Taking a Class on the Qur'an and People Who Ask Why

Why? People are asking why I would be taking a course on the Qur’an.

First of all, I’m taking the class because it’s being offered by the Nonstop Liberal Arts Institute, the little do-it-yourself college being set up by the alumni and former faculty of Antioch College. Its efforts are intended to keep the unique spirit of Antioch alive. I want to be some little part of that effort because Antioch was so important to the person my wonderful daughter has become, and because Antioch’s graduates have made a real difference in our world – and I want that to continue.

So, I went through the proposed courses, and found four on Saturdays (the only day I can attend, since the campus is 70+ miles away):

A History of Jazz (A one day workshop, which I may also take, next month)
The Qur’an, Muhammed and Islam
Principles of Photography
A History of the American Civil Rights Movement (taught by a distinguished retired Antioch professor, whose brother was one of three white civil rights workers murdered in Meridian, Mississippi in 1964)

The last two classes ended up not being offered, so here I am, reading the Qur’an.

As to why this should interest me, why not? Had the class been on Zen, or the Tao, of Shinto, I would have been equally interested.

What I really find interesting is that so many people ask me why I would want to do this. The simplest explanation is that I think it's important to understand my fellow man.

First, some background:

They say that there are three subjects that, in order to avoid conflict, should never be discussed in polite company: politics, sex, and religion. I’m going to talk about the last one now, so be forewarned. Here goes:

Let me first say that I respect the right of people to hold their own beliefs, whatever they may be. I am a tolerant person. The stories of my Puritan and later, Quaker, ancestors taught me about the freedom of religion and its honored place in our American history. One ancestor signed the Flushing Remonstrance, the first North American document that prescribed religious tolerance and freedom of worship. I have a rich heritage to honor.

Let me also say that as a respecter of the rights of others to their respective religions, that I hope others would exert the same tolerance in my direction. I do not believe in the right of anyone to proselytize unless the recipient of the proselytizing has given consent.

At the age of five or six, I came to the conclusion that the bible stories I was being taught in Sunday school were really nice stories, with lessons to be learned from most of them. I did not, however, differentiate them from other stories, such as Aesop’s fables, or Grimm’s fairy tales. At the same time, I was reading a lot of mythological stories , such as the story of Pandora’s box, Beowulf, Perseus and the Gorgon, and so forth. I was enthralled with them all.

I didn’t understand what all the fuss was about in church. Why did the minister and Sunday school teacher confine themselves to just the biblical and Christian history stories (Luther, Calvin, etc.)? The other stories were valuable, too.

Eventually, all the talk of God and Jesus finally got through to me, and I understood the concept of divinity. There was something supernatural about many of these characters—as there was about the ones in the other stories. However, for some reason, the supernatural characters in the bible stories warranted worship, while the gods in the Greek and Norse tales were described as being only the amusing stories of primitive peoples.

Then there was the Catholic church in the next village. For some reason, it was located on a back street near the cemetery, out of sight. The protestant churches stood proudly on the main street. Somehow, the Catholics were something to be ashamed of. Children at school giggled when Catholic children couldn’t read the books the rest of us were reading, because they were on “the list.” Those Catholic children couldn’t even understand their minister, who they called a “priest,” because he conducted services in another language.

The Jewish family in the next village was well-liked, but their Jewishness set them somewhat apart (although, oddly enough, not as far apart as the Catholics).

I chewed on these thoughts for a long time—and still do. Why was it that our community had so many different groups: Baptists, Presbyterians, Jews, Church of Christ, Disciples of Christ, Catholics, Dutch Reformeds, Methodists, Presbyterians? We even had a “Federated” (Presbyterians and Baptists) church and a “Union” church (Disciples of Christ and Dutch Reformed). How interesting it was that people were one or the other because their families were one or the other. Democrats and Republicans (the other local religions) didn’t necessarily have the same familial connection. Why was that?

What if you decided to be a Jew and were born a Presbyterian? Of course, no one I knew did anything like that. Catholics were what they were, and didn’t change. Protestants didn’t either.
It seemed interesting to me that an accident of birth determined one’s religious path for life. Since each denomination was convinced that their way was the right way, it was sort of unfair that the rest of the world was accidentally being led astray.

Who was right? Was anyone right? Did the Bible, or Aesop, or the Norse, or the Greeks, for that matter, have a lock on correctness? Were these the only answers? What was the question?

My conclusion was that religion is a feeble attempt to answer universal questions.
And, you may ask, what are those questions? Here is a list, by no means exhaustive:

1. Where did we come from?
2. Who/what is the creator of this universe?
3. Does this creator still exist?
4. Does this creator care about us?
5. Is this creator all powerful?
6. What can we do to appease this creator so that life here will be better?
7. What happens after we die?
8. What can we do to appease the creator so that “life” in the hereafter will be good?
9. Are we alone in the universe?
10. Are we really as insignificant in the universe as we seem to be?
11. Are we really as important in the universe as we seem to think we are?
12. Do any of these questions matter?

My cat has some questions, too:

1. When is dinner?
2. Where is it warm?
3. What is calculus?

Neither human beings nor cats can answer most of these questions. For the cat, dinner is when it’s there. There is no concept of specific times in a cat’s life. It’s warm where it’s warm. Calculus is beyond any cat’s ability to understand, and there is little point in any cat spending any time worrying about it.

For us, most of our questions are analogous to the cat’s calculus questions. It’s highly unlikely that we’ll ever find these answers, and it’s probably just a waste of time to try to answer them.
Astrophysicists, string theorists and particle geeks are exploring the where did we come from question, looking backward in time to the nanoseconds at the beginning of the Big Bang. Now they’re even trying to recreate some of it under the Alps in Switzerland. The closer they get to that very first nanosecond, the more the “laws” of physics don’t seem to apply. Things start to look like calculus does to my cat—incomprehensible.

Our world view has been developed by virtue of the environment in which we live. The “laws” of physics, the concepts of a “beginning” and a “creator”—these all exist because those concepts are part of our experience here in this part of the universe.

Our experience doesn’t really allow for a universe with no beginnings. We think we understand the concept of infinity, but that’s all it is—a concept. It’s difficult to comprehend a universe with no boundaries that just goes on forever. Even the physicists understand the idea only with the aid of complex mathematical constructions. What if the “laws” of mathematics break down at some point, as do the “laws” of physics?

Do we really have the ability to grasp the knowledge we seek?

I think not. To change my mind, convince me that my cat can learn calculus. We’re not ready for answers to these questions until we’ve evolved considerably further. We don’t even know the real questions yet.

Speaking of evolution, who do we think we are, anyway?

We’ve only been around a short time, 2 or 3 million years, perhaps, and already have fouled our nest. There’s no guarantee that we’re going to last much longer. Other species lasted hundreds of times longer than we’ve been here, and managed to become extinct through no fault of their own. Would a species so all-fired important in the scheme of things manage to extinct itself? To me, it sure looks like we’re on the way to accomplishing that.

Are we really certain that we’re the apex of evolution, and that planet earth’s highest achievement has been to grow the human race? Could we perhaps be only one more evolutionary step to the next species, or the next, or the next—and could we be just a very low rung on the evolutionary ladder?

It seems to me to be the height of egocentricity (anthropocentricity?) to assume that the human race is at the center of the universe. It took us a while to realize that the sun and stars don’t revolve around the earth. Eventually we may realize that we’re just another organism in an outlying district of an insignificant galaxy in the backwoods of an infinite universe—and that we’re really not all that important.

Our sole responsibility is to make our lives as comfortable as possible for one another while we’re here. The Golden Rule is a good ethical precept for us to follow. As Jerry Springer says, “Be good to one another.” The reward for good behavior will be right here and now, not later in some heaven.

If it turns out that I’m wrong, it won’t matter. I try to follow the golden rule, and do the best I can to be kind to my fellow man. If there is a heaven, I’ll probably get there. But I don’t worry about it. As Cleo Laine sings, “The least you can do is the best you can.”
_______________________________________

Now that I’ve laid the foundations about my (very strong) opinions, I’ll attempt to respond to the questions I've been asked about why I'm taking a class about Islam:

There is a lot of prejudice in the west about Islam. I think that may be because we don’t separate the cultural from the religious. We hear of a woman sentenced to death by stoning after she was raped and immediately, because it occurred in a Muslim country, attribute the cause of the atrocity to Islam.

Why is it that when we heard of the torture death of Matthew Shepard in Wyoming in 1998 we didn’t blame Christianity?

Religion is most of the world is a part of a culture, but not all of it.

What I’ve learned about Islam, so far:

It is a continuation of the Judeo-Christian tradition. A series of prophets have been given revelations from god.

• Abraham established the idea of monotheism – one god, not many
• Moses was given the ten commandments
• Jesus taught us to love our neighbor
• Muhammed gave us the Qur’an, which tells us how to love our neighbot – a system of ethical behavior.

Islam does not believe Jesus is the son of god. They think we’re all the children of god and that god does not beget – he is way above that, and his ability to create is far and beyond mere begetting. He’s done more important things.

Islam has five “pillars:”

• There is one god, and Muhammed was his prophet
• Prayer – they tend to pray 5 times a day, but there’s not rule that you must – Muslims want to pray
• Charity – giving one-fortieth of all you possess (not just 10% of only your income)
• Observation of Ramadan
• Making a pilgrimage

The basic thing I’ve gleaned so far is that Islam permeates the lives of its adherents – being aware of god and being thankful/appreciative of his creation is something that Muslims try to be aware of all of the time.

The other basic thing that I’ve learned is that, as our professor said yesterday, god is a lot like Santa Claus. He’s “making a list and checking it twice, gonna find out who’s naughty and nice.” The Judgement will come and the graves will open and we’ll be sent off to heaven or hell according to how we’ve lived our life.

Heaven is a place of gardens and cool streams, where Muslims will have “pure spouses.” The claptrap about the 12 virgins awaiting martyrs in heaven appears to be just that – claptrap.

Women were not enslaved by Islam. On the contrart, Muhammed’s revelations from god elevated the status of woman and put an end to the orgiastic polytheism of 7th century Arabia. Sex became restricted to marriage. Women were no longer property. Women could inherit. Divorce was possible, and women could initiate it. Motherhood was made valuable.

Obviously, I’m just beginning my exploration and there’s a lot more to learn.

Islam, like any religion, is practiced according to the interpretation of the faith by its followers. Fundamentalists are often pretty zealous (as in Orthodox Judaism, Evangelical Christianity, fundamentalist Islam). Don’t condemn the faith because of the misguided actions of some of its adherents.

More about Palin

What follows is an open letter written by a resident of Wasilla, Alaska named Anne Kilkenny.

I am a resident of Wasilla, Alaska. I have known Sarah since 1992. Everyone here knows Sarah, so it is nothing special to say we are on a first-name basis. Our children have attended the same schools. Her father was my child’s favorite substitute teacher. I also am on a first name basis with her parents and mother-in-law. I attended more City Council meetings during her administration than about 99% of the residents of the city.

She is enormously popular; in every way she’s like the most popular girl in middle school. Even men who think she is a poor choice and won’t vote for her can’t quit smiling when talking about her because she is a “babe”.

It is astonishing and almost scary how well she can keep a secret. She kept her most recent pregnancy a secret from her children and parents for seven months. She is “pro-life”. She recently gave birth to a Down’s syndrome baby. There is no cover-up involved, here; Trig is her baby. She is energetic and hardworking. She regularly worked out at the gym.

She is savvy. She doesn’t take positions; she just “puts things out there” and if they prove to be popular, then she takes credit. Her husband works a union job on the North Slope for BP and is a champion snowmobile racer. Todd Palin’s kind of job is highly sought-after because of the schedule and high pay. He arranges his work schedule so he can fish for salmon in Bristol Bay for a month or so in summer, but by no stretch of the imagination is fishing their major source of income. Nor has her life-style ever been anything like that of native Alaskans. Sarah and her whole family are avid hunters. She’s smart.

Her experience is as mayor of a city with a population of about 5,000 (at the time), and less than 2 years as governor of a state with about 670,000 residents. During her mayoral administration most of the actual work of running this small city was turned over to an administrator. She had been pushed to hire this administrator by party power-brokers after she had gotten herself into some trouble over precipitous firings which had given rise to a recall campaign.

Sarah campaigned in Wasilla as a “fiscal conservative”. During her 6 years as Mayor, she increased general government expenditures by over 33%. During those same 6 years the amount of taxes collected by the City increased by 38%. This was during a period of low inflation (1996-2002). She reduced progressive property taxes and increased a regressive sales tax which taxed even food. The tax cuts that she promoted benefited large corporate property owners way more than they benefited residents.

The huge increases in tax revenues during her mayoral administration weren’t enough to fund everything on her wish list though, borrowed money was needed, too. She inherited a city with zero debt, but left it with indebtedness of over $22 million. What did Mayor Palin encourage the voters to borrow money for? Was it the infrastructure that she said she supported? The sewage treatment plant that the city lacked? or a new library? No. $1m for a park. $15m-plus for construction of a multi-use sports complex which she rushed through to build on a piece of property that the City didn’t even have clear title to, that was still in litigation 7 yrs later–to the delight of the lawyers involved! The sports complex itself is a nice addition to the community but a huge money pit, not the profit-generator she claimed it would be. She also supported bonds for $5.5m for road projects that could have been done in 5-7 yrs without any borrowing.

While Mayor, City Hall was extensively remodeled and her office redecorated more than once. These are small numbers, but Wasilla is a very small city. As an oil producer, the high price of oil has created a budget surplus in Alaska. Rather than invest this surplus in technology that will make us energy independent and increase efficiency, as Governor she proposed distribution of this surplus to every individual in the state.

In this time of record state revenues and budget surpluses, she recommended that the state borrow/bond for road projects, even while she proposed distribution of surplus state revenues: spend today’s surplus, borrow for needs.

She’s not very tolerant of divergent opinions or open to outside ideasor compromise. As Mayor, she fought ideas that weren’t generated by her or her staff. Ideas weren’t evaluated on their merits, but on the basis of who proposed them.

While Sarah was Mayor of Wasilla she tried to fire our highly respected City Librarian because the Librarian refused to consider removing from the library some books that Sarah wanted removed. City residents rallied to the defense of the City Librarian and against Palin’s attempt at out-and-out censorship, so Palin backed down and withdrew her termination letter. People who fought her attempt to oust the Librarian are on her enemies list to this day.

Sarah complained about the “old boy’s club” when she first ran for Mayor, so what did she bring Wasilla? A new set of “old boys”. Palin fired most of the experienced staff she inherited. At the City and as Governor she hired or elevated new, inexperienced, obscure people, creating a staff totally dependent on her for their jobs and eternally grateful and fiercely loyal–loyal to the point of abusing their power to further her personal agenda, as she has acknowledged happened in the case of pressuring the State’s top cop (see below).

As Mayor, Sarah fired Wasilla’s Police Chief because he “intimidated” her, she told the press. As Governor, her recent firing of Alaska’s top cop has the ring of familiarity about it. He served at her pleasure and she had every legal right to fire him, but it’s pretty clear that an important factor in her decision to fire him was because he wouldn’t fire her sister’s ex-husband, a State Trooper. Under investigation for abuse of power, she has had to admit that more than 2 dozen contacts were made between her staff and family to the person that she later fired, pressuring him to fire her ex-brother-in-law. She tried to replace the man she fired with a man who she knew had been reprimanded for sexual harassment; when this caused a public furor, she withdrew her support.

She has bitten the hand of every person who extended theirs to her in help. The City Council person who personally escorted her around town introducing her to voters when she first ran for Wasilla City Council became one of her first targets when she was later elected Mayor. She abruptly fired her loyal City Administrator; even people who didn’t like the guy were stunned by this ruthlessness.

Fear of retribution has kept all of these people from saying anything publicly about her.

When then-Governor Murkowski was handing out political plums, Sarah got the best, Chair of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission: one of the few jobs not in Juneau and one of the best paid. She had no background in oil & gas issues. Within months of scoring this great job which paid $122,400/yr, she was complaining in the press about the high salary. I was told that she hated that job: the commute, the structured hours, the work. Sarah became aware that a member of this Commission (who was also the State Chair of the Republican Party) engaged in unethical behavior on the job.

In a gutsy move which some undoubtedly cautioned her could be political suicide, Sarah solved all her problems in one fell swoop: got out of the job she hated and garnered gobs of media attention as the patron saint of ethics and as a gutsy fighter against the “old boys’ club” when she dramatically quit, exposing this man’s ethics violations (for which he was fined).

As Mayor, she had her hand stuck out as far as anyone for pork from Senator Ted Stevens. Lately, she has castigated his pork-barrel politics and publicly humiliated him. She only opposed the “bridge to nowhere” after it became clear that it would be unwise not to.

As Governor, she gave the Legislature no direction and budget guidelines, then made a big grandstand display of line-item vetoing projects, calling them pork. Public outcry and further legislative action restored most of these projects–which had been vetoed simply because she was not aware of their importance–but with the unobservant she had gained a reputation as “anti-pork”.

She is solidly Republican: no political maverick. The State party leaders hate her because she has bit them in the back and humiliated them. Other members of the party object to her self-description as a fiscal conservative.

Around Wasilla there are people who went to high school with Sarah.

They call her “Sarah Barracuda” because of her unbridled ambition and predatory ruthlessness.

Before she became so powerful, very ugly stories circulated around town about shenanigans she pulled to be made point guard on the high school basketball team. When Sarah’s mother-in-law, a highly respected member of the community and experienced manager, ran for Mayor, Sarah refused to endorse her.

As Governor, she stepped outside of the box and put together of package of legislation known as “AGIA” that forced the oil companies to march to the beat of her drum.

Like most Alaskans, she favors drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. She has questioned if the loss of sea ice is linked toglobal warming. She campaigned “as a private citizen” against a state initiaitive that would have either a) protected salmon streams from pollution from mines, or b) tied up in the courts all mining in the state (depending on who you listen to). She has pushed the State’s lawsuit against the Dept. of the Interior’s decision to list polar bears as threatened species.

McCain is the oldest person to ever run for President; Sarah will be a heartbeat away from being President. There has to be literally millions of Americans who are more knowledgeable and experienced than she. However, there’s a lot of people who have underestimated her and are regretting it.

CLAIM VS FACT
· “Hockey mom”: true for a few years

· “PTA mom”: true years ago when her first-born was in elementary school, not since

· “NRA supporter”: absolutely true

· social conservative: mixed. Opposes gay marriage, BUT vetoed a bill that would have denied benefits to employees in same-sex relationships (said she did this because it was unconsitutional).

· pro-creationism: mixed. Supports it, BUT did nothing as Governor to promote it.

· “Pro-life”: mixed. Knowingly gave birth to a Down’s syndrome baby BUT declined to call a special legislative session on some pro-life legislation

· “Experienced”: Some high schools have more students than Wasilla has residents. Many cities have more residents than the state of Alaska. No legislative experience other than City Council. Little hands-on supervisory or managerial experience; needed help of a city administrator to run town of about 5,000.

· political maverick: not at all

· gutsy: absolutely!

· open & transparent: ??? Good at keeping secrets. Not good at explaining actions.

· has a developed philosophy of public policy: no

· ”a Greenie”: no. Turned Wasilla into a wasteland of big box stores and disconnected parking lots. Is pro-drilling off-shore and in ANWR.

· fiscal conservative: not by my definition!

· pro-infrastructure: No. Promoted a sports complex and park in a city without a sewage treatment plant or storm drainage system. Built streets to early 20th century standards.

· pro-tax relief: Lowered taxes for businesses, increased tax burden on residents

· pro-small government: No. Oversaw greatest expansion of city government in Wasilla’s history.

· pro-labor/pro-union. No. Just because her husband works union doesn’t make her pro-labor. I have seen nothing to support any claim that she is pro-labor/pro-union.

WHY AM I WRITING THIS?

First, I have long believed in the importance of being an informed voter. I am a voter registrar.

For 10 years I put on student voting programs in the schools. If you google my name (Anne Kilkenny + Alaska), you will find references to my participation in local government, education, and PTA/parent organizations.

Secondly, I’ve always operated in the belief that “Bad things happen when good people stay silent”. Few people know as much as I do because few have gone to as many City Council meetings.

Third, I am just a housewife. I don’t have a job she can bump me out of. I don’t belong to any organization that she can hurt. But, I am no fool; she is immensely popular here, and it is likely that this will cost me somehow in the future: that’s life.

Fourth, she has hated me since back in 1996, when I was one of the 100 or so people who rallied to support the City Librarian against Sarah’s attempt at censorship.

Fifth, I looked around and realized that everybody else was afraid to say anything because they were somehow vulnerable.

CAVEATS

I am not a statistician. I developed the numbers for the increase in spending & taxation 2 years ago (when Palin was running for Governor) from information supplied to me by the Finance Director of the City of Wasilla, and I can’t recall exactly what I adjusted for: did I adjust for inflation? for population increases? Right now, it is impossible for a private person to get any info out of City Hall–they are swamped. So I can’t verify my numbers.

You may have noticed that there are various numbers circulating for the population of Wasilla, ranging from my “about 5,000″, up to 9,000. The day Palin’s selection was announced a city official told me that the current population is about 7,000. The official 2000 census count was 5,460. I have used about 5,000 because Palin was Mayor from 1996 to 2002, and the city was growing rapidly in the mid-90’s.

_______________________________________
Note: This letter has been verified on Snopes.com as being an actual letter written by Anne Kilkenny, a resident of Wasilla, Alaska.
__________________________________________

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qUVQDmLf7s

Oops, wrong Palin!

Well, the pot can no longer call the kettle inexperienced, after his recent choice of a vice-presidential running mate.

“She’s not from these parts, and she’s not from Washington, but when you get to know her, you’re going to be as impressed as I am,” said McCain. How the hell does he know that? He'd only met her once, six months ago.

Better we should elect Michael Palin!

This indicates that he's depending on others to figure things out for him. Scary thought, when we've already had a hands-off president for the last eight years. We don't need more of that.

If elected, he will be the oldest elected first-term president. She, who asked, "What does a VP do all day?" would be next in line.

Scary, scary, scary.

The Republican president in the 80's was already sinking into dementia during his term. Has this one begun a similar process? Sure looks like it.

Thank you, Mr. McCain. I think you've pushed the Republicans out of office. It's about time.


To fill your days between now and the election with giggles, visit this site:

http://www.palinfacts.com/

In the Know

Know Theatre Goes Oakley!!

Kona Community Nights to Host Know Theatre of Cincinnati

Kona Bistro in Oakley will be hosting Know Theatre of Cincinnati on August 27^th as part of their weekly fundraiser for local non-profits and organizations. The event is planned to start at 6:00pm and goes until 9:00pm.

Proceeds will benefit Know Theatre of Cincinnati. A raffle will be held where theater fans could win free tickets, subscriptions, and more for Know Theatre’s exciting 2008-2009 season.

Kona Bistro invites guest bartenders from local organizations to work at Kona on a weekly basis in an effort to raise money for the community. Know Theatre of Cincinnati will receive a percentage of the proceeds for the evening. “Know Theatre enjoys going out into the community where people work, live, or play” says Jay Kalagayan, Executive Director of Know Theatre.

Know Theatre’s celebrity bartenders Jason Bruffy and Eric Vosmeier will be serving up fundraising that tastes good!

Who?	Know Theatre & Kona Bistro
What?	Guest Bartenders Eric Vosmeier & Jason Bruffy
When?	6:00pm – 9:00pm Wednesday August 27th
Where?	3012 Madison Road, Oakley
Why?	Fundraising that tastes great plus fabulous prizes!

Jason Bruffy is Know Theatre’s Artistic Director and co-founder of the Cincinnati Fringe Festival. He was named one of nine arts risk takers by the Enquirer in 2004. Eric Vosmeier, Know’s Associate Artistic Director, came to Know Theatre after serving as the Theatre Manager at the Carnegie Performing Arts Center and has also been working as the Producing Artistic Director of the Cincinnati Fringe Festival.
Bistro

What's the Point?

On Tuesday night, I attended the Know Theatre’s production of “What’s the Point?”, a delightful 50’s style review that premiered in New York in February. It’s billed as “a musical review about life as we blow it,” and consisted of a series of 20 songs sung by a trio of twenty-somethings with incredible energy levels and lots of talent.

The show was presented in The Underground, the Know’s Basement-Bar-With-a-Stage, with patrons sipping wine at small bistro-esque tables during the performance.

Songs like “Legs,” sung by a mermaid who wants some, and “Straight Guy in a Gay Show” had the audience smiling for the show’s all-to-short duration (about an hour).

Liz Holt delivered her songs with verve and polish, every note dead-on and lovely. Dan Davidson was hamming it up the entire time, almost, but not quite, over the top, especially during “How Can I Miss You (When You Won’t Go Away)?”, when he held an audience member hostage onstage and again during “My Moment (The American Idol Song), in which he chillingly delivered the line, “Melisma is the window to my soul..” I nearly fell off my chair -- one line that summed up most American Idols. Ben Newell wistfully delivered “I Played With Myself,” a rather juvenile but funny set of double entendres about childhood loneliness.

Together, the trio shone in “Lady in the House,” as two secret service men and Nancy Pelosi. That song is a keeper and may have legs outside of this show. “E-Harmony-Dot-Com” was a great vehicle for harmonizing.

Terry LaBolt accompanied the night I saw the show and he was perhaps the best show accompanist I’ve heard.

A great Evening at the Theatuh, fer sher.

The show runs through August 12. Music by Alan Cancelino and lyrics by Hector Coris.

__________________________________

On a personal note, please ignore Jackie Demaline's review. She's consistently negative about shows that feature performers under 40. And she didn't read the program, or she would have known that this show isn't "a couple of years old" or "dated."

More singing to come

On Monday and Tuesday evenings, I'll be in Cleveland attending two of the rehearsals for next Saturday night's concert with the Cleveland Orchestra and the Blossom Festival Chorus. I've been given permission to be a guest singer with the chorus.

The primary work on the program will be Orff's Carmina Burana.

More later.

Day Sixteen - Cincinnati May Festival 2008 - Over at Last

It's over, and I think I'm in a state of withdrawal. The end-of-the-year dinner on Sunday night was a lot of fun.

I arrived just about 5:00 pm to find a small gathering drinking wine on the patio in the back of the Glendale Lyceum. Others were conversing throughout the rest of the building. I went inside and got a glass of merlot and went back out on the patio, sitting with Rosanne, the administrator of choruses (who has worked 24 x 7 on our behalf for the past two weeks) and "Brother Bob," our resident Franciscan friar. Others joined us, and soon the stories began, as those of us who went on the Yugoslavian tour 20 years ago regaled the newbies with tales of our adventures.



At six, it was time for dinner, which was delicious. As we ate, the discussions of Conlon's rudeness, our fatigue, and how great Friday night's concert was dominated the conversation. Propped up on every table was this (read the Day Fifteen blog entry if this is meaningless to you):
After dessert, it was time for the skits.

First on tap was the alto fashion show. We were attired in t-shirts that someone found on the web. They were all about Bob:

S.O.B. -- Sweet Old Bob

Got Bob?

Bob Who?

Be Still and Know -- I am Bob

It's Lonely at the Top, But You Get to Be With Bob

You Must Be the Bob You Wish to See in Robert

Bob - The Man, The Myth, The Legend

Whatever You Do, Don't Piss Off Bob

We entered the stage one at a time, doing little model poses, then joined the line at the back. We held hands and raised them in the air and took a bow, like Conlon does with his soloists at the end of concerts (you know, sort of like, "The winner, and still champeen...."). Afterward, we presented him with a plaque that says:

You can fool some of the people all of the time

You can fool all of the people some of the time

But you can't fool Bob

After that craziness, three other altos sang a version of "Try to Remember" from The Fantasticks that included lots of memories from the season past. The three had calculated that between them, they had 93 years of experience in the chorus.

The audience was enthralled:

The next skit is a bit complicated to explain, but I can tell you that we were visited by several Muppets, who sang our least favorite Carolfest piece, Night of Silence:

On Saturday night, during Juliet's funeral scene, the chorus had a long series of phrases, "Jetez des fleurs" ("strew flowers"). We repeated it over and over again, except once, when the entire chorus, save two (two altos in the Montagu chorus, with me as one of the two) didn't sing. It was group amnesia, or something -- we were not lost, we knew where we were, it wasn't difficult -- who knows what happened, but it was quite a moment.

So, during the end-of-the-year dinner, two male singers were seen to be quietly skipping across the stage holding carnations. When asked what they heck they were doing, we were told, "Oh, these are the "skipped fleurs."

Next, Heather MacPhail, our wonderful accompanist, played some wonderful music for us. She does that each year, allowing us to hear her shine as the wonderful pianist she is.

After all the presentations from the chorus and Heather, the chorus committee presented gifts from the chorus to various folks -- the attendance takers, the section note takers (notes are sent to those who must miss a rehearsal), those with perfect attendance, the chorus librarian, the person who creates the digital rehearsal CDs (me), the chorus administrator, our accompanist, and finally, Bob.

There were lovely speeches from all, but Bob's was the best. He loves us as much as we love him, so there's no need to quote him. It was a love feast.

Check out this review, that sings Bob's praises: http://www.musicincincinnati.com/site/reviews/Porco_a_May_Festival_Treasure.html

Day Fifteen - Cincinnati May Festival 2008

The finale of the long, hard slog of the festival is finally over. Talk about fatigue.

Saturday morning at 9:00 am was the chorus call for the dress rehearsal for the final concert. People showed up in various states of disarray, taking every last minute to sleep instead of fixing hair or dressing up. One alto wore a red ball cap instead of doing her hair. She looked great.

The final concert was the long and often exciting Romeo et Juliette of Berlioz. The famous love theme is very familiar to many people, but the piece is not often performed in its entirety. In the 135 years of the festival, it's only been performed three times -- the last was in 1981, which was my first festival.

It's sung in French, naturally, and therefore required lots of work. Only about a quarter of the singers had ever studied French, so getting their mouths around those strange vowels required some effort. I felt lucky that my French was passable, with only a few touch ups required, despite the many years since I'd used it.

The piece is referred to by Berlioz as a "dramatic symphony" with chorus, not a cantata or an opera, but it has elements of all three. He considered it his ninth symphony, meaning he'd taken inspiration from Beethoven's Ninth by using a chorus and using themes of reconciliation.

The story is a little disjointed, and it doesn't follow Shakespeare's play exactly. It sounds as if some of it is made up, as a matter of fact. The ending has Friar Lawrence, who had married Romeo and Juliet, giving the Montagus and Capulets what for, saying that they had caused the deaths of the lovers by the animosity of the two families. They resist, singing, "Friends with the Capulets (or Montagus), us? No! No!"

Eventually, they realize their error and become as one, singing, "Amis! Amis! Toujours!" ("Friends! Friends! Always!") That part is a triple chorus with the voices sometimes singing as many as 12 vocal parts as one, and is every bit as boisterous and dramatic as the ending to the Beethoven Ninth.

It's a wonderful piece that shows off the genius of Berlioz, with some sections reminiscent of his Symphonie Fantastique. There are some long repetitive sections that could have been dispensed with, particularly much of Friar Lawrence's sermon, which could have been shorter (true of most sermons, I think) and the mezzo's solo, while exquisite, had more verses than necessary.

This production had the entire chorus and orchestra in black (even the men's shirts and ties were black) with art projected over the stage. We were all in black so as not to distract from the art. The Cincinnati Art Museum chose artwork that told some of the Romeo and Juliet story, but it also illustrated themes of love, death, funerals, battles, festive occasions, and marriage. I understand it was quite lovely, but I was directly under the screen, so never saw it.

The lighting caused a tempest in a teapot that still had not simmered down by the evening of the performance.

When we got on the stage for the finale, the chorus was in the dark, and seeing our music was nearly impossible. Conlon yelled at us for not coming on time and together in one section, and a member of the chorus had the temerity to say that we couldn't see our music because it was too dark.

He had small tantrum, saying that our ears didn't need any light, and that the tech rehearsal was yesterday and that's the way it is and that there was light on him and his baton and that was all that mattered.

So there.

Rude, disrespectful.

If the orchestra (who had lights on each music stand) had been treated that way, they would have every right under their contract to get up and walk out. We should have.

It turned out that the techs had missed a switch and the lighting was wrong. Later in the rehearsal that was remedied, but Conlon never apologized.

I was ready to just leave and not come back for the performance. Admittedly, we are not professional musicians who do this for a living, but such treatment of volunteers who give hundreds of hours a year each to do the work of professionals for FREE is unconscionable. Unfortunately, it is typical Conlon behavior. During my 15th May Festival in 1995, I quit the chorus after the last concert because I had had enough of his rudeness and disrespect.

When we returned in the evening for the performance, the discussion of the event continued, with every singer I talked to as upset over the incident as I was. One singer produced a document which was passed around that showed Jesus Christ in some over-the-top Roman Catholic iconographic print, with the caption, "J.C. said that the light was on him and his baton and that was all that mattered. And the ladies of the chorus sang, 'Amen,' or something like that." Later the "something like that" was modified to a phrase with the initials, "F.Y."

There is a lot of anger, with many singers not wanting to return for the performance.

The performance is LONG. It was nowhere near as long as the Verdi of last weekend (that ended at 11:30 pm, and this was over before 10:30, but audience members said it seemed longer. Apparently, we lost many people at intermission.

Let's not do this again for another 27 years. I won't be singing then, so I won't care.

Once the concert was over, and the charming little girls trooped on the stage to deliver flowers to all and sundry, we repaired to the Music Hall ballroom for the Amen party. There we were able to drink champagne and have a lovely buffet supper and listen to the president of the May Festival Board thank everyone. Everyone (chorus, orchestra, family members, honored guests, corporate sponsors, et al) gave a standing ovation to Bob Porco (well-deserved, and his second of the day; the chorus gave him one in the morning at rehearsal), and we also gave one to Steve Monder, the retiring CEO of the symphony and the May Festival, who has kept us all solvent and alive for the past 37 years. He will be missed.

Then it was home to bed and family and laundry and getting back into the real world again.

But it's not over yet. There will be an end-of-the-year dinner for chorus members on Sunday at the Glendale Lyceum, where we will have dinner, relax and present skits for one another's enjoyment. I'll report on that in the Day Sixteen edition of The View from Greater Downtown Meridian.

Day Fourteen - Cincinnati May Festival 2008

Again, the Friday night concert rated a "wow." Bob Porco conducted us in the Faure Requiem at the beginning of the program. The piece is not a fire and brimstone requiem, but instead is a peaceful acceptance of death with hope for a beautiful place "in Paradisum." We never sang better. The oboe player's duet with the soprano was exquisite.

After intermission, the chamber choir sang Vivaldi's Gloria with members of the May Festival Youth Chorus mixed in with us. It was sprightly and joyous, with the brasses exulting in the music right along with us. The finale, Bach's Cantata 191, was even more joyous, ending with an exuberant, "on earth as it is in heaven, amen." The vocal runs were precise, well-articulated and such fun to sing.

This is one of the high points in my 26 May Festivals, up there with the B Minor Mass of Bach, Walton's Balshazzar's Feast, and Mendelssohn's Elijah (all sung under Bob's baton). I'll remember this one for a long time.

The Enquirer's reviewer, who often doesn't understand what's going on (she's a pianist, not a vocal music expert) praised this performance, but I don't see how she could have done otherwise.

We had the biggest house of the festival for this concert, over 3,000 people. The ovation was the longest of the festival, as well.

Heard on the sidewalk from a concertgoer afterward: "Now, that was what a May Festival concert should be -- a choral concert!"

Day Thirteen - Cincinnati May Festival 2008

Well, we're coming down to the wire. Only two more days left after Day Thirteen, and I'm finally getting my second wind.

Thursday night's dress rehearsal of Bob Porco's concert was actually quite pleasant. We began with a warmup in the large rehearsal hall with Bob, running through the rough places of the Bach. The Youth Chorus then joined the Vivaldi chamber choir members and we lined up to practice our loading of the risers.

The Vivaldi went from start to finish with no stops (except for a glare from Bob when someone in the sopranos dropped something that made a loud noise). Bob went back over a couple of things here and there, and then the kids exited stage right. Those of remaining on the stage moved own the rows into our seats for the rest of the concert and the rest of the chorus lined up and took their places.

The Bach, next on the program, went well, although there is room for improvement in the third movement. When that was over, it was time for the break.

Many of us stayed on stage, which was a good thing. It was an open rehearsal, so there was a small audience of perhaps 75 or 100 people in the hall. At the break, most of the chorus was offstage, as was most of the orchestra. There were a few people milling about, and some of us sat on the risers chatting. Then there was a disturbance of some sort as people on the stage started talking loudly, and then looking up at the screen above the stage where the supertitles are projected during the concerts. Then they were pointing up at the screen and smiling and laughing. Those of us on the risers couldn't see what was going on, but we soon learned that a marriage proposal was projected up there, and a couple sitting in one of the boxes at stage right were in the process of getting engaged.

Once everyone figured it out, there was a lot of cheering, applause, whistling and stomping of feet as we watched the surprised reaction of the newly engaged young woman as a ring was placed on her finger, and as we watched a long, long embrace and kiss.

What fun!

After the break we settled back into our work, rehearsing the Faure. It is a such a beautiful piece, and it went well.

When it was over, Bob dismissed the chorus and continued to work with the orchestra -- usually it's the other way 'round.

I was in the car and on my way home by 9:45 to sleep the sleep of the very tired. Friday is a day off for me, so I can register my cars and the motorcycle and get a new driver's license, all of which expire on Tuesday. May is entirely too busy a time.

Day Fourteen will mark the penultimate concert, with Bob conducting Faure, Vivaldi and Bach. So far more tickets have been sold for that concert than for any of the others, about which Bob wondered if James Conlon was perhaps a bit jealous. James has mentioned the fact to Bob several times over the past couple of weeks, to the extent that Bob wondered aloud last night if perhaps he should start telling people not to come.

Day Twelve – Cincinnati May Festival 2008

The days are beginning to – no scratch that – they are continuing to run together as the festival continues. Sleep deprivation is a common conversational theme at rehearsals, as we go to work each day and then to rehearsal, seldom returning home until 10:30 or 11:00 each night.

Day Twelve’s rehearsal began with some time in the rehearsal room with Bob Porco. At 6:30 we warmed up and did some work on the Berlioz Romeo et Juliette before the 7:30 pm orchestra began. We started with the third movement, which involves the entire chorus (Juliette’s funeral, the death of both of the lovers and the reconciliation of the Montagus and Capulets) and baritone Donnie Ray Albert (as Friar Lawrence). We finished that part just after the mid-rehearsal break. Next was the second movement, which involves an offstage double male chorus. The rest of the chorus, except the chamber choir women, went back to the rehearsal room to work on the third movement of the Bach (which still needs practice) as the men did their offstage thing.

Finally, the chamber choir (about thirty of us) went through the first movement. There is a tenor solo (John Aler) and an alto solo (by mezzo soprano Isabel Leonard). Miss Leonard is AMAZING. The clarity of tone, the emotion, the perfect French – we were blown away.

The next thing we knew it was 10:00 and time to leave. Day Thirteen will be the dress rehearsal for Bob Porco’s concert of Vivaldi, Fauré and Bach (my favorite of the five concerts). To get a handle on what Bob is all about, click here to read an article from a couple of years ago. We are so very lucky to have him as our chorus master. He is the best there is, and that helps us to be the best we can be.

Day Eleven – Cincinnati May Festival 2008

The Chamber Choir’s call was at 5:30 onstage. We’re singing the Vivaldi Gloria with the May Festival Youth Chorus, and have only sung it with them twice. So we went on stage and proceeded to do a terrible job. We had just a piano for this part of the rehearsal and it was hard to hear it, so we were terribly under pitch. We were also behind the beat . Bob was not happy, to put it mildly.

Back to the rehearsal room with the rest of the chorus, we did some meeting and greeting. Elaine, a former member of the chorus moved to Syracuse a few years ago, but comes back to sing one weekend every year. Michael Slon, a faculty member of the School of Music at the U. of Virginia is one of Bob’s former doctoral students from Indiana University, and he comes back to sing every year, as well. Singers lined up to greet them with hugs and warm words of welcome, and then we all sat down for a quick piano rehearsal of the Faure and the Bach before the orchestra rehearsal, which began at 7:00 pm

We started with the Vivaldi. This time it went much better. It was the first rehearsal for the orchestra for this concert, so they were getting into the pieces as well. After the Vivaldi we sang the Bach, and finished with the Fauré. We sang that in a strange order, starting at the end of the piece and working our way through it in seeming random order. The reason for that is that some pieces have more players than others, so Bob started with the movement that had all the instrumentalists involved. Then the violins left and we moved to another section. Then more instruments left. At the end I think we were down to brass, cellos, basses and organ. When we peform it, the violins will sit there and won’t play at all until, I believe, the last movement.

When all the orchestra had left, Bob kept us behind for a few minutes to work on a couple of little bits. We’re still a little under pitch, which is frustrating, and so that’s something we have to work on.

Wednesday night’s rehearsal will be the Berlioz, which will involve some choreography. It begins with a small chamber choir sitting in mixed positions in the center of the stage. Then the men from that group go to the side of the stage to meet up with the rest of the men to sing the second movement, and the chamber choir women will sneak off the other side of the stage. Then it’s intermission, and the whole shebang will file on to the risers for the third movement.

On a personal note, the May Festival requires a lot of stamina, as I’m sure you’ve figured out. My injured ankle last Thursday has created a need for even more of that rare commodity, as I’ve had to stand for long periods of time on my other foot, creating a new set of aches and pains. Here’s what the bad foot looks like on the morning of Day Twelve, over six days after I fell down those stairs (don't scroll down if you are bothered by the sight of bad bruises):

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 Nine - Cincinnati May Festival 2008

We had a little more time to ourselves on Day Nine. Only one of the three chamber choirs were involved in the Sunday performance, and we didn’t have to be at the Cathedral in Covington until 2:30. We worked with Bob in the Covington Latin School gym for nearly an hour to add breaths every three or four beats (for Conlon’s benefit – he seems to like short choppy phrasing) and then went to the Cathedral to rehearse.

The piano tuner had evidently taken longer than expected to finish his or her job, so the Youth Chorus got a late start. That meant we had a chance to listen to a part of their final rehearsal. These kids are amazingly talented. The soloists were superb (Dr. James Bagwell, head of the choral department at Bard College in New York, their director, says there’s something in the water in Cincinnati that produces great voices in adolescents).

When they were through, we ascended the risers behind the altar and started singing. It was awful. The acoustics were such that we couldn’t hear one another at all, so we shuffled ourselves around and sang in mixed positions. I was standing with a bass, a baritone, a first alto, another second alto, and a soprano. Somehow that worked and we could again sing in tune.

We’d only worked with Conlon on these pieces once, and everything he wanted on Sunday was different that what he wanted the week before. Then we had all those new breaths to remember. I did not have a good time at all (and standing on my recently injured ankle added to my misery).

The performance was better, thank goodness, and somehow we rose to the occasion. I can only say that it would have been infinitely better had Bob Porco conducted us. His phrasing – long flowing lines that insistently connect phrases – is much more beautiful. Fortunately, the church’s acoustics helped to make those frequent breaks in the line less apparent.

Day Ten will be a piano rehearsal at Music Hall, starting work on the Berlioz, Faure, Vivaldi and Bach. I look forward to the Friday concert. Bob Porco will conduct us and that means that the Friday concert will be the best of the five.

Day Eight - Cincinnati May Festival 2008

Morning, 9 am.

Dragging myself out of bed was difficult today, after the excitement and energy expended at last night's opera performance, but someone how all of us made it to Music Hall.

We warmed up, woke up and worked on music in the rehearsal room backstage for a little less than an hour, and then trooped onto the risers for the rehearsal.

Conlon told the orchestra (this morning's forces were not involved in last night's program) how well it went last night and that their colleagues had been superb in the Verdi.

We began with the Zeisl, running through it once and then again after the CSO Assistant Conductor, Eric Dudley, and Bob Porco gave Conlon their notes (primarily that the chorus drowned out the orchestra during the opening section, at which the chorus cheered). Then the stage was reset for the Beethoven Ninth, and we worked our way through that, finishing up before noon.

The men and the chamber choir stayed behind while the others got out an hour ahead of schedule. The men worked on their solo stuff for next Saturday's Berlioz, and then the chamber choir ran through the Vivaldi Gloria (on next Friday's schedule, to be sung with the May Festival Youth Chorus). We left Music Hall at 12:50, many of us heading home for naps before the evening's performance.

_______________________

Later in the day, many of us dragged ourselves awake from our afternoon naps and trudged back downtown to Music Hall. We ran over the Zeisl and took notes about the Beethoven, and then marched to the stage.

The Zeisl went very well (despite the criticism of the local paper about our Hebrew), and our Hebrew coach was quite pleased. We all love the piece.

The Beethoven was a snoozer. Mistakes in the first movement set the tone -- the orchestra was obviously not in the moment. The final choral movement picked up the pace a bit and had some energy -- but it was definitely not the Beethoven Ninth we heard in September of 2005 under the baton of Paavo Jarvi. His interpretation was definitive. This was pedestrian. I probably could have conducted it as well. Conlon conducted this one without a score -- and in a couple of places, a score would have helped.

Day Seven - Cincinnati May Festival - 2008

I have only one word for the opening night of May Festival.

Wow.

The excitement was electrifying. The audience would not stop yelling, "Bravo!" at every opportunity. The soloists were incredible. The orchestra was in top form. The chorus had some shining moments. The show was stopped for bows twice -- once for tenor Salvatore Licitra, and once for baritone Marco Caria, who had to come back on stage after his exit because the audience would not stop applauding.

When it was all over, at 11:30 pm (one of the longest May Festival Concerts in memory), we were drained. The long line of soloists taking their bows with the conductor and the chorus master stretched along the front of the stage, and charming little girls came out with flowers for all (one entertained us by taking a bow herself and blowing kisses to the audience with both hands).

So The Opera-Which-Must-Not-Be-Named came off beautifully, despite the curse. Well, there were three of us in the chorus who were on the disabled list -- a bass with a broken foot, an alto with a broken toe, and me with a torn up ankle -- so maybe we had a small touch of the curse, after all.

Click here to read a review.

Day Eight will commence with a Saturday morning, 9:00 am rehearsal, and conclude with an evening performance of the Zeisl Requiem Ebraico and the Beethoven Ninth.

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 Five - Cincinnati May Festival 2008

Wednesday night’s rehearsal began with the Zeisl Requiem Ebraico in the large Music Hall rehearsal room. Bob told us he was pleased with our rehearsal of The Opera-Which-Must-Not-Be-Named from the night before – for a first rehearsal. He made some suggestions for improvement when we have the dress rehearsal for the opera on Day Seven.

Then it was on to the stage for the Zeisl and Beethoven rehearsal. Conlon began by explaining a little about his commitment to music suppressed by the Nazis, and connected that effort to the performance of the Zeisl. Zeilsl left Austria for the US in the 1930s, so his music wasn’t suppressed, but this piece was composed as a memorial to his father and others who died in Nazi concentration camps.

Zeisl’s daughter Barbara married the son of Arnold Schoenberg, and their son, I think (this is where it got confusing) married someone from Cincinnati. The family tree also includes the California judge who prosecuted O.J. Simpson in the civil trial (Judge Ito was the judge in the criminal trial). At any rate, some of these people will be in the audience on Saturday night.

A surprising addition (since the score doesn’t call for it) was the children’s chorus who sang the soprano part for the last few bars

We finished the rehearsal with the last movement of the Beethoven Ninth, and left the hall at 10:00 pm.

A humorous episode kept the chorus giggling wildly during much of the rehearsal. Considering the goings-on of the previous four days with the “Bucket O’Dipthongs” and all the underwear that was draped all over it, imagine our amazement when one of the soloists (who shall remain nameless) stood up to sing – with her thong underwear very obvious, since her outer garments were in close proximity, shall we say, to her undergarments. The jokes were fast and furious:

“She’s a thongstress.”

“Thing, thing a thong.”

“I, for one, will NOT volunteer to play the role of the ***** soloist during the alto skit this year.”

“She cracks me up.”

“Obviously a thongbird.”

“Isn’t this a lot like a bad auto accident? You can’t stop looking.”

And so on.

We probably should have been ashamed of our obvious glee about the situation, but we couldn’t stop ourselves. We remembered that she had been similarly attired during rehearsals at a previous May Festival.

My camera’s battery had died prior to this episode, so there are no photos. If she repeats the performance for the Saturday morning rehearsal, I may oblige the readers of this blog with a photo – despite the fact that it probably will be considered as extremely tasteless.

I hope to include some short video of the orchestra rehearsal in a later posting.

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