"God, you sound good!"

Piano rehearsal for the opera gig tonight. So many classic quotes from Mark that I had a difficult time deciding which one to use for my title. But I decided that his delighted reaction to hearing the Fire Chorus had to be the winner. (It was great - he conducted it with a gradually broadening grin on his face, and by the end he was positively beaming!)

The rehearsal went pretty well. Not much scope for Jamieisms, as he only did the warmup, but there was "Lively tongues!" (said while rolling his tongue round the inside of his mouth... you had to be there...) and of course "Have you considered your eyelashes yet?"

Then Mark took over. He was on good form. Started with Carmen, and took it so fast that the first bit was over in seconds. Several of the slower members of the choir still hadn't found the page by the time the rest of us stopped singing. "Carmen!" said Mark to one of them. "You all right, darling? Have you got it?" Then he proceeded to sicken everyone by telling us about his recent visit to Spain, during which he attended some bullfights ("for research") which he described in graphic detail. And, about the soloists we've got for the gig: "They're a husband and wife team, you know. Don't know how often they've done this murder scene together..."

Carmen was followed by Brindisi. Not much to note here other than that "ah!" in this case is apparently translated not as a mere "ah!" but as "by God, yes, another bottle!"

Then there was a bit of confusion in the Scottish Refugees chorus because Mark decided he wanted it sung in a diametrically opposite style to the one he usually demands. No consonants, no bright vowels. Took a while to get used to that.

And finally, the Fire Chorus. This, again, was much faster than we'd rehearsed it, but went really well. (Jane and Gill both laughed out loud at me when I predicted it would work first time. Ha!) I was interested to learn that apparently the librettist invented quite a few words just because of the sound they make. Unfortunately Mark couldn't remember which words these are, but he assured us it's true. (He also did an impression of Verdi as an old man: "Leave me alone to do my vegetables!")

I seem to have scribbled down "Fire doesn't have barlines!" at one point... I'm pretty sure that's a Mark quote but I forget exactly what he meant by it :p But I was amused when, after a brief bit of polishing, Mark said: "The whole thing, David. And may the Force be with you."

I'm easily amused, mind you :p Anyway, because I'm obsessive by nature, I feel the need to post an mp3 of Brindisi, just for completeness. I'll be removing all four in a few days' time, so if you want them, grab them quick.

Brindisi (3.6 MB)