Cuban Diaries - Preface

Our Cuban encounter really began in June of last year already, when we found ourselves at what was evidently the most popular event of the ‘Cuba 50’ celebrations at Barbican Centre, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the revolution. It was a memorable evening, as much for what was on stage as for the audience itself. I had, uncharacteristically, booked the event without much knowledge about any of the acts: an aged, Buena Vista Social Club-esque salsa band, an excellent young jazz trio, and finally, as the main act of the evening, a second half of nueva trova with Pablo Milanes and a small synthe-acoustic band. Judging from the ecstatic response from the Spanish-speaking crowd around us (an exceptional audience demography even for the Barbican, perhaps), we could tell he was a bit of a national icon, a Cuban Elton John of sorts. But then again, the spontaneous mass sing-alongs, which ended up accompanying almost every number he belted out, seemed to contain just a little more than mere passion for the music itself. After all, the guest of honour for the evening had been Madame Guevara, daughter of El Che himself, and the words ‘struggle’, ‘solidarity’, ‘freedom’ had been more than just recurring themes in her impassioned five-minute speech.

There was a certain sense of indefinable, quiet determination in the behaviour of the audience at large, even though the majority of them would presumably have been living in London for a while. They didn’t seem to want to make a big Patriotism manifesto out of the evening (whatever the intention of the event’s organisers had been), and yet the natural, effusive sense of pride, for the achievement of their artists, was acutely palpable and very, very infectious. At the time I was still ignorant of Milanes’s own eventful life story so far, which had included extended persecution by the government because of his homosexuality, ultimately redeemed by officially-endorsed icon status. That fact that he was now firing up the nostalgia of two thousand immigrants – a mixture of legitimate ones and exiles, I could only assume – seemed to carry more than a touch of irony.

The evening fascinated me in so many ways already, and I really, really couldn’t wait for our trip to begin, to see this ‘Land of the Miracles’ (as Steve Smith aptly entitled his beautifully-written book – a must for anyone who wants to know more about the country before visiting it) with our own eyes. If anything, for us it ought to be the Land of Fraternity, for China has supplanted Russia as the main economic benefactor of the nation, ever since the latter stopped its previously generous, crucial aid in the nineties, precipitating the long and bitter ‘special period’. We would again, I thought, stand out among the throngs of Western tourists, as always in the developing countries frequented by more adventurous travellers. But would we be hustled everywhere with non-stop ‘Ni-Hao-Konichiwas’, which inevitably taints one’s memories of even the most beautiful cities? Would we, even worse, be stared at everywhere by the vulture-eyes of expressionless locals who simply regarded us as strange novelties (growing up in China, I always thought this a privilege of the blue-eyed ‘foreigners’, until I inadvertently became one myself, in Burma, in the Middle East, in more remote corners of the US, even)? The only way to find out, of course, is to be there, to go everywhere, to experience – but first of all, to arrive.

'This is a journey...'

My month-long 'retreat' (only in the loosest sense of the word - hence the emphatic inverted comma) drawing to a close, I'm pleased at the progress I've been able to make on certain projects that I set for myself. A lot of boxes remain unticked though, and I (only half ingenuously) attribute this to an even busier evening schedule over the past few weeks than usual. Perhaps I should have blocked out the whole month as some kind of culture Ramadan, but when the enticing alternative was to see Helen Mirren, Jude Law, Simon Russell Beale and Rebecca Hall - and some more - all in the space of one week, for a total sum of what a return train journey to Manchester would usually cost, I made my choice in a flash. And now, of course, the Proms are beyond us. My terrifying annual reminder of yet another year that's passed. Before diving into the thick of it though, I'm relishing the memory of a trio of concerts that we enjoyed earlier this month, within 5 days of each other at Barbican (why of course, where else?), which ended our 08-09 season on a high note - or should it be a string of high notes? A high chord?! All the more special because only one of them belonged to the category that we usually attended.

There was Pablo Milanes, the venerable Cuban singer/songwriter who belted out one ballad after another to the accompaniment of his understated three-piece band. The concert, which also featured two jazz acts in the first half, was the main event of the 'Cuba 50 weekend', marking the 50th anniversary of the Revolution (also the beginning of their mutually-sworn enemity with the Western world). We were sitting in our 'usual' seats in the Hall, but were very much the aliens amongst a sea of Cubans and other Latin Americans of all ages. Latin Spanish was the official languge of the evening, and the crowd went wild when it was announced that none other than the daughter of Che Guavara was in the audience, and she was invited onto the stage for a speech. A plain, middle-aged woman, she reminded the audience of the origins of the Latino revolutoinary spirit, the many struggles that they (or she, at least) had undergone over the years, and the inevitable call for a closure to the Cuban people's plights that have now lasted half a century. When Milanes took stage, all eyes were glued, with an almost religious fervour, on this slightly frail old man looking like a retired school-master. Who'd have thought that the Cuban equivalent of Cliff Richards (minus the nip & tuck jobs) could elicit a 2000-strong sing-along like this, with virtually every single tune he belts out? We're the only members of the audience who don't know the repertoire, and we try hard not to be too embarrassed by this fact. Our friends leave early, later emailing to say they found the music too monotonous. But I think they're missing the point - this was a socio-cultural experience as much as anything. And it was thrilling to be part of the crowd.


There was the ever-reliable LSO, under the charismatic Michael Tilson Thomas, presenting an evening of Ives, Prokoefieff and Stravinsky - just my kind of programme. The Chinese pianist Yuja Wang finally arrived this side of the Atlantic, having already taken the US by storm, as another wunderkind barely in her twenties and already poised to take at least a sizeable share of Lang Lang's hitherto undisputed crown of Chinese classical superstar, and the global market that comes with it. Does she have what it takes? Why make our judgement now, she's got a lifetime to prove it, either way. Besides, Lang Lang is not yet thirty himself. The top management agencies and record companies will keenly keep their eyes on the next budding Chinese wizzkid for quite a while yet, that much is for sure.

Then, finally, there was Ute Lemper. With her seductive smile, magnetic voice, impeccably choreographed stage moves and mischievous yet intelligent narration between songs, two hours passed very quickly. She announced at the beginning of the evening that this was to be a journey, chronicling her influences as well as her own career, both historically and geographically. This immensely versatile, endlessly entertaining polyglot even did an astonishingly vivid impersonation of Helmut Kohl flirting with Margaret Thatcher with the aid of a scarlett boa (don't ask). True, the intimacy of both her musical reditions and her spontaneous, witty exchanges with the front-row audience members would have suited the pit of a cabaret - her natural milieu - rather better than the vast Barbican Hall, but when treated to an evening of thoughtfully-programmed numbers sung with this kind of pedigree, this would be a minor quibble. But the most memorable items, given the most empassioned performances, were naturally the Weills. Even with the silky New York accent, you kow that home is Germany, and she looks back at the Germany that she left behind with more than a little wistfulness. 'There was a wall, and it just seemed, to two, three generations, like part of the furniture - that it would be there forever. But then the wall came down. And the rest is history...'

History, of course, continues to be re-written every minute, by the biggest decisions made as well as the trivial ones. As we walked down Silk Street, for the third time that week, I couldn't help looking back as well, to the Latino crowd that we briefly belonged to several days before. Who knows what the future holds for Cuba? And will a new icon, a younger Milanes, archive it all, the history-yet-to-be-written with a different kind of ballad, perhaps? I imagine a svelt figure, a dark face, deep brown eyes, at the 'Cuban 70' weekend (for sure there will be one at the Barbican):

'This is a journey...'