They say performers need a certain amount of ice in their veins, but the members of the Utah Symphony never counted on being guinea pigs for that thesis.
Their chief concern when they take their seats in Rice-Eccles Stadium for the Opening Ceremony of the 2002 Winter Olympics on Friday night won’t be stage fright but rather stage frostbite.
Friday evening’s forecast calls for temperatures dipping into the 20s and a hint of snow. Under those conditions, brass players see unaccustomed plumes of steam billow out before them. Trumpet valves freeze. Lips adhere to mouthpieces. Moisture congeals inside flutes, and the horsehair on violin bows comes loose. Anything made of wood–clarinets, oboes, cellos–is at risk for stress fractures when it’s brought back indoors.
That’s a risk concertmaster Ralph Matson wouldn’t want to take with a 200-year-old Italian-made violin, so he and his fellow musicians will be using serviceable but far less valuable instruments donated to the Salt Lake Olympic Committee to play along with their own previously recorded music. The instruments will be turned over to Utah public schoolchildren after the Winter Games.
Matson, a 49-year-old Detroit native who has occupied the concertmaster’s seat since 1985, said the players view their roles as a great honor, not a charade, and are intent on putting on the best show possible.
“We won’t be trying to put out a lot of sound but we want to be rhythmically crisp so that we’re visually in sync with the recorded sound and it participates in the visual image, which is what the show is about,” Matson said.
The symphony, which usually performs in Abravanel Hall in Salt Lake City, has played in low-50-degree weather at the nearby Deer Valley resort. But “we really can’t play in 25-degree weather in any way that we’d like to be recorded for posterity,” said music director Keith Lockhart, who literally will go through the motions of conducting the 83-piece ensemble at Friday night’s extravaganza.
Lockhart, 42, originally from Poughkeepsie, N.Y., may have set an individual record this week for most metal detectors traversed by a baton-wielding man. He moonlights as conductor of the Boston Pops, and Sunday he led that famous group through its paces at the Super Bowl in New Orleans.
Lockhart sought out super-conductor John Williams–“the expert in playing ceremonial music in places where one should not try to play”–for advice on how to make the Olympic experience less arctic and more artistic.
“He said what you do in these situations is really play, but play lightly,” Lockhart said. “We’re not actors. If you’ve ever seen actors try to fake playing instruments, it looks pretty lame. You can’t fake the energy of actually hitting the bow to the string by keeping the bow a quarter-inch off the screen.
“But the broadcast feed will come directly from what we’ve prerecorded, and the stadium sound system will be on, so you won’t hear us.”
The actual selections, recorded in 12 separate sessions, are still a secret, although the participation of cellist Yo-Yo Ma, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and rock star Sting has been confirmed.
