When Words Fail, Music Speaks

The career of a Metropolitan Opera chorister is chock-full of memorable events. “Top Ten” performances, defined by gorgeous music, world-class soloists, or exciting productions are common, but none of them could prepare us for the experience of performing the Verdi Requiem on the 20th anniversary of 9/11. The weight and gravity of the evening alone was enough to create an emotional musical experience to remember. But there was even more significance this year, as this special performance of the Verdi Requiem was the first performance on the Met stage since March 11th, 2020 (the Met would shut its doors the next day due to the COVID-19 pandemic). Naturally, many of the choristers had much to say about the experience.

The Metropolitan Opera Chorus, Orchestra, and soloists, led by Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Photo: Met Opera/Richard Termine.

Soprano Danielle Walker was overcome by the gravity of the experience. “Singing the Verdi Requiem with the Met Opera on the 20th anniversary of 9/11 was truly an honor. From the moment we stepped into a standing ovation to the final note sung, I shed so many tears.” Like so many of her colleagues, she wrestled with “financial, mental, physical, and emotional struggles” and lost friends and loved ones to COVID, and performing the Requiem was cathartic, and brought to her a sense of renewal after a year and a half of artistic stagnation. “I began to feel like a person again, part of a bigger picture.” 

Daniel Clark Smith (right) and his husband, pianist Michael Caldwell, on a delightful hike.

Veteran chorister and Chorus Committee member Daniel Clark Smith also realized, like Danielle, that he had experienced a version of an identity crisis during the Met’s closure. “I realized that my identity is so closely aligned with my line of work that I felt a real loss of self.” Daniel had performed the piece multiple times with the Met Chorus and Orchestra, but this particular iteration “brought a new emotional dimension to the piece for me, after losing so much to the Met’s closure for the last year and a half. Singing the Verdi Requiem was absolutely exhilarating, both musically and emotionally. Commemorating the anniversary of 9/11 led me to recall the last 20 years, reflecting on the city's and the nation's losses, as well as the personal losses I've suffered in that time.” Many choristers, Daniel included, were truly inspired by the leadership and artistic direction of the Met’s Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin, who conducted both the Mahler and the Verdi, and brought everyone together for “a truly moving experience.” As the chorus’s Safety Delegate, Daniel was particularly happy with the Met’s COVID safety precautions, which brought him comfort as he sang indoors without a mask for the first time during the pandemic. It freed him to fully invest himself in his musical performance. The whole experience, he thinks, will serve as a highlight of his Met career.

Mezzo-soprano Rosalie Sullivan was so moved by the experience that it was difficult to put her feelings into words, even months after the performances. “How can there be words adequate for such a moment?” she asks, recognizing the weighty confluence of events: “the 20-year anniversary of 9/11, 18 months to the day since our last performance together onstage at The Met, and our first unmasked indoor performance after a year and a half of COVID. On a good day, the Verdi Requiem has the power to shake me to my bones, but to perform it under these circumstances was overwhelming. So many layers of loss and grief and remembrance.”

“At the same time,” she said, “it was a profound gift to be a part of that performance and to finally offer ourselves up again in and through music. I don't expect I will ever have another such experience in my lifetime. The only word I can find for it is ‘sacred.’”

Gloria Watson (center) with her husband, Met carpenter Dana Watson and her son, Taylor.

Mezzo-soprano Gloria Watson was one of eight Met choristers who retired during the pandemic. It was heartbreaking for her to leave so abruptly, without being able to say a proper goodbye to her friends and colleagues after 27 years in the Met Chorus, but she made the difficult decision to end her career at the Met in August of 2020. Incredibly, she got a call from Chorus Administrator Dan Hoy in August of 2021 with an offer to sing one more time, as an extra-chorister, in the Met’s September performances of Mahler’s 2nd Symphony and Verdi’s Requiem. She was overjoyed to be able to return to “the house” to sing in these two incredible works of musical art, particularly since she had never performed the Mahler. But it was the Verdi Requiem that offered her the greatest emotional experience. Being in the city during the 9/11 attacks meant struggling with anxiety in the aftermath, and a pronounced fear of public transportation. “To be able to perform the Requiem on the 20th anniversary of 9/11 was cathartic. It was the most emotion I’ve ever felt [during a performance].” 

Gloria started her career in 1994 “with Pavarotti and Teresa Stratas” and ended it with the Verdi Requiem, on a historic day for both the Met and for New York City. For Gloria, for every performer on the stage, and for the sold-out audience on its feet before a note was sung, it was a colossal gift. 

“When you think about what we do for a living, how we feed our souls…to be able to say goodbye this way is one of the most extraordinary things I’ve ever done.” 

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Back to the Drawing Board with Met Dresser Chelsey Hill

by Rebecca Carvin

I first met Chelsey Hill in the dressing room of the ladies' chorus at the Metropolitan Opera.  She was dressing the first two aisles in the room, and the first thing I noticed was her amazing eyewear and her shoes. I wanted both. Chelsey was a quiet, confident, cool-as-a-cucumber presence in what can be a highly pressurized environment. Corset too tight? No worries, Chelsey knew just how to adjust it. Tights gone to shreds? Noticed and replaced. It was almost as if she herself knew what it meant to be a singing actress in a costume. It was no surprise when it was finally revealed that Chelsey had moved to NYC in 2014 to pursue a career in musical theater. She knew what we needed because she had “been there, done that”.

As time went on, other talents were revealed. Chelsey has a twinkle in her eye, and an aura of fun about her. I knew she drew amusing illustrations, but when she presented me with an illustration of my costume in Akhnaten (an enormous beetle with wings perched on my head, declared a “nice beetle” by one of our chorister’s children) I knew that this was a serious talent.  

Serious talent, indeed! Chelsey has been doing illustrations for Dallas Opera, Baltimore Musicals, W42ndST Magazine, along with many other organizations. You may have noticed our own Met Chorus Artists logo, and many of our social media posts have a certain sparkle about them. That’s because they have been drawn by none other than the “Illustrating Diva,” Chelsey Hill.

I had a few questions for Chelsey.

What is your artistic background?

I grew up immersed in the arts. I come from a long line of professional instrumentalists and visual artists. I was exposed to orchestral music, opera, old school jazz, big band, and Broadway standards from a young age, and truly developed a deep love for that kind of wonderful old music. I took piano, flute, and voice lessons. My instrument was always voice. At my preschool graduation, my predicted career was “opera singer” because I’d sing during lunch and nap time. My go-to tune was a toddler’s version of “O Mio Babbino Caro” (from Gianni Schicchi). I was the first singer in my family, and all three of my siblings followed suit. We’ve all performed in musicals together. I’ve played the mother to most of my younger siblings (great casting). We’re like a scrappier Midwest version of the Von Trapps. 

In terms of the visual arts, I was drawn to (pun intended) illustrators/cartoonists like Hilary Knight, Bill Watterson, and Bill Amend. My dad loved to draw, so we shared that love together. I’d watch him work and that would inspire me to draw.

What voice part do you sing and what shows have you done?

I’m a light lyric soprano. The last shows I did were in college and for The Broadway Dreams Foundation. I was an old school classic ingenue, though I much preferred the brassy, old lady character roles. My favorite role I played was Mona Kent in Dames at Sea. I also played Christine Daae in the Maury Yeston production of Phantom. That role landed me a Broadway audition for the doomed 2014 relaunch of Titanic. 

When did you move to NYC?

I moved in 2014, the summer after I graduated from college. It was a crazy whirlwind. I had gotten into the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland’s graduate musical theater program and was set to go there, but some cool last-minute opportunities led me to NYC.  

When did you start drawing and when did it start to become a business?

 I’ve always loved to draw, especially when I was a kid. I would get in trouble in school for doodling in my workbooks and for giving myself BIC pen tattoos rather than paying attention. I walked away from drawing for a bit when I was really into singing and theater, but I rediscovered it when I moved to NYC. It was a way for me to cope with stress. I started posting my illustrations on social media for fun, and it naturally transitioned into getting work once my style was more refined. It’s been growing steadily ever since. 

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When did you start working at the Met and what shows did you dress?

I started in September of 2019, and I worked with the Women’s chorus, Men’s chorus, solo women, super women, and children’s chorus departments during the 2019/20 season. I dressed Manon, Turandot, Orfeo, La bohème, Madama Butterfly, Queen of Spades, Akhnaten, Wozzeck, Porgy and Bess, Der Rosenkavalier, the NYE Gala, The Magic Flute, La Traviata, Così fan tutte, and Der Fliegende Holländer. I was set to dress most of the remaining shows of the season before the shutdown killed the fun. 

How did you become a dresser?

My work study in college was in my department's costume shop, and I had the best boss/costume design professor. That was one of the highlights of my college experience. When I was looking for a work change a few years into living in NYC, it just clicked that I should try dressing. I knew a ton of people who had dressed at the Met, so I reached out and got the gig. For me, it really was the best decision: working with stunning costumes, being around amazing performers, working alongside multi-talented dressers, and getting to hear exquisite singing every day. The Met is a NYC highlight for me. 

You used to go by the name “Coffeehooker” before you changed it to “Illustrating Diva”.  What is the coffee connection?

I’ve been a hardcore coffee drinker since I was young. My mother would take my sister and I to Borders Bookstore (RIP) and we’d get their coffee milkshakes. I don’t think she realized that it had espresso in it rather than coffee flavored ice-cream. Since then, I’ve been a full-blown coffee connoisseur. Coffeehooker was created from my initials and is the name of the glamorous and heightened illustrated version of myself. I even trademarked it. 

What’s next?  Where do you envision your illustrating career going, and are you still pursuing a performance career?

I’d love to keep drawing for music and theater organizations. These are my passion projects that I absolutely adore. I’d love to get more large-scale publication work. I just got my first book cover, and it’s been a blast working on that. I will definitely continue to create more music series. I’m currently working on a Women Composers Alphabet. I want to do more things in that vein. My goal is to give classical music a colorful, glamorous visual representation. 

I am currently not pursuing singing or theater, though it still remains the greatest love of my life. I get that theatrical fix with the art I create. I feel like I’ve really merged my musical side with my visual arts side. 

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Follow Chelsey on Instagram: @illustratingdiva

Facebook: Chelsey Hill- Illustrator

Website: www.chelseyhill.com

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Celebrating The Met's Canceled Service Awards

by Lianne Coble-Dispensa

The closure of the Metropolitan Opera on March 12th, 2020 not only meant the cancellation of the last two months of the Met’s season. It also meant that dozens of seasoned Met Opera employees didn’t get their moment in the sun during the annual Metropolitan Opera Service Awards.

You may have never heard of the Service Awards because the yearly event is a private one for the Met Opera community. Those who are honored have reached career milestones of at least 20 years of service to the institution.  

The list of honorees this year was filled with artists whose collective achievements have helped the Met reach increasing levels of greatness during their tenure. Two beloved Met Chorus members, Kurt Phinney and Gloria Watson, had reached their 25th anniversary with the company, and were also on the list to be recognized for their accomplishments. Since they didn’t get to attend the ceremony this year, the Met Artists Newsletter decided to give them the recognition they deserve! (Though it’s still up to the Met to give them their watch as a gift for their 25 years of service…)

Kurt Phinney.

All About Kurt Phinney

If there’s one thing you can say about Kurt Phinney, it’s that he definitely didn’t sit around on his duff eating bonbons for the last 25 years in the Met Chorus. The job itself was extremely demanding from day one. “While the first 10 years posed the greatest challenge in terms of memorizing music,” Kurt said, “the job does not get much easier as one becomes more experienced.” Besides memorization of music and staging, as well as the usually grueling schedule of rehearsals and performances, preserving one’s high level of vocal quality is also an important focus, and maintaining a proper technique is paramount to longevity. “Navigating the Met’s relentless and highly demanding performance schedule with a maturing voice is arguably the biggest professional challenge choristers face.”

Kurt and Chorus Master Donald Palumbo. Photo: Steve Chernin.

From L-R: Meredith Woodend, Rose Nencheck, Kurt Phinney, Stephen Paynter (together both in and out of the Chorus Office), Joe Turi, and Liz Wentworth.

If that wasn’t enough, for the past 20 years, Kurt has held a 2nd job at the Met, that of Chorus Manager. As Chorus Manager, Kurt helps with scheduling music and staging rehearsals, oversees the regular and extra chorus payroll, and assists with the chorus budget preparation. He also participates in the chorus auditions, during which he hears hundreds of singers over the course of numerous audition dates during the season. And somehow, through all this, he also helped his wife Pamela raise three beautiful children.

Stephen, Kurt, and Craig Montgomery as the solo slaves in Julie Taymor’s production of The Magic Flute.

Kurt credits his ability to juggle two taxing jobs to his partner-in-crime Stephen Paynter (another Met chorister with a second job, that of the Assistant Chorus Manager). “I could not have survived the pressure of these two jobs were it not for his kind, thoughtful, diligent, humorous and unfailingly ethical companionship in the office.”

Outside of the Met, Kurt does not seem to slow down. Once his kids went away to college, he was able to focus on the hobbies he loves: cycling, weightlifting, and writing. Writing, incidentally, isn’t just a passing interest in journaling. For the better part of a decade, Kurt has been writing a book “about the transition of classical music from the highly structured tonal language of the 19th century… to the largely unstructured post-tonal vocabulary of the 20th century.” His purpose for writing the book is “to chart a course back to the communally embraced language of tonality, jump-start the evolution of the standard repertoire, thereby restoring classical music as a fiscally viable and sustainable entertainment.”

This is all to say that after 25 years of service at the Met, there appears to be no stopping the unstoppable Kurt Phinney.

Gloria Watson in all her glory, decked out in her Otello Act III gown in the Ladies Dressing Room.

All About Gloria Watson

When current chorister-hopefuls audition for the Metropolitan Opera Chorus these days, they experience a rigorously organized process of the required application packet, a screening recording, followed by either a polite decline or an offer of a live audition (with a specific date and time). On the day of the audition, they are led through multiple checkpoints throughout the serpentine halls of the Met until they are called in to sing an aria or two (often less) for Maestro Donald Palumbo and a small panel of seasoned chorus members.

Mezzo-soprano Gloria Watson, however, auditioned in the glory days of the Met Opera Chorus “cattle call” process. An alum of the respected Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music (BM) and Indiana University (MM), Gloria “waited all day with 400 other singers” with varying levels of experience “in an excruciatingly long line,” she recalls, “and finally sang my audition in the late afternoon,” for then-Chorus Master Raymond Hughes. The rest, as they say, was history.

Gloria in front of the Rigoletto marquis in 1999.

Gloria was thankful to have experienced the Metropolitan Opera at the height of the era of luxury casting. Her first show with the Met Chorus was I Pagliacci with none other than Pavarotti as Canio, Teresa Stratas as Nedda, and Juan Pons as Tonio. From then on, her career highlights included watching Renée Fleming sing “Ain’t It A Pretty Night,” from Susanna, Kiri Te Kanawa sing Amelia in Simon Boccanegra, and witnessing the nascent careers of Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Bryn Terfel, Anna Netrebko bloom into well-deserved stardom. She has the fondest of memories playing the role of the Page in the Otto Schenk production of Rigoletto in 1999. She performed the role eighteen times that year, including on Christmas eve, with her husband Dana (a trumpeter who toured with Frank Sinatra and Buddy Rich, as well as a carpenter/journeyman at the Metropolitan Opera) and her son Taylor in the audience. “I did it for them,” Gloria said. “Taylor didn’t think I was a real opera singer” until that moment!

Dana Watson, Gloria, and her son Taylor. All three have a history of employment with the Metropolitan Opera!

Rose Nencheck, Pat Steiner, and Gloria Watson in Andrea Chénier.

Gloria is able to look back on her 25-year career at the Met with fondness and immense gratitude. “I was lucky enough to raise my children in good schools, with great health insurance and job security as a musician in America.” “It wasn’t always rosy,” she said, “but in the last month I was there, I remembered walking backstage thinking how great the Met is. I truly love the place, even though I’m a cranky old lady now!” She also treasures the memories made with her best friend, fellow Met chorister Rose Nencheck, who attended the Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music with Gloria. “Rose and I have been singing together in the alto section since we were 18 years old. It’s been quite a ride as best friends for 42 years!”

In the weeks before publication of this article, Gloria made the difficult but practical decision to retire. There were many reasons Gloria decided to choose this path. For one, the extended closure of the Met coupled with the uncertainty of reopening in the shadow of a second, serious wave of COVID cases was frightening to her, as well as Dana, considering both of them derive their income from their Met jobs. Facing the immense loss of income that is affecting all Met artists (and performing artists around the world), Gloria left “the greatest job in the world” so that she could collect her pension and help support her family. When the Met reopens, Dana will return to work, and we hope that Gloria stops by with him so we can shower her with the love and appreciation she deserves after 25 years of a job well done at the Met!

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We also want to acknowledge two other members of the Met AGMA family who would have been celebrated at this year’s Service Awards:

Bass-baritone Bradley Garvin made his solo debut as the Second Prisoner in “Fidelio” in 1993, and went on to become a Plan Artist, assigned to both cover and perform countless roles over his 20 seasons at the Metropolitan Opera. In recent years, he went on for an ailing Gerald Finley to play the challenging role of Athanaël in Massenet’s “Thaïs”, to great acclaim. Brad is a welcoming, friendly face to all who come across him in the halls of the Met, and we’re fortunate to have had him on the team for all these years!

Stage Manager Gary Dietrich recently reached an incredible career milestone: 30 years at the Metropolitan Opera! He is known, and beloved by all, for his expertise, his cool, collected, respectful demeanor, and his incredible grace under fire (which is a necessary trait when working in the high-stress environment of the Met). We thank him, from the bottom of our hearts, for his unwavering commitment to his job, for the aura of Zen he exudes, and for putting in the work to ensure that all our Met productions can run smoothly and safely. To know Gary is to love him, and we’re so lucky he has called the Metropolitan Opera his home for all these years.

If you happen to see either of these gentlemen on the street (while social distancing, of course) or on the internet (via social media), please congratulate them for their incredible hard work and their many years of service!

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Choristers Without A Chorus: How The Pandemic Has Changed Our Lives

What happens when artists can’t make art together? Met Chorister Brandon Mayberry interviewed many of his colleagues to get a sense of how the chorus was faring during the extended closure of the Metropolitan Opera due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and wonders what the future may hold for all of us.

by Brandon Mayberry

Thursday, March 12th, 2020 began as a typical day in the life of a Metropolitan Opera chorister.  It was late morning as we assembled in List Hall to rehearse music for a handful of upcoming operas, still recovering from the previous night’s performance, which was a scratch tape (a recorded performance that precedes the Live In HD broadcast that following Saturday) of the demanding new François Girard production of Der Fliegende Hollander. After returning from a scheduled 10 minute break, Chorus Master Donald Palumbo announced that the remainder of the rehearsal had been canceled, that we were to exit the building as soon as possible, and that the Metropolitan Opera would be closed for the next two weeks. There was only enough time to say a few quick goodbyes to our colleagues, while contemplating which belongings we could shlep home on a moment's notice.

Four months later, still furloughed from our jobs due to COVID-19, we have a lot to unpack. Two weeks of closure turned into a cancellation of the rest of the 2019-20 season, as death counts in and around New York City soared. Then, in June, the Met announced that the Fall portion of the 2020-21 season would be canceled as well. Uncertainty looms heavily while the spread of the virus remains unchecked in large portions of the United States. Many of us furloughed at the Met are dependent on the State and Federal Pandemic Unemployment Benefits (PUA), the latter which is set to expire at the end of July. PUA, provided by the federal government, is critical to many in the chorus who are already running low on savings and struggling to see a future where they can support themselves and their families. Many have found subletters for their apartments or have given up leases altogether, moving away from the costly areas surrounding New York City and Northern New Jersey.

Beyond the unemployment statistics and impassioned social media campaigns are real people who are unable to do their job. How will our job change? Will there be a job at all? How do I make ends meet until there is a vaccine? Will the government come to our aid? We all grapple with these questions while desperately trying to find financial and physical security amidst the shifting sands of the current landscape. 

One of Rachele Schmiege’s incredible pour paintings.

Several members of the chorus have graciously allowed a look behind the curtain of their lives in order to illustrate how this pandemic has affected them over the first four months of our furlough.

Soprano Rachele Schmiege, having joined the regular chorus this past season, candidly admitted that "for a long time after March 12th, I did not want to sing, watch opera, or even hear music. I felt like everything I worked so hard for (a coveted position with the Metropolitan Opera) turned on its head overnight. It took awhile to be okay with my new normal." Rachele stuck it out in New York City for a month before she and her husband left their apartment to move in with her parents in the Midwest. "We are continuing to evaluate our life and situation on a weekly basis." While furloughed, Rachele has remained busy as she continues to learn and create, something many of us have needed in order to maintain balance and purpose. "I'm doing a daily vocal course, a Non-Violent Communication course, helping family members build websites, I joined a bookclub, and I’m working with the Met Opera Chorus Social Media Committee." Rachele's creative pastimes include knitting, gardening and, recently, pour painting. "Pour painting has become an unexpected joy. My mom had some canvases and some left over acrylic paint. I watched a zillion YouTube videos to learn techniques and look at color combinations. I am proud of my progress and I have a few I would hang up and proudly display."

Rachele Schmiege has taken up pour painting as a creative outlet during the furlough.

One chorister who wishes to remain anonymous comes from a family of war veterans. “When crisis hits, we run towards danger, not away from it.  When COVID hit, I wanted to find a way to help support my family and also contribute to my community during this crisis. I found that working on the front lines as a COVID screener for the IBM corporation since April 1st."

Tenor Dustin Lucas and his wife Lexi are the proud parents to toddler Alivia and baby Isabelle, born this spring. "Life has been turned upside down" as his family was forced to sell their recently renovated home and relocate due to the virus. "The stress of everything leaves me wondering if I will ever get through this without therapy." He implores artists to prepare for the continuation of pandemics such as this one and to develop multiple marketable skill sets.

Suzanne Falletti and her precious pups.

When it comes to trimming monthly costs, veteran chorister Suzanne Falletti says, "There's just so much one can do." Falletti, who doesn't have the option of moving in with family, contends that even if that were an option, the savings from moving would likely be lost when considering the costs of storage and moving fees. "And there's all the emotional considerations to think of as well. When everything else seems out of your control, the one thing many of us might feel comfort from is our home. Giving that up would be a huge loss of stability."

Fellow soprano Anne Nonnemacher, celebrating 20 years in the chorus, sees it similarly. Years ago, she made the costly decision to live in Manhattan with her husband and son in exchange for valued family time, due to the challenging work week that is typically demanded of a Met chorister. "Despite the dire situation and the fact that a lot of people have lost their jobs, from no fault of their own, there has been no rent relief." She admitted that having moved several times since her son was born, she simply couldn't stomach the thought of doing it again.

Anne Nonnemacher, at home with her son Elliot and husband Louis.

Anne’s husband, who is a recording engineer primarily focused on classical music, has had all of his upcoming events canceled or indefinitely postponed, which leaves both of them essentially unemployed. "It was, and is, a shock. As a performing artist, I am certainly familiar with not getting the gig or not getting paid much, but I have never done ‘no work’ for any significant amount of time. It doesn't feel good. I like to feel like I'm contributing something to the world." For so many of us at first, making music made us sad and was a reminder of the loss we had to come to terms with. But in time, Anne's fervor for music returned, with the help of her husband Louis. "Eventually my husband and I started playing guitar and vocal music together; Renaissance music and Mozart aria arrangements we used to perform." This led them to presenting a virtual performance for her son's school. 

Tenor Salvatore Rosselli, twenty-two seasons at the Met, has found particular solace and connection to his beloved colleagues via the Met Opera streaming content and the weekly Zoom meetings. Sal regrets having lost six people to this nasty virus within his circle of friends and family, adding, "I have had to be careful with my expression of sympathy, so I would not become too depressed." While Sal's financial situation is stable, he "cannot emphasize enough the hardships many of my younger colleagues will be facing and that living on a maximum weekly unemployment of $504 a week will not be easy, especially if the current supplemental $600 isn't extended beyond July 31st."

In the past four months, Mezzo Rose Sullivan left her apartment, moved into her childhood home, and took care of her mother for two weeks, who had contracted COVID-19. “I was furloughed for weeks, which became months, which became the rest of the calendar year." She also embarked on and finished the Artist's Way with a friend. Since moving back into her apartment in New York City, she has enrolled in an intensive life coach certification program.

Brian Anderson, Christina Thomson Anderson, and their two children, Oliver and Annika.

Mezzo-soprano Christina Thomson Anderson and her husband, tenor Brian Anderson are both in the chorus, and have 2 children at home. “Like so many in the performing arts, we have found ourselves faced with the deepest financial uncertainty of our lives. Brian and I encouraged one another to stay centered. There was so much coming at us: adjusting to the full-time homeschooling of our children, while wondering how we would weather this financial storm, even as reports of the pandemic grew ever more ominous." Christina referenced the quote,  "an unhappy bird cannot sing,” shared by a former voice teacher, as she alluded to the sorrow and uncertainty that led to an unintended moratorium on making or listening to music for the first few months after being sent home.

That was until late May when one day her 8-year-old daughter first pulled out her violin and then later shifted to playing some piano pieces she had been working on earlier in the year. Christina, watching it all said, "My heart began to open. From that moment on, we began to play more music, singing together at home and in the car, belting out show tunes and country songs, and even opera, together. Experiencing music again, through my children, has kept it alive for me." Brian has been taking IT classes as they continue to contemplate a way forward. "Many have left the city, but for now, our family is staying. Our children are settled in schools, we are settled in our community, and New York City is very much our home."

Through the clouds of struggle there are stories emerging of how being cooped up together has galvanized and deepened the bond between family and loved ones. For example, Christina points out, "We have experienced blessings that have been uniquely gifted to us through these circumstances. Because of the furlough, my husband and I have been the ones to put our kids to bed every night for the past five months. We are very aware that this cloistered family time may never come again, at least in this way, so we cannot help to observe the deeper connection that has grown between us and our kids." 

While Anne also echoes Christina and Brian's sentiment regarding having more time with her child, she adds, "I did have the chance to see, in more detail, what kind of things go on in school and observe more of the dynamics between my son, his teacher, and other classmates." She also implores those who can to help artists in need. The Met she says, "is a place that was built by people that wanted to create a place to present the highest quality experience and were not afraid to support it, despite the costs."

Suzanne's coping strategies involve finding comfort and companionship that her dogs bring. She's also busy creating a teaching website, took an intensive voice science workshop and is a member of an ongoing teacher mentoring program of David Jones. She's inspired by rising Met star Lisette Oropesa's online masterclass series and gives credit to her and others for "finding creative ways to keep the arts alive."

Soprano Lynn Taylor, who has had a varied career encompassing jazz, opera, musical theater, modeling, and acting acknowledges, "One positive thing this pandemic has done for me is afford the distance to meditate on the meaning of how I've spent my life and career, which has brought more pleasure than paranoia." 

There is one silver lining to report: since publication of this article, close to $300,000 has been donated to the Met Chorus Artists fundraising campaign, with more on its way! This will provide individual grants to many Met AGMA artists suffering financial hardship who have lost contracts at the Met as a result of the closure.

I thank my courageous colleagues for sharing their stories, which I'm sure all of us can connect to and sympathize with on some level. I'm wishing all of my many colleagues peace, good health and a speedy return to performing together. Thank you to all of the many supporters of the Metropolitan Opera and our artform. We are relying on you now more than ever, as we will most likely be the one of the last industries to return to work. Together we shall overcome. 

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Motherhood At The Met

by Abigail Mitchell

Abigail and Arthur at home.

About thirty seconds after I got a full-time position in the Met Chorus, I got pregnant. Ok, it wasn’t quite that quick. But it did happen fast, and my son Arthur was born the summer after my first season.

Both the job and the baby were a long time coming. Every chorister has a fun story about getting “the call,” and the short version of mine is this: I knew I had something to offer as a singer, and one morning, during a yoga class, I sent up an earnest plea for an opportunity to contribute. Thirty minutes later, as I walked in the door of my day job, Maestro Palumbo called.

As for the baby, my husband and I had been trying to get pregnant for two years. Nice work if you can get it, of course, but I grew increasingly devastated when month after month went by without success. Having two dreams come true almost at once was an embarrassment of riches.

I was further blessed with an easy pregnancy, and with my late June due date, the Met season wrapped up when I was seven-and-a-half months in. I especially appreciated this given the physical nature of the job. Life in the chorus involves a lot of running around, climbing stairs, kneeling, getting up and down off the floor, and, oh yeah, singing. None of this is made easier by being pregnant. The other benefit of a summer baby is that I didn’t have to start my maternity leave until after the summer break was over, giving me a couple extra precious weeks to be at home with my baby.

I started back at work in late September, right at the start of the 19/20 season. But while the performance season was just getting under way, the chorus had been rehearsing since July. This meant that when I came back, I was behind. This was especially challenging because as a second-year chorister I was, by default, behind already.

Depending on who you ask, the first three years in the Regular Chorus are the hardest. Or five years. Or seven. The Met does at least twenty operas per season, and the chorus is in almost all of them. Because they have not figured out how to add extra hours to the day, shows that are done often like La Bohème or Turandot don’t receive as much rehearsal as something rare, like Akhnatan or The Queen of Spades. This means that in your early years in the chorus, you are going to be spending a lot of time practicing, muttering to yourself while looking at flashcards, and reading the lips of your seasoned colleagues, all in an effort to stuff dozens of operas, in myriad languages, into your brain.

Turandot was my first show back, and I employed all of the above strategies to get up to speed. My son became a Turandot expert as I practiced during the last few weeks of my leave. Not only did I need to learn the music, I also needed to get my voice back into shape. Singing opera is an athletic endeavor that requires precision and endurance. Even just a couple days off can set you back, just like a week away from your exercise routine can make you feel like you’re starting over. I didn’t sing at all for several weeks after Arthur was born—that is, unless you count crooning “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” over and over and over.

Once my body had recovered from labor and I was starting to patch together a decent amount of sleep, I got back to work. At first I could only manage ten minutes or so at a time, both in terms of stamina and in terms of time in which Arthur would tolerate me not paying attention to him. Sometimes I would hold him while I vocalized, but I worried about singing so close to his ears. Opera singing is loud, after all! Over time I was able to lengthen my sessions until, by the time I started back at work, I felt almost back to normal.

Arthur stops by the Chorus women’s lounge to snuggle with Abby during the dress rehearsal of Der Fliegende Holländer!

Now Arthur is seven months old, and we have a nice routine. He usually sleeps in until 7:00 or so, which on all but the latest nights gives me a decent amount of sleep, too. Depending on how early our rehearsal call is, I have about ninety minutes with him in the morning, which goes by fast when I’m also trying to get ready to go. My goal is to be able to take ten minutes to drink a cup of tea and watch him play around on the floor, and most mornings I am able to manage this. It can be hard to walk out the door, but once I’m in the midst of rehearsing I’m glad to be doing the thing I trained for so many years to do.

Unless we have a very short break, I come home in the afternoon between rehearsal and performance (which choristers call the “gap”). Depending on the timing, this means more play-time and/or flying through some chores while Arthur naps. He goes to bed around 8:00pm, which is kind of late for babies. But since his mama often doesn’t get home from work until 11:00pm, I want to make sure he doesn’t wake up too early! This is—fingers crossed—working out well so far. On nights that the chorus doesn’t appear until late in the game, such as Der Rosenkavalier or Wozzeck, I can put Arthur to bed before I go, which is a nice treat.

As every working parent knows, balancing professional life and family life is tough. But I take heart in the fact that many of my colleagues have raised or are raising kids while in the Met chorus, to say nothing of the millions of parents doing it with jobs of all kinds. In the end, I love my job and I love being a mom. I’m sure that a happy, fulfilled mom is a good first step to a happy, fulfilled child.

Abby, her husband Oliver, and Arthur, celebrating Christmas in style.

Someone recently said to me, after we caught up about my job in the chorus and my at-last baby, “You’re living the dream, aren’t you?” Yeah, I kinda am. It’s every bit as wonderful as I imagined, and I’m deeply grateful.

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Meet The Dancers: Michelle Vargo

In our previous Met Artists Newsletter, we debuted our “Meet the Dancers” column, so you could get to know some of our exceptionally talented colleagues whose contributions elevate the operatic art form in truly memorable ways. In this edition, we meet the amazing Michelle Vargo, who has been gracing the stage of the Metropolitan Opera for 22 years!

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Michelle and her, erm, lovely colleagues in their witchy Macbeth costumes, celebrating Michelle bringing another baby witch into the fold!

How long have you been dancing at the Metropolitan Opera?

This year is my 22nd season with the company. My 20th season, I celebrated dancing all season with a growing baby in my belly. It's really amazing. I never imagined that I'd have such a long career here. 

What was your training?

I grew up in Butler, PA where I studied at a small dance studio (Lee's School of Dance). My teacher was very strict. We took Ceccetti ballet exams every year, but also studied jazz, tap and acrobatics. I'm very thankful that I studied multiple disciplines before moving to New York City and attending the Juilliard School. At Juilliard, I honed those skills and started to get more of an idea of where I'd fit in in the dance world. 

What does a typical day at the Met look like for you?

It really depends on the season and which operas are happening. For example, this season, September and October were intensely busy, rehearsing and performing three shows at the same time. So, a typical day this September was often rehearsing from 12:00pm-5:00pm. In October, I had fewer rehearsals, but a very busy performance schedule. 

What are your favorite operas/opera roles and why?

Michelle, as the solo bird dancer in The Magic Flute.

I'd say my top three operas have been Parsifal, Damnation of Faust, andSamson et Dalila (the Elijah Moshinsky production, which premiered in 1998). Parsifal was such a once-in-a-lifetime creative, unique experience being immersed and moving through a stage filled with bloody water. Damnation was intensely physical. It was a very daredevil production as we threw our bodies over the balconies and jumped through trap doors. It was a very rewarding and thrilling experience every time I performed it. I must admit, I was nervous for every show unlike any other show I've performed at the Met. Samson was my first new production. It was the beginning of bringing more contemporary choreography to the Met, it was part of my first Japan tour, and it was also the beginning of my Met career, so it holds a sentimental place for me. Another very memorable performance was going on as the solo bird in The Magic Flute the week I found out I was pregnant with my second child. There are many more I love. I could go on and on.

How many hours a day do you dance?

Michelle (2nd row, far left) and the dancers of Macbeth serving up some glamour realness for the camera.

That varies depending on how much rehearsal/shows I have that day. I could have a day where I rehearse two or three shows until 5pm and have a show at night, or have an off day from working but still take class or do my own workout. I almost never take a day off from working out, dancing or doing yoga. 


How has your experience at the Met changed (or stayed the same) over the years?

I started quite young as an extra dancer, and was very quickly added to more shows every year. It took a while to be hired into the company full-time, and that both did and didn't change my experience at the Met. I'd already been cast in many shows, but it meant a full-time commitment and availability to the Met, as well as the added benefits and weekly salary. 

What about the job changed when the Met disbanded the Corps de Ballet?

While I do miss the salary and benefits, there is more freedom in being a freelancer. My commitment to the work is the same.  

Michelle and her daughter Ella from a performance of Rigoletto.

MIchelle and her son Jasper, 6 years later, in the same production! (Editor’s Note: This amazing woman is ageless!)

How do you balance your work life with your family life?

It's not easy, but it has become easier. I have a 7-year-old daughter and a 17-month-old son. They are my world. I jumped back into classes and rehearsals very quickly after the births of both children, which was the most difficult time. But now, I think having the balance of being both mama and dancer makes me better at both roles. I don't take anything for granted anymore and really enjoy and savor being in the present moment more than ever. 

Where else do you dance besides the Met Opera?

MIchelle from her singer/songwriter days.

Michelle and Sam Meredith (also a dancer at the Met) performing in Sarah Weber Gallo’s MA thesis performance.

I've danced with many outside companies over the years. Currently I'm in the studio with Christopher Caines making new material for an upcoming show. I've also worked on my own choreography and was a touring singer/songwriter for many years before the kids were born. 

What do you do for self-care/recovery after a long day (or week) of dancing? 

Before having children, it was easier to fit regular body work into my schedule. My daily self-care now includes meditation and gentle yoga with breath work to realign my body, rolling out with tennis balls and rollers and taking an epsom salts bath. When I can or am in desperate need, I see a kinesiologist, acupuncturist or a reflexologist, depending on my needs at the moment. 

Editor’s Note: The majority of this article was already written when the COVID-19 pandemic swept the country and forced the temporary closure of all performing arts organizations in New York City, including the Metropolitan Opera. I asked Michelle how she was feeling after the season was canceled.

Losing all of my work through the end of the season feels pretty overwhelming, but I’m trying to stay positive and teach some virtual yoga classes. It’s also heartbreaking that my daughter Ella was about to have her debut at The Met in Werther with me. I lost all my work in one day, and then had to give her the bad news. It was a pretty rough day. She now makes both of us put on a show in the living room every evening that was supposed to be a Werther performance. ️

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If you have the ability to donate to help out-of-work performing artists affected by the COVID-19 closures, or if you yourself are an out-of-work artist looking for financial assistance, please check out this link and this link. Both have fairly comprehensive lists of organizations providing need-based grants to eligible individuals during this economically challenging time. Thank you for your consideration!

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Statement On The Met Season Cancellation

The Met Opera Chorus is deeply saddened by the news of the cancellation of the remainder of the Metropolitan Opera 2019-20 Season.  This is a difficult time for the company and everyone who works so hard to make magic on our stage over 200 times a year. We will persevere and overcome this challenge and remain a chorus united, even in the face of unprecedented adversity.

We echo our union, the American Guild of Musical Artists (AGMA), who represent chorus, soloists, dancers, stage managers, stage directors, and actors, in a call for emergency relief for all artists affected by the current crisis.

"While we appreciate what the Met has done to assist artists after bargaining with AGMA, like keeping health insurance going for certain artists who receive their health insurance through the Met, it's simply not enough during this pandemic. Our artists are facing a scary and uncertain future; they depend on performance and rehearsal fees to survive and they are out of work indefinitely. Many do not qualify for unemployment, many will lose health coverage, and many are not sure how they will continue to pay their bills. To that end, AGMA is lobbying for federal, state, and local emergency relief. We are depending on our signatory companies, including the Met, to support our artists and to help amplify our message that our artists need COVID-19 coverage and emergency benefits."

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La Damnation de Faust: A Chorister's Synopsis

In the Met’s concert production of Berlioz’s La Damnation de Faust, the chorus is tasked with expressing the complex emotions of various characters without sets, costumes, or makeup, while holding scores in the traditional style of an oratorio. To give you an idea of what to expect from the performance, tenor Daniel Clark Smith gives us a chorister’s perspective of the first half of the piece.

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Elina Garanca and the Met chorus in a concert presenation of Berlioz’s “La Damnation de Faust.” Photo: Ken Howard / Met Opera

by Daniel Clark Smith

Hector Berlioz called La Damnation de Faust a "dramatic legend", not an opera or an oratorio. Regardless of how you define it, the piece is a tour-de-force for the chorus. When performed as a concert piece, as we do this season at the Metropolitan Opera, the cast and orchestra must bring the drama to life without the help of costumes, set pieces, and props. Just as our four principal singers must sing with boundless expression, the Met Opera Chorus (at nearly 100 singers) depicts characters both natural and supernatural with only their voices. The chorus parts require a myriad of vocal colors, diction, and dynamics to realize characters from devils to angels, and everything in between.

The opera begins with Faust singing of the arrival of Spring, which awakens memories of his youth. The chorus' first appearance, the Peasants' Dance, uses the bright vowels of our "tra la la" chorus to mock Faust's age, as our accented laughing figures whirl around him. Dancing, the shepherdesses' flirt with their dresses, which leads to the tenors' third verse - a dialogue between amorous peasants. Tra la la, indeed!

The piece continues with the Hungarian March played magnificently by the Met Orchestra, an often excerpted concert piece of its own. Passing armies leave Faust alone in despair when our Easter Hymn raises his spirits and reminds him of his faith. For the chorus, the Easter Hymn is full of gorgeous, long melody lines, sung with clear diction and lightness of tone. The harmonies swell like those of a grand organ, bringing the opera house to church. Only the harmony of the final Hosannas hint at a sense of foreboding for Faust.

The Auerbach Cellar. (Source: www.hberlioz.com)

And with that sudden shudder to a minor key, Méphistophélès is introduced. The demon convinces Faust that he has all the answers, and we are swept into a tavern in Leipzig: "A boire encor!" - "Another drink!" The next sequence of choruses begins with the robust, virile energy of a tavern featuring rhythmic four-part men's music -- a full-throated Barbershop sound with liquor added. When we've finished our celebration of being in a smoky wine-filled tavern, we call out for a funny story -- Brander the Bartender has one to tell, if he's not too drunk to remember it! It's the Song of the Rat who has found himself cooked. The scene devolves into a drunken, slurred "Amen" fugue, replete with exaggerated vocal glissandos and, at times, annoying repetition. The piece seems to be the composer's way of mocking the musical form itself, and for us, it's a drunken Requiem for that poor rat. Following this ode is the Song of the Flea, this time sung by Méphistophélès. The Orchestra has all the "flea" action in this one, with string lines that buzz and scratch, and the Chorus joins in with laughter and "Bravos". Sharp accents in our last line depict the demise of the flea: "Écrasons-la soudain!" - "Let's squash it immediately!"

Maestro Edward Gardner, Ildar Abdrazakov (as Méphistophélès) and the Met Chorus and orchestra. Photo: Ken Howard / Met Opera

One of the most beautiful choruses we sing this season defies staging: the Chorus of the Gnomes and Sylphs. There is nothing better than one's own imagination and Berlioz' ingenious orchestration to portray the scene. Méphistophélès takes the audience and Faust out of Leipzig to the banks of the Elbe River, where we immediately feel the trees around us. A beautiful clarinet solo melts into a bassoon line, and we sense the lush greenery and the magic of the imaginary spirits Méphistophélès calls forth. We are the gnomes and sylphs, singing gossamer lines that ebb and flow with the wind. Long vocal lines are balanced with whispers of text throughout the piece, adding texture to the woodland setting. Faust dreams of a girl walking through the woods, and when we climb out of the texture to say "Elle t'aimera!" - "She will love you!", Faust calls out for Marguerite. This sets up the rest of the drama: Méphistophélès promises to lead Faust to his love.

These varied and extreme vocal colors keep us busy throughout the performance, and hopefully give the audience much fodder for their imagination. This season's four performances of La Damnation de Faust not only provide us with the opportunity to listen to the peerless Met Orchestra (led by Maestro Edward Gardner) and this phenomenal quartet of soloists (Elīna Garanča, Bryan Hymel & Michael Spyres, Ildar Abdrazakov, and Patrick Carfizzi) but they are an opportunity for the Chorus to show our strengths in acting with our voices.

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Ned Hanlon vs. The Great Met Opera Bake-Off

A chicken pesto pie in the shape of a viking helmet?!?! Sure… Why not?

by Ned Hanlon

To start with, I think I should be completely honest: this recipe was a failure. Its purpose was to fulfill a simple and laughable goal I set for myself: winning a baking competition. But not just any competition… the renowned Metropolitan Opera Bake-Off!

But why was that goal laughable? Well mainly because I’m not a terribly good baker! Sure, over the past year or two I’ve developed a strong quiche game and have mustered solid meringue efforts but, largely I remain very mistake-prone. I have still never succeeded in caramelizing sugar and only recently confused baking soda and baking powder in a chocolate chip cookie recipe.

Despite this handicap, I decided to win. I knew I had to go with my strength: savory baking. If you squint just the right way at a quiche, it’s basically a pie, and I was determined to make that a reality. So I did! The recipe below, my chicken, pesto, sun-dried tomato and feta pie, tasted pretty good. I’ll leave you to judge on appearance!

But despite everything, I didn’t actually win. My pie was beaten by some truly remarkable blue cheese walnut scones. And you know what… that’s fine! I had a wonderful time making it, people were so nice in their feedback and compliments, and I had the legit honor of baking for the great New York Times reporter Melissa Clark (one of the judges), whose recipes are my go-to when it comes time to making dinner!

With that all said, let’s get on to the recipe! One note: A LOT of this was free-handed, and I’m trying to reconstruct amounts in hindsight. Basically, I could have written “to your taste” for every amount, so please, if you want more garlic, add more garlic! The pastry is an amalgam of a recipe from the Great British Bake-Off, and the more standard one below.

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Ingredients:

For the Rice:

• 3/4 cup Italian Rice

• 1 1/2 cup stock

• Salt

For the Pastry:

• 450 grams all purpose flour

• 100 grams bread flour

• 1 tsp salt

• 150 grams lard (I was unable to find lard on short notice, so I went with shortening, which worked fine)

• 25 grams unsalted butter

• 1 egg, beaten, to glaze

• 30cm circular template (I did mine with a compass and parchment paper).

For the Filling:

• 2 onions, diced

• 1 1/2 lbs chicken, cubed about 3/4 inch

• 1 zucchini, diced

• 2 tomatoes, seeds removed and diced

• 1 cup sun-dried tomatoes, diced

• 4 cloves garlic, minced (bet you thought I was going to say diced again!)

• 6 oz pesto

• 10 oz crumbled feta cheese

• 1 tbs dried basil

• 1 tbs dried oregano

• Extra virgin olive oil

• Salt

• Pepper

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Directions:

First make the filling:

1. Add 1 tbs of extra virgin olive oil (henceforth known as “EVOO”) to a large skillet on medium low heat. When hot, add onions, 1/2 tbs basil, 1/2 tbs oregano, and salt and pepper to taste. Cook 15 minutes, or until slightly golden and delicious smelling.

2. While cooking the onion add 1 tbs EVOO to another large skillet over medium heat. When hot, add diced zucchini and a pinch of salt. Cook until soft (10 minutes maybe?) then remove to a large bowl.

3. Once onions are golden, add garlic and sun-dried tomatoes and cook for one minute, until fragrant. Remove onions, garlic and sun-dried tomatoes to bowl with zucchini.

4. In the skillet used for onions add 1 tbs EVOO over medium-high heat and, once hot, add chicken, as well as salt and pepper to taste. Cook 6-ish minutes, until just cooked through, then remove to bowl.

5. While chicken is cooking, add 1 1/2 cup stock to a medium pot. Bring to boil then add rice. Bring back to boil then turn the heat down to low and let cook, covered, for 15 minutes. Leave in covered pot for another 15 minutes then remove to bowl and set aside to cool completely.

6. Stir to combine chicken, onions, zucchini etc. Add pesto and tomato. Stir again, then gently fold in feta. Spoon into colander and set aside to drain and cool.

Now we do pastry! (Note on pastry: hot water crust pastry can only be worked on when it’s hot, so don’t start this process until your fillings are cool and ready to go. In fact, you can totally make the rice and filling a day before and store it in the fridge if you’d like!).

So are we ready? All right, let’s do it!

Photo: Jenny Gorman / Met Opera

These were only some of the amazing baked creations made by artists, artisans, and staff at the Met Opera!

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. (I legitimately have no idea what that would equal in Celsius… probably somewhere between 0 and 100 degrees I think.)

   [Editor’s Note: It’s around 200 C.]

2. Combine both flours and salt in a large bowl. Stir to combine.

3. Place 200ml of water in a pan over high heat. Add lard and butter until they have melted (around 2ish minutes). Pour wet mixture into flour mixture and mix. Use a wooden spoon while it is hot but as soon as your hands can take it, combine with your hands. Tip onto floured baking surface and knead until smooth. Roll into a ball and then cut off 1/3. Put the other 2/3’s in a covered bowl to keep it warm.

4. Roll out the dough pretty thin (sorry I can’t be more exact about that!) use the template to cut dough in a circle. Return trimmings to warm bowl.

5. Move circle of dough to a lined baking sheet. Pile somewhere between a half and a full inch of rice on dough circle, leaving an inch around the edges. Brush the edge of the pastry not covered by rice with water

6. Pile chicken filling in a dome filling on top of rice. Make it approximately like half of a globe. Smooth out dome as best you can.

7. Cut off 3/4 of remains pastry. Roll out dough. Drape over chicken. Smooth over filling and trim so that the edges line up with the edges of the base pastry. Press edge with the tines of a fork to seal.

8. Use the remaining dough to decorate in any way you see fit! You can see what I did but the world is your oyster!

9. Mold two cones (horns!). Place them on the baking sheet next to the pie.

10. Brush pie and horns with egg wash and cut two slits in the top of the pie for steam to escape

11. Cook for 50 minutes or until golden brown. Keep an eye out for some of the decorations which are more likely to burn. If anything darkens too much, cover in tin foil.

Enjoy!

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Edward Hanlon, graduate of McGill University and University of Michigan, is a Long Island boy making good with the Metropolitan Opera. He serves in dual roles as chorister and chair of the chorus and Met AGMA committee at the Met. Favorite roles include Figaro, Sparafucile, Dick Deadeye, Sarastro, and Nick Bottom with companies such as the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Lincoln Center Theatre, Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Des Moines Metro Opera and the Glimmerglass Festival. He dreams of singing another Figaro with his beautiful wife, soprano Tanya Roberts. His first novel is is due to be released this summer ... at the end of the 2017-18 season ... umm... someday?

Check out his website and follow him on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.

Alumni Corner: Where Are They Now?

by Brandon Mayberry

The holidays have a tendency to bring to surface a mix of emotions. One commonly reflects on the passage of time, as well as one’s hopes for the future. In this spirit, we are paying homage to a foursome of Metropolitan Opera Chorus retirees: soprano Elaine Young, mezzo-soprano Theresa Yu-Ping Teng, tenor Greg Lorenz, and bass David Asch. We will look back at how they first came to Met, what impacted them most as artists during their tenure, and will update you on how they have adjusted to life after the Met.

Here's a quick overview to illustrate the breadth of unique experience they accumulated over their careers. Between the four of them, they have experienced:

1. A combined 129 Met seasons.

2. 4 different chorus masters.

3. Numerous Carnegie Hall performances under the baton of Maestro Levine.

4. Eight International tours including five tours of Japan (the last being in 2011), two tours to Frankfurt, Germany and one to Seville, Spain.*

5. 3 weeks of annual summer parks concerts in the New York City and New Jersey metro areas.

6. Various opera recordings by Sony Classical and Deutsche Grammophon during the 80s and 90s, also conducted by Maestro Levine.

(*Theresa also had the unique experience of being part of the Met’s domestic national tours which lasted between 2-6 weeks during the summer. The Met discontinued the domestic tour in 1986.)

Prelude: Humble Beginnings

Making it into the full-time chorus at the Met is often referred to as "winning the lottery" and the auditions to get into the chorus have become more competitive by the year as the visibility and talent level of the group continues to increase. Since Maestro Donald Palumbo joined the Met as Chorusmaster in the 2007-2008 season, the audition process has become more efficient due to auditionees being screened in advance. This system has replaced the need for the "cattle call" style auditions of the past, where anyone and everyone that wanted to audition could show up and sing. I remember hearing stories of auditionees waiting hours for their turn to sing while standing in a long line that snaked through a sometimes cold parking garage in the middle of winter. Now resumes/bios, reference letters, and a recording are used to make the whole process more efficient and humane for those invited to audition.

Greg Lorenz, tenor. (Photographer: Paul Foster-Williams)

"In the spring of 1991”, Greg Lorenz recalls, “I was in a line for a day and a half next to my future colleague Garth Dawson for the AGMA chorus auditions. I sang ‘Dies Bildnis’ from Die Zauberflöte and Maestro [Raymond] Hughes let me sing the whole aria." Greg's first opera at the Met as part of the extra chorus was Der Fliegende Holländer in 1992. He described his first music rehearsal as being "literally hair raising" as the first sung lines of 'Yo-Ho-He' took his breath away. During an early stage rehearsal, former chorister Artie Mellow, noticing Greg's obvious excitement upon hearing the Met Orchestra play the overture while both were lashed to a giant ship onstage, leaned over and said "You're gonna love it here, kid". Greg acknowledged that Artie's warm welcome colored his entire career in the Met Chorus.

Elaine Young, soprano.

In the case of Elaine Young, she found out about the auditions through an open call posted in Backstage and sang ‘Chi il bel sogno’ from La Rondine. Elaine had only performed in five other full operas prior to getting hired to sing in the Met Chorus. Her first rehearsal with the chorus was for Turandot, and she remembers being “as nervous as a person could be, not knowing what was expected of me.” She wanted to be as prepared as possible, so she bought a score and a recording which she would study every evening after returning home from her temp job, with the goal of having it memorized before the first rehearsal. Ironically, she remembers having dated two former Princes of Persia, a minor role in Turandot, prior to becoming a chorister, further enriching her memories of the Puccini masterpiece!

Thersa Yu-Ping Teng, mezzo-soprano.

Theresa Yu-Ping Teng was trained as a lieder singer during high school and at college, and received her Masters degree from the Manhattan School of Music in 1970. She performed in the world premiere of Gian Carlo Menotti's opera Tamu Tamu in Chicago and again the following year, as it made its European premiere in Spoleto, Italy. It was after that she decided to audition for the chorus and fulfill her dream to sing at the Met. Theresa sang the sultry Dalila's famous aria "Mon coeur s'ouvre à ta voix" for her audition, which marked the beginning of a 31-year career at the Met, starting with Tannhauser in 1978. "I was so shocked to see so many people in the audience, I almost forgot to sing," she reminisces.

David Asch was encouraged to audition for the Met Chorus thanks to his voice teacher Bonnie Hamilton, who had two former students, Meredith Derr and Julie McSorley, join the chorus only a few years earlier. He sang for former chorusmaster David Stivender, who asked after his audition whether he was interested in auditioning for solo work, to which he replied, “absolutely not interested”. His first opera, as part of the extra chorus, was Khovanschina, an extremely challenging and lengthy Russian tour-de-force.

Act I: The Chorus Experience

I asked the distinguished quartet what they remembered most fondly during their careers at the Met.

Elaine Young, Soprano: 2 years extra chorus, 22 years regular chorus (1991-2016)

Elaine recalls "standing in the wings watching and listening to Domingo and Pavarotti sing the duet from The Pearl Fishers before the Three Tenors was even thought of.” She also cherishes her memories of the Met’s Carnegie Hall concerts, as well as the Levine Gala and tours to Germany and Japan. “My first solo was as the First Ancelli in Turandot with (former chorister) Linda Mays. My favorite solo was as the Page in Rigoletto. I loved pants roles and getting a curtain call with the soloists was icing on the cake." She revels in the creative process that ensued spontaneously during the first run of the current production of Le nozze di Figaro, where she created a calendar from pictures of costumed choristers in “crazy” offstage scenarios. (Note: I still have the calendar Elaine made, which was a stroke of genius and shows how much fun we all have together.)

Theresa Yu-Ping Teng: Mezzo-Soprano, 31 years regular chorus (1978-2009)

Theresa fondly remembers her five tours to Japan, as well as tours to Frankfurt on two separate occasions and the Seville tour. She recalls crying during every performance of Dialogues des Carmelites. She admired Franco Zeffirelli, who masterfully created many great operatic productions at Met, for his ability to design not only the sets and costumes, but also act as director. She recalls that “he paid special attention to all the details, including checking everyone's costumes before the performance.”

Greg Lorenz: Tenor, 3 years extra chorus, 22 years regular chorus (1988-2016)

Greg said he met and worked with so many artistically gifted people that were simply great and beautiful people. "For sheer, innate, almost feral, musicality, no one can diminish those nights with Maestro Levine on the podium" Placido Domingo was Greg's most inspiring singer, who he said "was always true to his voice and displayed a musical curiosity from Mozart to Mariachi."

David Asch, bass-baritone.

David Asch: Bass, 3 years extra chorus, 23 years regular chorus (1987-2013)

David fondly recalls the Carnegie Hall concerts with Maestro Levine conducting, as well as the many chorus solo roles he performed during his tenure. (Favorites include the Fisherman in Britten’s Peter Grimes and an Elder in Schoenberg’s formidable Moses und Aron.) I asked David who made the biggest impression on him while at the Met. As a former Met chorus music librarian, David appropriately gave me a comprehensive list of influential and impressive solo artists, conductors and stage directors that read as a "Who's Who" list of opera. During the Volpe era, David felt the two most influential figures were James Levine and Franco Zefferelli.

Act II: Where Are They Now?

Elaine as Baroness Bomburst in “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang”.

Elaine and her husband Peter currently live in a stone home on nine acres of a historic farm outside of Kingston, NY. She is loving the country life and having every bit of nature outside her door, from the critters such as hawks, coyotes and the occasional bear, to Peter's well-tended garden and small peach orchard! For the last three years Elaine has been working part-time at the circulation desk at the library in Stone Ridge. Elaine has also kept her feet wet in the performance arena, having performed leading roles in five musicals. She is currently rehearsing her 8th play, Neil Simon's Rumors, which opens on January 10th for two weekends at the Center for Performing Arts in Rhinebeck, NY. (Click here for information and tickets.)

Elaine found it helpful taking a sabbatical prior to retirement, which gave her time to discover what retirement could be like. During that time away she discovered her new theater community as well as her little "mad money" job at the library. "After all those years of schedules, it has been nice to make my own schedule as full, or not, as I choose. Having things to do, people to see, and reasons to get out of bed make for, hopefully, a long life. I think it's the only time in my life when I've actually planned ahead." On a less serious note, I have had the great enjoyment of witnessing Elaine's vocal impersonation of the "Chipmunks Christmas Song" during our chorus holiday parties, which she admits "never fails to make a lasting impression."

Theresa Teng is currently living in Fort Lee, New Jersey in a high-rise building that includes many Met subscribers who often flatter her after discovering she sang at the Met! She's enjoying traveling and attending the Met’s final dress rehearsals. She's also a big fan of the Met Live in HD broadcasts as well as watching the live broadcasts of the Bolshoi Ballet. She doesn't miss commuting to work twice daily from New Jersey.

Greg Lorenz is living in Dutchess County now where he can finally spend more time with his family, singing recitals, and volunteering for an organization called 'Sing for Hope', which often involves singing for people in long term care facilities and veterans hospitals. He's particularly drawn to composers of the late romantic through the twentieth century, and spends a fair bit of time “listening to the likes of Coltrane, Bird, Miles, and Ellington. As far as Met listening, I refer to Sirius as my 'scrapbook.' It's really fun to be driving around and hear some performance or another and say I was there!" Greg's advice to those thinking of retiring is "Remember that life is life. In other words, there are always trials and triumphs no matter where you are or what you do. Seek joy, share love and hope for the best."

David Asch in Simon Boccanegra.

David Asch currently resides in Delray Beach, Florida. He sings in the chorus with the Palm Beach Opera, and has a regular church job as well as a seasonal temple job. He also maintains a partial presence in the NYC metro area, where he still performs on occasion with the Bard Festival Chorale and the Russian Chamber Chorus (in that vein, he is hoping to start a chamber chorus, Russian or otherwise, in South Florida). He most recently took an extensive trip visiting many of the National Parks out West.

Here’s what David has to say about retirement: "The first couple of years post-retirement were challenging. I didn't sing a note for the first year but eventually returned to what I thought I could do best. I was fortunate to be hired in Florida, though at first I wasn't sure I would fit in anywhere. I considered returning to graduate school in an alternative field, but realized it wasn't practical, particularly considering the age factor." Some advice from his experience is to "enjoy letting go of the Met's rigorous, highly structured schedule for a while, but have some sort of game plan."

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Mr. Mayberry, a living kidney donor, received his Bachelor's Degree from DePaul University, and continued his studies at Indiana University.

Mr. Mayberry has appeared in solo roles with the Metropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago (Ryan Opera Center), San Francisco Opera (Merola), Santa Fe Opera, Glimmerglass Opera, Chicago Opera Theater and Des Moines Metro Opera. He is also a co-owner of Swirlz Cupcakes, a Chicago bakery dedicated to "making people happy" since 2006.

Byeeeeee, 2018-2019 Season!

The Metropolitan Opera Chorus, Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin, and Chorus Master Donald Palumbo. Photo: Rose Callahan / Met Opera

by Lianne Coble-Dispensa

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Well, we all blinked, and another incredible season somehow passed us by. But what a season it was!

We said a fond farewell to Sonja Frisell's iconic Aida production in order to make way for an exciting new one conceived by Michael Mayer's creative team. We reveled in the opulence and luxury casting of Adriana Lecouvreur. We were delighted & bowled over by Ambrogio Maestri's quintessential portrayal of Falstaff. We gushed over Laurent Pelly's critically acclaimed and utterly charming production of La Fille du Régiment (and Javier Camarena’s High C’s)!

And of course, we welcomed the Met’s new (and universally adored) music director, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, who has brought his characteristic artistry, musicianship, warmth, and personality to our productions of La Traviata and Dialogues des Carmélites. (We’re looking forward to seeing more of him next season as he conducts Wozzeck, Werther, Turandot, and our New Year’s Eve Gala with superstar Anna Netrebko.)

Despite our excitement about next season’s amazing offerings, we still brought our best to the final week of this season after successful openings of Götterdämmerung, the final chapter of Wagner's epic Ring Cycle, and Poulenc's excruciatingly beautiful Dialogues des Carmélites. These two audience favorites had limited runs, and we enjoyed looking out onto many full houses of extremely appreciative opera lovers. Hope you were able to get your tickets to those end-of-season gems! If not, you have countless exciting productions to choose from next season. Until then, enjoy your summer (we know we will!), and we’ll look forward to bringing you even more exhilarating, moving, dynamic performances this fall!

A Day In The Life Of A Met Chorus Parent

The whole Anderson family!

The Metropolitan Opera Chorus works long hours, 6 days a week. Despite the often grueling schedule, many members of the chorus have the fulfilling, yet herculean task of being responsible for children and families that also require their time, energy, and love. It’s helpful when spouses have jobs outside of the Met, but imagine how complicated it gets if BOTH parents are members of the chorus! How would they manage?

Well, let us introduce you to mezzo-soprano Christina Thomson Anderson and tenor Brian Anderson, two beloved members of the Met Chorus. Christina has been a full-time chorister for 12 years, and Brian was a member of the extra chorus for 8 years, until he was hired full-time 2 seasons ago. Despite the obvious challenges, the two of them are a well-oiled machine, working in tandem to raise their beautiful children and provide a loving home while working one of the hardest jobs in the business! Lianne Coble-Dispensa sat down with Christina last summer to get a glimpse of what their experience is like.

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An early shot of a tired-but-fulfilled Christina with wee bairns Oliver & Annika.

When did you start your family? Was it before or after you were a full-time member of the Met Chorus?
I got the Met chorus job before I started a family. Brian and I actually got married one week before I started at the Met, and by October of that same year, our son Oliver was on his way. (He was a surprise!) Our daughter Annika came along during my fourth season. For seven years of our marriage, Brian was a freelance opera singer, taking gigs, working part-time in the Extra chorus, and also spending time at home with our children. Two years ago, he was hired full-time in the chorus for a one-year position as a sabbatical cover. This gave us a “trial run” of sorts, to see what it was like to have both of us working the chorus job full-time with kids. I was not sure how it would go, but I was so happy to see that we really were able to do it, with the kids thriving as well. The following year, Brian was back to part-time work in the Extra chorus, but this past season he was offered the full-time job, and he happily accepted, knowing we had a good blueprint on how to make it work.

Brian & Christina, with their beautiful children Annika & Oliver.

Where do you live, and what is your commute like?
We live in Inwood, and have been in the same neighborhood for 12 years. Our commute is 50 minutes by train each way, and we make the round trip at least twice each day. During the day we usually take subway to Lincoln Center, but at night we will often drive in. We still allow 50 minutes, but it usually takes 30.

How many children do you have?
We have four children! Quinlan and Arthur are my wonderful college-aged step-sons, and Oliver and Annika are our two children together. They are 10 and 7, respectively.

What is an average day like for you and Brian?
Each morning, Brian gets up at 6:30am to make coffee and a hot breakfast for us all. At 7:00am, he brings me a cup of coffee in bed, so I can wake-up for a few minutes before the kids get up. At 7:10am, we wake the kids, and by 7:40am, he’s driving them both to school on the Upper West Side. He’ll then head back home for a quick shower, and we leave for work between 9-9:30am, depending on our call for rehearsal. If rehearsals end by 2:00pm, well have the time to head uptown on the subway to pick the kids up at school. We then take them to their activities, which might be music lessons, hockey, dance, or a play date. At least one of us can usually head home and make dinner. We all meet back at home for a quick dinner (which we try to do as often as possible during the week) and then by 6:00pm we are back out the door for the evening’s show. The babysitter will have already arrived at 5:30pm to help for the evening. They’ll help finish up homework or music lessons with the kids and then get them get ready for bed. Brian and I will get back from our show between 11:00-11:30pm, make lunches for the next day, check the kid’s back packs and hopefully we are in bed before midnight. The next morning, we start the whole thing over again!

With juggling such a packed schedule, what are your family priorities?
Togetherness, as much as possible. We try to be as involved as we can in the mornings and afternoons with the kids. Brian is a coach for Oliver’s hockey team. They are on the ice 3-4 times a week in the winter. On Sundays they practice at 7:00am, and Brian is on the ice with them, even if he has had two shows the day before. I am a class parent for my kids because It allows me to be a bigger presence in their classrooms. We feel we need to do these things to stay connected to our kids lives when are schedules are particularly busy. This is how we stay close.

Brian & Christina, taking a well-deserved camping vacation (with the kids, of course).

But it means Brian and I have very little down time. We have to be really organized with our schedule, and use down time at work to do things like order groceries and schedule child care. When we are really busy at work, it can be exhausting. But for us, family is so important and being close and connected is a top priority, even when we are busy. We do whatever we can.

What are some of the struggles you face?
Our two main struggles are exhaustion and lack of personal time.

Brian and I have to really support one another as parents and co-workers. We have to be a team. Our kids miss us when we are gone in the evenings during those 7-show weeks, and sometimes there are tears. I struggle in these times with guilt as a working mom. We will FaceTime before bed while at work, and set up family calendars showing when we’ll be spending quality time together as a family. We have to be creative! And sometimes, we just have to cut ourselves some slack. It’s not perfect, but we do our best.

There is also the struggle to just find time for Brian & I to be together as a couple. When we are home, we are with the kids. When we are working, we are with our Met family. So we try to grab those precious “stolen moments”. I remember one particular afternoon from last season. We finished our work day earlier than expected and the kids were already with our sitter. We took that time and went to our favorite wine bar for an hour or so, and just enjoyed some time together. It is important to try to stay connected to each other, outside the minutiae of kids, work, and laundry.

How do you deal with the Met Chorus schedule and raising a family at the same time?
Brian & I are a team. We both cook, do laundry, bathe kids, scoop cat litter, wash dishes, shop for groceries, and help with homework. He keeps the car gassed up. I schedule the child care. He makes coffee. I make lunches. We work together. For seven years, Brian was a mostly at-home parent and this was such a gift to our young children. When the kids were babies, he would bring them to the Met on my breaks so I could nurse them. He made sure I saw them as much as possible, which was good for me and for them. I am so grateful. And now I am grateful he is with us full-time at the Met and we have been provided the resources and people to help us continue to thrive as a family.

We have also tried to make choices in our lives that allow for the most time together during the season. When our kids were babies, we allowed them to co-sleep with us, so we could get extra cuddles at night. We still live in Manhattan so we can be closer to their schools and activities. We try to have dinners together 4-5 times a week, either at home or in a restaurant. When we have meals together, screens are not allowed at the table. So, we make time and space to talk. But as I said, we don’t get a lot of time for ourselves. We live with less sleep. We are extremely busy most of the week. On Sundays, we finally slow down. We like to go to church, or sometimes we just spend a restful day at home involving a movie and a meal together. We try to have one family day that is slower paced. 

We also could never do it alone. These past three years we have had an amazing “Manny”, Scott Tomlinson (editor’s note: a valued colleague and long-time member of the Extra Chorus), who has really become a part of our family. He helps us with after-school and evening times when we are working. If one of our kids is home sick, he will come and be with them. He is very parental and the kids love him and trust him. And as a fellow singer, he really understands what we do. Without his care and assistance, our journey as a family would be so much more difficult. It really does take a village to raise a family, and Scott is a big part of ours.

What does the Met Chorus job mean to you both?
I will never forget the moment when Maestro Palumbo called me and offered me the full-time chorus job. It was a dream come true. It really was. And I will never forget when he called Brian and offered the same job to him. Another dream, hoped and prayed for for many years, delivered. 

The Met can be a challenging place to work. It’s a complicated work environment, and we work so hard with such crazy hours.

Christina, Maestro Palumbo, and Brian, on the opening night of Samson et Dalilah, which was Brian’s first opening production as a full-timer!

But I have never known this job with out children. I am not sure how that would feel. But I can tell you that after 12 years, I am still so proud of being a member of this world class group. Some days I might wake up and wonder if I have the energy to start my day, but I never wake up dreading going into work. I still love my job. It still feels like a dream come true. I am glad to work hard in my life doing this thing that I believe in and that I am good at, and I feel blessed to make a good living for my family while singing in this amazing house with so many talented people. It is not easy, but it still feels right and it still seems worth all the effort. I am grateful.

Is there any advice you’d like to give a young singer who is concerned about the work-family balance of being an opera singer? This is a difficult question. It took me a long time to settle into motherhood, as well as into my career, and I was doing both at the same time when I had my first child. I would say, though, that raising my family has made my career at the Met more full, and I am blessed to come home to my kids at the end of a long day. They have taught me to have a more measured perspective on the highs and lows that have come with my singing career.

As far as practical advice on how to do it, I’ll say that everyone’s journey is different, and I am still continually learning and growing from the process. But I’ll say this: first, think about your support system and make it as strong as possible. It really does take a village to raise a child, and cultivating that village for your family will help ease anxiety, offer much needed support, and bring joy and encouragement to you and to your kids.

My second bit of advice is to learn to compartmentalize. When you are at work, try to be all there. Invest in the music, enjoy the break from motherhood, talk with adults, and make the best music you can. And when you finish with your work for the day, leave it behind. Go home, be with your family, and be there 100%. And the next day, do it again. Being fully where you are builds deeper, stronger relationships and allows you to wear more hats, and wear them well. But you won’t be perfect, and in those difficult moments, find a fellow working mom friend and lean in. We are each other’s village. And we don’t need to do it alone.

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Saying Goodbye To Aida: A Chorister’s Perspective

Aida’s triumpmphal scene, in all its glory. (Photo Credit: Marty Sohl/Met Opera)

contributions by Lianne Coble-Dispensa and Annette Spann Lewis

It’s always bittersweet when a beloved production sees its final performance on the Met stage. Recently, the company bid farewell to Sonja Frisell’s iconic Aida that has been a beloved staple of many Met seasons since it first graced the stage in 1988.

Mezzo-soprano Annette Spann-Lewis, a long-time member of the Met Chorus, has been present for all 247 performances of Frisell’s Aida, and was asked by the Met to give a chorister’s perspective on the evening of the production’s closing night. Here are Annette’s takeaways, in her own words:

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I’m Annette Spann Lewis, a well-seasoned artist with the Met Opera Chorus for over 25 years! So, I have witnessed many great performances of Aida.

I am truly privileged and blessed to perform with the world’s greatest and best, and, I must say, that the chorus always has the best seat in the house!

Some of my Aida highlights?

Annette Spann Lewis and one of the many giant Aida set pieces.

A gaggle of chorus Court Ladies (including Annette, top right) are all smiles in their fancy costumes!

• The riveting farewell performance of Leontyne Price in the John Dexter production, which erupted into a 25 minute standing ovation.

• The great Placido Domingo as Radames, now conducting tonight’s farewell Aida. Truly an amazing feat!

• The legendary performances of Luciano Pavorotti, Fiorenza Cossotto, Leona Mitchell, Aprile Millo, Dolora Zajick; more recently,  Anna Netrebko, Anita Rachvelishvili and tonight’s stellar diva, Sondra Radvanovsky, to name a few!

• Ladies and gentlemen, the Triumphal Scene in this production alone is the ‘zenith’ of Verdi’s grand opera.

Yes, Sonja Frisell’s Production of Aida has had an amazing run for many years, but the opera Aida can be equated with “The Phoenix”  - and it will rise again!

Above, you can view Annette’s video, which was posted on the Met Opera’s Instagram story on March 7th, which was the closing night of Aida!

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Though we will miss Sonja’s Aida, the entire company is looking forward to seeing what director Michael Mayer’s creative team will dream up for Verdi’s towering triumph. Our new Aida is set to open the ‘20-’21 season, and we hope to see all of you there!

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The Metropolitan Opera Club--Opera's Biggest Fans

by Daniel Clark Smith

The plaque that greets you as you enter the Metropolitan Opera Club space. (Photo: Daniel Clark Smith)

I didn’t know the Metropolitan Opera Club existed until just a few years ago, but they’ve had a lasting presence in the history of the Metropolitan Opera for over 125 years now. The Metropolitan Opera Club consider themselves opera’s biggest fans, and have cultivated relationships with principal singers, members of the Orchestra, and to our delight, members of the Chorus. Club members see multiple performances at the Met, but members also travel to opera houses around the world (I’ve heard people talk about visiting Santa Fe Opera, The Bayreuth Festival, and Vienna State Opera) throughout the year for even more performances. The Chorus loves our MOC friends, but few know who they are.

In 1893 at the “Old Met”, a private gentlemen's club was founded called The Vaudeville Club. It boasted a private room on the Grand Tier level near a box of about 50 seats that they reserved for performances. Apparently, they spent their intermissions visiting female operagoers and enjoying private performances by vaudeville acts like Vesta Victoria. According to Martin Mayer’s “The Met: One Hundred Years of Grand Opera”:

It was also possible to get a drink, or several, in the club’s room across the corridor. “Memberships were high,” wrote the Club’s historian affectionately in 1949, “and so, at times, were members.”

Shortly after its formation, the club changed its name to the Metropolitan Opera Club. More importantly, they changed their focus from intermission shenanigans to the art form of opera. They opened their membership to women in the 1980’s, and their mission currently concentrates on cultivating vocal and instrumental music and social engagement among its members.

The Club now resides in a private restaurant on the Dress Circle level of the Met, complete with a chef and headwaiter, and is accessed by a private elevator in the Met’s lobby. The elegant space was designed by Angelo Donghia in 1966. The room features a silver-leaf ceiling and a chandelier, and on the bar sits a bronze bust of tenor Giovanni Martinelli. When I first visited members John Brewer and Susan Clearwater in the Club, I was struck by the chic decor and “old-school” elegance. It’s exactly the type of room you'd expect for an institution with its kind of history. But the members are friendly and engaging, with unrivaled knowledge of opera.

Members of the Met Chorus, with Maestro Donald Palumbo, present La Traviata to the MOC. (Photo: JoVon Photography)

I routinely feel underdressed when I’m visiting the Club. One tradition they haven’t changed over the years is wearing formal attire for performances and Club dinners. Known as the “Penguins” by the average opera patron, members wear white tie and tails and gowns for opening nights and turn to black tie for midweek performances. If you see the Penguins on the Dress Circle level, say hello — they’re proud of the moniker!

Performing in masks for Willy Decker’s La Traviata. (Photo: Ken Howard)

The Chorus’ association with the MOC began in 2017 with a presentation of the choruses from La Traviata, with the help of MOC members and friends John Brewer and Susan Clearwater. We organized the presentation around the particulars of executing the score with the right style and character needed for the piece, complete with a demonstration of what it was like to sing wearing the Act II masks from the Willy Decker production. The following year saw a La Bohème presentation, and in February of this year we explored Carmen.

Each of these operas is very familiar to Club members — they see over 130 performances a season, after all. So we endeavor to make the presentation interesting by inviting our Chorus Master Donald Palumbo to speak about what it takes to prepare each score. The intricacies of each piece are demonstrated by Chorus volunteers singing, say, the “conversational” quality of La Bohème. The Bohème chorus should sound like the busy Café Momus, with voices coming from all around you, but it has to carry in the Metropolitan Opera house full of 3,800 seats.

The selection we sang in our Carmen presentation ran the gamut in terms of character: the Soldiers’ lazy opening “Sur la place”, the sultry yet finely-detailed Habañera (Carmen was played by chorister Stephanie Chigas), the women’s frantic “fight” scene and a Toreador song with chorister Ned Hanlon as Escamillo. Each opera presents issues for choristers, such as “how do I sing this long, legato line while staged to lay on the floor?” or “how can I ‘cheat’ my voice out to the house without sacrificing the action of the scene?” The presentations end with a Q&A session, which can cover topics like backstage drama, staging logistics, old vs. new productions, and our personal backgrounds. We also invite Club members each season to a handful of our musical rehearsals held in List Hall. There, they see the “nitty gritty” of putting together an opera chorus from the ground up.

Club members have a similar relationship with the Orchestra, and are able to hear individual players when they join guest lecturer Maestro Joseph Colaneri for his series of talks for the Club. In his lectures, he’ll detail the history of the opera he’s highlighting, concentrating on historical context, musical or dramatic themes, and the composer’s life or body of work. Sometimes Orchestra members will play a string quartet by the composer, or musical examples from the opera. At one I attended, principal flutist Seth Morris played the gorgeous introduction to “Casta Diva” from Norma, demonstrating how much his melody is really just another vocal line set for flute.

Daniel Smith, Mary Hughes, Piotr Beczala, Marco Jordão, Danielle Walker, and Chorus Master Donald Palumbo at Piotr’s dinner. (Photo: JoVon Photography)

The Club has hosted dinners for various principal singers through the years, presenting them with honorary Club memberships, with Elina Garanca, Sonya Yoncheva, and Piotr Beczala being the most recently honored. The dinner features an interview with Opera News’ Editor in Chief F. Paul Driscoll covering the career and life of each artist prior to an opera performance in the house. Dessert is served during the first intermission, with built-in social time with the artist. This Spring, the Club chose Chorus Master Donald Palumbo for an honorary membership, and a group from the chorus sang the finale of La Clemenza di Tito with choristers singing the solo parts as a surprise performance for Maestro Palumbo and the members.

Although the Club has no affiliation with the Metropolitan Opera Association, you can thank the Club for numerous contributions around the house — they fund revival costs each year (the past few years have included the revivals of Don Giovanni, Madama Butterfly and Anna Bolena), similar contributions for special productions, the purchasing of tickets worth a total of $500,000 each season, with perhaps the most visible donation: the Met’s gold curtain. The MOC funded the 1979 installation of the Scalamandre silk gold curtain with an endowment which pays for replacement costs, like the new curtain installed in 2005.

As you see, they have a voracious appetite for opera, and music in general. We look forward to continuing our relationship with the Metropolitan Opera Club, and are happy to count these “biggest fans of opera” as our friends.

Daniel Clark Smith and members of the Metropolitan Opera Chorus at Maestro Donald Palumbo’s Honorary Membership performance. (Photo: Susan Clearwater)

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Daniel Clark Smith, born in Barrington, IL, has degrees in Music Ed. and Choral Conducting from The University of Cincinnati–College-Conservatory of Music, and has loved singing in ensembles all his life. In concert, he particularly enjoys performing the Evangelist roles in J.S. Bach’s Passions. At the Met, favorite roles include a Lackey in Der Rosenkavalier, a soldier in Wozzeck and Parpignol in La Bohème, a role he has performed 100 times with the company. Daniel is a member of the Chorus Committee and serves as the Mens’ Chorus Safety Delegate. Daniel has been with his husband, fellow musician Michael S. Caldwell, for 26 years. Follow him on Twitter: @dclarksmith and Instagram: @danielclarksmith.

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Yannick Nezet-Séguin's Exhilarating Opening Night

Our new music director soaking in the applause. Check out the smiles on those faces. Can you tell how much we like him already? (Photo: Jonathan Tichler)

A special “Vintage Yannick” champagne to celebrate Yannick’s first show as music director of the Met!

It began with him subverting opera norms, asking the Chorus to join him and the principals in a walk down to the footlights. It was during the bows of Parsifal earlier this year, and Maestro Yannick Nézet-Séguin had recently been named Music Director-Designate. News had just broken that he had successfully shifted his schedule around to join the Metropolitan Opera two years early as Music Director. His gesture to the Chorus during the Parsifal curtain call was a conscious effort to demonstrate inclusion, signaling to the Company that collaboration would be the order of the day.

While we have enjoyed working with Maestro Nézet-Séguin since his debut conducting Carmen in 2009, this year is full of even more excitement and promise. Maestro has stepped into the role of Music Director with gusto, and the palpable energy felt in the opera house these days is an auspicious beginning to a long, productive musical and artistic collaboration.

Maestro leads three opera productions this season: our new, vibrant production of La Traviata directed by Michael Mayer, followed by revivals of two 20th-Century French masterworks: Debussy’s Pelléas et Melisande & Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites. We already feel his guiding hand shaping Verdi’s phrases with elegance and care in La Traviata. He asks us for extra focus on the text, energizing the vocal lines with character, and insists on Verdi’s dynamics and phrasing, working the lines with the Orchestra, Chorus & principals until they sparkle. Like any good leader, he has a warm, effusive charm, and peppers his direction with funny asides. You want to follow his lead — it is always in service of the composer.

On opening night he bucked another operatic convention, asking the Orchestra to join us all on stage for a celebratory bow to a new era. It’s never been done at the Met, and it continues to demonstrate Maestro’s philosophy that this Company can only soar to new heights together, with each department in the building contributing equal parts talent and hard work. We wholeheartedly agree with this, and look forward to the collaboration!

The whole Traviata crew. Cast, chorus, dancers, and for the first time, our esteemed orchestra members.

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Daniel Clark Smith, born in Barrington, IL, has degrees in Music Ed. and Choral Conducting from The University of Cincinnati – College-Conservatory of Music, and has loved singing in ensembles all his life. In concert, he particularly enjoys performing the Evangelist roles in J.S. Bach’s Passions. At the Met, favorite roles include a Lackey in Der Rosenkavalier, a soldier in Wozzeck and Parpignol in La Bohème, a role he has performed 100 times with the company. Daniel is a member of the Chorus Committee and serves as the Mens’ Chorus Safety Delegate. Daniel has been with his husband, fellow musician Michael S. Caldwell, for 26 years. Follow him on Twitter: @dclarksmith and Instagram: @danielclarksmith.

Welcome to the Met Opera Chorus Book Club!

Adina (played by Andriana Chuchman) reading to the chorus in Donizetti's L'Elisir d'Amore. Photo: Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera

by Edward Hanlon

The daily life of an opera chorister is dictated by the whims of the opera that they are singing. Sometimes, composers can’t get enough of the chorus; in operas like Turandot or Nabucco we only leave the stage long enough to change costumes and prepare for our next entrance. But other times, it seems like the composer… umm... well… kind of forgot about us! In operas like Così fan tutte or Die Meistersinger there are lengthy breaks between entrances. So what is an opera chorister supposed to do backstage when we find ourselves on one of these breaks? For many of us the answer is easy: read a book!

We've had a Met Opera Chorus Book Club going for a few years now and have read (and discussed backstage) a wide range of literature from Infinite Jest to Between the World and Me to The Brothers Karamazov. But this year we want to do something different; we’re focusing on the operas we're performing this season, and opening our club up to you! 

Each month, we’ll pick one book based upon an opera currently on the Met stage. Sometimes it will be source material or background, sometimes another telling of the same story, and maybe even sometimes a book just barely related that we've been looking for an excuse to read! When the opera opens, we’ll post an article about that book aound opening night which we’d love to turn into a discussion with you on our Facebook Page.

So, without further ado, here are the three books we’ll be reading to open the season:

September: Scènes de la vie de bohème by Henri Murger

for La bohème by Giacomo Puccini (opening September 25th)

The Met opens its legendary Zefferelli production of La bohème on the second night of the season.  Where better to start then to go back to the stories that inspired the opera? If you are an ebook person you can get it free here, but if you prefer your books made of paper, there is a pretty good chance you should be able to find it at your local bookstore (mine is from The Strand which, as of writing, has a few copies).

October: Marnie by Winston Graham

for Marnie by Nico Muhly (opening October 19th)

Hitchcock's 1964 film made substantial changes to the plot of Graham’s novel.  Muhly goes back to the source material for the opera's inspiration and is more faithful than the film to the original. This is going to be a little harder to find; the New York Public Library has no copies (!), nor does the Strand (!!!).  However, a kindle book and a hard copy are available on Amazon.

November: The Master and Margherita by Mikhail Bulgakov

for Mefistofele by Arrigo Boito (opening November 8th)

With a story as well-known as Faust, we can probably stray a bit further from the source material.  Sure, you can (and should) read Goethe’s Faust or Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, but this is a legend that has been told many times, and maybe nowhere with as much madness as in this book.  You shouldn't have any trouble finding a copy of The Master and Margherita at your local book store.

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3 Months, 3 Operas, 3 Books!

So there it is: Part 1 of the Met Opera Chorus Book Club! We hope you can join us on this project. We'll all gain some new perspective on the operas we know and love, and strong foundations on those that are new to us. 

See you at the Met and Happy Reading!

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Edward Hanlon, graduate of McGill University and University of Michigan, is a happy Long Island boy making good with the Metropolitan Opera. Favorite roles include Figaro, Sparafucile, Dick Deadeye, Sarastro and Nick Bottom with companies such as the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Lincoln Center Theatre, Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Des Moines Metro Opera and the Glimmerglass Festival. He spent this past summer singing on a cruise ship from the Mediterranean to the Baltic with his beautiful wife, soprano Tanya Roberts. His first novel is is due to be released this winter ... at the end of the 2019-20 season ... umm... someday? Check out his website and follow him on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.

The Met Opera Chorus Goes Back to School!

The Met Chorus Artists got out of the opera house and into the schoolhouse twice in February to interact with their youngest fans!

Met Chorister Karen Dixon, Met Orchestra Musicians Kari Docter, Dov Scheindlin, Katherine Fong, and Bruno Eicher, and NYC Council Member Helen Rosenthal enthralling a group of Kindergartners at PS 166.

 By Edward Hanlon

     This month, members of the Met Opera Chorus had a couple performances.  Nothing unusual there: we perform up to seven times a week! But these were different; for one, they were in the morning (and I can count the number of musicians who are morning people on one hand) but, more importantly, the average audience was younger… much younger. As you can probably guess, this was not a performance in the Met Opera House. In one, we went to Castle Bridge Elemementary for an Opera Ambush, and, for the other, members of the chorus and orchestra teamed up at The Richard Rodgers School of Arts and Technology, P.S. 166, to perform a “Musical Read-Aloud” — an original score composed to accompany Buzzard and Wren Have a Race, a story from the book A Ring of Tricksters, by Virginia Hamilton. The music was composed by Robert Miller, husband of violinist Elena Barere, and the story was read aloud to children and teachers by New York City Council Member Helen Rosenthal and chorus soprano Karen Dixon.

    I’m happy to report that the Musical Read-Aloud was a huge success!  It was a joy to give these children a chance to see how words and music come together to tell a story, and show how musicians listen to each other and work together to create something beautiful! “We’re very excited to play for these young students at PS166!” said cellist Kari Docter. “Countless studies have shown a strong link between music and a strong education. As musicians, parents and teachers, we are committed to strengthening the role music plays in the education of our children, as well as the role the arts play as part of a healthy, inclusive and positive society.”

The Opera Ambush at Castle Bridge Elementary School, up on 169th and St. Nicholas Avenue, was also a huge success with yet another group of kids. Chorister Mary Hughes organized the event, inviting members of the full-time chorus (and some of the extra chorus) to sneak up on a room of students during their regularly scheduled music class with a rousing rendition of "Libiamo" from La Traviata. They have plans to come back later in the season to teach the kids another opera chorus favorite, "Va, Pensiero" from Nabucco.

The teachers seemed to enjoy it as much as their students did! Music teacher Sally Cleaver raved: 

"My fave was hearing Miguery (Grade 1) singing in the bathroom a Dominican, child version of the song...it was so moving and so wonderful and we could have listened to you all day.  More than one teacher told me they 'teared up' when the chorus swelled from behind the kids.  Simeon high fiving one of your singers at the end, Quyen scaring the stitches out of a chorus member her neighbor, Thomas nearly passing out, all day hearing the song sung in various ways in various places. What you guys gave us had and continues to have endless ripples."

She even offers this adorable exchange between a student and teacher during the performance: 

Kindergartner: (turning to teacher after the singing started) "Look!  They are singing Mariachi!"

Teacher:  "I know..so exciting...but it's called opera!" 

Members of the Met Opera Chorus with teachers from Castle Bridge Elementary School.

Who are the Met Chorus Artists?

You've probably noticed that this article you're reading is hosted on the Met Chorus Artists website. One might think, "Well, that's just another name for the chorus, right?" But Met Chorus Artists, Inc. is much more than that. Chorister Meredith Woodend, the president of the MCA, Inc. board, is pleased to introduce you to the outreach arm of the Met Chorus...

Photo (and effect) by Daniel Clark Smith

by Meredith Woodend

In the last few years, there has been a great deal of discussion within the Metropolitan Opera Chorus about how we could give back to our community as a group. By community, we mean: the people that live and work in the borough of Manhattan, the people within the tri-state area, and, of course, those that support us by attending performances in New York and world-wide through our Live in HD broadcasts.  After a ton of research, as well as guidance from the Met Orchestra Musicians (an already established not-for-profit which is comprised of members of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra), we embarked on this journey to create a 501(c)(3).  Thus, Met Chorus Artists, Inc. was founded.  

Met Chorus Artists, Inc. was created for many reasons.  Most importantly, we wanted a way to raise tax-deductible funds to generate outreach and education opportunities within our community.  Our goal is to foster a love and appreciation of music, especially opera, during a time when we could really benefit from the beauty and escape that only music can provide.  This is what we hope our audience experiences every time they come to see us.  

We also needed a way to effectively partner with other non-profit organizations in the tri-state area that are helping those who need it the most.  Currently our focus is on elementary, middle and high schools students, but we plan on broadening that focus in the near future.  We want to encourage the next generation of opera lovers, ensuring that this incredible art form continues for many years to come.

We are also looking for volunteer opportunities to help make a difference right here in our own backyard. This past October, as you might recall, we participated in the Lincoln Center Kids Halloween event. We set up a booth to promote kid-friendly operas at the Met and get the word out about Met Chorus Artists and the programs we are working on. (Plus we gave away a TON of candy!)  Recently, some of our Met Chorus Artists completed a program called "Opera Ambush" at a school in the Manhattan neighborhood of Washington Heights.  It was a huge success that was spearheaded by our very own Mary Hughes.

Additionally, we have an ongoing collaboration with Culture for One, which offers students in foster care the opportunity to take voice lessons with a Met Chorus Artist and attend a performance. Chorister (and MCA Inc. board member) Nathan Carlisle is the man responsible for this mission, and it is starting to garner its own press. 

Despite our busy performance schedule, we are continuing to work hard to create more opportunities. We are hoping for future opportunities to create scholarships for high school students, partnering with the Metropolitan Opera Education department to create an Opera Junior Club for elementary or middle school students, and the creation of a fund that can offer tickets to families that might not otherwise be able to experience opera with their children due to financial hardships.  These projects are still in the planning phases, and we are open to anything that can help better our community. 

If you have an opportunity for the Met Chorus Artists to participate in, please let us know. We're ready to work, and are looking forward to hearing from you! If you’d like to provide monetary support, we will gladly accept your donations, which are tax-deductible, and the money will be put right into our ongoing projects or into funding a program that is waiting to be realized.  We are excited to get to know more of you in our community and look forward to seeing you at our house, the Metropolitan Opera.

For more information or to offer a project idea, please contact:
Meredith Woodend, President
Met Chorus Artists, Inc.
info@metchorusartists.com
 

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Meredith Woodend has been a chorister with the Metropolitan Opera since 2013. Prior to that she worked in public relations and finance. She is currently the president of Met Chorus Artists, Inc., and is looking forward to giving back to the community that supports us through every production. She was adopted by a snuggly, toothless cat named Pico in 2011. 

Lincoln Center Kids’ Halloween: Spooktacular Fun for the Whole Family!

Happy Met choristers enjoying themselves immensely at the Lincoln Center Kid's Halloween Event! (Photos by Dan Smith, Jason Hendrix, and  Patrick Miller.)

by Meredith Woodend

Met Chorus Artists (MCA) was thrilled to participate in the 2017 Lincoln Center Kids’ Halloween event.  With the help of the Metropolitan Opera’s Education department, we were able to put together an exciting booth for this event overflowing with great literature about kid friendly operas, as well as information about the Met Chorus Artists and how we give back to our community.  Armed with buckets upon buckets of candy, coloring pages and pencils, we were quite the attraction on the plaza.  Over 250 families stopped by our booth and inquired about upcoming operas, learned about what MCA does within our community, and signed up to win tickets to a performance of Hansel and Gretel that took place during the Metropolitan Opera’s Open House Family Day on December 28th.  The Storic Family, winners of the raffle, were extremely excited to attend the event and performance.

Chorister Greg Warren handing out candy to costumed kiddos.  (Photos by Dan Smith, Jason Hendrix, and  Patrick Miller.)

We ran into many fully costumed members of the Metropolitan Opera Family and their kids on the plaza. They were excited to see a Met Opera presence for this event. (Note: It was the very first time that the Met has participated!)  Word spread around the opera house, and many departments of our Met Family are interested in joining us for next year. This means that we’ll be able to make our booth bigger and better, and it also means we’ll have more hands on deck for maximum candy distribution!

Choristers Dan Smith and April Haynes hanging out with a precious Raggedy Ann & her mom!  (Photos by Dan Smith, Jason Hendrix, and  Patrick Miller.)

MCA is excited to add this to our list of annual events, and looks forward to getting more of our Met Family involved in such a fun, family-friend outreach opportunity.  We hope to see you on the plaza next year!

Chorister Laura Fries was a great ambassador for the Met, giving out lots of information on our family-friendly productions!  (Photos by Dan Smith, Jason Hendrix, and  Patrick Miller.)

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Meredith Woodend has been a chorister with the Metropolitan Opera since 2013. Prior to that she worked in public relations and finance. She is currently the president of Met Chorus Artists, Inc., and is looking forward to giving back to the community that supports us through every production. She was adopted by a snuggly, toothless cat named Pico in 2011. 

Giving the Gift of Voice to Those Who Need it Most

Met Chorus Artists are out in the community providing singing lessons for children in New York City's foster care system with Culture for One.

Belinda Oswald and Shanise at a Culture for One voice lesson.

By Edward Hanlon

It can be easy to take opera for granted while singing in the Met Opera Chorus; we are at the opera house six days a week and are consistently exposed to the greatest musical and artistic talent in the classical music world.  But it's important to remember that few are so lucky.  Many of our close New York neighbors have never had a chance to feel up close the power of live music and theater as we do.  With this in mind, the Met Chorus Artists are making it our mission to bring this operatic art form that we love to communities that would otherwise never have the opportunity to experience it. Over the past year the we have begun what will hopefully be a long and fruitful relationship with the fantastic outreach organization Culture for One.   They have a vital mission in the New York foster community:

Culture For One’s mission is to inspire New York City children living in foster care by providing cultural experiences and exposure to a broader world. Through these opportunities we are improving outcomes for these most vulnerable youth, and for some, changing their trajectories forever.
 
Access to the arts, rarely available to youth in foster care, is a vital means of stimulating a child’s intellectual development.  Culture For One uses the arts as a vehicle to connect with these children and teens, motivate them, widen their view of what is possible to achieve, and stimulate their aspirations.  In conjunction with the arts experiences we provide, we also introduce them to positive role models, who offer encouragement and resources outside of their limited circle of support.

Our purpose is to enrich the lives and improve the futures of youth in the foster care system. 

Last year, tenors Nathan Carlisle and Dustin Lucas had a lesson with Sarah and Belinda Oswald taught Shanise.  It was their first voice lessons, first time in Lincoln Center and, after the lesson, the students and their foster parents attended their first opera in style: orchestra seats at the Met!

We are happy to report that we have a long list of Met Chorus volunteers excited to do their part in this wonderful program for the children in our community who need it most!