A month ago I wrote about the most important concerts in my life and near the front of the article was Joan Baez singing at Baalbeck, Lebanon in 1974. I was 17 years old at the time and my Dad had been dead little more than a year. The concert, in the middle of the Roman ruins, was very moving. A thing of extreme beauty.
The Baez concert was part of the Annual Baalbeck festival which ran from 1956 thru 1974, took a 22 year hiatus for the Lebanese Civil war, and returned in 1996 just in time a Sting performance.
But it won’t happen in Baalbeck in 2013, it has been moved out of Baalbeck to a smaller venue due to Hezbollah sabre rattling and fighting on behalf of the Syrian Government in the ongoing civil war according to the New York Times.
Worse, if that is remotely possible, the great American Soprano Renee Fleming had to cancel her performance. Fleming (you might remember my review of her Carnegie Hall performance earlier this year) had this to say to “I look forward to a time when these conditions have abated, especially for the sake of those in the region and also so that I can experience the legendary kindness and hospitality of the Lebanese people.”
This is sad stuff and Lebanin is a sad country. In an alternative reality where the civil war hadn’t happened and the world at large and Syria and Israel (and Palestine) in particular left Lebanon alon, I could have and would have happily lived out my days there. Such a beautiful country, Beirut was such a fabulous city, for a partygoer such as yours true it was as though the Lower east Side was moved to a Mediterranean Sea side resort.
My memories of Lebanon are so sweet even my memories of the civil war has some sweetness along with the bitter. It is really amazing to have completely lost a chunk of my childhood. But that’s what happens during war: the world you knew is gone much more completely than you can imagine. That’s the price of fleeing your country.
And whatever happens in the Middle east, Lebanon gets all the bullets and none of the bread.