Choirs may take legal action on Italian concert `fiasco'

One of the leading participants in the recent Voices of the World "fiasco" in Rome was High Court judge, Mrs Justice Catherine McGuinness. She attended the event with 70 members of the Culwick Choral Society in Dublin, of which she is president. The group was participating as part of its centenary celebrations. A spokeswoman for Voices of the World, based at Cardiff, in Wales, said it was considering taking legal action against Italian agents for the event.

Ms Justice McGuinness felt constrained from discussing the matter, but the Culwick society's secretary, Mrs Helen O Colm ain, was critical of the organisation of the event and said legal action was being considered.

More than 1,000 Irish people, who paid between £435 and £550 (sterling) each to take part, flew to Rome on Easter Monday for what was billed as a Voices of the World UNICEF concert in St Paul's Basilica the following Thursday. It was to involve 10,000 singers from 10 countries. Participants also paid a further £20 sterling each for coach transport within Rome. However, besides the Irish the only others taking part were a children's choir from Poland. Coaches were either in short supply or didn't turn up, resulting in people missing rehearsals and an audience with the Pope on Wednesday, April 15th. Also, sightseeing tours of Rome, paid for in advance, "never happened".

Groups found themselves being accommodated at great distances from Rome city centre, where most of the scheduled events were to take place, and the UNICEF concert at St Paul's Basilica, which was to have been attended by Sir Richard Attenborough, became a greatly-reduced affair celebrating the Belfast Agreement, and involving just the Irish and Polish singers.

Sir Richard Attenborough did not attend nor did many, other than friends of the participants, who contributed to a collection for the Assisi Restoration Fund.

The organisation was "dreadful" said Mrs O Colmain. "It was not Voices of the World, it was Voices of Ireland." Her group was based at a convent 10 miles "in the countryside" outside Rome, and because of an absence of coaches members of her group missed the Papal audience. As with other participants she queried the amount of money each singer paid, especially when it was discovered that Alitalia had applied group rates for seats and local prices for accommodation differed significantly from those paid by the Irish.

Mrs Pauline Northfield, leader of a group of 46 singers from Ballaghaderreen, Co Roscommon, who attended the event, said that whereas those who wished to stay on at their Domus Pacis hostel, "about 20 minutes from Rome", were told by organisers it would cost a further £35 sterling a head per night, staff at the hostel said the rate was £12 a night.

Her group abandoned the idea of waiting for coaches because they didn't turn up, and used public transport. Some, however, waited for coaches to take them to St Peter's for the papal audience on Wednesday morning, but were "very, very bitterly disappointed" at being refused admission to the square when they eventually arrived at St Peter's, as they were too late to be allowed in.

Dr Jan Van Puttern, of the Blackwater Singers in Lismore, Co Waterford, has circulated Irish choirs with a questionnaire on their experiences in Rome as a prelude to seeking "a refund of a considerable part of the money that had to be paid in advance" from Voices of the World.