The South West Festival Chorus believes in travelling the world and followed taking Gerontius to China a few years ago with performances of the Messiah in India. We were not quite trail blazing as we were following in the footsteps of a Cambridge College choir which toured the same places (Goa and Bombay/Mumbai) last year. But we think it was the first Messiah in Goa, and the first since 1962 in Bombay.
Actually the choir didn’t resemble a typical SWFC lineup very closely, as there were some former members, friends and friends of friends, and sadly several people I know quite well intended to come and then didn’t. A knowledge of the work was assumed, so we polished it with a rehearsal on the night of our arrival in Goa and a longer one the following morning (following in my case a dip in the infinity pool and a mixed South Indian and continental breakfast).
We brought our own soloists, trumpeter and for the second performance a timpanist as well as a conductor. Our orchestra were string players from the Symphony Orchestra of India, a mixture of Indians trained in Western classical music and Eastern Europeans.
It felt a bit odd performing Messiah with a score in my hands. I realised how thoroughly I had familiarised myself with the parts I memorise each year, especially when we came to two movements BCS don’t sing and I was suddenly tied to my score again. But by looking away from the score I risked missing some of the markings we’d put in specifically for the Indian performances.
The Goan performance, in the Basilica of Bom Jesus in Old Goa, really did feel exotic, with fans spinning and a crowd of interested onlookers at the open west doors. One could imagine the galleries of the building (in which St Francis Xavier is buried) populated with Portuguese colonial ladies in mantillas (or whatever Portuguese colonial ladies wore). The Bombay performance, in the National Centre for the Performing Arts concert hall on Nariman Point, seemed not so very different from a concert elsewhere.
How to cope with the sense of anti-climax on my return? Make my Royal Festival Hall début a week later.
Reviews:
Luis Dias’ blog
The Times of India