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Staff Halt Performance of Hitler’s Favourite Opera

February 7th, 2012 | Posted by John Powles in Europe | Opera - (0 Comments)

Staff objections have led Berlin’s biggest opera house, the Deutsche Oper, to drop plans to perform Hitler’s favourite opera. The opening night was to be April 20th, Hitler’s birthday. Wagner’s Rienzi (Last of the Tribunes) was said by Hitler to be a major influence on his political thinking. Rienzi is set in Rome and is based on the life of Cola di Rienzi (1313–1354), a medieval Italian populist figure who succeeds in outwitting and then defeating the nobles and their followers and in raising the power of the people.

The actual impact of the opera on Hitler has been widely debated, but certainly there are clear affinities between the plot and Hitler’s actions; one commentator Thomas Grey has very interestingly stated “In every step of Rienzi’s career – from … acclamation as leader of the Volk through military struggle, violent suppression of mutinous factions, betrayal and … final immolation – Hitler would doubtless have found sustenance for his fantasies.”

Save the NHS Campaign Song

February 7th, 2012 | Posted by John Powles in Anti NHS Cuts | England - (0 Comments)

As debating in Parliament, campaigns by health care professional organisations, and protests on the streets continue, the governments NHS “reforms”, as advanced in the Health and Social Care Bill spearheaded by Health Minister Andrew Lansley, cause further turmoil and anguish. And of course campaigns generate campaign songs, such as “A Song For Andrew Lansley and His Pals”. The ConDem Coalition would do well to heed the message in the chorus :

“It has its faults our NHS, but still it’s up there with the best We didn’t vote you in for you to leave it such a mess In Europe and the poor U.S. they pay much more and get much less Your Bill will kill our public health and make us like the rest We’ll never re-elect you if you wreck our NHS.”

Penny Stone Breaking the Silence

February 1st, 2012 | Posted by John Powles in UK News - (0 Comments)

Penny Stone’s song Breaking the Silence, winner of the Alistair Hulett Memorial Trust 2011 Songs of Social Justice Competition, is now available online. Penny’s powlerful and compelling song includes material taken from interviews with Israeli soldiers who are recalling, and contemplating, their actions against Palestinian men, women and children; the overwhelming feelings of the soldiers are confusion and regret

I’ve only seen your faces through the barrel of a gun
… …

All the things I thought I’d never do

I’ve done to you.