COC Opera Chorus Sing-Along with Sandra Horst at the Education Centre, Four Seasons for the Performing Arts. November 1.
When I arrived early for the COC Opera Chorus Sing-Along, several opera lovers were already occupying the benches around the perimeter of the Four Seasons Box Office, chatting about their opera going experiences, their singing backgrounds, nervously asking each other whether they’d done this before, whether they’d had voice lessons, and pre-emptively asserting their lack of ability. We were there to sing excerpts from opera choruses under the baton of Sandra Horst, the Chorus Master for the COC, and even though this was an event open to singers of all levels, without auditions, and with no performance at the end people were mildly intimidated. Surely this distinguishes Opera lovers from the Karaoke crowd, who unapologetically belt it out, in an inverse ratio between volume and talent.
In truth, I was a tad nervous myself. Last spring, in the Opera For All program at the JCC l discovered how challenging it is to sing in an opera chorus, even in a fun-loving, amateur spirit. But I wanted a chance to be instructed by the same chorus master who had prepared the spectacular singers I’d heard a week before in Norma because it was bound to be a fantastic learning opportunity. I was also curious to see how Horst would manage to transform a group of previously unacquainted amateurs into a tolerable sounding chorus in an hour and a half.
Horst’s solution was as thrilling as it was ingenious — she brought in the professionals. Fifteen members of the COC chorus had agreed to come blend their voices with ours, in a week when they also have to perform in Norma and Ariodante. Not only did this guarantee that we would sound good, but it also gave us the experience of being surrounded by trained, powerful voices, as well as a chance to learn about what they have to do to prepare for their performances.
Horst made a point of explaining such things as how they plan when to breathe, when they warm up and hone their individual technique, and how they manage their time so that they can perform, rehearse until 11 p.m. and hold other jobs between (and even during) operas. We learned what it is like to be a singer while also learning how to sing. I already admired the artistry of these singers before the Sing Along. Afterward, I also deeply respected their professionalism.
We began with a short section of the first chorus in Norma, which allowed me to sing the Italian words I had read in translation on the supra-titles at last Friday’s performance, a sort of musical Rosetta stone experience, as I discovered that “Verbena” in Italian refers to “Mistletoe” in English. Imaginatively, I felt as if I’d gone from watching an Opera about the Druids to becoming one. However great an opera performance is, being in the audience is a largely passive and receptive experience. Being a performer, however briefly, however off-key, is transformative.
Though it wasn’t easy, because even with the chorus ensuring that we would sound good, Horst put us through our paces. In a brisk and no-nonsense way, she demanded proper pronunciation, dynamics, and expression, pointing out such nuances in the score as the direction: “tutti sotto voce ” hairpin marks indicating increase and decrease in volume, and shifts from legato to staccato which required us to put breaks between syllables to imitate weeping. When we persisted in pronouncing the letter “t” in the exploded English fashion she insisted we soften it, warning us that, “you’ll be thrown out of the Chorus for a hard t” and when we approached a volume shift from double forte to pianissimo, she invoked Richard Bradshaw’s comment that “you’re too loud already” before we’d even begun to sing so we’d grasp how whisper-soft we needed to be.
Fortunately, I was sitting beside my good friend and intermittent voice teacher Mitzi Zohar, who gets the credit for getting me to the point that I could join a choir in the first place. A former member of the COC Chorus and Opera Atelier, and a veteran of Phantom of he Opera, Mitzi handled the melody, rhythm, dynamics, Italian pronunciation, and the dramatic inflection with ease, while I leaned in her direction to get my bearings. This was much easier in our second chorus, the venerable “Va, pensiero”, the chorus of the Hebrew Slaves from Verdi’s Nabucco, which is sung almost entirely in unison. Though it offers little challenge to experienced singers, and is almost as over-performed as “O Sole Mio”, the words, inspired by “Psalm 137”, and the melody express a deep yearning for home and security and are always uplifting to sing.
Opera Chorus Sing-Along is part of the COC’s Opera Insights Series, a free, varied line-up of events coordinated with the season’s operas. It can be included in the “proud legacy” of community music experiences that William Beauvais recently described in his Truth and Matter post on October 27.
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