Julian Fellowes,<\/a> creator of \u201cThe Gilded Age\u201d and \u201cDownton Abbey,\u201d for distinguished prose.<\/p>\n\u201cI think he\u2019d play Agnes if he could,\u201d she said. \u201cHe gives her the witty stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n
Baranski leaned on the skills that earned her an Emmy for \u201cCybill\u201d and Tonys for \u201cThe Real Thing\u201d and \u201cRumors.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou get to bring to life a lot of different characters, none the least of which is Ebenezer,\u201d she said at the library this month. \u201cIt\u2019s wonderful for an actor to differentiate in as subtle a way as possible these different characters. As an acting piece, it\u2019s wonderful. And not many women have done it. It\u2019s been done by Alistair Cooke and Patrick Stewart and Patrick Page and all these great actors \u2014 but I get to do it with a chorus.\u201d<\/p>\n
Guard weaves in underscoring by composer Benedict Sheehan with Baranski\u2019s words and 10 carols that include \u201cSilent Night\u201d and \u201cDeck the Halls\u201d plus \u201cAuld Lang Syne.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trimming was needed<\/p>\n
Reciting the entire story would have created a Wagnerian-length evening.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis manuscript itself is about 30,000 words and we needed about 5,000 to make it a concert length,\u201d Guard said. \u201cI tried to create space in the narrative for obvious musical exclamation points or emotional feelings, almost like arias in an opera.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sheehan had worked together with Guard on a 2020 recording \u201cOnce Upon a Time\u201d that weaved together the Brothers Grimm\u2019s \u201cSnow White and the Seven Dwarves\u201d and Hans Christian Andersen\u2019s \u201cThe Little Mermaid.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI said why don\u2019t you commission me to write choral underscoring for the narrative that can kind of stitch together these different choral pieces?\u201d Sheehan said.<\/p>\n
Baranski got narration experience in 2023 when she replaced Liev Schreiber with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra at Carnegie Hall for Beethoven\u2019s \u201cEgmont.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cI could do this the rest of my career,\u201d she thought at the time. \u201cJust put me in a concert hall surrounded by great musicians.\u201d<\/p>\n
Preparing for `Gilded Age’ return<\/p>\n
After working with dialect coach Howard Samuelsohn, Baranski practiced on Zoom to hone a 19th-century voice and avoid clich\u00e9.<\/p>\n
\u201cI said this is a good warm up for Aunt Agnes because it\u2019s that kind of speech we were taught at Juilliard,\u201d the 73-year-old Baranski said, recalling lessons from Edith Skinner decades ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes it\u2019s just a question of modulating your voice, just different rhythms and staccato or legato,\u201d she said. \u201cI want the voice of the Ghost of Christmas past to be disembodied\u2026 ethereal.\u201d<\/p>\n
She didn\u2019t have an urge to join in on the carols. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe take from each other,\u201d she said. \u201cWhen 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a really exciting back-and-forth actually,\u201d Guard said. \u201cIt\u2019s not really totally clear who\u2019s driving the bus at times.\u201d<\/p>\n
Possibly an annual holiday entertainment<\/p>\n
Baranski hopes the project has a future.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to film this someday in the Morgan,\u201d she said. \u201cMake this a yearly event at the Morgan, because here\u2019s the manuscript and people. It\u2019s just one of those things like Handel\u2019s `Messiah\u2019 or `The Nutcracker.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
She\u2019s going to gift the CD to her grandchildren, four boys ranging from ages 2 to 12. Among her previous holiday experiences was portraying Martha May Whovier in the 2000 movie \u201cDr. Seuss\u2019 How the Grinch Stole Christmas.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re curiously not interested in my even being Martha May in `The Grinch,\u2019\u201d Baranski explained. \u201cTheir friends sometimes say: `That\u2019s your grandmother.\u2019 But I just want to be their grandma \u2014 do you know what I mean \u2014 and not somebody?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.wsls.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK \u2013 Christine Baransk i was in the playground outside St. Matthew\u2019s Church in Bedford, New York, about three years ago when she came across Matthew Guard, artistic director of the Grammy-nominated Skylark Vocal Ensemble. \u201cI love choral music,\u201d she told him. An Emmy- and Tony-Award winning actor, Baranski went on to attend some […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2201722,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[425055,425056,400097,345423,400096,425053,21741,407094,425051,334473,343128,425054,425050,425052,333013],"class_list":["post-2201721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-agnes-van-rhijn","tag-benedict-sheehan","tag-charles-dickens","tag-christine-baranski","tag-ebenezer-scrooge","tag-edith-skinner","tag-entertainment","tag-hans-christian-andersen","tag-howard-samuelsohn","tag-julian-fellowes","tag-liev-schreiber","tag-martha-may-whovier","tag-matthew-guard","tag-patrick-page","tag-patrick-stewart"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Christine-Baranski-narrates-A-Christmas-Carol-before-returning-for-The.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2201721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2201721"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2201721\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2201723,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2201721\/revisions\/2201723"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2201722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2201721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2201721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2201721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}