Yet, though she intends to go on in science after graduating and says, "I don't think after I get out of here that I'll ever conduct," she also adds, "I'm much more tied up in music than in my biology right now." When I first talked to Krag, over dinner in North House, she said that she turns premed only during reading and exam periods. Later she told me that wasn't really true, that she did work and just used her time efficiently, and then she added, "I essentially did Chem 20b during spring reading period." There is a lot of intellectual confidence behind her statements, and the offhanded pride in the way she describes her activities says. "I know what I can do and what I can do, I do well." At the same time there is little of the temperamental artiste in her.
La, la, la, la, laaaaaa. Up and down the scale, hold for 12 beats, faster, slower, "watch my hands!" The chorus is finishing its warmups. After it sings the first number, Krag remarks, "The reason we went over diction in the beginning was so you would do it in the song. Also, there was no difference between the forte and the rest of the song." It is the mildest of reproofs.
Krag asks one of the singers, "Do you want to run over your part now or later?" He decides to do it now. Several minutes later she asked another singer. "Do you want to do this a second time?" When one of the tenors stumbles over a passage he's done well before, she tells him. "You'll be better when you get more people singing." The cast is in a boisterous mood, and they're paying less attention than usual. Songs that were practiced in earlier rehearsals sound ragged and the singers are faltering over the words when they close their books. Ending the singing part of the rehearsal Krag addresses the chorus with the slightest hint of irritation. "If everyone could look over his part so I don't have to keep teaching it each time..." It is the first time there has been any tone of disapproval in her voice and even then that seems to have crept in only after great effort. Kathy Gratto takes charge now, announcing. "By Thursday night we will have the entire first act blocked except for the hip, hip, hoorays and the finale." Actors gasp Gratto then proceeds to demonstrate and describe the stage directions for act one in a rapid spiel that leaves most of the cast game but confused. Gratto is a natural clown, constantly mugging and cracking jokes; she is far more the ham than Krag is. Tonight, for the first time. Krag appears overshadowed, a little hesitant about giving out orders or reprimands.
Loren, one of the accompanists and Gratto's husband, told Krag after the first chorus rehearsal that she has "good conducting technique and no self-confidence." I ask if she thinks that is true. She pauses and then answers. "I'm getting it." She says she has to learn how to sell and regrets she can't whistle like so and puts two fingers in her mouth. "Right now I have to steel myself to get through a rehearsal. I'm not that good with a whole group of people I don't know. With Fiorello I could wait until I knew people better and then teach small groups. But I'm pretty sure of what I can do--it's not going to be bad, that's for sure."
She learned to conduct by directing a girls chorus in high school and by being conducted herself. "Years and years of experience teach you where the music needs a break." She has accompanied musicals and during her sophomore year she sang in Collegium. F. John Adams conducts the group and one senses how much her second experience with him shaped her own attitudes toward conducting and music in general. She criticizes Adams sharply for directing his attention only toward the sound a voice produces rather than to the voice and the person who owns it. "Singers come out of his concerts hoarse." Adams is a "very talented conductor" and his concerts sound "spectacular," but during the year she was in Collegium he made no efforts to bind the group. Her own efforts as a conductor are directed toward creating a rapport with her cast and orchestra. "I enjoy the leading." If she had to act or sing on stage, she says. "I'd get stage fright," but "when I come out to conduct and the spotlight is on me, I'm not scared at all."
Princess Ida opens April 17 Long hours of rehearsals, marking scores, teaching the orchestra its cues will culminate in eight performances and become only memories. Karen Krag is determined that for her and her cast those memories will be sweet ones.