Christine Baranski narrates `A Christmas Carol’ before returning for `The Gilded Age’ season 4
NEW YORK AP Christine Baransk i was in the playground outside St Matthew s Church in Bedford New York about three years ago when she came across Matthew Guard artistic director of the Grammy-nominated Skylark Vocal Ensemble I love choral music she stated him An Emmy- and Tony-Award winning actor Baranski went on to attend selected of his concerts I was a fangirl basically she recalled And I think we just commented Wouldn t it be fun to do something together Baranski agreed to narrate a music-and-spoken word version of Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol last December at The Morgan Library Museum in New York which owns the original manuscript of the classic A recording was made last June at the Church of the Redeemer in Chestnut Hill Massachusetts and issued Dec on the LSO Live label She will perform it again with the group on Thursday night at the Morgan which is displaying the manuscript through Jan and again the following night at The Breakers in Newport Rhode Island where she will again portray the acerbic Agnes van Rhijn when season four of HBO s The Gilded Age starts filming season on Feb I have this thing about keeping language alive keeping beautiful well-written language she commented Dickens Stoppard Shakespeare We re getting awfully lazy in our use of the English language She compliments Julian Fellowes creator of The Gilded Age and Downton Abbey for distinguished prose I think he d play Agnes if he could she revealed He gives her the witty stuff Baranski leaned on the skills that earned her an Emmy for Cybill and Tonys for The Real Thing and Rumors You get to bring to life a lot of different characters none the least of which is Ebenezer she revealed at the library this month It s wonderful for an actor to differentiate in as subtle a way as practicable these different characters As an acting piece it s wonderful And not several women have done it It s been done by Alistair Cooke and Patrick Stewart and Patrick Page and all these great actors but I get to do it with a chorus Guard weaves in underscoring by composer Benedict Sheehan with Baranski s words and carols that include Silent Night and Deck the Halls plus Auld Lang Syne Trimming was needed Reciting the entire story would have created a Wagnerian-length evening This manuscript itself is about words and we needed about to make it a concert length Guard announced I tried to create space in the narrative for obvious musical exclamation points or emotional feelings almost like arias in an opera Sheehan had worked together with Guard on a recording Once Upon a Time that weaved together the Brothers Grimm s Snow White and the Seven Dwarves and Hans Christian Andersen s The Little Mermaid I revealed why don t you commission me to write choral underscoring for the narrative that can kind of stitch together these different choral pieces Sheehan commented Baranski got narration experience in when she replaced Liev Schreiber with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra at Carnegie Hall for Beethoven s Egmont I could do this the rest of my career she thought at the time Just put me in a concert hall surrounded by great musicians Preparing for Gilded Age return After working with dialect coach Howard Samuelsohn Baranski practiced on Zoom to hone a th-century voice and avoid clich I explained this is a good warm up for Aunt Agnes because it s that kind of speech we were taught at Juilliard the -year-old Baranski explained recalling lessons from Edith Skinner decades ago Sometimes it s just a question of modulating your voice just different rhythms and staccato or legato she explained I want the voice of the Ghost of Christmas past to be disembodied ethereal She didn t have an urge to join in on the carols We take from each other she revealed When the chorus first heard my version of it I think it subtly influenced the feeling of it and I take from the mood of the carol and bring it into my interpretation It s a really exciting back-and-forth literally Guard mentioned It s not really totally clear who s driving the bus at times Possibly an annual holiday entertainment Baranski hopes the project has a future We want to film this someday in the Morgan she announced Make this a yearly event at the Morgan because here s the manuscript and people It s just one of those things like Handel s Messiah or The Nutcracker She s going to gift the CD to her grandchildren four boys ranging from ages to Among her previous holiday experiences was portraying Martha May Whovier in the movie Dr Seuss How the Grinch Stole Christmas They re curiously not interested in my even being Martha May in The Grinch Baranski explained Their friends sometimes say That s your grandmother But I just want to be their grandma do you know what I mean and not somebody Source
