Global Hypocrisy

I don't know whether it's the same where you are (of course it bloody well is), but there appears to be a global conspiracy of unfairness when it comes to the treatment of certain people. Here's what I mean:

We have an excellent young Argentinian colleague who is keen to learn, talented and open to new ideas. He is surrounded by a bunch of third-rate hacks who would never have had a career had they not been Italian. These latter are, for some inexplicable reason, untouchable. God only knows why. You are Italian, you sing Italian opera, so you are, by definition, an expert. Mon cul, as you would say in French. Everyone in the production department realises this yet cannot, for reasons best known to themselves, 'address' the problem, so they pick on the Argentinian guy, venting all their frustration on him.

I'm not a greenhorn. I've been in this business for 25 years, yet this kind of situation continues to make my blood boil, not least for the effect it hs on the unjustly attacked, who don't yet necessarily understand why they are consistently in the line of fire. My only desire is that everyone knows where they stand, preferably with a minimum of honesty on the part of those judging them. Unnecessary tensions in this business are so often created by incompetents, yet the effects can be devastating on those not yet fully conversant with the childish games of their so-called 'superiors'.

My first step would be to gather up every overrated Italian opera singer (redundant, yes; pleonasm, yes; I know…) and dump the incompetent fuckers in the middle of the Indian Ocean, all the while letting those who have shown respect for their education and training indicate the way forward; hopefully engendering an improvement in the general performance of Italian 19th- and 20th-Century repertoire. Here's a golden quote from our Leonora, today: "Could you make a note of all the conductor's remarks so I don't have to remember them?". To this young lady I would just say 'F*** Off, but I no longer go anywhere near her. She also knows better than to approach me. Happily, we have an American second-cast Leonora who positively gobbles up her coachings and proceeds to grow with every passing day. I have to say that, over the years, I've grown to adore only the Americans and northern Europeans when it comes to opera; the Eyeties really are a waste of space: amateur, opinionated and substandard.

There's a saying in Britain that the only clear view one gets of an Italian is of his backside, and I wish that were true. That would mean, at least, that they were departing.

Paradox

Sometimes we're called on to do seemingly contradictory things. I'm currently working with socially-challenged, ESN* Italian opera singers on one of Verdi's most popular operas, Il Trovatore. You may know the odd tune from it but the work is basically tedious and formulaic with, at least for our contemporary sensibilities, a ridiculous plot. Nonetheless, it's considerably better than what goes on in the heads of its main protagonists, at least in our version, sort-of nice as some of them may be. Notwithstanding, it'll probably be a huge success as these works are often much (MUCH) larger than the sum of their parts. The difficulty is seperating the working process from the end result, and for me, applying that to mid-nineteenth century Italian opera is easier said than done.

The other piece of meat on my plate is proof-reading an English translation of a French book on obesity. It's interesting that such a svelte nation could come up with such a work of literature, but it makes for intriguing reading. The translator has done a stonking job; apart from the odd Oxford Comma (and they really are a matter of taste) I can't find much to gripe about in the realm of Shakespeare's lingo. Looking around me, I would have thought that obesity was the least of this country's worries, but the Frogs are always up for chewing the fat and debating and that's one of the things that makes living here such a joy: sometimes you just want to chat for chatting's sake, preferably on an eighteenth-century terrace in the company of a variety of happy juices, and no either course of action can be deemed acceptable. That's where I am right now and Toulouse, bless its cotton socks, provides all the above. It serves as a wonderful counterweight to listening to those overpaid, overweight crooners struggling through their mother tongue with no regard for tuning, rhythm or characterisation. Anyone who has had the 'privilege' of working with this particular caste will know what I'm talking about. To be fair, though, I'd like to cite a few names I've worked with who not only buck the trend, but would positively stand it on its head if challenged one-on-one in a court of law: Daniela Mazzucato, Marco Armiliato, Daniele Callegari, Marta Moretto, Chiara Angella, Alberto Rinaldi, Marco Vinco and a few others, but it's too late to remember their names. And so endeth a pretty nonsensical stream of consciousness. The picture below is of Deborah Voigt before she lost 564lbs and her marbles:

Les Derniers Jours du Monde.

The Last Days of the World is a French film, made a few years ago by the Larrieu Brothers. Part of it was filmed in Toulouse, so when I saw the DVD in the library the other day, I felt I had to see it. I remembered how certain props - like burnt-out police cars and black marias - had littered my route to work for a couple of weeks, but then again there's nothing particularly unusual about that in urban France. I read the synopsis and noted the little green oblong on the back bearing the legend Tous publics - the French equivalent of a 'U' certificate - the natural habitat of Disney and Pixar - realised I wouldn't be getting my desired quota of naughtiness but nonetheless checked it out and put it in my bag for a quiet evening in (like every day in Château Fingers, but hey…), tucked up in bed with the missus. Having watched it last night, I suggest you don't let little Timmy stay up to watch it with you…

If the American Board of Film Censors can toy with the idea of giving The Choristers (Les Choristes) an '18' rating because one of the boys in it is filmed smoking, you'd have to be at least 146 years old to watch  Les Derniers Jours du Monde. Practically the first image is a full-frontal nude shot of Mathieu Amalric (after he's attached his prosthetic arm) and back-up shots, so to speak, are not slow in coming. His first encounter - and cunnilingus - with Omahyra Mota appear a mere five minutes later. This actress actually spends most of the film butt-naked, displaying her perfect (and I mean perfect) body to anyone who cares to watch and salivate. Amalric subsequently goes up and down on Catherine Frot and Karin Viard (this one actually spectacularly explicit) while the world continues to disintegrate around him. The idea of wall-to-wall shagging, supping fine wines and visiting the opera (actually my local one, as is happens) a mere 48 hours before armageddon makes a great deal of sense, to me at least. In fact, we shouldn't wait for that particular deadline to enjoy these pastimes. It's a wonderful piece of cinema, improved by the fact that it feels so here and now, especially for those of us who live in the area where it's set. I gather the English title is Happy End, but you'll struggle to find the right one on YouTube. Grab it on DVD if you can, it's a great couple of hours' worth of bunkum, but make sure your kids are in bed, first. Here's a taster, so to speak:

Happy New Year!

Wishing you a very happy New Year and thanking you for checking in even though I've been doing nothing but the blogger's equivalent of trading my high-ranking cleric these last two months. We all had nearly three weeks in England over Christmas and the New Year, a holiday period unheard of in my 25-odd years of professional activity. The eczema stayed at bay (just), but has since started to bang on the inside of the door of the cupbaord conventional medicine shoved it into, unceremoniously, last autumn. We even had a day in London just before Christmas, the first time I'd been back to my home town for over fourteen years and the Fingernails got photographed by a bloke from Reuters as they stepped off the new Routemaster show-bus in Trafalgar Square. I've not seen it crop up on the internet, yet, so I can only presume the photographer decided not to use it (having run two hundred yards to catch us up and ask if we'd mind if he did). Also popped into Crawley, the town where I spent most of my childhood. After all these years of flying into Gatwick Airport we bit the bullet and had a little tour of my youth. I was astonished as to how little had changed and how incredibly liveable the town still is: everyone has two gardens, the pavements are broad and there's green everywhere. The opposite of urban France, in other words. England is half the size of Gaul with the same number of inhabitants but gives the impression of being far more spacious (as does Germany, with its inferior surface area and 20m+ population). Yup, urban planning is not what the French do best. And, according to the news this morning, nor is their ability to keep their AAA-rating, whatever that will really mean to any of us. After all, whoever talked about these things even a year ago? Now it's THE statistic to maintain. We're being taken for fools, again…

Got to run off to work. Verdi is OK, but really pales in comparison to Wagner, Strauss, Debussy Ravel and Puccini. Compare O sink hernieder with the Anvil Chorus from Il Trovatore and weep. I do. Pretty much daily, in fact.