Joy! Happy, concert-going human Canberrans, and perhaps even happy Canberran earthworms (we will explain the worms in a moment) are counting the sleeps until the Canberra Symphony Orchestra (and choirs and soloists) performs Beethoven's Choral Symphony.
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There are few sleeps to count now. The first performance is on Wednesday and the second on Thursday. To Canberrans' great credit both concerts are sell-outs. This columnist, in spite of being a designated Living ACT Treasure, had to grovel to get tickets for himself and Mrs Treasure. As previously imagined, one half expects scalpers to be lurking in the shadows outside the Llewellyn Hall on the two nights, going "Pssst!" and selling scarce, contraband tickets at breathtaking prices.
One of the Opera Australia soloists engaged for the uplifting extravaganza is baritone Andrew Moran. His is the first voice to pipe up in the symphony as he commands us to think joyful thoughts and to sing cheerful songs full of joy. If, as he sings this, he sounds like a man to be listened to, it may be because in one of his roles (pictured) he has been Wagner's Donner, God of Thunder in Das Rheingold. When the God of Thunder thunders everyone listens.
Moran has an impressive CV of opera and oratorio roles he has sung but he has never sung a solo part in this Choral Symphony. "I was in the chorus once as an undergraduate and I remember thinking 'This is allright.' "
He says it is an unhappy fact of life that "being an opera singer you miss out on Beethoven because he only wrote one opera, Fidelio. He did write some songs, but [demandingly difficult] they're almost impossible to sing".
And so, admiring Beethoven so much, he is thrilled to be singing as a soloist in the Choral Symphony.
He says that all of the solo parts of the symphony are of course "very operatic" because Beethoven invests such emotion (high idealism) in the setting. Moran thinks the moment when he first pipes up is an extremely "operatic" moment of great drama. Everything in the symphony thus far (there are three suspenseful movements before the fourth movement when the singing begins) has led up to what the baritone begins to say.
"And you're telling the orchestra off," he marvels.
Yes, immediately before the baritone sings the orchestra has worked itself up into a nerve-jangling cacophony. The baritone intervenes with the command: "O friends, no more of these sounds! Let us sing more cheerful songs, more full of joy!"
He says that his part in the symphony is "very tricky" because there is such a range between the highest and the lowest notes. What is more, he laughs, you are reminded of how "Beethoven was a guy who wrote lots of string quartets" by the way in which the singers in the symphony are treated as if (like string instruments) they do not need to draw breath.
"You have to sneak a breath when you can."
Alas, there will be no stuffed animals in cases on stage in the Llewellyn Hall but we did have to ask him what on earth the stuffed Tasmanian Tiger and Leopard were doing on stage with him in the picture we are using. Here in Wagner's Das Rheingold he is Donner, God of Thunder, armed with a pistol (in more orthodox stagings Donner has a mighty hammer) as he keeps the Giantsat bay.
He explains that the producers had set the action in Wagner's Germany in Wagner's own times (it was written in 1854) when among the rich and the noble there was a craze for collecting the (stuffed) animals of the world. In the Das Rheingold Valhalla the gods (for even gods need a hobby) are doing this kind of collecting.
"There was even a giraffe in this production," the baritone remembers, fondly.
Because the joyous last movement of the Ninth is a hymn of rejoicing, a setting of Schiller's Ode To Joy, I have a wild erratic fancy in which there is a special Miserabilists' Matinee performance.
My government (for in this fancy I am Chief Minister) compels all of Canberra's most notorious whingers to attend. My government sends a charabanc to their homes (so many of them appear to live in Yarralumla!) to pick them up and take them, complaining, to the Llewellyn Hall.
The point of this inspired exercise is to get those FWW (First World Whinger) Canberrans who do so much whingeing and about inconsequential things, like light rail, a little "urban infill", a little untidiness of the grass in our parks and gardens, a little proposed change to our neighbourhoods, to see and hear the Bigger Picture for mankind painted by Schiller's mighty poem and Beethoven's mighty setting of it. Those two titans say that with or without light rail, life in Canberra will still be a rapturous privilege.
The symphony's words and music rejoice that Joy is "the bright spark of divinity" and that all of us have so much to be joyful about if we just wake up to ourselves and count our umpteen blessings.
Not just humans but "all creatures drink of joy at Nature's breast" so that even clear-thinking earthworms get a thrill out of life. If even earthworms are in a state of bliss but you would rather be a human misery-guts, then, Schiller and Beethoven recommend, you "must slink tearfully away from our circle".
The CSO's two performances of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony are at the Llewellyn Hall at 7.30pm on Wednesday, May 11 and Thursday, May 12.
