The Best of the Rest - The Cincinnati May Festival Wraps Up

Days Eight Through Sixteen

They were crazy days.

Day Eight began with a 9:30 am rehearsal for that evening’s concert performance of Verdi’s opera, Luisa Miller, and ended, of course, with the performance.

Day Nine gave me a chance to sleep in, thankfully. There was a dress rehearsal at Covington, Kentucky’s Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption that began at two, with the concert at eight. We (the Chamber Choir) followed the Youth Chorus with Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Mass in G Minor, and Brahm’s Zigeunerlieder (Gypsy songs).





Day Ten was a holiday, thankfully, so I had the entire day to rest up, since rehearsal didn’t begin until seven.

Days Eleven and Twelve involved more evening rehearsals with the orchestra.

Cleveland Chorus Arrives

On Day Thirteen, Thursday, the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus arrived, and there was a piano rehearsal with them of the repertoire for Saturday’s concert that began at four. That was followed by a seven o’clock dress rehearsal for Friday’s concert.

Day Fourteen was a little crazy. There was an eleven am rehearsal on stage with all 500 performers for Saturday’s concert, and our chorus alone assembled in the evening with the orchestra to perform a variety of choral works by Handel, Beethoven, Schumber, Bach and Mendelssohn.





Day Fifteen, Saturday morning, began with a dress rehearsal of Mahler’s 8th. After a nap, all 500 of us assembled for the Mahler. God it was good. This was, I think, my seventh performance of the work, and this was by far the best.




The reviews were effusive:

Mahler a Magnificent Finale to May Festival

Mahler Makes Music Hall Sing

The best review of all:

Bob sent us an e-mail afterward (this is Bob, for whom to issue praise is difficult, saying, “Congratulations on a truly wonderful performance. As I sat in the upper reaches of the gallery, I found myself thinking, ‘This is how the piece should sound.’ Thank you.”

One fun thing was that Emily, a fellow alto, had two, count ‘em, TWO, offspring in the Cincinnati Children’s choir, who sang from the balcony.




The evening ended with the annual Amen party, which involves an open bar and a great buffet – for hundreds. Attendees include the performers, their families, chorus alumni, the board, and on and on and on. There were well over a thousand people being fed that night.












Day Sixteen was spent at the computer, while I put the finishing touches on my skit for that evening's May Festival Annual Dinner. It was a parody of Schubert's Hirtenchor from Rosamunde, which we had performed on Friday night. It was sung by those of us who had broken bones, had joint surgery, torn shoulders and the like during the past year. This version was performed by The Hurtin’ Chor. It was pretty well received.

Other skits included a puppet-based parody of the way James Conlon tell us opera stories each year, entitled, “Jimm’s Fairy Tales,” an alto skit about a Gospel church where the main text was the Gospel of Bob, and a funny PowerPoint presentation about the trials and tribulations of the committee that had to come up with new dress designs to replace the witch costumes we’ve worn for the past dozen years.


The Church of the Gospel of Bob:

So, another May Festival has come and gone. Already I miss everyone.

Day Nine - Cincinnati May Festival

Covington, Kentucky'd Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption, along with the May Festival Youth Chorus during warmups.

There will more video and some stills of the Cathedral in a later entry.

Day Seven - Cincinnati May Festival

After all the rehearsing, it was about time for a concert. We were joined by the May Festival Youth Chorus for Mozart's Requiem.

Just prior to going on stage, it was also time for service awards. The two big boxes were for a soprano and a tenor who had each achieved 35 years of service in the chorus. The little boxes were service pins for those have served 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 years, and there were also 30 year awards.

I received my 25 year pin (a small gold pin with the festival's logo set with an emerald) two years ago. I'm very proud of it, needless to say.

The hall was filled with festive concertgoers, and it was fun, as usual, to watch the tuxedo-and-fancy-dress-crowd come down the Music Hall aisles. They're not as over the top as they were back in the early 80's when I first joined the chorus, but some people still dress up and it's a nice thing to see.

I don't have much to report about the concert, except that it went extremely well, and both reviewers loved the concert.

Day Six - Cincinnati May Festival

Day Six (Thursday) was the dress rehearsal for Friday’s opening night. Both choruses (youth and adult) assembled on a crowded stage (there were over 200 of us in total) and Conlon ran through the entire Mozart Requiem without stopping – which may be a first in the 27 festivals I’ve sung in). He apparently was pleased.

Apparently Patti LuPone “graciously” acquiesced to let us sit in on her rehearsal after all. Bob told us that we could go out into the hall and listen, but that “I’ll be backstage, and we have a lot of work to do.”

I went out into the hall. LuPone’s concert opening, Kurt Weill’s The Seven Deadly Sins, was a neat performance and I really liked the music. I’m not totally certain that her range was suitable for the piece, but it was still entertaining. The male quartet was terrific (Rodrick Dixon, John Aler, Jeremy Kelly, and James Creswell,), performing with great wit and style.

After that was over, I went back into the freezing rehearsal hall (it felt like a refrigerator back there) where a portion of the chamber choir was working on the Vaughan Williams piece for Sunday’s Basilica concert. It still needs work. We will assemble early on Sunday afternoon to clean up some errant bass notes here and there and it will be fine by concert time.

Day Five - Cincinnati May Festival

Wednesday was the first orchestra rehearsal of Luisa Miller. It was pretty uneventful. Conlon was considerate enough to do the choral parts first,so we were done very quickly.

The soloists for the production are excellent. They are Annalisa Raspagliosi, Stefano Secco, Kristinn Sigmundsson, Rodrick Dixon (one of the “Three Mo’ Tenors), James Creswell, Stephen Powell and Catherine Keen. Secco and Raspagliosi are marvelous together. Even though I’m no fan of opera, I love hearing this bunch sing. They are having a good time, and it shows.

When the soloists were introduced to the orchestra and chorus, everyone applauded the heroes and hissed or booed the villains. It was fun.

The only worthy-of-note Bob-ism of the night was a comment during the warm up before we went on stage. A soprano started a coughing fit, and was told, “No, we’re doing La Boheme tomorrow night. Tonight is Luisa Miller.”

After the orchestra rehearsal, we retired to the rehearsal room and worked on Mendelssohn’s Die Erste Walpurgisnacht. I think that’s all we did – but I’m beginning to get a little loopy from lack of sleep (my cat disappeared for 24 hours, and I was getting up every hour or so to look for her), so I’m not really sure.

Day Four - Cincinnati May Festival

No photos today. The rehearsal was a shorter one, although pretty intense.

The youth chorus joined us on stage for the first orchestra run-through of the Mozart Requiem. We ran it, with only a couple of repeats. Conlon wanted to move on the second half of the program, with Patti LuPone's stuff -- Kurt Weill's Seven Deadly Sins.

As Conlon told us the other night, her manager won't permit anyone to be in the hall while she's rehearsing, which is really irritating. Shades of Kathleen Battle! I have very little patience with divas.

After all, WE (the festival) are her employers and she is a GUEST performer at OUR festival. To not be permitted to see her performance in rehearsal is insulting. Despite Conlon's promise that we can see the real performance (as opposed to the rehearsal), we've been told that is not possible, as there is no time to get us from the hall at intermission in time to warm up and get on stage for the second half of the evening.

Conlon says he's working on her, but I doubt that we'll see her. I'll have to ask someone who was in the audience to find out how it went.

Grrr.

After the Mozart the Youth Chorus had a quick meeting in a large dressing room about their schedule for the rest of the festival, the Chamber Choir went into the rehearsal hall to work on Sunday's concert stuff, and everybody else went home -- and it was only 8:00 pm (we started at six).

We went through most of the Brahms Zigeunerlieder, finishing at 9:30.

It's good to have the extra half hour.

And, with a tip of the hat to Mr. Pepys, so to bed.

Day Three - Cincinnati May Festival

There was only one three-hour rehearsal on Day Three, so there's a little less fodder for blogging than the first two days offered.








It was Miller time again, and we worked through the entire opera. In the first chorus, an entire Italian village is somehow in the tiny house of Luisa and her father, wishing Luisa a happy birthday. We play the village. After we finished the section, Conlon's comment was, "That was charming, lovely and most of it in tune!"

Joining us was Rebekah Camm, a pretty darned good soprano who sings the role of Laura. Here's a very little bit of her voice:

The only other Conlon bon mot worth sharing was in reference to working with soloists and being where you're supposed to be at the right time: "Do not depend on any soloists ever. They are paid the big bucks to not sing in any tempo known to man."















Good choruses hit their marks, tempo-wise, regardless of any screwups on the part of soloists. We had that situation in the Brahms Requiem this past season, when the bass screwed up and finished a measure or so early. His ending was our cue, but we waited to enter until it was the right time -- it would have been so easy to follow him and mess everything up.

The rehearsal was pretty uneventful otherwise. It closed with a 30-minute retelling of the story of the opera, which, in my opinion, is silly beyond measure. Conlon, after all, is an opera conductor and loves the genre, and he manages to extract all sorts of deeper meanings out of the characters and plots. At least he tells the story in an entertaining fashion.

Conlon's daughter, Luisa, was conceived, so the story goes, the night we performed this opera in May of 1988 (the only other time he's conducted it), and is named Luisa. She is apparently as sick of hearing about that as we are.

Since the evening was otherwise uneventful, I'll close with some more photos taken during the evening.

Day Two - Cincinnati May Festival

Day two got under way with a Chamber Choir rehearsal of the Vaughan Williams Mass in G Minor. Bob tried out various combinations of voices for the solo parts. One young soprano had a laser-like focus and would be perfect, although I think Bob may prefer one of the older sopranos with a little more warmth in their tone. We'll see.

We also worked on the "solo" part of the Schubert Hirtenchor, from the incidental music for Rosamunde, and then the chamber choir women prepared the Suscepit Israel section of the Bach Magnificat. It is meltingly beautiful, and I love singing it.

Next, the rest of the chorus arrived, and it was Miller time (Luisa Miller, that is). We went through most, if not all of it, with Ignacio, James Conlon's assistant, serving as vocal coach. (Later on, Conlon told of his recent conducting experience in Bologna, where he spent time with Ignacio's family in Palermo -- apparently with all the aunts, uncles, cousins and the rest of the clan.)

Toward the end of the opera, there is a lot singing, with the chorus interjecting here and there. Since we jump around in the score during rehearsals, we often don't understand the full musical (or dramatic) context in which we're singing. So, at the end of this tragic opera, when we all sang a rousing "Ahhhhhhhhh!" in a major key to end the piece, Bob started jumping up and down on the podium, shouting a soon-to-be-immortal Bob-ism, "Everybody's dead! That's got to be a minor chord!"

Here are some assorted scenes from the opera rehearsal in which the men's section improves on a section that had been rehearsed only once, weeks before. Also note the "visiting" male soprano in the last scene:

After the opera, we worked through the Bach Magnificat. It was pretty good, if I do say so myself. We've had two rehearsals on the piece, and it's been a couple of months since the last one. Bob commented, "That was fantastic. A chorus this big has no business doing Bach -- but you're proving that wrong."

There was one more priceless Bob-isms during the Bach. There are long melismas throughout the piece (a melisma happens when one syllable of a word has multiple notes -- in baroque music there are many, many, many notes in long, complex runs), and it's necessary to keep the rhythm precise so that all the parts line up appropriately. We often start moving our bodies or tapping our feet to keep time. Bob's comment to the tenors and basses: "I'd like to see that again, more connected this time, and with minimal head movement."

At six, we broke for dinner.

After dinner, the 130 voices of the adult chorus were joined by the 80 or so members of the May Festival Youth Chorus to work on the Mozart Requiem. This chorus is made up of an amazing group of high schoolers from all around the region -- Kentucky, Indiana and Ohio. They are the best of the best.

This is their 20th season. The ensemble was formed to give young singers the opportunity to perform in a professional musical environment, and they sing regularly throughout the season with the Cincinnati Symphony and Cincinnati Pops, and at solo concerts throughout the region -- in addition to their performances at the May Festival. They sing one Music Hall May Festival concert each year with the adult chorus, and also shine on their own at the concert at Covington's Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption.

Their director is Dr. James Bagwell, who used to be one of us back when he was one of Bob's doctoral conducting students at Indiana University. He is currently Director of the Music Program at Bard College in New York, and also is Director of Choruses for the Bard Music Festival, Music Director of the New York Repertory Singers, conductor of the Berkshire Bach Society Chorus and Orchestra.

He says the Cincinnati group is the best of the bunch. Most of them go on to college to study music, and there are many musical careers that start in the Youth Chorus. They are amazing.

Conlon arrived to conduct this part of the rehearsal. The evening opened up with Bob telling of the last time he called James. "I never know where he's going to be when I call him." The last call reached Conlon in Bologna, from which he informed Bob that the waitress at their favorite restaurant there was gone.

Conlon makes some bizarrely funny faces when he's trying to get us to sound the way he wants, and has some interesting phrases, as well. He told the sopranos at one point, "I want to get your passagios in order," and when the tenors weren't singing as lustily as he would have liked, he said (not intentionally), "Tenors, the ball's in your court." (Snickers all around the alto section.)

A chorus member had the quip of the evening. Conlon was talking about some short pick up notes that weren't getting the proper emphasis, so he commented that "short notes are important, too."

The alto next to me turned to me and said, "It not the size of the note -- it's what you do with it."

Day One - Cincinnati May Festival

The first day went rather well.

In the shower, I listened to Robert Porco's interview on WVXU, during which he said nice things about our chorus and told a little of his interesting life story. I had to wait to rinse the shampoo out of my hair so that I didn't miss a word.

At Music Hall, the morning began with coffee and donuts (my favorite: custard-filled and covered with chocolate).

The group sang Happy Birthday to all of us who have birthdays in May and June, and then after everyone started to wake up and get down to business, we started off at 10:00 am by giving each other backrubs and then the vocal warmups began.

By 10:10, we were digging deep into the Mahler 8th. By lunchtime, at 1:00 pm, we had done 90% of the music. There is a women's section left to do, but otherwise, we're about as ready as we're going to be. Considering that we've only rehearsed the second movement once before, I'm impressed.

The word is that the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus, who will be joining us for the Mahler performance, has been rehearsing nothing but the Mahler for weeks -- and Bob made them all sing it for him in quartets last week -- almost a reaudition. All this, while we've been working on the Mahler on a limited basis, along with works by Schubert, Mendelssohn, Mozart, Verdi, Bach, Handel, Beethoven, Vaughan Williams and Brahms.

Maybe it's easier to blow off preparing when you only have one thing to work on. We have so much to learn in such a short time that we have to do a lot of work outside of rehearsals just to keep up.

At lunchtime, I went to the box office to get tickets for my daughter Alex and her boyfriend, Justin. They will attend all four Music Hall concerts, as well as the concert at Covington's Basilica. Justin's mom, Cheryl, will join them for the last two.

Ouch. It cost $343 for the 12 tickets, after my chorus discount. I told Alex about the expense, and she commented, "Doesn't it make you appreciate the Know Theatre's $12 seats?" Always marketing...

Lunch was the standard catered buffet with sandwich makings, salads, and fruit.

Then it was back the rehearsal room, working on Mendelssohn's Die Erste Walpurgisnacht, which is something about Druids and the slaughtering of children and the peasants storming the gates with pitchforks and something called "klapperstucken" (there should be an umlaut on that "u" but I don't have one handy).

Both the women and the men were recipients of Bob-isms.

During a women's chorus, Bob asked, "Can you be more pathetic?"

My first reaction, was, "Sure. We've often been pretty pathetic!" But he was asking for pathos, since we were singing about the murder of our children.

At one point in a men's chorus, the men were singing along, but not making much of an impression of the anger I think they were supposed to be expressing.

Bob commented, "Come, on guys, dotted rhythms are macho!"

Apparently that comment caused an immediate rise in testosterone levels, because the next time they opened their mouths, it was definitely a male chorus. Of course, the women were hooting and hollering and clapping to beat the band -- along with lots of laughter. Now we know what it takes to get them to sing like men.

Once we finished the Mendelssohn we worked on a movement of the Bach Magnificat, the Beethoven Hallelujah (from The Mount of Olives), and two choruses from Schubert's incidental music from Rosamunde.

Five o'clock had arrived, and we headed for home.

Day two begins on Sunday, May 17 at 1:45 with a rehearsal of the Chamber Choir, who will be joined by the regular chorus at 3:00 pm. Dinner will be at 6:00 and from 7:00 to 10:00, we'll rehearse the Mozart Requiem with the May Festival Youth Chorus. If James Conlon's plane arrives as scheduled, he'll lead that rehearsal.

It's about ready to begin again

OK, folks. Tomorrow is the first day of the 16-day marathon known as the Cincinnati May Festival. As a member of the May Festival Chorus, I will have no more free time (after tonight) until June. We will prepare for five performances on May 22, 23, 24, 29 and 30 by giving up every evening and all our weekends, dedicating ourselves to choral music.

As I did last year, I'll keep you all informed of the goings-on and any drama that comes up (I'm sure it will -- we're in the world of divas, after all).

Day Ten – Cincinnati May Festival 2008

By now, you know the routine: walk in from the parking garage (last night in the pouring rain), greet the security guard, hang up the raincoat and umbrella, find your seat, talk about how exhausted you are, and then start the warmup. First backrubs, then stretching, humming, vocalizing, and then, “take a seat and let’s start with the first movement of the Fauré.”

So that we did. We sang Fauré for a while and then launched into the “Sicut erat” of the Bach cantata.

Bob paused long enough to compliment us on our performances of the weekend. He spent quite a bit of time telling us about the compliments he’d received on our behalf from concertgoers and others, telling us that, as usual, the local audiences love us and are proud of us, but that he’s been hearing wonderful things from people who don’t have any reason to like us other than from our performances. An opera coach from the Met was blown away (“The standards here are so high!” - Duh.). He said “I don’t know what they’re expecting, but they always act so surprised to find such quality, and they can’t say enough good things about you.” He heard from people from all sorts of places who were in attendance over the weekend. People come from around the world to the festival, and there was even someone from Australia in the audience (along with the family of the composer Erich Zeisl, who, Bob said, were moved by our performance – things like that are so rewarding for us).

He also made a point of thanking us for our dedication and work ethic, saying, “I don’t say that often enough. I always appreciate your efforts, but I’m usually too busy beating up on you to say it.” Hearing that from Bob is high praise, even better than all the cheering and whistling and shouting we hear from our audiences when the conductor acknowledges us.

After the Fauré and Bach, Conlon, Jennifer (his wife the diction coach), the Met opera coach and Ignacio, Conlon’s assistant, all arrived, and we separated into Montagus and Capulets to work on the Berlioz. Most of the chorus was dismissed at 9:30 and the chamber choir stayed to work with tenor John Aler on the impossibly fast Mab chorus from the first movement. I think this year is John’s 22nd May Festival. His voice is a little wobblier than it used to be, but he’s still a joy to work with.

At ten, we went back out into the rain and headed home. Day Eleven begins at 5:30 on Tuesday night, with the Chamber Choir and May Festival Youth Chorus on stage with Bob to rehearse the Vivaldi Gloria. Once that’s done, the Youth Chorus goes home and the full complement of singers will work with the orchestra on the Fauré and the Bach.

Day Six -- Cincinnati May Festival 2008

Catherine Keen visiting the chorus, getting ready for our "duet" with her: Rat a plan.

The dress rehearsal for The-Opera-Which-Must-Not-Be-Named went well. There is always room for improvement, of course. Bob Porco always says we can be better. Perfection is never achieved -- not that we came close last night.

Salvatore Licitra was ill the day before, and James Conlon told us that they were searching everywhere for a backup tenor, but there were none to be found. However, Licitra decided on the morning of the dress rehearsal that he was feeling better, so the panic has subsided. He didn't give his all during rehearsal, but he was there, participating. The light singing he did give told us a lot about what's there -- and I think he'll be fabulous.

The entire cast is pretty darn good. My favorites are Earle Patriarco, Marco Caria and Yohan Li, all baritones.

There were no underwear episodes on Day Six. If there are any on the Saturday morning rehearsal, I'll let you know.

My personal experience at the rehearsal was not a pleasant one. An hour before rehearsal, I slipped on some stairs and strained a ligament in my ankle. I had to sit for the entire three hours with a bag of ice draped over my foot. It is now the morning after, and the ankle is still swollen and hurting. I'm hoping the ace bandage, ibuprofen and more ice will help. Wish me luck -- I want to be able to stand for the performance.

Here are some vignettes from rehearsal:

Day Four - Cincinnati May Festival 2008

Tuesday night we finally got to work with the orchestra on The-Opera-Which-Must-Not-Be-Named. It was the first run-through of the music by the orchestra, and as usual, their performance was pretty good, with some mistakes here and there, as you would expect for a first take. At one point, Conlon stopped them with the acerbic comment, “There are five sharps in the signature! Have been for some time.” I think it was an attempt at humor. I’m not certain it was taken that way.

There was a lot of standing and sitting as we relaxed between little choral episodes. The trouble with opera is that the chorus can be silent for pages and pages, and then have to jump in with a quick “Eviva!” or two here and there. Once in a while there are longer passages, but there’s a lot of waiting, sort of like being on jury duty. Oh, well. All that getting up and down in rehearsal is good for the thighs. In performance, you stand most of the time, which is not good for the back.

Conlon finally introduced the soloists to us after the break, when all of them were assembled. Catherine Keen, Morris Robinson and Earle Patriarco (from Monday’s rehearsal) were there, along with Marco Caria (making his American debut), Rodrick Dixon (one of the original “Three Mo’ Tenors”), Yohan Yi, and Angela Brown. We still haven’t heard from Darren Stokes, or the mightily publicized Salvatore Licitra. I presume they’ll be here for the dress rehearsal on Thursday night.

On a personal note, I’ve had a total of nine hours of sleep over the past two nights. I’m so wired when I get home from Music Hall that it’s hard to come down from the experience enough to sleep. When I do sleep, it’s the sleep of the dead. Managing to get my eyes open in the morning requires Herculean efforts.

The schedule for Day Five is the Beethoven Ninth and Erich Zeisl’s Requiem Ebraico. I’m hoping that we’ll do the choral pieces early and have the opportunity to leave before ten o’clock.

Day Three - Cincinnati May Festival 2008

We arrived at Music Hall just before seven and quickly noticed some additions to the Bucket O’Dipthongs: ladies thong panties – from the tiniest to the largest imaginable. Also in the bucket was a package of dip, with some cooking tongs attached with rubber bands. It’s obviously getting out of hand.



We rehearsed the Zeisl for the first hour with Bob before James arrived. As we began, he made some comments about the previous day’s rehearsals. On Sunday, he sat at a table behind James Conlon, with Ignacio, Conlon’s assistant (and our Italian diction coach), looking alternately forlorn, bored, frustrated, pleased, or angry. Last night he told us he had been “alternating between wanting to help you and wanting to strangle you.”

It has to be difficult for him to be working with us on these pieces, making decisions about breaths, style and so forth to then see all that work thrown away by a conductor who tells us to breathe anywhere and who prefers that our long, sweeping phrases be broken up into short choppy ones.

But during that hour with Bob, we made music. And jokes. Someone in the soprano section sang a wrong note, and Bob commented. A soprano in the back raised her hand and said , “It was me!”


Bob, who often jokingly expounds on Catholic guilt, responded, “Oh, another Catholic. Have you met Josh?” pointing to a bass who often confesses when he makes a mistake.

A few minutes later, another soprano goofed, and said, “This time it was me. But I’m a protestant, so I know you’ll forgive me.” That brought down the house.

Bob responded, “How long have you been waiting to say that?”

Later on, he was frustrated by a lack of unity in our singing, and started in on his mantra that a chorus must be made up of leaders, with no one waiting around for someone else to start. He said that it isn’t just our chorus where this happens, but that it’s endemic, and that is “why there are so many bad, bad choruses.”

As one, the entire chorus spontaneously repeated the word “bad, bad, ba-a-a-d, b-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a!” like a chorus of bleating sheep.

I guess you had to be there.

Bob was being particularly hard on the men about some pitch issues at one point, and then looked up at the rest of us with a smile, saying, “I’m after the basses because they’ve sung the most so far, but you’ll get your turn.”

That’s one of the best parts of working with Bob. He’s always making comments that I want to write down, so last night I did. Three or four years ago, I wrote down his priceless “Bob-isms” for an entire season. At the end of the year, I wrote a parody of Star Wars for our end-of-the-year dinner in which every single line was a “Bob-ism.”

Conlon arrived at eight, and we did a little more Zeisl for fifteen minutes. Then he dismissed us for fifteen minutes (so much time wasted) when some of the soloists came in to work with us on the Verdi. First in line was mezzo soprano Catherine Keen.

Next in the room was bass Morris Robinson with baritone Earle Patriarco.

Keen was in great voice, as was Robinson. I couldn’t hear Patriarco, because Robinson’s voice just plain buried him. Morris Robinson looks exactly like the linebacker he once was (at the Citadel). His voice matches. The term “basso profundo” was made for him. Last year my daughter gave me a CD of his spirituals for my birthday – wonderful.

At about 8:45 we had another break and non-chamber choir women were dismissed. The men’s choruses in Verdi were sung once again (please excuse the wandering focus -- this camera follows its instincts):

Finally, the chamber choir stayed behind to work on the Rachmaninoff Vespers with Conlon for the first time. We’ll perform them at the Cathedral Basilica in Covington on Sunday evening.

At ten o’clock we were on our way home.

Tuesday will be day four. Here's the schedule for the rest of the festival, subject, as always, to change:

Tuesday, May 13 Verdi - Chorus Call 6:30PM

Wednesday, May 14 Zeisl, Beethoven - 6:30PM Chorus Call

Thursday, May 15 Verdi (Probable overtime) Open Rehearsal - Chorus Call 6:30PM

Friday, May 16 Performance Verdi - Chorus Call TBD

Saturday, May 17 Zeisl, Beethoven - Open Rehearsal - Chorus Call 9:00AM
Zeisl, Beethoven - Performance - Chorus Call TBD

Sunday, May 18 Chamber Choir Rehearsal at Basilica from 3:30-5:00PM; Chorus Call TBD

Monday, May 19 Piano Rehearsal in LRR 7:00-10:00PM; no early call

Tuesday, May 20 Vivaldi Chamber Choir Piano rehearsal on stage from 5:30 - 6:15PM; Chorus Call for those not in Vivaldi 6:30PM
Vivaldi, Faure, Bach Open Rehearsal - Chorus Call 6:30PM

Wednesday, May 21 Berlioz - Chorus Call 6:30PM

Thursday, May 22 Vivaldi, Faure, Bach Open Rehearsal -Chorus Call 6:30PM

Friday, May 23 Performance Faure, Vivaldi, Bach (note performance order) - Chorus Call 6:30PM

Saturday, May 24 Berlioz - Open Rehearsal - Chorus Call 9:00AM
Berlioz - Performance - Chorus Call TBD

Day Two - Cincinnati May Festival 2008

We started at 2:00 pm with the usual warmup. James Conlon arrived and began his annual retelling of whatever opera we’re doing.

James is the Music Director of the Los Angeles Opera and former principal conductor of the Paris Opera, former Music Director of the Cologne Opera – AND the man who has conducted the third highest number of operas at the Metropolitan Opera (after Cincinnatian James Levine and former Cincinnati Symphony Music Director Thomas Schippers). Therefore, it is a given that he is mad about opera. He even thinks the stories aren’t dumb. I would like to take him aside and enlighten him, but that’s another story.

He explained that this particular opera has some sort of bad luck associated with it, and that in opera circles, saying the title of La Forza del Destino is bad luck. If you do say it, you have to make gesture with your right hand that looks like a U. of Texas “hook ‘em horns” gesture (with index and little fingers extended and the two middle fingers folded down) and touch your private parts as you say it. There’s another name for the opera that you can say instead which does not require gesturing and touching, but I don’t remember what that is.

This gesture apparently originated with Franco Corelli, the Italian tenor, who supposedly held on to his nether regions while singing in it. Wikipedia reports that an Italian director would shout obscenities if anyone even whistled anything from the work.

And the opera has had some bad luck. In 1960 at the Met in New York, Leonard Warren, a “stupendous” baritone (according to Renata Tibaldi) had completed singing a section of Act III which begins, “Morir, tremenda cosa,” (“to die, a marvelous thing”), then opened a wallet as the next stop in the action. He sang the next bit, “Gioia, o gioia,” (“Joy, oh joy!”) and then collapsed, unconscious and still. He had had a massive heart attack and was declared dead backstage.

So, I guess I won’t speak the name of the opera this week. I’m not fond of obscene gestures, anyway. I think perhaps it is dangerous to even peform the damned thing…

We worked our way through the opera, however, once James had told the ridiculous story. We were pretty much finished with it by the 5:00 pm break.

At the break, we headed upstairs to our supper in the Corbett Tower. The afternoon Pops concert was just letting up, so we were had to snake our way through the upper regions of the backstage to find our way to the second floor to get an escalator up to the third floor. Of course, the concert patrons were all coming down, so our procession had definite salmon-esque characteristics.

After supper, we were back in the rehearsal room, and finished up a couple of bits of the the Verdi and then started on the Zeisl Requiem Ebraico. The piece is lovely. The composer, Erich Zeisl, was a refugee from Austria in the 1930’s who joined many composers in southern California writing movie scores, including those for Lassie, Come Home, The Postman Always Rings Twice, and Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man.

The Requiem was composed after World War II to commemorate his father’s death in a Nazi concentration camp. The text is that of Psalm 92:

It is good to praise the LORD and make music to your name, O Most High, to proclaim your love in the morning and your faithfulness at night, to the music of the ten-stringed lyre and the melody of the harp.

For you make me glad by your deeds, O LORD; I sing for joy at the works of your hands.

How great are your works, O LORD, how profound your thoughts!

The senseless man does not know, fools do not understand, that though the wicked spring up like grass and all evildoers flourish, they will be forever destroyed.

But you, O LORD, are exalted forever.

For surely your enemies, O LORD, surely your enemies will perish; all evildoers will be scattered.

You have exalted my horn like that of a wild ox; fine oils have been poured upon me.

My eyes have seen the defeat of my adversaries; my ears have heard the rout of my wicked foes.

The righteous will flourish like a palm tree, they will grow like a cedar of Lebanon;
planted in the house of the LORD, they will flourish in the courts of our God.

They will still bear fruit in old age, they will stay fresh and green,
proclaiming, "The LORD is upright; he is my Rock, and there is no wickedness in him."

The final fugue is fast and joyous, and quite difficult, as the exquisitely beautiful modal harmonies seem foreign to our ears. The hopefulness of the text, although incongruous considering that this is a requiem for Nazi victims, is infectious.

Once we completed the Zeisl, we went to work on the final chorus of the Beethoven Ninth Symphony. Conlon’s interpretation is the standard march-along staccato that, from my point of view, negates the joy. It sounds to me as if jack-booted Nazi soldiers were goose-stepping along the Champs Elysee, taking away joy, instead of singing an ode to it.

The performances of the Ninth we did with Paavo Jarvi a couple of years ago, as well as earlier ones with Jesus Lopez-Cobos were quite different and much more to my taste. They featured long legato lines instead of the heavy, marcato singing that we’re being instructed to do. When Paavo conducted the piece in Sptember of 2005, I felt I had never heard it before. Not only was the final choral movement truly joyous, but he produced a transparent interpretation instead of the usual dense and heavy texture that is most often the way Beethoven is conducted.

Oh, well. I’m here to follow orders and sing, letting the maestro make the artistic decisions. It’s impossible to like everything he does. Sometimes, for me, it’s impossible to like anything he does. I feel that often Conlon’s conducting is less about the composer and the music than it is about Conlon. Just my opinion.

We finished rehearsing at 9:00 pm.

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One of the problems we have in learning to sing in other languages is that American English has a lot of dipthongs. For example, if we say the word, “say,” we really are saying two vowel sounds after the letter “s.” First the long “a” sound, followed by a subtle, yet definite, “eee” at the end. Sometimes we can say/sing many more than two vowel sounds when there’s only one vowel in a word. (I think southerners are best at this, although the west side of Cincinnati can give the southerners a run for their money.)

Other languages have more pure vowels, without the multiplicity of vowel sounds that Americans use. It drives Bob Porco crazy that we do this, referring to our attempts on Saturday morning to sing the Faure Requiem as being sung in “Kentucky Latin.”

So, when we arrived at rehearsal on Saturday morning, we found a galvanized bucket behind the podium. In the bucket was a pole with a sign affixed to it:

When we arrived at rehearsal on Sunday afternoon, another wag had added a sign on the wall nearby:
Tonight we have more rehearsing to do. It appears that the chamber choir will be staying later than the rest of the clan to work on the Rachmaninoff Vespers. Russian vowels are an entirely different thing. Even their consonants are different. Wish us luck.

Day One - Cincinnati May Festival 2008

The first day of rehearsals went pretty well, I think. Things will get better and better as the rehearsals continue and we get into the groove.

I arrived about 9:15, and had a cup of tea and a couple cream cheese danish (danishes?). Our chorus administrator, Rosanne Wetzel, works hard to give us such amenities so that we can get through it all with a minimum of fuss. In the old days, we had to fend for ourselves, finding lunch or supper as needed, often making things at home and providing potluck. That was difficult to do considering the schedule, so the efforts of Rosanne and the support of our management to feed us are much appreciated.

A long conversation with Joe Hopper, the chief stagehand for the symphony, started off the morning as I finished my tea. He has been helpful to my daughter as she got into her theater career, helping her to join the stagehands union. He's an inveterate flirt, and an interesting guy. He's about to make two trips to China this summer as part of the Cincinnati Pops' appearances at the Olympics in August. One trip will be to go on ahead to scout out locations and plan the tour's logistics, and the second to go with the orchestra and make sure all the plans are followed. That's a huge responsibility, getting those priceless instruments and assorted equipment to the right place at the right time and in perfect condition.

To read more about Joe's past experiences getting the orchestra around the globe, click here.

Just before 10:00, I passed along a knitting catalog to a first-year alto, and settled into my seat. The chatter began to die down, and Robert Porco stepped on the podium to begin the warmup.

First order of business: backrubs. We turn to our right and massage the shoulders of the next chorister, until someone (usually on the far left, who's been doing all the work and getting no benefit) yells, "Switch!" Then we reverse direction and work on the singer to the left. I lucked out yesterday by being next to a massage therapist. Yum.

Then the vocal warmups began. Those are hard to describe without singing. We start by humming, which gets a buzz going in the bones in the front of the face. The hums change to "eeeee" sounds, and then to "ahhs." We work through the vowels and sing notes from low to high and back again, both legato and staccato. This gets all our vocal muscles in shape, and we start to focus on the proper breathing.

Then, it's "Have a seat and open the Bach to page 23." We worked our way through the Bach Cantata 191 (which is also the Gloria from the Mass in B Minor). We began with the Sicut erat, which goes like a bat out of hell, with long melismas (one syllable of a word that is stretched out over multiple different notes, often over many measures) to keep track of. Then we sang the Gloria. This was only the third time we'd sung the piece, and it will be the last time until the dress rehearsal with the orchestra a week from Thursday.

Just before the 11:30 break, we began the Faure Requiem. When we came back at from break we again started with the last movement and worked our way to the front. This was the second rehearsal on the piece, and again, the last one until dress rehearsal a week from Thursday.

We finished the Faure at 1:00, and it was time for lunch. We were treated to a nice catered lunch in the Corbett Tower on the third floor of Music Hall, and relaxed and chatted for a little bit, catching up. We don't often have a full hour to talk with each other, so it was a good hour. The lunch was very good, too. We ate our dessert first (Klondike bars) because we were afraid they'd melt if we waited. Someone said that you could die before dessert, so it's always a good idea to eat it first.

Then back downstairs. James Conlon had arrived from wherever he had been earlier in the week, along with his wife, Jennifer Ringo. Jennifer has been our French diction coach (via CD) this year for the upcoming performance of Berlioz' Romeo et Juliette, which we rehearsed in the afternoon session.

Bob ran through the piece, with James and Jennifer sitting at a table in the back, making comments on our French as appropriate. At one point, Bob looked back at them expectantly, and they were in deep conversation. Jennifer looked up and commented, "Oh, sorry. We were arguing over a vowel."

We began with the double and triple choruses of Part III. We were arrayed in two parts : Montagues on stage left, and Capulets on stage right. For the triple chorus, the top chorus members were scattered throughout. We got through all of that, and it was break time.

Then the women not in chamber choir were excused. As I did some work on a shawl I'm knitting, the men went through part II, which is men only, and finally, we got to part I. The men not in chamber choir were excused, and the last half an hour or so was chamber choir only, working through the introductory, chantlike scene-setting, followed by the lightning fast (152 beats per minute) "Mab chorus." Then, magically, if was five o'clock and we emerged into the blinding sunshine to head home.

I think the Sunday rehearsal will be of Verdi's opera, La forza del destino. However, we're also doing the Zeisl Requiem Ebraico and Beethoven's Ninth Symphony next weekend, so I think we should also work on those, too. We should have two orchestra rehearsals on each of those next week, as well, so that will take up most of next week.

I just show up and bring all my music, my water bottle, my knitting, and a book to read (just in case -- ha). Whatever they want us to rehearse, I'll be ready.

What We Go Through for Applause...

For 25 seasons, I've been part of the Cincinnati May Festival, the oldest choral festival in the Western Hemisphere (begun 1873) as a member of the official chorus (founded 1880). This year marks the 26th festival for me. It would have been 28 but I took a couple of breathers along the way since my first festival in 1981.

One of the aspects of the May Festival that makes it unique is that we do five completely different programs in a ten day period. We rehearse along the way during our "other season" (when we're the official chorus of the Cincinnati Symphony and Cincinnati Pops orchestras), but when May arrives, we're in for an intense couple of weeks.

That couple of weeks begins on this coming Saturday, with two three hour rehearsals. Sunday's schedule is pretty much the same, and there are nightly rehearsals Monday through Thursday. Friday is the first performance. Saturday morning, another rehearsal followed by a performance Saturday night. Sunday features a rehearsal and performance, as well. Then it's four more nightly rehearsals, with concerts Friday and Saturday with one final rehearsal Saturday morning.

On Sunday, we all get together and have a big dinner and perform skits for one another, singing even more. Then the withdrawal sets in, and we reacquaint ourselves with our families over the summer -- unless we choose to sing in some optional summer concerts at Riverbend Music Center.

It's difficult to communicate this experience to those who aren't part of this. Families don't get it, for sure. "Not tonight, I have rehearsal," is the common refrain.

So, over the next two weeks, starting Saturday night, I will attempt to chronicle this experience. Stayed tuned. It might be boring, but it's going to be a long haul...

While you wait for the next exciting episode, here's a video of what it's like backstage. It might keep you occupied for a few minutes.

Ice, snow and electric violins

Cincinnati is having a bad weather day. Last night's commute was hell, from all indications. I had only to drive 11 blocks to Music Hall, and that took over 20 minutes. When I left there before nine, after the salt trucks and plows had had time to do their magic, it still took 40 minutes to drive the 12 miles home in no traffic. It was slushy, slippery, and dangerous.

Rehearsal with John Adams went well, despite the missing singers. Singers were still drifting in around 8 PM, when rehearsal had been scheduled for 6:15. He's a delightful conductor, very clear in his direction. His personality is upbeat and fun, and he uses tact to get the results he wants.

His music is extremely difficult to sing, primarily because of its rhythmic complexity, so I'm sure he has to deal with choirs that don't do it well. We're better than most but we're still having a hard time. He handles it all with aplomb. He told us last night about how On the Transmigration of Souls was a flop in London because the British chorus didn't understand how to sing the ordinary language of the piece.

The texts were taken from missing posters on the streets of NY after 9/11 and from remembrances of the victims that were published in the NY Times.

"He was extremely good looking. Girls never talked to me when he was around."

"He called me every day. I'm still waiting."

"I wanted to dig him out. I know just where he is."

"It's been three months, but it feels like yesterday since I saw your beautiful face, saying 'I love you to the moon and back.'"

It's hard to sing those lines without tearing up. You have to suck it up and concentrate on the performance, not the emotion.

The second half of the concert will feature Leila Josefowicz playing the electric violin in Adams' The Dharma at Big Sur. I'm looking forward to hearing it. The array of percussion at the back of the stage is a hint that it's going to have big sonic impact.