Hello from Cardiff, Wales. I'm here just for a few days playing with the
Philip Glass Ensemble. We are performing the
Qatsi Trilogy on three nights in the
Wales Millenium Centre, a 1900-seat hall that was inaugurated just one year ago. The trilogy consists of three remarkable films by the maverick American filmmaker
Godfrey Reggio, "Koyaanisqatsi," "Powaqqatsi," and "Naqoyqatsi," all consisting only of images and no dialogue, accompanied by Glass' music which is performed live with the films in these concerts.
I can't say I've seen too much of
Cardiff yet: on overseas trips this short I employ the old Henry Kissinger trick, not changing my clock and sticking to an Eastern U.S. time schedule for eating and sleeping. That means I only wake up a few hours before show time, which doesn't leave much time for sightseeing. Tomorrow I'm hoping to get up earlier and to see a bit more of the city center.
On the other hand, the Inner Harbour area of this city, where our hotel and the hall are located, is a
very interesting story in itself. When Cardiff was more of a major industrial port, the harbor was thriving and busy, but also a bit rough and seedy as such places are wont to be. With the decline of the harbor in the 70's and 80's things got even seamier and more decrepit. The harbor then became the focus of a massive redevelopment scheme, which is ongoing even now. The very boundaries of water and land were altered in the course of this redevelopment, and the whole place was made very visitor-friendly, with lots of restaurants, shops, pubs, and now the Millenium Centre itself. All of this still looks out over a pretty impressive harbor vista. The only downside is that it seems to have a slightly artificial quality to it, not surprising as it was specifically modeled after Baltimore's Inner Harbor, which shares some of those same characteristics. After dark on these recent nights, the place seemed pretty devoid of people, though maybe it's to be expected that folks would not flock to a waterfront area on cold Welsh winter evenings. Obviously events such as ours at the
Millenium Centre bring in more people who then patronize the restaurants and other businesses.
Here's a fun celebrity encounter for you opera fans: last night we were provided free dinner in the concert hall's commissary deep in the recesses of the building. Wouldn't you just know that sure enough,
Bryn Terfel was sitting at a table in the corner, conversing with a colleague.
Another enjoyable aspect of this visit has been seeing all the signs in Welsh. It is the law here that virtually all official signs be in both English and Welsh, basically the identical situation that Canada has with French. Written
Welsh looks the same as when you type random letters on your computer keyboard, it seems impossible that these agglomerations of consonants could possibly be any language that humans could pronounce. If you wanted to learn Welsh, I have to say to you "pob lwc," which means "good luck." There are a couple of TV stations with programming in Welsh which are fun to listen to. Welsh comes from the Celtic family of languaes, which is a separate branching off from the proto-Indo-European language than the Germanic branch which fathered English. Here's another good Welsh word: "cyfansoddwr" which means composer. Can't wait to see my bio in Welsh in the program.
Hwyl am nawr! (Bye for now!)
