#nyfos

The third day is the sweet spot. The pressure of the performance isn’t really upon us yet, the group numbers are on their feet (or, in one case, on its butt, since the cast is seated for it), the guest teacher hasn’t arrived, and it’s just the family, workin’ away on songs. Salient features of the day:

(1)  We had a morning visit from about twenty students from a nearby high school, all of them members of their school chorus. They were amazingly attentive, asked a lot of good questions, and gently kicked all of us into performance mode. Sure, they were watching us rehearse, and we let them see us change keys, talk about vibrato, place vowels, fix problems. But inevitably you don’t rehearse the same way when you have an audience—you have to deliver the song, and that was a good boost to our energy. They also gave us an idea for a dance break in the Hoagy Carmichael piece that had been eluding us--it’s something called the Bernie…? Anyway, it comes from a movie, I think, it rang a bell with Miles and Theo, and it covered sixteen bars we’d been struggling with. I have found with high school students that a tiny, tiny touch of bad language and a soupçon of irreverence go a long way to earning their trust. I was all too happy to oblige.

(2)  Both Olivia and Annie asked for a day of vocal rest. They have been struggling with some fatigue, and Annie is still getting over the same cold I just had. They devoted all their energies to the ensemble numbers, in which they sang lightly but acted with amazing commitment. Annie has to play a dowager in “A Bar in the Piccola Marina,” and she is already channeling Maggie Smith and Patricia Routledge. Today we got her to speak so she’s always straddling her register break—upper crust perfection, slightly crocked. Everyone’s great in that piece—Miles and Olivia as her very strait-laced children, and Theo double-cast as her boring (and soon dead) husband, and also her libidinous Italian boy-toy.

(3)  With the girls pretty much on “mute," Miles and Theo had breakthrough days. I gave Miles a pretty wide range of songs, from the gentle to the forceful, and he’s rising to the challenge quite beautifully. I always say that song is the great arena for expanding your vocal art, because you can safely go into uncharted waters in the span of a two-minute song. In his Grieg piece Miles is stepping into what I call his Helden-lyric voice, his big-boy sound, and it's perfect for his juicy Scandinavian Stimme. And Theo is breaking through barriers, sinking into his music, his voice, and his art in the most moving way. The warmth and passion of his music is so satisfying.

Today was our second (and last) with John Lidal, and we went through the whole show with all hands on deck. Of the five languages on the program, English and German are familiar and non-threatening; but navigating the intricacies of Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian is a mind-bender. An "ä" sounds one way in Swedish and another way in German; g’s and k’s do strange, disparate things in the three Scandinavian languages, occasional consonants are unpronounced, the odd "s" turns into "sh," and the vowels are not consistent—sometimes the Swedish “o” is “oh,” and sometimes it’s “oo.” There’s no rule to memorize, you just have to know so you don’t say “sofa” when you mean “forest.” But today I could feel that everything was falling into place, and we’re all pronouncing words like “kärlekstengeln” and “kjaerlighed” with foolhardy conviction. Having John Lidal coaching in tandem with Michael and me all day made for an intense six hours of rehearsal. Hats off to the cast for absorbing everyone’s contributions with so much concentration. John is a benign and articulate man and could coach this concert with one hand tied behind his back, but occasionally I felt I had to step in. Toby was once again tremendously moving in “Våren” but he kept pronouncing the word “ein” in the German way, “ine.” “No, it’s really ‘ane.’” Toby would sing the phrase again and say “ine,” and John would say, “Um, no, it’s ane.” After the fourth time, I spoke up. “Toby. Toby! It’s ‘ane,’ like…anus.” Short pause. “OK! Well, now I'll never forget it,” replied Toby. And he didn’t. Later I interceded when Theo was having trouble with the word “vakar,” which he got right when he put the word “mother” in front of it. 

I continue to be bowled over by the four singers—extraordinary artists and startlingly good musicians. People with voices this good aren’t usually this smart. Music is pouring out of them, and I am more in love with these Scandinavian songs than ever. Hats off to Julia Bullock, Sarah Larsen, Theo Lebow, and Tobias Greenhalgh--and to Michael Barrett, to whom I owe so much in my life.  Schwab Vocal Rising Stars will perform at Caramoor on March 10

John Lidal, Steven Blier and the Schwab Vocal Rising Stars: Julia Bullock, Theo Lebow, Tobias Greenhalgh, Sarah Larsen  pictured above.

I work very hard in advance of our annual week-long residency at Caramoor to get everything just right. I need a sweet-tempered, housebroken quartet who also happen to be great singers; a worthy program; inspiring guest teachers. It’s good if I also get a chance to practice the music and work on the poems before I start rehearsing (just to keep up appearances), and it’s a plus if I’ve finished the notes and translations by Sunday night (which I did). On top of my usual knee-jerk anxieties I was dealing with a few unpredictable wild-cards. You see, the program is devoted to Scandinavian song and while I have some experience with Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish I do not speak them. Nor does my cast. Two of my singers are New York-based, and I knew they’d done some prep work in February, but the other two were coming in from Seattle and I didn’t really know what they’d be bringing to the table. So I hired one of the world's pre-eminent experts in Nordic song to help us at the beginning of the week—a guy named John Lidal to whom I have sent singers in the past, but never met face to face. He was lovely to deal with by email but I irrationally feared he might be a diva to work with. 

I needn’t have been so nervous about it all. All the singers had studied hard; Michael Barrett and I were bowled over by the sheer power and beauty of their voices. Julia Bullock, Sarah Larsen, Theo Lebow, and Toby Greenhalgh made good on the title of the Caramoor program—Vocal Rising Stars—and broke my heart at seven-minute intervals. I can't wait to get back to work with them tomorrow. (Just for the record: Sarah and Theo knew their stuff cold.)

But I already knew my cast. The discovery of the day was John Lidal, a tall, gentle, handsome Norwegian man who brought an undreamt-of expertise, sensitivity, patience, and intelligence to the rehearsal. It’s always daunting to hand your songs over to another guy—frankly, it feels a bit illicit. John gained my trust instantly—our very first conversation involved a passionate analysis of the Danish "D," which when spoken sounds like an "L” after you've eaten some very old peanut-butter.  Use a voiced ‘th.’” This might not seem like sweet talk to you, but it was music to my ears. I’d been fretting over that gutteral, thick-tongued choker for the last eight days and John swept the problem away like an industrial Hoover. It was the first of his many acts of grace. (Another example: after Toby finished singing Grieg's 'Våren," John waited a moment and said, "I must say, your Norwegian is perfect. Like a native.")