Answering the Call of History

14 書香人生 B O O K S & R E V I E W S SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 2010 • TAIPEI TIMES Hardcover: UK Classical DVDs Answering the BY BRADLEY WINTERTON CONTRIBUTING REPORTER call of history new DVD version of Otello, widely considered to be Verdi’s masterpiece, is an important event. Issued in March, it’s based on a production at the Salzburg Festival in 2008. This was the WMDs, George Bush, Cherie and Gordo: Tony first new Otello to be staged there since 1970. AOtello and Desdemona are played by relatively young soloists, Blair’s memoir in just 799 words! the Latvian tenor Aleksandrs Antonenko and the Russian soprano Marina Poplavskaya. Iago is the somewhat older Spanish baritone BY JOHN Crace Carlos Alvarez. THE GUARDIAN, LONDON OTELLO There’s no doubt which of these three makes the biggest Antonenko, Poplavskaya, impression. Poplavskaya has a truly dynamic voice. You have no wanted this book to be different Alvarez inkling when you first see her, huddled in an oversized jacket, from the traditional political PUBLICATION NOTES Conducted: Muti what an explosive presence she will prove when she finally sings. memoir. Most, I have found, She is in every way a major discovery, and this Otello is certain to I Unitel Classics 701408 are rather easy to put down. So catapult her into international stardom. She sounds a natural for what you will read here is not a Isolde, for example. conventional account of whom I met. Otello himself is a titanic operatic role, and some critics at the There are events and politicians who Salzburg performances expressed doubts as to whether Antonenko are absent, not because they don’t was equal to it yet. Here he certainly takes second place to his matter, but because they are part of opposite number (and she has a lot less to sing than he does), and a different story to the self-serving to the forceful, caustic Iago of Alvarez too. Nevertheless, he does one I want to tell! have his moments, though vigor rather than feeling is probably his No, seriously guys, this is going strongest suit. to be well different. How many The production, directed by Stephen Langridge, features a other world leaders use so many relatively bare stage, with a glasslike platform in the middle, exclamation marks! And it is as a eventually to be smashed by Iago, and the central section of the back world leader that I’m writing for you wall devoted to video projections. Color is provided by the chorus, about my journey. And what a journey! exotically dressed Cypriots in an early scene, including some girls When I started in politics I was just an who try to seduce an innocent-seeming teenager. ordinary kind of guy. And you know Riccardo Muti conducts the Vienna Philharmonic in what is a what? I’m still an ordinary kind of guy near-ideal rendering of this mighty score. The arrival of the Venetian — albeit one who has become a multi- ambassadors, for instance, is almost unbearably intense, as is the millionaire and completely destabilized A JOURNEY whole of the third act (the last act is less successful). The DVD is the Middle East! BY TONY BLAIR topped off with a 30-minute bonus item in which the soloists and You know, I had a tear in my eye ROSTROPOVICH: Langridge (but not Muti) engage in chat about the opera. Yet Muti is when I entered No. 10 for the first 624 PAGES LIFE AND ART in some ways the star of this production. He must have known Otello time in 1997, though it wasn’t, as the HUTCHINSON Bloch, Schumann, Strauss supremely well from his days at La Scala where it was always the Daily Mail tried to claim, because Bernstein, Karajan opening opera of each new season. I was choked with emotion at how This is an exciting release, with many impressive elements. This is far I had come since I was a young, DG Unitel 073 4381 not to say, however, that it’s superior to the more sophisticated Met ordinary boy standing on the terraces we’re on a journey,” and they said, version of 1996 with Domingo, Fleming and Morris, conducted by of St James’ Park, watching Jacky “Cool Tony, We’re with you.” Levine. That version remains unchallenged. However, a dream ticket Milburn play for Newcastle. It was If only Iraq had been that simple. with Domingo, Morris and Poplavskaya would probably stand against because Gordon had hit me. Ah, I know there are some of you out all comers. Gordon! He meant well, I suppose, there who want me to apologize, Karajan was a great proponent of Richard Strauss, in contrast in his funny little emotionally but life isn’t that simple when to his rather wavering commitment to Mahler. Three DVDs of him inarticulate way. there’s a war crimes indictment at conducting Strauss’s tone poem Don Quixote have come to hand, two I guess some of you will find it stake. Look, I feel the deaths of our from Sony and one from Deutsche Grammophon, and it’s inevitable hard to believe, but I never really servicemen every bit as keenly as to ask which is to be recommended. All performances are with the wanted to be a politician. But if the bullets had pierced me like Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. sometimes courage is about taking stigmata, but sometimes one has to The two Sony DVDs were issued in 2005 and 2008 respectively, the difficult decisions and when just stand up and do the right thing the former standing alone, the latter in combination with Ein Cherie said, “God is calling you to even if the evidence isn’t there. OK, Heldenleben (“A Hero’s Life”). The version on Deutsche Grammophon fulfill your destiny,” I knew I had to I will admit I did have a bit of a is partly concealed from the casual browser as it’s included in a DVD listen. So it was with a heavy heart wobbly — Cherie had to give me big entitled Rostropovich: Life and Art. While not in any sense a cello that I outmaneuvered Gordon over cuddles, know what I mean! — when concerto, Don Quixote has a prominent part for a solo cello, and the leadership of the party after it turned out Saddam didn’t have Rostropovich’s performance, with Karajan on the podium, dates from John’s death — and whatever Gordo WMDs, but I honestly never lied 1975 (the DVD was issued in 2008). says there was never a deal struck about them. It was just one, small, The Rostropovich DVD is hugely attractive on many counts. At at the Granita restaurant where teeny mistake and everyone tore me STRAUSS 131 minutes it’s tremendous value for money. It not only contains the he could definitely take over after to pieces! Give us a break! And for Don Quixote Don Quixote with Karajan but also Schumann’s Cello Concerto and my second term. Because I had my the record I didn’t always have a plan Bloch’s Schelmo with Leonard Bernstein and the Orchestre National Karajan, Berlin Philharmonic fingers crossed! to go to war. The first I heard of it de France, filmed in Paris in 1976. And there’s a bonus half-hour film The first year in office was pretty was when Statesman George — Top Sony SVD 46389 about Rostropovich that is endlessly fascinating. exciting and it was great fun having bloke! Top thinker! — phoned to say So what of the Don Quixote? It’s a live performance in the Berliner my old mates like Anji in the office. US troops were going in! Philharmonie and is played by Rostropovich with characteristic attack (I’d tried to get in to her sleeping bag I was pretty fed up when everyone and exuberance. The sound quality is outstanding, with great presence, once when I was 16 but she kicked failed to see what we had achieved each instrument being vividly highlighted in the sound-picture whenever me out! Her loss!) The death of the in Iraq, but an audience with the it has a prominent moment. Visually it’s brightly lit, and is in every way People’s Princess came as a blow Pope, who said, “It is you who should a buoyant and dramatic occasion. — I always found the Royal Family be baptizing me,” soon cheered me The surprise that comes when comparing the two Sony DVDs a bit freaky! — but I had a real up. And I felt a sense of duty to is that they contain the same performance of Don Quixote, filmed sense the public were willing me to protect the country from Gordon’s in 1986. Clearly the Heldenleben (filmed in 1985) was added succeed. A pity the same couldn’t be incompetence. “You’re just waiting subsequently to give better value and a new lease of life to the Don said for the media who were only too until everything’s about to go pear- Quixote recording. willing to see the worst in the Bernie shaped,” he would yell. As if! It was These Sony versions are quite different from the Deutsche Ecclestone and Peter Mandelson only my darling John Prescott’s desire Grammophon one with Rostropovich. They’re a studio performance, affairs. Looking back, I feel bad to be out of the limelight as my deputy and clearly intended to be definitive. The feeling is of a dark studio about forcing Peter to resign. But at that prompted my resignation. Selfless world, with the various key instrumentalists, and needless to say the time it was him or me.

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