Community Choir a must-see, must hear show

Times change. Many moons ago, when I was singing as a bass in the Nevada Community Choir, it was a genial mob, gathered on risers, each of us pretty poker-face, scared to budge lest we tumble onto the stage below.

Last night, in the Fox Theater, observing that Choir dress-rehearsing "Melody Lingers On -- The Songs of Irving Berlin,"

I started off sensing I'd somehow stumbled into an unfamiliar venue. There were only nine singers (four guys, five dolls); they weren't planted on the stage or on risers, but were moving around (sometimes comically) as if they had legs; they all had human expressions on their faces; and (Egad, folks!) they sang from the very get-go with confidence and gusto, as if they were having a ball, and didn't give a hoot if you knew it.

In his 101-year-long life, Irving Berlin wrote more than a thousand songs, and if that doesn't wow you, then consider this. George Gershwin may have written the 20th century's greatest American popular music, but he had his brother Ira to write the brilliant lyrics for it.. Likewise, Fritz Loewe may have written all the eminently hummable music for My Fair Lady, but his buddy Alan Jay Lerner created the memorable lyrics. And, finally, the great Richard Rodgers wrote great music as if there were no tomorrow, but he didn't write the lyrics. Lorenz Hart did. And when Hart died, Oscar Hammerstein II took over for him.

So, what about Irving Berlin and his 1,000-plus songs? Well, Irving wrote it all -- songs and lyrics, too. What a guy, heh? And as I sat in the theater and listened to some fine and cranked-up singers performing a wide range (both chronologically and stylistically) of Berlin's repertoire, I kept thinking, "Gosh, I didn't realize he wrote that ['Puttin' on the Ritz']" and "Yeah, I've always loved that song, especially when Astaire danced it."

I'm familiar enough with the gloriously ear-splitting, firebell voice of the late Ethel Merman to think I'd not have encouraged any female in Nevada's choir to sing one of her Berlin songs. But, then, I realize that by saying that, I'm just being a purist. and a 68-year-old, east-coast purist and Merman fan, at that.

This show's done the community a service in coaxing to the fore a group of individual singers who've hitherto been content, I guess, to sing en masse. I'm thinking of Arlene Good, director Brenda Golden, the potentially hilarious Tim Wilson, and, especially, John Scarborough, with whom I've sung in the Methodist chancel choir since 1973, but whose superb tenor voice I hadn't really heard until last night. Congrats, you guys!

I've never been able to say enough about the voice of Wes Morton, and in this show he extends his run of great solos. But at his heels is the gifted young tenor Scott Theis (your program offers woefully little but the sparsest information on him), about whose future performances for CCPA one can only hope to read in tomorrow's Nevada Daily Mail, sponsor of this show.

The other singers deserve praise, too: Teresa Sword, Bonnie Query, and Edi Gragg, each with her own particular style and sound. Eric Nichols's narration for the show provides a valuable real-life context for the songs, and Glenda Belt's accompaniment is both unobtrusive and flexible enough to adjust to individual singers' occasional dress-rehearsal fluffs.

And finally, I'm not sure how to praise director Brenda Golden, who seems to me to have gift-wrapped Berlin's shimmering music to a T. Way to go, Girl! She's the main reason I hesitate to think of her gift to Nevada as a "choir performance."

Stuffy, stuffy? Oh, no! It's, rather, the way Irving himself, I'm sure, would have liked to see and hear his music offered to the public.

Go see "The Melody Lingers On -- The Songs of Irving Berlin" at the Fox (110 S. Main), June 5, 6, or 7, at 8 p.m., or Sunday, June 8, at 2 p.m. And if you meet me on the street next week and tell me you missed it, then don't blame me!