Yesterday was the second performance of the operas. My folks came up for the matinee, and it was really wonderful to have them in the audience. The rest of the crowd was pretty dead, so I was thrilled to hear my parents laughing out loud at the comedy. To be fair, I had primed them in advance. ("This is a comedy. It's okay to laugh and to laugh loudly. In fact, it's encouraged.") I think that sometimes audiences, especially for classical music, are a little hesitant to be vocal with laughter. They think it's not proper or something. But for comedies in particular, laughter is a gift to the performers. It tells them they are doing something right. It offers them energy and creates a virtuous cycle that lifts the whole performance to a higher level. And when the laughter is not there, we all feel like we're not doing enough or we're missing the mark.
The audiences for both shows have felt a little tame. Partly this is the demographic - a mostly older crowd for the first show and a matinee (young families+older crowd) for the second. Both feel like they should be polite, and there's a kind of reserve there. But something else has felt off beyond that. I didn't realize just what it was until I had a conversation with my voice teacher today.
She mentioned that many people feel uncomfortable being so close to the stage. We're performing in a black box theatre with about 60 seats. It's extremely intimate. The performers can look each person in the eye. Folks in the front row are often just a couple feet from us. As singing actors, we've been instructed to make eye contact and "sing directly to people". So we do. But this makes some audience members really antsy. I've had some people look away while I sing to them, deliberately avoiding eye contact. Others maintain eye contact with me but give me a rather "deer in headlights" vibe. A few actually grin and seem pleased that I'm singing to them. In every case, it's a different feeling, and it just feels odd. I didn't realize until today that part of what bothers me is the sense that I'm making people uncomfortable. It's a missed connection or a rather warped one - things don't quite meet up the way they are supposed to. In rehearsal, this didn't happen because everyone in the audience was a singer or a student - all of whom are perfectly fine with people singing to them. After all, they do that themselves.
I'm hoping that now that I know this, it will make the final performance (on Thursday) a bit easier. We'll see.
On a positive note, my voice teacher commented that she's "always astounded at how quickly you all get used to singing right to people in such a small space." Hopefully that will make my recital performance a lot easier come May. That hall is significantly bigger. I just need to make sure my characters for each piece in that recital are just as well-defined as Silberklang. It is so much simpler to sing right to people when you are somebody else onstage. It's like it offers a cloak or costume, a shield that enables you to take the risk and express without fear of truly personal reprisals or consequences.
On a lighter note, Buff, the character who plays opposite me during my aria, had some mustache issues yesterday. He's onstage for nearly the entire show, entering shortly after curtain rise and staying through the end. Right after we started, the right half of his mustache came unglued and started flapping as he breathed. He tried all kinds of subtle gestures and posturing and finally nipped off during the final number to get it re-glued.
The best part? He apologized to me for being "off" during my aria. I guess his mustache was completely flapping at that point. But the kicker is that I didn't even notice. I am so focused during that piece on running the circus that is opera that I didn't even look at his facial hair. When I look at him, I am staring right into his eyes. The rest of the times, I'm thinking about emoting the words (which are in German), breathing properly, opening my mouth in key places, opening and closing the fan in rhythm, making sure the fan stays on my wrist, watching my dress to make sure I don't trap it under the chair that I move, staying upright as I kneel and rise again, moving to the right marks on the stage, running the coloratura while gesturing to him on certain specific notes and smiling flirtatiously, keeping my eyes engaged, reminding myself about certain diction spots (a few tricky umlauts), and getting the body language right.
With all of that, who has time to look at a mustache?
:)
~Hope
Monday, January 25, 2010
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Opening Night
Tonight was the first performance of our run. It went pretty well overall with one big exception. Our wonderful accompanist and coach slammed his finger in the garage door a couple nights ago. He has a large part that involves acting (as the "new opera company's rehearsal pianist") as well as actually doing the accompanying for us. Luckily, we have another amazing coach who was able to step in last minute to do the playing. Tonight was my cast's first night singing with him. Thank heavens he's so talented at following! It's really hard to step in last minute like that and pick up everything. Our original coach still does the acting bits, and he now has some line about how a soprano bit his finger when he tried to cue her.
Our audience this evening was comprised of the donors to the voice and opera department. They are a truly warm and lovely group of people who were very respectful and polite. There were more gentle chuckles than guffaws in the audience tonight, a fact that threw a couple of our performers who are used to hearing the loud laughter from the cast members who watch during rehearsal. This is one tip if you ever go to see a comedy: it's okay to laugh. Really. Even if the rest of the audience isn't. Sometimes it just takes the one person who's willing to laugh out loud for the release button to be hit for the rest of the audience. And performers love it when you laugh.
In any case, it was a very warm atmosphere. You could feel the pride emanating from the audience members who take a very familial sense towards the students. It's like singing for happy relatives.
My dress is still poofy as ever. Tonight, though, they added a ton of purple flowers to my hat. I look like I'm wearing a garden. And my fan changed back to a cousin of the plastic one I'd been using in rehearsals. I enjoyed the new prop I had Tuesday, but it's comforting to have something for which I hold more kinetic memory.
Now, it's time to crash into bed and hope that my pillow doesn't eat any makeup I may have missed wiping off.
~Hope
Our audience this evening was comprised of the donors to the voice and opera department. They are a truly warm and lovely group of people who were very respectful and polite. There were more gentle chuckles than guffaws in the audience tonight, a fact that threw a couple of our performers who are used to hearing the loud laughter from the cast members who watch during rehearsal. This is one tip if you ever go to see a comedy: it's okay to laugh. Really. Even if the rest of the audience isn't. Sometimes it just takes the one person who's willing to laugh out loud for the release button to be hit for the rest of the audience. And performers love it when you laugh.
In any case, it was a very warm atmosphere. You could feel the pride emanating from the audience members who take a very familial sense towards the students. It's like singing for happy relatives.
My dress is still poofy as ever. Tonight, though, they added a ton of purple flowers to my hat. I look like I'm wearing a garden. And my fan changed back to a cousin of the plastic one I'd been using in rehearsals. I enjoyed the new prop I had Tuesday, but it's comforting to have something for which I hold more kinetic memory.
Now, it's time to crash into bed and hope that my pillow doesn't eat any makeup I may have missed wiping off.
~Hope
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Final Dress Rehearsal
Our final dress rehearsal was last night. Students from the school were allowed to attend, so we had a "real" audience. I can't decide whether it was easier to sing for them because they understand what it's like to be up there, wrestling with a new costume and prop, or whether it's harder because they are less openly delighted with the art form. In any case, I guess we'll see whether the audience energy ratchets up on Thursday night.
I was squeezed into my big-bustled costume and given gloves and a new fan. Since I have to open and close my fan, using it actively as part of my character and in very specific spots in the music, I spent a good thirty minutes before I went on snapping it open and then shut again. Of course, I got the gloves about 5 minutes before my entrance, which was a different experience entirely. You don't realize how much you rely on actually being able to touch something to control it. The first pair of gloves we tried were satin, and that was a disaster - fan slipping out of my grasp like crazy. So then we went to a cotton pair which, fortunately, the costumer Becca liked better with the outfit. Whew! And then it was time to strut snootily down that aisle onto the stage.
It is very different to figure out how to move in a costume that is suddenly doubled in weight from what you've been wearing. Period clothes from the 18th and 19th centuries are especially heavy. You have the full multilayered petticoat and perhaps a hoop or "bum roll". Then there's the taffeta top and bottom. And if you have a corset, boning adds weight, too. Plus, there's the length. It takes effort to consistently remember to shift your props so that you have a hand to actually gather the gown and pick it up. And you still need to sing and act and remember all your diction and the accent and, oh by the way, you can't seem to be thinking about all of that or the audience will see that you're glazed over. So maintain your focus and pick several audience members and sing directly to them.
Yep.
Opera is the ultimate multitasking environment.
It's a ton of fun. But I do feel drained after every rehearsal and production night. I finally found an analogy. It's the same feeling as when you come out of a three or four hour exam. The level of focus demanded is very similar, so the level of fatigue afterwards is also comparable. That said, I would much rather do ten of these productions than one exam. The fun quotient is significantly different :)
Time to finish up a bit of theory homework before I practice and head off to my lesson.
Happy Wednesday!
~Hope
I was squeezed into my big-bustled costume and given gloves and a new fan. Since I have to open and close my fan, using it actively as part of my character and in very specific spots in the music, I spent a good thirty minutes before I went on snapping it open and then shut again. Of course, I got the gloves about 5 minutes before my entrance, which was a different experience entirely. You don't realize how much you rely on actually being able to touch something to control it. The first pair of gloves we tried were satin, and that was a disaster - fan slipping out of my grasp like crazy. So then we went to a cotton pair which, fortunately, the costumer Becca liked better with the outfit. Whew! And then it was time to strut snootily down that aisle onto the stage.
It is very different to figure out how to move in a costume that is suddenly doubled in weight from what you've been wearing. Period clothes from the 18th and 19th centuries are especially heavy. You have the full multilayered petticoat and perhaps a hoop or "bum roll". Then there's the taffeta top and bottom. And if you have a corset, boning adds weight, too. Plus, there's the length. It takes effort to consistently remember to shift your props so that you have a hand to actually gather the gown and pick it up. And you still need to sing and act and remember all your diction and the accent and, oh by the way, you can't seem to be thinking about all of that or the audience will see that you're glazed over. So maintain your focus and pick several audience members and sing directly to them.
Yep.
Opera is the ultimate multitasking environment.
It's a ton of fun. But I do feel drained after every rehearsal and production night. I finally found an analogy. It's the same feeling as when you come out of a three or four hour exam. The level of focus demanded is very similar, so the level of fatigue afterwards is also comparable. That said, I would much rather do ten of these productions than one exam. The fun quotient is significantly different :)
Time to finish up a bit of theory homework before I practice and head off to my lesson.
Happy Wednesday!
~Hope
Monday, January 18, 2010
Veggie Vitamins!
Tonight, dinner was largely veggies. (Of course, some of those veggies were baked waffle fries, but hey - when you've got a craving...) I'm deliberately trying to stuff my diet with vitamins because this is a bit of an intense couple weeks. Being in a show takes a lot of energy and focus, and I want to make sure I'm on top of everything.
It's been a half-productive day. I managed to get a lot of correspondence off my desk/out of my inbox, but I still am struggling to like theory. Music theory should be a fun puzzle to me, but all I can think of is "I'd rather be learning the notes to this piece instead of parsing it into chords and Roman Numerals." Especially when it's Schubert. Roman numerals/key analysis is not easy in the ambiguous world of the nineteenth century German lieder. And, frankly, I find it a bit pointless.
If I've lost you with those last couple sentences, then you have a sense of what I feel like trying to get an analytical handle on this piece.
I think part of the difficulty is that my focus is shifting. I'm now trying to figure out next steps for next year, so a majority of my day centers around resume rewriting, cover letter crafting, and general job searching. Uncertainty has never been one of my favorite things, and I really want to know what's happening next. I want to have the plan laid out in numbered steps with dates and a nice little bar graph. Maybe a slide or two just for fun. More than that, I want to be happy with wherever I end up next year. So perhaps I just want to know that something will work out and that it will be good.
In the meantime, I'll keep packing the veggies and putting on the bustle for the hustle onstage. And savoring these last moments of performing here.
Tomorrow night is the first full-costume+makeup+hair dress rehearsal. Students from the school are invited to attend, so we'll have a "real" audience (rather than just other cast members). I'd best hit the hay so that I'll be able to pull off that German accent.
~Hope
It's been a half-productive day. I managed to get a lot of correspondence off my desk/out of my inbox, but I still am struggling to like theory. Music theory should be a fun puzzle to me, but all I can think of is "I'd rather be learning the notes to this piece instead of parsing it into chords and Roman Numerals." Especially when it's Schubert. Roman numerals/key analysis is not easy in the ambiguous world of the nineteenth century German lieder. And, frankly, I find it a bit pointless.
If I've lost you with those last couple sentences, then you have a sense of what I feel like trying to get an analytical handle on this piece.
I think part of the difficulty is that my focus is shifting. I'm now trying to figure out next steps for next year, so a majority of my day centers around resume rewriting, cover letter crafting, and general job searching. Uncertainty has never been one of my favorite things, and I really want to know what's happening next. I want to have the plan laid out in numbered steps with dates and a nice little bar graph. Maybe a slide or two just for fun. More than that, I want to be happy with wherever I end up next year. So perhaps I just want to know that something will work out and that it will be good.
In the meantime, I'll keep packing the veggies and putting on the bustle for the hustle onstage. And savoring these last moments of performing here.
Tomorrow night is the first full-costume+makeup+hair dress rehearsal. Students from the school are invited to attend, so we'll have a "real" audience (rather than just other cast members). I'd best hit the hay so that I'll be able to pull off that German accent.
~Hope
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Delight in Sunlight
Today, it was sunny for the first time in about a week. Somewhere around 9 am, the sky became a beautiful winter blue - the blue that isn't as fresh as spring skies or as intense as summer but is just a nice, cool, happy color. I opened my shades and sat in the stream of sunlight for several hours this morning. It was wonderful.
The rest of the day was filled with rehearsal and costume fittings. (My fingers automatically typed "customer" when I went to type "costume." I guess we know what profession I'm more used to...) My costume for the Impresario is amazing. It's a gold-green color, and I think it's made of taffeta. I have a black petticoat underneath with a giant bustle. Then, the outer costume itself is in two pieces - a boned corsetted top and a huge skirt. Have you ever seen the Disney Cinderella? Do you remember the large skirted monstrosities the stepsisters wore to the ball? The ones with the giant bums that look like they are made out of cake icing? The ones with all the bows randomly attached? Well, that's basically my dress.
After I play a diva for the Impresario, I get to switch gears completely and play a secret role for the next production - Suor Angelica. I won't disclose that now since it's probably meant to be a bit of a surprise until after the show, but it's definitely on the opposite side of the spectrum from my flashy first character.
A costume fitting basically entails trying on the costume so that the superhuman seamstresses can figure out what alterations to make in some sort of magic time so that everything fits everybody the way it's supposed to. Some costumes come with "adjustable things" - like several options for eyes that the hooks can fit to make a skirt have multiple possible widths. But still, it's a trick to make sure everything fits and looks good, especially when you're working with an intimate theatre like the black box we have for these productions.
After watching the rehearsal for Impresario (today the other cast performed) and filling in for my super-secret role in Suor Angelica, I took 45 minutes to practice some of my recital music. I'm working on a Russian piece that is a beautiful version of Desdemona's Willow Song with an introductory vocalise. (A vocalise is a song with a vocal line and accompaniment but with no lyrics. So the singer basically sings it on "ah".)
When I got home tonight, I cooked up some veggie lasagna and a batch of pumpkin muffins. I'm hoping that will provide some happy, nutritious food for the next two weeks while I'm running around crazily.
And now it's time to dive back into the to-do list!
~Hope
The rest of the day was filled with rehearsal and costume fittings. (My fingers automatically typed "customer" when I went to type "costume." I guess we know what profession I'm more used to...) My costume for the Impresario is amazing. It's a gold-green color, and I think it's made of taffeta. I have a black petticoat underneath with a giant bustle. Then, the outer costume itself is in two pieces - a boned corsetted top and a huge skirt. Have you ever seen the Disney Cinderella? Do you remember the large skirted monstrosities the stepsisters wore to the ball? The ones with the giant bums that look like they are made out of cake icing? The ones with all the bows randomly attached? Well, that's basically my dress.
After I play a diva for the Impresario, I get to switch gears completely and play a secret role for the next production - Suor Angelica. I won't disclose that now since it's probably meant to be a bit of a surprise until after the show, but it's definitely on the opposite side of the spectrum from my flashy first character.
A costume fitting basically entails trying on the costume so that the superhuman seamstresses can figure out what alterations to make in some sort of magic time so that everything fits everybody the way it's supposed to. Some costumes come with "adjustable things" - like several options for eyes that the hooks can fit to make a skirt have multiple possible widths. But still, it's a trick to make sure everything fits and looks good, especially when you're working with an intimate theatre like the black box we have for these productions.
After watching the rehearsal for Impresario (today the other cast performed) and filling in for my super-secret role in Suor Angelica, I took 45 minutes to practice some of my recital music. I'm working on a Russian piece that is a beautiful version of Desdemona's Willow Song with an introductory vocalise. (A vocalise is a song with a vocal line and accompaniment but with no lyrics. So the singer basically sings it on "ah".)
When I got home tonight, I cooked up some veggie lasagna and a batch of pumpkin muffins. I'm hoping that will provide some happy, nutritious food for the next two weeks while I'm running around crazily.
And now it's time to dive back into the to-do list!
~Hope
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Definitely a Morning Person
What is it about singing after 9 pm that leaves me totally drained afterwards? I've been getting 9 hours of sleep (well, for the past 2 nights anyway), and I ate a good pasta dinner tonight. Somehow, though, late evening rehearsals are just not my thing.
Tonight, we ran through the opera from 7-10. I sat and watched the other cast until around 9, when they switched to my cast. The singing itself was fine, but afterwards - eep what a headache.
So I think I'll be putting off my theory homework until the morrow. 5 am rise time sounds about right. If I'm lucky, I won't even need caffeine to get moving :)
Good night!
~Hope
Tonight, we ran through the opera from 7-10. I sat and watched the other cast until around 9, when they switched to my cast. The singing itself was fine, but afterwards - eep what a headache.
So I think I'll be putting off my theory homework until the morrow. 5 am rise time sounds about right. If I'm lucky, I won't even need caffeine to get moving :)
Good night!
~Hope
Monday, January 11, 2010
Welcome back!
Today was the start of the new semester. Snowy cold abounds, making it really pleasurable to sink into a one-armed desk chair or ensconce onself in a practice room with a battered Steinway.
My only class on Mondays is a Music Theory course in analytical techniques. This basically entails learning various ways of assessing a score. Today we talked about Schencker, a twentieth-century German theorist who boiled everything down to its simplest essence. For Schencker, there are really only 3 chords in a tonal piece: I, V, and I again. (I is the home chord in a key -- like CEG in C major. V is the chord built on the fifth note in a scale in that key. In C major, V is GBD.) Everything else is just a "passing tone" or elaboration. (This is only a slight exaggeration. His simplest level, called "background" really is just those 3 chords.)
The rest of my day involved some resume/cover letter crafting, a trip to the store to replenish my refrigerator that was left barren for the break, and some solid practicing. The opera goes up next week (eep!), and I'm trying to keep refining my character profile, polish my technique, and solidify and make organic my blocking (staged gestures and movements given by the director). This week, we'll dive back into rehearsals from the deep end, all in preparation for the first show next Thursday. Wish me well!
Hope your new year is off to a fantastic start!
~Hope
My only class on Mondays is a Music Theory course in analytical techniques. This basically entails learning various ways of assessing a score. Today we talked about Schencker, a twentieth-century German theorist who boiled everything down to its simplest essence. For Schencker, there are really only 3 chords in a tonal piece: I, V, and I again. (I is the home chord in a key -- like CEG in C major. V is the chord built on the fifth note in a scale in that key. In C major, V is GBD.) Everything else is just a "passing tone" or elaboration. (This is only a slight exaggeration. His simplest level, called "background" really is just those 3 chords.)
The rest of my day involved some resume/cover letter crafting, a trip to the store to replenish my refrigerator that was left barren for the break, and some solid practicing. The opera goes up next week (eep!), and I'm trying to keep refining my character profile, polish my technique, and solidify and make organic my blocking (staged gestures and movements given by the director). This week, we'll dive back into rehearsals from the deep end, all in preparation for the first show next Thursday. Wish me well!
Hope your new year is off to a fantastic start!
~Hope
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