PARIS: Workers started dismantling Notre Dame’s grand organ on Monday to let experts restore it in time for the fifth anniversary of the fire that damaged the Paris cathedral.
The organ — the biggest musical instrument in France — was not burned by the flames that destroyed the cathedral’s roof and spire on April 15, 2019. But it was covered in soot and damaged by humidity.
“It is an absolute miracle that it has survived. An organ like this is enormous and looks indestructible, but it is actually very fragile,” Olivier Latry, one of Notre Dame’s official organ players, told Europe 1 radio.
Workers will dismantle its five keyboards, pedalboard and the 109 stop knobs that control airflow to its 8,000 pipes, some as high as 10 meters.
The organ which sits under the Gothic cathedral’s huge rose window, was completed in 1867, shortly after the spire, which crashed through the roof during the fire.
“We can’t wait for Notre Dame and the organ to be restored. There is some kind of magic between this instrument and the place ... it makes the stones sing,” Philippe Lefebvre, another cathedral organist, told TF1 television.
President Emmanuel Macron promised after the fire to rebuild Notre Dame within five years.
Church officials also hope Notre Dame will be open for mass by 2024, when Paris is due to host the Olympic Games.
Paris pulls out the stops to restore Notre-Dame’s grand organ
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Paris pulls out the stops to restore Notre-Dame’s grand organ
- The organ was not burned by the flames that destroyed the cathedral’s roof and spire on April 15, 2019
- But it was covered in soot and damaged by humidity
Fans bid farewell to Japan’s only pandas
TOKYO: Panda lovers in Tokyo said goodbye on Sunday to a hugely popular pair of the bears that are set to return to China, leaving Japan without the beloved animals for the first time in half a century.
Loaned out as part of China’s “panda diplomacy” program, the distinctive black-and-white animals have symbolized friendship between Beijing and Tokyo since the normalization of diplomatic ties in 1972.
Some visitors at Ueno Zoological Gardens were left teary-eyed as they watched Japan’s only two pandas Lei Lei and Xiao Xiao munch on bamboo.
The animals are expected to leave for China on Tuesday following a souring of relations between Asia’s two largest economies.
“I feel like seeing pandas can help create a connection with China too, so in that sense I really would like pandas to come back to Japan again,” said Gen Takahashi, 39, a Tokyo resident who visited the zoo with his wife and their two-year-old daughter.
“Kids love pandas as well, so if we could see them with our own eyes in Japan, I’d definitely want to go.”
The pandas’ abrupt return was announced last month after Japan’s conservative premier Sanae Takaichi hinted Tokyo could intervene militarily in the event of any attack on Taiwan.
Her comment provoked the ire of Beijing, which regards the island as its own territory.
The 4,400 lucky winners of an online lottery took turns viewing the four-year-old twins at Ueno zoo while others gathered nearby, many sporting panda-themed shirts, bags and dolls to celebrate the moment.
Mayuko Sumida traveled several hours from the central Aichi region in the hope of seeing them despite not winning the lottery.
“Even though it’s so big, its movements are really funny-sometimes it even acts kind of like a person,” she said, adding that she was “totally hooked.”
“Japan’s going to be left with zero pandas. It feels kind of sad,” she said.
Their departure might not be politically motivated, but if pandas return to Japan in the future it would symbolize warming relations, said Masaki Ienaga, a professor at Tokyo Woman’s Christian University and expert in East Asian international relations.
“In the future...if there are intentions of improving bilateral ties on both sides, it’s possible that (the return of) pandas will be on the table,” he told AFP.
