Bastille Day at the Opera

Vietnam is a good place to be reminded that the meaning of national days can change. Neither the 4th of July, nor the 14th were originally days when patriotism equated with approval of empire. The 4th of July even had a specifically anti-imperial meaning and the 14th was all about liberation from oppression. Nevertheless Bastille Day in 1911 (which I think is the year that the Opera House was finished) was no doubt celebrated by the French in full unconsciousness of how far they were then removed from their original ideals of 'liberty, equality, fraternity'.

My first visit was for a concert in late 1991. There was a pleasant piano piece composed and played by a visiting Thai musician (who also conducted the orchestra), then the orchestra's regular conductor took the stage to conduct the most incredibly botched piece of Tchaikovsky I can ever recall hearing. My Vietnamese companions were very embarrassed and explained that the orchestra had no money and the players were too busy earning a living to be able to practice. I went back a couple of years later, with some trepidation, to see a concert by Dang Thai Son - an absolutely brilliant Vietnamese-born American winner of the Chopin Prize. On that occasion the conductor was English, the pianist was a genius and the orchestra played brilliantly. So money was not the only reason for their lack of motivation back in 1991. The Opera House itself, was gorgeous, if somewhat dilapidated, the seats were so close together that your knees tended to get bruised and the rising damp was everywhere in the foyers. By 1997 the place had been restored to its full glory with French money (they were unable to solve the damp problem however, nor did they move the seats). The nicest touch is that in the second floor salon behind the colonnade, they have left the original mirrors, complete with bullet holes from a famous battle of 1946.

I should mention that nowadays the Opera House seems to be the scene of battles in the Culture War. This is a war fought between the donors - the British Council, the Alliance Francaise, the Goethe Institute, etc. Each tries to outdo the others in bringing their cultural showpieces to Vietnam for the benefit of the expat community and the tiny Vietnamese elite who appreciate this sort of stuff.


To the right of the photo you can see a little bit of the Hilton Opera Hanoi (a hotel, not a prison), the architect of which made an attempt to copy the style of the Opera House in order not to ruin the environment of Hanoi's most famous building. If you look at the two buildings together, however, I can't really say it was a successful attempt. In fact the effect is quite jarring. It might have been better to put up the usual plastic box hotel - or leave the park that was there before!