Baritone in Bosnia

Tomorrow sees the show come to Wilton’ Music Hall (10th, 11th, 12th all at 7.30; www.colf.org for tickets).  We got together with our Balkan colleagues at Toynbee Hall this afternoon to run the music of the show.  By all accounts the performing space at Wiltons is quite different from what we have been used to, and we have very little time to play with, getting in tomorrow.  But everybody seems quite determined to put on a good show.  

With any luck you should be able to access the first lot of photos at http://blog.com/photos/album/678577/ .  They are copyright Robert Golden Pictures Ltd.  Robert is making a couple of documentaries on our project – details to follow.

Here in Zenica we are near enough to Sarajevo for a day trip, so yesterday. we piled into percussionist Toni Pešikan’s van and rumbled through haphazard roadworks and sundry delays for a final glimpse of Bosnian culture.  Zenica itself does not appear in my guide book; unlike Tuzla, it is charming and the locals seem very sociable but you can’t really do touristy things here, whereas back in Sarajevo yesterday we were able to head straight away for the places we hadn’t managed to see when we we there to do the show.  First port of call was the museum, where Andy Morton and I noted lots of Roman stonework and some interesting ethnic musical instruments, as well as the ubiquitous carpets that are so representative of Bosnian culture that one of them features in our show.

Next stop was Dveri, our favourite restaurant, too expensive really but irresistible.  The local diet is very meat-orientated; Susan Bisatt, our soprano, has had some trouble making it understood that vegetarian does not mean “including vegetables”.  Fortunately they are very understanding at Dveri – not even a hint of meat stock.  Some excellent shopping opportunities rounded off our day.  

We left the War Museum for another visit.  There has been a lot of discussion about what happened here in the 1990′s over the past few weeks,  and yesterday as we discussed Srebrenica again I felt saturated with information about the political and ethical sides of the conflict.  It would be good to return next year (and there are plans afoot to tour the wider Balkan region: www.operacircus.co.uk for updates as and when we hear) when we might have some perspective on our experiences here.  Our dealings with people have been coloured by a very rudimentary understanding of what went on and how people have begun to lead a normal life again.  So, for example, when a workshop turns out not to happen in the way one had planned, it is hard to know whether what is happening is a miscommunication between people of different cultures and languages or the results of trauma being played out.

My next post will probably be from London.  I plan to keep the blog active whenever there is activity to do with Sevdah Opera: Differences in Demolitions: further tours, one-off shows etc.  There may well be photos to come.  We have a week off, courtesy of the Srebrenica debacle, followed by a week of shows in London, where of course, our Bosnian colleagues will be the ones on tour.  Suggestions as to what to recommend for them to do and where to eat and drink in London are welcome.

It’s now official, since I received confirmation of my return ticket today.  I am coming home a week earlier than expected, on July 1st.  This is because the week of workshops in Srebrenica, which was to end our tour, has been postponed.  There will be some education workshops undertaken there by Nigel Osborne and Clea Friend, but our involvement has been dropped for the moment.  It seems that there has been difficulty getting the authorities to agree to the participation of all the ethnic populations in the area, and since one of the points of our being here is to faciliate artistic co-operation between different peoples we cannot be seen to be working with just Serbs or just Bosniaks, so we will seek to return when it becomes possible to fulfil our objectives.  This might seem like a high-minded view to take given that we are only opera singers, but the project is seen as symbolically important in this country, and indeed in the Balkans as a whole, and we have to tread carefully.

Srebrenica was the scene of some of the most horrific examples of “ethnic cleansing” in the war.   It is now part of what is called Republika Srbska: not Serbia itself, but the republic of Bosnian Serbs that was given semi-autonomous political existence within Bosnia under the post-war Dayton Agreement.  This comprises 49% of the country; its outline gives one quite a clear idea of how the war proceeded.  There is a particularly odd bit where territories to the north of Bosnia are joined to those near the Serbian border by a thin strip of land.  The unification of these territories was one of the objectives of the war and of “ethnic cleansing”, and seeing it represented in the borders of this sub-state leads one to speculate that the Serbs were well served by the Dayton Agreement.

We are now in the Republika Srbska, in its administrative capital, Banja Luka, and we do two shows here, tomorrow and Tuesday.  Signs in cyrillic script abound and orthodox churches outnumber mosques for the first time on our tour.  Nigel is here to give a seminar on Music and Medicine, his specialised subject, which will be a significant departure for the region, as the subject has not been addressed here before.  In fact, our being invited here to perform is quite a departure in itself.  There is a month-long festival of music going on, which includes our show; last night we went to a pop concert in the ruins of the castle.  Loud doesn’t cover it.  I am hoping my ears recover in time to perform tomorrow night, and thinking that a picnic by the river Vrbas might help.

…was where we were, when we heard that we were supposed to be in that city doing a workshop.  We were still in Sarajevo, it was Monday morning, and we were finding it difficult to leave.  Partly because the bus transfer was subject to Bosnian admin and we had to sign a waiver before departure; partly we were hanging around waiting for our expenses to be paid; and more importantly because our tour was now starting in earnest, and we were entering the unknown, having been really spoilt in Sarajevo. 

Tuzla does not feature in my guide book to the Western Balkans, and having arrived I can see why.  It is an industrial town with a commercial feel.  The hotel options are not extensive, and having been booked into the cheaper of the two available, we finally managed to move to the other and got a good night’s sleep.  Ok, I lied about the 24 hours bit – it actually took just over 3 hours to drive here but we eventually arrived at the workshop venue on Tuesday morning, i.e. a day late.  The Peace Flame House is a community building occupying a lofty location in the park here – it was hard work getting up the hill and I realised how unfit I had become, resolving to go for a run later in the day.  

For the workshops we were shown into a room that could just hold everyone: about a dozen brave souls who are Peace Flame House regulars (it seems to be a sort of cultural drop-in for the disadvantaged and differently abled), Aidan, Toni and Neyire from the band, with viola, tarabuka and clarinet respectively, and myself and Andy from the singing cast.  We soon found out that some of our clients were deaf, which presented some difficulty, given that our skills rely on hearing.  However, with some ingenious work with vibrations we were able to find a certain amount of common ground.  In the second session we wrote a song about Tuzla, the creative work being done mostly by the children, with us guiding the process.  The day was successful enough for us to be invited back on Friday. when we have another free day.  I was happy to let the instrumentalists break the ice, as they are workshop veterans, and joined in the fun as we got going.  This kind of work is never going to to easy but it I was uplifted by how well it all seemed to go, and set off for my run around a baking Tuzla with a spring in my step.

We had a fun evening meeting up with some friends of my Mum and Dad’s, Mike and Virginia, who happen to live here three months of the year.  They generously offered to take one or two of us out, and others from our party gradually arrived to make a typical Bosnian evening of people showing up randomly and enjoying hospitality.  We’re in danger of going native, I think.

Come on, you would have thought there was something wrong with me if I’d foregone the Ferrero Rocher reference.  When I heard we were to sing at the Ambassador’s residence I thought we were being honoured with a party of our own.  We’re a British export, after all.  But of course it was to celebrate the Queen’s Offical Birthday; how could I be so stupid?  A gathering of the great and the average, the party started with your blogger and colleagues performing to a half-empty garden as the ambassador and his wife (definitely younger than me – how does that happen?) greeted guests and propelled them over to enjoy the surroundings and the cava and ignore us. 

Fortunately the Pimm’s started to flow freely and our singing was soon over.  The guests also talked over the ambassador’s speech and the British national anthem, making us less embarrassed to have sung modern music at them earlier, but more embarrassed to be British.  There were, or course, freebie stands for Chivas Regal and Ballantine’s whiskies, those duty free stalwarts, and a well-dressed chap offering sprays of the new Burberry perfume.  I failed to persuade him to spray it on me, and instead he handed me a damp strip of their faux-tartan. 

Today we start rehearsals again with a music call to check we haven’t forgotten the opera.  It doesn’t seem likely in a week but Mostar was half a country away and Sarajevo is a restless place where the people seem less friendly and the pace of life is quicker.  We’re still in Bosnia, though, so you can’t get a takeaway coffee anywhere and even the fast food (fantastic) is taken seated.  Hence your blogger’s need to sign off, in order to get some hangover bufferage in before we start to murder the vocal lines.

Last night watching Sarajevan local TV I had a moment of deja-vu deluxe.  On Saturday night at the Mostar premiere more TV cameras had arrived just before we went up, and had insisted on filming the first few minutes of the piece.  So I was treated to a less-than-flattering on-screen image of my back view in an orange boiler suit gazing vacantly upstage and looking distinctly uncomfortable.  Fortunately that swiftly changed to a potted version of the post-premier reception, featuring interviews with all the people I have been working with for the last few weeks: Nigel Osborne, the composer; Goran Simic, the librettist; Lenka Udovicka, the director; all talking in Bosnian, natch.  Things had become pretty alternative but I hadn’t been expecting to have such on out-of-body experience that I could actually watch myself perform.  Surreality TV, you might call it.

Our hotel in Sarajevo is the Relax House.  I’m not making it up.  You can get free massages there and I certainly need one.  The reviews of the show have been unaninmously favourable, according to Merima Kljuco, our accordionist.  It’s a big relief that we managed not to mess it up, but I don’t seem to be able to relax yet, even in the aforementioned house thereof.  This afternoon we were invited to a workshop with local children, some disabled, but I couldn’t get the energy together and have left it to those who are i/c education for the moment.  There is a high level of guilt but there’s no point in running oneself into the ground, and there is already a singer- Darren Abrahams – on that side of the project, so they’ll manage.

Yesterday we travelled from Mostar to Sarajevo by road.  I was sad to leave, as I had felt at home in Mostar- it’s not a big place, and we had made friends and found our way around.   Sarajevo is massive in comparison, and feels very Austro-Hungarian.  I have spent the afternoon trying to orientate myself and eating the local pies.  Good for the soul but not for the waistline and I must also unpack my running shoes and get some of last week’s energy back.  Our next engagement is a big party at the British Embassy on Thursday.  Tough life.

Today is the day of the premiere.  The last two days have been really long and difficult, and it was real relief to get through the dress rehearsal without major incident. Discussion has turned to how the piece is going to be received.  Bosnian TV rocked up yesterday to film excerpts; we imagine the bit they will use is one that features a fairly unadulterated Sevdah song.

I realise on reading my last post again that I have not properly explained what Sevdah is.  In musical terms, the word describes a repertory of love songs in the Bosnian folk tradition, although there is some cross-fertilisation from other slavic countries.  Bcause of Bosnia’s location directly on the dividing line between traditional christian and muslim territories, the music represents two cultures at the same time.  Roughly speaking, it has slavic harmonic structure and middle eastern melodic lines, especially when they are ornamented.  As far as I can tell, the music only really works its magic if played and sung in a cafe sometime after midnight amongst friends.  Nothing wrong with that, except that, as I wrote the other day, one tires of it if not in the mood.

So it is likely that audiences will be expecting to hear Sevdah, but will be faced with a much more varied tonal palette, not to mention a plot (I use the term loosely) that will remind them of the war and its aftermath.  The piece is tough enough to get through as it is and I am hoping that we will be able to perform uninterrupted.  I am not totally sure though.

Yesterday we ran the opera from beginning to end without stopping (almost).  I was feeling rough as anything – I think the new diet had finally caught up with me – and did the whole thing in a rush of adrenalin.  Now fresh from ten hours’ sleep I can view it with a certain distance, and it seems to me that we have a very long way to go.  Lenka, our fabulous director, was pleased with how well it went, and these things can only properly be judged from the front, but I worry that certain bits are just going to break down.  Still, we don’t open for three days, and there’s time for me to work on my traditional Bosnian dancing…  I’ve also just discovered that there is no interval, I’m onstage for the whole thing, and I have to wear a fez.  Bring it on, I suppose.

The more Sevdah songs I hear the more I tire of them at the moment.  Sometimes a party atmosphere is just what one needs but on Monday night when the accordion came out again I realised I need to focus on our more international music for a bit.  I’m hoping I haven’t completely fallen out of love with the stuff.  Today we are running the show again.  I hope it will fit together a bit more.  Then there’s the character journey thing to think about as well – better get down to it.