OperOttawa will be performing Handel’s Messiah on Nov. 24 at the First Baptist Church on Laurier Ave. I caught up with two of the incredible artists involved to talk about the show and about making music.
Peter Crouch, who has a master’s degree in performance from the University of Ottawa, plays piccolo trumpet for OperOttawa, the smallest member of the trumpet family. It’s well-suited to the music of Handel’s era.
Peter Crouch
“It produces notes about a fifth to an octave higher than the regular trumpet can do, so it’s a little bit more finesse, a little bit more dangerous in terms of hitting the right notes.”
“It can be fun when you have the right music, the right group,” Crouch says of playing with an orchestra like the one for Messiah. “You’re not really thinking about how it may or may not come out properly. It just kind of flows.”
But it’s not without its challenges. “There are stressful moments when the trumpet, specifically in an orchestra, can be exposed… [The piccolo trumpet is] tonally in a higher register that pierces through, so when you have that exposure and you kind of set yourself up for a little panic.”
Morgan Strickland tells me one of her biggest challenges for opera is stamina. She’s a lyric soprano, which means her “voice tends to sound a little bit higher and lighter [compared to a mezzo soprano] but not the lightest.”
Morgan Strickland
“It’s not about making a big, loud sound. It’s about making a sensitive sound with a lot of breath and a lot of body, and then with that, keeping a sense of control in order to bring out a character,” she says.
How do Strickland and Crouch get over these challenges? “It comes from experience,” Crouch says. “The more you do it, the more you practice at home, the more you prepare for it in rehearsals, you feel that cushion underneath you every time.”
Crouch encourages everyone, including kids, to get involved with music. “I think just participating in any sort of action where you’re enlightening yourself to learn a new art form is always good for anyone to do.”
“Playing music, as you might know… once you start producing it, you just feel something different. Like, I have different musical stress, but I don’t experience the life stresses when I’m just out there playing music, which is lovely,” he says.
Strickland has a similar story. “I started singing at a very young age, so my parents actually recognized that I loved to sing,” she says. “I think together they both sort of thought, ‘maybe this is an activity she gets involved in.’ So very thankfully, I had the luxury of starting voice lessons at the age of just barely eight years old.”
Both musicians agree that the audience can be key for a great performance.
“There is sometimes a wall right between audience and musician,” Strickland explains. “I hope that the audience finds a way to connect to the music and the story. To be fully immersed in the art and sounds—or the stories themselves. Also to know that the performers are trying to create imagery we hope the audience will feel. Although Messiah is oratorio and not opera, it’s very story driven and can be magical.”
“Some people feel Messiah is very participatory,” Crouch adds. “The audience feels a little bit more involved. Whether they’re singing or not… the mind is more engaged. If I go to a concert, and I know the piece as opposed to a brand-new piece I’ve never heard, it’s a completely different experience. The latter is going to be more enlightening because you’re learning new things, but the former is more of ‘yeah, I know the next beat. I’m excited for this next part that’s about to come.’ It’s very anticipatory, and that can be a lot of fun.”
OperOttawa’s performance of Handel’s Messiah will take place Nov. 24 at 2:30pm at First Baptist Church on 140 Laurier Ave W. Get your tickets here.
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