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Peter Simpson

Musical organiser defends revelation
The music director of  Friday's opening ceremony for the  Olympics says   he's  surprised by the outcry over his revelation that producers had arranged for a girl to lip-synch a song sung by another child because  she was supposedly  unattractive.
But he also said 'it's wise to speak out about it now'.
Chen Qigang ,  chief music director of the extravaganza, said the event's directors, including filmmaker Zhang Yimou ,  decided to reveal the lip-synching after  Lin Miaoke   became a national star when she took centre stage in a red dress and sang a revolutionary song which, it turned out, was  recorded by another girl, Yang Peiyi .
Mr Chen disclosed in interviews that producers had pulled Peiyi, a seven-year-old Beijing girl with a 'flawless voice', from appearing on stage because her 'chubby face and uneven teeth' did not satisfy the  national interest in 'presenting the perfect face with the most perfect voice'.
The decision also involved intervention by a member of the Politburo of the Communist Party.
His remarks were quickly picked up by local media on Tuesday before a blackout on coverage was imposed hours later. Nevertheless, word spread on the mainland among  people disappointed by the substitution and lack of transparency. Overseas media also widely reported the incident, creating an embarrassment to the  Beijing Organising Committee for the Olympic Games and the  government.
But Mr Chen yesterday stressed  that arranging the lip-synching was a group decision and defended his move to speak out.
'We didn't expect Miaoke to become so popular overnight and it would be a big embarrassment if Miaoke was shaped into a singing star, but  ... later it was discovered that she had no musical talent,' he said.
'This is a smarter way of letting the public know something that it will know sooner or later. But I don't think this  thing was a big thing to start with.'
Mr Chen, a French national, admitted he had come under pressure for speaking out, but the pressure was from the public's disappointment, which he guessed was 'embarrassed that their beautiful dream of the patriotic song had burst'.
He said he was also surprised to receive calls from many overseas reporters who assumed he was a dissident and saw the case as a human rights issue.
In response to the uproar, officials from the International Olympic Committee and Bocog defended the substitution as necessary for technical reasons.  Bocog spokesman Sun Weide   said the pre-recording was a combined decision by the artistic directors and broadcasters.
'There were a number of candidates to sing the song, and the artistic directors just picked the best voice and the best performer,' he said.
Olympic Games  executive director Gilbert Felli  said the case had to be considered in the context of the opening ceremony and the complexity of staging 15,000 performers. 'You have to make sure the performance and the song are at the highest level. It is a casting or a technical decision by the producer,' he said.
He also likened the substitution to a sporting coach's decision to put one player on the bench so another could take the field.
'You can have different opinions, but sport is exactly the same,' he said. 'If your son is playing on a football team, suddenly the coach may decide that he's not playing, that he's going to stay on the bench.
'I think maybe on this one some people would believe that maybe it was not appropriate, but the others would have said it's fantastic because the performance was great. That's what it is in sport and in life.'
Mr Felli added that the performance  on Friday was 'fantastic'.
'We were very pleased with its outcome ... of one of the most complicated events to organise in the world,' he said.



Lip-synch furore surprises director