Article:  TRIMBLE'S MAGICAL PERFORMANCE

 

Trimble's Magical Performance / Master Class

 

Michael Trimble, an American voice teacher conducts a workshop in Baka that makes Malchiel Grossman feel somewhat inferior (but with charm).

 

On my way to the Carmeli School I was rather distraught.  A most difficult day was ahead of me, and I kept asking myself why I accepted the assignment, why I didn't check out the precise address and that I really would like to cancel and plead illness.  Two hours later the world looked more beautiful and I was a new person.  Yes---take note---a new person.

 

In fact, it all began last year, long before this fateful afternoon, when Hana Chinitz, the opera singer, (one of the loveliest person's I know) met Amalia Rooel and proposed to her that the world's finest voice teacher, Michael Trimble, be invited to the Hassadna Music Conservatory that she heads.

 

The workshop now underway at the Carmeli School and the Chinitz home nearby, is the culmination of that meeting.  Some twenty-five singers, beginners and professionals, are participating in the workshop.  However, as a three-month old voice student myself, I can unequivocally assert that there are no beginners in the class I attended and that what I heard made me feel that the distance between me and them could only be measured by Captain Kirk.  In any event, I came only to audit so that I couldn't possibly be embarrassed.

 

The sessions are conducted in a most relaxed atmosphere generated by Trimble, who came to Israel with his wife (a cantor and singer in her own right).  The special surprise I will describe later.  

 

After each student sings an aria or a few phrases, Trimble focuses on the weak points; various technical problems; breath support; proper expression and so on, which is most exciting to anyone, including non-opera singers, who ever asked himself how the human voice reaches where it reaches.

 

And now the surprise!

 

Her name, Joan Porackova, rose to demonstrate a few phrases, and as she opened her mouth, I immediately wondered why the glass pictures on the wall weren't shattered.  Her voice simply shook me up from top to bottom and penetrated such places in my mind that chemicals never reached!

 

Following the short piece, she continued with an aria that was even more beautiful and heavenly and literally tore me to pieces.

 

To my amazement, Trimble, after this tornado, began working on her weak points, something that was completely incomprehensible to me and I decided to leave before I could hear anymore and who knows what would happen!