Plots on the Moon Leave Public Uninspired
The concert hall of the Ukraine Palace was filled with white smoke on November 1, and the people were like hedgehogs from a once popular animated cartoon feeling their way through the mist to take their seats. Several individuals with strained faces took theirs beside mine. Others with even more strained visages approached them and produced their tickets, smiling naughtily. My neighbors smiled back, a bit nervously, rose and quickly disappeared. Such stowaway migration continued until electric stars shone from backstage.
The National Symphony musicians took their seats by lit stands and then the Space rock group appeared: two keyboard musicians, drummer, and guitarist.
Because of the artificial smog I missed the intriguing moment when the maestro materialized by the grand piano.
Marouani produced three or four solemn chords on the piano and the Moog, consisting of the rock group and orchestra, moved, puffed, and took off on a space flight.
Two minutes later the Space leader left the piano, grabbed a scarlet synthesizer and started galloping back and forth up front. In the semidarkness seven stagehands quickly dragged the grand piano off the stage, as no one would need it. Obviously the composer had approached it for appearance’s sake, perhaps implying that he was no worse than Elton John (who once performed with five grand pianos).
Naturally, they started with the legendary Magic Fly, with laser beams jumping all over the stage and the audience slowly immersing into a stellar atmosphere (I don’t mean the air in the audience, of course).
In between the songs, Didieux praised Liudmyla Kuchma (for her love of children) and the Balance Company (for sponsoring the concert). The compliments were accompanied by applause from the audience temperamentally accented by the drums.
“Public of Kyiv,” the maestro said in Russian and gave the microphone a passionate kiss. This brought an ecstatic roar. The maestro was obviously pleased by the reaction, pulled up his black pants and raced the music machine further through the boundless Universe.
Suddenly, after another lap in the space race, Didier performed a new piece, slow and profoundly sentimental, accompanied by the boys’ choir wearing white robes, presumably meant to remind one of little angels, with the synthesizers emitting heart- rending unearthly sighs and silver bells ringing.
During the intermission the emcee raffled off plots on the moon. Lucky seats in the audience received a package of documents with the number of the plot, its location on the lunar map, and a copy of the Constitution of the Moon.
The first winners were eager to step out onstage (five winning numbers in all), but then the enthusiasm subsided, the more so that the dialogues with the emcee were not too witty.
“Just imagine,” he told a young man wearing a gray sweater, “you show up for work and say you have a plot on the moon. What do you think they will say?”
“They would ask how I was planning to get there,” the fellow replied logically.
The emcee was confused and blurted out, “They ought to say aren’t you a lucky man. Few can boast having lots on the moon...” (If he had asked me I would have said my colleagues would suggest a celebration, with me paying, of course.)
The fourth winner stubbornly refused to appear onstage to receive his enviable trophy. The emcee decided to play on the winner’s heartstrings: “Just imagine! Your neighbors will be Reagan, Bush, and Nicole Kidman.”
Nicole Kidman’s neighbor turned out a dignified middle-aged gentleman, and that of Bush a shy woman. The resourceful emcee said she ought to plant apple trees there, and the woman promised to cultivate the moon’s first flower garden. In short, the Ukraine Palace was getting to look more like a home for the mentally challenged.
In the second part of the concert Marouani was happy to demonstrate he could do just fine without the symphony orchestra. The powerful synthesizers produced excellent imitations of string and wind instruments. The absence of classic musicians had no adverse effect on the music — naturally, on the small scope required by Space’s arrangements.
After another ceremony of presenting bouquets and giving autographs, Didier emotionally proclaimed (through the interpreter, as before). “I’ve just signed a concert booklet dating from 1983! It’s been kept for twenty years!”
And then an even more amazing thing happened. Marouani introduced his 24-year-old son Sebastian as a well-built fellow wearing a creme suit from the wings.
Sebastian had this to say. He had been dating a girl for seven years and was now going to propose to her right there during the concert. If she was going to say yes, would she please join him on stage.
The audience was in a trance and then everybody cried and burst out applauding as a girl wearing a beige tippet rose and headed for the stage and her sweetheart. Onstage, she said oui and everybody understood.
True, some had their doubts, figuring it was a publicity stunt meant to keep the audience thrilled. Personally, I thought that proposing during every concert on a tour was a bit too much trouble.
Another thrilling factor was the black female soloist. The instant she appeared, sporting a skintight silvery getup, I was reminded of the poet Zabolotsky and his “tender body structure leaving all in rapture.” Besides, her low throaty blues voice easily overpowered the synthesizers, although this seemed superfluous, considering her dazzling figure. In short, everybody enjoyed her performance, those in front and behind her. A young man in a chic brown suit flew onstage with three roses, gave them to the pop diva, kissed her temperamentally, raised a hand triumphantly, like a US movie hero, and shouted yes- s-s! All the men understood.
And so Space tried to satisfy almost all conceivable human needs, dreams about outer space and utterly earthly erotic fantasies.
