“Absolutely beautiful.” Those were John Hunt’s words on listening to “The Humming Chorus”, an interlude of haunting melancholy in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly. It was chosen to intensify a moment of remembrance at last month’s Winter Olympics closing ceremony, an occasion the BBC commentator conveyed with his customary authority and poise. And yet at the dress rehearsal, the same music had just about broken him. “It’s such a delicate three minutes, and I cried,” he reflects. “It’s good for me, even if it provokes physical upset in the first instance. Lots of people in the middle of grief will understand this.”...
Monitoring Antisemitism Intel
