Inspirations

This is the first chance I have had to write the weeks blog, some 36 hours later than usual!! I have, though, been immersed in the world of Mozart/Da Ponte and Houvardas (our Director) with rehearsals for Cosi Fan Tutte.

Following yet another May national holiday on Thursday, I had planned for a relatively relaxed start to Friday morning. This would include a 10.30 rehearsal watching a Stage and Piano rehearsal of Cosi and then a relaxed afternoon learning a bit of music, doing some exercise and maybe grabbing food with friends/colleagues.

In practise, the 930 call from the Opera House on Friday morning, informing me of the tenor’s sickness, meant for a far from relaxing day as I rushed to work, quickly looked through my notes, jumped into whatever costume I could find and performed a run through of Act 1 on the main stage, with a run of Act 2 following this morning.  This having only rehearsed a few scenes from Act 1 about four weeks ago and having missed a week of watching rehearsals due to rehearsing and performing two other productions during this same period.

Production Challenges

As I have mentioned before, there are many challenges to jumping in as a cover and so I am happy with how the two rehearsals went.

The biggest challenge in this production is that most of the characters have very little time off stage. This is a challenge for the main cast anyway, with little time to rest between scenes/big arias, but as a cover it means there is no chance to split the opera up into sections and be reminded of what is coming in the following scene by an assistant director in the wings. In fact it means that a cover has to try and remember over 3 hours of relatively specific movements having often only ever seen them being done from a distance, in the rehearsal room.

Inevitably I found this prospect quite daunting. Added to this, it was the first time I have tested my ability to memorise three hours of music and Italian words. It is also by far the most I will have had to sing on that stage, with the other roles sung this year being so small. And then the casting director , head of the opera studio AND intendant were all sat in the auditorium.  Inevitably I was a bit nervous, it was hard not to see this as a great opportunity to show that I can sing the bigger roles on the main stage.  

With the acts split over the two mornings I was able to fit in an additional coaching for Act 2 yesterday afternoon and then many hours trying to make sure that Act 2 was indeed memorised, including the infamous Mozart finale! I was also able to speak with some of those who were watching Act 1 and get a bit of feedback.

Addictive feedback

I have such an addiction to getting peoples approval, hoping to impress them, hear they like my singing, thought my acting was great and so on, that it is often the first thing I do after a performance or, in this case, rehearsal. I have been like this ever since I was a boy.

It was probably ingrained into my personality when I was a choirboy at St. Paul’s Cathedral, where our Director of Music was always demanding of perfection. He demanded a lot of us as 7 – 13 year olds, telling us that he treated us like professional musicians when we were in the cathedral and that it was our job to justify that treatment. He would recognise hard work, praise good singing and get angry when things went wrong. There was a hierarchy, a number system in which everyone knew where they stood. The Director would give solos to the best singers and good marks to those who worked hardest, and then bad marks for such things as making mistakes and messing around in rehearsals or the services. All in all it was a system that encouraged competitiveness and a drive for positive feedback. I was obsessed with getting good marks and getting solos and of just impressing our Director of Music. I remember being quite distraught when the whole choir was given a bad mark, my first one for years and a negative against the 80+ good marks I had accrued that year. I also remember exactly the number of solos I did as a boy, and most of the feedback the Director of Music gave me after each one.

Cosi Feedback

So straight out of the costume and rehearsal stage, I went to the head of the Opera Studio for some feedback. It is not her place to speak about the production, that’s for the Director and his assistants, but she gave me some useful notes about how I sounded in the auditorium: ‘A bit quieter than everyone else’, and made a few comments about how my character came across: ‘I could tell when you were Ferrando and when you were Thomas’.

This meant that this morning, when it came to the Act 2 run through, I had some personal goals to aim at. Firstly, make sure I am not holding back, or under singing in the space and, secondly, make sure my characterisation comes out more throughout the rehearsal.

Sure enough, when the Act 2 rehearsal finished I again rushed out for feedback.

This time: ‘the voice sounded much fuller in the auditorium and I could read your character more’.

Result!

Colleagues

In such an ensemble piece as Cosi Fan Tutte, having a weak link doesn’t really work. I know this full well, and so was extremely grateful to the five other singers for pushing a pulling me into the right places at the right time. I was only too aware that this was an important stage of the rehearsal process for them, a run through a few days before the Piano Dress Rehearsal and the start of Stage and Orchestra rehearsals.

I felt very lucky, as ever, to hear these people singing up close and, if I wasn’t already going to be attending, I would definitely get tickets for the show to hear some very beautiful Mozart singing.

One colleague who I am particularly grateful to, and have had to get used to, is the prompt. As I wrote very early on in my time here, we have a prompt in most rehearsals here in Stuttgart and they are really great. It took my some time to get used to and the initial shouting at me with my next line usually resulted in confusion rather than being more sure of my lines. Now, though, I am delighted to have them there. They usually sit very near to the stage, with a music stand, light, and a score, quietly speaking the first couple of words of lines when they are needed, or when the singer gives them the nod, or if there is an awkwardly long pause. For Cosi this is an amazing help. Ferrando probably sings on 250 of the 400 pages, there are quite a painful number of words to memorise in addition to trying to remember the staging, so to have the security blanket of the prompt is really a life saver.

What else

Away from Cosi, the busy life of the Opera house continues.

Last weekend we had the fourth performance of Jommeli’s Berenike, following a two month pause.  Unfortunately our counter tenor was taken ill so we have the assistant director acting the role and a jump-in singing from the orchestral pit. This weekend the tenor is unwell, so the same assistant director will be acting a different role and my old friend, Stuart Jackson, who was in the Opera studio here last year and studied with me at the Royal Academy of Music, will be singing the role from the pit.

Stuart had a few jump-in’s whilst he was in the Opera studio last year and is becoming quite an expert on such occasions. He is also quite an expert at serious board games, such as Agricula, Dominion and Spartacus, and I joined him and two other friends to be beaten by him at these on Thursday. A nice relaxing evening.

Inspriation

The blog week (Friday to Friday) started with me attending the final performance of Rameau’s Platee in an amazing production by Calixto Bieto here at Stuttgart. It really was quite a spectacle and it is obvious to me that Bieto demands a huge amount of his performers.

I was most struck by the remarkable and inspirational performance in the title role by Scottish Tenor, Thomas Walker. This is fiendish role, with High C’s all over the place, coloratura, huge dynamic range and all whilst in a dress and high heels. It was really a great performance and I was only too happy to tell him so afterwards.

One link that Thomas Walker and I have is that he also studied under my old teacher Ryland Davies, another inspiration and someone who I have been listening to a lot this week in his recording of Ferrando in Cosi Fan Tutte from the 1970’s. It is a shame I can’t have him here in Stuttgart coaching me through the role that he made his own.

Malcolm Bothwell

Another inspiration in my life sadly passed away this week. Malcolm Bothwell, a school friend of my Father’s and family friend ever since, sadly lost his battle with cancer and passed away in France, where he had lived for much of his life, last weekend.

Malcolm was a singer, composer and musician specialising in early sacred music but with a keen interest in numerous styles. When I saw him as an adult we would always talk about music and he was interested in how my singing was developing, particularly the change of focus from choral singer to opera singer a few years ago. He was generous and kind, hosting us as a family at his house south of Orleans on a number of occasions and also making the trip over to attend both my wedding in April 2012 and my older sisters wedding a year or so earlier.

As a child Malcolm would make me laugh, almost uncontrollably, he was an entertainer and performer and my abiding memory will be of the joy and energy he would bring to the occasion. I am very happy to have known him.

Here is a link to a clip of him singing and playing that my Father uploaded to souncloud this week. https://soundcloud.com/elwincockett/from-the-eastern-mountains

I hope you enjoy it.

Until next time….