“All of us are stars. Some are greater stars, and some are smaller stars. It’s like a constellation. If you’re Orion, and you’re the belt in Orion, then you’re Mr. Domingo, or Mr. Pavarotti, or Madame(s) Caballe or Freni. But then there are the other people who fill out the heavens like the Milky Way. That’s the chorus. And they are stars, too. And they’re us.”
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That’s the first voice–speaking voice, that is–heard in the documentary In the Shadow of the Stars: The Lives of Singers. The voice belongs to native Chicagoan Paul Gudas, a longtime mainstay of the Lyric Opera Chorus and a former member of the San Francisco Opera Chorus, the one this film focuses on. Gudas is one of several choristers interviewed and tracked in this well-wrought film by Allie Light and Irving Saraf. Made over the course of several years, In the Shadow of the Stars offers some thoughtful insights into the rather strange world of the opera chorus.
Pathos abounds. We encounter it in the story of Christine Lundquist, who constantly saves until she can afford yet another European audition tour singing for yet another set of bored agents, and who faces the approach of middle age without career, family, or major possessions. We find it in the continuing saga of baritone Frederick Matthews, who finally gets his “big break” after two and a half years of auditioning, in the form of a tiny role with a smaller opera company. Making it as a soloist seems to require equal parts of talent, drive, luck, and knowing the right people. All the singers in this movie are lacking in one or more of these; the solo singing we hear from the choristers is pretty unimpressive.
