(Please play YouTube audio while reading this post)
Easter Day, 2006.
We left Joshua Tree National Park through the North Entrance, down Highway 195. Delicate pink-hued sands of the Mojave desert spilled out before us, over the horizon. The road ended at Twenty Nine Palms, a junction town populated by creosote tumbleweeds, corrugated aluminum dwellings, military families and desert hippies-cum-prophets, powered by the perpetual echo of Chuck Yeager’s half-century-old sonic boom.
From there, we hooked left onto Highway 62. We were driving my Dad’s vintage Alaskan camper, one of the few which uses a pumped hydraulic mechanism (“It Raises! It Lowers!”) My family and I hauled this thing all over Baja California during my childhood in a rusted-out Jeep Truck, which dropped its transmission, quite literally, a few too many times in Tijuana. My Dad recently had no choice but to buy a replacement; a brand-new midnight-blue Toyota Tundra. He painted the camper sky-blue so as to give the whole rig some class.
I had brought Huan home that spring break to re-live my fomative experiences of car camping. We were supposed to spend three nights in the park, but we only lasted two; the last spent at a run-down motel in town. Huan couldn’t make it past 48 hours without a hot shower. We also spent a good chunk of our first full day in the Home Depot Parking lot of Palm Springs, where Huan replaced a camper window that had gotten knocked out on the windy drive in on the 10. We failed to really leave civilization during that trip, but why make a big deal out of it? We got to scramble up the rocks, marvel at those Seussian trees, and suffer my Coleman -stove spaghetti. That sounds like camping to me.
The 62 made its steady decline towards Palm Springs, embracing the rim of the park, gently shepherding us from the Mojave to the Sonoran Deserts. Huan was driving. On a whim, I tuned into KUSC on the car radio, one of the few outstanding public classical stations on the west coast. The reception crackled, but I could still hear the strings give up a delicate, yet plaintive invocation, opening my favorite aria from Handel's Messiah:
“I know that my Redeemer liveth,
And that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth,
And tho' worms destroy this body,
Yet in my flesh shall I see God.
For now is Christ risen from the Dead,
The first fruits of them that sleep.”
This was a song of faith and promise. Not a song of celebration. We listened intently to the sobering text, surrounded by the desert, surrounded by the specter of modern-day neo-Evangelists who flock towards its bone-dry prophesy of a new Messiah. We were struck by the same spell, if only for that moment.
* * *
December 4, 2010
I sing Messiah, as a chorister, for the first time, with Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra in San Francisco. The period-instrument (18th century) orchestra, thanks to its leader, Nic McGegan, is credited with breathing new life into Handel's oratorios. McGegan makes every movement a dance, bursting with joy, and culls new gestures from both singers and instrumentalists for every word in Charles Jennens's stilted libretto. He lets us in on the inside joke, and jumps with glee when we get it.
The orchestra retunes after the Hallelujah Chorus. The erudite Berkeley audience murmers and stretches, but knows better than to leave. After a pause, McGegan returns to the stage, led by the four soloists, and all give the audience a collective, perfunctory bow. McGegan turns to the podium. The bass, tenor and countertenor walk to their seats, leaving soprano Mary Wilson alone to face the audience. McGegan leans to his left and gives the concert-mistress a nod. He raises his hand, then lets it drop gently. The orchestra responds with that same opening strain that broke away from my car radio years before. This time, the calligraphic figures, in their stately triple meter, weave around me in all directions. The mirth and ebullience of Part the First and the poignantly wrought drama of Part the Second are behind us. I am enveloped with the hope and promise of Part the Third.
When Mary Wilson sings “I know that my Redeemer liveth,” her voice rings with emphatic passion, yet is perfectly restrained. She Believes so fervently, she speaks with utmost patience. The Messiah need not come today or tomorrow. We know that he is coming. We know that everyone whom we ever lose remains alive, in our hearts, for as long as we keep vigil.
Her singing brings me back to that drive from Joshua Tree with Huan. I begin to cry. I sob. I convulse. I lose myself to the miracle of redemption from my back-row, center seat on the choir riser. I turn myself inside-out in full view of my peers, McGegan, the soloists and the 500+ member audience. They are enrapt by the music. They leave me in peace.
 |
| Huan T. Tran - Joshua Tree, CA - 2006. Photo credit: H.T.Tran & C.D.Winant |
