Our sound has gone out
10:34 a.m.
We were all doing something different last night. Hubby had his guitar students over for a dinner which he prepared (spaghetti and tomato sauce) and various other goodies which I had purchased earlier (without him asking even), and so when he went out to play tennis, I asked him if he could pick me up some vodka coolers on his way home. He didn’t realize that real vodka coolers (which come under various brand names which I won’t mention here because they’re really not necessary) are only available at the province-sanctioned liquor store for some obscure reason. (It can’t be their alcohol content, because you can buy über premium beer [like with 9.5% alcohol per volume] at the dépanneur; it must be the fact that they have actual hard liquor in them.)
Instead, he went to the supermarket and bought me vodka-flavoured malt beverages in sissy colours like blue and pink and green, which I despise because they really are awful tasting, and if I wanted to drink beer, I would drink beer. So I brought them to the party anyway and let other people consume them.
Little Princess and Buddy Boy went to a karate dinner, then Buddy Boy came home and continued the party with his friends that he’s been engaged in since he arrived back in the Townships. Little Princess went to her boyfriend’s and fell asleep, but came to the choir party when I stopped to let Ollie (her BF’s roommate) off to pick up his booze.
Okay already, you’re just dying to know how the second night of Messiah went. The church, which must hold around 1,500 people, was packed. We stood up at the front and looked out on a sea of faces. Well, actually, it wasn’t totally packed, i.e. the side galleries were not opened. This is a church where the choir with which we were merged for this concert often performs, and I have been to several of their offerings there. The acoustics are terrible (it’s like a huge echo chamber) and the pews are worse than uncomfortable. I always bring my own cushion. Even with every seat taken, the sound still reverberated off the walls and pillars and vaulted ceiling. It served a very important purpose in this case.
All the mistakes we made were inaudible to the audience. I was standing next to the scooper last night because of sight-line problems, and every single one of her entries was out of tune. But out in the audience, we were perfect. The runs were articulated, the blend was amazing. They loved it.
At one point I had to sit down on the riser where I stood. It was in the middle of “Rejoice Greatly” which was then followed by the alto/soprano duet “He shall feed his flock”, and my lower back suddenly felt as though it were on fire. I was fine after that.
At intermission there was a very long line up for the washroom (one toilet for the whole choir and orchestra), so I never actually got to sit down and rest my feet. While I was waiting in line, a colleague from the university wandered in, looking for a washroom (the toilets for the public were downstairs), so we engaged in chit chat, and he admitted that this was his first Messiah, which kind of shocked me, him being English and all. He commented that I must have sung about a bazillion of them, and I admitted that this would have been my 19th or 20th, but that I hadn’t actually sung it since--and here I had to stop and do some figuring--1977, which meant that 30 years had passed since I last stood in front of an audience and belted out “All we like sheep”. The amazing thing is that I remembered it after all that time.
The party was in the hall of St. George’s church. I brought cheese and crackers and chocolate and those aforementioned vodka-flavoured coolers. I ended up drinking red wine, cheap red wine, more than I am used to (but I wanted to get drunk) which meant waiting longer than normal before I could get behind the wheel of a motor vehicle. I had fun.
François reminded me again before he left that I should contact him about auditioning for him (go me!). He was very moved by the experience of working with our choir. The Duchess and I spoke to him about how our own Herr Doktor Professor had prepared us in such a way that there was no resentment that a conductor other than him was riding us instead of our usual jockey in those two races, and he admitted that he had sensed that, and also that he lacked the resentment that another had prepared us for him before he got to us.
I guess I’m caught up now. Time to hit the “done!” button.
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