"The Story Of Chess" ends with Arbiter alone on stage, setting up the next song. He announces that he's the President of the organizers of the tournament, which is between Freddy Trumper of the U.S., and Anatoly Sergievski of the Soviet Union.
During this brief piece of dialogue, the band plays the Arbiter's "theme", which is the first phrase of the Arbiter song: "I've a duty as the referree ..." This phrase is played twice here, and I reuse it late in the second act. It's interesting to note that Benny & Bjorn (to be referred to from now on as B&B) are using this theme before it's used in a song. Normally in a musical, a melody line is reprised AFTER it's been established; here, the melody line is "pre-reprised". "The Arbiter" isn't sung until halfway through the first act.
"#2 Merano" is supposed to start with 11 bars of underscoring, but it's unclear what this is supposed to underscore. The end of "Story Of Chess" has plenty of music for the Arbiter to give his lines. Also, those first 11 bars are labelled measures A-K, which indicates that it was added to the original score at some point. My guess is that there was a scene change here, and these extra bars were added to cover it. The original soundtrack album actually starts with bar 1 of "Merano", so after our Arbiter says, "Welcome to Merano!", we started the song.
It's coincidental that I've reached this point of the Chess Chronicles the night before Mrs. Pianoman and I are headed to Italy. Some folks from her choir are joining another choir in Rome, and they will be singing the Verdi Requiem at three locations across the country. Our trip will take us through Rome, Florence, Verona, Vincenza, Asiago, and Vcnice; unfortunately, we will be passing roughly 2 1/2 hours south of Merano, and will not be able to partake of the spa there.
The character of Anatoly Sergievski is loosely based on two Soviet chess champions: Anatoly Karpov, and Viktor Korchnoi. It's interesting to note that these two champions played the 1981 World Chess Championship in Merano, and is certainly one of the reasons Act 1 is located there. Another interesting chess fact is that the "Meran Varation" of the "Semi-Slav Defense" is name after the city following its successful use in a chess tournament held in Merano in 1924.
"Merano" is in a fast 6/8, and most of the lyrics are sung on eighth notes. This gives it a real "patter song" feel. The trick to making the song work is setting the tempo slow enough to where the audience can understand the lyrics, while keeping it fast enough to be bouncy and joyful. These are the residents of Merano, clinking their wine glasses together, and singing about how wonderful their town is, so it needs to be happy.
There are many great lines from the song, but my favorite is:
Right now we're Italian / We used to be German / The borders keep shifting around
This is a reference to World War 2, when Italy was occupied by the Nazis.
The Mayor of Merano is a pure capitalist:
Speaking as one of the patriarchs / I don't mind taking your Lira or Marks
For those of you born after the Euro, the Lira was the currency of Italy in the pre-Euro days. Austria is just north of Merano, and their pre-Euro currency was the Deutschmark - "mark" for short.
Each time the Mayor sings, the music ritards to a stop ... then there's a pause, and then off we go again. Normally, these moments are conducted from the pit, with the music director visible to the cast. However, the Lyceum Theater at Vanguard University doesn't have a pit. The theater was originally a lecture hall, and was converted to a theater ... and since lecture halls don't have pits, this theater doesn't have one either. There's not really room for one anyway, as the center seats are only a couple yards away from the stage.
Instead, the pit is elevated above the audience and the stage, to the stage left side. We refer to it as the "loft", or sometimes the "crow's nest". Since it's not within the normal sight line of the singers, we need to create ways to stay together in the absence of a conductor's bow.
In the case of "Merano", the way we come back together is four counts, in "normal" tempo, from the time I play the seventh note in the E7 chord, i.e., the "D". So literally in my mind, I'm thinking:
D, two, three, four
If you do that same thing enough during rehearsals, eventually the ensemble starts to intuitively sense when to come back in. Also, doing these kinds of things over and over helps everyone get used to the idea of "feeling it".
Most shows at the Lyceum utilize these workarounds to some extent. There are several more in Chess, and I'll note them when they occur.
One other quick note about this section has to do with the whistling. We tried it a few times during rehearsal, but couldn't get it loud enough to actually be effective. Since the cast was moving here, we decided to just abandon it. Put this under the category of, "Yes, this would be cool, but audience members aren't going to miss it when it's gone". I ended up playing the melody line myself.
After the "whistling section", there's a brief instrumental section that slows to a halt before restarting with the ensemble. This is another "cast can't see the conductor" moment, and so I decided to just skip the rallantando completely. So from the start of the whistling section, I maintained a steady tempo all the way until the ensemble came back in.
More about "Merano", and the first appearance of Freddie Trumper, in Part 6. For now, Mrs. Pianoman and I need to finish packing for our Italian adventure. Here's one of my favorite Italian songs, along with amazing animation:
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