Russia Chorus Trip with Bill Giles and Glenn. Plays – ‘Night Mother & Grapes of Wrath
Dear Family and Friends,
It’s the Sunday before Thanksgiving but Christmas is in the air. The weather has turned cold with bursts of large swirling snowflakes making the air look like three dimensional white lace. Meanwhile, cities, businesses & TV crassly urge the season on early with lighting ceremonies, sales and decorations & media hype — hoping we’11 spend many of those non-existent dollars to raise us out of this “non-existent” recession! It’s sometimes hard to cut thru all the hype and dig out the true meanings and feelings of Thanksgiving and Christmas.
What a year! It has seemed like a life time – a happy, exciting lifetime with so many mountaintop experiences to crowd the memory in the year to come. I hope your past year was fulfilling and that your year to come will be filled with happiness and joy.
So much has happened since last Nov. it’s hard to tell where to start. I’m happy to say 1991 was mostly good and happy with a glitch or two as opposed to 1990 in which trials and sadness seemed to prevail.
I rejoice that Jim Forte, my abusive, harassing next door neighbor is gone! I couldn’t know it when I wrote last year, but our final incident had occurred in early Nov. in a king sized shouting match on the front sidewalk of our houses, with three witnesses. He played the bully as usual – threatened to take my sweet little 12 lb. toy poodle, Tootsie, and twist her head off, threatened me, cussed me out with every word in the book. —-But with witnesses, I stood up to him with volume, strength and sharp truthful answers. After my final retort – “It’s none of your business. You don’t even live here any more!”, I ran into the house with Tootsie in my arms. Then I realized that for the first time in 10 months, Forte had no answer and did not shout out any last word ———and that was THE END! Over as suddenly as it started. I waited for many apprehensive months before it became obvious he truly was gone. In Aug. the opportunity finally came for Amy, his ex-wife, and me to have a long talk, clear the air and restore our good rapport. So all’s well with the neighbors, now.
My major project last Jan and Feb was rewriting speech assignments and handout sheets to fit the new text book edition of the UC speech course. Spring Qtr. I revised and refined the work to a final copy. Then, by May 1st the “recession ax” hit at UC & they were making massive cuts. I got “laid off” from my day school job – one week after I had written my 2 huge checks for the furnace/A/C and the trip to Russia. That was a real blow. Fortunately, I still teach Evening College in Fall and Spring, having been there 26 years, and I just got called back to teach 2 day school courses this winter Qtr.–with no guarantees for Spring Qtr. But every little bit helps. This is a new course which again means writing a new syllabus, handouts, tests, etc., during the next 3 months.
AND NOW ABOUT RUSSIA: On Mon. April 22, I read in the paper, “Singers wanted to audition for a 2 week choral tour to Russia” etc. for very low travel expenses. I called Bill, then the conductor; we auditioned on Wed., started rehearsals on Sat.– and suddenly we were leaving for Russia in 8 weeks. We told Glenn Coven, he auditioned too and joined the chorus. In those 2 months, besides the usual trip preparations, we had to learn Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass in D Minor in Latin, (45 min), Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms in Hebrew (25 min), 10 Russian and Baltic songs in their various native languages, and new arrangements of 10 or 15 American songs — and I (who always sing soprano & have a “tin ear”) had to learn the ALTO part for all these. But I did it – anything to get to Russia.
The tour was with the Cincinnati International Touring Chorus (70 members), John Leman conducting. We sang 2 concerts in Moscow with the USSR Radio and TV Symphony playing for us and members of Moscow Univ. (Institute) Conservatory of Music Gneising Chorus singing with us. One concert was at Tchaikovsky Hall at the Conservatory – where Peter Tchaikovsky conducted and taught. We were supposed to have members of the Bolshoi Opera as our soloists, but, in true Russian fashion, the plans were fouled up. They were in NYC when we were in Moscow! John was smart enough to have all solos covered by our chorus members, but he did get an excellent Russian soprano for the Haydn. She lived 40 miles from Moscow and commuted for this event. We asked John, “How on earth did you find her at the last minute?” His answer: “Easy, I just went to the KGB!”
In Moscow for fun we had a party on a boat with members of the Gneising Chorus. Wonderful, stimulating conversation with new friends. It was truly magical. It was midnight and almost daylight. Truly, The Land of the Midnight Sun.
In Leningrad (I know, it,s St. Petersburg now, but it was Leningrad then) we sang with the world famous Glinka Cappella (chorus) at the Glinka Institute located just off Palace Square next to the Hermitage.
The last part of the trip we were in Tallinn, Estonia attending the Bridges of Song Festival. Every year Estonia has a week long regional song festival for the Baltic States and parts of Russia, but this year was special because it was world wide. Almost 400 Americans joined 20,000 other singers from the Baltic States, many different Russian states, Europe, Japan, etc. singing to an audience of 500,000. What a thrilling experience! We rehearsed everyone for 2 days and had the performance on Sunday, July 7. Rev. Robert Schuller conducted Sunday church service at the shell. After lunch (20,000 singers were efficiently fed lunch during the 3 days with Estonian pizza, subways, hot dogs & hamburgers.) most of the 20,000 chorus members marched in a parade 5 kilometers from downtown Tallinn to the festival amphitheater all in their various native dress. I skipped marching in the parade because of my heart, but Bill did it and said it was one of the most thrilling experiences of his life. Everyone cheered and screamed and threw flowers for the Americans. The Estonians REALLY LOVE America and all we stand for. Just watching all the different native costumes was a thrill for me. And then we sang – for 5 hours, from 4 to 9 PM. We closed the concert with the Estonian National Anthem “Mu Isamaa On Minu Arm” – My Native Land is My Love – a beautiful song. Imagine 20,000 people – arms linked and swaying in joy and brotherhood, singing with tears in our eyes from the love and spiritual high of the moment.
Jester Hairston was here. He is the “little old man” in the TV Sit-com Amen. But that was just an extra for him. His real career has been as a musician, composer and arranger. He conducted and sang the solo with our chorus of his published arrangement of the Amen Chorus – on his 90th Birthday! The Sunday Parade and final monster concert was only part of the festival. All week long the different countries had open houses and craft shows, and national choruses with international soloists performed choral works by Rachmaninoff, Verdi, Saint Saens, etc. etc. Bill was a member of a special professional chorus, under the direction of John Nelson, which sang the Mozart Requiem in St. Olaf’s Cathedral on Sat. The program opened with a Lithuanian chorus singing a new composition by a Baltic composer. This was a special occasion attended by the Patriarch (i.e. Pope) of the Russian Orthodox Church (he is a native Estonian), the President of Estonia, and 3 rows of Russian Communist dignitaries. They all sat in the rows immediately behind me – and of course I “got pictures.” TV cameras were everywhere beaming the major event to all of Europe, & 6 long black “official limousines” were crowded into the narrow medieval street in front of the church to transport all the dignitaries. After the concert we walked the narrow medieval streets of 01d Town Tallinn to the Town Square (1200-1400’s) from 10 to 12PM in virtual daylight. All over the square were small choruses quietly and sincerely singing their beautiful native songs–and a few American songs & arrangements. Our hosts, Urve and Andres, Bill and I wandered from group to group for an hour, Bill with tears in his eyes from the pure magic of the experience.
Equally as wonderful in Estonia were our living arrangements. Each group of 2 people stayed at the home of an Estonian host family. Some in our group had to sleep on a living room sofa or stay in a top floor high rise apartment with practically no water pressure and no hot water, so they went 4 days without a bath. And those Estonians live with these conditions year in and year out. But Bill and I hit the jackpot! Urve and Andres Marga live in a large 8 room house with her mother (who owns the home) and their 3 children Ott (Hoyt), Misha (Michael) and Maarja (Marie) in the suburb of Marivalja (seafield). Both are graduates of the Estonian Univ. at Tartu in Economics, and both work at good jobs making 300 rubles (that’s $10.00!!!) a month each. They own a car (15 years old), 2 TV’s, shelves & shelves of books, & had a bidet in their bathroom. Bill & I each had a separate room & they served us breakfast each morning & 2 dinners. They were so gracious as hosts, driving us everywhere we needed to be for the Festival — always on time!– & taking us by car and on foot on sightseeing tours around the city. They literally devoted 4 full days totally to us. When we arrived Thurs, afternoon, they presented us with a bouquet of Blue Cornflowers, the national flower of Estonia, and they were wearing t-shirts of Blue, Black and White wide stripes, the 3 colors of the Estonian national flag. They were truly proud native Estonians– and hated the Russians. In her Xmas card Urve wrote “Now our Republic is free. Our economic situation is very bad, but we hope that future is better.” Urve relied on the high school English she studied over 10 years ago and her ever present dictionary to converse with us – and did beautifully. Andres was afraid to talk but seemed to understand much of what we said. Their bright, well behaved children (ages 7,5 & 4) picked up many English phrases in the 4 short days.
I almost forgot to tell you about Tiina (about 23) and Anu (age 16), the 2 Estonian girls from Kivioli, Estonia who “adopted” me at the Festival. We sat together at the first rehearsal & became friends. How they did it, I’ll never know, but at every rehearsal thereafter & even for part of the performance, they found me out of all those 20,000 people. “Carolyn, you come sit with us.”, they insisted. They were excellent altos with a true ear for pitch and an invaluable help with the native language pronunciation. Their command of English and its pronunciation was exceptional and put me to shame as I stumbled thru their languages. And that is in spite of the fact I had studied hard on their songs and even refreshed my ability from 1969 to read the Cyrillic alphabet. They were fascinated with my cameras, especially my 2 new Nikons with telephoto lenses, and had never seen text highliters which I had to mark my music. They were thrilled when I gave them each a pink and a yellow highliter, & we also gave gifts to our hosts.
As you see, I could write a book about the entire 2 weeks, since I have just covered, with many omissions, only the concert portion of the tour. So many stories, so much to tell of Russia. If you watched the many special TV reports by all 3 networks from Russia in July during Pres. Bush’s visit to Moscow, then you know what I learned and experienced. It was all right on the mark! More to the point are the similarities & differences I found from my first trip to Russia in 1969. Religion is back: We attended a Russian Orthodox church service in the Novodevichy Monastary Cathedral of the Dormition (built 1600’s) on Sun. June 30; cars have multiplied 100 fold with all the attendant traffic jams and pollution; building construction techniques have improved & modernized; elevators are as tiny as ever. Free enterprise foreign ventures are appearing – and most deal only in “hard currency” (dollars, marks, etc). Of course, McDonald’s and Pizza Hut accept rubles. Our 2 boat hotels, owned and run by Swedish managers with Russian workers, were clean and efficient; but our last night in a real Russian hotel revealed it to be as grungy and backwardly inefficient as ever. The tourist spots are overrun with young entrepreneurs (ages 8-28+) selling postcards, army coats, watches, books, etc. all for very cheap prices, but always in dollars, never rubles. I bought a book in Leningrad for $5 that sold for $30 in Memphis, Tennessee at the Catherine the Great Exhibit (Yes, I went to that, too, with Barb Sorensen in mid July). Even in early July the formerly ubiquitous Communist Billboard art extolling Lenin, the worker & the party was practically non-existent and being replaced with Western style commercial billboards, advertising Pizza Hut, Pepsi, Phillips electronics, etc. Tour guides spoke freely, no longer under the control of Intourist propaganda and lies. The beautiful Balalaikas I heard often in 1969 were only to be found hanging out on Arbat Street for tourists to buy (yes, I did!); the Russians now play western guitars, instead. Finally, St. Basils Cathedral on Red Square, closed and swathed in scaffolding in 1969, was fully restored and open for viewing. For all the evils of Communism, it did restore and preserve so many ancient Russian historical buildings & artifacts that otherwise would have been lost.
One final story: In May a friend (Frank) gave me the name, address, & phone of a Russian friend of his in Leningrad. I called Seva and he met Glenn Coven and me for lunch at a German owned “hard currency” restaurant (Chaika – Russian for Seagull) for 2 hours of wonderful conversation followed by walking thru downtown Leningrad & visits to Berioska and Irish Free Store “hard currency” shops. Frank told Seva to buy what he wanted and needed at the stores. It was his wedding anniv. day so he bought his wife perfume, but the other articles were the simplest of basics like tooth paste and brushes. Seva met Frank in Russia, then came to Ohio to visit him for 6 weeks, traveling from Canada to Florida. Seva left his govt. job 2 years ago to risk forming his own free enterprise business as a stock exchange trader (more barter than money). As we talked at lunch, he told us that the previous Thurs 6/27, he, the mayor of Leningrad, Shevradnadze in Moscow, and others had met to form a new political party. Once home on 7/12, I read an article about this event in the Cin. Enquirer, deeply humbled that I had the opportunity to touch the edges of a significant historical event in the development of a new Russia. And it’s hard to relay the swings of emotion and tears I experienced during the week of the failed Coup in August. I was glued to the TV, taping everything I could all week.
I spent July organizing the 25 rolls of pictures from the trip.
In August & September, I produced and directed ‘Night Mother as a special Drama Workshop production. It is something I wanted to do for a long time. Bill helped me do the analysis of the characters and I enjoyed working with the cast.
In Sept Oct I helped Bill with phase one on the garage/addition construction to his house.
In October, Ted Weil directed and produced the Grapes of Wrath, through his own theater company, Falcon Productions. The actor playing the lead character, Ma Joad, dropped out two weeks before opening night. Ted asked me to replace her and I said yes. I had to learn the lines and the show in two weeks. Bill helped me with lines and acting, but now he is deeply in love with Judy – so who knows what the future holds. It was a very hectic month.
I sent no postcards from Russia. No time, and dealing with the ruble/dollar currency mess was a nightmare. Instead, your “postcards” are enclosed. I shot 5 rolls of slide film, and 20 rolls of print film with double prints (700 x 2 prints). Besides my common Christmas picture taken on the banks of the Moscow River with the gold towers of Cathedral Square in the Kremlin behind me (It,s one of the classic backdrops for news stories from Moscow), you have a specially selected picture from my double print file. You’ll find its story on the back of the print (or below).