After peeling off snow-flecked coats and greeting old friends with hugs, about 40 members of the former Baltimore Opera Chorus settle into chairs arranged around a semicircular room on the second floor of a downtown church. A warm buzz of conversation suddenly stops, replaced by wild whoops as the singers spot their longtime director, Jim Harp.
He proceeds slowly into the space, his cupped hands stretched out in front of him, bearing, like a sacred icon, a little gold-painted bell, the kind once used at hotel front desks. With the cheers of the choristers getting louder, Harp finishes the mock ceremony by gently placing the bell on a weathered upright piano in the center of the room.
This is the same bell that Harp used for years at rehearsals as a device to call the singers to order. When he gives it a hearty slap this time, the resultant ping doesn't just signal the start of rehearsal, but something of an exorcism, banishing, at least for a while, a lot of dark memories.
"The bell is very symbolic," Harp says. "When the Baltimore Opera Company folded, I said the bell would never ring again."
That was late in 2008, when the company filed for bankruptcy. A few months into 2009, it went into liquidation, after nearly 60 years as a force in the city's cultural life. Next Sunday, the choral component will be resurrected on the stage of the Lyric Opera House, singing in a production of Bizet's "Carmen" from Opera New Jersey (in its home-state performances, that company's own chorus will be featured).
The Lyric, which was Baltimore Opera's landlord for decades, is committed to putting operatic activity back in that venue, one way or another. Although importing a "Carmen" isn't the same thing as restoring the old company, just having the veteran choristers rehearsing together at St. Mark's Lutheran Church seems like a big step.
"I'm a little verklempt here," Harp says, looking out at the familiar faces for the first time in 15 months. "It's wonderful to see how God is full of surprises. And this is a miracle right now."
With that, he sits at the piano, calls out a page number of Bizet's score and has the choristers recite the lines to get the French words and rhythmic flow into their heads. Then he's ready for them to sing the music. As he plays the accompaniment, he shouts out instructions and reactions.
"Ladies, I don't want any vibrato."
"Men, that's anemic-sounding. It's a little too interior-designer."
