Bloggiana is all proud of the Oriana choir at Gerontius

At its first ever outing in 1900, The Dream of Gerontius was a famous disaster, causing Elgar to declare "I have allowed my heart to open once – it is now shut against every religious feeling & every soft, gentle impulse for ever."
"Bit hysterical, old chap," murmured the rest of Victorian Britain, shuffling uncomfortably from foot to foot at this alarming display of feeling. "Stiff upper lip, what?"
Luckily Elgar's drama-queen moment stopped short of destroying all the copies of Gerontius in his despair. Otherwise I would have been watching the Oriana choir stand on the Barbican stage in communal silence for an hour and a half on Wednesday. Probably that would have got a bit dull about half way through.

This was the first time I've actually sat in the audience for an Oriana concert, and I was very much looking forward to viewing from the outside. Particularly as I'd seen all kinds of interesting instructions coming frantically around the choir email list in the days preceding the concert. Would the choir be able to gracefully split into two choirs during the performance? How on earth were the semi-chorus going to surreptitiously change into surplices while on stage? And how, pray tell, can a choir "stand demonically"? I couldn’t wait!

Well I have to say the choir surpassed themselves. Even drama queen Elgar would have been nodding contentedly in his grave. We'd been rehearsing the demons chorus pretty much every week since January, and come the night it was so sharp the audience was practically bleeding in the stalls. I didn’t notice any demonic standing, but there was definitely some snarling and I'm pretty sure I saw the tenor section trying to make off with some souls. And kudos to the semi-chorus - I had advance warning that they were going to change into surplices in full view of the audience, and yet I still didn’t see them doing it. It was a moment of glory when they suddenly appeared in bright white at the top of the ranks of choir dressed in black. How on earth did they manage it?? They must have laid down on the floor and shuffled into them sleeping bag-style.

But the bit I was looking forward to most was the choir attempting to split into two choirs during an orchestral passage of play in the sceond half. I was practically dancing on my seat with excitement at the prospect of the choir shuffling sideways with fixed grins, looking more and more nervous as the end of the orchestral passage approached, abandoning all restraint in the last two bars and diving through the wind section in order to make it across the stage in time. So you can imagine my disappointment when the choir came back on for the second half already split into two choir formation, the plan having been sneakily abandoned before the performance. Damn you, David-the-Conductor, for thwarting my enjoyment! I paid good money to see that.

All in all, though, it was a brilliant performance and I was very proud of the choir indeed. (Although my nose is slightly out of joint that they were so good without me. But probably it was all the sterling work I put in at rehearsals that made the difference. Yep, that'll be it.)

We're about to break for summer, so no blogs for the next couple of months. Thanks for following the adventures of the choir this year and see you all in September!