Theodora

What a sublimely beautiful oratorio.

It had been quite a long time since I played with an orchestra (May, 2006) and longer still since I had played for an opera. I started out the week on a high playing wise because I had just had a lesson with Peter the night before I left for Norfolk so I was busy being excited about the bass "Oh, that's how I use the bow!" and the like. The first day of rehearsals was mostly sight reading and I have always enjoyed that part of the process of learning music- when everything is new and making mistakes is part of the game, when you're getting introduced to the music.

The orchestra was full of lovely people as well. Robert Houssart, the conductor and harpsichordist- is enthusiastic and fun. There were 5 violins: Emily from Boston; Marja from Finland via Cork, Ireland; Aiden and Naimh from Ireland; and Tim the 15 year old whose family I was staying with. We had one viola- Tom who has impressively mobile eyebrows; and two cellists- Harriet from the South of England, and Sara- our continuo cellist from Germany. So we were a right international bunch. Two oboeists (Sharon, England; Sian, Minnesota), a timpanist (Polly, Scotland), and a trumpet player (Will, England) all showed up later in the week. Oh, and David- the repititeur harpsichordist (he played for the singers during rehearsals).

Do you know what recitatives are? Wikipedia defines it as "a style of delivery (much used in operas, oratorios, and cantatas) in which a singer is allowed to adopt the rhythms of ordinary speech." Basically it is where all of the exposition happens in operas, because there isn't much space for it in the arias. They also, particularly in baroque music, are full clear cadences. So someone will sing a sentence, and then you have a big V-I and I don't know how to explain it other than that or singing it to you, but that doesn't really work on blogs...Right, so anyhow- the point of this is that through playing this music and all of the recitatives that we played and listened to- I now feel like I understand so much more of the theory that I learned in undergrad from a practical standpoint and I wish in some ways that either I could go back to those classes now, or I could have some how had this experience before (or during) those classes.

Same thing with styles of bowing and articulation- when playing baroque excerpts for orchestral excerpt class we would be told to play light, don't hit the last notes heavily, let go of the unimportant notes, know where the phrase is going and toss off those notes that are only passing. I never really got this- it was hard for me to hear out of context and really frustrating at the time. Now I am like, dude- we really should have been made to play baroque operas in small chamber orchestras, what a great learning opportunity that would have been.

That is me now. During the week however, I was constantly screwing up during rehearsals and playing out of tune and forgetting to look at key signatures and just generally feeling like my playing was not up to snuff. So I wasn't as pleased with the whole thing as I am now. Now I want to practice (me! I want to practice! Okay, so not a whole lot- but there are certain things that I would like to work up again and wouldn't it be lovely to play for fun? Without any sort of pressure?) because then if I get to go back again next year, I wouldn't freak out everytime Robert whipped his head around because I jumped an entrance or played a wrong note. To be fair, I was right next to him so he could hear me clearly, but his starting every time I messed up was not helpful.

Anyhow- enough of my angst about my playing: Handel sure knew how to write music. I don't think I have ever fallen in love with an opera/oratorio like I have with this one. It wasn't just the arias that would get stuck in my head; it is such a lovely work that I would get bits of recitative stuck in my head. 'O That I on Wings Could Rise', one of Theodora's arias. Lovely. And anything Irene sings. 'Wither, Princess, Do You Fly'. And most of the choruses.


It's a heartbreaking story too- the christians are all told to make a sacrifice to the Roman god Jove or be killed. Theodora, a christian princess and Irene, her group's pristess refuse. Instead of killing Theodora though- because shis such a prominent christian, she is setanced to be turned in to a whore. This, because she is so very virtuous is worse than death. Didymus, a Roman soldier is so overcome and impressed with her virtue that he goes to tr save her and convinces Theodora to switch places with him in her prison cell. Didymus is found out and sentenced to die for helping the prisoner to escape. Theodora is also now sentenced to die should she be found. Overjoyed that her virtue is still protected, Theodora races back to the palace to turn herself in. Both Didymus and Theodora argue that they should be killed in place of the other. In interest of fairness, they are both killed. The end.


Obviously this is a bit more nuanced in the actual opera.

Tuesday evening

I went to the Trevor Pinnock concert last night. It was at Cadogan Hall near Sloane Square. As it turns out, much closer to Sloane Square than I had totally realized. If I had just looked up and read the glowing blue sign I could have saved myself a good 10 minutes of wandering around with my A-Z getting increasingly more confused and panicky because the concert starts NOW. Ah well, I’ll know for next time.

The hall is a converted Christian Science Church and it is *lovely.* The lower seats are steeply raked and the gallery is low so it has a very intimate feeling even though it seats 900 people. The walls are cream with metallic painted accents and the lighting was very warm. It reminded me of our living room at home in the winter when it has been dark out since 4pm and Laine has turned on all of the lights in the living room and everyone is warm and cozy and sitting around reading. Which is, I think, a fairly impressive thing for a concert venue to remind me of.

I sat on the stage left gallery in the second row practically hanging over the stage. I couldn't see the violins hardly at all, but it did mean that I had a nice view of Peter’s playing and also of Trevor’s face or hands when he conducted depending on which was the harpsichord was turned. He fairly glowed.

I most enjoyed the Concerto No. 3 in G Major, BWV 1048 and No. 2 in F Major, BWV 1047. Do you get the feeling I have the program right next to me? You bet I do. No. 3 was great because the energy level was through the roof. No. 2 was great because the soloists were flying. And, of course playing very nicely as well.

Okay, I'm pretty sure I should never try to get a job as a music critic. Let's talk about me some more! I couldn't stop chatting to people. I met a nice lady in the stairwell, the man sitting next to me who had been given the ticket by a friend of his (quite enjoyed the concert, thanks), the Italian woman behind me, the entire class of Canadian exchange students who were at the concert as part of their music course (they said to tell Peter that he had done a very good job that night), and Katie- an acquaintance of mine who is in the Music Therapy course.

Katie invited me out to the pub with her crowd of friends after the concert. I can't remember any one's name, but they are all amateur or semi-professional baroque string players and they need a bass player for a concert on Dec. 8th. Handy, huh? I don't know yet if it will work because I only have a modern bass, but I'm going to talk to Peter about that when he gets back from Hamburg. Anyhow, pub time with them was wonderful. They're a large group of friends who are all interconnected in a variety of different ways who have known each other for years. I felt quite honored to have been included.

Then I came home and fell in to bed.

Well, that was fun.

That seems like a sarcastic title, but it really isn't.

I finished out my Van Gogh day with a visit to the Rijksmuseum and then opening night of "Hercules"by Handel. It is a very modern looking production. The stage was covered in sand (how much of it must get into the pit?!) and really cool set that had geometric shapes that moved in the walls and allowed for fascinating lighting effects. Quite a lot of the drama was done purely with the lighting, which was totally cool. The cast was dressed in sort of business casual clothing, with grey skirts and slacks. It was the first instance I've seen of forshadowing with costumes. The worse the situation got, the closer to the tragedy of Hercules being accidently killed by his wife, the more of the cast changed in to all black versions of their costumes. The singing was wonderful (but all of the female leads were Swedish? why?) and the orchestra was "fab,"Peter was right. My only complaint was that the first half was 2.25 hours long. And that is just waaaay too much early music opera without an intermission. I was sitting next to a man who got very squirmy indeed. There were also just a couple of issues with tempo- someone was pushing ahead most of the time, but it alternated between the chorus and the orchestra. It wasn't a bad thing - just a little bit of a tense thing.

By the way: want to find Americans? Go to a hostel in Amsterdam. Dear lord.

After the performance there was a reception for the musicians and invited guests, of which I was one. (The tickets were under "Norton-Middaugh" and that hadn't even occured to me so there was a bit of a panic as I was trying to figure out how to get in to the show. But it all worked out, so phew.) I met a bunch of people- what an international group that orchestra was. Peter brought his orchestra along with him and then hired a bunch of dutch musicians, except that one of the "English" people I met was Hungarian, and a bunch of the "Dutch" people were English, and one American from Alaska who has also worked with Webb Wiggins, so we had fun reminicing about him and then exchanged contact information. She suggested another grant that I should try for for studying in Europe. Then everyone went to a pub and discussed how, what with global warming and all, what you really need to do is put all of Holland on a raft- and then you'd be golden.

Peter and I have had a really good talk over the last couple of days- he aksed me how Peabody had been and I was hemming and hawing, so he told me why he had asked. He remembered what I had been like the first time we ever talked and how incredibly excited I was about everything and since then I haven't volunteered information about my music, I've only responded to direct questions. So he figured that something had been going on with my bass playing that wasn't all good. So he was very reassuring that I could do whatever I wanted and it didn't have to be music necessarily, but that what I learned from music would never disappear because it is part of who I am and all that. It was really nice to hear all of that from a mentor type. I was beginning to think he would blame me or something if it turned out that I didn't become a bass player. Which is a terrible reason to start a career. Anyhow, I still don't know what I'm going to do with my life (Mommy says I don't have to make any decisions until the plane trip home!) but I'm having bunches of fun.

Also, I'm in love with Vermeer.