Caramoor Vocal Rising Stars, Day Five: Resilience and Breakthroughs.
A faux-blizzard only makes it all the more Scandinavian.
It was the third day Michael and I couldn’t get to Caramoor for our morning session, this time because of a very wet snowstorm that made driving conditions somewhere between irritating and dangerous. We waited till 11:45 AM and then headed north. By then the snow was letting up, and the roads around Caramoor were clear. Once I was on the grounds, there were a couple of places I skidded on my wheelchair—I nearly drove into a parked car when I hit a patch of slush. Very exciting. But all in all the weather emergency receded quickly, leaving us only with a lot of picturesque snow-covered trees and a feeling of having passed a test.
Today we had our second guest teacher, my dear old friend Karen Holvik. We’ve known each other for over three decades and been onstage together many times. Karen has sung a fair amount of Grieg; as you can tell from her name, she is of Norwegian stock. And she is now the head of the voice department at New England Conservatory. She missed her train in Boston when her cab got mired in snow, but she was in time for our late start.
It is interesting having a newcomer in the room after an intense week of rehearsal. Michael and I have seen the progress, we also know where the singers still need to be encouraged, persuaded, reminded, applauded, and gently scolded. But by Friday we have two slight disadvantages: we have asked for certain things over and over again and we can see that there is a slight gap—one might say a credibility gap—between us and the cast. And we hear them from behind the piano while we are busy trying to make music ourselves.
Karen came in cold to the rehearsal, armed with her sharp eyes and ears and her elegant sensibility for performance. And she is a singer. There is something about a singer coaching a singer than no pianist in the world can ever attain. She didn’t say a single thing that we had not said before, but she had a heartwarming believability for the cast. If she says, “That sound carries beautifully, you don’t need to go louder,” they finally sing more softly. If she says, you need more consonants, they up the ante on their diction. With her clarity and kindness, Karen was able to break down that last bit of resistance. In the car ride after the rehearsal when we were dropping Julia and Toby off for dinner, both of them thanked me for Karen’s contribution. “Oh, that was great. She came at just the right time, around dress rehearsal.” “You know, she said pretty much what I’ve been saying all week…” “Oh yes, sure…but…well, it’s great to have anothersinger in the room.” And it is, it really is. If it’s someone of Karen’s caliber.
In truth, it was a joy to team-coach with Karen and Michael. The songs are in their third trimester; I can induce labor but Karen is a midwife.
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