An Interrupted Performance by Jo Renton

Author:Jo Renton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dolman Scott

Chapter 7

By 9.45am, the locks were declared fully operational and about three-quarters of an hour later Voyager pulled away from its Montelimar mooring into the middle of the river. The water was still very high and the current was fast as the boat took advantage of its strong flow and made good progress downstream towards the first of four locks between Montelimar and Avignon.

The rehearsal started promptly at 10am with some warm-up exercises and then the conductor outlined his plans. “The choir will sing ‘And the Glory of the Lord’ and ‘We Shall Purify’, already practised, then ‘Glory to God’, ‘Behold the Lamb of God’, ‘Surely’ and the ‘Hallelujah Chorus’. This is quite an ambitious programme for the time we have available for rehearsal,” he said, “but we have a full choir rehearsal this morning; after lunch there will be individual parts and then another full run-through this evening at 5pm after tea. We should finish by 8, in plenty of time for dinner. I am assuming most of you have sung this before and I just need to sharpen it up and pull it together.” There were some hesitant nods!

“Let me see where you all are. Tenors? Yes. Basses? OK. Altos? Sopranos? You seem to be mixed up. I need you in distinct blocks, so please move. Sops on my left, Altos on the right, Tenors and Basses behind.”

This was not as easy as it sounds as the chairs were very close together, so many of them had to be moved to allow each part to take their proper place. Tom wondered why Harry had not posted labels on a few chairs. Four notices would have done it – one for each part. It seemed such a simple, fundamental requirement.

Pat and Sheila both had high voices and sang soprano, but they found themselves sitting on either side of Suszanna, who was, of course, alto.

“I think you are in the wrong place, Suszanna; the altos are on the other side. Look, there is a space beside Irene, who is also contralto, and she is waving at you to go over.”

Without a word, Suszanna stood up and made a great fuss about moving, flapping her hands as though in distress!

“Ridiculous,” snorted Pat. “She just wants the attention. I think she hopes the conductor might give her a solo part.”

“Is she good enough for that?” Sheila asked.

“Well, she obviously thinks she is – she did tell us she had a fantastic voice, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she is actually quite a singer,” Pat replied, as she watched Suszanna flounce across the front to sit beside Irene.

Tom and Robert had stuck together in the basses and Mike and John were somewhere amongst the tenors.

“Yes, that is fine. Now, No 22, ‘Behold the Lamb of God’. Clear, precise pronunciation and remember, I want to see your eyes, not the top of your heads. The opening bars of the accompaniment will give you the melody. Listen to the semiquavers – yours need to

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