Can You Handel It?

Georgie Handel himself

Christmas time has come and gone. New year's day as well. Now, a time to reflect, to ponder, to look forward with the wisdom of another year. A time to ask such burning questions as: Why could I not find a Sing-Along Messiah in San Francisco??

For the last decade or so, I have been able to belt out yearly Hallelujah choruses and ridiculous melisma, sometimes accompanied by baroque orchestras, sometimes by solo organ. I have been able to socially breeze across voices in a hodgepodge of choir-members and weekend singers, singing alto with my lower-voiced buddies, soprano I with the high pipers, outside of the restrictions of "rehearsal" and "assigned parts". More often than not this happened in the American Cathedral on George V, led by a spirited choir director expertly hiding fear of losing the reigns of the packed and weighty-voiced house. 

As I was on the board of the Paris Choral Society, I was charged with getting the word out, and I always depended on touting the grand tradition of a Handel's Messiah Sing-Along to a susceptible French audience. But it appears I was full of lies. Did I make it up? Is singing the Messiah alongside a trained choir not a thing we do in the States?

PCS Sing-Along in action

I was certain that some opportunity to whip out my well-worn sheet music would come along. But no. Oh, there were plenty of Messiahs out there, but I couldn't find a single one that would encourage the audience to join in. Perhaps I was not sufficiently observant, but I was nonetheless outraged. I didn't want to LISTEN. I wanted to EMOTE VOCALLY. I took to singing it from beginning to end as I walked through the city. I put it on at every opportunity, hoping to spark a flash-mob. 

But it didn't happen. I was reduced to attempting to get my family humming on Christmas Eve, to no avail. I suppose America is not quite what my rose-colored memory retained.

Although, since this is a choral-oriented post, one thing San Francisco HAS offered in that realm was a FABULOUS semi-amateur choir rendition of Orff's Carmina Burana (of car commercial and pop canon fame). I attended because a friend was singing, and was delighted. The singing was nice, the orchestra too, but the best part was the showmanship. During O Fortuna (the big one A-AAh A-AAh, A-AAh A-AAh, A-AAh-a-aah- AAh. AAh. AAh), the singers held tiny LED flashlights to their faces as if telling ghost stories. During the Tavern movement (basically about men drinking in the tavern and how great it is), the choir shined the same lights through what looked like owl masks at the audience. Fabulous. Oh, and the soloists had three costume changes each. Including the tenor, who made all his onstage during his one dying-swan aria. 

When we performed Carmina Burana in Paris, I remember having to wear flowers in my hair, but that was it (well, it's possible the male choristers sported potato sacks, but maybe I made that up). Our crowning glory was found in the flurry of young modern dancers in colorful leotards that came in and out of the aisles during instrumental movements. The San Francisco Choral Society? Same dancers. From the Champs Elysées to Davies Hall, semi-pro choral scene brings kitsch and swooping drama. Wonderful, comforting consistency. My heart is a little warmer for it. 

Hallelujah.