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.
Showing posts with label John Aler. Show all posts
Showing posts with label John Aler. Show all posts
22 May 2009
20 May 2008
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.
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.
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