This
38-year-old British soprano may not be a household
name in the western world, but she's a superstar
in North Korea where she has given dozens of
concerts and appeared countless times on the
rigidly state-controlled television.
Suzanne Clarke has performed every year
since 2003 in the culturally and politically
isolated country, where she has sung everything
from Mozart to Gershwin and from Verdi to Andrew
Lloyd Webber.
North Korea may be highly
repressive and deeply suspicious of
foreign cultural
contamination, but Clarke says the government has
never attempted to censor what she sings. "There's
been no interference. I sing what I would like to
sing," she says.
She sings Korean songs as
well as Western classics, but is careful to avoid
being used as a tool of the Pyongyang regime, so
she tactfully turns down requests to sing hymns of
praise to the Great Leader Kim Il-sung and his son
and successor, Kim Jong-il, around whom an
all-embracing personality cult revolves, and which
the North Korean government is always eager for
foreigners to endorse.
"I come with a
message of friendship and peace, not politics. I'm
incredibly careful about what I choose to sing. I
won't sing anything in praise of any regime or any
particular person," said Clarke, an active member
of Britain's Labor Party who has nurtured
ambitions to become a member of parliament.
She is strongly against capital
punishment, which is widely carried out in North
Korea, and does not hesitate to tell North Korean
officials when she disagrees with their policies.
"I tell them that I don't believe in the death
penalty. If I see something that isn't correct I
will point that out."
Clarke, who has been
a principal singer at La Scala, Milan and has been
taught by Pavarotti's singing teacher, Arrigo
Pola, loves the Italian repertoire and has sung
plenty of Puccini arias in Pyongyang. But she's
wary about including Madame Butterfly in her North
Korean repertoire, as this is a sensitive area
because of the undertones of American imperialism
in the tragic love affair between a Japanese
geisha and an American sailor.
Clarke said
that despite frequent media attacks on cultural
imperialism, North Koreans have "a certain level
of knowledge of western music", and their
orchestras play works by Beethoven, Mozart,
Tchaikovsky and even the decidedly modernist
Shostakovich. In fact, Shostakovich's
Seventh (or Leningrad) symphony seems to be
something of a favorite, judging how often
performances of it have been reported by the
official North Korean news agency KCNA, although
it is unclear whether the government is aware that
it is sometimes seen as a veiled attack on Stalin.
Clarke said North Koreans love to be
challenged by music that is technically difficult,
"so I deliberately try to perform some of the more
difficult pieces in the repertoire". She finds
North Korean audiences highly appreciative and
they are especially fond of Danny Boy which
is surprisingly something of an old favorite in
Pyongyang (as it is with older Koreans across the
DMZ). "I like trying to win them over, and they do
reciprocate," she says.
Clarke suffered a
nasty attack of food poisoning when she visited
North Korea for the first time for their annual
Friendship Festival in 2003, but this didn't put
her off in the least. She enjoys the country so
much that she has twice taken her mother, also a
Labor Party activist - "They love my mother
because she comes from a poor family and always
looks immaculate" - and this year she took her
partner Chris to Pyongyang. But next year she may
have to skip a visit because she is expecting her
first baby in January.
Clarke became a
star in Pyongyang via a highly unexpected route.
She hails from the northeastern English town of
Middlesbrough, which is where North Korea
sensationally beat Italy in the quarter finals of
the soccer World Cup way back in 1966. In 2001 the
remaining members of the North Korean team
returned to Middlesbrough as part of a film
documentary, The Game of Their Lives, and
Clarke sang the North Korean Song of
Friendship at the town's new stadium.
This was the beginning of a remarkable
relationship which is continuing not only with
concerts but also with fundraising. Clarke has
raised money to buy musical instruments for North
Korean schools, and now she is hoping to bring a
North Korean orchestra over to London next year.
This would be the first ever visit by a
North Korean orchestra to the West, and despite
the enormous hurdles Clarke is hopeful that she
will succeed. "Things are going very well but we
need more sponsorship," said Clarke, who is
working with, among others, David Heather, who
this summer brought the first North Korean art
exhibition to London.
The New York
Philharmonic is discussing a possible concert in
Pyongyang next February, so North Korea is clearly
opening up musically, and Clarke is ready to give
the Americans some expert advice should they
request it.
Michael Rank is a
former Reuters correspondent in Beijing and
regular contributor to North Korea Zone.
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