84-year-old, veteran Carnegie Hall singer got start in South Side Choir

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A 1951 South Side High School alumna and longtime choral singer, Elaine Bergman, saw her first live opera as a 10th-grader in 1949, and has since performed more times than she can count at Carnegie Hall.

She remembers piling into a bus with her classmates bound for Broadway and 39th Street in Manhattan, where the Metropolitan Opera House originally stood, with former South Side music teacher Sally Dietrich. “Oh, what a beautiful place,” Bergman recalled of the performance space, which moved to Lincoln Center in 1966.

The opera house trip “certainly fell into my passion,” Bergman said. “Mrs. Dietrich taught us about the arias and the composers so that we were familiar with the music when we got there. She was wonderful.”

Bergman started listening to opera on radio broadcasts with her mother when she was young. She began playing piano at age 4, and was singing in the South Side High School choir at 13. She has been singing ever since.

“There was always the belief, and now there is evidence, that people who sing in choruses live longer and seem to be happier,” the 84-year-old musician said. “And it may be coming from the fact that after singing in a chorus, you all begin to breathe together. We are all taking a breath together, and in doing so, there is togetherness and a sense of community.”

Bergman sang “The Messiah” at Carnegie Hall last Sunday with the Cecilia Chorus of New York, which she joined about 13 years ago. Formerly known as the Saint Cecilia Chorus, the group, which is over 100 years old, has about 175 members.

Bergman, who now lives in Bergen County, N.J., attends rehearsals once a week and carpools with fellow New Jersey friends she met in the chorus: Carol Stromek, 65, and Jack Houseman, 68.

“Elaine has been very good at bolstering my courage to sing,” said Stromek, an alto who joined the Cecilia Chorus in 2008. “I was a clarinet player and didn’t have any vocal training. She’s been keeping me supported when my voice felt weak.”

The Cecilia Chorus performs at Carnegie Hall twice a year, and Bergman estimated that she has performed at the music hall about 50 times with different choral groups. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve performed at Carnegie Hall,” she said. “It is truly a wonder to sing there.”

Bergman first sang at Carnegie Hall as part of the choir at Oberlin College, from which she graduated with a psychology degree in 1955. Singing in the group was “the experience of a lifetime,” she said.

The alto said it all began with the “full musical life” she had at South Side High School from 1948 to 1951. She sang in the choir, played string bass in the orchestra and glockenspiel in the marching band, as well as playing piano in certain performances.

Jack Hichborn, a 1952 South Side alumnus, met Bergman while playing bass in the orchestra, and has kept in touch with her over the years. Like Bergman, the 85-year-old continues to play.

“She was always in choruses in all different places, and she’s doing it even more now,” Hichborn said, noting that though he has not seen her perform in years, Bergman shares her experiences with him and his wife, Mary Kay.

Had he attended the Dec. 9 performance, Hichborn, who now lives in Florida, would have seen the Cecilia Chorus, under the direction of Mark Shapiro, receive two standing ovations. “The second was more like a Bronx cheer,” Bergman laughed.

Although Bergman has sung “The Messiah” many times, Shapiro’s direction offered her new ways to approach the piece. She noted that the performance was “fabulous.”

“I feel so fortunate that at 84 years old, I can continue to sing, and my voice is only getting better because I keep doing it,” she said. “But I don’t just sing for personal reasons. I sing as a gift to those who are hearing it. We are not making [music] for ourselves, but for the audience as a respite from troubles and as an inspiration, a source of beauty and peace.”