Day Eight - Cincinnati May Festival 2008

Morning, 9 am.

Dragging myself out of bed was difficult today, after the excitement and energy expended at last night's opera performance, but someone how all of us made it to Music Hall.

We warmed up, woke up and worked on music in the rehearsal room backstage for a little less than an hour, and then trooped onto the risers for the rehearsal.

Conlon told the orchestra (this morning's forces were not involved in last night's program) how well it went last night and that their colleagues had been superb in the Verdi.

We began with the Zeisl, running through it once and then again after the CSO Assistant Conductor, Eric Dudley, and Bob Porco gave Conlon their notes (primarily that the chorus drowned out the orchestra during the opening section, at which the chorus cheered). Then the stage was reset for the Beethoven Ninth, and we worked our way through that, finishing up before noon.

The men and the chamber choir stayed behind while the others got out an hour ahead of schedule. The men worked on their solo stuff for next Saturday's Berlioz, and then the chamber choir ran through the Vivaldi Gloria (on next Friday's schedule, to be sung with the May Festival Youth Chorus). We left Music Hall at 12:50, many of us heading home for naps before the evening's performance.

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Later in the day, many of us dragged ourselves awake from our afternoon naps and trudged back downtown to Music Hall. We ran over the Zeisl and took notes about the Beethoven, and then marched to the stage.

The Zeisl went very well (despite the criticism of the local paper about our Hebrew), and our Hebrew coach was quite pleased. We all love the piece.

The Beethoven was a snoozer. Mistakes in the first movement set the tone -- the orchestra was obviously not in the moment. The final choral movement picked up the pace a bit and had some energy -- but it was definitely not the Beethoven Ninth we heard in September of 2005 under the baton of Paavo Jarvi. His interpretation was definitive. This was pedestrian. I probably could have conducted it as well. Conlon conducted this one without a score -- and in a couple of places, a score would have helped.