03.5 Visitors for the Chalet School (25 page)

The big classroom was being used as a preliminary dressing-room, since the green room beside the stage was reserved for the many quick changes during the performance. There was also an area screened of at the back of the hall, where those waiting to make entrances through the audience could sit unobserved. This group was under the supervision of Matron, crackilng with starched efficiency. Any attempt at whispering or giggling was ruthlessly quelled; Joey, who had muttered something about “fearing the ancient Mariner” and his “skinny hand”, was treated to a sharp rebuke that reduced her to instant and continued silence.

Soon after two o’clock Miss Maynard came to escort the Grange House party to the hall, which as now beginning to fill with visitors. A number of people had come from the villages round about, for this was the third year that the Chalet School had given a nativity play and their performances had gained a high reputation locally. There were also some of the school parents who either livednear Briesau, or were sufficiently energetic to cope with the climb up to the Tiernsee from the valley.

The hall was bright with decorations of coloured paper and sweet-smelling fir and pine ranches. A tall Christmas tree stood near the door; it was glittering with tinsel and small glass ornaments, but there were no candles on it. There were, however, four lighted candles on a big wreath woven from fir branches, which stood on a table at the other side of the door.

“That’s a jolly sort of decoration,” Joan commented as they went into the hall. “I haven’t seen one quite like it before.”

“Oh, that’s an Advent crown,” Pamela explained. “Fräulein Hässe told us about them. She got terribly enthusiastic one day in a German lesson and started telling us at great length all about Christmas in Germany. Funny, because she’s usually such a dull old stick. Anyway, there’s one candle on the crown for each Sunday in Advent; last week three candles would have been lighted, but today’s the fourth Sunday so they’re all lit.”

Mrs Russell and Mademoiselle Lepâttre were standing at the front of the hall to welcome the guests as they arrived; Miss Maynard then showed them to their seats, giving them a programme which included the words of the three carols the audience would be asked to sing with the choirs.

“Sit next to me, do please!” hissed Joan out of the corner of her mouth to Patricia. “I just can’t bear to be beside Veronica if she’s going to make her usual fatuous remarks.”

“Perhaps it would be a kindness to Veronica as well; save her from the remarks
you’d
probably make,”

Patricia murmured austerely, although her eyes were twinkling.

The Grange House group seated themselves in the two rows Miss Maynard had indicated and found that just behind them were Herr and Frau Dobler from the Stephanie, with whom they all exchanged friendly greetings. The younger members of the hotel staff were also there, and a beaming Liesel came up to show Patricia her left hand with its beautifully healed scar.

At last everyone had arrived. Miss Denny, who was staying at the school to help with the music, sat down at the piano. The violinist and cellist took their places and Mr Denny waited in readiness either to conduct the choir or to take the flute part in the instrumental accompaniments.

At a signal from Miss Wilson that all was now ready backstage, Mrs Russell stood up and explained to the audience as she did each year, that there would be no applause either during or after the performance; she also drew their attention to the words of the carols printed in the programme.

The lights everywhere were turned off. The audience waited expectantly.

From somewhere far off in the silent darkness came the ringing of many bells – faint at first, gradually louder, then dying away. And now voices, distant but clear, could be heard singing:
Ding dong merrily on high,

In heaven the bells are ringing.

Ding dong, verily the sky

Is riven with angels singing:

Glo – o – o – oria in excelsis deo!

The sound grew nearer. Then, as the leaping triumphant refrain was repeated, the doors at the back of the hall were thrown open; lights and music streamed in; and the singers, dressed in white and each carrying a lighted candle, came slowly down the aisle between the seats and moved in procession to stand below the stage, facing the audience.

In the second and third verses the instruments joined the voices; and here Mr Denny had written an accompaniment that managed to create the impression of carillons ringing from a multitude of bell-towers.

It was a joyful opening, and no one hearing it now could have guessed how much trouble it had caused during rehearsals. To keep those florid “Glorias” of the chorus in tune, while walking slowly forward, had proved exceedingly difficult for the young singers. At one rehearsal Mr Denny, in his desperation at the way the choir’s pitch kept getting flatter, had come near to tearing out his considerable amount of hair. (It had not gone unremarked by the Grange House girls that Mr Denny’s hair actually reached over his collar. Patricia had thought with grim amusement how horrified her mother would be to see any man – “even a musician” –with hair of this length.) When the carol ended, the instrumentalists continued playing while the choir moved into the green room.

Here they quickly blew out their candles and put the candlesticks down on a table in the corner.

Mademoiselle was so nervous at the idea of the girls carrying lighted candles that she had only been persuaded to allow it when Miss Wilson volunteered to stand by and make sure personally that every candle was properly extinguished.

Joey’s nose wrinkled as the smell of snuffed candles began to pervade the room. But there was no time for her, or anyone else, to complain. Already the flute could be heard, quietly playing the melody of the next carol, “This Is the Truth Sent From Above”; and the singers had immediately to move towards the positions they were to take up on stage, or in the hall.

The curtains were drawn back and, as the choir started to sing, some of the girls moved across the stage and down into the extreme right-hand corner, outside the proscenium arch; here they arranged themselves in a picturesque group, the tallest girls on the outside. During the next verse a similar group took their places in the left-hand corner.

Meanwhile two other groups had been moving slowly into the hall, taking up positions to right and left, in front of the stage. By the end of the final verse the girls, in their long white draperies, were forming a living frame for the pictures about to be presented on the stage.

A few of the choir remained in the wings; they were to move occasionally into the green room, to give the impression that the singing was coming from afar. This last group included Joey who, having an exceptionally beautiful voice, was to be the principal soloist.

The audience had learned from the programme that there were four main sections in the play: the Fall, the Waiting, the Coming, the Adoration.

In previous years, the nativity plays performed had always been extremely simple, but this year Madge Russell had sought for something rather different. For the first time they had a hall with a proper stage, and this made it possible to aim at a more spectacular presentation. But she had also been anxious to preserve the essential simplicity of a Mystery play. Joey had described the result to the Grange House girls as “something between a Christmas pageant and a carol service”. She added, “but I s’pose we use more carols than you’d have in a service. Only we don’t sing all the verses, of course.”

Madge’s plan was to present the Christmas story, beginning with the fall of Adam and Eve and the promise of a saviour, in a series of mime and tableaux. During and between the scenes there would be a variety of Christmas music, and the scenes were also linked by very short spoken commentaries – some taken from the Bible, others written by the girls themselves.

The latter idea also represented a new departure; for up until now Madge had always written all the material herself. “But I feel it would be good this year to involve the girls more directly,” she had confided to Mademoiselle during one of her visits to the school in early October. “I shall try the idea first with my English literature group. But it might also be fascinating to see what the little ones could produce. I’ve always found their ideas most revealing when we have our quiet talks on Sundays.”

And, in the event, both Madge and Mademoiselle – not to mention Miss Annersley, who was now taking over much of the work with the Senior English classes – were delighted with the results. The only problem had been that of choice, since time allowed for only a few of the girls’ commentaries to be used. In the end, it was Bette Rincini’s brief paragraph on the story of Adam and Eve that was chosen to accompany the opening tableau. This, when the curtains parted during the singing of “Adam Lay Ybounden”, showed the barred gates of Paradise, sternly guarded by the angel with the fiery sword – a dramatic role much relished by Deira O’Hagan, and for which her dark hair and striking good looks fitted her admirably.

Following this scene, the verses in which Isaiah foretells that “there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse” were spoken with quiet sincerity by Rosalie Dene, and the choir continued the theme with the beautiful sixteenth-century “
Es ist ein’ Ros’ entsprungen
“.

To symbolize the long waiting down the ages for the Messaiah’s coming, there were tableaux of captives languishing in prison; workers in the fields praying for rain; men leaving their weeping wives to go to war; and galley slaves groaning at their oars, while their overseer (Gertrud Steinbrücke doing her best to appear cruelly unrelenting) brandished a whip. Here, again, the story was complemented by the singing – first, the plainsong “
Rorate Coeli desuper
” then part of the old English “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel”.

In the third section the audience were charmed by the account of the Angel Gabriel’s coming to Mary. This had been written, entirely without assistance, by the Juniors, and was delightfully narrated by ten-year-old Amy Stevens and little Robin Humphries. The children had used some quaint turns of phrase and the audience almost laughed to hear that “Our Lady jumped when she first saw this great big angel. He was like a tall, beautiful mountain. She said: ‘Oh, you
did
give me a fright. Go away, please!’” But there was no doubt that, for the listeners as well as for the children, the familiar story came to life in a new way. The carol which followed, “
Es steht im Himmel ein Lindenbaum
“, is an old German Christmas song, telling of the Annunciation, and it was new to all the English listeners. Afterwards came the “Cherry Tree Carol”, and here Mary and Joseph were shown making their way to Bethlehem. Then the innkeeper – a part Evadne Lannis had been allowed to take over, much to her delight – was seen turning the weary pair away from the crowded inn and, in the next tableau, leading them out to the stable.

Now the choir, accompanied by muted strings, began to sing softly:
O Little One sweet,

O Little One mild,

Thy Father’s purpose

Thou hast fulfilled.

Hearing the old Christmas lullaby most of the audience expected the next scene to be a tableau of the nativity. But this Madge Russell was reserving for the end of the pageant. Instead the stage was now in darkness, except for one corner where a soft light shone, coming, it seemed, from the mouth of a cave.

The third verse of “O Little One Sweet” faded away, and there was a long silence. The curtains remained open. Then from the darkness and stillness a solo voice, clear and beautiful, was heard:
I sing of a Maiden

That is makèless;

King of all kinges

To her Son she ches.

He came all so still

Where His Mother was,

As des in April

That falleth on the grass.

Joey sang alone until the end of second verse; then during the final sections the choir and the strings, stil muted, joined to weave a gentle background for her singing.

In the hush that followed, the curtains were very slowly closed. With dramatic suddenness, the full choir burst into a resounding
“Gloria in excelsis Deo”
specially composed by Mr Denny; and the curtains parted to reveal a brightly-lit tableau of the angels appearing to the shepherds.

This led into the fourth section, beginning with the adoration of the shepherds and the coming of the three wise men from the East – their roles filled with all the majest they could command by Grizel Cochrane, Vanna di Ricci and Paula von Rothenthals.

During the tableau of the Magi offering their gifts, Joey’s voice was heard once more. This was in Peter Cornelius’s song, “Three Kings from Persian Lands Afar”, where the soloist’s voice makes beautiful embroideries round a chorale, “
Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern
“, sustained in harmony by the choir.

It was at this point in the pageant that Miss Durrant and her team of backstage helpers were stretched to the full. For, after the three great kings came other kings and lords and ladies. Beggars too, and cripples. Peoples in the national dress of different lands – here Maria Marani looked particularly striking in the Tyrolean costume that had been a gift from her older sister, Gisela (soon to be Frau Gottfired Mensch, though in the not so distant past the much loved first head girl of the Chalet School). Soldiers, sailors and dancers followed. People from medieval times, and from the present day. To the audience it seemed as though the newborn babe – from down the ages of history and across the nations of the world – were now arriving to kneel in reverence at the entrance to the cave, before disappearing into the darkness. But still the audience had not been shown the scene within the stable.

The last group to appear represented children of the modern world, and consisted of four Juniors – Thyra and Ingeborg Eriksen, wearing everyday Chalet School garb, the Robin and Amy Stevens in Brownie uniform. They tiptoed over to peer into the cave entrance, their faces intent and solemn.