Last night was quite an interesting one on the TV for myself. Sky Arts had put on a special programme detailing some of the background to ‘The Messiah’ actually first performed in Dublin. The focus of the film was to bring to the attention of the world the role of Susannah Maria Cibber who had been a prominent actress and singer but became embroiled in one of the must lurid sex scandals which the Georgians lost no time in describing in the most excruciating of newspaper articles. Consequently, Cibber was utterly disgraced and became a ‘non-person’ for several years as she was shunned by polite society. But Handel embarked on a massive gamble and chose Susannah Maria Cibber to sing the contralto solos in the historic world premiere. The first performance took place at the New Musick Hall on Fishamble Street in Dublin on April 13, 1742. Cibber was primarily known as a prominent tragic stage actress rather than a trained operatic virtuoso. Despite an allegedly modest vocal range, her deeply emotional and dramatic delivery captivated the audience, especially during the aria ‘He was despised’. Her performance of that aria was so moving that Dr. Patrick Delany, the chancellor of Christ Church Cathedral, famously stood up in the audience and cried out: ‘Woman, for this, be all thy sins forgiven thee!’ She was one of the two primary female soloists alongside the soprano Christina Maria Avoglio, performing backed by 16 men and 16 boy choristers pulled from Dublin’s local cathedrals. This is one of those cases where art and real life coalesce and one can only imagine the emotion that she managed to convey as she sang (of Christ) ‘he was despised’ although the words applied equally to herself. So this was absolutely fascinating. The commentary and performances were provided by Danielle de Niese who some might say is today’s operatic equivalent of Susannah Cibber (not in terms of the sex scandals, though) and she sang with an emotion that might have matched that of the first performance. This programme was followed by the first of the five part dramatisations of the remake of ‘Amadeus’ (the life of Mozart) and all that can be said about it at this stage is that it was very different to the original film version of ‘Amadeus’ which is actually my favourite film. Later on today, we have ‘Budget Day’ so after a visit to the Methodist centre and then some shopping, the analysis of the budget will no doubt dominate the airways as will the long running drama resulting from the inconclusive results of the general election held in Israel. Whether Netanyahu will lose power after so many years is uncertain but negotiations over a new government may well go on for weeks. One particular factor is that the Americans are backing Netanyahu to the hilt and no doubt intervening in all kinds of not very subtle ways in the Israeli election but things might change after we know the result of the mid-term elections in the USA next Tuesday when the Democrats will make some considerable advances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I swung into my usual mid-week routine by first visiting the Methodist Centre where I had a coffee with a group of old ladies, one of whom I know better than the rest as she is also part of my Tai Chi class later in the week. After coffee, I did my weekly shop at Aldi<\/em> which I am going to alternate with Sainsbury’s<\/em> from now on, taking the opportunity to buy a little vertical grater which I am going to use make myself a drink of turmeric, perhaps enhanced by a little ginger as well. After I had lunched, I watched a little of the Budget speech but there was not a great deal about which to get excited. The Chancellor is conscious of rapidly rising gas prices so a response has been to cut the standing charge and to offer some cash relief for those in the Council Tax bands A-D which could give some relief to approximately 80% of the population apart from the already prosperous London and the South East. The rest of the budget is ‘really steady as she goes’ and the two really big items of the budget (welfare spending, defence) are going to have to wait for another year until the really big decisions get taken. You might say this was a case of ‘kicking the can down the road’ once again but this is not uncommon. In the Israeli election, Netanyahu seems to be clinging on by the skin of his teeth and although his party, Likud, have lost ground \u00a0he remains short of an absolute majority by some eight seats and his rival by about eleven seats. The big gainers in this election are the Arab based parties who might still emerge as the kingmakers. But Netanyahu seems to be able to cling onto power as his existing bloc with ultra-nationalist and ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties appear to be just short of a 61-seat majority in the 120-seat parliament. However, analysts caution that this is subject to change because the early count was skewed towards areas known to have strong right-wing support. A dramatic deadlock had been widely forecast as Israelis surged to the polls \u2013 with turnout reaching more than 77%. In Israel’s fragmented political system, the signs are that Netanyahu’s main rival, the former army chief Gadi Eisenkot, would struggle to command a parliamentary majority without parties led by Israel’s Arab minority. According to partial results, they have equalled or gained on their previous record number of seats. On the campaign trail, most Jewish opposition parties pledged not to work with Arab-majority lists, citing a lack of shared values. However, Israel’s Arab-led parties could emerge as kingmakers if others were prepared to join forces with them. In this election, Arab Israelis \u2013 who often identify as Palestinian citizens of Israel and represent one-fifth of the population \u2013 appeared to turn out in unprecedented numbers. Eisenkot, on the other hand, would need to convince one of the smaller opposition parties to join his coalition, if he is to secure a majority at this point. The only way that the Opposition leader could lead a minority government is for the Arab parties to agree not to vote against him. and he would still have to persuade some smaller parties to join his bloc. It looks as though Netanyahu may have performed another Houdini trick again i.e. escaping electoral defeat when all appeared lost. Elections and budgets apart, there are a succession of good programmes on TV this evening, including one of the Brian Cox series on the planets, a provocative science-based programme by the well-known science presenter Hannah Fry and a programme of how the Romans overcame the challenge of the Alps.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Last night was quite an interesting one on the TV for myself. 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