the universal shudder, by the way, at the words of Hans Sachs about the vitality of German art. He is not prefiguring the Nazis when he declares that even if Germany were to be under foreign rule, the German people will still have their great art. He is saying that art is what keeps a nation's sense of identity alive. He is right. The opera is set in Germany and Sachs was a German poet - so of course he's talking about German art. But it is true for every nation and every culture and it is something we forget at our peril. An artistic output of which a country can be proud - great art that shows individuals giving the best of their own spirits to everyone else - takes years, decades, centuries to build. But it can be destroyed overnight. Shame on Wilders and those philistine thugs.