The Collegiate Chorale's final concert in Verbier was not, perhaps, musically our most challenging moment ever, but the company we were keeping certainly reflects glory on us. This may be about the finest Don Giovanni cast it is possible to assemble today, and we were part of it! Don Giovanni was Bryn Terfel, a stalwart friend of the chorale who sang with us in Bob's triumphant final Elijah. This was reportedly his last Don Giovanni ever, since he prefers the role of Leporello, so we were present for a bit of history. Leporello was the devastatingly effective René Pape. And Thomas Quastoff was singing his first Commendatore.
As I mentioned in my last entry, the original Donna Anna, Donna Elvira, and Don Ottavio were all sick. The substitute singers were Anna Samuil, and Annette Dasch and Michael Schade, who were both in the area preparing for upcoming performances at the Salzburg Festival. Not bad for last-minute replacements. The substitutes had to be brought in while the only road to Verbier was closed off for the Tour de France, so some were flown in by helicopter.
Since the production was extremely sold out, the Chorale members were not able to go out and watch from the auditorium once our scene was over, but we were allowed to stay backstage for the whole production if we wished, which was much more fun. From backstage, we could watch these great performers joking with each other, helping each other out, and dropping in and out of character, and we could see how they prepared for their big scenes, and what they thought of their performances. And we were seated right next to Thomas Quastoff and the offstage band when they played the graveyard scene in which the dead Commendatore tells Don Giovanni his days of laughter are over--so we were able to experience firsthand what an overwhelmingly huge voice Quastoff has at his command.
It was particularly amusing to watch the three bass/baritones playing Don Giovanni, Leporello, and Masetto (the young and very intense Robert Gleadow, whom you should definitely watch for). All three of them clearly know all three roles backwards and forwards, and none of them could resist singing along with each other's parts backstage. I would have loved to watch them rotate roles onstage.
In our big scene we play the wedding party for the peasants Zerlina (Sylvia Schwartz) and Masetto. The production was semi-staged, and so the director had encouraged us to look as festive as possible. It's not a very long moment, but Nancy Wertsch says that when we came rushing out, the whole stage lit up. We were certainly having fun. One of our high school students was selected to be the peasant maiden whom Leporello "takes under his protection," so she got to be pinched by René Pape. And during the dress rehearsal, Bryn Terfel had chosen the same girl to sing his serenade to--and had thrown her an orchid at the end--so she certainly has some lasting memories.
Later, at the end of the opera, the tenor and bass chorus portrays the demons who drag Don Giovanni down to hell. This had originally been planned as an offstage chorus, but because it was difficult to hear, the conductor requested that they be moved onstage. So, at Bryn Terfel's suggestion, they got to literally drag a struggling Don Giovanni off the stage. They had assumed that they'd be singing offstage, where no one would see them, so they could use their music. Now they suddenly found themselves having to memorize their music at the very last minute, which they did admirably.
From our vantage backstage, we could hear perfectly, but see only slivers of the action, but it was clearly a very funny performance. All the singers involved are brilliant actors. Particularly amusing was watching Don Giovanni tell Leporello how a young woman he met on the street had embraced him. Bryn Terfel demonstrated, most enthusiastically, by caressing the dignified conductor, Manfred Honeck.
For the Chorale, this opera was kind of a coda to our main concerts, but what a coda! It's a memory to treasure, and an opportunity very few people will ever be lucky enough to have.
Postscript: The Story of a Garland
In keeping with the director's desire for the bridal party to be festive, I wove seven flower garlands for the female chorus to wear. (There are many worse fates than to spend the afternoon sitting in a meadow in the Alps, twining wildflowers.) You can see us in these wreaths on the video of the performance posted by Medici TV (http://www.medici.tv/#/performance/551). The day after Don Giovanni, most of the Chorale left Verbier in the early morning, but I stayed on. I went for a walk, and stopped to rest on a bench high up in the Alps, looking down at the distant view of Verbier. Mysteriously, there at the foot of the bench was one of my flower garlands. It makes me very happy to think that this token of another wonderful season for the Collegiate Chorale at the Verbier Festival is still up there, keeping watch over Verbier.
-- Janet Pascal
Monday, August 3, 2009
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Report from Verbier -- July 19th
July 19, 2009
Today was the day of the Collegiate Chorale’s own concert; nonetheless we started out with a rehearsal for Don Giovanni. We had originally been scheduled for the whole three-hour rehearsal, but given that we sing for approximately 30 seconds (women) or a minute and a half (men) the Verbier folks agreed that was a bit much. So we showed up, sang our bits and left. It was lovely to see conductor Manfred Honeck again, and he recalled our concerts together two years ago very graciously. I think he was pleased with our performance today, but he must have a lot of other things on his mind at the moment: three of the principals for the opera—Donna Anna, Donna Elvira, and Don Ottavio—have all cancelled and will have last minute replacements. He’s probably just glad he can be confident that the chorus will do fine without taking up any of his time.
We took advantage of the shortened Don Giovanni rehearsal to go up to the church and rehearse tonight’s program in situ. It’s a long, long, steep climb from La Comba, where the first rehearsal was, to the church, and it took all our lung power (although one of the side-by-side students demonstrated his superiority by running up the hill). It’s a good thing we did get some time in the church, because the space was something of a challenge. It was just barely possible to fit in a piano for Ken, chairs for all the singers, and a podium for Nancy and still leave a tiny spot for the soloists to stand, but it took ingenuity, and it’s a good thing we all like each other. And ultimately the front row had to sit when everyone was singing, or the second two rows couldn’t even see Nancy. On the other hand, it’s a wonderful space to sing in—very live.
The program was based on one that the pros performed last year in Israel. Bob had designed it to show off the versatility of the human voice and the spectrum of music for chorus. It was so spectacularly successful that those of us who heard it felt it should be performed again. So it was nice to see it in another incarnation. The first half was all European and classical. The pros did some motets as a chamber chorus, and there were some small ensembles and solos with chorus, including a segment from Elijah. For this part we wore our regular black concert garb. There were some lovely moments, and the performance was well received.
But it was the second half, which was American music of all sorts, that really took off. We changed into bright colors and cut loose, and the audience loved it. We started with two pieces by the 18th-century composer William Billings. For the second, “When Jesus Wept,” which was performed by the pros alone, the singers moved out to circle the entire church. The piece is a kind of canon, and you could hear it move from place to place around the church. The effect was magical. Several pros sang solo pieces, and we did some popular and theatre songs and a lot of spirituals, ending up with the finale to Candide. Many of the songs were Nancy’s own arrangements, and they were absolutely delightful. She’s so unassuming that I doubt some of us had realized until now how multi-talented she actually is. (You simply must hear her version of “Hit Me with a Hot Note.”)
All the pieces were well received, but I think the spirituals got the most response—European audiences seem to love spirituals. We sang some of Nancy’s own arrangements, and some of Bob’s old favorites. Both of our encores were spirituals, including one I particularly associate with Bob, “Every Time I Hear the Spirit.”
Everyone seemed really on tonight. I can’t single out any individual performance as particularly notable, because I would have to single out every one of them. It’s amazing what resources we have to draw on from within our ranks. Listening to the Collegiate Chorale pros singing one after the other, I was awfully proud. They could hold their own on any stage in the world, and indeed, tonight they did.
I believe we all know how much of this we owe Nancy Wertsch, who stepped in at a very difficult time and gave us exactly what we needed. It is due largely to her that tonight was such a triumph. The concert was a nice way of looking backward and forward at the same time: it was Bob’s concert, and it made us think of him. But it also showed what we can do moving into the future.
Janet Pascal
Today was the day of the Collegiate Chorale’s own concert; nonetheless we started out with a rehearsal for Don Giovanni. We had originally been scheduled for the whole three-hour rehearsal, but given that we sing for approximately 30 seconds (women) or a minute and a half (men) the Verbier folks agreed that was a bit much. So we showed up, sang our bits and left. It was lovely to see conductor Manfred Honeck again, and he recalled our concerts together two years ago very graciously. I think he was pleased with our performance today, but he must have a lot of other things on his mind at the moment: three of the principals for the opera—Donna Anna, Donna Elvira, and Don Ottavio—have all cancelled and will have last minute replacements. He’s probably just glad he can be confident that the chorus will do fine without taking up any of his time.
We took advantage of the shortened Don Giovanni rehearsal to go up to the church and rehearse tonight’s program in situ. It’s a long, long, steep climb from La Comba, where the first rehearsal was, to the church, and it took all our lung power (although one of the side-by-side students demonstrated his superiority by running up the hill). It’s a good thing we did get some time in the church, because the space was something of a challenge. It was just barely possible to fit in a piano for Ken, chairs for all the singers, and a podium for Nancy and still leave a tiny spot for the soloists to stand, but it took ingenuity, and it’s a good thing we all like each other. And ultimately the front row had to sit when everyone was singing, or the second two rows couldn’t even see Nancy. On the other hand, it’s a wonderful space to sing in—very live.
The program was based on one that the pros performed last year in Israel. Bob had designed it to show off the versatility of the human voice and the spectrum of music for chorus. It was so spectacularly successful that those of us who heard it felt it should be performed again. So it was nice to see it in another incarnation. The first half was all European and classical. The pros did some motets as a chamber chorus, and there were some small ensembles and solos with chorus, including a segment from Elijah. For this part we wore our regular black concert garb. There were some lovely moments, and the performance was well received.
But it was the second half, which was American music of all sorts, that really took off. We changed into bright colors and cut loose, and the audience loved it. We started with two pieces by the 18th-century composer William Billings. For the second, “When Jesus Wept,” which was performed by the pros alone, the singers moved out to circle the entire church. The piece is a kind of canon, and you could hear it move from place to place around the church. The effect was magical. Several pros sang solo pieces, and we did some popular and theatre songs and a lot of spirituals, ending up with the finale to Candide. Many of the songs were Nancy’s own arrangements, and they were absolutely delightful. She’s so unassuming that I doubt some of us had realized until now how multi-talented she actually is. (You simply must hear her version of “Hit Me with a Hot Note.”)
All the pieces were well received, but I think the spirituals got the most response—European audiences seem to love spirituals. We sang some of Nancy’s own arrangements, and some of Bob’s old favorites. Both of our encores were spirituals, including one I particularly associate with Bob, “Every Time I Hear the Spirit.”
Everyone seemed really on tonight. I can’t single out any individual performance as particularly notable, because I would have to single out every one of them. It’s amazing what resources we have to draw on from within our ranks. Listening to the Collegiate Chorale pros singing one after the other, I was awfully proud. They could hold their own on any stage in the world, and indeed, tonight they did.
I believe we all know how much of this we owe Nancy Wertsch, who stepped in at a very difficult time and gave us exactly what we needed. It is due largely to her that tonight was such a triumph. The concert was a nice way of looking backward and forward at the same time: it was Bob’s concert, and it made us think of him. But it also showed what we can do moving into the future.
Janet Pascal
Monday, July 20, 2009
Verbier -- July 18th
Last night we had our second rehearsal of the Faure, followed by the dress rehearsal this morning and the concert tonight. Sandrine Piau, the soprano, has joined us. Maestro Spinosi explained to us that she had been ill and was still not feeling well, but she would attempt to sing a little. And then she sang the Mozart “Libera Me” with exquisite control and the most amazing floated high notes. I wish she’d infect me with whatever she’s got. The chorus traditionally applauds the soloists the first time they sing with us, but this time she got a genuine, heartfelt ovation. Before we rehearsed the “Agnus Dei,” Spinosi added that there had been some kind of miscommunication, and Piau hadn’t even known she was supposed to sing the aria until she saw it listed on the internet. And it’s not even in her range (too low). But she’d give it a try anyway. I thought it sounded lovely, but she was clearly not pleased. She must be a perfectionist, but then she manages to come closer to perfection than most.
The Chorale and Spinosi remain happy in each other’s company. Sometimes he would ask us if a tempo or dynamic was OK with us (something we don’t usually get consulted on, but some of his tempos are so slow they’re excruciatingly difficult to sing) and we were always able to say yes, truthfully, and give him what he wanted. In his own way, Spinosi today said the same thing I wrote yesterday about the language barrier not really being a barrier. He couldn’t quite figure out how to explain a particular nuance to us, so he said, “I have not the word for it, but you know. You are a musician.” That’s something to treasure—Jean-Christophe Spinosi says that we are musicians.
I must mention one instance of Spinosian acting, since much of the Collegiate Chorale has been going around quoting it ever since and will probably be quoting it all next year. In the noble fortissimo unison of the Hosanna, Spinosi wanted us to give it all we’ve got—not just with loud rhetoric, but with real intensity. “Like this,” he said. “I give you all my ’eart. I give you all my ’eart.” And as he gestured, you could see that he really did. Actually, that’s not a bad description of the way he conducts in general, and what makes him so easy to work with. He gives to us the spirit and energy of what he wants, and we just give it back to him.
The rain continued all morning, except that just a level above us on the mountain it was snow. I went up to see—the meadows where just two days ago we were all getting sunburned were now completely covered. Fortunately the rain/snow stopped before our concert, since the chorus had to assemble outside. There is very little backstage in the Salle Medran tent.
This concert was officially dedicated to Robert Bass, and of course we all know he was to conduct it, so it felt deeply important that it should be something special. And it was. Sandrine Piau was still feeling unwell, so her “Agnes Dei” was cut, and in deference to her condition Spinosi sped up the tempo of her aria a tiny little bit. But you would never have known; she sounded in perfect control. The orchestra, which was composed of a combination of the Verbier young artists orchestra and the more experience Verbier chamber orchestra caught the spirit of the music magnificently. And the Chorale was definitely on. There were many wonderful moments, but particularly outstanding was the sopranos’ solo line at the opening of “In Paradisum.” This is a pure, ethereal, and quite high line. (“We are all little angels together, with tiny harps” Spinosi told us.) It’s extremely hard not to go flat or lose the blend—but they nailed it, and I can say that because I’m an alto. It was so lovely it brought tears to my eyes.
As a conductor, Spinosi is a lot of fun to watch. He’s very energetic; he practically dances. He was wearing a regular tie (not a bowtie) and it flapped around so much it whacked him in the face several times. And right towards the beginning of the Haffner symphony, he gestured so energetically that the baton flew right out of his hand. He seemed much happier without it, conducting with his very eloquent hands, and the momentary flick of humor was just enough to give the Haffner a particularly appealing release and energy. Conducting the Faure Requiem he was, of course, very serious and intense, but sometimes at a particularly important or problematic moment, he’d give us a surreptitious little grin or an encouraging thumbs up. At the end of the piece we received that finest of tributes, a moment of silence before the enthusiastic applause. Spinosi brought Nancy Wertsch on for a solo bow, and made her take it, despite her modesty.
Verbier is a very schizophrenic town today. Leaving the sublime atmosphere of our concert, we walked right into the raucous energy of the preparations for the Tour de France, which passes through tomorrow. The streets were jammed with revelers, and there is a loud eighties-music rock band stationed in the center of town. They’re scheduled to play until 2 or 3 in the morning, which should offer a bit of a challenge to the Chorale, which is presenting our own choral concert tomorrow night.
The Chorale and Spinosi remain happy in each other’s company. Sometimes he would ask us if a tempo or dynamic was OK with us (something we don’t usually get consulted on, but some of his tempos are so slow they’re excruciatingly difficult to sing) and we were always able to say yes, truthfully, and give him what he wanted. In his own way, Spinosi today said the same thing I wrote yesterday about the language barrier not really being a barrier. He couldn’t quite figure out how to explain a particular nuance to us, so he said, “I have not the word for it, but you know. You are a musician.” That’s something to treasure—Jean-Christophe Spinosi says that we are musicians.
I must mention one instance of Spinosian acting, since much of the Collegiate Chorale has been going around quoting it ever since and will probably be quoting it all next year. In the noble fortissimo unison of the Hosanna, Spinosi wanted us to give it all we’ve got—not just with loud rhetoric, but with real intensity. “Like this,” he said. “I give you all my ’eart. I give you all my ’eart.” And as he gestured, you could see that he really did. Actually, that’s not a bad description of the way he conducts in general, and what makes him so easy to work with. He gives to us the spirit and energy of what he wants, and we just give it back to him.
The rain continued all morning, except that just a level above us on the mountain it was snow. I went up to see—the meadows where just two days ago we were all getting sunburned were now completely covered. Fortunately the rain/snow stopped before our concert, since the chorus had to assemble outside. There is very little backstage in the Salle Medran tent.
This concert was officially dedicated to Robert Bass, and of course we all know he was to conduct it, so it felt deeply important that it should be something special. And it was. Sandrine Piau was still feeling unwell, so her “Agnes Dei” was cut, and in deference to her condition Spinosi sped up the tempo of her aria a tiny little bit. But you would never have known; she sounded in perfect control. The orchestra, which was composed of a combination of the Verbier young artists orchestra and the more experience Verbier chamber orchestra caught the spirit of the music magnificently. And the Chorale was definitely on. There were many wonderful moments, but particularly outstanding was the sopranos’ solo line at the opening of “In Paradisum.” This is a pure, ethereal, and quite high line. (“We are all little angels together, with tiny harps” Spinosi told us.) It’s extremely hard not to go flat or lose the blend—but they nailed it, and I can say that because I’m an alto. It was so lovely it brought tears to my eyes.
As a conductor, Spinosi is a lot of fun to watch. He’s very energetic; he practically dances. He was wearing a regular tie (not a bowtie) and it flapped around so much it whacked him in the face several times. And right towards the beginning of the Haffner symphony, he gestured so energetically that the baton flew right out of his hand. He seemed much happier without it, conducting with his very eloquent hands, and the momentary flick of humor was just enough to give the Haffner a particularly appealing release and energy. Conducting the Faure Requiem he was, of course, very serious and intense, but sometimes at a particularly important or problematic moment, he’d give us a surreptitious little grin or an encouraging thumbs up. At the end of the piece we received that finest of tributes, a moment of silence before the enthusiastic applause. Spinosi brought Nancy Wertsch on for a solo bow, and made her take it, despite her modesty.
Verbier is a very schizophrenic town today. Leaving the sublime atmosphere of our concert, we walked right into the raucous energy of the preparations for the Tour de France, which passes through tomorrow. The streets were jammed with revelers, and there is a loud eighties-music rock band stationed in the center of town. They’re scheduled to play until 2 or 3 in the morning, which should offer a bit of a challenge to the Chorale, which is presenting our own choral concert tomorrow night.
Friday, July 17, 2009
Verbier Update -- July 17th
July 17
The Verbier Festival gave us a full day to recover from jet lag this year, and then they moved our Thursday morning rehearsal. So we were free all day Thursday until 5:30, and then we had two rehearsals back-to-back from 5:30 until 10. And Thursday was an absolutely gorgeous day, clear, sunny, and hot like we haven’t seen in Verbier in all the previous years we’ve been here. So of course everyone spent the day up in the mountains (it was so clear we could see the Matterhorn from the summit) and we all showed up at rehearsal tired and sunburnt. I was proud of us, though. We accomplished a lot at both rehearsals, and we kept our concentration intact to the end.
The first rehearsal was in the gym of the Verbier school, the Comba, which is familiar to us from many rehearsals. And it was for the chorale’s own concert, so Nancy Wertsch, our choral contractor/assistant conductor, was conducting, and Ken Bowen our own pianist was playing. So it was a nice easy way to ease in to Verbier, because it was all familiar, and just us.
Our second rehearsal was up at the big tent, the Salle Medran, for the Faure Requiem and two Mozart pieces with Jean-Christophe Spinosi, a young conductor and violinist from Corsica. I don’t think he was familiar to most of us—he hasn’t come to America that much. I knew of him only as the conductor of his own small chamber orchestra, the Ensemble Matheus. He turns out to be a splendid conductor of other ensembles as well. The chorale took to him right away, because he’s one of those people who just radiates joy when he conducts. He clearly loves what he does, and he loves the music. He made us feel that we were all just a bunch of friends having a lot of fun getting together to play. He even remarked at one point how lucky we were because we “get to play such beautiful music—Faure and Mozart.” (This was a particularly pleasing remark if you remember that Robert Bass had planned out this particular program before his death.)
Spinosi’s English is very fluid and sophisticated, but the language doesn’t come naturally to him—he switched into French a lot, and much of his English might as well have been French. I don’t think the chorale got all the specifics of what he was saying very exactly, but it really didn’t matter because he’s a tremendously expressive and dramatic conductor. His hands and face convey emotion and nuance beautifully, and we had no trouble understanding exactly what he wanted. He’s also an excellent mime: he acted out for us things like schlepping around a heavy sack (to show the tenors and basses what not to do), and twisting a knife in his heart (to bring out the increasingly intense chromaticism of a passage). Particularly fetching was his illustration of how, in “In Paradisum,” the ethereal last movement of the piece, we are all little angels, with tiny little harps, and he was just one more little angel (and so he wouldn’t be giving us a big distinct beat).
It was amusing to watch him with the baritone soloist, Boaz Daniel. Spinosi is so expressive and emotive, and Daniel is very straightforward and matter-of-fact. He would mime the particularly beseeching, suppliant attitude he wanted for a phrase, looking up imploringly to the heavens, and then Daniel would say, “Oh, you want it mezza voce.” Still they seemed to understand each other perfectly well.
The rehearsal went very easily and well. We all seemed to understand each other well, and Nancy confirmed for us that Spinosi was pleased with our work. It was a lot of fun, and now I’m really looking forward to this concert.
-- Janet Pascal, Chorale Alto and Music Librarian
The Verbier Festival gave us a full day to recover from jet lag this year, and then they moved our Thursday morning rehearsal. So we were free all day Thursday until 5:30, and then we had two rehearsals back-to-back from 5:30 until 10. And Thursday was an absolutely gorgeous day, clear, sunny, and hot like we haven’t seen in Verbier in all the previous years we’ve been here. So of course everyone spent the day up in the mountains (it was so clear we could see the Matterhorn from the summit) and we all showed up at rehearsal tired and sunburnt. I was proud of us, though. We accomplished a lot at both rehearsals, and we kept our concentration intact to the end.
The first rehearsal was in the gym of the Verbier school, the Comba, which is familiar to us from many rehearsals. And it was for the chorale’s own concert, so Nancy Wertsch, our choral contractor/assistant conductor, was conducting, and Ken Bowen our own pianist was playing. So it was a nice easy way to ease in to Verbier, because it was all familiar, and just us.
Our second rehearsal was up at the big tent, the Salle Medran, for the Faure Requiem and two Mozart pieces with Jean-Christophe Spinosi, a young conductor and violinist from Corsica. I don’t think he was familiar to most of us—he hasn’t come to America that much. I knew of him only as the conductor of his own small chamber orchestra, the Ensemble Matheus. He turns out to be a splendid conductor of other ensembles as well. The chorale took to him right away, because he’s one of those people who just radiates joy when he conducts. He clearly loves what he does, and he loves the music. He made us feel that we were all just a bunch of friends having a lot of fun getting together to play. He even remarked at one point how lucky we were because we “get to play such beautiful music—Faure and Mozart.” (This was a particularly pleasing remark if you remember that Robert Bass had planned out this particular program before his death.)
Spinosi’s English is very fluid and sophisticated, but the language doesn’t come naturally to him—he switched into French a lot, and much of his English might as well have been French. I don’t think the chorale got all the specifics of what he was saying very exactly, but it really didn’t matter because he’s a tremendously expressive and dramatic conductor. His hands and face convey emotion and nuance beautifully, and we had no trouble understanding exactly what he wanted. He’s also an excellent mime: he acted out for us things like schlepping around a heavy sack (to show the tenors and basses what not to do), and twisting a knife in his heart (to bring out the increasingly intense chromaticism of a passage). Particularly fetching was his illustration of how, in “In Paradisum,” the ethereal last movement of the piece, we are all little angels, with tiny little harps, and he was just one more little angel (and so he wouldn’t be giving us a big distinct beat).
It was amusing to watch him with the baritone soloist, Boaz Daniel. Spinosi is so expressive and emotive, and Daniel is very straightforward and matter-of-fact. He would mime the particularly beseeching, suppliant attitude he wanted for a phrase, looking up imploringly to the heavens, and then Daniel would say, “Oh, you want it mezza voce.” Still they seemed to understand each other perfectly well.
The rehearsal went very easily and well. We all seemed to understand each other well, and Nancy confirmed for us that Spinosi was pleased with our work. It was a lot of fun, and now I’m really looking forward to this concert.
-- Janet Pascal, Chorale Alto and Music Librarian
Monday, April 20, 2009
About Alceste
Given Robert Bass’s criteria for selecting operas for The Collegiate Chorale to perform, Christoph Willibald Gluck’s Alceste, the last opera-in-concert he planned before his death last year, is an ideal choice. Bob looked for works in which the chorus stands out because of the exceptional excellence of its music (as in Fidelio), or because it becomes a prominent character in the drama (as in Nabucco). And the spotlight of history has rarely shone so directly on an operatic chorus as it does in Alceste.
Premiered in an Italian version in Vienna in 1767, the work is the second of Gluck’s so-called “reform operas,” following Orfeo ed Euridice (1762). In these operas he and his librettist, Ranieri de’ Calzabigi, set out to correct what they saw as the excesses of Italian opera seria in its decadence. More and more, these operas focused on florid and static da capo arias, structured with an A section, a B section, and then a return of the A section, during which the singers engaged in ornamentation as elaborate, spectacular, and prolonged as possible (“musical gargling” Calzabigi called it), designed to display their vocal agility. In the composer’s opinion, these arias stopped the drama dead in its tracks while the singer showed off.
Gluck wished instead to concentrate on evoking fundamental emotions through a story told in a simple, natural, and straightforward manner. And so for Alceste, he and Calzabigi refined the Greek myth of Alcestis down to its essential actions, stripped of subplots, complications, or digressions. The gods have said that King Admetus must die unless someone will volunteer to die for him. Without his knowledge, his wife Alcestis takes his place. When he discovers this, he travels to the underworld to rescue her by dying himself, and the gods are so moved by their mutual devotion that they restore both to life.
To tell this story, Gluck developed a flexible dramatic form in which formal arias appeared only in situations—for instance lamentations, narratives, or pleas—where a character would naturally express himself intensely and at length. The story was carried by less rigidly structured arias, recitative, and most notably, the chorus, which Gluck planned to restore to the prominent role it had enjoyed in Classical Greek tragedy. Thus the chorus of citizens of Thessaly begins the opera by breaking into the end of the overture with an anguished cry: “Gods, return to us our king.” Throughout the scenes that follow, they are woven into the fabric of the story, as they comment, panic, comfort, celebrate, mourn, and pray.
Most of the third act takes place in the underworld, where the Thessalian citizenry, understandably, does not appear. And at one time, the librettist intended to close the opera without reintroducing them, ending with an intimate scene showcasing only the reunited Alcestis and Admetus. Gluck objected. “The chorus,” he wrote, “have played an active role in the first two acts. It is their story. . . . Yet in the third act they are forgotten and seen no more. I insist that the opera cannot finish until these poor people have been consoled.” And so the opera ends, as it began, with the chorus.
In the scenes set in the underworld, moreover, where the Thessalians are not present, the chorus still plays a pivotal role as the infernal deities who insist that either Admetus or his wife must die. The music for these gods of death has a character very different from the people’s choruses. Written entirely in three parts, for alto, tenor, and bass (apparently there are no infernal sopranos) they are in rhythmical unison, with a very limited range. The first chorus consists entirely of one note—an F—repeated insistently. Early audiences found these choruses somewhat puzzling, perhaps a sign of failed imagination. But Gluck had specific, dramatic reasons for what he did. “The infernal gods are not devils,” he explained; “we regard them as ministers of destiny; they are not swayed by any peculiar passion; they are impassive. Alcestis and Admetus are a matter of indifference to them. . . . In order to delineate this special impassivity of theirs, I thought I could not do better than to deprive them of all accent, reserving for the orchestra the task of painting all that is terrible in their announcement.”
Today the idea that the orchestra and the singers might have different agendas may not seem so revolutionary, but a famous story about Gluck’s last great reform opera, Iphigénie en Tauride, shows how new and unsettling it could be to musicians of the time. During a rehearsal, as the character Orestes began to sing, “Calm returns to my heart,” the orchestra found itself playing music that was decidedly not calm. Assuming this was a copying error, they stopped, but Gluck urged them on, explaining, “He killed his mother! He’s lying.”
In 1770, under the patronage of his former pupil Marie Antoinette, Gluck determined to introduce his operatic reforms to France. After the success of a French revision of Orfeo, he decided to produce a new version of Alceste, heavily revised with the help of the French librettist Leblanc Du Roullett. This version, premiered in 1775, is the one virtually always performed today.
As was almost inevitable in the volatile operatic world of the time, Gluck’s reforms precipitated an opera war. The two sides arrayed themselves behind Gluck or the then-popular Italian composer Piccini. Passions ran high, occasionally even leading to physical violence. Benjamin Franklin, who came to France as ambassador for the brand-new United States, wrote mockingly that the French must “certainly live under a wise, just and mild government” if they could find nothing more important to fight about than “the perfections and imperfections of foreign music.”
This battle was largely a publicity creation—Gluck and Piccini were personally on friendly terms. But although Gluck dismissed the excesses of the opera-war fanatics, he took his actual reforms as seriously as any of them. Working on the revision of Alceste, he wrote, “This opera excites me to frenzy whenever I hear it. My nerves are at full stretch, and I am enthralled from the first word to the last.” With Alceste even more than with Orfée, Gluck believed, he had accomplished what he had set out to do. He wrote to Du Roullett with a lack of modesty characteristic of him, “Alceste is a perfect tragedy, and I do not think it often fails of its full perfection.”
The opera was only a qualified success when it opened, but Gluck took this in stride, realizing that it would take the public time to come to an understanding of what he was attempting. “Alceste,” he told a friend, “is not the kind of work to give momentary pleasure or to please because it is new. I declare that it will please as much two hundred years hence, for I have grounded it in nature, which does not change with every passing fashion.” Two hundred and thirty years later, The Collegiate Chorale is pleased to offer New York audiences a chance to confirm his prediction.
-- Janet Pascal
Premiered in an Italian version in Vienna in 1767, the work is the second of Gluck’s so-called “reform operas,” following Orfeo ed Euridice (1762). In these operas he and his librettist, Ranieri de’ Calzabigi, set out to correct what they saw as the excesses of Italian opera seria in its decadence. More and more, these operas focused on florid and static da capo arias, structured with an A section, a B section, and then a return of the A section, during which the singers engaged in ornamentation as elaborate, spectacular, and prolonged as possible (“musical gargling” Calzabigi called it), designed to display their vocal agility. In the composer’s opinion, these arias stopped the drama dead in its tracks while the singer showed off.
Gluck wished instead to concentrate on evoking fundamental emotions through a story told in a simple, natural, and straightforward manner. And so for Alceste, he and Calzabigi refined the Greek myth of Alcestis down to its essential actions, stripped of subplots, complications, or digressions. The gods have said that King Admetus must die unless someone will volunteer to die for him. Without his knowledge, his wife Alcestis takes his place. When he discovers this, he travels to the underworld to rescue her by dying himself, and the gods are so moved by their mutual devotion that they restore both to life.
To tell this story, Gluck developed a flexible dramatic form in which formal arias appeared only in situations—for instance lamentations, narratives, or pleas—where a character would naturally express himself intensely and at length. The story was carried by less rigidly structured arias, recitative, and most notably, the chorus, which Gluck planned to restore to the prominent role it had enjoyed in Classical Greek tragedy. Thus the chorus of citizens of Thessaly begins the opera by breaking into the end of the overture with an anguished cry: “Gods, return to us our king.” Throughout the scenes that follow, they are woven into the fabric of the story, as they comment, panic, comfort, celebrate, mourn, and pray.
Most of the third act takes place in the underworld, where the Thessalian citizenry, understandably, does not appear. And at one time, the librettist intended to close the opera without reintroducing them, ending with an intimate scene showcasing only the reunited Alcestis and Admetus. Gluck objected. “The chorus,” he wrote, “have played an active role in the first two acts. It is their story. . . . Yet in the third act they are forgotten and seen no more. I insist that the opera cannot finish until these poor people have been consoled.” And so the opera ends, as it began, with the chorus.
In the scenes set in the underworld, moreover, where the Thessalians are not present, the chorus still plays a pivotal role as the infernal deities who insist that either Admetus or his wife must die. The music for these gods of death has a character very different from the people’s choruses. Written entirely in three parts, for alto, tenor, and bass (apparently there are no infernal sopranos) they are in rhythmical unison, with a very limited range. The first chorus consists entirely of one note—an F—repeated insistently. Early audiences found these choruses somewhat puzzling, perhaps a sign of failed imagination. But Gluck had specific, dramatic reasons for what he did. “The infernal gods are not devils,” he explained; “we regard them as ministers of destiny; they are not swayed by any peculiar passion; they are impassive. Alcestis and Admetus are a matter of indifference to them. . . . In order to delineate this special impassivity of theirs, I thought I could not do better than to deprive them of all accent, reserving for the orchestra the task of painting all that is terrible in their announcement.”
Today the idea that the orchestra and the singers might have different agendas may not seem so revolutionary, but a famous story about Gluck’s last great reform opera, Iphigénie en Tauride, shows how new and unsettling it could be to musicians of the time. During a rehearsal, as the character Orestes began to sing, “Calm returns to my heart,” the orchestra found itself playing music that was decidedly not calm. Assuming this was a copying error, they stopped, but Gluck urged them on, explaining, “He killed his mother! He’s lying.”
In 1770, under the patronage of his former pupil Marie Antoinette, Gluck determined to introduce his operatic reforms to France. After the success of a French revision of Orfeo, he decided to produce a new version of Alceste, heavily revised with the help of the French librettist Leblanc Du Roullett. This version, premiered in 1775, is the one virtually always performed today.
As was almost inevitable in the volatile operatic world of the time, Gluck’s reforms precipitated an opera war. The two sides arrayed themselves behind Gluck or the then-popular Italian composer Piccini. Passions ran high, occasionally even leading to physical violence. Benjamin Franklin, who came to France as ambassador for the brand-new United States, wrote mockingly that the French must “certainly live under a wise, just and mild government” if they could find nothing more important to fight about than “the perfections and imperfections of foreign music.”
This battle was largely a publicity creation—Gluck and Piccini were personally on friendly terms. But although Gluck dismissed the excesses of the opera-war fanatics, he took his actual reforms as seriously as any of them. Working on the revision of Alceste, he wrote, “This opera excites me to frenzy whenever I hear it. My nerves are at full stretch, and I am enthralled from the first word to the last.” With Alceste even more than with Orfée, Gluck believed, he had accomplished what he had set out to do. He wrote to Du Roullett with a lack of modesty characteristic of him, “Alceste is a perfect tragedy, and I do not think it often fails of its full perfection.”
The opera was only a qualified success when it opened, but Gluck took this in stride, realizing that it would take the public time to come to an understanding of what he was attempting. “Alceste,” he told a friend, “is not the kind of work to give momentary pleasure or to please because it is new. I declare that it will please as much two hundred years hence, for I have grounded it in nature, which does not change with every passing fashion.” Two hundred and thirty years later, The Collegiate Chorale is pleased to offer New York audiences a chance to confirm his prediction.
-- Janet Pascal
Monday, September 1, 2008
Robert Bass
Conductors are supposed to live forever; everyone knows that. So even after learning the seriousness of his condition, I never really imagined that I would have to live in a world without Robert Bass. It doesn't seem possible. Bob’s been a central part of my life for twenty years--almost as long as I’ve lived in New York--and he transformed the world for me. Six days a week, I was just an ordinary New Yorker, but every Monday night, I became something more--a musician, and part of something much bigger than myself.
I grew up thinking of Carnegie Hall as a legend and a symbol--the place the greatest musicians aimed for. Because of Bob, the first time I ever entered the hall in real life, it was to perform there. I found myself singing with musicians I’d idolized for years (including one or two on whom I'd had mad schoolgirl crushes). In my fondest daydreams, I might have hoped to shake James Levine’s hand someday, but instead I found myself singing the Verdi Requiem under his baton. I had a front row seat in rehearsals where I could listen in as Dmitri Hvorostovsky and the flute player figured out how to coordinate their rubato in “Eri tu.” I watched Bob and Deborah Voigt working out the fine points of her debut performance of Fidelio. I sang in the U.S. premiere and (fifth performance ever) of an opera by Handel. I was able to impress even my less-than-classically-inclined friends by appearing in the MTV awards, and by singing in the American debut of Paul McCartney’s oratorio.
I could go on listing moments like these—times when I felt like Cinderella suddenly transported to the ball—for ages. But of course the glamour, the excitement, and the public notice, thrilling though they were, were not what really mattered. The important thing about Bob was not that he gave the members of the Collegiate Chorale the chance to sing with some of the world’s greatest musicians, or in some of the most exciting performances of the New York season. The truly remarkable thing was that, under his guidance, we genuinely belonged there. He took a bunch of singers of varied levels of talent, skill, potential, and determination, and every week he pushed us, cajoled us, and bullied us into becoming a group that was much more than the sum of its parts. In recent years, I would sometimes hear a choral piece on the radio and be struck by the beauty of the chorus's sound and the depth and passion of the performance—only to discover at the end that I had been listening to the Collegiate Chorale. Bob made of us an instrument that could (and did) hold its position anywhere in the world, with anyone.
When I joined the Chorale Bob was just ending his boy-wonder years--he took control of the Collegiate Chorale at only 26 (younger than Gustavo Dudamel is now). I watched him transform the group from a skillful and highly respected traditional choral society into his personal vision of a unique "celebration of the vocal arts." Especially in regard to some of the administrative changes, this was not a painless process, and I think it's safe to say that no one agreed with every step he took. (Even I found it hard to summon up complete enthusiasm for his decision that, to create the best possible sound balance, our small corps of professional choristers should stand in the front row despite the fact that this put six-footers in front of five-foot-two me.) But he left us with the Collegiate Chorale we know today. Over the years we moved from a concentration on choral classics to an emphasis on vocal versatility, adding concerts of hard-to-classify vocal pieces such as the New York premiere of the "White House Cantata," which offered the audience a chance to hear the marvelous music Leonard Bernstein wrote for a doomed Broadway show, or a live performance of Prokofiev's choral score for "Ivan the Terrible," with scenes from the movie. Most notably, he added regular performances of opera-in-concert, giving the chorus a chance to become vocal actors.
I think what endeared Bob to us, even when he was driving us crazy and riding roughshod over our sensitivities was his blazing passion for the music above all else. The most important thing was not how the chorus felt, what the audience or the critics thought, how famous or important the soloists were, or how prominent the event was. He cared greatly about all these things of course, but only as they served the goal of making music, and making it with as much depth, meaning, and excellence as possible. This commitment was visible in every performance he conducted. As much as I could, I always tried to memorize my part, because I didn’t want to miss a moment of watching Bob and seeing the intensity and love that radiated from him as he conducted.
One of my last memories of Bob underlines for me the way he strove for musical excellence above all else, even at times when it would have been perfectly understandable to retreat to more personal concerns. When I heard he was ill, I offered, as one does in such situations, to help out any way I could if he or his family needed anything. He thought about it and said, well, his score library was kind of disordered—could I come up and try to make sense of it with him?
And now, unbelievable as it seems, all this single-minded passion and determination is gone, and the world is a much less magical place than I thought. When we meet next Monday for our first rehearsal, it’s going to seem very strange to sit down and try to sing the Verdi Requiem. How I hope we will be able to recapture Bob’s conviction that realizing the profound beauty of this extraordinary composition is important in a way that transcends our personal sorrow and sense of loss.
I will be thinking of several things as we begin to prepare for our first concert without Bob. Last year, Opera News magazine online published an article in which Bob talked about his most cherished recordings. One of them was the Collegiate Chorale’s own performance at Verbier of the double chorus “Sanctus” from the Verdi Requiem. When we were preparing for Verbier, Bob kept pushing us on that one long after we thought we knew it quite well enough. On our first day in Switzerland, we found ourselves almost immediately at a rehearsal, and James Levine started us off with this double chorus. Completely disoriented from jet lag, half-asleep on our feet, and badly in need of a meal, we nonetheless pulled it off cleanly and elegantly. Bob was visibly proud of us then, and I’m sure he would expect no less from us at next Monday's rehearsal.
At this first rehearsal, as we look back on Bob’s tremendous achievement in transforming The Chorale, and look forward to the future in which it will be our responsibility to maintain and enlarge on what he gave us, I can’t help feeling that he chose for us the perfect piece with which to carry on. Not because it is a requiem, but because it is both intensely operatic and a great choral classic.
And so was Bob.
-- Janet Pascal, Chorale Music Librarian
I grew up thinking of Carnegie Hall as a legend and a symbol--the place the greatest musicians aimed for. Because of Bob, the first time I ever entered the hall in real life, it was to perform there. I found myself singing with musicians I’d idolized for years (including one or two on whom I'd had mad schoolgirl crushes). In my fondest daydreams, I might have hoped to shake James Levine’s hand someday, but instead I found myself singing the Verdi Requiem under his baton. I had a front row seat in rehearsals where I could listen in as Dmitri Hvorostovsky and the flute player figured out how to coordinate their rubato in “Eri tu.” I watched Bob and Deborah Voigt working out the fine points of her debut performance of Fidelio. I sang in the U.S. premiere and (fifth performance ever) of an opera by Handel. I was able to impress even my less-than-classically-inclined friends by appearing in the MTV awards, and by singing in the American debut of Paul McCartney’s oratorio.
I could go on listing moments like these—times when I felt like Cinderella suddenly transported to the ball—for ages. But of course the glamour, the excitement, and the public notice, thrilling though they were, were not what really mattered. The important thing about Bob was not that he gave the members of the Collegiate Chorale the chance to sing with some of the world’s greatest musicians, or in some of the most exciting performances of the New York season. The truly remarkable thing was that, under his guidance, we genuinely belonged there. He took a bunch of singers of varied levels of talent, skill, potential, and determination, and every week he pushed us, cajoled us, and bullied us into becoming a group that was much more than the sum of its parts. In recent years, I would sometimes hear a choral piece on the radio and be struck by the beauty of the chorus's sound and the depth and passion of the performance—only to discover at the end that I had been listening to the Collegiate Chorale. Bob made of us an instrument that could (and did) hold its position anywhere in the world, with anyone.
When I joined the Chorale Bob was just ending his boy-wonder years--he took control of the Collegiate Chorale at only 26 (younger than Gustavo Dudamel is now). I watched him transform the group from a skillful and highly respected traditional choral society into his personal vision of a unique "celebration of the vocal arts." Especially in regard to some of the administrative changes, this was not a painless process, and I think it's safe to say that no one agreed with every step he took. (Even I found it hard to summon up complete enthusiasm for his decision that, to create the best possible sound balance, our small corps of professional choristers should stand in the front row despite the fact that this put six-footers in front of five-foot-two me.) But he left us with the Collegiate Chorale we know today. Over the years we moved from a concentration on choral classics to an emphasis on vocal versatility, adding concerts of hard-to-classify vocal pieces such as the New York premiere of the "White House Cantata," which offered the audience a chance to hear the marvelous music Leonard Bernstein wrote for a doomed Broadway show, or a live performance of Prokofiev's choral score for "Ivan the Terrible," with scenes from the movie. Most notably, he added regular performances of opera-in-concert, giving the chorus a chance to become vocal actors.
I think what endeared Bob to us, even when he was driving us crazy and riding roughshod over our sensitivities was his blazing passion for the music above all else. The most important thing was not how the chorus felt, what the audience or the critics thought, how famous or important the soloists were, or how prominent the event was. He cared greatly about all these things of course, but only as they served the goal of making music, and making it with as much depth, meaning, and excellence as possible. This commitment was visible in every performance he conducted. As much as I could, I always tried to memorize my part, because I didn’t want to miss a moment of watching Bob and seeing the intensity and love that radiated from him as he conducted.
One of my last memories of Bob underlines for me the way he strove for musical excellence above all else, even at times when it would have been perfectly understandable to retreat to more personal concerns. When I heard he was ill, I offered, as one does in such situations, to help out any way I could if he or his family needed anything. He thought about it and said, well, his score library was kind of disordered—could I come up and try to make sense of it with him?
And now, unbelievable as it seems, all this single-minded passion and determination is gone, and the world is a much less magical place than I thought. When we meet next Monday for our first rehearsal, it’s going to seem very strange to sit down and try to sing the Verdi Requiem. How I hope we will be able to recapture Bob’s conviction that realizing the profound beauty of this extraordinary composition is important in a way that transcends our personal sorrow and sense of loss.
I will be thinking of several things as we begin to prepare for our first concert without Bob. Last year, Opera News magazine online published an article in which Bob talked about his most cherished recordings. One of them was the Collegiate Chorale’s own performance at Verbier of the double chorus “Sanctus” from the Verdi Requiem. When we were preparing for Verbier, Bob kept pushing us on that one long after we thought we knew it quite well enough. On our first day in Switzerland, we found ourselves almost immediately at a rehearsal, and James Levine started us off with this double chorus. Completely disoriented from jet lag, half-asleep on our feet, and badly in need of a meal, we nonetheless pulled it off cleanly and elegantly. Bob was visibly proud of us then, and I’m sure he would expect no less from us at next Monday's rehearsal.
At this first rehearsal, as we look back on Bob’s tremendous achievement in transforming The Chorale, and look forward to the future in which it will be our responsibility to maintain and enlarge on what he gave us, I can’t help feeling that he chose for us the perfect piece with which to carry on. Not because it is a requiem, but because it is both intensely operatic and a great choral classic.
And so was Bob.
-- Janet Pascal, Chorale Music Librarian
Monday, July 28, 2008
The Chorale in Israel July 18-21
For the past few days, Jerusalem has been swarming with Collegiate Chorale members. One spot many of us made sure to visit was Saint Anne’s Church. At the start of the Via Dolorosa, this church is a very beautiful, very plain, and very old building. It is reputedly the place where the Virgin Mary was born, and it is definitely a place of miraculously fine acoustics A note sung in this church will resonate for three or four seconds, so that you can sing in harmony with yourself. One morning, a quartet of professional singers from the Chorale was tempted to experiment with the acoustics by trying out some of their concert pieces in the space. So a lucky group of tourists was treated to an impromptu concert.
Aside from that, the Collegiate Chorale's last three concerts were one small one in Jerusalem (just the Bach), a repeat in Haifa (the same wobbly chairs to climb on, but we got there on time, and so did the conductor), and the grand finale in Jerusalem at the convention center, which includes a large, attractive theatre with nice bright acoustics.
The morning of the last concert, we visited Yad VaShem, the Holocaust Memorial. Whatever your ancestry or religion, this is a place that evokes deep emotions and stays in your thoughts for a long time. Inevitably, our experience at Yad VaShem colored our performance that evening of the Sacred Service--a piece written, in the 1930s, by a man coming to terms with his Jewish heritage. For other reasons as well, this was a highly charged concert for us. It was our last performance, and the last night of our very intense experience in Israel. And it was taking place actually in Jerusalem, the spiritual center of the piece. Thomas Hampson came backstage in the interval before the performance to tell us how important performing the Sacred Service had been for him, and to thank us for sharing the experience with him. "I will be hearing the sound of your glorious chorus in my mind for a long time," he told us.
In almost all respects, we gave our best performance yet. In the tumultuous ovation at the end, it looked like Zubin Mehta might forget to acknowledge our soprano and alto soloists--but Thomas Hampson turned and acknowledged them, with great enthusiasm. Then Zubin Mehta took the bouquets that had been presented to him and to the cantor (I certainly hope with the cantor’s assent), brought them back and presented them to Hai-Ting and Jeanmarie, and kissed them both. And then he raised his hands over the whole chorus in a kind of benediction and said, "I hope to see you again very soon." We certainly felt blessed.
Aside from that, the Collegiate Chorale's last three concerts were one small one in Jerusalem (just the Bach), a repeat in Haifa (the same wobbly chairs to climb on, but we got there on time, and so did the conductor), and the grand finale in Jerusalem at the convention center, which includes a large, attractive theatre with nice bright acoustics.
The morning of the last concert, we visited Yad VaShem, the Holocaust Memorial. Whatever your ancestry or religion, this is a place that evokes deep emotions and stays in your thoughts for a long time. Inevitably, our experience at Yad VaShem colored our performance that evening of the Sacred Service--a piece written, in the 1930s, by a man coming to terms with his Jewish heritage. For other reasons as well, this was a highly charged concert for us. It was our last performance, and the last night of our very intense experience in Israel. And it was taking place actually in Jerusalem, the spiritual center of the piece. Thomas Hampson came backstage in the interval before the performance to tell us how important performing the Sacred Service had been for him, and to thank us for sharing the experience with him. "I will be hearing the sound of your glorious chorus in my mind for a long time," he told us.
In almost all respects, we gave our best performance yet. In the tumultuous ovation at the end, it looked like Zubin Mehta might forget to acknowledge our soprano and alto soloists--but Thomas Hampson turned and acknowledged them, with great enthusiasm. Then Zubin Mehta took the bouquets that had been presented to him and to the cantor (I certainly hope with the cantor’s assent), brought them back and presented them to Hai-Ting and Jeanmarie, and kissed them both. And then he raised his hands over the whole chorus in a kind of benediction and said, "I hope to see you again very soon." We certainly felt blessed.
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