Monday's off For Most...

...but not me. 'Tis okay. I only officially work for two hours, doing some duet staging with my Poppea and Ottone covers. "Agrippina" opened on Friday and we had a Sunday matinee already as well. Good response all around. Check out this review from the Virginian Pilot. There was also a very favorable radio review by Edgar Loessin. My favorite quote:

One of the problems in staging a baroque opera is deciding what to do with all those musical interludes between the scenes, arias and recitatives. To the untutored ear they stop every thing until there is singing again. Not for Groag. She explores every note of them and discovers a dramatic cess pool teeming with life. She uses supernumeraries who wear white face makeup and black lip stick, pomaded hair and tuxes. They suggest decadence, like cabaret Masters of Ceremonies in pre-Hitler Germany.They are Proteans who play many little roles, and are also like a Greek Chorus or living scenery or they become phantoms who torment the principle characters.. They set the mood and place for the opera in a highly theatrical manner.

How often are the supers mentioned in an opera review? This is not to say that the principals were unmentioned. Mr. Loessin loved them as well, shouting their praises through the airwaves, but I was proud of my young supers who walked in the door expecting to hold a spear and walked out with a glorious review.

So today I am resting and doing bits and pieces here and there. I had dinner with a bunch of people last night, drank Bourbon (Virginia Gentleman to be exact), lounged on huge overstuffed couches and listened to people belt out showtunes with a great deal of irreverence. I stuffed myself with spaghetti and partook in amazing brownies (the secret was soaking the walnuts in Amaretto which gave them a sweetness and kick that was totally unexpected). Later, one of the sopranos and I did dishes and had some lazy chit-chat while the boys sang selections from Phantom, Showboat and West Side Story. It was a wonderful (if not unusual) way to wind down after a matinee, and always lovely to be around people you like when you're so far from home.

I got home at 11:00 and talked to John on the phone for a while. I always look forward to that last call of the day. It grounds me no matter if I'm flying high or wallowing.

The show on Sunday was a knock-out for the singers. Opening was a quiet, somewhat lackadaisical audience, and Lillian told everyone that they couldn't let an audience get them down. "If your tennis partner doesn't show up, play racquetball," she says. I concur. You have to play off of each other or an audience can tear you down. No problem playing tennis on Sunday! The audience was guffawing right out of the gate and the singers were at their best, romping through the funny bits and delivering devestating blows in the serious moments. I wanted to eat all of them up by curtain call.

Technically, however, we're still dealing with issues. I'm hoping that my list of notes this time will solve most of them, but it seems to be a never-ending process. I finally watched the show from far house left yesterday and it's always a shock to see how sight lines are being handled. The audience sees an entirely different show depending on where they are sitting. It was interesting to find out, for instance, that the glossy paint on the hard legs acts as a mirror for backstage activity when you're watching from the sides of the house. Had I been backstage or relegated to the middle of the house for the entire run, I don't think I would ever have noticed this phenomenon. As it is, however, we can rectify it now that we've seen it. No pacing by nervous performers pre-entrance anymore. Dancers wouldn't survive well with this type of problem. We must jump around before stepping on stage.

I walked down to a coffee shop today and worked on my score for an hour. All of the information is in there, it's just messy and I want to clean it up so it's easily readable by other people. I'm probably more obsessive about it than most, but then I remember picking up other A.D. books and not being able to decipher any of the blocking notes, and that makes me feel better about my own OCD qualities.

I'm also starting to realize what a small town this is. I'm running into the same people everywhere I go. I had an impromptu lunch with the stage manager the other day when we ran into each other at Panera, and just ran into our harpsichordist at a sandwich shop. I see people I recognize at the grocery store every time I walk in there. I will be happy to go on tour and regain a bit of anonymity.

Okay. Done for now, a little more score work and then off to two hours with the covers. I'll be happy to get the cover work over and done with.

A Few Words After a Very Long Week

This is me a couple of days ago, sitting in a quiet house during dinner break. slinging my feet over a chair, I went over the pages of notes I would give as soon as the singers arrived. I've talked about the magic of empty theaters before and it never ceases to blow me back. Such a huge cavern has the capability to be absolutely silent and that is an amazing thing. That half hour before a show goes up is so satisfying.

The show opens tomorrow. It's been a haul to say the least. This show is difficult to tech and call and we had our tech time truncated by a set that took it's time to arrive at completion. It's all in now though and we had a successful student dress rehearsal last night wherein there were several times that I wanted to fall on the floor in hysterical laughter at the antics on stage. Student audiences can be a little deceiving though. What twelve year olds find hysterically funny, an adult might find only moderately witty. The balls-to-the-wall laughter and shrieking that was enjoyed by the singers last night may not be there pump them up for the rest of the run. Though the bedroom scene in act II nearly makes me wet my pants every single time.



This is an advertising video on YouTube that Virginia Opera put up so people would get an idea about the show and its cast of characters. I'm not sure that the clips they chose were truly indicitave of the show itself and how beautiful it is in its specifity, how varied the music is for a baroque opera and how truly funny our cast of singers are, but it's nice to see it out there for people to grasp onto and, hopefully, be interested.

The Virginia Pilot did a story about the opera today and included a "mug shot" off all of the singers in full costume. Smart marketing. We'll see if it works.

Today was supposed to be my day off but I spent nearly seven hours with the director and set designer of the show I'm going to be assisting on here next year. It was great to go in and sit down and really start to hash out how this piece will come together. It's so rare to have an opportunity to be with a piece from its conception so I was particularly interested in being in on these meetings. We met with the choreographer a few days ago so I feel like I'm really starting to get a handle on the look and feel of this show. We start rehearsals in August.

Otherwise, life is moving. I'm working like a madman on this show. As soon as it opens, I'll turn large portions of my attention to "Merry Widow." I talk to John every night but it isn't enough. Most of us doing this show are married so we all have similar problems. It's a struggle but you keep going because you love what you do. John's in the middle of an opera season too, putting together an "Opera Spotlight" tonight about "Boris Gudonov" at San Diego Opera. He always does a brilliant job with these shows. I just wish I could be working on a couple of them while he's shooting.

Last Day in "The Room"

"The Room" refers to the rehearsal room, where we've spent the last few weeks. We had a three hour session of notes today and tomorrow we will be on the stage for five hours to get our bearings, space and make sure that everything we put together in "The Room" will work in the confines of the stage space.

The move to stage is always a bit disorienting. In "The Room," stairs and levels are designated by brightly colored tape on the floor and walls are designated by music stands (the labyrinth I mentioned in an earlier post). Once we're on the actual set, however, people will be singing from different levels, climbing up stairs they've never actually seen before, and singing on furniture that hasn't existed for them until that day. It's somewhat like moving into a new house. Your daily activities still happen at the same time and with the same motive, it's just that your bathroom is in a different place and your silverware is in a different drawer.

It's actually been a stressful week but for reasons that have nothing to do with staging. It, for some reason, seems to be in the stars right now that people must deal with tragedy and family issues and so the stress of this is floating in the air. We will pass through it I am certain, but last night I slept for twelve straight hours for no other reason than I was overstressed. I am too open to other people's anxieties.

Tonight was "Opera Insight," a radio series that is taped in front of a live audience in the Grand Lobby of the Harrison Opera House. I put on some nice clothes (for a change) and went out to support the singers and director who were speaking about the opera and its particular challenges and joys. I think these events are always difficult for those in the spotlight. Talking about art and performance to people who know nothing about your side of the coin is a very hard job and can wear you down. Our cast and team did a great job and even garnered several laughs throughout the evening, and we all got a drink and a chat with each other in the end.

Virginia is cold right now. It's supposed to be below freezing tonight (and I even heard wind that it might snow). I kind of like the cold as it gives me a chance to wear my orange winter coat. (tee-hee)

The picture? A Supernumerary rehearsal in "The Room." Next stop is the tech table...

Bush Is Not "Worried About His Legacy"

In an AP Article on Yahoo:

when [Bush] asked if he owes the Iraqi people an apology for botching the management of the war, he said "Not at all."

"We liberated that country from a tyrant," Bush said. "I think the Iraqi people owe the American people a huge debt of gratitude."

What an arrogant bastard.

Coincidence

I had dinner with a friend last night. Pasta, wine . . . the good stuff. I went home and didn't sleep well; had strange dreams, tossing and turning with images of kidnappings and small, enclosed rooms and being in a high rise, floating above a nameless city with no hope of escape. Not a great thing to wake up to in the front of your thoughts.

I found out today that my friend had almost exactly the same dream. We were nowhere near each other and we did not talk about kidnapping or high rises or small rooms. It was baffling and creepy and goes way beyond coincidence.

That's only happened to me once before and it was not a good thing. On the day my uncle fell into a coma after a terrible car accident, my mother and I both woke up with the same dream in our thoughts. A hideous red snake was chasing us in the dream with a wide-open mouth and an ability to spring upwards towards people as they tried to get away. We were sitting at the breakfast table and both just happened to mention it.

How does that happen? How does such a strange image imbed itself so deeply into the subconscious of two separate people? I am in awe of those things I know I do not understand.

We decided that it must be the wine...

Besides supernatural occurances, rehearsals are going very well and we have worked through the entire show several times over. I think the cast is ready for stage (as am I), but I'm not sure the stage is ready for us. I hear them pounding away down there, sawing and cursing and listening to bad arena rock while we are up in the rehearsal hall with our arpeggios and cadenzas. This set came to us as a partial. Much of it was destroyed in a flood and so we are left with a shell and the opera has had to build large portions of it. In a way this is good because the set will have an automatic touch-up, but it makes for more work than this company is used to methinks.

It's just now dawning on me that I will be touring with this company. Granted, we only go to two more cities in the surrounding area (the furthest being 3 hours away I think), but talking to the asm tonight about piling in a van and trying to fit the luggage in and stopping at truck stops on the way (a van full of opera singers at a truck stop?) was a little more than I was ready to bear.

I really like this show. It's some of Handel's most inventive work. Agrippina sings an aria in the second half, "Ogni Vento," which is a positively triumphant little waltz, and another of her arias "Pensieri mi tormentate," has a downright modern feel to it as she does her own version of a mad scene, clamoring barefoot up the steps to hang on each gold throne in turn, screeching to the audience before she collapses at the footlights with the creepy supers in their punk wigs staring down at her.

Also in the second half, Nero sings an aria, "Quando invita la donna la mante," that has the feel of a drug haze, and it is, as his minions surround him feeding him cocktails and drugs. The modern dress and sentiment fits easily into the music and story. It's dirty and seedy and awful and terribly funny all at the same time. A bedroom farce told with some of the most unlikeable characters in human history.

It's nice to have such a scintillating cast (and I say that with no sarcasm whatsoever) as well.

Thank god for good work; life on the road would be all but unbearable without it.

A Valentine to Dysfunctional Families Everywhere

I thought I'd do some work on my score while watching a movie tonight. Got an account at a local video rental store, rented "Little Miss Sunshine," sat down to work, and didn't get a thing done. I was engrossed in this family that was nothing like mine but everything like mine.

As Leo Tolstoy once said (in one way or another), "All normal families are the same, each dysfunctional family is dysfunctional in its own way." This, however, does not keep us from recognizing ourselves in the mishaps of the Hoover family as they try to get their youngest, Olive, to the Little Miss Sunshine competition in Redondo Beach.

I laughed at their ridiculous behavior, covered my mouth in shock as they "stole" their grandfather out of the hospital, felt embarrassed as Olive began her routine at the pageant, and ultimately cried like a baby at the end over missing my own family, no matter how much we get on each other's nerves.

Family is family. You smack each other around, use past embarrassments against each other, hold grudges, poke fun, talk about failures in hushed corners, yell at each other for no reason, stop talking all together for years, ruin holidays, nearly get in huge car accidents because you're throwing shit at each other while driving, steal crap out of each other's rooms, squabble over Happy Meal toys, lick all the cookies so no one else can eat them, and poke each other in the back of the neck until you all end up screaming simultaneously.

But when the chips are down, you show up. You love each other....or at the very least, you pat each other on the back and say it's going to be okay. I've hated every family member I have at least once in my life, but I wouldn't be anywhere without them and I can't imagine my life in their absence. They are my laughter, my history, my roots and my redemption. And on my worst days, I thank heavens for a good family joke.

Maybe the old fool would like a pickle...just like Jenny.

See the movie.

Blown Away

It's really windy tonight. The trees are casting strange moving shadows on the wall in my room and the sound is sometimes overwhelming, reminding me somewhat of a tidal ocean crashing against the side of the house. I feel sturdy in here but with every gusty crash I feel nerves creep in. I don't particularly like extreme weather but am somehow a magnet for it wherever I go.

The picture is Chai, of course, my new best friend. He has taken to lounging lackadaisically on my bed while I'm working. Last night he chased constantly after my papers wherever I set them. He is as perverse and anti-work as any cat I've ever met.

I went to dinner and a movie tonight with people from the opera. We saw "History Boys," the Alan Bennett play-cum-movie about British prep-school boys in the eighties and the long debate over teaching for test scores or teaching how to think. I thought the film was beautiful and raw and sexually/emotionally/ideally edgy in a way Americans can very rarely perform. It makes me wish I'd seen the stage play as I've read in several places that the play runs rings around the film. It's exactly the same cast, so I'm curious how the production transferred (and how it could fall - in some people's eyes - so completely short in the film incarnation).


Rehearsals are going very well. We will finish the architecture of the piece tomorrow or the next day, which is fast work. The arias still need loads of work and the recits are pure hell in their length and specificity, but we are getting there and having a few big laughs along the way. The pic to the left is a constant in most opera rehearsal rooms: cough drops and antibacterial gel. It's unbelieveable how much of this stuff we go through. All performers fear illness in the course of a show, but singers are by far the most paranoid. I think because, while dancers and most actors can perform while they've got a cold, singers really cannot. If a voice is compromised by intense congestion or (heaven forbid) throat pain, the performance is lost. What a precarious place to be. For some, even the suggestion of a throat tickle leads to a hypochondriac fit.

I am feeling homesick right now and hoping this will pass. It's bad to start with that feeling so early in the process. I don't particularly care for pining and wish my heart could go along with my head in its understanding of the makeup of my life. This is what I do - this travel for my work thing. It means that home is tangible but distant and I must find comfort in the little bits of life I carry with me: my sheets, my pictures, my Eyeore mug, my pillow. John and I talk every night (and sometimes day) and the internet is always there.

It's hard to be an emotional person with a job that is so mutable. This life requires hardness and cynicism.

I put up a brilliant cyncial front but I'm really rather soft inside.

Looking Up From the Second or Third Rung

On days like today, I sit back a bit and wallow in the gracious luck that has allowed me the opportunity to work with some of the most brilliant directors, conductors and singers in the business. They're not all famous, though some have often-whispered names, but so many of them are working tediously and tenaciously to change the face of opera.

There is a tradition of grand opera that requires nothing more from the singer than to swirl their capes appropriately, find the center of their light, and sing. I could just as easily have begun my career (and continued it) with a series of old-school park-and-bark directors who gave me tools in the "grand tradition" and very little ability to see beyond them.

My luck came from starting my directing career learning from directors who believe that opera singers are telling a story as much as any actor in a straight play. They have character motivation that drives their action, they must know what they are saying in order to emit some sort of believablity, and the story and visual effect of the opera is as important as the beautiful sounds coming from the performer's mouths.

Actually, in the 20-some-odd productions I've done in my short career, I've dealt with very few directors from the former tradition. I've been infinitely lucky to learn from brilliant minds who recognize that the story is told in the music; composers are usually deliberate in their musical choices so that the action is implied by the very sounds the orchestra and singers are making. By using that idea and by forcing the singers to truly understand every word that comes out of their mouth, they are building a production that sounds beautiful, looks beautiful and makes you think at the same time.

I want to direct like that.

I'm working with one such director now. She had a talk with our supers (our SUPERS!) tonight about how they should work a particularly difficult entrance. The entrance was hard not only for its precision timing but for what it was trying to convey as well. Our maestro went through the basic mechanics and then our director went into a long, moving speech about what the entrance was conveying, what they should be thinking about as they come in, where they should put their passion and thoughts throughout the entire musical figure. We started, they did it, and it blew us all back in our seats.

I get asked all the time whether I would prefer someone with a perfect voice or someone who is a brilliant actor. Of course, my first answer is that I want them both. That combination doesn't happen often however, and so I always end up saying, the latter. I certainly need the voice to be capable of singing the part with ease, but it's the passion behind the words that makes someone interesting to listen to. Sit down and listen to Maria Callas. Her voice was far from perfect, but she means EVERY word she says, and you know it, and you love her for it.

There are a couple of directors I work with on a semi-regular basis from whom I don't think I could ever stop learning volumes every time I sit next to them at the front of the room. Thank god I've been lucky enough to fall under their incredible tutelage.

Virginia is for Lovers

Happy New Year!!! 2007 is starting off with furious working and the aftermath of several tragedies and long days of endless travel.

I am here. Virginia. Norfolk to be exact. The city feels older than San Diego. I feel at home - a bit Midwestern - here, but I think it's because they actually have deciduous trees. The house in which I am staying is a two-story in Ghent, built in the '20's, and occupied by an incredibly sweet couple and their incredibly huge cat, Chai.

Chai and I took to each other right away. He rolled around in front of me like a little sausage, I rubbed his ears, he stuck his face in all my bags, then settled in on the chair in my bedroom to fall asleep snoring and restless. He jumps up on my lap when I'm at the table and my legs almost can't support his weight. Twice now he's jumped up, misjudged the height, and scrambled as he fell back to earth. I have the scrapes to prove it.

Today, New Year's Day, was the first time I actually wandered around my neighborhood. Colley Ave, just down the way, has a great art film theater and several coffee shops and boutiques. I plan to make my way down there tomorrow as well before I go into rehearsals. We are a week in to rehearsals.

Agrippina is a long show with some extensive recitative. Lillian has set the piece in the materialistic world of the 1970's with Agrippina in long, wrap gowns and all of the boys in three piece suits. Nero is played by Jeff Halili, who has a fire and sensuality in his presence and voice that makes him down right scary to watch. In Lillian's concept, the palace is crawling with men we call "Creepies." They are the poison that seeps in and makes mass murderers out of these infamous characters. Dressed in White tie and tux, they wander through the palace, smoking, drinking and inviting drug use to corrupt Nero and throw him over the edge.

All of our singers are very strong and young and seemingly ready for anything. It's great to be among that energy in rehearsals. The room is more sparse than most of my rehearsal room pictures. We are missing most of the props due to a flood accident and so it feels a little like we are starting from scratch. A couple of the singers call the set-up the "maze of music stands," and it is. A labyrinth of stands indicates where singers can and cannot walk as they weave their way through the grills and drops that make up the set. The only real pieces we have in there right now are a series of gold thrones. When the lights hit them on stage they will light up like fire.

My resolution (started early) this year, I want to get back into shape. This involves losing a few pounds and eating healthier as well as exercising and maybe jumping back into some dance classes. I've been good thus far. The openness of my hosts has led me to feel comfortable in their kitchen. I've been making my lunch and buying good foods to keep me going without over filling.. I have high hopes.

In current events, Saddam is dead. That whole thing was very creepy, and I've been without internet or television so I'd been out of the loop when someone walked into rehearsals last week and asked me if I'd heard. Our stage manager pulled the clip up on his computer and I watched through fingers spread across my eyes. I know he was an evil, nasty, horrid person, but I hate that we had a hand in his death. I just can't get behind government sanctioned killing of anyone - even awful dictators. I don't think it's going to help the situation over there in the least.

Gerald Ford died too and that is very sad. He was a great supporter of the arts. I heard rumor that W didn't come to the funeral ceremony in Palm Desert because he didn't want to cut his vacation short. I don't know if that's true, but I wouldn't put it past him. I got in a huge discussion about W's inability to say and do the right thing at the New Year's Eve Party I went to - it seems to be such an easy thing to go on about.

And so we get to New Year's Eve. It was a wonderful and strange experience. I haven't been to a true New Year's Eve party since the Millenium (and that one was crap so I'm not sure it counts... I got stuck on the roof during the count down and I didn't know a soul there . . . long story, just know it blew), so when my friend, Lynne Marie, told me she was having one, I was very excited. Lynne and I knew each other during my Cerulean days in Chicago. She moved to Richmond six months ago, so I was ecstatic when I realized I would have friends out here.

Richmond is almost two hours away, but traffic was light at 7pm on New Year's Eve. Lynne lives in Church Hill so I had the joy of listening to semi-automatic rifle fire at midnight, and heard news of a stabbing down the street right after I got there, but once I was settled in, it was great fun.

Highlights? Reminiscing with Lynne about the "good old days" in Chicago, meeting Lynne's husband's friend from Chicago who had several deep and wonderful conversations with me through out the evening, watching quite a few young-ish party goers do idiotic things that I would have embraced during my college years, but no longer have any desire to attempt, getting tapped on the shoulder by Scott, the director of Cerulean and a long-lost friend and hero, a little after midnight. I think I jumped in his arms - that's how good it was to see him. Umm...realizing that Lynne had put the champagne in the freezer and forgotten about it so we dunked them in warm water and spun them, trying to warm them up fast. We ended up toasting with beer, gin or whatever was available, watching a young man in a purple wig get completely shit-faced, act like an ass around a bunch of people he didn't know, then pass out by slamming his head face-down on the kitchen table, talking to John on the telephone on the front porch while guns are going off in every direction...

I slept on the floor in Lynne and Esam's room and actually delighted in helping her clean up in the morning before I started back to Norfolk. It was so good to see good friends, reminders that my past wasn't as awful as I sometimes remember. I was really close to these people. I think I was also reminded that youth is fleeting and crazy and we all do ridiculous things when we're on our own for the first time - it's part of growing up. Lynne and I actually looked around at one point and toasted to "Never again."

And so now I am apparently all grown up. I had dinner with my host and hostess and one of their friends tonight and she thought I looked very young. She said, "You look like a child but you have such adult responsibilities." She doesn't know the half of it. This opera, especially since it tours, will make them abundantly clear very very soon.

The pic? The exact moment we entered 2007 at Lynne's party.