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McCartney ruffles feathers
23/06/2004 13:54 - (SA)
Moscow - One of Russia's top cultural gurus, Hermitage Museum director Mikhail Piotrovski, blasted as "totally unacceptable" staging events like ex-Beatle Paul McCartney's rock concert in Saint Petersburg or any of the country's historic centres, in comments published on Tuesday.
"The concert by Paul McCartney is an example of what must never happen in any case," said Piotrovski in an opinion column in the daily Izvestia.
McCartney's sell-out, open-air show late on Sunday drew 60 000 enthusiastic fans to hear the rock legend perform in the city's central square outside the Winter Palace, part of the famed Hermitage, a former home of the Russian tsars that houses a priceless collection of art and antiquities.
"We prepared for this concert like we would for a flood, all the museum's departments were put on alert" the director said, contending that just the noise level alone was "damaging" for some of the famous paintings in the Hermitage collection.
When Hermitage pieces travel for shows elsewhere, "we do not ship any of our paintings by airplane" to avoid potentially damaging vibrations, and the sound generated by the McCartney concert was "incomparably more powerful that than of any airplane" Piotrovski said.
"Something had to be done so there are no more of these types of shows" he said.
McCartney, 62, had already visited Saint Petersburg last year before giving a concert on Moscow's Red Square where he was cheered by Russian President Vladimir Putin among an estimated 20 000 fans.
- AFP
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South Africa
