Last Night in the City

I started this blog to give insight into this strange, disjointed life that I lead. This world of crazy career, far-away home, coming together and falling apart. Keeping this up is harder than I thought it would be. Partially because there are so many things I want to talk about that aren't always appropriate in a public forum (memoirs someday...when I don't care anymore) and partially because when the most interesting things are happening I become too busy to sit down and write.

We opened Agrippina today. I wasn't sure how to react, as usual, to the end of my work. I loved watching everyone on stage. I got to bow, which is always an exhilirating experience, and I have a great time when I can dress up and mingle. On the other hand, I felt like my foot was partially out the door. I stood around after the curtain fell and watched everyone bustling around. For them this is the beginning of a run and so their priorities in the moment are different. I had a friend tell me I looked sad which was really not the case at all. I was more....well....I think I had already moved on. It's the only way I know how to survive these frequent transitions. To survive living out of a suitcase and leaving people I care about every few weeks.

Because I haven't written in a while and I have to pack now, I'm leaving you with a journal entry from the summer. I wrote this sometime in late July or early August. I don't know why it seems appropriate right now, but I think it reflects my feelings about life and the way I am living it.

I've got major goals right now. For the first time in my life I'm feeling like my future (or the one I want) makes sense. But I think we never stop searching for the meaning behind it all...

I went to the grocery this evening and as I walked back into my kitchen I had this sudden feeling of claustrophobia and panic. I had to get out. I dropped my bag and purse on the counter and jumped onto my roommate’s bicycle, sliding out of my flip-flops, wide-legged jeans flapping against the chain, ballcap pulled low.

I rode around the block and down a side street, over a creek I spent hours peering into on a late, thundery afternoon and into the glassy, gravely driveway of an abandoned factory I’ve been drawn to lately. There was an eerie quiet there. A tree rustled greenly against an old propane tank. A bird flew through the broken panes of glass to a hidden roost in the depths of the decimated building.

I was tempted to ride all the way into the back of the grounds but looked at the falling sun and felt that female twang of fear that comes from being alone and unprotected. That missing father syndrome that women fall prey too when their entire childhood is predicated by an understanding of their comparable weakness.

I peeled out of the loose stone and cigarette butts to ride back up the hill, calves squeezing out every last pinch of oxygen as I passed the boarded up bowling alley, the shingle-free dive with the fish-fry sign flapping about over the front door, and a green house that always has the strains of a sad country song creating a desolate wrinkle in the surrounding airspace.

As I passed the firehouse, origin of a strange, wailing horn Richard and I’d heard several times over the past couple of weeks (turns out it was a call to volunteer firemen throughout the area), I looked up and saw a flock of large birds flying towards me. Hawks. Beautiful brown hawks with majestic, pointed heads and large beaks, riding the wind space over my head. One flew so low I could hear the air compressing downward in a rush of swept-up sound as he flapped his impressive wingspan.

I counted seventeen as I stood over the catch bar of Richard’s bicycle. None making a sound but for the fwoosh of the wings as they picked up speed. The last one to pass was riding on the tailwind of his neighbor as one of his wings was broken, laying at an odd angle when it was fully spread from his back.

I burst into tears. There was something so amazing, so unprecedented about this flock of majesty flying over my head. I didn’t know how to react but to feel the breeze of their flight on my cheeks and let the tears of intense beauty roll down my face and drip off the end of my nose.

It’s those moments that life dawns on you that bring about a yearned-for perspective that sometimes seems just out of reach.

Almost Home

Agrippina opens tomorrow. The picture on the left demonstrates, I think, exactly how this experience has been for me. Lots of good knowledge and moments, some incredible people and amazing talent, but ultimately stressful. That's me drinking a manhattan in Manhattan with members of the creative team after our piano dress rehearsal.

It's funny. I'm so excited to go home, but I'm feeling really sad about leaving New York. Every time I come to work in this city I love it more and more. I've become extremely fond of the Upper West Side. I love meandering along Central Park West from the Natural History Museum to the Dakota. I love noodles at Ollie's on 84th (better than the Midtown location). I love walking through Zabar's, taking in whiffs of cheese, olives and coffee and listening to the hustle on all sides. I love hazelnut or pistachio gelato at Grom and the Civil War Memorial on Riverside. San Diego just doesn't feel the same. The good stuff there all exists inside my house: my husband, my cats, my books, my stuff...

The end of each project is always, always bittersweet, and always for different reasons.

Tension Personified (That's Me)

Some shows take more effort to get to stage than others. It could be that the action is more detailed or the sets are problematic to move through or the music gives the singers substantial issue. Sometimes the reasons behind the extra stress and effort are harder to pin down even though everyone involved knows they exist.

"Agrippina" is a complicated show in the fact that it's a baroque comedy. Comedy is detailed and nuanced and tremendously hard to get perfect, and Baroque opera is known for its difficult coloratura and (in the case of this opera) its massive, endless recitative.

We have a piano dress rehearsal tomorrow and in some ways it seems too soon and in other ways we already seem long in the tooth. I don't really know which end is up right now. My reasons for not writing stem from this...

I love my job. Dearly. I am in constant awe of what I get to do for a living. I am also very proud of the group of people I'm working with. I think they've put together a very good product and are working hard to get it up and running. I think it will be a tremendous show.

At this point, however, I think I'm just ready to go home.

Much, much more after we open and I am back in California...

Nothing's Gonna Change My World...

Day off today. I usually look forward to days off but John left this morning after five lovely days together in the city.

I spent the morning doing laundry and then had to get out of the house. The loneliness is strongest immediately after one of us has left.

Saw "Across the Universe" at Lincoln Square. Seemed like a good diversion. I had a really bad taste in my mouth about this movie when I first started seeing the trailers, but I have to say that I enjoyed the experience. My biggest issue with Julie Taymor - and I feel this way about her movies and operas (see myreview of "Grendel" at LA Opera) - is that she has a flawless design sense but she consistently falls short on story. If she never set up a narrative to begin with, I wouldn't care so much when these left-field moments show up half way through the film.

The film is beautiful with some great imagery. I tried to let it wash over me with no expectation and on that level it made for a great afternoon. When I started trying to follow the story too hard I started to get frustrated. The character of Prudence kept appearing and dissappearing, there was an obligatory puppet moment mid-stream that was apropos of nothing, and Bono showed up for a ridiculous moment of psychadelia. But, as I said, there were some moments of pure visual genius.

I'm three weeks away from this opera opening. The hard part of directing this piece is thinking about it before I walk into rehearsals. I've truly enjoyed the rehearsal process. I think perhaps the harder part will be scooting over into the assistant's chair in two days. I'm a very good assistant, but I've started this momentum and I'm worried that my inertia as we make the turn may knock me pretty hard against the wall.

The positive in all of this is that, not only do I love, love, love this opera, but I know that I can stand up and do this. I feel ready to do my own thing.

Boy isn't it all about confidence.

Not Dead Just Working

I've been in New York City for 7 days. That's why I haven't written in what seems like an eternity.

I'm in charge on this production until the 27th. I've put up half the opera in 5 days and am looking forward to slapping the rest of it up before next Thursday. This business works at such a rapid rate.

I'm in love with this opera, so that helps push aside any stress I feel from being the go-to-guy throughout the bulk of the rehearsal process. "Agrippina" is deliciously funny and evil with some of the most gorgeous music Handel ever wrote. We have a lively cast, full of laughter and ideas in rehearsals and ready to jump into any ocean I present to them. That's a lucky fact....and not always normal.

The pic is of me after my first day at City Opera. No rehearsals that day, only a big presentation about the opera, but it felt amazing to kick it all off on the right foot. Now it's just details.

A WHOLE LOT of details.

But still. My director comes in next Thursday and I hand the whole kit and kaboodle over to her. I'll have more time to write then. If I could handle getting the whole thing off the ground myself, I can easily handle being the copilot on the landing.

4 by 4 in 48

These last two weeks have been totally overwhelming with planning for "Agrippina" which is coming so fast and furious I sometimes feel like Indiana Jones running like a madmen in front of that giant stone ball...

Part of the problem is my intense lack of concentration that stems from the first week being so incredibly hot that I couldn't do anything but sit on my couch in front of a fan wearing a t-shirt I'd just removed from the freezer, and the fact that I only get to see my husband for fourteen days and I'm trying to soak up all the home I can before I head to the airport yet again.

To add to all of this, I agreed to perform in a little series that Sushi puts on every second Tuesday of the month called 4x4.

The performance takes place at 8pm at Bluefoot Bar in North Park (corner of Upas and 30th if anyone's interested) this coming Tuesday. A 4'x4' stage is set up in the middle of the bar and ten performers get up in succession and do their thing. We have ten minutes a piece to do whatever we want. Some people talk, some people dance. I'm doing a little of both in a piece I literally threw together called "36,000 Feet." It's about traveling for work. Big surprise.

They say you should always write about what you know...

The cool thing about this performance is that the stage is so small. I have no problem rehearsing in my dining room as the photograph proves. The bad thing is that I decided to do it last minute when I was so blasted busy, but maybe that's good because I won't overthink the piece. We'll see what comes out when I'm finally there and in front of all of those sweaty, intoxicated people.

Otherwise, not much to report. I'm just plugging along, trying not to get run over by stone balls and hoping that everything at City Opera is copacetic. My mantra right now is "October 15th, October 15th, October 15th..."

Operatic Ecstasies

I had breakfast with some friends today and the topic of favorite operas came up. I mentioned “Figaro,” which I do love but one friend started talking about all of the “bits and pieces” of operas that she loves. This got me thinking. . . my favorite bits of opera can’t be confined to one composer and definitely not to one opera. My favorites come in tiny moments of sound, little smudges of voice, and those brief, fleeting moments of compositional genius when the emotion mixed with the perfect combination of instruments, of harmony, of voice-types creates an instant physical reaction – that puts me in a sweat or a frenzy. Following are a few that come to mind:

The first one I always think of are those last few bars of Britten’s “Death in Venice.” That little final tremolo up in the stratosphere finally fading into nothingness as Aschenbach lay dying is so simple and so fleeting, but it hits me right in my gut and all the hairs stand up on the back of my neck.

I love the moment in Puccini’s “La Fanciulla Del West” when all of the miners, from their gruff recits at the beginning, break into the sweetest pianissimo waltz refrain. Singing only “la” over and over and clapping out the “2,3” they sing a sweet simple version of the waltz theme for Minnie and Dick until the orchestra takes over with the first satisfying swell of said theme indicating the moment that Minnie and Dick fall in love…Of course that swell is undercut almost immediately by a looming darkness as the male chorus comes back in under the waltz wailing “Allacio” (sp) – “Hang Him!” as one of Dick’s cronies is brought in. In that 45 seconds of music, Puccini shows us tentative flirtation, love’s bloom, and that horrible foreshadowing of a relationship’s demise. Brilliant.

The prayer in “Hansel und Gretel,” “ Abends, will ich schlafen gehn,” makes me burst into tears every time I hear it no matter where I am, what I’m doing, or who I’m with. Perfection in its brevity and its mixture of sadness and hopefulness.

“Akhnaten,” Philips Glass’s Egyptian Opera yields two moments in my aural memory – perhaps because it was my first opera and such an amazing experience for me. The first is the transition into the first scene where the narrator, speaking of a pharaoh’s passage to heaven after death, yells out “On the wind. ON THE WIND!” and like a lightning crash those drums begin smacking out that syncopated heartbeat of triumph laced with a bit of fear, a bit of grief… The second is the first strains of the “Hymn to the Aten,” which make my heart swell, and then when the chorus joins in towards the end of the hymn when that swell finally bursts.

The trio of Gilda/Maddalena/Sparafucile in “Rigoletto” always blows me away… There’s something about the build at the beginning with the three of them in their own private hells…it’s a maddening trek up the hill and oh, so satisfying as the trio actually begins with Sparafucile’s proclamation and that huge crash from the orchestra. Eventually, as everything breaks loose, their voices and torment couple with the orchestra to create the perfect storm. Verdi gives it time to warm up, however, which is where his genius comes in. Like a teasing lover, he leads the music nearly to climax, and then pulls back to nearly nothing . . . to three little knocks and a tiny scared voice, to confusion among the siblings as they recit for the final time . . . He does this twice until you’re twisting in your seat, waiting for that little death, and finally with that final vocal cutoff he unleashes an orchestral tempest that trumps all three swells. Fabulous.

“Pensieri Voi Mi Tormentate” from Handel’s “Agrippina” is Handel at his absolute best. He starts out following the ABA form we all know so well, but then jumps into a tortured recit and returns to the A form again for one final blow. My favorite, tiny, moment is the beginning of each A section when “Agrippina” wails out “Pensieri,” and the oboe echos her in that hollow, horrifying strain. Each return to the A allows her a more ornamented version of “Pensieri” and the oboe is right there with her, like a twisted musical representation of her tortured thoughts, boring right into her brain.

In a completely non-operatic piece, Reinhold Gliere’s other-worldly, off-tempo Charleston from his ballet “The Red Poppy” is horrifying and life-changing. It’s written as if Master Gliere had never actually heard a Charleston, only read about it. It’s got the right time signature, the rhythm and basic structure but it carries a sense of horror and dysfunction inside of its joviality that makes the whole thing a little mixed up and tragic.

Most recently, the moment that knocks me out is the death sequence in Carlson's "Anna Karenina" where a distraught, drugged Anna stands at the train tracks in a trance and sings out, "How bright it is," letting the word "bright" linger on a downward spiraling scale. Her despair is pervasive and horrifying in that moment.

And finally, coming back to “Figaro,” the moment that gives me goosebumps is at the very, very end when the Count pulls everyone on stage and starts to call out the Countess before he knows the joke. From right after she reveals herself to him and the violins start to go nuts and the guys start singing piano (under their breaths), “Oh my god, I can’t believe this,” until their final “non so” and that long fermata where you’re not quite sure what the Count’s going to do, I am in goose-pimply frenzy.

There are many more delicious moments but these are the ones that sit in the front, easily-accessible place in my mind. The more I work in this business, the more moments I will add to my storehouse.

One Week Down...

I just finished my sixth day of rehearsals at Glimmerglass Opera for the Gluck/Berlioz "Orphee," directed by Lillian Groag and conducted by Julian Wachner. We've staged approximately half of the opera at this point and I'm looking forward to a day without Gluck tomorrow.

Not a day without opera, mind you. Lillian and I are also doing "Agrippina" together at New York City Opera in September, and so we are spending the day in planning mode tomorrow followed by a big dinner which we shopped for after rehearsals today. Hard work is no problem at all as long as it's compensated with good food and better conversation.

The picture is me in the rehearsal hall at Richfield Springs Central School after a long day. My director, choreographer, stage manager and ASMs are in the back discussing the process.

The process is often the best part.

Box o' Music

I picked up, literally, a box of scores the other day from San Diego Opera. A whole season's worth of music from "Aida" to "Tannhäuser." It was interesting to see them all kind of dumped in a box - heavy and a bit ungainly - as I lugged it out to my car and thought about when I was actually going to start working on these.

Right now I'm working on "Agrippina," the opera I'm staging for Lillian Groag at City Opera in September. I know this piece like the back of my hand but the set I've worked on is different than the set for New York, and so it takes more preparation than if I was walking into the exact same scenario. Most of the concept is the same, but entrances and exits have switched around and there are some gags, etc. that can't be executed with this scenery. It's a slow process of comparison, but I am armed with paperwork and video galore, so it will eventually come together.

Gluck's "Orphée," which I'm actually beginning sooner than the rest of these operas, is the easiest to prepare because it's never been done before. I've done as much on this score as I can at this juncture. I have a relatively detailed scene breakdown, I've highlighted all of the text, I've listened to the opera 4000 times and I've put together a preliminary schedule. Everything else will have to wait until I'm in rehearsals next week. I leave for Cooperstown on Sunday.

There are so many other things I'd like to work on right now, but my opera preparation seems to dominate my time. I have, of course, become somewhat obsessed with Flickr, so that's taken up the rest of my free time, and in the middle we have quality time with John and the cats.

Sunday morning is a backwards dive off of the high dive into a pool I've never seen before. I love that moment and it scares the crap out of me every time. All I can assume is that the pool has water, though I have no idea how deep or what temperature.

Almost Gone..

I walked into the scene shop at the Landmark Theater this afternoon, and saw a bunch of our props sitting there. Sat down to snap this picture in case John's forgotten what I look like. Thought he could hang this in his office to remind him....

Sad. It seems like such a long time since I've seen him. I don't like this being away constantly from my husband. It used to be so much easier when I didn't care so deeply about someone at home.

Today was our closing performance. It was a performance of "Dropsies," with bits of the set falling, coins falling, posters falling.. Ah well, it's over and I was so happy with all of these performers, who took some difficult moments and made them into great theater. A lot of the singers had family in town which always makes for a nice nervous energy backstage.

I watched back stage this afternoon. It's so different than sitting in the house. In the house I feel like an audience member; I still get nervous for my singers but I'm somewhat removed from everything happening. When I'm backstage, I feel their energy, I am part of the performance. The show started and I was standing stage right and all of those supers were standing in the wings waiting to go on. As the first light came up and Kenny stepped onto the stage, the overture playing, the energy up and swirling, I got choked up. This is a part of the show that does nothing for me when I watch from the house but there's something about that first moment of stepping on stage that gets me every time.

The other moment that always gets me is the tune, but that chokes me up no matter where I am in the theater.

I stood further back to watch the bedroom scene so I could watch all of the guys hiding behind their panels. It's a farce so there's a bunch of popping in and out and peeking out of doors. Watching these guys fidgeting behind their various portals and panels, taking a sip of water, laughing at on stage antics, prepping to jump out and do something ridiculous. I almost preferred it to what was actually happening on stage.

I love what I do. It's so tough sometimes. I don't live in my home, I make these close, short-lived connections that make the whole experience bittersweet, I live out of a suitcase, but listening to that music every night and feeling the incredible energy of an "on" performance, a true ensemble playing off of each other to create incredible theater, is a sweet, sweet reward.

Tomorrow I start "Merry Widow." A whole new set of challenges and joys.

The Quality-Free Inn

I do not recommend the Quality Inn in Richmond, Virginia. It is an especially hard transition from the Courtyard Marriott in Fairfax, with a fireplace in the lobby and free cookies and down pillows.

My safe doesn't work, my toilet seat is chipped and I had to have my bedding replaced this evening when I pulled back the comforter and found a load of black hairs on the mattress pad. Lovely.

Be that as it may, Richmond is nice in that I get to see some friends I haven't seen in years. I had lunch with a friend I danced with San Diego who's been gone for almost three years. She took me to a lunch place and we spilled all the dirt and laughed about our lives. She looked terrific and I was ecstatic to be sitting across from her, falling into old good times so easily. Connections are connections regardless of how long you've been apart.

I had a second dose in the evening when I had dinner with a very good friend I'd been relatively out of touch with for almost nine years. We ate pasta and got giddy with each other, talking about how amazing it is the way life goes, the paths we find. Our paths have diverged but we are still the same and we still have the same ultimate goals, they're just more well thought out now.

I am amazed at the friends I have; their brilliance, their insight, their ability to lift my spirits and make me laugh even when I'm lonely and upset and in a crap hotel room on the opposite side of the country from my husband. I am so lucky to have shared passions and secrets and love and laughs with so many great, talented folks. Thank god for them, every one.

The pictures are of my lovely hotel room. It is cruel to go from such a nice place to such a skeevy place. I will be happy to start working again in the morning so I have something to think about other than what the suspicious stain is on the comforter. Fortunately we are lighting at the Landmark at 9am. I'll be there with coffee (lots of coffee).

Life is hard but good. It's the amazing people that pass through it that make it that way.

Last Night in Fairfax

The picture is sunset on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. My view as I was driving back from New York City. The sun was unbelievable as it sank. I watched it dip down, looking as if it were melting into the roadway ahead.

Doesn't look like that here now. Cold and covered in ice and windy. The ice storm really ravaged the place last night. The roads aren't actually too bad but it was scary looking last night with the light pole out my window blowing around as if it were going to snap in half, and the American flag in front of the Lone Star ripping half off of its pole so it blew straight up in the air, whipping around wildly in the driving snow.

Today was yet another day at the hotel waiting to go to Richmond. It seemed like it would never come, but I am leaving at 11 tomorrow with our SM so that I can have lunch with an old friend at 2pm. I didn't do much of anything today, sat at a desk erasing and rewriting score notes, sat on my suitcase to get it closed after packing everything away, moved the coffee table over by the window so I could do a solo can-can, hopping around on one leg and kicking the other in the air, doing a vaudeville box step in canon with several missing chorus boys and waltzing with an imaginary partner to the tunes from "Merry Widow." It will be nice to have people to work on for that project; I'm sure those walking past my window had a good show.

Had dinner and watched a movie with some friends tonight. One of them rented a car for the day so we could get away from the hotel area. We drove until we found a mall, circled around it until we found a suitable restaurant, and sat in the front for a while after we realized it was so busy because it was Valentine's day. How quickly we forget about holidays when there's no one to share in it with you. All of our significant others are across the country or down the coast, and so today was just any other day for the three of us.

It was a good night. It's a blessing to have people in the hotel that I know and like lest I would truly go stir crazy.

On the road tomorrow!

The Touring Life

Sitting in a Courtyard Marriott in Fairfax, Virginia, the first stop on our mini-tour here at Virginia Opera. We've actually closed here; I leave for Richmond in the morning. The suitcase life is not a favorite of mine and this has been tough because I don't have my own transportation and the hotel doesn't have a restaurant. The room is comfortable enough though, and I've been catching up on sleep and work and salsa dancing, but that's another story.

Fairfax is a difficult place to put in the show because it's a concert hall and has only fixed line sets for its rail. Everything that's flown in takes an age to come in and out so the SM and I had to change all of the fly cues to make things arrive or exit when they actually needed to. For all of the trouble and a brand new crew, the show went surprisingly well. I was a bit worried and still buried my head in my hands on a couple of the slower set movements, but the singers were great and the audiences loved the show. The singers tell me that they love singing in this house so that's the good part of this leg of the tour, though I can't say I'm sad we're through it.

Richmond is at the Landmark Theater. This place is huge and old-fashioned, with the dressing rooms on balconies overlooking the stage. 3500 seats I think which is pretty much a barn. I hope the houses don't seem too small. The pic is backstage. Tape lines (and big red words) help singers and supers find their avenue out of the wings when they are facing down blinding side lights and "in-the-moment" nerves.

It's been a while since I've written. Once I got back from New York and started my trip to Fairfax, my business factor was raised by thousands. The tech process when you have one day to put up a whole show is daunting, and I had some drainage going on so I was trying to lay low whenever possible. I started feeling much better on Sunday and so went out and enjoyed myself a little the past few days. It was nice to leave the hotel room and have some raucous dinners, some dancing, some laughter. The loneliness in a hotel room is astounding after a week. I can't be a hermit when I'm traveling; I'll descend into myself something horrible.

New York was a total whirlwind. I saw friends, ran around in the eyelash-freezing cold, and got a job at New York City Opera. I'll be assiting Lillian again in the fall and will get to work with some great people. It was a terrific end the quick trip and I celebrated with a happy dinner with a friend before I drove back over the frozen New England landscape to Norfolk.

That's the good part of all of this travel: I've got friends in every port. It's so nice to see friendly faces in strange cities.

Tomorrow, friends in Richmond, Virginia. Next week, friends in Chicago!

Nearly Done with Norfolk

Madly dashing around today, working on choreography for "Merry Widow," which I will begin in Chicago in two weeks, doing laundry, packing, tying up loose ends before I begin this mini tour of Richmond and Fairfax.

I'm actually taking a side trip to New York City. I'll leave after our closing matinee on Sunday, drive up, stay at the Holland Motor Lodge (right at the toll booth of the Holland Tunnel - hence the name), and take the PATH into the city for two days to see friends and colleagues. It will be a wonderful respite before I begin the hell that is sure to be putting this show into the theater at George Mason University next Thursday.

We had a fantastic show last night! The audience was great, the recits were tight, the coffee was hot and the performers were hotter. I actually (and somewhat embarrassed to admit) was reduced to tears at the end of "Purch'io di Stringa.." when Poppea and Ottone cling together in the playout and look straight out to the audience, visualizing the horror of their destiny. Thank god I was sitting by myself.

My room is covered in suitcases. I hate living out of a suitcase, so the next month is going to be pretty tough.

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...

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.

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.