"Don't go away, darling. It was just lovely. The scream was great."

(Mark Elder to "una donna solo, assai lontano, gridando" (a.k.a. "the woman who runs up behind the choir at the end and screams a lot")

Orchestral rehearsal for Cav. We were hopeful at the start when Mark said he'd do our bits first and then do the middle section after we'd gone home - "wahay, early night!" we thought... but in fact we left at 9.00, only half an hour before scheduled. Oh well.

Rehearsal wasn't too bad, although it took a bit longer to get things just right than we expected. The biggest surprise, announced by Mark at the start, is that all the soloists who are supposed to be in the concert have actually turned up! (Mark has some sort of curse on soloists - invariably one or more of them is taken ill at the last moment, in any concert he conducts. So to have all the ones we're supposed to have is very rare. Of course, he's probably now guaranteed that one will develop some lurgy or other before the gig on Thursday...)

We arrived to find the aforementioned Ian Storey (tenor soloist) standing at the back of the choir seats singing an aria accompanied by two harps. It was lovely! Turns out that this is his offstage aria, and they were trying to find a good position from which to do it (this is always a time-consuming aspect of offstage stuff, as ladies who've sung The Planets will testify!) Later on they were trying it again from the side of the stage to see if that was any better. It'll be interesting to see where they end up (I suspect it won't be on the choir balcony - Ian was plainly unimpressed by that, complaining that it was "like singing in a bathtub").

Our own tenors surprised me slightly by not sounding quite as inebriated and enthusiastic as usual in their drinking song, which has been a highlight of every rehearsal so far (particularly the slide halfway through the tune!) I'm sure they'll be back to normal by tomorrow though.

All the soloists were great. Santuzza in particular (Dolora Zajick, an American mezzo) was very lively, and had the choir giggling at her impression of the Screaming Lady! As for the Screaming Lady bit, which culminates in the last note the choir sings (a very loud C major chord) it took AGES to sort out. This was partly because it involved an offstage action (see above) but also because no-one had decided when the choir should stand to sing this chord, and Mark wanted it to be a surprise, which it wouldn't be if we stood up too early. So Jamie had the idea that we should leap to our feet at the SAME MOMENT as we burst out with this unexpected chord. Seems straightforward enough, but some of the sops in the front row couldn't cope with this :p Still, they got it in the end. There were quite a few people I could hear singing wrong notes, despite a C being played on basses and timps for quite a while before the chord... I don't think these could be heard, though, with the number of people blasting out the top C! (Not sure how many, but it's not just Santuzza, it's all the sops in the Hallé Choir and Hallé Youth Choir who "have it in them". Quite a sound!)