Suddenly the work lights at the Metropolitan Opera came up and lunch break was announced. There I was standing center stage, fully bearded and bedecked as Gurnemanz, having just sung the entire Act I of ‘Parsifal’ for the first time – that, my dears is a whole other story on its own – when the great bass Robert Lloyd emerged from the wings to introduce himself. He had been singing Titurel, stage right.
I love meeting people who are actually taller than myself, and the British bass is indeed towering. Charming too, and he is also very humorous.
After some pleasantries about the role of Gurnemanz (one of the longest to be found in the bass repertoire) he asked me if by chance I also sing Oroveso in ‘Norma.’ Yes, I had recently sung that role in Portland. Robert Lloyd, a veteran of many ‘Norma’s went on to tell me about finding himself one morning at Stonehenge, at sunrise the day of the annual Solstice, where he suddenly felt the irrepressible and primitive urge to sing at full voice “Ite sul colle, o Druidi” …presumably a capella.
That’s the Druid scene from Act I. As his story became increasingly fantastic, and the more he spun the yarn, the more I found it all quite believable. By the time he had finished the aria, so he said, curious cattle from every possible direction were gradually coming up to him, drawn from fields afar. Presently I’m imaging happy cows of every description, light of foot with their clanging bells, magically attracted by the antique spell of Bellini’s musical line.
I don’t recall the number of bovine he finally claimed were charmed and drawn by the refrains, drawn of course also by the deep resonance of his voice in the open plains, but for me, all time stopped. He was evoking for me a magical moment thousands of years before recorded time, when the sun gradually reached its scheduled position, before I slowly realized the jaw-dropping comedy of two aging singers absurdly hanging around on stage in full Wagnerian costume during the scene changes for Act II, chatting about enchanted cows.
