It’s Five O’clock Somewhere

I keep a clock on my computer with the current local times in New York, (the same time zone as most of my family), Denver, Kharkiv, (my current location) and Moscow. It is seems easy enough to recall the differences in my head but that all will change next week because of the return to standard time.

Daylight savings time (also called Summer time in Europe) was originally used in the United States in 1918. A few European countries actually started using it a few years earlier during World War 1. The basic idea is that you turn your clock forward in the spring so the afternoons have more daylight and the mornings have less. This is thought to save electricity but there are some skeptics. In autumn you would turn your clock back to the previous time. In the United States we remember this by the idea of “Spring Forward, Fall Back”. This would traditionally be done on a Saturday night (actually early Sunday morning) and back in the days when the gin joints in the United States always closed at 1:30 A.M. it was nice for them to be open for an extra hour once a year.

This weekend Ukraine returns to standard time. I’m hoping my computers auto adjust but I will have to manually change my clock and my passel of watches. That seems simple enough but the United States does not make this modification until the following week. That will be a little confusing but it is exacerbated by the fact that Russia no longer observes daylight savings time so there will be no change in their clocks. It might not seem a big deal but I give lessons to a handful of students in Russia via Skype and they probably expect me to call them at the correct time. My head already hurts!

Posted by John

Poor Tchaikovsky, poor Tatyana

The “Russian soul is a mystery” (for other cultures). What a stereotype! But sometimes listening to foreign singers performing vocals for Russian chamber music or operas; I think that not only the soul, but Russian music as well is a mystery to them.

That thought hit me yesterday evening at the opening of International classic music festival, “Kharkov assembly” (http://www.city.kharkov.ua/en/news/festival-harkivski-asambleyi-startuye-30-veresnya-9804.html ) which is celebrating its 20^th anniversary this year. It took place it the small hall of the Kharkov Opera and Ballet Theatre. The status of “international” requires inviting guests from abroad, who come here right before the festival and perform with the local orchestra. It’s usually a great risk because they have a couple (or even less) rehearsals with a new conductor or singer, or both a new conductor and singer which is worse, and right after have to go on stage. They basically have no time to become perfectly coordinated and arrange some necessary “teamwork”. This is a good excuse for all the weak parts in the concert program, but sometimes even this doesn’t work. I want to tell only about one piece, which made me unenthusiastic about the musicians.

So, there were three foreigners in: one in the orchestra, the conductor from UK, and the soprano from UK (let’s do without naming names). Also, there was the scene of Tatyana’s letter from “Eugene Onegin” (Yevgeniy Onegin) by Tchaikovsky, of course, based on Pushkin’s “novel in verse”.

It went wrong almost from the beginning. The orchestra started properly, in active tempo, but the heavy voice of the soprano wasn’t able to handle it. Apparently, it’s either a weariness of 30 years on the stage or too much experience that made itself manifest. She didn’t even sound close to the “18 year old Tatyana” experiencing her first strong emotions (I know it’s not tactful to mention a female performer's age in a review, beg my pardon).

So conductor got all confused and slowed the instrumentalists down. The first part of the scene of Tatyana’s letter is the fastest and consequently tempo started getting slower and slower and finally reached the point where it was almost unbearable and you could hear all motives of each instrument of orchestra and all their roughness (affected by the lack of rehearsing) which would have been unnoticeable if they had played livelier. Once the soprano finished, the conductor let the instrumentalists play the coda in normal tempo which couldn’t be considered normal anymore because the plan for the whole scene got messed up.

Usually the audience complains about the horrible accent of foreign performers singing in Russian, but it appeared to be the less significant of the problems in this situation.

Sighs of relief and loud applause appeared after this short, but what seemed quite longer disaster. If I were a good girl, instead of all these words I would say: “We heard a new interpretation of the image of Tatyana performed by English singer, marked by deep thoughtful work on intonation, original tempo and dramaturgical plan”. And I will very much likely write it soon but in a different place, in a different language.

Posted by Helen

Irish pubs. Beer confusion

I remember the first time I went to an Irish Pub. The key purpose of my visit was to taste authentic Irish beer. And I never actually accomplished this. That makes me think that there is something wrong with either me or with Irish Pubs. My entire experience is limited to the two places I’ve been to; as a result I won’t try to make a judgment about all of Ukraine.

So, my first attempt at trying Irish beer had taken place in Kharkov in a “beer restaurant” with the quite unpretentious name of “Irish Pub” (46 Mironositskaya st.). It has an obvious lack of space which is worsened by heavy wooden tables and chairs and loud football fans staring at the TVs. There are only three screens in the entire place and approximately 8 tables inside not counting the bar area which includes some stools. The very first thing I intended to order was the Guinness stout which appeared to be the only Irish brew on the menu, but the waitress with a casual intonation told me they were out of it and I ended up drinking Belgium Hoegaarden instead. It was fine, but the Irish appeal that I initially connected with this place had immediately disappeared.

Neither did I reach my goal in Odessa’s Mick O’Neill’s Pub (www.ipub.com.ua). But at that time the reason was entirely different. They have a nice complete beer menu, including Ukrainian sorts of beer which is wrong, because all of them are much cheaper than the foreign ones. Needless to say, the entire crowd of us turned out to be drinking Ukrainian Chernigivs’ke (http://www.chernigivske.ua/en/) which was no fun for me but I didn’t want to seem snobbish by ordering a different one that was three times more expensive. At least I tasted the Irish breakfast and liked it which may be the only excuse for not carrying out the main purpose of visiting the Irish pub. Of course I’m not counting shots of the distinct Irish whisky “Jameson” brought by someone from home. In general, Mick O’Neill’s is a nice place (except damn Chernigivs’ke) with a perfect location in the middle of Deribasovskaya street, an Irish green interior, checkered blankets, nice guards who are always ready to kick out gypsies, salesmen and beggars (sometimes all of them in one person) trying to sneak under the canopies and a pleasant smiling wait staff (they are still smiling even if you want them to take photo of you).

So here is my conclusion: Irish Pubs and I don’t mix well. And after two fruitless attempts I decided to change my goal for the future. I won’t have any grand expectations and only hope not to end up eating pizza and drinking Cola next time I visit an Irish Pub (by the way someone intended to order pizza in Odessa).

Posted by Helen