Standing on a bona
fide Broadway stage gives me an excited feeling, even though I’m just a
visitor and not a cast member of the show. Sitting
below a Broadway stage while the show is in progress can be an even more exhilarating experience.
When Thom Hallock invited
Mountain Lake Journal viewers this month to revisit
the interview I conducted with opera singer Renée Fleming in 2011, it reminded me of some more recent experiences I had involving the soprano superstar over the summer.
She was performing in her first Broadway musical, the 2018 revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s
Carousel, in the
role of Nettie Fowler, the kind and insightful aunt. Her vocals
sounded light as a spring breeze during “June is Bustin’ Out All Over,”
and profound and powerful during her solo, “You’ll Never Walk Alone.”
Carousel happens
to be my mother’s favorite Broadway musical. For a birthday present, I
took her to the show. Afterwards, our good friend Kristina the
violinist, who has made a career out of playing in Broadway orchestras,
took us backstage and
onstage. Stepping onto that beautiful
stage, I noticed something I hadn’t seen from my seat in the audience.
It had painted stars on it, thematic to the heavenly theme of the show.
Viewers in the balcony and anyone looking down at the stage might notice
the yellow stars, but no one in the auditorium looking up at the stage
would have seen them.
Standing on the stage of the Imperial
Theatre made me reflect on who else stood on that very spot,
entertaining a full house: theatre legend Mary Martin, Hollywood icon
Montgomery Clift, Hugh Jackman, Matthew Broderick, and Danny Kaye, to
name just a few. Classics such as
Oliver!,Fiddler on the Roof and
Dreamgirls all made their Broadway debuts in the same historic venue.
A
few weeks later, Kristina invited me to do something that had never
once occurred to me to do, sit in the orchestra pit among the musicians
during a performance. I excitedly accepted the invitation.
I took
my seat right near her in the string section. It was a tiny space, and
a viola player and I humorously worked it out so that I would not sit
too close to her as to be hit by her bow.
When the houselights went
down, the audience fell silent, and the orchestra surrounded me with the
first chord of the opening piece,
The Carousel Waltz, I
immediately knew this experience would be even more incredible than
I’d imagined. Not only am I sitting in the middle of an orchestra, but
the musicians are playing some of the most magical, beautiful music ever
composed by theatre giants Richard Rogers and Oscar Hammerstein.
Seated against the
wall of the pit, not only did my eyes wander from musician to musician,
but if I looked up, I could also catch glimpses of brilliant stagecraft
if the performers came close to the edge of the stage, the twirl of a
dress, a flash of brilliant choreography, big smiles on the faces of
people who a realizing their dream of performing on the Broadway stage.
Then back my eyes would go to the musicians, whose captivating music
drowned out the singing and the dialogue above.
One singer I did
strain to hear was Renée Fleming, whose “You’ll Never Walk Alone”
sounded amazing, even from the pit below the stage.
Before that
enchanting number, however, I should have covered my ears. I saw the
conductor do it, and I ought to have followed his example. After his
hands went to his ears, a LOUD gunshot startled me. I’d remembered it
from having seen the show, but indeed it was louder from the orchestra
pit. I then noticed some of the musicians looking at me and smiling, as
though they had been waiting for my surprised reaction to that moment,
and I delivered one.
Doing a show eight times a week can feel
repetitive for the musicians. They keep themselves entertained with
little games they play. At one point when the music swells, they
hilariously rise from their seats to the rhythm with the score. One
thing I did not expect, but I suppose I should have, is when musicians
have a long stretch without playing anything, on go the smartphones.
Texts are sent, the web gets surfed, and restaurant reservations get
booked, all while the show is in progress. Some read books. One
violinist even texted a fellow musician to fill his spot for the evening
performance, and succeeded in finding a sub, all during a few pauses in
the music throughout the matinee
For the second act, I moved
closer to the brass instruments and drums. The percussionist joked with
me a little during the show, as he and I are both fans of the TV
series
Hannibal. He asked if I wanted to look through his
Hannibal cookbook.
Normally I would, but I was having too much fun watching how all this
exquisite music was being made to care much about how Hannibal the
cannibal crafted his elaborately grotesque meals.
At one point, I
had to stand up and step aside for two of the cast members who enter the
orchestra pit to climb up on the stage. One of them and I gave each
other a big smile. I am not sure whether he recognized me in the dim
lighting, but I’d had the pleasure of interviewing him a few years
earlier.
Sitting in the pit, I got to observe things I would never
have known or even thought about as an audience member, such as the
fact that the man playing the accordion also plays the twinkling notes
on the celeste. At two moments in the show, closing the two acts, all
the lights went out in the auditorium and on stage. This includes the
orchestra pit. Suddenly, the music stand lights go off and we’re
sitting in pitch darkness for a few seconds. Again, this makes sense to
me now. If all the lights go off except in the pit, people in the
balcony would suddenly notice the lights on below the stage.
At
the end of the musical, I could see the audience members in front rise
for a standing ovation. Seeing that kind of celebratory acknowledgement
from a new perspective moved me in a way I hadn’t expected. It was a
day full of wonderful surprise. I am so grateful to my gifted friend
Kristina for offering me a transcendent experience with this glorious
music.
