"You, ladies, as you would expect, are the voices of sexual allure...."

So, we were at the Bridgewater Hall tonight. Split rehearsal - the ladies were there for 6.15 for the orchestral rehearsal for Tannhäuser with Jamie (conducting the offstage performers, including us) and Mark (conducting overall); the men arrived later and did some work with Maggie until we all got together for the last hour. Usually when we sing offstage there are at most a couple of orchestral players there too, but for this there are 12 players, I think. I was standing right behind the 1st and 2nd horns (Julian and Dicky) and was most amused by their Lou and Andy impression (Little Britain, for those who don't know what I'm talking about). It went something like this...

Jamie: Horns, do you play for the first time at 29?
Julian/Dicky: Yes.
Dicky (as Lou): Now, last time you played before 29, didn't you?
Julian (as Andy): Yeah, I know.
etc. *giggle*

I asked Julian about something that's been bugging me all week, namely the title of the fanfare that the Hallé team played before taking part in the Manchester Run on Sunday. I'd seen it on TV and recognised it, but couldn't remember what it was. Turns out it was "Fanfare for an Occasion" by Bliss. Now all I need to do is work out why it's so familiar to me...

Mark appeared a few times during the rehearsal, to tell us what our role was (see title) and what we sounded like from the stage (quite good, apparently). Other Mark quotes:

"It's about the tussle between religion and, I'm afraid, sex."

"What goes on in her grotto doesn't bear thinking about!"

"Could it have more........ sex?"

After we'd sung the thing through several times, Julian figured we must be done and foolishly put his horn away. Sylvia and I were pretty sure this cursed everyone's chances of an early finish, and so it proved - Mark decided to run it one more time, and everyone around Julian was most amused when he had to get his horn out again :p

We did finish slightly early, though, which meant half an hour's relaxation before the whole choir got together. We spent the last hour doing the two new Verdi opera choruses. We'd done a bit of work on the Scottish refugees chorus a few weeks ago, so this was mainly polishing. In the middle of this Jamie had an idea that it might be fun for choirs of the future to somehow have totally interactive rehearsals, in which the chorus master could get instant feedback from every individual choir member on his every thought. I suspect this may be some way in the future...

And we finished with the Fire Chorus, which is much harder (and more fun) and which we haven't tried before. Not easy! We didn't do much in-depth work on it, as there wasn't time - just sight-read through it several times and did a bit extra on a few bits. It has a very cheesy end :p

Anyway, it's the Tannhäuser gig tomorrow, so we'll be back at the hall - more then!