The death scene of young Beth (sweet-voiced Stacey Tappan) is undermined by mawkish music for an angelic off-stage chorus.
Scored for a cast of 11, an orchestra of 18 and an off-stage chorus, the music seems almost calculated not to rattle listeners wary of contemporary music.
Le Roi Arthus is about the conflict between honour and betrayal, ideal and reality, and it ends with an off-stage chorus promising Arthur the eventual triumph of his ideals.
In Act 2 a short orchestral introduction is followed by an off-stage chorus, notable for its sparse accompaniment a tambourine and two piccolos.
Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari's lurid Neapolitan tragedy I gioielli della Madonna lacks the traditional verismo double-murder but compensates with two intermezzi, dancing mafiosi, a profusion of on-stage bands and off-stage choruses, a jewel heist, semi-incestuous sex, a brace of suicides and a feast day procession in which street cries, dance and plainsong scorch the ears.
Sheer size almost did in the Donizetti, with stage band, chorus and pit orchestra conducted by Bertrand de Billy often dangerously at odds.
When Son Lux sang, "Come out!," over and over, we could see, in the narrow strip created by the raised curtain, the dancers' legs as they took the stage; the chorus members left the aisles and went to sit in the balcony.
Cantor Digitalis is a musical instrument, and it is regularly played on stage by Chorus Digitalis 1, the choir of Cantor Digitalis.
The libretto was changed frequently during the creation process, even when the work had reached the rehearsal stage; the chorus "L'ombre descend" was added at Bizet's request, and other numbers were shortened or removed.
The extent to which Rhys drew on her own life means her stories and novels contain many repeating elements: a childhood on the Caribbean island of Dominica, English public school and stage school, chorus-line work, hard times in Paris, Bloomsbury bedsits, exploitation, alcoholism, depression, and the loneliness of the perennial outsider.
That is the fate of New York City Opera, in the view of the American Guild of Musical Artists, the union that represents the company's chorus, stage directors and stage managers.
