From the BBC:

Croatia rose to the occasion in their crucial Euro 2008 defeat of England – after an apparent X-rated gaffe by an English opera singer at Wembley.

Tony Henry belted out a version of the Croat anthem before the 80,000 crowd, but made a blunder at the end.

He should have sung ‘Mila kuda si planina’ (which roughly means ‘You know my dear how we love your mountains’).

But he instead sang ‘Mila kura si planina’ which can be interpreted as ‘My dear, my penis is a mountain.’   –more–

Today’s topic–embarassing public performances.  Your own or others.

5 thoughts on “Not So Great Performances”
  1. Hence I happen to be Croatian, I would like to clarify a few things. Unofrtunately, “mila kura si planina” cannot mean “my dear, my penis is a mountain” although I am certain the anthem would therefore be much more interesing. What it could theoretically mean is “dear penis, you’re a mountain”. Poetic, if nothing.
    Not to mention that kura does not mean penis; kurac does, but hey- one letter more, one letter less…

  2. After my Sophomore year in High School, I was a pianist in the Perlman Music Program. My piano teacher invited me to write a piece for the camp. I wrote a string sextet under the guidance of an interesting but, on balance, poor composition teacher. After one of the camp’s string teachers lost the parts for the first week, rehearsals finally began in the second and final week, and it soon began clear that the work was extremely poorly scored for the ensemble and that the first cello part was nearly impossible to play. Nevertheless, the performance went on. I was asked to say a few words about the piece before we played, and I was extremely nervous during my remarks. The performance, needless to say, was a total disaster. The piece ended, and, for a long moment, there was nothing but perplexed silence. Finally, Itzhak Perlman calmly said “Bravo” and a polite applause began. None of my fellow pianist friends had any compliments for me, and I remember one very gracious woman at the reception saying how she was actually able to follow what I had done and found it “very interesting.” But all the same, this remains a moderately painful embarrassment over ten years later. It was a glorious opportunity on which I was unable to capitalize.

  3. According to the political columnist Michael Kinsley, a “gaffe” is defined as a moment when a politician unintentionally speaks the truth. Mr. Henry may have just been simply explaining how it is…

  4. Chopin piano concerto [yawn] and the KW Symphony, fivish years ago. The name of the conductor escapes me now but I will certainly never forget him.

    The female soloist stands up for her bow and turns to acknowledge the conductor but they are caught in that awkward handshake/kiss/hug limbo.

    He chooses handshake, she chooses hug, the apparent compromise of which is him honking her boob. On stage. In front of 2000 people. She tries to pretend it didn’t happen, gathers what was left of her dignity and quickly exits stage left.

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