Richard Bado Runs a Tight Ship

by Eric Skelly

“I was destined to be a choral director,” he muses from his office at Rice University, where he is a professor of Opera Studies and director of the Opera Studies program.

With piano performance degrees from West Virginia University and the Eastman School of Music, Bado could easily have chosen the concert stage. But, he says, “I always wanted to be a high school choir director because I went through a phenomenal choral program in my own high school.” As early as second grade, he remembers, he was mystified by the beat patterns his choral teacher used to keep him singing in time with his classmates.

The Pittsburgh, PA native joined the Houston Grand Opera Studio in 1984. “One of the first things I did was to accompany chorus rehearsals,” he explains. “I enjoyed that a lot. Then I joined the music staff as assistant chorus master and requested to be on as many chorus shows as possible.” Four years later Bado had an opportunity to become assistant chorus master at English National Opera. But former general director David Gockley opened another door to him just in time and he became Houston Grand Opera Chorus Master in autumn of 1988.

“Once I get into rehearsal, that’s the fun part,” says Bado. He uses a technique called “count singing,” which he learned from his teacher the late Robert Shaw: “You first learn rhythm, then pitch, then you add text, then you add dynamics…you just layer, you don’t do everything at once.”

Auditions happen long before rehearsals begin and Bado has set his chorus up for success by choosing a talented and passionate group of singers. “This group has a combination of two things going for it,” Bado remarks. “It has the work ethic of a professional group, and the spirit of a volunteer group. Most of them work 9-to-5 jobs, and we rehearse six days a week. With a schedule like that you have to love it, or you just don’t do it. So there’s a good attitude to begin with. Every time we come to a production — even if it’s something they have done many times before — it’s as if they are discovering it anew. The combination of good, well-trained singers with this spirit makes for a good product.”

This unique troupe of dedicated singers will take center stage this winter in the HGO premiere production Chorus! The opera tells a dramatic story through twenty-three great choral numbers from around the world of opera, oratorio, and musical theater. In planning the opera’s repertoire, says Bado, a variety of styles and languages was the goal. “There are pieces people would recognize immediately, and pieces that are less well-known. Usually the chorus sings a whole evening of Verdi, or a whole evening of Wagner.” He continues, “We’re not used to doing that in an opera house in one evening — but here we’re doing a slough of different composers, so in a way this is more like a recital. The challenge is to make each piece sound different.” So how does he do that? With exacting preparation of music and language, varying the size of the chorus throughout the show, and well-timed contrasts of loud and soft singing.

With more than eighty singers in the spotlight, it’s no surprise that the logistics of Chorus! are an intricate affair: “You have to figure out how many people are in this number, and while they’re onstage, others are offstage changing costumes. It’s a huge production with more than 500 costumes, so it was quite a challenge to work all of that out with the costume and set designers.”

Season after season, the Houston Grand Opera Chorus has set the social and vocal scene for each company production. Now, at long last, the group’s talent, passion and versatility — brought to bear by leader Richard Bado — are the main attraction of Chorus!

Eric J. Skelly contributes regularly to Opera Cues and Time Out New York.