Revisiting Prom: Musical enlightenment at Royal Albert Hall

On Sunday night I accompanied my classmate Anne to Royal Albert Hall as the official videographer for her short film on the BBC Proms, a classical musical festival. The Proms last eight weeks, running this year from July 15 until September 10, and they feature daily music performances. The festival is in its 117th season.

The stage after the Prom 13 performance. The choirs were tiered in front of the organ.

Most of the performances take place in Royal Albert Hall, including the one we attended. The hall opened in 1871 and is named after Queen Victoria's Prince Consort, though he did not live to see its completion. The Hall overlooks the fantastic memorial that the queen erected to her beloved.

Our view of the back of Royal Albert Hall from where we stood in line.

Anne and I had scouted the situation the previous day, and arrived at 5 p.m. to "queue" up for the £5 standing room-only gallery tickets to see Prom 13, a performance of Verdi's Requiem involving the BBC Symphony Chorus, BBC National Chorus of Wales, London Philharmonic Choir and the BBC Symphony Orchestra. There must have been 500 people on the stage. The music was amazing to hear; the BBC broadcast is available for the next six days or you can listen to this 1939 recording available through the Internet Archive. The gentleman behind us in line, while reassuring us that we would get in, said this was a particularly popular performance every year.
 


Almost as interesting as the music was the crowd. People brought wine and food into the hall for picnic dinners. Many people in our section never looked at the stage; they simply lay down with their eyes closed and listened to the music. Some wrote in notebooks or worked on laptops as they listened. One gentleman across from us -- clearly a musician -- played his "air" instrument as he listened. (I won't hazard to guess which instrument was his speciality. Definitely not guitar though.) Another man had the sheet music and directed the entire piece from our gallery -- baton and all.

There was absolute quiet during the music. Many people, including the usher, removed their shoes so as to not make any noise as they walked. There was no rustling of papers. No unzipping of bags. No ringing cell phones. No talking. Not even coughing -- then there was a flurry of it as soon as each movement ended. I have never experienced such rapt attention anywhere in my life.

Here's a link to Anne's video:

Jennifer Lopez's £10,000 visit to the BBC and other tales from the world's largest broadcaster



The iconic BBC headquarters in London, built in 1960. Shortly after taking this photo, our tour guides informed us that it's on the market as the BBC employees are gradually transferred to a new headquarters. 

As part of our tour of the BBC on Thursday, we stood inside one of the five "superstar" hang-out rooms where big acts relax before being taken to their dressing room/makeup rooms before a performance or interview. As part of the deal, the big names get to pick some amenities to make themselves feel more at home.

Our guides, Megan and Rachel, shared with us a few memorable requests the BBC has gotten from celebrities over the years (called riders). As Rachel listed a few examples of famous people's riders, she let us guess whether the BBC went along with the requests or not. It was so much fun -- and enlightening -- we'll let you play, too. Decide whether you think the BBC granted the following requests, then check your answers below.

1. Paul McCartney. Request: Fresh fruit and tea.
2. Elton John. Request: Sugar-free ginger biscuits from British luxury shop Harrods.
3. Jonathan Ross. Request: A Playstation 3.
4. Madonna. Request: A life-sized portrait of the Pope.
5. Mariah Carey. Request: A box of puppies to play with.
6. Lady Gaga. Request: A pair of additional refrigerators.
7. Prince. Request: To be carried around the BBC's campus to avoid going up steps or in elevators.
8. Jennifer Lopez. Request: To have her dressing room redecorated entirely in white, including new white carpet and two white sofas flown in from her Paris apartment, and dressing rooms for the 32 members of her entourage.




The BBC knows irony.



1. Yes, McCartney's request was granted.

2. Yes, the BBC sent someone to Harrods to buy the biscuits.

3. Yes, a BBC employee went out to buy the PS3. At the end of the night, Ross gave it to the compliant employee as a gift.

4. Yes, the BBC met Madonna's demands by borrowing a wax figure of the Pope from Madame Tussauds. It apparently traveled to BBC headquarters sticking out of the roof of a taxicab.

5. No, the BBC denied this request for fear of cruelty to animals.

6. Yes, Lady Gaga got her two fridges. She used them to store her wigs, according to our guides.

7. Yes, a security guard got the honor of carrying Prince from one floor of the BBC to the next.

8. Yes, Lopez got her redecorated room, couches and all -- but only when she agreed to pay for it. It apparently cost her more than £10,000, according to our guides. (The BBC is publicly funded, raising its revenue from an annual license fee of about £140 that every citizen who owns a TV must pay.)

And for all that trouble and expense, Lopez was only in the room for about 40 minutes, our guides said.









Watching the swift death of a newspaper

For the last three days I have bought three different morning newspapers and picked up the free Evening Standard each afternoon. And each edition's front page contained another revelation about the Rupert Murdoch-owned News of the World hacking into the voicemail of various Britons, including a murder victim, families of victims of the July 7, 2007, London bombings and others.

Ryan reading the July 7 edition of the Evening Standard, featuring the latest revelation about the News of the World scandal. As Ryan read that in the BBC's lobby, the news broke that the NoW paper will cease publishing after Sunday.

Today, we were touring the BBC when news broke that News of the World will publish its last edition this Sunday.

It should be noted that most of the improprieties seemed to have taken place between 2003 and 2007, and much of the staff has turned over since then. So it is unfortunate that this current crop of journalists is paying a price for the sins of their predecessors.

But with a steady stream of revelations and public condemnations published by the News of the World's competitors, it has been like watching the journalistic version of a car driving off a cliff. And it's stunning to think that it was completely self-inflicted.

In Kentucky, we've been slammed with news of cuts and layoffs at newspapers -- plus the closure of the Kentucky Post -- because of decrees from corporate headquarters as executives try to cut costs.

But the News of the World saga is on the opposite side of the spectrum in which fierce competition and the thirst for readers, advertisers and buzz apparently fueled a get-the-scoop-at-ALL-costs approach.

As a result, its epitaph will read: Here lies a newspaper investigated for paying off police for tips, that apparently sanctioned the hacking of personal messages of private citizens, and that touched off a political firestorm among public officials and media executives alike. And as it breached the journalism ethics code and potentially the law, the paper also broke a cardinal rule of journalism by becoming the news instead of covering it.

For those reasons, I didn't think the News of the World could ultimately survive. But I didn't think my trip to London would outlive it.