The Fat Lady Sings, the Horn Players Blast
Self-indulgent kudos to colleagues.
Last weekend the Arizona Opera finished up a successful production of Puccini’s Tosca. I had the fun of playing principal horn on this production, and I wanted to take some time here and acknowledge the tremendous job the players in the section did.
The section members for this show:
- (Myself)
- Nathan Mitchell
- Rose French
- Shawn Campbell
Also stepping in for a Sunday matinee were Johanna Lundy and Victor Valenzuela from the Tucson Symphony Orchestra. They of course performed like pros and sounded fabulous.
I should also mention that this was Ms. French’s first time playing with the opera, and that she fit right in on third horn. Since there was no assistant for this show, I was very happy to have her there to play. She afforded me the opportunity take little rests here and there.
At every show, the opening horn call of the third act was rock solid and drew shuffles of praise from the other musicians in the pit. The maestro and many musicians made complements to me about how great the section was sounding. I could not agree more.
(Yeah AZO horns!)
The two lead sopranos in the role of Tosca, both had very strong voices. Only on a few occasions were we directed to play softer. And in a few key places, we were playing at a very full, brassy volume. This is a bit unusual and in most cases, the horns (and brass) need to be careful not to overbalance the voices on stage.
Not with these turbo-charged sopranos. We could barely keep up!
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