Bravo Taraf

At The Spectator blogs, Clive Davis picks up on the Roby Lakatos video I posted the other day, but also quotes a piece about the Roma in Italy from The Times, which rather typifies the skewed light on minority communities that the media likes to use to gain sales. I was objecting to a lot more than fingerprinting, as the piece we quoted from The Independent made clear. Because the situation is a lot more dangerous than that.

As a follow-up, here is a powerful piece of writing by Romanian author Mircea Cartarescu.

And above, an extract from Tony Gatliff's film Latcho Drom about the Romanian Roma band Taraf de Haidouks (we saw them at the Barbican in June last year). World-music expert Ben Mandelson and I get to be their curtain-raiser at the Cheltenham Music Festival on Saturday week, 19 July, which is an honour.

Mamma Mia!

And if you think the cello story is good, just try this one, from Indy on Sunday - scandalissimo indeed! Puccini will never be the same again...

"It was Puccini's pursuit of women that created the great crisis in his life. This is a tale of infidelity, jealousy, vengeance and despair. It goes a long way towards explaining the composer's fallow period. Its repercussions are still being felt on the lakeside today."

The story of Mrs C...

This adorable story about Piatigorsky comes, rather unexpectedly, from the inimitable Robert Fisk, who devoted his Saturday column in the Indy to certain gems of information provided by his readers.

'...there arrives another letter from Ms Somervil-Ayrton, remembering how I once sat next to the late Mstislav Rostropovich en route to Beirut with what he called his "wife" – his sacred cello – on the seat beside him. Did I know, asks Ms S-A, the airline story about Piatigorsky, "who had the reputation Rostropovich has now"? I fumble for my massive, 2,239-page edition of the Norwegian K B Sandved's The World of Music, a weighty heart attack of a book wherein, on page 1622, I find "Gregor Piatigorsky, Russian-American cellist, born 1903". He began life by playing at his local cinema, but at 14 was engaged by the Imperial Opera in Moscow. At the revolution, smugglers got him out of Russia, leaving him stripped and penniless in Poland but he became first cellist in the Berlin Philharmonic and toured the US in 1929 where Samuel Chotzinoff wrote that in his hands "the cello loses its limitations, his playing is as light and brilliant as if he were playing a violin".

Now back to Ms S-A who writes how Piatigorsky "was shopping around for an airline that would carry his cello free of charge – as he was sick of all the hassle and expense ... he managed to find one – 'Of course, Mr. Piatigorsky – of course' – and went on the appointed day to pick up his tickets. To his surprise, they proudly presented one for himself and one in the name of Miss Cello Piatigorsky. I think he had to pay anyway...".'

Here comes Carmen...

Carmen opens at Glyndebourne today, so here's a taster of the production, a David McVicar classic - gritty, powerful and very real. If you're going this year, you'll see a totally different cast from this, which dates from 2002 and features von Otter as Carmen. I couldn't find any Youtube video of the glorious costumes for the toreador procession in the last act, which were apparently sourced from the real McCoy in Seville, but the whole thing is available on DVD.

Having attended the dress rehearsal, I'm not yet at liberty to give detailed views (why-oh-why didn't I take a pseudonym while I could?!) but let's just say this: there's one really great performance plus a couple of surprises; the dramatic side is fabulous; and at times you may feel the need for caffeine. More about it soon...

Calling Townsville...

I should have been sunning myself on the beach or the Great Barrier Reef today, because tomorrow A Walk Through the End of Time has its English language premiere...on the other side of the world, at the Australian Festival of Chamber Music in Townsville, Far North Queensland. The Tropic Sun Theatre Company is performing it in an atmospheric church, so I'm told, the Fibonacci Sequence will play the Messiaen Quartet and the event is apparently sold out. I'll look forward to a full report from down under afterwards...

A tender memory of my late sister, Claire, who once summed up her experience of holidaying in Queensland and the GBR as 'Watch 'em by day, eat 'em by night'. (Fish. The best.)