Are you one of the principals? Can I spot you easily on stage?” a colleague’s student asked her before a Falstaff performance. Laughing, my friend replied, “No. I’m not a principal. I’m in the chorus. I’m the third fairy from the left in the woods scene.” And so it goes, from woodland to Scottish castle steps to a lady’s bower: the Atlanta Opera Chorus members populate scenes—providing dramatic emphasis, comic relief, and most importantly, musical underpinnings to operas.
Singing in the Atlanta Opera Chorus can be a defining period in a singer’s life and development. Several choristers have been members for more than 10 years. Others have chosen to make the chorus the high point of their performing careers. Some have spent only a year or two in the chorus before moving on to other artistic pursuits or using it as a springboard for career moves to places such as New York or San Francisco. Locally, membership in the Atlanta Opera Chorus confers instant cachet and respect upon a singer.
Walter Huff, the Atlanta Opera’s chorusmaster for 14 years, says, “Many young singers use this experience to bridge the years between their undergraduate and graduate degrees.” Students with professional experience before entering graduate school have a critical career advantage. Richard Bernstein, a bass-baritone known worldwide for his Figaro, sang in the Atlanta Opera Chorus as a college student. Richard returns to Atlanta as this season’s Figaro. Regardless of the motivations prompting a singer to audition for the chorus, membership in its ranks yields numerous personal and professional benefits.
The Atlanta Opera Chorus is diverse. Atlanta attracts people from all over the United States, some of them with opera chorus experience. The chorus gets quite a few of these new residents who wish to continue singing opera. While most of its singers have graduate music, voice and/or performance degrees, the chorus also has strong singers without degrees who work hard through private study to keep pace with their academically trained counterparts. Ages vary from college freshmen to seasoned professionals who have retired from touring but still wish to perform regularly. There is also significant racial and ethnic diversity in the chorus, with members from the African-American, Hispanic and Asian communities.
Every fall, the Atlanta Opera Chorus holds two weekends of auditions. Afterwards, if an opera requires a larger chorus than usual (the chorus has a 45-member core), or as people call the office wanting to audition, other times are scheduled. As in other opera houses, a chorus for The Marriage of Figaro, for example, is smaller than the chorus for The Flying Dutchman. For the Atlanta Opera, this means 24 singers for the Mozart and 62 for Wagner.
Visiting principals give the chorus high marks for outstanding musical and performance values. During this past spring’s Pearl Fishers, Bass Kevin Bell credited the chorus with pushing him to new performance heights. “You’re so ready, we have to be on top of our stuff to match your work,” was his assessment of the chorus’s preparation. Such praise makes all the hard work and long hours worthwhile.
The preparation for each production is the same—comprehensive musical rehearsals before embarking on equally detailed stagings. For example, during the first half of the 2002 season, the Atlanta Opera presented La rondine in May and The Pearl Fishers in June. Meeting once a week, Rondine musical rehearsals started in January; those for Pearl Fishers began one month later. As stagings approached, a few more nights and some Saturdays were added. Sometimes, due to a tight performance schedule such as this past spring’s, chorus members have to complete memorizing music for one opera during staging breaks for another. This happened to choristers who were in both Rondine and Pearl Fishers. They were often huddled in corners or lined up against hallway walls memorizing Pearl Fishers’ French when not on stage singing Rondine’s Italian.
While intensive individual preparation is required, it is the group language and music drills that generate the unity of execution and precision of sound that are the chorus’s trademarks. Chorusmaster Huff describes his meticulous work with choristers as “…helping singers to be prepared and secure, enabling them to follow directions from a conductor or director.” Because Walter is a prominent vocal coach who works with singers from all over the United States as well as most of the chorus’s members, a special rehearsal environment is created. Rehearsals automatically incorporate his coaching style, musical values and expectations, concepts and techniques with which chorus members are already familiar.
Often, private coaching becomes an extension of rehearsals as choristers seek Walter’s help in correcting problems or establishing a vocally healthy approach. For instance, if a tenor is put on a first tenor part in Turandot, which has a very high tessitura, he may work more in his coaching sessions to build that part of the voice.
Thorough rehearsals forge a unified chorus that sings—and acts—with one mind. That musical agreement carries over into chorister relationships. Friendships abound. Couples have met their mates from among chorus members. Performance partnerships, such as quartets, have been formed to sing in other venues. Students sing alongside their teachers. Information about singing gigs is passed around. William Fred Scott, the Atlanta Opera’s artistic director and principal conductor, calls the chorus “his family.” This attitude, from the top down, best describes the environment in which these choristers work.
One month before the performances, musical rehearsals end and stagings begin at the Atlanta Opera Center, the company’s new permanent home. Stagings are usually held on three weeknights, all day Saturday, and Sunday afternoon. At the end of stagings, each production moves into the Fox Theatre for a seven-night rehearsal run (including a Saturday Sitzprobe a Sunday piano tech and a final dress rehearsal with a comp-ticketed audience). A national historic landmark, the 4,678-seat Fox Theatre is a fully restored 1929 movie palace. The Fox’s interior evokes a Moorish temple, adding its ambiance to the Atlanta Opera’s sets.
Thanks to the generous rehearsal schedule, by opening night, everyone is comfortable with costumes and makeup, prop placements, stage business, and the peculiarities of the Fox’s stage, such as having to cross directly underneath the stage for a stage left entrance.
The Fox Theatre’s booking requirements determine the Atlanta Opera’s performance schedule. Restricted to one weekend and three performances, operas always have a Thursday night opening, a Saturday night performance and a Sunday matinee. During 2003, when the Atlanta Opera moves to the 4,650-seat Civic Center, the number of operas and their performances will increase. Each production will be spread over two consecutive weeks.
Because musical rehearsals and stagings are on weeknights and weekends, a variety of occupations can be accommodated. Many chorus members teach voice, either privately or through schools and colleges. Government employees, computer technicians, teachers, freelancers, businesspersons, and real estate agents are in the chorus. A lawyer, a geologist, a psychotherapist and an architecture student occupy the tenor and bass sections. Expectant mothers are part of the chorus’s fabric, too. The creativity of the Atlanta Opera’s costume department has enabled at least four future Aïdas, Manons, and Otellos to make their stage debuts before making their real-world entrances.
Maestro Scott likes to say, “the chorus can do anything.” So, stage directors come to Atlanta expecting choristers to sing in interesting positions and execute moves that help build dramatic momentum. Does Samson and Delilah’s director want 50+ choristers to sing their opening lines while lying facedown on the floor? No problem; will do. Does Otello’s director want the chorus to sing while throwing punches and body blows and tossing colleagues around during a tavern brawl scene? Again, no problem, as the Atlanta Opera’s resident fight choreographer David Coyle will design the action to flow realistically with the music and the choristers’ physical capabilities.
The Atlanta Opera Chorus is non-union. Thus, many of the requirements that are found in union houses are not applicable. Chorus members are paid for stagings and performances. There has been a respectable increase in salary over the years, building up to a flat fee pay scale: i.e., one fee for newcomers (those in their first season) and a slightly higher fee for veterans (those in their second season or above). Chorus members singing comprimario roles receive additional remuneration according to the role’s size.
Singers align themselves with the Atlanta Opera Chorus for reasons other than money. In addition to professional treatment, the love of singing—especially with knowledgeable colleagues who are also friends, the desire to be affiliated with one of the strongest and fastest-growing regional opera companies in the United States, the chance to hone one’s craft, the possibility of being tapped for a comprimario role, and, most importantly, the opportunity to work with chorus master Huff and artistic director Scott, are all major compensations for members of the Atlanta Opera Chorus.
And as for that third fairy….she should be easily spotted next season. She’ll be singing the role of Papagena.
