opera summer 2017, #7

Since last I wrote, it's been a week of craziness!

Day 19 (Thursday evening, Idomeneo): Idomeneo Sitzprobe.  Pretty straightforward.  The chorus ran staging in one half of the church while the principals worked through all the solo/small ensemble pieces with the orchestra, then we joined them to do the chorus numbers.  Worked out a lot of kinks in the staging, and I thought we fit with the orchestra quite well.

Day 20 (Friday evening, Idomeneo): Idomeneo room run.  First a music call - going over some entrances, reworking dynamics, getting the energy back that we'd lost over the staging process.  Then into the full run.  A few hiccups, but nothing unfixable.  Getting more comfortable with the order of things and where we go when.  One final run before we're in the space!

Day 21 (Saturday afternoon, Opera 360): I'd forgotten about this rehearsal until the evening before ... Sitzprobe for the gala concert.  Kind of important!  We had a short meeting first with the singers, where we got info on how precisely the space was set up, what the order would be, etc.  Then we got into the orchestra rehearsal proper.  I had to leave early, so I didn't hear all the pieces, but the pieces I did hear were sounding great, and our duet fit together really nicely.  We did some really basic staging, just feeling out the emotional beats and when was best to move closer, or move apart, things like that.

Day 21 (Saturday evening, Suor): Wandleprobe!  First thing was to transport all the set and props - not a ridiculous amount of stuff, but heavy risers.  Got a nasty bruise on my calf, oops.  Then we did the Suor Wandle, which went really well - everything was falling into place quite nicely, the entrances made sense, the distances were about the same, and it actually proved a little easier to not get off the stick from the back of the church, which I was quite pleased with.  (Alas, because we're working in a church, and funnily enough they have a service on Sunday morning, we had to tear down the whole set before we left.  Oh well, we got our exercise for the day...)

Day 22 (Sunday afternoon, Suor): Piano dress!  This went swimmingly.  The only things we're missing now are the orchestra in the space, and our costumes, both of which come on Monday.

Day 22 (Sunday evening, Idomeneo): Idomeneo Wandleprobe.  Also went quite well, though we're still not in the space, and that will make things considerably different.  Soon, though.  Soon.  Soon it will alllll come together.

Day 23 (Monday evening, Suor): Orchestra dress rehearsal!  There were a lot of hiccups tonight.  Tempos felt weird, we had trouble hearing the orchestra (I think the orchestra had trouble hearing us too), costumes arrived but weren't complete in some cases so we had to make do on short notice which caused some flusteredness.  But we got through it and never had to stop, which counts for a LOT.  And you know what they say - an iffy dress rehearsal means a good show, right?

Day 24 (Tuesday evening, Idomeneo): Orchestra dress rehearsal number two - also the first and only time we got to be in the space before opening night, which was a little nervewracking, but we did it.  Marathon of a rehearsal, but that's fine.  Time flies when you're on stage every other minute.  First was a full cue-to-cue walkthrough, no music.  The distances for our entrances and exits were WAY longer than we'd anticipated, but we adapted.  We got a curtain for our 'backstage', which was great on some levels, and caused some more hiccups in others.  After the walk-through, we did a bit of soundchecking with the orchestra, and then the dress rehearsal officially began.  Again, some hiccups here and there, but nothing insurmountable, and we fixed things as we could.  Lots of communicating through side-glances and subtle elbow movements.  On the plus side, the music went remarkably well - we stayed together without many problems and even remembered most of our dynamics.

Tonight is the orchestra dress rehearsal for the gala concert.  I have to do my hair this afternoon, and make sure I know which dress I'm wearing, and make sure I know what all my rhythms are in the recit parts of the duet, because that was where I tripped up last time...  Then a day off, then Friday night is opening night for Suor, and the festival begins!  I can't believe we're this far in, it feels like no time at all has passed.

opera summer 2017, #6

Alright, catching up over the last couple days ...

Day 17 (Monday evening, Suor): we started by going over all the rough spots and solidifying them.  The spot I needed to work on the most was the food props, making sure I gave them weight.  I'm finding it tough, especially moving them quickly enough to use them all as I need to.  I am going to practice with things at home that weigh about as much as the actual food in question would, then switch to a lighter container and try to keep the same feel.  After working on those rough spots, we took a short break and then did the full run, which went well.  Feeling like it's in a good place.

Day 18 (Wednesday afternoon, coaching): this went extremely well.  Romeo and I are really starting to click, and we got a lot working right.  we focused on breathing together, actually hearing each other (not just hearing the music and counting), and the subtext of the music, and letting all that effect us.  We're both nearly off-book and really responding well to each other.  I'm seriously looking forward to putting this on its feet, and especially getting to do it with orchestra.  (Also found out that this is a gowns and suits night.  I'm always stoked to get to wear a gown. :D)  After the coaching, I went to get pictures taken for the programs - one standard headshot, and one headshot in my Suor costume.  First time I got to see and put on my costume!

Day 18 (Wednesday evening, Suor): Sitzprobe! This was neat.  I don't think I've ever really done a proper Sitzprobe before - usually we've been short on time and so it's had to be a Wandleprobe.  The point of the Sitz is to let the orchestra hear what we're supposed to sound like in a controlled environment, before we all start walking around and not looking at the conductor, etc etc.  (Especially in this case, where the orchestra and conductor are both behind us.)  It went well on the whole: a few bits were awkward and we had to re-do them, and the finale will be very interesting once we add the distance in (we're singing from the back of the church).  It is also always interesting to me working with an orchestra instead of a piano - the conducting always feels like it's a little bit different.  I really liked having the opportunity to feel it out without having to think about movement.

Tonight is the Idomeneo Sitzprobe, with an hour at the top of the evening to go over the chorus staging again.  I'm glad we've got the hour - I feel like we probably need it.  I know I do.  Then tomorrow night we have a full run of Idomeneo, and Saturday night is the Suor Wandleprobe.  First time in the space - it'll be interesting ...

opera summer 2017, #5

Whoops, it's been nearly two weeks since I added to this.  How time flies ...  These past couple weeks have been less rehearsal-heavy for me, as a lot of the rehearsal time has been given to Gianni Schicchi (which I'm not in at all) and the Idomeneo principals.

Day 9 (Tuesday evening, Suor): first full run! went quite well for the first go.  definitely need to work on the bits where we sing from the back. after the run was finished, we worked on one of those singing-from-the-back scenes.

Day 10 (Thursday evening, Suor): some reworking of staging since one of our singers had to take on a new role. then more working of the finale, again a spot where we sing from the back. hard to line up, man.

Day 11 (Saturday morning, Suor): run-through again! this is a special run-through - we've fixed up the new staging with the singer who is filling in the role I mentioned before - AND WE FINALLY HAVE OUR PRINCESS! the first part of rehearsal was the Zia Principessa and Suor Angelica doing their scenes, then we added the Abbess in for her scene with them, then we ran the ACTUAL whole thing for the very first time.  (we were short one soloist, and everyone kinda blanked that we were short the soloist until we got to her scene, and so Suor Angelica helped an invisible and silent nurse ... we were all rather amused)

Day 12 (Sunday morning, Opera 360): coaching on the Romeo and Juliet duet I'm doing for the gala concert. went really well. a few spots of interesting tempo, and matching up rits is always a fun exercise, but we got through it without problems and I at least know what I need to work on.  it's gonna be really good.

Day 12 (Sunday evening, Idomeneo): run of the chorus music, then into staging more of act 1. it's a slow process, there are a lot of us and we all have to look 'natural', so it's not a situation where we can get regimented specific staging.  we also don't have a lot of space to work with, or levels, which narrows staging options further.  supposed to be off-book for this rehearsal.  getting there.  the numbers we did that night I had 95% off-book - mostly just forgetting a word here and there. however, we entirely bombed the chorus soloists' quartet.  good thing we would work on it the day after on our own ...

Day 13 (Monday afternoon, Idomeneo): quick coaching on the chorus solo/quartet bits. unfortunately we didn't have our tenor (I suspect he was working on the children's opera at the time), but we got some good work done anyway.  we all feel more secure on the quartet section which really tripped us up in the staging rehearsal on the 30th.  lots of starting on off-beats, and we're spread out across the stage at that point as well, which will throw anyone off.

Day 14 (Thursday evening, Idomeneo): back to staging - from mid-Act I to the end of the show. I learned very quickly that the Act I finale was not NEARLY as solid in my head as I thought it was: oops.  on the flip side, one of the numbers I thought for sure I was going to be a memory disaster on went without a hitch!  still struggling to remember staging which is very similar in most scenes, but it will come with time and repetition.

Day 15 (Saturday afternoon, Suor): haven't done Suor for a week! time to get back to it! this run-through was a bit awkward, as you'd expect for coming back to it after a week of not having it in rehearsal - a few tempo issues which need to be remembered (trust your eyes, never your ears), some awkward staging which we worked on again, but we got through the whole thing without crashing and burning, so I'm quite happy about that. also I had almost all my performance props at this rehearsal, which is super useful!  I need to remember, though, that a bag of flour is heavy, regardless of the fact that the prop bag of flour is actually full of paper...

Day 16 (Sunday afternoon, Idomeneo): stumble-through! this was the true test of our memory: how much of the staging from a week ago or more do we remember? we got most of it. there were a handful of awkward "which number is this again" moments, but everything got ironed out. we also added the inter-scene dialogue to this run, which added a few snags, but again, all got worked out. one of my jobs today will be to go through the show's script and write in my blocking, then when I see my fellow chorus soloists on ... Thursday ... I will double-check it with them during the break.  Thursday is a Sitzprobe (first rehearsal with orchestra, no staging, just concert-style), so we will have time to compare notes.


this week and next are the last weeks of rehearsal before we open all these various shows.  tonight, I have a full run of Suor again (actually we'll probably run it twice plus working on rough bits): we're now well into the finessing and detail work. how do our gestures fit into our characters?  are we actually communicating what we think we are?  on the flip side: have we gotten complacent?  are we doing the same thing every time because it's what worked before?  are we actually IN the performance?

I still feel like I have a lot of work to do for Idomeneo.  my character has evolved into a 'watcher' character, along with the other soloists' characters.  we are mainly neutral, helping the story along, involved but not quite invested. it's an interesting line to play, but it's really easy to look too disinterested.  I need to spend some time thinking about how i can communicate the distance my character has from the goings-on without seeming too aloof.

tomorrow i have the evening off, and i'll be having a handful of fellow singers over for a couple hours of fun planning for our little gaming group, before probably taking a bubble bath and relaxing before tech week officially starts:

• Wednesday afternoon: another coaching for the Romeo & Juliet duet, plus a photo call for the program (need pictures of all of us in our costumes, plus regular headshots)
• Wednesday night: Suor Sitzprobe (with orchestra, without staging)
• Thursday night: Idomeneo Sitzprobe
• Friday night: room run for Idomeneo (full run-through, not in the space yet, I don't think we have orchestra?)
• Saturday night: Suor Wandleprobe (with orchestra, with staging - possibly in the space?)
• Sunday afternoon: there's a Suor call, must be for touch-ups...
• Sunday evening: Idomeneo Wandleprobe (I think we finally get into the space!)
• Monday evening: Suor orchestra dress rehearsal
• Tuesday evening: Idomeneo orchestra dress rehearsal 

then two days off...then performances start on Friday!

opera summer 2017, #4

I actually have days off this week!  It's a miracle!  (no, Emily, it's just balancing out from last week.)  This is great, because I have a duet to work on that is definitely in the crunch-time category ... and also need to be off-book on the Mozart by Sunday ... y'know, no big.

Day 7, part 2 (Saturday afternoon, Suor): This was a focused session with myself and Sister Angelica, playing with and fine-tuning the scene where I announce the carriage has arrived and Angelica freaks out just a little bit.  (A lot.  But quietly!)  So we ran the scene  - which is ... four pages of music?  maybe a little more?  my score's in my office and I can't be bothered to move - something like a dozen times, starting with the rough staging and character decisions we'd worked out in the larger rehearsals, then narrowing our choices down, talking about what's being communicated and what isn't and how to tweak that, trying different choices, etc.  Do I clue into how high the stakes are for Angelica?  If so, when?  And when does Angelica really realize this might be her family?  How do I react to Angelica getting right up in my face, asking about the inside of the carriage (which I have no way of knowing about)?  How does Angelica react when she doesn't get the information she wants - and when she drives me away?  Repeating the scene with all these minor changes not only helps us feel what's right for our interpretations of the characters, but also what feels right with the music - and, of course, solidifies our synchronicity with the music.

Day 8 (Sunday evening, Idomeneo): Another run-through of all the chorus numbers.  We had both the bass and soprano soloists this week, so the quartet sections went much better this time, and everyone was tighter in general.  After we worked on the music for about an hour and a half, we took a short break, then got into staging.  The area we'll be playing this in isn't a typical auditorium or hall space: we're working with an open-concept rock garden sort of idea, and we'll all basically be on stage at all times (or at least visible to the audience at all times).  This makes it awfully hard to tape out on the floor of our staging building, for one, and also means that it's really hard to actually know where we'll be at any given time.  The staging will, be necessity, be loose.  I'm okay with this: as long as we have clear intentions, the movement should follow.  It is a little nerve-wracking though.  We also talked about setting and costuming.  The director is moving the story forward to near-present day Greece, bringing to mind the refugee crises in the area today.  This is going to be very interesting ... 

Tonight we have another full run of Suor followed by some more scene work.  Four hour rehearsal instead of three.  Today, I'm working on getting the Mozart off-book and also solidifying the Gounod duet.  

opera summer 2017, #3

Time sure flies when you have rehearsal every night.  zzzz .... 

Since last I wrote, I've had ... four rehearsals.  I think.  (coming back after writing: yes, four.)

Day 4 (Wednesday evening, Suor): staging the finale.  We have a short entrance and exit - most of us go out to the cemetery a little earlier in the show, so now we come back in, notice Sister Angelica is having A Moment, and we reassure her that her prayers are being heard and then we go offstage to bed.  (Actually we go offstage, sing a little bit, and then run around the outside of the church to go be angels at the back.  But there's 10 pages of music in between, so it's more of a relaxed saunter.  In nun habits.  In downtown Winnipeg.  We're gonna giggle the whole time.)  Then we have the lovely challenge of singing from the back of a church with the orchestra and soloist at the front of the church.  It's already a pain in the church we're staging in, but at least we have the ability to be as far back as we will be on the actual set - the building is shaped differently, so it doesn't quite give us the real deal, but it's a good exercise in watch the conductor's hands, don't use your ears.  It's really hard.  But we'll do it.

Day 5 (Thursday evening, Idomeneo): ahahahahahaha this was such a train wreck in so many places for me.  I knew some of the chorus numbers better than others, sure, but I definitely thought I had more of it down than I proved to.  I wasn't the only one.  It seems to be a bit of a theme - the first time you run Mozart chorus pieces, literally everything falls apart at the seams, we laugh at ourselves for a couple minutes, and then we run it again a couple times and it makes much more sense.  (The one-to-a-part quartet stuff I'm doing was 500% a train wreck ... partially because we were missing the soprano and the bass, partially because of the Mozart effect, and just partially because I need to learn my part better.)  On the plus side, though, once we all got our shit together we sound quite good.  The blend is nice.  We're gonna sound even better once we sing all the right pitches - and the right words.  Mozart scores are hell, especially the less-popular ones.  There are five million editions and a bunch of them have German overtop of the Italian in the score (a lot of German opera houses don't do operas in Italian; they do them in translation, in German - and guess where Mozart was from ... ), and the Italian in italics (ha) and often smaller text, and it's just a pain.  Does that read "ci"? "ei"? "vi"?  who the fuck knows.  (we do, now that we've gone through all the numbers and agreed on everything.)

Day 6 (Friday evening, Suor): first stumble-through!  Still no last principal, so we skipped the bit in the middle, but we successfully made it to the end of the opera without any derailments so massive we actually had to stop.  So that was good.  I personally completely effed up a couple things, but on the other hand a few things I'd been fighting with went off without a hitch, so I was happy with it.  Then I went home to bed.  

Day 7 (Saturday morning, Suor): we are now in the finessing stage.  We have the basic skeleton of the staging down (with the obvious exception of the section in the middle), so now we're going through scenes several times over and fixing what doesn't feel right, working out details, and above all paying close attention to text.  Everyone is 90-95% off book now, so we can focus on where we're going and where we're actually looking - who are we talking to? what are we talking about?  We got the note last night that we need to remember how we know things ... i.e., we know things because we saw them.  You can't relay information without first having that information, and that's a really easy thing to forget when you're on stage and you, as an actor, already know the show.  You know what has already happened, and what's going to happen because of it.  But you, as a character, do not know what's going to happen - and you don't know what's already happened to anyone but yourself (if you haven't already seen it).  I have to remember that I saw the carriage outside before I can ask about it, and I don't know already that this carriage is Sister Angelica's aunt.  It's not Big News for me - it's just a curiosity.  Don't give away the plot before it happens!  The audience wants to participate in a story, not a lecture.

I'm on a short break right now before going back for more specific one-on-one work later this afternoon.  I think I'm going to have a nap ... 

opera summer 2017, #2

I realized at some point since I posted last that I forgot to mention a super important part of score study: markings.  Tempo, dynamics, articulations, all that.  (The reason I forgot is because this is still the bit I don't do nearly enough.)  This is another reason to watch/listen to performances, because some of these things ... aren't actually written in.  They're just done that way.  Some scores, what you see is what you get; some scores, there's a whole slough of performance practice things that aren't written in, and you gotta find out or else you're gonna look a little dumb.  (If you're a newbie you don't usually get in much trouble, but you better fix it fast.)  This also applies to how much rit. you do in this particular measure, or how much freedom you get in this specific col canto, or how long this tenuto is, etc etc etc.  This is especially true for composers like Puccini.  You gotta listen, man.  You gotta.

Anyway.  Since last I wrote I had one more rehearsal...

Day 3 (Tuesday, Suor Angelica): picked up where we left off, staging the scene where I announce a fancy-ass coach is outside the gate, and everyone gets their knickers in a twist wondering who it might be.  Straight-forward staging.  We also reworked the opening scene and one other, since we had a singer drop out for health reasons (and also reworking things is important for us to remember them).  We got some notes on how to sound more like an angelic choir in the first scene (clean, early cutoffs, prep your vowels early, as much breath support as possible, be gentle with articulators bc there's a dozen sopranos singing more or less in unison and if we're not gentle we'll blow everyone away whether we try to or not), and I worked with the vocal coach on my solo lines (figuring out how to get my open o's after w-glides into my soft palate, 'cause right now they're slipping back into my throat and sounding old - one of those things that sounds good in my ears when I'm singing it, but doesn't translate well - also cleaning up a couple entrances and making sure of doubled consonants).

Tonight we are moving forward to the end of the opera, because our remaining principal still isn't in town.  So: finale chorus stuff.  I need to look over the page numbers and make sure I know what I'm doing - I marked one divisi part down wrong in my score so I need to go over what I'm actually supposed to be singing.  Then tomorrow night I start rehearsal for the other opera I'm working on, Idomeneo - and I need to look at all that again today too, as well as a stand-in solo bit that the music director asked me to do yesterday.  That'll be fun.

opera summer 2017, #1

A couple of people in my life have asked what exactly it is I do when I'm 'at rehearsal' ... and it's a fair question.  I never really realised just how mysterious opera is - just 'cause I'm in the middle of it, I guess.

Prior to day one of rehearsals... I got my scores a couple months ago, and began learning my parts.  I don't have a lot to sing in the operas I'm doing this summer - I'm not doing a major role - so the process isn't quite as long and involved as it is for some of my friends.  For me, the process was:

• read up on the opera - what's the plot, who are the characters, who am I? also, when was it written, anything interesting happening for the composer at the time, was it written for anyone in specific...
• read through the libretto - get a better sense of the nuances of the story/characters (also: are there any stage directions included?)
• watch a production (if any exist - if not, listen to a recording) - mainly to get a sense for the orchestration
• translate my scenes (presuming the opera isn't in English, which is usually the case) - it's great to have a couple of complete translations on hand, but it's a good idea to translate your own lines (and the people you're talking to/with) yourself so you know what each of the words you say mean ... translation's tricky because language is tricky, you gotta have as much information as you can
• write my lines out phonetically - you gotta sound like you know what you're talking about in more ways than one ... Nico Castell's books are a really great resource for this, especially for checking what's academically correct versus what's typically done.  diction often gets tweaked to make words more intelligible, easier to sing, more impactful, but that's later in the rehearsal/coaching process.
• usually by this point I remember more or less what I'm saying when, but if not the next step is getting comfortable enough with just the text that I remember.  repetition of the text both in the original language and in a comprehensible English translation of my own.  this is the remember-the-thoughts step.
• start adding the music.  I do more repetition of the text in the contour of the line, but not precisely on pitch, to match the verbal thought with the musical thought.  eventually you add the actual pitches and rhythms.
• if I were working on a role, I'd book sessions with a vocal coach where we'd work on putting the whole thing together, especially working on any arias.  looking at effective characterisation, starting to find those spots to tweak diction, looking at places to tweak technique.  since I only have small solo parts, there's time in the rehearsal process to get notes from the vocal coach and work them in then.  (I am doing a duet which I'll do some coaching on, though, over the next couple weeks.)

Once all that is done I'm ready to move into the rehearsal process!  :D

Day 1 (Saturday, Suor Angelica): we started with a sing-through of the whole opera, stopping and fixing spots that didn't quite work for one reason or another.  (also the place to double-check any divided sections for chorus parts.)  Since Suor Angelica is only about an hour long, we sang through the whole thing, got some general notes on diction and technique from the vocal coach, and then took a short break.  After the break, the director walked us through where things would be on the set and talked to us a bit about the ideas she had for the production.  Then we started staging the first scene.  This basically means we go where the director tells us to, and we run the scene several times to make sure the spacing/timing works and everyone knows where they're supposed to go.  After this first session (2pm to 5pm) I was released - turned out I wasn't needed for the second rehearsal (7pm to 10pm), where they were staging the second scene.

Day 2 (Sunday, Suor again): yesterday evening we had one rehearsal, 7pm to 10pm again.  We staged the next three scenes; I was in the last scene.  Again we started with a sing-through and had more detailed notes/fixing time.  While the chorus and a couple of the principals worked on staging the first scene for the day, I and another smaller role went off with the vocal coach to get some specific notes on our scenes, which were the second and third scenes to be done.  Then they staged the second scene, and then my scene.  I already have stand-in props for my scene (I bring in a crate of food), which is cool: often you don't get props until pretty close to showtime.  Granted, they're not the actual props yet, but at least I have the crate and things to pick up, which really helps to get used to moving things around while I'm singing.  After we finished staging, we had more vocal notes, and then the evening was done.

Today I don't have rehearsal, it's a day off.  My job today is to go over the bits I had trouble with in the past couple days: there are a couple entrances I'm having trouble finding, and a couple notes that aren't as steady as I hoped.  Tomorrow we'll be staging the second scene I'm in, and probably a couple more that I'm not in ... and after that, all my work is chorus in this opera, so I might have another day off in between?  I know one of our leads isn't in Winnipeg yet, she was finishing another role elsewhere I believe, and I know she has a couple scenes that will need to be staged.  I don't know if we're going to jump ahead to the chorus-heavy scenes first and then loop back to her - it'll depend on when she arrives, obviously.  And rehearsals will start for the other opera I'm in next week, I believe (need to double-check).  

I'm going to update at least once every couple days - every morning, if I can.  I was thinking originally I'd vlog, but taking a while to write is easier for me than editing video, so unless I get inspired I think I'll stick with text.  I'll see if I can grab a couple pictures while I'm not actively staging, but phones are, ah, strongly discouraged in the rehearsal hall.  XD