Are you watching closely?

Following last week’s excitement I have returned to the back of the rehearsal room, watching eagerly as Stuttgart’s new Cosi Fan Tutte develops. Thankfully the main cast Tenor has recovered and is back staging this rather challenging and thought provoking new production.

Now fully aware of the possibility of having to jump in in the future, my seated view has become a little work station. Music stand, notebook, score, pens, pencils, all set up to write down everything I see my character doing on the rehearsal stage. Using my prep school handwriting and occasionally longwinded shorthand, every little move that Ferrando makes goes down in the notebook with bar or word references.

Eg: b. 22 Fer. DSL 2 DSR nxt 2 Fior. face chair cab. hpy.

Which translated means:

Ferrando: bar 22. down stage left to down stage right, facing the chair and cabinet, looking happy.

This sort of thing may be totally useless for some, but for me gives some sort of framework from which to run the scene on my own should I need to. It is, of course, totally different watching it happen and then being on the stage itself so if I ever have to jump in again, I will take my notebook onto the set, before the rehearsal, and run through each scene. Particularly in a piece like Cosi which relies heavily on all six main characters being totally confident of what and where they are doing things, I would need to feel at home on the set.

Theatre in Opera

Watching the rehearsals develop this week has been very interesting, particularly with our Director having mostly worked in Schauspiel, or straight Theatre.

Away from the cliché that Opera singers can’t act, it’s not true at all, we can, there are surely a number of different challenges that face a Theatre director when jumping across the art forms. A need for the understanding of the music is one quite obvious one, the challenges of long arias, often with only two or three sentences over five minutes. The consideration for the singers ability to sing the lines from whatever position they have ended up in. The problems of being able to see the conductor, hear the orchestra, hear your colleagues in duets and so on. Just a few of the logistical challenges.

Working with Directors who are new to opera presents challenges to the singers too. I’d be interested to discuss this with my colleagues in Cosi as the production develops and will no doubt consider mentioning it further on here. One thing I would say is that it is up to us singers to try our best in getting across the message the director would like us to portray in whatever way they might have asked. Something Marianne Cornetti said in the Masterclass with us the other week is that she will ‘try anything a Director asks at least once’, but that if singing a six minute long aria whilst hanging upside down by ones feet proves too difficult it is also important to say that.

At the end of week two of production rehearsals, singer sickness aside, the show is developing nicely. There are many discussions about what direction the story is heading and a lot of what the director is asking in terms of character development, in particular for the four lovers, is different to any other Cosi I have seen before. That’s probably as much as I am should say without giving the game away before the Premiere at the end of May.

Supportive Stuttgart

I am delighted to have, earlier this week, signed a contract to return to Oper Stuttgart next season as a guest artist in at least three operas (the fourth is tbc.) The contract means I will be in Stuttgart for about six months of the season, performing some nice small/medium roles and allowing for space in my schedule to work on other projects. The next generation in every field needs to be nurtured and developed and I feel lucky to have Stuttgart on my side at this important stage in my career.

Life

As I have mentioned on here before, the decision to move away for a year has been a challenging one in terms of missing family and friends. The new contract means I will be back in the UK a lot more during the 2015/16 season than the current one. I should also be able to attend a few UK events, like the Rugby World Cup final and, hopefully, Jonas Kaufmann at the Last Night of the Proms. The life/work balance should be much improved.

Speaking of which, I am back home this weekend, the last chance to be back before July so am fitting in a couple of singing related appointments as ever, but most importantly am celebrating my third wedding anniversary.

Hope you all have a great weekend!

Until next week,

Tom  

ps. Prize for anyone who can name the film I have quoted this week.....