Out of Context

I rehearsed scenes today for a program that the Young Artists do to wrap up the summer. All of the staff directors get a little chunk of scenes to direct in a madcap amount of time and then they are placed on a spare stage as a veritable smorgasbord of operatic morsels. The program we're doing this summer contains scenes from the operas we're doing this season, scenes from the operas Glimmerglass is doing next season, and a few things thrown into the mix for good measure.

The interesting thing about scenes programs is that each scene is presented as its own little mini-narrative. Very rarely is there a through-line between scenes and if there is it's generally contrived at best. Like monologues in an audition process, scenes can be presented in two ways. The first is to do it very true-to-form, taking for granted that the audience knows the opera from which the scene has emerged and will understand what's come before and what will come after. The second way is to come into the scene understanding the opera and characters in full but seeing the scene itself as its own little whole. In other words, giving the scene its own distinct beginning, middle and end so that it easily stands on its own regardless of backstory or looming foreshadow.

I much prefer the latter version of scene work because I think it allows me and the singers more creative freedom as we try to figure out these character's motivations in their own private scene hell (appropriate because I'm working only on chunks of Orpheus operas). For example, the scene I'm doing with my Gluck/Berlioz covers is a duet between Orpheus and Eurydice immediately before he looks at her and she drops dead a second time. The duet begins with him urging her to follow him and ends with her screaming one last murderous epitaph in his direction. We are given no set-up or backstory. If we didn't already know the story we would have no idea that they were clamoring out of the Underworld and that he couldn't look at her. We are also not graced with a typical ending to anything Orpheus-related. For all intents and purposes, Eurydice leaves and Orpheus never gets the chance to turn around and kill her.

So I've used this in our retelling of this scene from the opera. I've kept the staging nearly the same but given them intent to play from. When you look at the text of this duet, this could be any horrid middle-of-the-night argument between lovers. He's woken her up from a deep sleep in some sort of distress, she wants to know what the problem is, he refuses to tell her, she blows her top and eventually leaves. We can all see and understand these motivations and in that my two singers can create a complete story out of a truncated tidbit of a larger work.

I actually kind of like the exercise of pulling these pieces out of their construct. It forces you to see the timelessness of the words and the full story inside each beat of the opera.

My second duet is a love duet between Orpheus and Eurydice from Haydn's "L'Anima Del Filosofo." This piece is being performed this season but in a concert version so there are no preconceived notions of staging. I had a lot of trouble with this piece when I first began to look at it because, while it is a lovely duet, it's ten minutes of "I love you, you're my treasure, oh darling we shall never be separated," and I started my work on this at a complete loss as to how to make it interesting as a stand-alone.

The answer, as is so often the case, was in the question (I hope). I've pulled the piece apart for these two singers and given it meaning beyond its operatic storyline. We've messed with time a little, played with the notion of love beyond death, and given a physicality to the music that portrays a story far beyond the lyrics (apropos to but not dependent on the Orpheus myth as well). We worked for two hours today on this 10-minute piece and I think we've got something juicy enough to play. It was wonderful to allow two singers to discover work and worth inside a piece that, generally, is all about two people simply staring into each other's eyes.

For all of my frustrations and sometimes hatred towards the freelance gypsy lifestyle that I lead, I love my job.

Don't get me wrong...I'm terrified of my job. I throw myself into huge nervous frenzies about getting my point across, crossing over into the land of the trite and presenting something that is truly, truly worth seeing, but I think that's okay. It's part of adoring the art form that means I always want to do it justice with my contribution.

It's accepting that My output won't always be aces that proves to be the most difficult thing. It's all learning: the triumphs and the failures. You have to learn to love both.