The Bitter Truth about Communism
Why may ask of all the opera recordings available, why did I choose this one from Russia?
The story goes back to 1970; I was on a school cruise around the Baltic Sea, one of the stops was at Leningrad. While we were there, we got invited to a performance of the Kirov Ballet; I could not tell you what that was, my memory is not of a beautiful ballet performed in one of the major Opera Houses, but of another Russia, one few people ever see.
People like Jeremy Corbyn extoll the greatness of Communism, yet he would be one of the first against the wall as he owns several houses. I used to know a man from Wales who was like Corbyn, he would go on about the values of Communism, he had two cars, and a nice house too.
The Communism I witnessed as a schoolboy, and still makes me cry now, was so so different to what they think of. We were greeted by schoolchildren wiling to give a bar of chocolate, which was most likely a week's ration, for a cheap tin badge that was produced daily in their thousands, and not worth the tin it was made from.
I got this DVD, because I had been inside the Kirov theatre.
Like Leningrad, the Kirov has changed its name since those days. At the end of a Harry Palmer movie, "Midnight in St. Petersburg," Harry Palmer says to his Russian colleague, "You keep changing the names." To which the friend replies, "Yes, but the rules stay the same."
No comments:
Post a Comment