You feel us when the sun is hidden in the daytime by the rain falling in drenching sheets. We are in the rocks that tower above your tiny winding road, in the convulsions of the deep earth that raze your cities, in the winds that howl around a lonely coast. I, the Earth provide the fuel that lights your Fire, yet poisons the Air. The Water in the seas is rising with the melting ice. All that we know is slowly disappearing, together with the giant bears that still haunt the ice under the lonely northern skies. A great storm is coming. And yet…. Ours are the rhythms that end all things, only to begin once more. You are with us when you meet with the Oneness. We are the five ‘elements’ conceived in ancient Hindu thought – Earth, Water, Fire, Air and Sky. Ours are the rhythms that brought life into being. Ours are the rhythms that pulse through opera, from Julie Taymor’s airy ‘Magic Flute’ to Rusalka’s watery home, to her eyes raised to the sky, singing to a radiant moon. To the fiery r
Sviatoslav Playing the Bandura, drawn by Tintin When the Ukrainian Orchestra performed ‘Ode to Joy’ in Kiev Square on March 10, 2022, to mark World Happiness Day, I looked at the photograph and thought once again of Sviatoslav and Blahovista. Less than a year ago, these two kids living in Kyiv, Ukraine, were sharing music, art and love with children across the world, courtesy the Met Opera Global Summer Camp. Blahovista had photographed herself in that Square, when she showed off the city to fellow campers. Here in Kolkata, as the spring froths around us, spraying the new-made green with jets of colour and life, I remember the summer when this brother and sister had introduced themselves and their world to my son Tintin and to opera loving friends from every continent. When you’re less than ten years old, it’s a long way from Kolkata to Kiev. But in the summer of 2020, when the Met Opera summer camp went online and ‘Global’, all of that changed. Each time camp ends, the kids mo