Multicultural Dublin City Page 2 Continued from A Multicultural Dublin City.
The following evening I headed for the Irish Film Center, a complex of theaters and a cafe, where an excellent program financed in part by the Irish Film Board over the last 10 years was running, and saw a screening of ''Bloody Sunday,'' the dramatization of the 1972 clash between British forces and Catholics in Londonderry. The center's enticing future programs made me wish I lived in Dublin.
Temple Bar held one more big surprise, which I stumbled into on my final afternoon in Dublin. I'd wandered north of the Liffey on a chilly, damp day, enjoying the bustle of fruit and meat sellers on Moore Street, then crossed over the bridge and kept walking along the riverfront, thinking I might stop in Christ Church Cathedral. But, not quite there, I heard singing and headed in that direction. Up a narrow street, I found myself in a crowd gathered in front of a pub called Handel's, listening to a choir and orchestra perform, beautifully, the ''Messiah.''
After the last stirring strains, I learned that Handel's ''Messiah'' had had its premiere in Dublin, in a long-gone concert hall on this street, Fishamble, on April 13, 1742. Every year on that day, a Dublin choral society commemorates the event with a public performance.
Afterward, I ducked into a cafe to warm up, and to celebrate my luck at being in the right place at the right time. In the window was a copy of a local paper's 1742 review of the ''Messiah.''
''The most auspicious musical debut of recent years,'' said the Irish critic about what would become one of the most beloved works of all time.
A city well attuned, and cosmopolitan, then and now.
Article credit: DAISANN MCLANE, nytimes.com
|
|
