Merry Opera Company’s 'Messiah' review

This year is the 275th anniversary of Georg Frideric Handel’s composition of the highly influential choral work Messiah (with text compiled by Charles Jennens from the King James Bible and Book of Common Prayer). As such it was an ideal time for the Friends of St Mary Magdalene to invite the Merry Opera Company to perform it as part of their tour (and an esteemed itinerary it is, taking in Nottingham Cathedral, University Church, Oxford and St James’ Piccadilly, Mayfair).
The MOC have transformed the oratorio (concert piece) into an opera. Each of the 12-strong cast is assigned the outline of a personality to which they are to give expression through the stages of Messiah. The first half of the production covers Part I, with prophecies by Isaiah and others and the annunciation to the shepherds. After the interval, Parts II and III detail the Passion (with the ‘Hallelujah’ chorus), the resurrection and Christ’s glorification in heaven.
At the start, members of the Company emerge from the pews or from the back of the church. Dressed in ordinary clothes and wandering not a little aimlessly, initially it seems that they are very gauche members of the audience. The natural English reaction not to kick up a fuss allows the realisation to dawn on us that this is part of the performance.
Before the arrival of Christ, people are cold and remote from each other, callously shoulder-barging others or being contemptuous of what is written in the scriptures. When unto a child is born, the mood changes. Angels have halos represented humorously by paper plates.
The second half opens with the company members emerging in funereal black and with sombre expression. Christ becomes the Man of Sorrows, ‘acquainted with grief’. Jeered and attended by mocking laughter as He is crucified, there is a breakdown in society – people walking about distressed in their position in life; and licentiousness as one lady sidled up to men in the audience rubbing their shoulders sensuously with her leather gloves.
Like magicians distracting the audience while the next part of the act unfolds, the Company, member by member, dress gradually in white, until one (who looks not unlike football manager Jürgen Klopp) is left in the centre of the nave, whereupon he throws a white sheet over himself and as he sings, shedding the black trousers and suchlike to emerge chrysalis-style all in white.
The ‘Hallelujah’ section is terrific ensemble singing and action. There is still time for one character (Thomas?) to be uncertain and sit in the pews but he returns to be embraced. At the conclusion, they take up stations around the church to deliver the uplifting conclusion.
The performances (including the musicianship and direction) were deeply engaging, extremely heartfelt and frequently funny – worthy of the standing ovation they received. A truly inspiring night and a pleasure and a privilege to be there.

Empire State has its say

Some people couldn't care less about the US primary race for the nominations of the Democratic and Republican parties - esoteric processology for political junkies.  That might have been true from the mid-2000s to before but since 2008, it's been pure melodrama.
The rise of Barack Obama and the envy of Hillary Clinton, then the craziness of the Republican nominations in 2012 and now all chaos has broken loose, with intriguing battles in both the Democratic and Republican circles.  Particularly for the GOP, for if we thought they were loony tunes four years ago, they've surpassed themselves in being certifiable.
The Democratic candidature has hardly been civil, with Bernie Sanders accusing Clinton of being part of the problem i.e. the establishment and has hoovered up the starry-eyed idealistic 'college' vote.  Sanders' supporters can be vicious.  Trying to intimidate a George Clooney fundraiser dinner for Clinton was petty and lacked class - banging pots and pans is hardly focusing on the issues, even if Clooney did issue a mea culpa about obscene levels of money in a broken political system. I got in a Twitter spat before I even aware of it with one Sanders supporter, after I gave a shout-out asking how anti-war people would have prevented a Gaddafi massacre in Benghazi.  He gave a classic tin-foil hat response of 'don't believe the propaganda' and then tried to work the conversation round to his favourite topic of Honduras and the role of Clinton (as far as I could see she was being the perfect diplomat in seeking a peaceful resolution to a 'judicial coup').  To cite Realpolitik would have been a waste of time because that was the whole thing he was railing against.  Anyway, I guessed correctly that Julian Assange was one of his heroes and while he kept referring to a UN report that was compiled by a group of anti-American academics (who presented no evidence other than the uncorroborated belief of Assange of extradition to the USA), I proved that neither he nor the UN academics had any respect for rape victims, of which Assange has confessed to (though he doesn't see having sex with someone while they sleep and continuing after they wake up as rape...), as he was incapable of condemning it.  This all feeds into my impression of the gun-crazy IRA apologist Sanders and though I don't hold a candle for Clinton, I'm gratified by every pledged delegate she adds.
After his defeat in Ohio, Sanders needed to win 58% of the remaining delegates to take the nomination and though he racked up seven consecutive state wins in mostly sparsely populated states, his early rhetoric after Super Tuesday about the proportional allocation of delegates turned on him, as he couldn't shake Clinton off.  In New York, with its huge delegate count, Clinton won 58% of the vote (incidentally 10m more people have voted for her than have voted for Sanders so far).  Sanders is justified in going all the way to the Convention as Clinton's angel advice with his genuinely progressive ideas that she will need to co-own if she is to take his base with her into the general election.  But Tuesday was a crushing night for someone born in Brooklyn.
Fellow New Yorker Donald Trump scored a signal victory over his two rivals, despite a '7/11' blunder, picking up almost two-thirds of the Republican vote.  Ultraconservative prostitute user (his telephone number was found in a brothel madam's contact book) Ted Cruz paid for his scathing assault on 'New York values', scraping in with a measly 13% - his reaction was bizarre saying America was at its best when "lying down with its back on the mat" - maybe he was recalling his instructions to the prostitutes.  John Kasich, well, he's still there and a quarter of the vote.
But Trump was winning everywhere.  New York isn't a 'winner-takes-most' (or 'all) state but the scale of his triumph made it one.  After a flurry of states just before Easter, Republicans had just one state (Wisconsin) in a whole month to think about, allowing them to get their ground game together for delegate-rich New York and the remaining New England primaries.  With California still to come, its entirely possible that Trump avoids the possibility of a contested convention and is the nominee.
Then we'll see some real sparks fly in his battle with the consummate political operative Clinton.  This should prove fascinating right up to November.

Sorry, more football

I am very pleased that Manchester City has reached the semi-finals of the European Cup in their history - if nothing else, it gives another half-point to England's UEFA co-efficient, meaning the number of Champions League places for the Premier League are more likely to stay at four.  It is always good for me to see England's teams do well.

But spare a thought for their vanquished rivals Paris St Germain (PSG).  Despite the mega-bucks from Qatar bankrolling the club to crushing dominance in France's Ligue 1, they've hit the brick wall of the quarter-finals for the fourth successive season.  This was not what the state Qatari Investment Fund was paying for - they'd had expected to have won the Champions League itself by now.

But that's the trouble - they've invested in the wrong country.  As French president, PSG fan Nicolas Sarkozy lobbied for the investment and left Michel Platini in no doubt that he should vote for Qatar to host the 2022 World Cup, which has sparked the meltdown of FIFA.  Yet the Qataris did not get the vehicle to give them the favourable publicity for which they would have hoped.  They'd have been better splashing the cash on a club in England (rivalling Man City's UAE investment), Spain, Germany or Italy.  The French top-flight is simply not competitive enough to allow its teams to find an extra gear against high-calibre opposition - the memory muscle atrophies.

This is why, despite being invented by a Frenchman (like the World Cup and European Championships), a French team has only won it once and that was the controversy-shrouded Marseille team who had been bribing other Ligue 1 teams to, ironically, give them an easy time while they made a run to the trophy with big ears on the European stage.  Olympique Lyonnais (Lyon) came from nowhere to win seven consecutive league titles but only after their second national title did they reach the quarter-finals of the Champions League and then for three seasons exited at the same stage.  Only after their glory days faded and they stopped winning Ligue 1 did Lyon manage to reach (once) the semi-finals (and no further).

PSG haven't come exactly from nowhere but when you can go to an opponent's ground and win 9-0 to clinch another Ligue 1 title, it really is the nursery slopes of football.  That's why PSG's owners talk up a European Super League - as the Panama Papers have shown, when rich people can't get what they want, they try to circumvent the rules.

Fulfilling Lineker's dreams

Back in September 2000, in the old days when only three Champions League places were allocated for English football, Gary Lineker, as chief football presenter for the BBC, indulged in some wish fulfillment.  Three games had been played and his beloved home town team, Leicester City had enjoyed a decent start and sat third (pre-knighthood Bobby Robson's Newcastle Utd, incidentally, were top).  "Stop the clock and Leicester are in the Champions League!"  It was a hope beyond hope but Gary could dream.
He need dream no longer nor gerrymander the league.  After last weekend's results, Leicester City have ensured that at the very, very least they will make the Champions League qualifiers and that only if they endure an utterly spectacular collapse and the three teams below them win all their games.  Realistically, sitting seven points clear of second-placed Tottenham Hotspur (who would have been the fairytale had it not been for Leicester), the title is within their grasp. Of their remaining five games, they can afford to lose two and still be crowned champions but they have only lost three games all season.  If they were to win one and draw the remaining four and Spurs kept on winning, then they would be cruelly pipped to the post by one point.  But Spurs' remaining quintet of fixtures are marginally harder.
A year and a week ago, Leicester sat 20th in the league table, a sure-fire certainty for relegation.  They pulled off a miracle winning eight of their last nine games.  Yet this tops even that as it has been maintained across an entire season.  Gary Lineker's promise to present the first Match of the Day of next season in his underwear if Leicester lift the Premier League trophy edges ever closer and he couldn't be happier.