WCET-TV does what television does best in The City That Sings: Cincinnati May Festival, taking us inside a place we never have seen, and showing us how something is made.
Writer-director-producer Richard Wonderling brings viewers inside May Festival Chorus rehearsals to show how the award-winning "chorus of everyday people" is preparing for the 150th May Festival May 19-27.
It's also an intimate look at choir master Robert Porco, who has announced his retirement after the 2024 May Festival.
The City That Sings, which premiers Saturday (7 p.m., Channel 48), profiles five members of the volunteer community chorus (Lawrence Coleman, Takuya Konishi, Julia Lawrence, Julia Marchese, Mark Weaver) by showing them at work, and practicing for hours at home.
Wonderling also tells the story with beautiful aerial photography and terrific shots of the city, Music Hall and Over-the Rhine. The opening is truly magical when an overhead view of the Roebling Suspension Bridge morphs into the sheet music notes of "Breaths of Universal Longings," a piece commissioned for the May Festival's 150th anniversary.
"We wanted to feature shots of Cincinnati, and didn't want to use the same shots you see every day. It was one of those things you say, 'We could do this,' and when you're editing it you say, 'Wow! That came together well!,' " Wonderling says.
But the heart and soul of the film — and the chorus — is Porco, a Steubenville native shown playing his accordion as a kid.
"Not until my mid 20s did I get interested in so-called classical music," he says in the program.
Viewers will see how Porco demands excellence from this group of non-professional singers he molds into a world class chorus. The Cincinnati May Festival Chorus has sung at Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall in New York City, presented numerous world premieres and collaborated with classical music superstars Leonard Bernstein, Leontyne Price and Kathleen Battle.
The City That Sings captures Porco, the tough taskmaster since 1989, who occasionally scolds the singers about their errors.
"These are not just suggestions," he says while pointing at them with his index finger. "Obviously I'm not a dictator, but THAT'S intentional there."
Lawrence Coleman, a chorister since 1998, explains that "Bob pushes for perfection."
"The most interesting thing to me — and the most eye-opening — was to see that (rehearsals) have the intensity of a sports practice," says Wonderling, the WPTD-TV senior producer who oversaw the 2017 Cincinnati Music Hall: The Next Movement special about the massive Music Hall renovation.
"I loved the rehearsals. They are not at all what I expected, to see them being scolded, and to respond. I thought it would be more social or cordial, like a church choir practice. But when you chase excellence, this is how it happens," Wonderling says.
The City That Sings also includes a look at the Cincinnati Choral Academy after-school program, and the May Festival Youth Chorus with students in grades 8-12 from 20 area school districts. Since the May Festival is two weeks away, the film features the May Festival Chorus singing in Music Hall for the American Choral Directors Association's national convention here in February.
That's a lot to pack into a 30-minutes show. But it's 10 times longer than originally envisioned by the managers of the regional public television organization serving Cincinnati and Dayton. The May Festival project was first discussed last summer as a group of one- to three-minute "interstitial" videos to air between TV shows.
"The more I learned about the May Festival, and the May Festival Chorus, that didn't seem to be fitting for the 150th anniversary," Wonderling says. "I'm an outsider. I don't live in Cincinnati. I approached it as I did the Music Hall show in 2017. I don't know a lot about it, but I bring a boatload of curiosity."
Had he more time, Wonderling could have devoted some time to the founding of the chorus in 1873 and its rich history. The City That Sings also doesn't explain that Music Hall patrons hear unique programs each of the four evenings.
He had plenty of footage — more than 15 hours of video after shooting January rehearsals with five cameras.
"It could have been an hour. I've been doing this since 1981 and it seems to happen with every documentary: You work really hard getting all the footage, and then you work really hard in the editing to leave out 75 percent of what you shot," he says.
At the end of the show, Porco talks about how the chorus melds into a "a true sense of family. I think that's largely cultivated by the fact that in May there's 16 nights in a row … It's a life, and I love it, and I can't imagine doing without it."
But we'll always have The City That Sings to remind us of Porco's passion.
The City That Sings: Cincinnati May Festival premieres 7 p.m. Saturday, May 6, on WCET-TV (Channel 48). It will also be available to stream live on the PBS App livestream, Local Live and YouTube TV. The documentary will then be available to stream on demand on the CETconnect website, the May Festival website and on YouTube. It will not be available on the PBS Video App. The program also will air on CET Arts (Channel 48.3) throughout the day on May 9, 10, 11, 30 and 31.
