Pickhardt, who became the conductor and artistic director of Ars Choralis in 1976, was professionally trained as a pianist but turned to choral music soon after college. She has led ensembles since high school, when she conducted a group of six girls who performed “all over Duluth, Minnesota.” Later she led an all-female nurses’ chorus at the University of Minnesota, conducted church choirs in California, and trained a boys’ choir to sing with the UCLA Opera in a performance of Carmen.
Composing began to take a large role in her life in 2000, when composer Robert Starer and his wife, writer Gail Godwin, started the Woodstock Cycle, commissioning local composers to set Bible stories and characters to music for performance at St. Gregory’s Church. Pickhardt asked Johanna Hall to write the lyrics for a Magnificat, the scene wherein the angel Gabriel tells Mary she is going to bear the son of God, and she responds with the words from Luke that begin, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God.”
This fifteen-minute piece for cello, piano, the voices of Mary and Gabriel, and a handful of choral singers, became the seed for Miracle in Bethlehem. Entitled “Mary in the Garden,” the original piece was a simple expression of the idea, said Hall, “that every mother is blessed.”
Then the authors decided to extend the story to incorporate the birth of Jesus, resulting in the 2003 Ars Choralis performance of a half-hour Miracle in Bethlehem, the second stage of development. “The most fun part of writing that was the inn scene,” recalled Hall. “I was raised Quaker, so I didn’t have the Bible study that others might have. It turns out the reason Mary and Joseph went to Bethlehem was to pay taxes and be counted. There was no room at inn because all the other people had come to pay their taxes, and they were drunk and pissed off, carousing, when there was a knock at door. We created an innkeeper and his wife, named John and Margaret.”
John and Joseph — portrayed in the current production by Jim Ulrich and his son, Matt — sing about the lack of room at the inn. But Margaret insists that it’s wrong to turn the couple away when the woman is about to give birth. It is she who suggests the stable as an option. Hall and Pickhardt chose to show the transformation that occurs at the inn from the mere presence of Mary.
After the 2003 performance, “we realized everything that was wrong or missing from the piece,” said Hall. “We’ve spent the last ten years revising, expanding, and rewriting. It’s now over an hour. I’ve been writing and researching Herod — a real bastard — and the Magi, who I conceive of as astronomer-astrologers, not just kings. At one rehearsal, Jim Ulrich heard the kings doing a scene, and he said this is the only Christmas opera ever written where Herod and the kings steal the show.”
Another challenge was to keep Mary active on the stage after the birth. The authors solved this problem by giving her a lullaby to sing. “Stay Awhile with Me” prefigures the rapid maturation and early death of Jesus while expressing emotions that will resonate with every mother. “It took years to figure out exactly what her tone should be,” said Pickhardt, “finding what was in her heart to say at that moment. Two mothers wrote the piece, so we hearken back to that moment in our lives when we gave birth, how our lives changed, and how you see past, present, and future all together, mixed in the same pot.”
Mary will be sung by soprano Amy Martin, who happens to be eight months pregnant with a boy, due on December 25. “We’re hoping the audience will be able to suspend disbelief during the annunciation and after the birth,” noted Hall. A talented understudy, Kimberly Horn, is standing by in case Martin is unable to perform.
Fifty members of Ars Choralis will back up fourteen soloists, including Amy Martin, Matt Ulrich, Jim Ulrich, Chuck Snyder, Laurel Herdman, Mark Lindeman, Tod West, Jim Noecker, Christina Gardner, Brian Lowe, Becky Lowe, Wendy Lowe, and Mike Haller.
Accompaniment will be provided by an instrumental ensemble of piano, cello, violin, trumpet and flute, including the conductor’s daughters, cellist Erica Pickhardt and pianist Kristen Tuttman.
Ars Choralis will perform Miracle in Bethlehem on Saturday, December 7, at 7 p.m. and Sunday, December 8, at 4 p.m. at Overlook Methodist Church, 233 Tinker Street, Woodstock. Tickets are $20 at the door, $15 prepaid, half-price for children under 18. Prepaid tickets are available until midnight December 6th and can be purchased online at www.arschoralis.org; in Kingston at Mother Earth’s Storehouse and Barcone’s Music; in Saugerties at DIG; and in Woodstock at Golden Notebook and Catskill Art and Office Supply.
