On Bordeaux

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-conference proceedings of the 21st International Symposium on Graph Drawing, GD 2013, held in Bordeaux, France, in September 2013. The 42 revised full papers presented together with 12 revised short papers, 3 invited talks and 1 poster description were carefully reviewed and selected from 110 submissions.

If, in a parallel universe, Wagner wrote a symphony rather than a sixteen-hour Ring, it might actually resemble my Ring Odyssey.' These are the words used by the new music director of the Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine, Joseph Swensen, to present this anthology of Der Ring des Nibelungen for soprano, tenor, bass-baritone, male chorus and orchestra, which he composed on the basis of Wagner's monumental tetralogy. The American conductor confesses that, during a performance of Tristan, Wagner was suddenly revealed to him as 'a dreamer' full of 'humility, tenderness, vulnerability and generosity'. Swensen has made a point of following the chronology of the operas and respecting the original music: 'My solemn promise to Wagner was that, aside from the occasional solo timpani roll denoting the passage of time, I would not change or add a single note to his masterpiece.' An enthralling traversal, recorded at a memorable concert and delivered by exceptionally committed singers and instrumentalists.

On the night of December 7, 1942, five canoes were launched off the mouth of the Gironde river, each containing a pair of British commandoes tasked with slipping into the port of Bordeaux and destroying as many of the merchant ships as possible. Only two of the canoes made it to the target, but it was enough. Five enemy ships were badly damaged in the attack. It then became a game of cat and mouse for the surviving commandoes in their attempt to get back to Britain. Some of the men made it to Gibraltar; others were caught and executed. Author Ken Ford gives a blow-by-blow account of one of the most daring raids of World War II, which badly upset the flow of material into Germany, and which gave the British public a much needed victory.

Following his Rossini recital (Alpha 791), Florian Sempey shares another of his passions: his enthusiasm for the world of knights and medieval narrative. For him, "a mysterious force emanates from castles and other antique buildings; their ancient stones have always fascinated me." Ferrum Splendidum (the Latin for 'Resplendent Metal') recalls the singer's ancestors, who were blacksmiths in the Perigord region. Though not following in that family tradition, Sempey concentrated instead on forging and moulding the metal of his brilliant baritone voice. Now a much sought-after opera soloist at the height of his art, he has devised a programme ranging widely through different heroic characters and operas, including Gretry's Richard the Lionheart, Hamlet by Ambroise Thomas, Meyerbeer's Le Pardon de Ploermel, as well as Tchaikovsky's opera The Enchantress, Wagner's Tannhauser, extracts from Carl Orff's famous neo-medieval cantata Carmina Burana, and even the premiere recording of a piece by Romain Dumas, Le Chevalier d'Eon, composed in 2019. Once again Florian teams up with the Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine and its young maestro Victor Jacob, who was named a 'Revelation' in the conductor category at the 2023 Victoires de la musique awards.