Huntsmen, Soldiers, Priests & Pilgrims: Waterford Opera Gala

 

WMVC Opera Gala photo from choir Facebook page 

Huntsmen, Soldiers, Priests and Pilgrims: Summer Opera Gala in Waterford

 Thursday 30^th May was, it was generally agreed, the first glorious day of Summer 2013.  The sighting of sunshine in Phoenix Park was a rare enough event to warrant mention in morning news reports on the opening  day of Bloom Garden Festival where a Waterford garden  took first prize. That evening, I was in the violin section of the WIT Symphony Orchestra for the season finale concert of the Waterford Male Voice Choir. The house was sold out days in advance -another rarity.  The concert marked the farewell to the ensemble of Niall Crowley who has steered the ensemble since its inception twelve years ago. There was a strong element of collaboration in the venture as the choir invited singers from local ladies choirs, Voci and Edmund Rice to join them for the final chorus of this auspicious occasion.

Auxilliary Percussion  The Anvil 

The programme of operatic repertoire was bookended with numbers from, Maritana by William Vincent Wallace, the Overture and the Angelus Chorus. Wallace was born in the Suirside city and local cognoscenti have never let the minor detail of him moving before he'd had a chance to take his first faltering footsteps on the Quay or learned to butter a blaa, deter them from claiming him as our own.  His bust presides over the forecourt of the Theatre Royal, drawings of him adorn hotel lobbies and no gala  is complete without something from his Victorian oeuvre adding a grand  dollop of nostalgia to any such occasion. Guest soloists,  Bridget Knowles, Roisin  O'Grady and Eoin Power presented well known arias and duets from the standard repertoire. The gentlemen of the choir were variously soldier, priests and pilgrims in operatic choruses by Guonod and Mozart and Wagner. A highlight was the Huntsmen Chorus by Weber with splendid playing from the quartet of French horns. Star of the show  was a real life anvil for the famous chorus from Verdi’s Il Trovatore. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an anvil in the flesh so to speak and my only quibble is that such a novelty could have been more clearly displayed and afforded a more theatrical flourish.

I rarely get  the opportunity to play grand operatic repertoire and very much enjoyed working with Niall Crowley on this project.  It was good  to reconnect with friends and  former colleagues in the orchestra led tonight with her customary authority by Teresa Costello.   Niall passes the baton to Cian O'Carroll and we wish this ensemble of stouthearted men and their new director well in their next season of musical endeavours.

Related articles  Wallace Recital at Wexford Festival Opera 2012 

Sunday Roundup from New Ross Choral Festival 

Come the Sails. Launch of Tall Ships Waterford A View from the Plaza 

Sunday Roundup from New Ross Choral Festival

Waterford Male Voice Choir warm up with director Niall Crowley

 The streets were alive with the sound of music in New Ross on Sunday afternoon .  Everywhere you looked, clusters of suited and gowned choristers were clustering around the two performing venues in  the South East town. Outside the Theatre Tavern punters warbled over their pints and the smell of salt and vinegared chips was in the air.  Over the course of the weekend, 1000 singers of all ages  descended on the small town on the Barrow for the AIMS Choral Festival  to compete in various competitions . In contrast to the grand cosmopolitan air of the Cork Choral Festival , New Ross is a down home day trip event with the feel of a cosy knees up in the parlour.

Church Yard  Al fresco Green Room

My first stop was the Church of St Mary and St Michael where  Cork Airport Singers with conductor Anne Healy Mayes opened  Competition A for  part songs for large mixed choirs.  Outside,  gospel choirs were limbering up for a dedicated competition. Perhaps due to the clement weather, there were more bodies outside than inside the venues.

St Michael's Theatre

There was a younger profile in delegates at St Michael's Theatre for an afternoon of musical theatre. It was good to hear The Treaty Scene from Michael Collins by Waterford writer, Bryan Flynn  from the Teachers' Musical Society among the selected numbers in the Musical Cameo competition. I regret that I haven't yet seen any of Flynn's stage musicals. Lovely  also to hear a trio from Rush  close the singing with a delightfully old fashioned Gilbert & Sullivan number, Never Mind the Whys and Wherefores'. A very entertaining afternoon all for a modest €4 to cover the programme. It is rare pleasure to hear musical theatre un amplified and this bijou venue was ideal in this regard.

Lifting the Cup . Carrick on Suirs supporters led by Liam Butler 

There was a bit of a frisson as it was announced that admission to the adjudication would be by special pass only and there was  a clamour  in the forecourt for the few available tickets. Albert Bradshaw  commented on the staggeringly high standard. and complimented the accompanists who  executed some 'viscious' scores with 'polish and élan' One hard pressed pianoman accompanied 15 numbers before rushing off to a gig in Dublin.  'Respect the score' was Patrick Devine's advice and the Maynooth academic  was encouraged by the resilience of the event in the recession.

High spirits prevailed on the street as splendid silver trophies were lifted and huddles formed to pour over reports. Most jubilant of all were Carrick on Suir Musical Society . Although not placed for their fine male chorus rendition of Officer Kruppee- undaunted,they followed their leader,  Liam Butler  down the street as he held his  tea cup aloft, singing all the way.

Note to organisers: No results to date posted on website.

Cork Choral Festival  An Unclouded Day at Cork Choral Festival  My report on Sunday'events

Piece to camera. AIMS President Richard Lavery

Choral Huddle  post adjudication

Cork Airport Singers Limber up 

A Florentine Hive of Activity at Waterford Writers Weekend

Lto R: R Coady, B Knowles, Marion Ingoldsby, J Loftus , P Sirr, M Roper, M Nolan,  J Ennis , E Sweeney , B Hanlon , N Crowley  M Coady upper Poets , composers, musicians

The ebb and flow of tides
and bedded silt
by wharves and quays
M Coady

Following fast on the heels of the Ennis Book Club Festival, I travelled to the South East for another literary event, the annual  Waterford Writers Weekend. As I drove down, I tuned in to Arena, the arts magazine programme on RTE radio1 where local producer, Jacqui Corcoran had assembled a gallery full of interesting guests in the semi public space of the the Book Centre, a bookshop housed in a former cinema, all with a connection to the festival . Beginning with academic and author, Brian Keenan,  he told presenter Sean Rocks in a compelling interview, why he returned recently to the Lebanon, where he was incarcerated for four and a half years. Will we ever forget a pale and gaunt Keenan emerging to address the media so eloquently after his release in 1990. Poets, Peter Sirr, Mark Roper and writing consultant and festival organiser Vanessa O Loughlin were among the writers who gave an insight into the festival. In contrast to the Ennis Book Club Festival the emphasis is clearly on the writer as opposed to the reader with a large selection of workshops facilitating active participation in the craft.

Gourmand et gourmets 

The Book Centre was also the venue for a discussion on food writing with popular local chef, Martin Dwyer now happily relocated to the Languedoc where he runs a Chambre d'hote . An active writer, Martin writes a very entertaining blog about his French experiences. Also on the panel were Catherine Cleary, restaurant critic of the Irish Times and author Jane Travers who did a good job of posing open questions to generate some good talking points although at times there was stiff competition from the nearby junior reading area.

Publishing Supremo O Loughlin

While they don't call it the sunny south east for nothing, the weather was simply stunning,  the sort of weather where your mother might hunt you out to play rather than sit in a corner reading a book, much less writing one. Nevertheless, there was full house at Vanessa O Loughlin's insightful 'Getting Published' workshop which was a mine of information on the whole business of publishing.

The real draw of the  weekend for me was the performance of the choral piece celebrating Waterford's enduring maritime tradition, specially commissioned for the opening of the Tall Ships Festival in Waterford 2011 and  one of my selected highlights of 2011 With all the international sailors returned home, there was a sense that this reprise was for Waterford people to savour . In the elegant space of the 18th century Christchurch Cathedral, the stirring and eloquent lines of five poets were heard clearly,  read by each poet in turn and then sung by the 200 strong choir with representatives from no less than 40 choral groups in the region, to settings by five composers. The original orchestral score was  reduced for piano to good effect . Finally there was a screening of a  short documentary by John Loftus with interviews with the poets and composers on their creative experience. (This is soon to be available on line, I am told)  A truly wonderful collaboration of the spheres of literature and music ,  one I was proud to be associated with at the first performance .   In the words of conductor Niall Crowley,  'Waterford was a veritable Florentine hive of activity' for  the  endeavour and the event was  a worthy finale to round off  a splendid Waterford Writer's Weekend.

My review of the first performance of 'Come the Sails' at the opening of Tall Ships Festival here

here, now, this very moment
in flowing time,
within this harbour
and this haven  Ml Coady

'Come The Sails' - Launch of Tall Ships Waterford Festival - A view from the Plaza

Niall Crowley conducts the massed choir and orchestra at Tall Ships Opening Ceremony



Urbs Intacta Manet Waterfordia

 Lend us your sails, your stories too,
Taller than skytails in the blue,
Stowaways to the future
Lend Us Your Sails.

Tall Ship Waterford 2011

The Tall Ships Festival was officially launched on Thursday afternoon  in Waterford with a world premiere of a specially commisssioned cantata for choir and orchestra as the focal point of the opening festivities. The work commissioned by the Waterford Choirs Association features rich settings by five composers  of  poems by five  poets, all  with strong Waterford connections with the recounting of the city's maritime history a common theme. I love the pithy  narrated interludes by Michael Coady set by Marion Ingoldsby.  Even the titles hinted at the richness of the lines. Eric Sweeney's  semiquaver rhythms of A Prosperous Port contrasted with the more stately metre of Greg Scanlon's settting of Calico Dress sung by mezzo soprano, Bridget Knowles. There was a rousing anthem, Come The Sails to finish with a setting of words by John Ennis in a setting by my contemporary Sue Furlong well known in liturgical  composition and choral circles. It was good to see young poet Megan Nolan included in a setting of her poem, Child of Mine by Ben Hanlon,  known throughout the land for his work with De La Salle Choir.

The choir clad in colour coded tee shirts and orchestra met for a final rehearsal before adjourning to the courtyard of Christchurch Cathedral where mountains of sandwiches were consumed and tea drunk before we returned fortified to the splendid William Vincent Wallace Plaza with fingers firmly crossed for fair weather.  Enda duly arrived accompanied by his entourage and Derek Mooney bounded on to the stage to crack open the champagne , so to speak, on the procedings.




Crowd at the Plaza, Waterford



My spot in front of three tenors

 There was an anxious moment when a technical problem with the microphone forced a restart but conductor Niall Crowley calmly waited for the nod and on the second go the 200 strong choir and 40 strong orchestra were off. There was the menace of rain threatening to spoil the party but it mercifully didn't spill.

 Contemporary  music by Irish composers does not often receive such a large audience for premieres.  Afficionados I spoke to praised the innovative work  drawing on Waterford's rich history and maritime heritage and it is good to see the city further cementing its reputation as a hot spot for new music. (See my report on  Waterford New Music Week).  Huge credit is due, I understand, to Niall Crowley of the Waterford  Choirs Association? producer Joan Dalton and the Waterford City Council for bringing   this project from a good idea on paper to an actual performance. For myself, it is  many years since I performed with an orchestra in Waterford and it was thrilling and a privilege   to take an active part  in this gala day in my home city.

Déise Abú!
'Magnificence of rigging above a mile of quay' Mark Roper

Urbs Intacta  Manet









Thursday 30th June 2011