National anthems “butchered”
Rugby world is annoyed by children singing
September 14, 2023, 10:23 a.m
The Rugby World Cup is one of the largest sporting events in the world. The attention is correspondingly high when supposedly trivial things go wrong. There is a lot of anger about inappropriate versions of the national anthems. And there are already consequences.
It was actually a pretty good idea: The organizers of the Rugby World Cup had the national anthems of the participating teams sung by a total of around 7,000 school children divided into different choirs. A capella, i.e. without musical accompaniment. However, the results caused trouble on the first weekend of the mammoth event. So much trouble that the World Cup organizers will swap versions of the anthems.
The anthems were sung in canon, creating a barely audible roar in the stadiums as fans sang in unison. The English newspaper “The Guardian” reports that the discord started on Friday evening at host France’s opening game: “The Marseillaise was mutilated because the host’s players appeared to be out of sync and out of tune with the school children singing along in canon,” writes the paper about the moments before the game at the massive Stade de France, where France later beat New Zealand (27:13). “The problems increased over the course of seven more games on the opening weekend, including a ‘slaughter’ of ‘God Save the King’ before the England v Argentina game.”
Former Irish and British & Irish Lions captain Brian O’Driscoll was among those who criticized the chant. “The anthems were terrible, weren’t they? The two big anthems, if we’re honest, are La Marseillaise and the Italian anthem,” he said in a podcast. “Both feel like they’ve been slaughtered.” In the stadiums, fans’ reactions to the children’s choirs’ anthems were “overwhelmingly negative,” wrote The Guardian.
Rugby World Cup organizers were contrite in their response to the criticism: “The feedback we have received after eight games shows that these anthems disturb or surprise our fans,” said Jacques Rivoal from the organizing committee at a press conference. Tournament director Michel Poussau assisted: “We understand that it didn’t work, or that it didn’t work as well as we hoped,” he admitted. “Our traditional fans were surprised and unsettled as they are used to other versions of the national anthems.” The children “worked very hard and deserved to be part of this tournament.” New versions of the hymns were developed in which the children’s singing was retained. And sent them to the participating nations in advance for acceptance. The first reactions were “positive”.