Britain's Proms singing its way to happy finale

By Michael Roddy

LONDON | Fri Sep 7, 2012 8:37am EDT

LONDON (Reuters) - So what do you do for an encore to cap an extraordinary two months of concerts and recitals in a summer series that bills itself as the "world's greatest music festival" on its last weekend in the 2012 Olympics city?

Well, you party, big time, with two concerts, one indoors, one out, featuring a genre-bending array of singers and musicians, from Maltese tenor Joseph Calleja and Scottish violinist Nicola Benedetti to Australian pop star Kylie Minogue and English tenor Alfie Boe, plus a four-minute-long orchestral premiere whose composer guarantees a sonic explosion in what is, and only can be, the Last Night of the Proms on Saturday night.

You also let the "Prommers", those 600 souls who every night can queue up for tickets costing five pounds ($8) for standing room in the center of London's 6,000-seat Royal Albert Hall, show their appreciation for a season of musical splendor by waving flags, wearing funny hats and outlandish clothes, and singing their hearts out for "the best of British" grand finale that includes Elgar's "Land of Hope and Glory" and other hits to make everyone feel a lot, or at least a little bit, British.

"When we were setting off we said it was going to be a summer like no other and I think for a whole number of reasons that's actually been the case," Roger Wright, the Proms Director, and Controller of BBC classical music channel Radio 3, told Reuters in an interview as the big night, for which tickets are awarded by a lottery-like ballot, drew near.

Highlights of the BBC-sponsored Proms 118th season included performances by conductor Daniel Barenboim and his pan-Middle Eastern West-Eastern Divan Orchestra of the nine Beethoven symphonies, a night devoted to the works of the avant garde American composer John Cage, a staging for the first time at the Proms of the Broadway musical "My Fair Lady", plus appearances by world-renowned orchestras, ensembles and soloists.

Wright said his predictions that Proms attendance would hold up despite the Olympics staged on the other side of London most of the summer have proven correct, with average attendance of 90 percent, down from a record 94 percent the previous year.

Demand has been strong right to the end with the Last Night of the Proms, and the 17th year of its pop-oriented twin outdoor concert across the way in Hyde Park, sold out for advance tickets for weeks. Both will be shown for the first time in 3D at cinemas and on the BBC's 3D channel, as well as on big screens and in conventional cinemas across Britain.

HONOUR TO PERFORM

Artists consider it a great honor to appear at the final Proms concert which, while it may not plumb the deepest levels of the classical repertoire, produces performances of a high caliber, and reaches a phenomenally large audience.

"It's one of the most famous and biggest musical events in the world," Calleja, 34, told Reuters in a telephone interview, adding that he was especially looking forward to performing one of the biggest successes of his idol, the late cinema tenor Mario Lanza, Richard Rodgers's "You'll Never Walk Alone", a perennial Proms Last Night singalong favorite.

"It's a big honor and I always give it my best," said Calleja, who has recently recorded a tribute album to Lanza, "Be My Love" (Decca).

As is the tradition, Calleja will wear an appropriately outrageous costume but he declined to divulge details, except to say it had nothing to do with Maltese falcons or puppies.

"It's absolutely top secret," he said.

No secret, though, that the Last Night opens with "Sparks" by Liverpool composer and clarinetist Mark Simpson, 23, who said he is thrilled that his work kicks off the night's festivities.

"It's an orchestral piece and it was an idea of mine to lure the audience in and not put all the cards out on the table at the outset," Simpson, who said he has been a fan of the Proms since he was a young boy, told Reuters.

"It is quite suggestive, quite volatile and very fragmented but then it really begins a minute of the way through...it's very intense...and at the end the piece really explodes."

Just right for what Wright calls, without a second of hesitation, "the greatest musical festival in the world".

(Editing by Paul Casciato)

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Bunting, big stars and British pride close out Proms

By Michael Roddy

LONDON | Sat Sep 8, 2012 8:11pm EDT

LONDON (Reuters) - Australian singer Kylie Minogue drew crowds to Hyde Park, Maltese tenor Joseph Calleja sang his heart out at the Royal Albert Hall, but the big stars of the Last Night of the Proms on Saturday were the standing "Prommers" in the vast indoor venue.

The Last Night has become one of the biggest musical celebrations in Britain, and possibly the world and the Prommers, some 600 of them, many of whom come to dozens of concerts during the two-month-long BBC Proms season, brought red, white and blue Union Jack flags, noisemakers, funny hats, beach balls and even a giant inflatable banana to celebrate in the standing area in the middle of the hall.

They actually took over the 6,000-seat hall at one point, to sing a heartfelt and poignant "Auld Lang Syne" for departing Czech conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra Jiri Belohlavek, who received a big cheer when he pulled out the CBE honor given him by Queen Elizabeth and put it round his neck.

The crowd gave another roar when, unannounced on the program, nine of Britain's Olympic and Paralympic winners for water sports were ushered onstage for a huge singalong version of "Rule Britannia", with Calleja dressed in a Union Jack sports windbreaker, underneath which he wore a black T-shirt with a Maltese cross, to sing "Britannia rules the waves".

"It's a big end-of-term party," said computer programmer Philip Trueman, 50, of Winchester, England, dressed in formal black with a carnation in his lapel, as he bade farewell to other Proms colleagues in the middle of the hall as it ended.

He dismissed suggestions that the Last Night is somehow "fascistic" because of the huge number of Union Jack flags on display, saying it's really all about the music that has brought the entire audience, but especially the Prommers, together.

"We are a collective," he said, adding that he has been coming for 20 years and had gone to three weddings of friends he'd made there.

There did indeed seem to be a special spirit in the air in the sold-out Royal Albert Hall, ending the 118th Proms season, and at the Hyde Park concert, where an estimated 40,000 people showed up for the 17th year of the twin outdoor event that handles the overflow, and is geared more to a pop audience.

Many of those in attendance at both venues seemed to be on a high in a year that has seen the Jubilee celebration for Queen Elizabeth's 60 years on the throne, the 2012 Olympics in which Britain's athletes placed well in the medals tables, and the Paralympics.

"BRITISH AND PROUD OF IT"

"I think a lot of people usually don't like to show off that they are British and wave the flag but I think this year they said 'to hell with everything, we are British and we are proud of it'," said Suzanne Pinto of London, one of the 600 Prommers.

Although the Royal Albert Hall event has all of the Proms' 118 years of history going for it, it was hard to tell which was the jollier and livelier place to be - with the classical music lovers at the hall, or dancing, chatting and picnicking the day away in bright sunshine leading to a balmy night in the park.

"This is my first time here and I wasn't sure about coming but it's absolutely fantastic," said Julie Tekgul, 36, of Harwich, Essex, who came to Hyde Park because Minogue "is my favorite icon" but figured she'd be happy to go to either Prom because what makes it work is the atmosphere and the people.

And what of the music that is the reason the BBC Proms has won a reputation as one of the world's great music festivals?

Calleja, for one, was in top form and got ovation after ovation for his ventures into repertoires like Puccini's "Nessun Dorma" and Lara's "Granada" that once were standards for the late Luciano Pavarotti.

Scottish violinist Nicola Benedetti also won over the crowd for her performance of Bruch's popular first violin concerto. She also got a semi-cat call for her "great frock" when she came on stage in her second designer gown of the evening.

There was much, much more, including conductor Belohlavek flying the flag for his Czech compatriots by including a choral work by Suk and a festival overture by Dvorak.

"It is fantastic, there is nothing in the world like the Last Night of the Proms," said Uruguayan-born, U.S.-based conductor Jose Serebrier, who has conducted at the Proms but was, like a transiting airline pilot, sitting in the audience.

"The whole festival is the most unique, fantastic festival in the whole world and the Last Night, for all the panoply and all the fun, is still an amazing event. I can't compare it to anything else."

(Editing by Paul Casciato)

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