Wednesday, December 2, 2020

First Concert in Notre Dame Since its Suspicious and Tragic Fire

The symbolic Christmas concert is broadcast on television - only the previous week did the government declare that the risk of collapse was averted thanks to the security work


Paris (kath.net/KAP) There will be a symbolic Christmas concert on Christmas Eve in Paris: The Notre-Dame choir will sing again for the first time in the cathedral, which was badly damaged in a fire a year and a half ago, announced the French archdiocese on Monday. 20 singers of the adult choir perform together with two soloists and one organist. The concert, conducted in compliance with strict health measures, will also be televised.

For the choir of the main Paris church, which had to move to other places of worship in Paris for a long time, this is the first home appearance after the devastating fire. There had already been several small masses in the cathedral without people celebrating, including at Easter. The traditional midnight mass at Christmas, however, was moved to a big top in the Bois de Boulogne park in the west of the French capital last year. Since the main organ is currently being restored, a small organ was specially rented for the Christmas event.

A milestone in the securing work for the more than 850 year old Gothic cathedral had only been reached in the previous week. With the dismantling of a 200-ton scaffolding on the vaulted ceiling, which was melted down by the fire, the danger of collapse has now finally been averted, said the public construction company. 40,000 individual parts of the scaffolding at a height of up to 40 meters had been dismantled since the beginning of June. "The threat posed by the scaffolding for the cathedral no longer exists," said France's Minister of Culture, Roselyne Bachelot. Notre-Dame is now "saved".

In the fire in April 2019, the roof and the spire collapsed. Both are now to be recreated based on the historical model, with work on the Summer Olympics in Paris in 2024 being completed, as French President Emmanuel Macron has promised. The schedule is considered extremely ambitious.

Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com

AMDG

1 comment:

JBQ said...

If the fire was indeed "suspicious", then we can presume the obvious. It would be just like Nice. The people of France would rise up and throw out the infiltrators. The Argentinian would become unwelcome in the land of Jean d'Arc which would not be a bad thing.