Chorale conversations: Anne Fulton, alto soloist

You’ll be singing Handel’s ‘Messiah’ with Brisbane Chorale and Sinfonia of St Andrew’s on Sunday 15th November this year. Tell us about your past history with this cherished work and what it is you love about it.

I have always loved performing ‘Messiah’ both as a soloist and also as a chorister. I’ve lost count of how many performances I have been fortunate to be a part of over the years but it must be over 50 by now I think. I love that ‘Messiah’ represents powerful storytelling through wonderful music and always signifies the start of the Christmas season for me.

‘Messiah’ is a piece which traverses a huge range of emotions from deep darkness to ecstatic joy.  What do you do to prepare yourself to take the audience on that journey?

I really focus on the story we as performers are telling the audience with this work, so they can come on the journey with us and be fully immersed in the emotion and power of Handel’s beautiful music and text. Even though I have performed this work often I never assume it’s all locked away. I start preparing my score and singing the music back into my voice a few months out from the performance so that come show time I am very comfy and ready to go.

Soloists spend lots of time on stage waiting for cues in a work like ‘Messiah’.  How do you keep your voice warm and your mind focused during the long choral movements?

I always consider ‘Messiah’ to be a massive team effort; soloists, orchestra, choir and conductor, so I love that I have the opportunity when I’m not singing to sit back and enjoy the music being made around me by my talented colleagues. I often think I have the best seat in the house as I am up there on stage in the thick of the action with these incredible sounds washing over me! It’s usually in those moments that I also feel incredibly lucky to be doing what I am doing.

If you could go grab a coffee with Handel, what would you ask him about ‘Messiah’?

If I could grab a coffee with Handel now I’d love to ask if he ever imagined ‘Messiah’ would end up being one of the most recognised pieces of music in Western musical history. I’m sure he’d be blown away by how loved and known this work is.

Let’s talk about ‘Messiah’ scores – do you have a pristine one, or is it covered in old, messy pencil markings and secret notes?

To be honest I can’t remember when I bought my score but I remember thinking I needed to preserve it as best I could given it would be used a lot. The score is quite heavy and I don’t love holding a weighty folder so I decided early on I would cover my score in black contact. This way I can just hold it alone and keep it from aging too badly. It definitely has many pencil markings throughout as well as sticky tabs and paper clips from the various versions I have performed over the years. I have not made the move to the iPad score as yet as I love the tactile feel of the pages in my hands and to be honest I’m a little scared of a technology malfunction in the middle of an aria!!

Performing this mammoth work burns a lot of energy.  Tell us how you like to wind down from a big performance.

To be completely honest I don’t like to eat too much before I sing. I just try to stay well hydrated, relaxed and warm. My beautiful mum comes to pretty much all of my concerts and operas. She usually doesn’t eat much beforehand either as she gets nervous for me haha. So post performance, we have a long standing tradition of going to Maccas’ drive through on the way home for a large cheeseburger meal followed by shoes off, feet up on the couch and a good old debrief! 

If we were to delve into your music playlists, what is the most un-classical and surprising artist we might find?

My playlist is really varied as I like all styles of music. Apart from “classical” music, if you look in there you’ll find anything from One Direction to Coldplay, Sting, Billy Joel, Lady Gaga and Diana Krall. I also love a good movie score! John Williams, Hans Zimmer and Alan Silvestri are all geniuses.