First off, let's be clear: the rosy-cheek youngster depicted at the top of your article is NOT you! Now that we have that out of the way...

I think everyone who has performed Messiah every year has their own personal traditions. Off and on over the years we have participated in a performance at an old church in Hartford, where I generally get to sing one recit + aria. One of my beefs about this particular performance is that the director NEVER finds time to do any rehearsal whatsoever. Usually about 30% of the chorus are made up of soloists, so the thing hangs together despite the trapeze-walk-without-a-net feeling about it, but it feels good when we finally stop. No worries, no matter what, audiences for Messiah will always applaud.

As far as that weird inclusion of "Halleluja" is concerned, I have always wished that one more recit+aria be snuck into the Christmas version: "Behold, I tell you a mystery" and "The trumpet shall sound". My fabest favoritest favorite of all baroque music. Love singing that piece. My ambition is to both sing the thing, and play the trumpet part. This of course would be impossible without studio tricks, but I can dream...

And speaking of singing masked, our church choir was allowed to begin singing "live" in our sanctuary a out a month ago, so long as we wear KN-95 masks during rehearsals and performances. It does something to your resonance and takes extra energy, and even though you might feel that you aren't heard by the audience, surprisingly the sound is pretty good. I tested my own sound, with and without.

Break a leg!