“Little sighs at the end of pieces”: Swooning to music in UNB’s Memorial Hall Theatre
Published in The Aquinian
(‘Why am I not a rose?’ by Incé Husain)
At 3pm on September 25th, UNB’s Memorial Hall theatre was flooded with stained-glass light. The stage cradled a piano, two armchairs, and a table with a vase holding a single flower, setting the ambience of the MusicUNB concert “Swooning at the Salons”.
For two hours, opera, piano, violin, and clarinet entangled. Poetry recitals premised the performances, preparing the audience for the opera moods.
“Why am I not a rose?” Recited Sally Dibblee, her voice a rich pre-opera current. “Intoxicating you like a fresh wine? Plucked and dying in your hand, fragile like a human heart. And when the hour of the end comes -Alas! Why can’t I be the rose which will be thrown on your bosom?”
Nadia Francavilla took to the violin, Julien LeBlanc to the piano, and Dibblee sighed into song with tears in her eyes. Richard Hornsby held his clarinet, listening from the armchair next to the vase with its lone flower.
The concert also featured comedic pieces. One opera depicted discs being playfully thrown into the mouths of frogs; another, an operatic dialogue between Dibblee and Leblanc about a lady insisting that she wants her unborn son to be a musician.
Hornsby’s clarinet embarked on music by Schumann, the sound mournful and resolved against escalating piano. Francavilla’s violin commemorated compositions by women uncredited as composers in their era, her sound turning from sensitive to stern in unbroken notes scaffolded by piano.
Dibblee describes the setting as “reaching back in time when music... was a wonderful way to spend a Sunday afternoon”. The music ranged from classical to romantic to modern, shifting the styles and moods. She says classical music is uniquely powerful in how expertly sound is studied and wielded.
“I think that the colours we have access to through a developed and studied voice, and through instrumentation...elevates the (sound),” says Dibblee. “I really think it sweeps you off into another world. It has such core to it.”
When interpreting the characters in her operas, Dibblee lets her physical reactions to the piece guide her.
“I can’t express my secret thoughts - I made my own backstory for (the operas),” says Dibblee, speaking specifically to a piece by Louis Spohr. She interpreted the music as the psychology of a repressed homosexual individual. “The pain and the anguish that was written right into these lyrics is astounding. It’s just such a representation of human emotion. In the right circumstance it makes for a beautiful experience.”
She describes the audience as “small but appreciative”, saying she could hear the crowd emitting “little sighs at the end of pieces.”
“I could hear lots of people kind of (emit) little sighs at the end of pieces, and that always feels really nice,” says Dibblee. “We (performers) do our best to bring our audience into the world that we’re creating.”
Also the conductor of the Fredericton Lady’s Choir and a professor of voice technique at STU, Dibblee‘s life is full of music.
“It’s an incredibly satisfying way to make a living. It’s energizing,” says Dibblee. “It’s all about beauty and emotions. It’s a great life.”
Liv Gould, a 2nd year student at STU majoring in human rights with a minor in music, came to the concert as Dibblee’s voice student. She describes the concert as “a rollercoaster from beginning to end”, and resonated most with “the sad, romantic-type songs”.
“I definitely felt a variety of emotions from beginning to end,” says Gould. “There’s a lot of storytelling for sure.”
Gould says her favourite thing about classical music is that it “take(s) you on a journey”. She considers it a familiar type of music.
“Classical music is in all the movies we watch growing up, it’s in our living rooms. It’s everywhere,” says Gould. “Seeing it live is a special experience.” ♦
A modified version of this article appeared in The Aquinian on October 4th, 2022:
https://theaquinian.net/musicunb-swoons-audiences-at-memorial-hall-concert/