after work last night went to the chicago civic opera house to sing the do-it-yourself messiah. i forgot to get tickets this year, but i didn't have any problem scoring one before the doors opened. it's really fabulous. i love to sing- i should really head back to hyde park and sing from the sacred harp again. i thought once i wasn't a christian i wouldn't like religiousish music at all anymore- but it seems to be the opposite.
it's all so big and grand- in pa, when mom sings, they just do the christmas section and the hits (you know, all we like sheep, halellujah, that sort of thing) in a small church. at the opera house there are 3000 people on 2 different nights singing the chorus parts. the whole thing (well, almost- they always skip a few in the 2nd part where it starts to drag) in like three hours. i actually think the first section drags a bit. the chorus pieces are pretty good, but it's the third part where all the good solos are. at the end of the first part i'm ready for a break, and i wonder how the second half is going to go since apart from hallelujah i don't really know the chorus parts very well. but i'm always surprised, when we get to the 2nd to last piece, my favourite duet with alto and tenor, to find the next chorus is thanks be to god, all those crazy amens at the end.
i've sung the messiah there every year since i first came to chicago in 1999, except for 2000 when i was in germany. i guess it's understandable that i'm a little better after the 6th year. i guess it's that my coverage is a bit more even now- i used to know the 3 pieces we'd done in high school choir really well, but not know the rest of it at all. we sung the halellujah chorus both my freshman and my senior year of highschool. my freshman year i was so terrified of the choir tests- we had to go into the conductor's little office and sing to her, just her and her tape recorder, and she gave us each our choir grade! and that first semester is was sightsinging a bit of solfegio and the the bit of the hallelujah chorus where it first goes polyphonic. this is just the choir test- not auditions for show choir or something! i was into jeff, the gay tenor, at the time, and he helped me study. and now it will be ingraned in me forever- no matter how many mistakes i make, i will always get that part right. but like i said before, i am getting better every year. in the amens at the end, i was only lost for about 3 bars- pretty f-ing amazing, if you ask me. but i just take a deep breath at the begining and remember mrs feldman's advice- sing something, and when it gets hairy, COUNT LIKE MAD!
i always think of the soloists having these different personalities. like the tenor- he's the straight guy, all cocky and knowing everything, just telling you how it is- every valley shall be exhaulted and and every mountain and hill made low. the countertenor is the outgoing gay one, making it all accessable for us masses of the chorus- this saviour comes onto YOU. which is a good thing, cause all of us chorus members are afraid of the bass. he's totally scary, bringing all the bad news in these growling 16th note runs- who shall stand when he appeareth? and usally i think of the soprano as the oposite of him. every year is the same soprano, a large cuddly woman who is this angel just overwhelmed with the good news she gets to bestow on us. she's full of it's okays and god loves yous, and makes it all very christmassy. but she couldn't come this year, so they got someone who's singing an opera there now, and i sure hope she's a villan in the opera, cause she'd make a great one. she's blond and bony and angular, and her features twist as she sings. and there was none of that sweetness- it was more, he's comming, and then what will you do- you'll be sorry you ever asked for it, you think what the bass fortold was bad! or perhaps, i know MY redeemer lives, what the fuck are YOU ALL gonna do, you peons? she really relished singing about the worms destroying this body. it was fabulous, this snarky twist on the christiany messiah. definately what i needed this holiday season.
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