I'd be lying if I said that the top picture here was my favorite of the pictures that I took here today in Montreal ... I've posted that below ... but it seemed appropriate to find something with which to memorialize Memorial Day - which, I note, is marked here in Canada, as it is in England, by people wearing red poppies. This sunlit pew is in the Basilica de Notre Dame, which was made quite magical today by a rehearsal going on for a concert this evening. The singer was Natalia Orlova, from St Petersburg - let's just say that this cutesy wholesome image on her website was entirely contradicted by a black and grey ensemble involving a very short skirt and high black boots that looked more suitable for the Bada Bing than for a basilica. But her voice was extraordinary - among other things she was singing a version of John McCrae's "In Flanders Fields" (not being Canadian, I hadn't internalised that a Canadian poet was responsible for "In Flanders fields, the poppies blow) and Schubert's "Ave Maria" - and I much preferred wandering round the aisles and looking at the late afternoon sun coming through the stained glass windows and hearing this than I would have wanted to sit through a formal concert.
And then there was this wonderful camera down the street ...
No comments:
Post a Comment