Sunday, December 14, 2008

A Baritone? Really?

I totally lucked out this year. I entered the random drawing for tickets to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas Concert - it's hard to get your hands on those sometimes. It's just a raffle. But somehow I landed four tickets to the Thursday evening performance. I wasn't as excited this year as I was last year (when I insisted that my parents take me with them to see The King's Singers...fabulous....) because I'd never heard of the performer. His name is Brian Stokes Mitchell, and I guess he does a lot of stuff on Broadway. We invited my parents to join us - not only are they fun to spend time with, but I felt it was my turn to take them someplace. On the way in we talked to some nice girls who knew more about Mr. Mitchell, and informed us that he's a baritone. I have to admit, my expectations sunk just a little bit. I'm just such a sucker for a tenor. I'll tell you, when we went to the Messiah Sing-In a couple of weeks ago I just about leaped off the balcony when the tenor opened his mouth. Now that I think about it I wonder what I would have done once I jumped off - I'm not really imagining that I'd charge the stage and attack the man. I think it's more the feeling that if I jumped, I'd just float along on the glory of his voice. I LOVE tenors. Well, I now stand corrected. On Thursday night this Brian Stokes Mitchell opened his mouth and out came the richest voice I've ever heard. I got shivers. He was great. It still wasn't quite the same as last year, but hey, last year I was with my folks and their seats were totally front and center. This year we were about as high up as you can get in the conference center, way off to one side. We didn't get just blasted with music but it was a really nice evening. So, Brian Stokes Mitchell, you have a new fan.

4 comments:

Michelle said...

I went to the Music and the Spoken Word taping this morning, and they had a 45 minute mini-concert after, with at least 1/2 hour of applause, encores and special presentations afterward. It was amazing. I'd LOVE to see him in Don Quixote live.

stephgardner said...

Sounds fun. I used to really like to go to the symphony Messiah sing along but I've never been to the Mormon Tabernacle concerts.

Erin said...

My mom got invited to go with a lady in our ward to that performance. She and my dad had plans on Thursday to go out to dinner with some of their friends, but when my mom got a chance to go see this Mitchell guy, I think she couldn't ditch my dad fast enough. My dad says this guy is about the only person he's ever seen my mom "swoon" over. I had to laugh thinking about my mom swooning, but I guess he must be really good. I'm glad you had fun!

Keersten said...

I've heard he is really good. I couldn't get tickets this year. But, funny enough, I felt the same last year. When they had Sissel 2 years ago, I went twice. She was so amazing--just this beautiful angel of a soprano. I ended up loving the Kings singers too, though. ;-) I guess they are all good. Apparently, being invited to this program is pretty prestigious.