Feel like singing along? Bryn Terfel performing
in the WNO's production of The Flying Dutchman.
Photograph: Donald Cooper
I was lucky enough to be taken to see Bryn Terfel in The Flying Dutchman at the Coliseum last week, and - even luckier - was sitting quite near the front. It was a fascinating evening, with one very curious phenomenon: the conductor, Welsh National Opera's music director Carlo Rizzi, sang along. Audibly.
It was particularly noticeable during the prelude - maybe he was getting his vocals in before the singers came on and stole his thunder. There were ta-ta-tees, tum-te-te-tums, and even some very fair approximations of percussion effects.
While it was admittedly rather distracting (I had to repress giggles when I should have been concentrating on the pulsing flow of Wagner's music), it was none the less somehow charming, and clearly totally unselfconscious.
It's not, of course, unknown, this singing along. For many fans, Glenn Gould's bizarre humming - particularly on his 1981 recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations - has become part of the texture of the pianist's musicianship. Were his vocal interventions stripped out of this famous recording, listeners would doubtless miss it. It's become almost part of the music.
Have other people encountered this sort of singing along, either live or on record?
