Has anyone else performed in The Dream of Gerontius? [View All]

[Lydia Leftcoast]

I just came from being part of one of the choirs in that huge oratorio-type piece by Elgar, sponsored by my church. Our music director, who's from England, says that it's a very popular piece over there, but in the States, everyone was saying, "The Dream of Who?"

Basically, it's Elgar's setting of a long poem by John Henry Newman about the soul's journey after death. There are four characters, Gerontius (the dead guy, a tenor), the Priest (a bass), and two Angels (one mezzo-soprano and one bass). The sight of God is represented by an extremely loud crescendo from the orchestra.

We had to take about 1/3 of the pews out to fit the orchestra in, and there were 90 singers in all, the regular church choir plus a non-audition group that takes singers from all over the metropolitan area.

Each choral ensemble rehearsed separately, and while the two ensembles sang the same line through most of the piece, there were parts where two or three choirs were going at once. Believe it or not, we first put the choirs together on Wednesday, and we sang with the orchestra for the first time this afternoon.

The choir's tunes are pretty catchy, and they will be ear worms for quite a while.

The main disadvantage for us was that we singers had to stand throughout the performance, which includes a lot of instrumental interludes and endless solo singing.

But the audience received it very well, and as usual, we had a reception afterward with the typical yummy treats made by a member of the parish.