AT LAST someone has found a way to stop the Last Night of the Proms seeming so jolly, jingoistic and British. Insert 50 minutes of soulful Russian music — plus a bit of Carmen to please the Spanish, a tango for any Latin-Americans present, a Verdi aria for the Italians and a blast of Wagner to keep the Germans mellow.
The Germans next to me were very mellow. “Britannia, rule ze vaize,” they roared, waving their Deutsche flags enthusiastically. Ah, the ironies of European integration. As we finished God Save the Queen one said to me: “And God save Tony Blair also.”
That may not be possible. But the remark captured the convivial camaraderie of this Last Night. True, the first half had sombre moments. Dmitri Hvorostovsky sang two solemn operatic arias, and Viktoria Mullova played Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No 2 — a wistful piece, sensitively interpreted, but not right for this occasion.
But the BBC Symphony Orchestra, sounding twice as ebullient as usual under Mark Elder’s baton, delivered a cracking Shostakovich Festive Overture and zipped through Colin Matthews’s tick-tocking orchestral showpiece, Vivo.
Eric Coates’s Calling All Workers triggered a nostalgic wince in those old enough to recall Music While You Work; Hvorostovsky reappeared to sing the Toreador’s Song, whipping out a Union Jack instead of a bullfighter’s cape; and Mullova returned — wearing a backless gold tunic that brought wolfwhistles — in a sizzling modern tango: Sonia Possetti’s Bullanguera.
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And so to Pomp and Circumstance, the sea-songs (vibrantly led by the BBC Symphony Chorus and BBC Singers), Jerusalem, and the conductor’s speech.
Elder was funny (“This season has gone like a house on fire,” he quipped, referring to the backstage blaze that clobbered last Sunday’s Prom) but he also put in a heartfelt plea for a renaissance of singing in schools. And he paid tribute to Sir John Drummond, the former Proms director who died last week. That was generous, since it was Drummond who sacked Elder from the Last Night 15 years ago, when the conductor expressed reservations about conducting Rule, Britannia in the run-up to the first Gulf War.
Finally, a few words about Friday’s Prom: a stunning all-Mozart concert in which the Choir and Orchestra of the Age of the Enlightenment delivered a punchy performance of the Mass in C Minor, in Robert Levin’s mostly convincing completion. I say “mostly”, because the final Dona Nobis Pacem, though cleverly contrived, sticks out like aplastic knocker on a gnarled oak door. Otherwise, a glorious evening. At 80, Mackerras gets better and better.