Last Sunday, Dessoff Symphonic Choir, in which I’m a tenor, sang Beethoven’s Ninth at Avery Fisher Hall with the Budapest Festival Orchestra, Iván Fischer conducting. Orchestra gigs are always a thrill, and in that respect, this one was no exception. In most every other respect, however, this gig was an exception … it was exceptional beyond belief.
As a few friends put it, a big fucking deal, with emphasis on the big, fucking, and deal parts.
We sang from in front of the orchestra, four feet below the stage, where the first two rows of audience seats usually are, our backs to the conductor. (There were monitors for us on the side walls.) It was brilliant. “Beethoven’s spirit rang out with an explosive jubilance.”
That was exceptionality #1. Another exceptionality was that we had no friggin’ idea where we would sing from until the day of the concert. Our first rehearsal with the maestro was Friday, two days before the concert, with piano. From our perch on platforms across the back of the stage, Dessoff Symphonic’s 106 singers sang a few bars. Mr. Fischer said very little but seemed pleased enough. We sang a few more bars.
“Can the chorus platforms come up any higher?” the maestro asked. No, it turned out. “The chorus should be higher.” The Budapest Festival Orchestra, “my orchestra,” will be on risers, with string basses rear, center, and elevated. Singing through a rank of basses was out of the question.
“Let me try something.”
“Something” was having us sing from further forward, across the center of the stage and well in front of the raised platforms. Then another something, singing from the very front of the stage. For each of his somethings, we sang full out like we would do on Sunday. You don’t become a Hungarian musical genius guessing what a choir’s tutta forza sounds like when you can ask for and listen to the real thing.
We sounded “three times better” from the front. Not that we sounded bad from the back, Maestro added. As we had marched forward and forwarder, someone made a joke about lemmings.
“Try singing from down there.” Mr. Fischer was pointing at the first rows of audience seats. Only the stagehands prevented us from actually leaping off the lip of the stage to get there. We sang again, and we sounded spectacular (especially when we turned to face the audience). This was where we were destined to be on Sunday.
Except for a couple of details. The maestro had ordered a stage extension, but it was too small to free up enough seats for us. Only two rows, comprising 72 seats, were unsold because of the extension. There was also the issue of us singing with our backs to the conductor.
More somethings. Men back on stage and all against the stage left wall. Sing. Women move center, men stay put. Sing. Tenors stage right, basses and women stay put. Sing.
Then, “Thank you.” No friggin’ idea where we’d sing from on the day of the concert. We weren’t even sure we’d be able to see a conductor. As it turned out, when we arrived for the Sunday morning dress rehearsal, the 72 unsold cushy seats in rows A and B of the orchestra had been removed, and 106 folding chairs were squeezed into their place without compromising fire regulations. We were all able to fit in front of the stage where we had sounded so spectacular on Friday. And we could see Maestro Fischer, thanks to monitors that had been installed practically overnight on the side walls of the hall. On Friday, Maestro had asked for ecstatic singing in a few places; given what had transpired to accommodate us between Friday and Sunday, together with the fact that we all had front row seats for the Ninth’s first three movements, ecstatic was a piece of cake.
Chorus master James Bagwell later mentioned that a chorus-in-front setup wasn’t without historic precedent. Donna M. Di Grazia, Professor of Music and choir conductor at Pomona College (my alma mater) documents the practice in her 1998 article “Rejected Traditions: Ensemble Placement in Nineteenth-Century Paris,” and passionately laments its disappearance. She was “aware of only a few instances where placement issues have been considered for performances of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century music regardless of the presence or absence of a chorus.” I sent her email to tell her there’s been one more, and that it rocked.
There are plenty more things to share about this Ninth, and if I can, I’ll post updates.
Top: Budapest Festival Orchestra (on the stage) and Dessoff Symphonic Choir (in front of the stage), after performing Beethoven’s 9th Symphony at Avery Fisher Hall on March 28, 2010.
Bottom: A seating plan for orchestra and chorus in nineteenth century France, chorus in front of the orchestra. [Di Grazia, 1998, p. 197, with callouts replacing legend]
