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A love letter to Clare Choir

Dear CCCCC,

I don't know where to begin. It's times like these where words fail me... After 3 years of tears and laughter (and one year of long-distance in between), it breaks my heart to have to leave you. 

When I first met you 4 years ago, it was love at first sight. You enthralled me with your dulcet tones and lured me into your arms with promises of eternal love, romantic dinner dates and exotic holidays. I was head over heels and couldn’t bear to spend a second apart from you – and neither could I. But soon you revealed another side that I hadn’t thought you capable of. You began gleefully torturing me with your painfully inaccurate pronunciation of German vowels, which would keep me up crying so many nights - and as if you didn't know better, you harassed me by "attempting" to sing in Chinese. Then you stamped all over my feelings by replacing me as soon as I’d left for my year abroad and by posting photos of how much fun you were having without me all over Facebook. To top it all off, you only let us Decani Sopranos sing top Ds on 10 occasions, when you knew fully well that we could have sung them every week…

Both of us knew that things couldn’t continue like this and so we embarked on our last holiday together. Our weeks in South East Asia went by in a flash and reminded us both of the good times we had had together. We sunbathed by the pool, sang on hilltops and in shopping malls, sipped cocktails in skybars and ate some of the best food in existence. I pretended that your pronunciation of “Schwachheit” was flawless and you pretended to enjoy all my expert knowledge on the Chinese language, Buddhist temples and fried noodles. Our last day together was somewhat sombre as we both knew what lay ahead. One last time we woke up together with a splitting headache and hoarse voice to remind us of the raucous singing we had done together the night before at our last supper. (As ever, of course there was no alcohol involved whatsoever). Both of us felt too guilty to spend our last day together lazing around in the hotel, and so we dragged ourselves to the Batu caves, where we politely nodded in response to Catherine “I-love-rocks” Clark’s exclamations of admiration. But all good things must come to an end and before long we had landed in Heathrow after a resting 14-hour flight and were saying our teary-eyed goodbyes. 

It saddens me to think that I will never again hear the tenors crack majestically on one of their many improvised top Bs in the Tchaikovsky. Never again will I witness Leo "Obsessed" Benedict desperately trying to bribe the staff at check-in to give him a seat next to mine on one of countless plane journeys. I shall miss seeing Maestro Ross’s gleeful smile as his fans scramble to receive a much sought-after autograph or selfie with him. I shall also miss the feeling of pride I shared with my fellow sopranos on the rare occasions when we were, in fact, singing in tune. 

But as much as it pains me to say so, it's time to move on. You will meet new bright-eyed and overly enthusiastic singers and I must meet new choirs. But that doesn't mean we have to forget each other. 

I can say with complete certainty that I'll never find someone like you. And so now I wish nothing but the best for you. But don't forget me, I beg! I remember you said: sometimes it lasts in love, but sometimes it hurts instead.  

With all my love,

Caroline Meinhardt (DS2 In Memoriam)