A Grecian goodbye
By John Aizlewood, Evening Standard 30.10.07
Now a venerable 73-year-old with suspiciously jet-black hair and a wardrobe of sparkly tent dresses seemingly designed by Dame Edna Everage, Ioanna "Nana" Mouskouri has bowed to the inevitable and last night marked her final London appearance. That the film projectionist's daughter from Crete couldn't quite fill the Albert Hall, despite selling a staggering 350 million albums, suggests she's wise to go now.
However, the former MEP was departing neither quietly nor quickly, hence two sets, lasting nearly three hours. Backed by a bouzouki-free sextet, before an audience predominantly comprised of heterosexual Greeks and homosexual British, she sang in Greek, German, Italian, French (a fabulously dramatic version of Bob Dylan's A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall) and even English.
If reduced vocal capacity meant she never quite got to grips with Bridge Over Troubled Water, her opening assault on Amazing Grace was a showstopper before the show had really started. Attempting Kris Kristofferson's Me And Bobby McGee was endearingly bonkers, although not as endearingly bonkers as singing most of her signature White Rose Of Athens in German.
More eccentric still, in between accepting gifts of flowers (by the encore, the front of the stage looked like a roadside shrine to a recent traffic accident victim), she told a somewhat downbeat version of her life story, concentrating on her "years of sorrow". And, at the end, she tackled My Way, forgot most of the verses, flashed a well-turned calf and tottered into the twilight. We cannot possibly see her like again.
By John Aizlewood, Evening Standard 30.10.07
Now a venerable 73-year-old with suspiciously jet-black hair and a wardrobe of sparkly tent dresses seemingly designed by Dame Edna Everage, Ioanna "Nana" Mouskouri has bowed to the inevitable and last night marked her final London appearance. That the film projectionist's daughter from Crete couldn't quite fill the Albert Hall, despite selling a staggering 350 million albums, suggests she's wise to go now.
However, the former MEP was departing neither quietly nor quickly, hence two sets, lasting nearly three hours. Backed by a bouzouki-free sextet, before an audience predominantly comprised of heterosexual Greeks and homosexual British, she sang in Greek, German, Italian, French (a fabulously dramatic version of Bob Dylan's A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall) and even English.
If reduced vocal capacity meant she never quite got to grips with Bridge Over Troubled Water, her opening assault on Amazing Grace was a showstopper before the show had really started. Attempting Kris Kristofferson's Me And Bobby McGee was endearingly bonkers, although not as endearingly bonkers as singing most of her signature White Rose Of Athens in German.
More eccentric still, in between accepting gifts of flowers (by the encore, the front of the stage looked like a roadside shrine to a recent traffic accident victim), she told a somewhat downbeat version of her life story, concentrating on her "years of sorrow". And, at the end, she tackled My Way, forgot most of the verses, flashed a well-turned calf and tottered into the twilight. We cannot possibly see her like again.
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