Monday, May 9, 2011

A Night At The Opera

I mentioned on Saturday's blog that I would be attending the local community choir's final concert of the season, of which my wife and youngest are members.

Saturday afternoon our house was a flurry of activity with hair and makeup sessions.  Glamour was the order of the day.

the gorgeous gals


After all the preparations then it was photo op time.  Unfortunately some of the outdoor shots were a bit overexposed and yours truly did not check them until this morning - silly me.

The concert was wonderful.  The venue is amazing -- The Chapel of the Good Shepherd at Brock's Landing.  My wife suggested we sit up in the balcony for the best accoustics.  A twenty seven member orchestra, assembled from out of town, and locals, accompanied the choir - what a tremendous sound.

The choir,  under the direction of Dr. Heather Eyerly, performed some of the better known arias and selections from such operas as: Bizet's Carmen, Handel's Arcina, Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, Verdi's Il Trovatore and La Traviata and Puccini's Madama Butterfly, as well as other works by Wagner and Tchaikovsky.

Guest soloists included two former schoolmates of my daughters.  Megan Quick has just finished her undergrad in Opera Performance, and Iain MacNeil is going into third year Opera Performance.  Both are from Dalhousie University.  It is amazing to see how far these two voices have developed in those few short years, since they were leads in the local school plays.

The orchestra in place

The only criticism I would have was the the choir had difficulty being heard over the orchestra, due to the fact that the orchestra was placed squarely in front of them.

choir and orchestra

The ladies all looked gorgeous in the evening gowns and the gents were pretty snazzy all in the tuxes. The whole deal was pretty elegant, why yours truly even donned a suit for the occasion!  Not very often that this hick boy gets to brag he spent a night at the opera.

And that is about all I have to say for today.

Musings and meanderings from the Musical Gardener.

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