UT Dallas - Shakespeare in Song

I attended Shakespeare in Song on March 27, 2010 at 8pm in the Jonsson Performance Hall at the University of Texas at Dallas. The stage was setup in a way which I find very typically for most of the performances that I see either at UTD, or Dallas Symphony and that is the piano is located at right stage. The bleachers at which the choir were stationed was at middle stage (men were on the left and women on the right when facing the crowd), the scenes were played out on left stage and soloists were closer to the piano at right stage.

The audience didn’t seem to be crowded as I heard some of the other shows were. When I attended, most of the audience seemed to consist of parents or grandparents, and students. Several of the students I recognized were in my Understanding Music class and others I assume were there to see their friends perform. An interesting tidbit that I learned from this performance is that you clap after each of the scenes and not to wait until the end because it helps keep the audience involved. The performance consists of sixteen scenes from various Shakespeare plays.

The music for this play was performed by the UT Dallas Chamber Singers and pianist Michael McVay. The music ranged from various different forms, it would be controlled and syllabic in some of the begging scenes of the play but there would be points where it was hoppy and melismatic. The asciendo would mostly be located towards throughout the songs as the tempo of the music would increase. The piano moved with the flow of the performers and would constantly be looking at the performers and the director for queues on when to begin the next part of the song.
Mix between solo performers which helped express the individuality of the music and choir which helped characterize the movements in speed, volume, and texture of the song. The choir was separated into sections of soprano, and alto for the women and tenure and bass for the men. This helped create the distinction of lyrics when the entire choir was singing at once because once you would listen and be able to tune out everything except for a certain pitch, it was much easier to understand the lyrical flow of the song. Also at some points, a main characteristic of the play was that there was a repetition of lyrics that when sung by different levels would create different intensities that seemed to increase with speed and repetition.
Another interesting point I noticed throughout the play, was that I saw there was a strong emphasis on the emotions of the singers and when they played their lyrical parts, it was easier to observe some of the emotions involved because it was easier to understand what they were saying.

Performers were dressed in Renaissance style clothing which was the setting in which each of the acts were written. The performance was conducted by Kathryn Evans who played a tremendous part. She was crucial in controlling the speed and timing of the performance. She would be the lead person to help people get back on queue if they got lost at any point within the performance. Also she was able to queue the pianist when to start playing and I noticed that throughout the piece he would look for queues on when to continue. I think that this allowed the performers to be able to carry out notes a little longer if they felt like it, especially during the solo parts.
While members of the choir were performing their scene that didn’t involve song, other members of the choir were quite as to not take away from those performing the scenes. Performers had the song sheet and play sheet in front of them while they were performing so that memorization was less of a key point in the play.