Once I was signed up to the choir, I started getting e-mails, and realised the enormityof what I had done. I had not sung seriously for about 40 years, and here I was, letting myself in for several rehearsals, and a real performance. I told myself that if I had issues after the first rehearsal, I could always drop out - it would be a shame, but not a major disaaster, except for me. I hastily borrowed a "Messiah" score form Tamsin, and started to revisit it. Meantime, my husband was booked into hospital to have a knee replacement operation, the day before the first rehearsal.
Once I looked at the score and compared it with one of the e-mails I realised that I would need the choral score rather than the full orchestral score, so a quick visit to Amazon brought that to me. And off I went to the first rehearsal.
I thought I had the wrong place to start with - it seemed to be a rather odd Pilates class, but I soon realsied that the lady who was taking the rehearsals, the wonderful Mary King http://www.marykingvoice.co.uk/ was dong a very different warm up to what I was used to. Onece the physical warm up was over, the vocal excercises began. Oh, boy was I creaky! However I decided to just get on with it and see how I managed.
Mary is an inspirational teacher - funny, sharp, physical, and brilliant. She had us in fits of laughter, and yet at the end, I felt I was going to enjoy this, even just as an exercise. My top notes weren't all there, but the middle register was strong, and my sight reading, although rusty, was still reasonable. I rushed oof to the hospital afterwards, croaking, but energised. (It didn't last - I fell asleep once I got home!!)
There were several more rehearsals, all of which were just as much fun. Suddenly the big day dawned, and I packed up my bag with healthy, for the most part, snacks, drinks, the score, my entrance ticket, (checked several times, and my bus pass. Arriving early, we waited to be dseated in the auditorium. I suddenly realised that the chap in T shirt and jeans, moving the furniture, was Harry Christophers himself. (A small "squee" was hastily supressed!)
Eventually we were seated in the choir stalls behind the orchestra, and wonder of wonders, I found myself in the front row, truly an accidental occurence, but not something I was about to protest! Then Mary popped up, and we did a few exercises. And finally, there we were, actually singing in front of Harry Christophers, and being conducted by him. It was a real "pinch me" moment - I got a huge lump in my throat and thought I was going to burst into tears!
We rehearsed all the entrances and exits, stand ups and sit downs, and bits of the choruses - The Sixteen sang the twiddly and complicated ones, and we did the big ones. The soloists were there too, and we heard their superb voices briefly. During the break I sat, had some food, and relaxed - I daren't go out as I needed all my energy for the performance. (I called my husband briefly, as I was so full of emotion I had to tell someone, otherwise I think I would have sat there with tears pouring down my face for the whole performance.)
Finally it was time, and we all filed back into the auditorium, visions in shades of purple to pink - I swear one gentleman must have been colour blind, as he was wearing green! Then The Sixteen (actually 20, with 6 sopranos, male altos, tenors and basses) filed in, with the orchestra, a small baroque size one with original instruments, followed by the soloists and then Harry himself. And so it began. I wasn't the least bit nervous, although one or two entries were a bit blurry, and a coule of words went missing a few times.
The sound was quite extraordinary, and uplifting, especially the "Hallelujah Chorus" when the entire audience stood, and it seemed all of them joined in! (The indefatigable Mary had taken a class to teach it just for the occasion.) That was another lump in the throat moment, as was the trumpet solo - valveless, it made a brilliant sound, and I love the baroque trumpet - another magic moment for me. There is a moment in one of the choruses when the choir sings, very fervently "Wonderful"! and that was what the whole occasion was for me, wonderful.
(And I swear that sometimes, Harry was looking just at me, when he was giving instructions - well, a girl can dream, can't she?)
Sunday, 15 May 2011
Massive Messiah - how it all started for me!
This is probably a one-off blog, as I don't see me having the opprtunity to do this ever again. It was literally a once in a lifetime opportunity, and I made the most of it!
To begin at the beginning, with a short biography. I trained for 15 years, at school, and then with private lessons, to be an opera singer. I was pretty good, although I say so myself, and sang concerts in and near my home town, including "Oh, for the wings of a dove", Gilbert and Sullivan, (Trial by Jury), several amateur operettas, including understudy for Anna Glavari in the "Merry Widow", and as the soprano soloist in a small choir version of "The Messiah". I entered for the Ferrier Scholarship, a very prestigious one, and came third (this was a nation-wide contest), and auditioned for a couple of opera companies - the last one asked me to come back when I was a bit older. In those days, companies didn't like you to be under 24.
However, then I got the opportunity to get a job in the local theatre - The Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford upon Avon. By this stage I had realised that I really wasn't good enough to be a top class opera singer, and besides, I preferred earlier music than the grand opera I was training for, so I took the job. That part time job quickly became a full time one, and I found I had no time to take singing lessons, although I was fortunate to sing (briefly) with David Munrow (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Munrow) when he was at Stratford, and with a small group formed by the musical director, Guy Woolfenden (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Woolfenden) who actually wrote a piece specially for me.
However, that was pretty much the end of my singing, as I really didn't have time to sing, and the theatre, and costuming, became my career. I spent many years in theatre, then got married, had a son, and he hated to hear me sing, so that was pretty much that.
Until a lovely lady called Tamsin Lewis, of Passamezzo http://www.livinghistory.co.uk/homepages/passamezzo/
invited me to go and sing rounds with some of her friends. I enjoyed this very much and took part in some of the "Lions part" activities http://www.thelionspart.co.uk/twelfthnight/ However, then my breathing got worse, I became allergic to some medication, and I had more or less a year out of life.
Always a fan of baroque music, I built a large collection of CD's, and when I got the opportunity to hear "The Sixteen" http://www.the-sixteen.org.uk/ sing the Allegri "Miserere" live at Spitalfields Church, I jumped at the chance. It was the beginning of my recovery. A free workshop on Monteverdi followed, with participation by the audience of local children, and a few adults, including me. I came home, bouncing , that I had "sung with The Sixteen" - a huge exaggeration, but what the heck!
And then, on Facebook, I saw an invitation to join a massive choir, singing "Messiah" with Harry Christophers and The Sixteen at the Royal Festival Hall. I shot an e-mail off immediately, and shortly after got a reply - I was in!!
To begin at the beginning, with a short biography. I trained for 15 years, at school, and then with private lessons, to be an opera singer. I was pretty good, although I say so myself, and sang concerts in and near my home town, including "Oh, for the wings of a dove", Gilbert and Sullivan, (Trial by Jury), several amateur operettas, including understudy for Anna Glavari in the "Merry Widow", and as the soprano soloist in a small choir version of "The Messiah". I entered for the Ferrier Scholarship, a very prestigious one, and came third (this was a nation-wide contest), and auditioned for a couple of opera companies - the last one asked me to come back when I was a bit older. In those days, companies didn't like you to be under 24.
However, then I got the opportunity to get a job in the local theatre - The Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford upon Avon. By this stage I had realised that I really wasn't good enough to be a top class opera singer, and besides, I preferred earlier music than the grand opera I was training for, so I took the job. That part time job quickly became a full time one, and I found I had no time to take singing lessons, although I was fortunate to sing (briefly) with David Munrow (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Munrow) when he was at Stratford, and with a small group formed by the musical director, Guy Woolfenden (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Woolfenden) who actually wrote a piece specially for me.
However, that was pretty much the end of my singing, as I really didn't have time to sing, and the theatre, and costuming, became my career. I spent many years in theatre, then got married, had a son, and he hated to hear me sing, so that was pretty much that.
Until a lovely lady called Tamsin Lewis, of Passamezzo http://www.livinghistory.co.uk/homepages/passamezzo/
invited me to go and sing rounds with some of her friends. I enjoyed this very much and took part in some of the "Lions part" activities http://www.thelionspart.co.uk/twelfthnight/ However, then my breathing got worse, I became allergic to some medication, and I had more or less a year out of life.
Always a fan of baroque music, I built a large collection of CD's, and when I got the opportunity to hear "The Sixteen" http://www.the-sixteen.org.uk/ sing the Allegri "Miserere" live at Spitalfields Church, I jumped at the chance. It was the beginning of my recovery. A free workshop on Monteverdi followed, with participation by the audience of local children, and a few adults, including me. I came home, bouncing , that I had "sung with The Sixteen" - a huge exaggeration, but what the heck!
And then, on Facebook, I saw an invitation to join a massive choir, singing "Messiah" with Harry Christophers and The Sixteen at the Royal Festival Hall. I shot an e-mail off immediately, and shortly after got a reply - I was in!!
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