Generale for the Johannespassion completed

Evening generale

Yesterday was a very long day.  The drive up to Brasschaat was familiar, and as I was leaving a little bit earlier in the day it took a little less time, as the traffic congestion on the Brussels and Antwerp rings was slightly less.

We spent the afternoon rehearsing all the arias, and I sang them several times, which was pretty tiring.  But I still had enough fuel in the tank to sing the entire generale that evening.  We managed to perform the whole thing in approximately two hours, which is a good sign for the performance on Friday.  I will need to get back home and get some sleep as I will have another very long day on Saturday with rehearsals from 14h-18h and then again 19h-22h for the Johannespassion with another group.  But the good news for those performances is that all I have to worry about it is the arias and the Pilatus role.

What was particularly challenging last night was to put everything together, with very rapid transitions of character between Pilatus, Jesus, and the arias.  Normally one has a lot more time between these interjections, and in the case of Pilatus or Jesus, one can simply "stay in character" while waiting for the next time one has to sing.  But in this case, it was a bit of a Robin Williams-style event, singing both parts of Jesus and Pilatus in turn as they carry on extended conversations.

Happily it would seem to have worked, based on the feedback from the conductor, the orchestral players and the other soloists: they appreciated that I managed to present very different vocal colours in the different parts.  To be honest most of that is the different style of writing that Bach uses, but there is also an element of unconscious acting with the voice that I am happy is coming through in the sound.

Now that Johannespassion is in the can and ready to go, I am heading into town on my day off to coach the St. Matthew Christus, which I have to sing next week in the Netherlands for the first time, and to start to coach the Offenbach La Belle Helene, which will start rehearsals sooner than I would like in Toronto...

One little bonus of driving through Brasschaat was the discovery of a Kringwinkel, or second hand store not far from the church.  I was a few minutes early yesterday and so poked my nose in for a look and was very pleasantly surprised: there was lots of great Val St. Lambert crystal, and Royal Boch china, and furniture in very good repair.  It turns out that Brasschaat is quite a prosperous place, a bit larger than Wavre at almost 40,000 people, and my friend Teun told me that it is the wealthiest city in Belgium.  It would make sense then that the local second-hand store would have nice things!

I only had a few minutes but found this nice two metre by three metre carpet at the Kringwinkel for 79 EUR.  It's a very thick pile one and in excellent repair, or was until I got it home; Kiki seems to think that the little black horses on it are mice, and has already scratched a bit of the yarn from it!  We clipped her claws this morning but it will be a challenge to stop her from attacking it.