Piano rehearsal with Mark Elder for Cavalleria Rusticana. Much fun, as usual. The Hallé Youth Choir were there to run through the Easter Hymn with us (they're singing the church choir part in that) and there was a great sound a lot of the time. Other things weren't quite as good at first - we were finding it hard to sing rhythmically and in time, particularly - but it was fine by the end. (Although, infuriatingly, there were some people behind me who talked almost all the way through. I suppose this explains why they seemed so confused when we altos switched, within the space of a few bars, between the alto, soprano and tenor lines. I assume they were also talking during the rehearsal when we all wrote down which line we were singing :-)
Mark did like quite a lot of what we were doing, though, even before we got all of it correct - at one point he told us that "Covent Garden don't do it as well as that!" And he is in a position to know, so that was nice. He told us a few interesting things, as usual, one of which was that the tenor soloist (Ian Storey) is rare in that he's an Englishman who sings in Italy regularly. Mark says that he (Ian Storey) is very good-looking - can't say I'm convinced, from the photos on his website (example below), but I will reserve my opinion till I've seen him in the flesh :p
Talking of good-looking, Mark also informed us that Mascagni (pictured above), in his day, was considered to be very good-looking (in a different way from Puccini, who apparently had "bedroom eyes"). And that until recently, you could go into a barber's in Milan and ask for a Mascagni haircut - "no, I couldn't!" retorted one of the more follicly-challenged basses!
New choir schedule issued tonight (as usual, it's online) and letters about the London trip in July. And in case anyone hasn't been able to get a Cav recording and wants to practise, I've put mp3s of the chorus bits online. I haven't labelled them, but they're in the correct order in the score and all the choir bits are there. (Obviously, these are only for private study - I'll remove them after the concert.)
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