Shillong: On a Sunday afternoon when most people take a siesta the Shillong Chamber Choir are training under the able guidance of the Director of the world renowned Vienna Boy’s Choir, Gerald Wirth to perfect their German diction for the upcoming Opera based on Kalidasa’s Shakuntala.
Wirth who was once a singer in the 500 year old Vienna Boy’s Choir and now its President and Director, arrived in Shillong from Vienna on Saturday. He spent all of Sunday training with the Shillong Chamber Choir at their residence – Whispering Pines for the prestigious Opera which will be staged in October this year in Delhi, Kolkata and Mumbai. He leaves for Vienna the next day.
Explaining the current project he has undertaken in collaboration with the Shillong Chamber Choir, Wirth said, “In July this year Austria will be taking over the Presidency of the Council of the European Union for the third time after 1998 and 2006. Austria’s ambassador to India Brigitte Öppinger-Walchshofer is keen to promote music and the arts in India by staging the opera on the famous drama, Shakuntala by Kalidasa.”
This unfinished opera by Franz Schubert was written in two parts way back in 1820 and completed by Fritz Racek. It was first performed in Vienna in 1971. Another version of Schubert’s opera Sakuntala was completed by Karl Aage Rasmussen in Copenhagen in 2006 and world premiered in 2010.
Wirth said that he has been teaming up with Ravi Shankar to do something with children in India on western classical music and to support the choral scene here. We also teach Austrian children Indian classical music with a spirit of mutual respect for each other’s musical genres.
“Western composers knew about Sakuntala after reading about it from German poet Goethe who spoke with great reverence about Kalidasas’ Shakuntala and had the lines printed in the Deufsche Monatsschrift (German Monthly Journal) as early as 1791. Geothe tried to find the score for it and came upon it by chance,” Wirth informed.
Wirth said that as a composer it is challenging to write an opera on a most intriguing story which also has a spiritual aspect to it.
Asked how he zeroed in on the Shillong Chamber Choir, Wirth said while scouting for a Choir that would be able to take up the challenge of performing an opera on a classical theme like Shakuntala, he was told that the SCC would be best suited for the project.
“Music is the best way to instill humility in any group because singers listen to each other and the Shillong Chamber Choir has demonstrated this humility and eagerness to learn. I find them quick learners. I shall return here one more time before the rehearsal in Austria with the whole Orchestra and then the final performance in October,” Wirth said.
Giving a background of the Vienna Boys’ Choir, Wirth said that as an Organisation they do research in psychology and brain science using music as a pedagogy to provide social skills and language skills for personal development. He said that children involved in choir singing are much more developed in social skills and language skills.
“We undertake projects for training choral singing around the world but stress on countries that have been through wars, such as Syria and other war torn countries like Jordan, Iran Iraq and Africa to make life more bearable for children. Children learn to develop a feeling of trust in someone after they learn to sing together,” Wirth stated saying they use music as a project to bring world peace.
Wirth further added that choral training involves discipline and ethics without which it is difficult to achieve excellence. The pedagogy adopted in choral training are life-building and life changing too.
