Thursday December 20, 2001
If there is any occasion that could be termed the High Church event of the kueer kultur kalendar it is the annual Christmas concert of the New York City Gay Men’s Chorus at Carnegie Hall. This is the time to wear those diamond ear studs and the sequined tux. Last night, aglow with the glitter of the holiday spirit, I set out for Carnegie Hall at dusk. Because of all the post 9/11 changes in the subway system, I arrived at the wrong avenue and asked a besuited handsome gentleman, "which way to Carnegie Hall?" Even though I had carefully avoided giving him the proper cue, he could not resist and responded, "You want to get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice!!" (groan).

The circus outside the theatre had all the usual suspects: ticket scalpers, gorgeous men waiting for their lovers to show up, and sweet little old ladies hesitantly holding up extra tickets because their crony Agnes had cancelled at the last minute. It was the latter that I sought and found in the ’20 minutes before showtime’ window when tickets must go. It could not have been more classic: she was the mother of one of the singers; his friend suddenly couldn’t make it, and she was looking for a nice young gentleman to sell the ticket to and to sit next to. I’m not young, but anyway we had really lovely seats in the orchestra within crotch sniffing distance of the stage. We chatted amiably, I knew just the tone to take with her (as Mr. Isherwood said of a gentleman he’d met on a train journey to Berlin so long ago) and we got on quite well. "There he is! See? up in the back; he’s a proctologist..," she told me proudly, pointing out her boy. ("Tommy, Tommy yoo hoo, mummy’s here.") I bit my tongue and resisted asking her if he’s single. I had almost bought a 4^th balcony ticket from a butch bunch of queens in full leather drag; as it was I went home alone, but at least I was able to walk, my dears.

Mr. Jeffery Maynard, the new handsome, young, cherubic, artistic director, was making his Carnegie Hall debut. That, of course, is the holy grail of any musician’s aspirations; and he was sweating profusely, poor blond baby. What more could anyone want than to snuggle up in front of a crackling fireplace with a zaftig boy like him on a cold winter’s night. Sigh…. Where was I? The changes from previous years were quite clear. The NYCGMC that I saw this night was a precision machine of crack synchronized singing without a hair out of place, but alas somewhat less free and openly gay. I sensed a delicate shift in the direction of ‘mainstreaming,’ alas. Like the practice of the Vienna Boy’s Choir, the first half of the concert was a demonstration of the pinnacle of professionalism by a first rate group singing pure traditional classics heavy on highly enunciated Latin interpretations, to show the low class audience of leering pervs that they are not just eye-candy. In the second half, there was highly choreographed boy-camp, after all, for the sake of gratification; ‘there ya go.’ Bitchy cynicism aside, however, this was a fantastically enjoyable grand show that was intentionally wholesome fun for the whole family. I stood on my seat applauding, as it were, even if I hadn’t had to clap enthusiastically because I was sitting next to the mother of one of the singers. The first half included, A Jubilant Gloria, Ave Maria, Light the Legend, O Magnum Mysterium, The Prayer, A Christmas Carol, and a ‘holiday sing along’. You really could tell that this was a gay event, nevertheless, because the intermission line to the men’s room pissiour was longer than the one for the women’s.

This was the full home-team bursting the stage; there were 33 first tenors, 64 second tenors, 48 baritones and 46 basses, a brass ensemble, harp, piano, percussion, bass fiddle, and an almost invisible and barely heard theatre organ. Plus there was a sub group double barbershop quartet of cuties dubbed the Uptown Express with special guest star (my eyes popped out of my head, my jaw dropped to the floor) Miss Carol Channing! No, not a drag queen, it was really her herself. And as Marlene did in her later years, she carried on like an old trouper stealing the show and giving goose-bumps to every righteous queer in the audience. (pause for tears of sentimental joy, breath).

Other guest stars were Met soprano Sondra Radvanosky (Go tell it on the Mountain, and O Holy Night), and pop star Sam Harris who sang a ‘dramatized’ interpretation of Little Drummer Boy. Having demonstrated that he can be serious, Mr. Harris then kicked back and launched into red hot jazz and Michael Jackson-style body movements, singing Santa’s Blues accompanied by jumpin’ jazz pianist Tod Schroeder. Mr. Harris was a bit too magnanimous for someone I’d never heard of. But, he had a cute butt that he wiggled at the grateful audience and he sang like gangbusters despite wearing leather pants so tight that they would asphyxiate the voice projection of any ordinary boy.

If this show were to have a ‘theme’ one would expect it to be ‘a gay Christmas.’ But what emerged was a ‘post September 11^th’ performance. It is one thing to properly acknowledge the somber wartime environment of post-attack New York with a moment of silence; it is another thing to nearly commercialize the new order of nationalistic political correctness. The gay theme seemed somewhat sidelined in order to be on the bandwagon least anyone think a gay group was any less patriotic in these times. The traditional oversized red AIDS ribbons on the lapels of the choir had morphed into red, white, and blue American Flag ribbons. Just prior to the intermission there was a 15 minute interlude in which the chairman or president or whatever of NYCGMC introduced the queeny Executive Vice President of the main corporate sponsor of the chorus who spoke of ‘our commitment to BE in New York and continue to sponsor this event despite September 11^th…to renew our City…," all very well and good. But, later our ‘serious’ Mr. Harris gave his own speech expressing how he felt, "to be back in New York for the first time since September 11^th…" and then sang a syrupy interpretation of A World of Difference, nearly yodeling with sentiment but still showing his padded crotch. You have to be really good to successfully tug the emotions of an audience of thousands of New Yorkers packed into Carnegie Hall; and Mr. Harris was good. Some people rose to their feet to applaud. The reason for my apparent disillusionment is personal, I must admit. My lover of 17 years, who died of AIDS in ’91, loved Christmas. He DID Christmas bigtime. I miss him. I wanted a ‘big gay campy Christmas show with big red AIDS ribbons’ so that I could get teary eyed as I always do at this time of year when I think about him. So, I’m a bit grumpy and bitchy that that was partially superceded by current events, OK?

There was some clean camp in the second half. Ms. Candy Claus, in Christmas drag and inspired exaggerated falsetto, assisted by elves ‘Chelsea Clone’ and ‘Twink,’ was quite tipsy on too much spiked eggnog and got very mixed up with the words of the carols in hilarious counterpoint with the ‘straight-banana’ chorus and conductor who were ‘trying to sing the traditional melodies.’ It was brilliantly choreographed, with Ms. Claus singing "do you hear what I hear…" and the chorus suddenly bursting into Hava Nagila, their hands thrusting into the air.