Opera That Made Pavarotti Coming to Hong Kong

Although more famous now for his operas Lucia di Lammermoor and L'Elisir d'Amore, Gaetano Donizetti's La Fille du Régiment has been a smash hit in France since its first performance in 1840. A comic opera in two acts, it used to be performed every Bastille Day at the Opéra-Comique in Paris, and is still regularly performed on Armistice Day across Europe.

The undoubted highlight of the show is the aria "Ah Mes Amis - Pour Mon Âme" (not technically an aria at all, but an arietta, followed by a solo with chorus, followed by another chorus leading into the magnificent cavatina, "Pour Mon Âme").

It was with this song that Lucio Pavarotti burst onto the scene at Covent Garden in 1966 in a role he would reprise at the Met and which would earn him the title of "King of the High Cs".

The good news is that the opera is coming to Hong Kong in the new year. More details when I have them.

New Rules, Same Old Crap

Under Hong Kong's famed and feared anti-cartel laws, it's now illegal to sell a skyscraper in the Mid-Levels by using photographs of a chateau in the Dordogne. However, you can still sell the Mid-Levels skyscraper with photos of the chateau if you print a disclaimer to the effect that "the photographs in the advertisement represent the artist's imaginative impression of the development concerned". People who insist that the camera never lies should visit Hong Kong.

While here, they might like to stay at the latest of these high-rise boxes, a 63-floor contribution to the wall effect called Seymour. Located at 9 Seymour Road with panoramic views of the ParknShop, this edifice does have one thing going for it: a sensible name rather than a stupid Italian one.

Originally owned by Emperor International, the conglomerate controlled by the entertainment mogul with an eye for young female talent, Albert Yeung Sau Sing, the property was sold on to WingTaiAsia, the local arm of Singapore property developer Wing Tai Holdings.

If you thought Singaporean English was an improvement on the Hong Kong variety, think again. A quick look at the sales blurb in yesterday's South China Morning Post is enough to make you turn your nose up at the linguistic pretensions of those annoying people who will insist on switching from Hokkien to English as soon as a white face sits down at the next table.

Imagine the forgotten luxury of slowing down, where one leisurely takes in exquisite art collections amidst a ceiling of hand-crafted chandeliers.

I particularly enjoyed the schoolboy error of assuming "leisurely" to be an adverb since it ends in "-ly".

"Amidst a ceiling" is pretty good, too.

Parsons Knows

After witnessing one of the great Open Championships on the Ayrshire Coast in July, I thought I'd take in the Saturday and Sunday of the Hong Kong Open Golf tournament, which tees off tomorrow at Fanling.

Getting there is proving to be quite an adventure in itself. Monday lunchtime, I walked down to the local branch of Parsons Music, which according to the Open's website was selling tickets for the event along with Cityline. When I requested two 4-day passes for the event – the cheapest option – the woman behind the counter asked a string of questions about venue, dates and times, and then, almost as an afterthought, told me the computer was down and wouldn't be fixed till the evening.

So, yesterday, before setting out, I got my secretary to call and check that everything was in order. The thumbs up having been given, I sallied forth and asked Elvis, the man behind the counter, for two 4-day passes for the Hong Kong Open Golf on 12-15 November. At first, Elvis offered me tickets for Thursday, then for Friday. He was about to offer me tickets for Saturday when I popped round the counter to join him and point to the "4-day pass" option which was staring at him from the drop-down menu.

Having sorted that out, Elvis picked up the phone and after a brief conversation in Cantonese handed the phone over to me. The woman on the other end said something but I couldn't hear what it was because a couple of brats chose this moment to thump the nearest Yamaha upright.

After dispatching Elvis to urge upon them the wisdom of desisting, I had a conversation which was memorable in the rather surreal manner that service encounters in Hong Kong have a way of being.

"You want two 4-day passes for the golf, sir?"

"That's right."

"For the pass, there are no guaranteed seats," she said apologetically.

"That's okay," I said. "I'll take them anyway."

I passed the phone back to Elvis, who confirmed with his superior that I would indeed be willing to watch the golf without being allocated a seat number.

Next it was time to pay and I had an inkling that things might not be straightforward. The chances of the credit card going through I rated about as high as my daughter's favourite player, Nick Dougherty, winning the tournament.

I hate to say I was right, but after Elvis had swished the card through for the fourth time I told him not to bother, I would pay cash. Rather than the HK$400 per head that the website talked about (never trust a bank – the event is sponsored by UBS), the computer flashed up $360.

I paid up and left 20 minutes after arriving with a deeper insight into why Parsons Music is doomed to forever be the poor man's Tom Lee.

Warring with All Who War with Thought

My recent reading has included two interesting books, each something of a classic in its own field and each a strong defence of freedom: Don Juan by Byron and After Virtue by Alasdair MacIntyre.

Don Juan was a revelation to me – not least, because I had never before read anything much by Byron apart from what turned out to be snippets from this hefty work (unfinished, as all great English epics must be). Think "The Isles of Greece, the Isles of Greece ... Eternal summer gilds them yet, But all, except their Sun, is set".

The great thing about the 6th Baron Byron of Rochdale is that you can never be certain when he's being serious. Famously described by his one time lover, Lady Caroline Lamb, as "mad, bad and dangerous to know", Byron loved nothing better than taking pot shots at the great and the good of his day. Writing just a few years after Waterloo, he's merciless towards the Duke of Wellington, but his greatest scorn is reserved for his fellow poets – not Shelley and Keats, with whom he will forever be associated, but Wordsworth ("incomprehensible"), Coleridge ("drunk") and especially Robert Southey, the Poet Laureate ("mediocre").

It's not often you read a poem and laugh aloud, but this self-described "satirical epic" has just that effect. Don Juan might fizzle out a bit towards the end, but then Byron himself was fizzling out, so I suppose he can be forgiven. The following three extracts give a taste of the depth of the man, and his importance as both philosopher and poet.

Deep, wordless ire of the human heart (Canto 3)

"The cubless tigress in her jungle raging
Is dreadful to the shepherd and the flock;
The ocean when its yeasty war is waging
Is awful to the vessel near the rock;
But violent things will sooner bear assuaging,
Their fury being spent by its own shock,
Than the stern, single, deep, and wordless ire
Of a strong human heart, and in a sire."

Sanctifying excess of love by power to bless (Canto 4)

"Juan and Haidee gazed upon each other
With swimming looks of speechless tenderness,
Which mix'd all feelings, friend, child, lover, brother,
All that the best can mingle and express
When two pure hearts are pour'd in one another,
And love too much, and yet can not love less;
But almost sanctify the sweet excess
By the immortal wish and power to bless."

On tyranny (Canto 9)

"And I will war, at least in words (and – should
My chance so happen – deeds), with all who war
With Thought; – and of Thought's foes by far most rude,
Tyrants and sycophants have been and are.
I know not who may conquer: if I could
Have such a prescience, it should be no bar
To this my plain, sworn, downright detestation
Of every depotism in every nation.

It is not that I adulate the people:
Without me, there are demagogues enough,
And infidels, to pull down every steeple,
And set up in their stead some proper stuff.
Whether they may sow scepticism to reap hell,
As is the Christian dogma rather rough,
I do not know;—I wish men to be free
As much from mobs as kings—from you as me.

The consequence is, being of no party,
I shall offend all parties: never mind!
My words, at least, are more sincere and hearty
Than if I sought to sail before the wind.
He who has nought to gain can have small art: he
Who neither wishes to be bound nor bind,
May still expatiate freely, as will I,
Nor give my voice to slavery's jackal cry."

More on After Virtue when I've finished it.

Mozart Minus Magic

It is a sad reflection of the version of The Magic Flute currently being staged at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre that the best part of the evening was reading Savio Lau's recommended CD and DVD recordings in the programme notes.

In his article, Lau pays tribute to Ingmar Bergman's 1975 filmed version, writing that "after many recorded and live performances of the great work, the Bergman version still comes top for its wit and enchantment". What a full house in the Grand Theatre on Friday evening got was The Magic Flute without wit, without enchantment, and without magic. They responded in turn with a very short ovation and a swift exit.

Among the principals, the only performances of any note came from the two basses, Mika Kares as Sarastro and Freddie Tong as his sidekick, the Speaker of the Temple. Even so, what could otherwise have been considered a tour de force by Kares was seriously compromised by the dialogue he was made to speak. Suddenly, from being a believable and weighty character fighting the good fight against ignorance and wickedness, Sarastro becomes a young Finn waging war on the English language

The question of how much dialogue to use in The Magic Flute, technically not an opera but a Singspiel, a popular 18th century form that includes speaking as well as singing, is something that anyone who stages the work needs to consider, but the twin facts that most of the dialogue is silly and redundant and that no one in this cast had the necessary acting skills to make it work should have prompted the producers and director to keep it to a bare minimum. Another reason for judicious pruning is that the second act isn't as strong as the first, as the main characters Tamino and Pamina prepare themselves for Masonic purification – not the sort I'd recommend, incidentally – with several false endings giving the audience a sense of the arduous nature of the tests the protagonists are undergoing.

While Eric Margiore as Tamino, Inna Dukach as Pamina and Mimma Briganti as the Queen of the Night were all adequate, major disappointments included Brian Montgomery as Papageno, Margaret Yim as Papagena and Alex Tam as Monostatos. In the plum role of Papageno, Montgomery was wooden and annoying, while the best that can be said for Yim is that she seemed made for this Papageno. Playing the villainous Monostatos straight out of the Wu Fung School of Acting, Tam, who is possessed of a decent tenor voice, descended to obscenity – dry humping and masturbation – when the most powerful evil is internal and understated.

Montgomery, Yim and Tam are all connected with the Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts, so it was no real surprise that the Three Spirits – played so beautifully by three boys in Bergman's film – should struggle so much, all being graduates of that academy. Not that the women received any favours from the costume designer, appearing understandably ill at ease in their Thanksgiving turkey outfits.

Basra Babe Named Miss England

In a story so vacuous and inconsequential it could form the plot for a whole series of Footballers' Wives, Lance Corporal Katrina Hodge will be swapping beret for coronet as she seeks to become Miss World in South Africa next month.

I don't think you'd need to test this bird for gender, but if it's mandatory I'm up for it.

Clown who Sacrificed Caster Semenya Finally Stripped of his Shiny Red Nose

The clown in charge of Athletics South Africa, Leonard Chuene, has finally been stripped off his red nose, big shoes and giant round buttons in a damage limitation exercise by the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (SASCOC) ahead of an announcement later this month by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF).

The IAAF is likely to confirm that 18-year-old Caster Semenya, one of the two South African athletes who won gold at 800 metres in Berlin in August, is an "intersexual" - or hermaphrodite, if you prefer Greek to Latin - with both male and female organs.

This will come as no surprise to Chuene, who not only knew about the earlier gender verifcation tests carried out on the teenager before he packed her off to Berlin, but also ignored the advice of team doctor, Harold Adams, who urged him to withdraw Semenya from the World Championships. To round off a remarkable performance, Chuene then lied about the gender tests, denying they had ever happened, until he was forced to change his tune when a South African newspaper published emails between him and Dr. Adams discussing the tests.

Which all goes to prove the old adage: you can always tell a buffoon, but you can't tell him much.

Meanwhile, SASCOC have moved quickly to claim squatting rights in the moral low ground recently vacated by Chuene, issuing a bull in which they thunder about "taking appropriate action against the IAAF for its disregard of Semenya's rights to privacy", as they attempt to prove that you can indeed have it both ways.

This too, I fear, will end in tears: the tears of more clowns.

Quams and Quims

Browsing through the judges' report on Hong Kong's best 2008 annual reports, in which we managed another top three finish, my eye was taken by the name of one of the also-rans, a certain "Quam Limited".

The website of what wikipedia calls this "small securities firm in Hong Kong", quamir.com – pronounced to rhyme with quagmire? – has this to say about its business under the heading "Quam IR Unveils Your Niche":

"Quam IR is a proactive strategic solution provider assisting listed companies in enhancing their corporate identity and market positioning among retail and institutional investors. We help you to unveil your niche."

Reading that, I can fully appreciate why the panel didn't reward them for their efforts. Okay, so they've worked in enhance, proactive, solution and niche; but where, oh, where, are the paradigms, portals and synergies?

Be honest: would you let Quam near your niche?

Queen Breaks Silence on Adlington Row

"I hear your agent's a bit of a prick."

"Oh, ma'am, you're worse than that Frankie Boyle."

The Informant!

The Informant! is much like The Insider, except that it stars a fat Matt Damon with glasses rather than a fat Russell Crowe with glasses. It also has an exclamation mark in the title to indicate that you shouldn't be expecting to take it too seriously.

Best line in this story of your everyday attention-seeking whistleblower. Damon has just spilled the beans (soya beans, if I remember correctly – the film's set in the agricultural limbo-land between Illinois and Missouri) about multi-million dollar price-fixing involving Japs, Frogs and Yanks. He turns to the second FBI fellow to comment on the lead investigator, Brian:

"He's a good listener – don't meet one of those every day."

Best moment. Damon is about to be sentenced to umpteen years in jail for stealing millions of dollars from his own company. The judge says he can see no mitigating circumstances and doesn't buy the cock-and-bull story about bipolar depression. "It's a pity, as you could have made CEO of the company one day."

David Brent like, Damon turns round smiling in his chair to receive the approbation of the courtroom. So sad, it's actually credible.

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, a 2007 film directed by Sidney Lumet, the veteran director whose credits include 12 Angry Men, Serpico and Dog Day Afternoon, is an unremittingly bleak and powerful film.

If it was Oliver Cromwell who is said to have asked the artist Peter Lely to paint him "warts and all", then this film is a warts-and-all depiction of human weakness and human ugliness. And in a cast that includes Philip Seymour Hoffman and octogenarian Albert Finney, that means a lot of ugliness, not least in the first action of the film, when Hoffman's flab fills the screen in a poignant, not to mention rather painful, humping scene with Marisa Tomei. It almost beggars belief that the excellent Hoffman was still in his 30s when the film was shot: he looks closer to 50.

The much maligned Tomei looks great throughout – the vacuity of her character is well captured by her choice of a little black number with plunging neckline when the family are in mourning – and delivers the knockout moment of the movie when, faced with a husband who's howling from the depths of his heart about his lousy relationship with his father, she gives a single look that says both "I don't care" and "I'm leaving you".

It's a measure of the bleakness of the film that Hoffman cannot even manage to be the biggest loser in it. That honour goes to his screen younger brother, played by Ethan Hawke. When he can't afford the US$120 to send his ten-year-old daughter on a field trip to see The Lion King (since when, incidentally, do kids need field trips to see a Disney cartoon?), his girl tells him that she's going to tell her classmates "I can't go because my Dad is such a loser".

The film is the kind of dissection of the human condition that could well do the trick for someone suffering from serious depression. It will either help the sufferer to see that he's not alone, or it will make him realise the futility of just about everything he does and everything he wants. As the Finney character says when his eldest, but certainly not dearest, son suggests refocusing his energies on his jewelry shop after he has lost his wife, "The damn place can burn down for all I care".

That is pretty much a metaphor for the whole picture.

Lost in Translation

An interesting insight into the different assumptions that people from different cultural backgrounds bring to translation and editing work. A friend who has to prepare news summaries for the transport and logistics sector in Hong Kong was preparing the following news clipping, which had already been translated from Chinese, for the monthly media summary:

"Authorities in Fuzhou are considering imposing heavy penalties for the violation of traffic regulations. Fuzhou Bus Group said it would increase the pressure on its bus drivers."

To make the meaning clearer and to ameliorate the rather severe nature of the tone, she changed the second sentence to "Fuzhou Bus Group said it would urge its bus drivers to drive professionally".

She got a message back to say that she had misunderstood the meaning. Fuzhou were not concerned about the need to stop drivers speeding, jumping red lights, etc; they were worried about the pressure that increased fines would have on the morale of their frontline staff.

Wig Makers to Take Class Action against Agassi

I hear zey are going to hit you vif a hair suit.

Second Autobiography Will Reveal Parenting Agonies, Says Agassi

"Mummy, I want to snort coke when I grow up."

"Zat's ok, dahlink, but remember to line up ze book deal first."

Agassi Admits Addiction

"Andre, are you also addicted to self-promotion?"

"Dude, I deal with that on page 237 of my autobiography, Open: My Autobiography, by Andre Agassi."

The Trumpet Shall Sound and Ye Shall Not Be Short Changed

Fresh from her triumph under the baton of Vladimir Ashkenazy at the City Hall last month, Rachel Cheung Wai Ching will be taking centre stage at the Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts this Sunday, 1 November, at 8pm. Joining the young piano prodigy on the bill are the Academy's Brass Ensemble, who delighted a packed house two years ago with their outstanding sound.

And just how appropriate is it that the chorus which would be guaranteed first prize in the World's Youngest Welsh Male Voice Choir category at any Eisteddfod should be appearing on All Saints' Day, such is their legendary capacity for trying the patience of wives, conductors and audiences alike?

Having brought off what their Chairman is describing as their best performance at Beijing's Dulwich College last weekend, the men in scarlet will be champing at the bit to prove that what he meant was "ever" rather than "since I took up the post in the summer".

The highlight of the evening in the swanky school theatre was undoubtedly a stirring rendition of Dana-Dana, a Hungarian dance-song in B flat Magyar, which is marked to be sung "In fiery dancetime", i.e. faster than a New Territories "indigenous" villager asking for a handout. Though sung in English, some in the audience remained unaware of this and congratulated us on adding another string to our already formidable linguistic bow.

Back to the music, and Cheung will be performing works by Chopin, including the Etude in C sharp minor and the Waltz in A flat major – a splendid way to warm up before heading to Amelia in Umbria where she will be appearing as part of the hill-top town's annual music festival. With inimitable flair, the Italian organisers are calling her recital "Genio, impeto e sensibilità", which rolls off the tongue so much more smoothly than "Genius, impulsiveness and sensitivity", but not, one hopes, more smoothly than the leek-eaters' rendition of Puccini's classic aria Nessun Dorma.

Writing on the Wall

If anyone requires proof of the pernicious effects of American English on Chinese sign-writers, they should look no further than this sign at the Great Wall.

I mean, everyone knows it should be "enrolment"!

Not meaning to spoil the fun, the correct translation is:

Passengers should disembark here

Admission by ticket

Oi! No Professionals!

I am indebted to two fellow members of the extended global blogging family for today's post, which was scheduled to be my last before heading off to Beigeing, as otherwise educated people will insist on calling it, for the Hong Kong Welsh Male Voice Choir's very first visit to the People's Republic of China proper, but which turned out to be my first on arriving back in the renegade ex colony, owing to Blogspot being down on Friday afternoon.

First, there was Cess, whose kind comments about my blog and my driving skills took me back to the day – many moons ago now – when I took my advanced driving test with the Institute of Advanced Motorists. After I had completed the 90-minute drive through town and countryside, on B-road and motorway, the examiner, one Hamilton, ex Flying Squad and doing his very last test, turned to me, complimented me on my stickwork and told me I should take further courses at Brand's Hatch.

Being but a callow youth, I didn't take his advice and so the chance to become the Jenson Button of the 80s passed me by. Instead of the dashing figure of Ulaca slipping out of the cockpit as lithely as a used condom to be embraced by Marlboro girls in tight mechanics' uniforms, the British people were subjected to 15 years of Nigel Mansell's limp moustaches (one on his lip, two above his eyes), hub-cap personality and monotone Worcestershire accent.

Then, there was Jim the Painter, whose pop-art audio-visual tribute to Enter the Dragon, complete with Bruce Lee doing his Charlie Chan voice, finally helped me nail this gem from series two of The Office.

This post is dedicated to all computer guys, everywhere.

Who's she Kiddin'?

If anyone's in this room – or watching on telly – because they're only interested in me as an incredibly attractive woman who's turned 40 and can't get sexpot roles any more, I would with respect ask them to buy my latest book and then leave.

When That Multitasking Toolset Comes Without Wheels

This video compilation comes courtesy of ecosceptic Micky and is dedicated to our motoring correspondents: