Exhilaration and fear

My outing with NCO and choir in Llewellyn Hall is a highlight of my year and this was a doozy: Beethoven Missa Solemnis.  Not at all easy but with plenty of mates to tackle it with.  Not just one but two choirs.  I counted 148 listed in the program, 86 choristers, 57 instrumentalists, 4 solo singers and Louis as conductor but I know of one who had to pull out so perhaps 147 total for the afternoon performance.  Whatever, it was big and exciting and hugely demanding to boot.  Everyone agreed to that.  A scary-fast Gloria with unisons and fugues to melt over, and a few other fugues throughout.  Many notes on dense pages, even for our relatively clumsy bottom enders.  Exhilarating despite trepidation and occasional terror.  It's probably the most demanding part I've known for preparation and where fingering  and string choice was of the essence.  The fast lines were often twisted not scalar and basses had two octave jumps and sudden semiquaver lines at speed and all manner of tempo changes and demanding confidence on first-up quiet, long notes and then that odd whimper to end.  There were spots to relax, but always the awareness of coming demands.  But we did it and it was well done.  Apparently this was the first performance of this piece in Canberra since 1990.  One of the choir had sung in that!  Missa Solemnis was written after Symphony no. 9, so after Beethoven's magnum opus.  He was deaf by then and exploring religion through doubt and the words of the Catholic Mass.  All fascinating.  For the performers it was exhilarating, demanding, scary, all those things as well as an impressive performance and something worthy to remember.  Amusingly, I was down at Manuka today, the day after, hearing the bells of St Christopher's, honestly able to say I'd attended 3 masses in the last two days (2 rehearsals and one performance).  As for now, I'm looking forward to Tim's recording and a listen.  Thanks to all and especially our leader Louis.

Beethoven Missa Solemnis was performed at Llewellyn Hall by National Capital Orchestra with Canberra Choral Society and the Llewellyn Choir and singers Sarah Darnley-Stuart (soprano), Emma Mauch (alto), Ryan O'Donnell (tenor) and Stivenu Talei (bass).  Louis Sharpe (Director) conducted and Dan Walker (chorus master) prepared the vocals.

Sisters are doing it

It was a busy musical day but the main event was opera.  The other can await for next week's repeat.  I arrived to park then chat with a fellow Italian/Veneto-related person who was attending her first opera given a friend was singing in it.  Nice.  It's not my favourite musical event but I've attended a few operas and this was my second Suor Angelica.  It was performed by our local National Opera which bemoans its lack of funding to create a major national company in Canberra.  If not, then at least we can have small events like this one, with a minor orchestra with decent players and Lenny conducting and a string of female singers in habits as nuns and a few males in spacey colour as angels or other heavenly residents.  I was awaiting a notable aria, but I didn't hear one.  Lenny suggested what there is one but it merges into the ongoing recitative.  But the story is tragic and deeply sad and the music and singing was all very satisfying although even with some Italian I found following the story verging on impossible.  But opera is like that.  It's not like pop or folk singing.  I think I mixed up a notification of a son's death with an insect bite, but so be it.  The sadness was clear enough, at least for the unmarried mother sent off to the nunnery, and the joy at encountering her 7yo son in Heaven was obvious and the whole was tear-jerking.  So I didn't get the parts too clearly but I could feel the emotions.  It's from another era, of course,  I guess a relatively early awareness of the pain of children taken from unmarried mothers and the performance carried it though with understanding and musical panache.  So opera may not become a go-to for me but I can admire it and occasionally attend.  And that's a big success for a style which is really so foreign to our current culture.

Giacomo Puccini's opera Suor Angelica was presented by the National Opera in Albert Hall under Rachel Hogan (director) with key cast Emma Mauch (Suor Angelica) and Sonia Antiloff (La Zia Principessa).  The Orchestra comprised Leonard Weiss (conductor) with Ankia Chan (violin), Katrina Vesala (viola), Gabriel Fromyhr (cello) Lizzy Collier (bass), Alison Mountain (flute), Ella Luhtasaari (musical director, piano) an Callum Tollhurst Close (piano).

Opera

So here's my excuse from the last report.  I was on Llewellyn stage practising with National Capital Orchestra and National Opera for the Opera Gala on Saturday night.  Now it's done, it was fun, I was just inches from some fabulous voices in the choir, the basses and the whole orchestra played well although inevitably with some little slips.  My worst was to count poorly at one spot but quietly enough that it didn't matter.  We managed the hardest works, not least Verdi  Forza del Destino overture which is seriously tricky, in changes of feels and counts and bar placements.  Overtures cna be like that, being a collection of themes from the whole work.  Mozart Seraglio overture was also tricky, but just because it was quick in the delightful, overt presentation.  Mozart is easy to love.   We had three singers, too, although not too well heard from my backline (a la Vienna Phil), and three basses (not tons but adequate).  So 90+ on stage for this collection of tunes from a range of operas, even the hyper-known Wedding March by Wagner no less, and bell and humming and anvil and slave and champagne choruses and a few themed arias and an encore waltz by Gilbert and Sullivan Gondoliers which just bopped along and had everyone smiling madly as we left the stage.  Some tricky bits but overall doable and some delightful singing.  Opera is not something I know too well, but with any luck we might just play some more.  And, of course, our jokey and capable and supportive conductor, Louis Sharpe.

National Capital Orchestra performed with National Opera, the National Opera Chorus and singers Eleanor Greenwood, Hannah Carter and Emma Mauch (sopranos)  for the Opera gala at Llewellyn Hall.  Bottom enders were Henry South, Geoff Prime and Eric Pozza (bass).