Mastersingers USA in Central Europe – 2007
Tuesday, July 3, 2007
Concert in Brno with Kantiléna
On Tuesday morning, July 3, we left our hotel in Bratislava for the 2-hour bus ride across the border to Brno. (Someone suggested that there should be an American aid program to send vowels to these countries.) Within the Czech Republic, the two principal regions are Bohemia, of which Prague is the principal city, and Moravia, of which Brno is the principal city. With a volatile history that dates back to the 13th century, Brno is probably best known today for its annual trade fair.
After lunch and a restful afternoon, we left for our concert venue in the center of the city: Besední Dům, a beautiful, neo-Renaissance structure built in 1873 and the current home of the Brno Philharmonic Orchestra. We were greeted here by our old friend Jan Míšek, artistic director of the Bonifantes choir, whom we had met in Barcelona in 2005 and by the two directors of Kantiléna, Jakub Klecker and Zuzana Pirnerová.
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| Besední Dům in Brno | Choir room where we were welcomed by our hosts |
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| View of Philharmonic Hall from the stage (source: John Harpold) | |
Kantiléna is an award-winning choir, composed of children and young people between the ages of 11 and 19. They have traveled extensively, and are affiliated with the Brno Philharmonic Orchestra. We were to perform a joint concert with them, starting at 6 p.m. (What's that they say about never appearing on stage with children or animals?)
| Our concert was to take place in this building's "Philharmonic Hall," an impressive room that was decorated in Baroque style. The children sang first. There were about 50 of them (all girls except for 4 boys), and they sang beautifully, with precision and artistry. For all our success, on this tour and in years past, many of us felt a little intimidated. And, not surprisingly, the first part of our half of this concert might have been the low point in our tour. We sang our piano-accompanied pieces for the first time: Beethoven's "Hallelujah Chorus" from "Christ on the Mount of Olives" and Berlioz' "Chorus of Students and Soldiers" scene from "La damnation de Faust." These didn't go particularly well, nor did the pieces from our sacred repertoire. But then we sang "Aj, Lúčka, Lúčka," and the entire atmosphere changed, with smiles and cheers from the audience that hadn't been there before. Then we sang two more folk songs: "Verbuňk" and "Tancuj, Tancuj, Tancuj," and they were well received, too. With our confidence restored, we finished our part of the concert on a strong note with several pieces from our repertoire of spirituals. |
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The concert was followed by a reception on the ground floor of the Besední Dům, and it included some excellent hors d'oeuvres. (Singers always work up quite an appetite.) The Kantiléna girls sang a much more polished version of "Tancuj, Tancuj, Tancuj," and there was quite a bit of good fellowship for the next hour.
There is a serious postscript to this episode of the trip. As we were entering the Besední Dům earlier in the afternoon, one member of our group paused to take a picture of our poster outside the building. She opened her bag to get out her camera, but failed to close it, and while she was distracted, someone came by and stole her passport, credit cards, and cash. This was a lesson that stayed with the rest of us for the duration of the trip. Our friend quickly cancelled her cards and was philosophical about the cash, but the passport was another matter, made more difficult by the fact that the following two days were national holidays in the Czech Republic. Fortunately, she had a photocopy of the passport, and after a train trip to Prague (and loss of a day of the tour), she secured a temporary passport.
Now for the rest of the story. Our guide, Uschi, happens to be a native of Brno, though she has spent most of her adult life in Austria. She actually escaped communist Czechoslovakia in a dramatic fashion as a young woman (that's another story), but her childhood was spent in Brno. It turns out that in reporting the theft at the city's main police station, she found herself in the very facility where her mother had been confined for questioning by the communist authorities for 14 days. And where her father had been kept for 4 years. Seeing this place unexpectedly conjured up memories of that painful time in her life — and a welling up of emotion that was sobering to the rest of us.
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