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Standing room Brits star in final concert
Source: Agencies |
September 12, 2011, Monday
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CHINESE piano superstar Lang Lang wowed them and Wagnerian soprano Susan Bullock got a laugh as a "British Brunnhilde," but the stars of the Last Night of the BBC Proms were standing in the middle of the Royal Albert Hall.
The 700 or so "Prommers" who paid 5 pounds (US$8) each for standing room in the sold-out, 5,000-seat oval hall on Saturday night gave almost as good a show as they got from the soloists, the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Edward Gardener and the BBC Symphony Chorus.
Sporting everything from British Union Jack vests to horned Viking helmets, and armed with a formidable array of noisemakers, flags and spluttering balloons launched in a vain attempt to reach the hall's vertiginous ceiling, the Prommers kept up their side of the bargain for a high-spirited celebration of the end of the Proms season.
They cheered the stagehands and the musicians tuning up, and generally set the tone for an event on the musical calendar as important for some as the Wagner festival in Bayreuth or Vienna's New Year's Concert.
Soloist Lang Lang, whose latest CD is called "Liszt - My Piano Hero," put all his stunning technique, plus the dramatic body language for which he is famous, into a performance that Liszt probably would have applauded.
But it was Bullock who brought down the house in her show-stopping, and previously secret, "British Brunnhilde" outfit featuring a red-white-and-blue winged helmet, a huge red rose on a white shield and a spear that shot off a shower of confetti.
Gardner, whose podium was mischievously bedecked with colored streamers and big, white "L" signs that learner drivers display on their cars, paid tribute to the Prommers, some of whom queued for as long as 10 hours to buy a ticket entitling them to stand for a concert lasting at least three hours.
"It's you, the Proms audience, that needs to have the biggest accolade. With your vociferous, passionate, sometimes unruly support you really guarantee that the Proms remain a cornerstone of our cultural identity in this country," he said to an outburst of cheering, applause and blaring noisemakers.
The final Proms concert included the traditional rousing singalong versions of "Rule, Britannia!" and "God Save the Queen" to end the formal program.
The 700 or so "Prommers" who paid 5 pounds (US$8) each for standing room in the sold-out, 5,000-seat oval hall on Saturday night gave almost as good a show as they got from the soloists, the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Edward Gardener and the BBC Symphony Chorus.
Sporting everything from British Union Jack vests to horned Viking helmets, and armed with a formidable array of noisemakers, flags and spluttering balloons launched in a vain attempt to reach the hall's vertiginous ceiling, the Prommers kept up their side of the bargain for a high-spirited celebration of the end of the Proms season.
They cheered the stagehands and the musicians tuning up, and generally set the tone for an event on the musical calendar as important for some as the Wagner festival in Bayreuth or Vienna's New Year's Concert.
Soloist Lang Lang, whose latest CD is called "Liszt - My Piano Hero," put all his stunning technique, plus the dramatic body language for which he is famous, into a performance that Liszt probably would have applauded.
But it was Bullock who brought down the house in her show-stopping, and previously secret, "British Brunnhilde" outfit featuring a red-white-and-blue winged helmet, a huge red rose on a white shield and a spear that shot off a shower of confetti.
Gardner, whose podium was mischievously bedecked with colored streamers and big, white "L" signs that learner drivers display on their cars, paid tribute to the Prommers, some of whom queued for as long as 10 hours to buy a ticket entitling them to stand for a concert lasting at least three hours.
"It's you, the Proms audience, that needs to have the biggest accolade. With your vociferous, passionate, sometimes unruly support you really guarantee that the Proms remain a cornerstone of our cultural identity in this country," he said to an outburst of cheering, applause and blaring noisemakers.
The final Proms concert included the traditional rousing singalong versions of "Rule, Britannia!" and "God Save the Queen" to end the formal program.
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