Honest, Driven, Selfish!

Hello. It's Friday again. My 8th Friday in Stuttgart and I am in the middle of the kind of week I was warned about before I came here. I am aware that, by writing this blog on a Friday, there is a tendency for me to be tired and focus on some negatives more than positives but I am keen to be honest and give a true account of life here and as an opera singer, not a sugar coated one. 

It being eight weeks in, I have some thoughts about why I am here in Stuttgart and what aspects of my personality have contributed to me living on my own in a foreign country when my wife, family and friends are mostly based in the South East of England.

(As I say, I want to be honest, as you will know from my previous posts but an important point to make is that I really love singing, I love being on stage, I love communicating the music and words to an audience. I do love the music of Opera, in particular Verdi, Mozart, Strauss, Donizetti and Bellini. I also love the challenge of trying to make the best of what talent I may have. If I didn't love what I am doing then I wouldn't be here)

Honest

Honesty is very important to me. The virtues of the 'honest' performer are often extolled by reviewers and the search for such a performance acts as an inspiration to improve in all aspects of ones life as a singer. Honesty in learning is important, honesty from coaches and teachers, directors, friends, colleagues. As long as it is constructive, and not destructive, of course. Because we singers can be quite sensitive souls. More so than other musicians, we can feel that any comment on our performances, our voices in particular, are deeply personal.

This aspect of the singers psyche can create a minefield for those coaches/teachers/ directors etc. which they do well to negotiate whilst also trying to give constructive help. Which is why as a singer it important develop an armor around that precious psyche which can deflect some of the flack if the occasional mine is trodden on (excuse me for extending that metaphor). It is also important to find the people who you trust and who can be totally honest with you and I find that I am particularly sensitive to those who are not honest and beat around the bush.

I very am happy to have a core of people I feel I can trust, I can go to them for lessons or coachings and I know they will be honest with me and we will do good honest work. None of them massage  my ego and I feel that their end goal is the same as mine.

Driven (and Selfish)

You may have noticed that I occasionally use language one might associate with sport or business life. Such terms as 'end goal' and 'value added' evoke memories of 'The Apprentice' and not necessarily the world of Opera, this world of art and music, where we perform for the love of it.

Whereas I am not a singer in order to become rich and I do indeed love it, the business aspect of being a performer is extremely important. A realization I didn't make until quite recently. Because when it comes down to the bare facts of the matter, I wouldn't be able to be here singing if they weren't paying me. I also wouldn't be in Stuttgart unless I thought it would aid my future career prospects. Further to that, in order to continue such work and move up in the operatic world I need to create a business that is attractive to opera companies, concert promoters, agents, and one that is employable and sustainable. A 'Thomas Elwin plc'

As with any business there are many aspects to it succeeding and balancing these is always going to be a challenge. Ideally one would have an agent/artist manager to aid in this (more about that another time) but either way there is much to consider. There are all the financial management aspects, as with any small business, decisions about how many lessons/coachings you can afford, whether you can afford to travel to an audition, or whether you can afford not to travel to it.  There are also all the PR aspects, trying to sell your business, the way you look, present yourself, online presence, whether it is good PR to have worked in a certain Opera house or for a certain company. Then of course there are all the artistic aspects, the voice of course, the acting, languages, interpretation, the actual thing you are trying to sell. And not forgetting the personal aspects, the relationships, personal and emotional well being of the employee (me).

When you are on your own in a small flat in a foreign country having rehearsed/performed for 30 + hours in 4 days it is quite difficult to maintain all these aspects but that is where the selfish drive to succeed comes in. Because without a drive to be the best Opera singer I can be I would probably be back in England, singing for fun and working in a job unrelated to Music, and in many ways that is a much more attractive proposition. I would see my wife every day, my family and friends more, I would have more money, I would go and watch West Ham play and maybe take up golf.

This selfish drive has brought me to Stuttgart. This selfish drive will I hope give me a good long career in Opera, I also hope I will have the honesty to admit when things aren't going well and when aspects of the business need considering.

Anyway.....I digress..... what about my week.....

Busy week

As I have mentioned, this week is the sort of week I was warned about. From Monday to today I have been in stage rehearsals for one opera, music and stage rehearsals for a second opera, music rehearsals for a concert on sunday and had performances of a third opera. Each day I look at the schedule and assume that any time I might have for myself will be filled. This doesn't leave much time for tending to many aspects of 'Thomas Elwin plc' life.

Happily, one aspect of 'Tom Elwin plc' was made easier this week with my wife visiting from England. As a teacher she is on half term so we were able to spend the weekend together and then she spent a few days exploring Stuttgart alone whilst I was working. It was lovely to see her and I am looking forward to sharing a German Christmas with her and her parents when they come over in December.

Production rehearsals for Mussorgsky's Khovanshchina have now moved onto the stage. The production uses most of the space Stuttgart's stage has to offer and with the large chorus scenes and various sets it promises to be quite a spectacle. The voices on show are also quite spectacular, I have never heard the volume of voice that one of the Russian singers has, I'm surprised some of you people in the UK haven't heard him from over there.

On Tuesday evening I performed in the 150th performance of Achim Freyer's production of Der Freischutz. A production that was created in Stuttgart in 1980, it was lovely to be on stage whilst the boss, Jossi Wieler, gave a speach which included inviting all those who have been involved with each one of those 150 performances to the stage. We finish the run of performances on Monday, and I will always have fond memories of my debut role in a German Opera house.

Rehearsals have started for Sundays 5 year Opera Studio anniversary concert which features most of the Opera studio singers from that time. Those who aren't already in Stuttgart are arriving in the next day or so and it will be great to see two Tenors who were at the Royal Academy of Music with me, Stuart Jackson and Roberto Ortiz. It will also be great to meet and learn from more singers who are further down the line in their careers. Though I hope the concert will be a great success I am sure the party after will be....

Thank you

Before I leave you for another week, may I thank those of you who have emailed/facebooked/tweeted/phoned me about the blog, asking questions or offering support or advice. I am always glad for the contact and more than happy to meet new people.

Should you want to email, my address can be found under the contact page of my website www.thomaselwin.com .

I leave you with a clip from a Masterclass I took part in during the summer, just to prove to you all that I don't just blog about it but I do also actually sing!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wflfq23xxjE

Have a good week!

Tom

Don't talk about the weather

The deathly silence of the lift was horrible. As I stood there, painfully close to the lovely admin lady who was charged with showing me to my warm up room, I could only think of one thing to say:

“das Wetter gut ist, in Stuttgart es ist nicht gut”

Oh dear. That’s all I could think of, talking about the weather. What a terrible cliché! I basically just asked the taxi driver if he was busy…..

At least I spoke though, because one of the biggest barriers to settling here in Germany is the language and at times I feel like I’m on mute.

If only they knew

This feeling of being in ‘mute’ mode is frustrating. Particularly when you don’t want to sound stupid, don’t want to use the wrong word, or to mess up the grammer, it’s just easier not to say anything. In doing so, though, people don’t really get to know me, my true character. For all the chorus know, I am a quiet Englishman who can’t pronounce quick Russian but does a mean Cusack dance. Yet, if I was fluent in German I’d be Mr Chatty by now, talking about anything and everything (probably Football), having a joke and getting to know people.

I can do something about it, though, and I have made it my aim to have more and more detailed conversations in German each day. Most importantly,  not to worry about mistakes.

Here again

It was after deciding to have more German conversations that I arrived for my audition, yesterday afternoon. The lovely lady in the lift, having responded passionately to my weather statements by telling me how nice it was for the time of year, was the first recipient of my conversational goal. She was quickly followed by another administrator, who gave me a form to fill out, and then by the repetiteur who came to run through my arias with me. He turned out to be Irish so I reverted to using my mother tongue. These German conversations, though aimed at helping me learn the language, had the additional benefits of calming my nerves.

As I mentioned, I was here to do an audition. ‘Here’ was Hanover….. Yes, Hanover.

Those regular readers of my blog may remember that Hanover was the first place I ever auditioned at in Germany, in January 2013. It was an occasion I try to forget about and in preparation for this weeks audition I hoped to block it from my thoughts. This time was different though. Instead of coming as an unknown, new to the German system and lacking any German skills, I was here on merit. I had been invited back by the same people who heard me sing so badly 20 months earlier and whom I had rejected. I was coming up from Stuttgart, where I am actually in employment as a singer and I was confident enough to use what little German I have picked up over the last few weeks. I was also aware of my past, aware of what I have written in this blog about talking myself out of singing well and destroying my confidence, aware of the ‘journey’ I have been on to this point and how much happier a position I find myself in.

Supportive Stuttgart

In addition to these things, I was also very well prepared. Like any athlete, and yes, I believe singers should treat themselves like elite athletes, I had a pre-match routine sorted. In the days leading up to the audition I arranged a series of coachings and practise auditions which allowed me to arrive in Hanover confident that I was going to show my best.

The first of these pre-match training sessions was a coaching with John Graham Hall, the English tenor who is here in Stuttgart about to perform a fiendish role in Jakob Lenz by Wolfgang Rihm. I have got to know John over the last few weeks having shared one or two, or more, beers with him. In preparing for this audition, I knew full well that I would be singing some of the same arias I have sung at auditions for the last 18 months and the last thing I wanted them to do was to sound stale. The work I did with John was ideal, we worked in detail on text, on telling the story and really portraying the characters through each aria. He was also very honest with me. In true tenor fashion, or maybe it’s just me,  I had brought the Italian Tenor’s aria from Rosenkavalier ‘Di Rigori’ with me as a show off aria. I am not a showing off sort of person but I can sing this aria and it will be good for me in the future. At the moment it is too new, not totally in my voice and a dangerous choice for an audition. John told me exactly that. ‘Don’t do it unless you could walk out at the MET and sing it’ is what he said. Good point and exactly what I needed to be told. He also told me to be confident, almost arrogantly confident, about what I was singing. To look at the panel and show them that I know exactly what I am doing, I can do it very well and they better take notice.

The other main pre-match session I arranged was a mock audition to two of the three casting decision makers here in Stuttgart, Bettina and Veronique. Doubling up as a chance for them to hear me sing a few arias for the first time since March, it was a great opportunity to get immediate feedback from people who sit on panels all the time and who have first hand experience of the sort of audition I was about to do.  Sure enough, their feedback was extremely helpful. They were positive and constructive in their points and I left the session feeling very lucky that I am working in such a supportive opera house.

By the time I got to Hanover, following a 4 ½ train journey, I was very much in the right audition zone. I sang them Belmonte - Mozart and they asked for Duca - Verdi, exactly the same arias I had been asked to sing the day before to Bettina and Veronique. The audition was on the main stage and for once I almost enjoyed myself, even hoping that they might ask for a third aria and being so relaxed as to make a joke with the repetiteur as I walked onto the stage.

My relaxed persona spilled out into the waiting area too. The five other singers, happily waiting there in silence, probably didn’t expect to have to deal with a chatty Englishman, asking questions every two seconds, talking about the weather, travel, singing, football and Indian food. So much were they surprised by this that there was a comedy moment, as the panel left the theatre and walked through us. There I was, mid-story about singing one night in a restaurant, and I turned to see the Bass awkwardly grinning at me and then running down the stairs.

What else

Aside from the audition, the daily routine of the opera house continues. The numerous rehearsals for the big Mussorgsky opera, with and without the chorus, have been enjoyable. Following my lessons last week I have started to ask more questions and to challenge decisions made about my character. Particularly when I have a few key scenes to establish who I am, it is extremely important to the arch of the piece as a whole that I am confident of my characters thoughts, feelings and motivation.

I have performed two more nights as Kilian in Der Freischutz and was delighted to have my opera studio colleague go on as Ännchen as the soprano she was covering was unwell. This was a fantastic opportunity for her and one she grabbed with confidence. I only hope I would react in a similar way and rise to such a challenge if it was presented to me.

The same soprano, Josefin Feiler, and I have found a joint love for table tennis and have started to play in the crews tisch tennis room, in the basement of the opera house. So regular are our games that various members of the crew have begun to challenge us to matches. More about that another day.

Must try harder

I am yet to be totally used to the daily routine here, with some rehearsals starting at 10 and some at 1830, often with a 5 hour space in the middle of the day.

If I am totally honest, which I try to be, I need to work harder at eating well and exercising regularly. There is always an excuse so I’ll start that on Monday, or maybe the 1^st of November….. or after Christmas. No! I need to bite the bullet and just do it.

I am looking forward to spending the next few days with my wife, who visits during her school half term (she is a teacher, not a student), and then preparing for a big celebration concert here in Stuttgart on the 2^nd with all the Opera Studio members from the past five years.

In the meantime, I hope you all have a wonderful week.

Tom 

Opera Geek

Obsessed, totally obsessed. A proper geek.

There are a number of topics I can claim ‘geek’ level on. As a child I was car mad, could name almost any car, spec level, age, model, engine etc.  I am also a sport obsessive and in particular a massive West Ham United fan, though I no longer have the squad numbers memorized. It is quite normal to be football and sport mad but I also have an obsession with sports shoes and specifically football boots. Check out my twitter feed and you will find pictures from my trips to football boot shops, retweets of numerous articles about Adidas Predator’s (my personal favourites), Nike Magistas and general football boot-obsessed behaviour.

Despite all this, my highest level of obsession is with Tenors. Not just singing, though obviously I am into that quite a lot and music as a whole is quite awesome, but specifically Tenor singing. I am a true Tenor geek, and not afraid to say so. I happily spend my time listening to and watching endless videos of great tenors, from Pavarotti to Wunderlich, Gedda to Bjorling, Caruso to Larui – Volpi. My obsession also seeps out into my day to day life.

Modest Mussorgsky  Tenor

It was yesterday evening, during another three hour rehearsal for Oper Stuttgart’s forthcoming show ‘Khovanshchina’, stood in a large, rotating, wooden box with three ‘prostitutes’ and Andri Khovansky, that I realised the extent of this obsession. For Andri is played by a Tenor and we have the lovely Estonian Tenor, Mati Turi, performing the part.  Having been in the box for about ten minutes, and despite the smiles and general friendly atmosphere in there, I left knowing nothing about the three ladies playing the prostitutes but could almost write a book about Mati.  

Mati is a very interesting man. From 1988 to 1990 he spent two years in the Russian Secret service followed by some time at University and then twelve years as a professional choral singer in Estonia. Only becoming freelance in around 2006, he has since performed, amongst many other works, both Siegfried and Parsifal for companies across Europe including ReissOper in the Netherlands and Opera North in Leeds, UK. In the musical run of the opera last week, when I was in awe of the selection of singers on show, it was a ringing Top A from Mati that gave me the biggest smile. He has a great voice and is a lovely man, he is also a great colleague to learn from.

During the rehearsals this week, of which there have been many, Mati has been great. Friendly, jovial, and then ‘on it’ when needed. Committed and genuine as a performer, he asks questions, a lot. This is the thing I have learnt most from him. Last night, during a scene where I am basically his slave, he was asking questions of the director and assistant all the time. ‘Why here?’ ‘Why now?’ ‘Why am I doing this?’ and so on. I have no doubt that he has put a lot of work into the character himself and now he is constantly searching to make it the best he can with the help of the staff at hand.

It’s easy not to ask questions, of course. Easy to stand there, wait to be told where to go, how to do it. Not to slow things down. That’s useless though. Particularly in a role like mine where I sing so little but am on stage for so long. Questions must be asked, ownership of my character must be had so that wherever I happen to be standing on the stage there isn’t a black hole, with nothing happening, but there is a live character enhancing the piece.

Russian – German – ouch

As I mentioned last week, these small roles are a challenge. Particularly in the case of the Mussorgsky where I am on stage for most of Act’s 1 and 3 yet don’t sing very much at all.

The other big challenge with the Mussorgsky continues to be the language. With rehearsals being conducted mostly in German my concentration is constantly tested. Add on top of this my struggles with a language I have only sung in once before, Russian, and it makes for a challenging week. Sometimes it feels as if my brain can’t take anymore language in and I feel a bit like a 32gb iPad 2 when ideally I’d be a 64gb iPad Air.

My main song, Kuska’s song, in Act 3, is my biggest challenge. Not vocally. Vocally it’s very easy. It is fast though, with no time to think and 4 pages of almost non-stop Russian. It takes place straight after I’ve Cossack danced across the stage for a minute. ‘Higher, higher’ the director said. Higher, higher I tried. I stopped, I tried to breath, I tried to remember my first line and….. nope, gone. De ja vu. So many Russian words rushing through my head and none of them the one I needed.

Mati was kind, though. ‘Such a difficult role to do, Tom, nothing for ages, then running across the stage and singing that fast thing’. He has a point.

In my defence, this was the first time through this section. It will be fine, I will make it as good as possible. We do have another four weeks before first night.

Full time opera house

Over those four weeks Stuttgart are showing me exactly what life at a full time opera house like this can mean.

Der Freischutz performances continue, production for Khovanschina continues, plus 8 days of production rehearsals and opening of Ariadne auf Naxos and also the rehearsals for and performance of an Opera Studio anniversary concert on 2^nd of November.

It really is great to be involved in so many performances and at a house like this. I imagine I may be quite tired at the end of November though. I am also more aware than ever of the use an opera studio has for the Opera house itself.

I am not complaining here, but my voice is my voice. It is a young lyric tenor voice, suited to the tenor roles of Mozart and Donizetti and others. Yet here I am singing Kilian, a character low tenor (baritone) part and Kuska, a character Russian Tenor part. Both parts that in another generation would be sung genuine character tenors who are suited to the roles. For the opera house I am a cheap way to fill these small parts yet when it comes to the directors and the conductors they ultimately want someone who is suitable for the role. ‘Don’t sing it too beautifully’ ‘Make it sound more like a drunk old Russian soldier’ ‘It’s not about your voice’'Make it more character tenor like'. All phrases that I’d hope not to hear if I were singing roles more suited to what I can offer.

Such is the way in an opera studio though.

Next step

I must remember that the Opera studio in Stuttgart is only for a year. I am enjoying myself and it is a good finishing school before my next step, preparations for which continue, starting with an audition in the coming week a four hour train ride away from Stuttgart, in Northern Germany. (that is as much as I am giving you in terms of destination….)

As I have mentioned previously, I am ambitious. I want to be singing the main tenor roles, the Ferrando’s, Nemorino’s, Edgardo’s of the operatic world and ultimately in the best opera houses possible. Hopefully the next step will take me closer to realising these goals.

This brings me back to my Tenor geek-ness.

I often wonder when listening to various singers, current or from the past, how they gained their success. Which doors opened for them and when. I wonder who inspired them as singers, if they went through difficult moments or had to sing a load of small roles somewhere before they were given the opportunity to shine.

Take Mati Turi, a busy singer, singing major roles in good houses across Europe. He didn’t start performing operatic roles properly until he was into his late 30’s.

I remember talking to Welsh Tenor, Dennis O’Neill, about his early career. At 28 he took part in a competition at the Wigmore hall, singing Schubert, Britten and Handel. He says he hadn’t yet discovered he true voice, yet a few years later he was understudying Alfredo Kraus and Nicolai Gedda in Italianate Lyric repertoire and then eventually became the Verdi tenor of choice.

Then there is Joseph Calleja, the Maltese tenor, who competed in the final of the Operalia competition in his early twenties and has been working pretty much non-stop ever since.

My old teacher, Ryland Davies, performed Count Almaviva is Rossini’s Barber of Seville with Welsh National Opera aged 21 and before he was 30 had recorded Ferrando in Cosi Fan Tutte with the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. He was generally considered to be the leading Mozartian tenor of the time.

Own path

All this information is very interesting, to me at least. What it really shows though is that the path to success is different for everyone. The path to a sustainable operatic career depends on so many things and all one can do as a singer is be prepared and make the most of every opportunity.

In the meantime, I will continue to listen to and be inspired by great tenors from every age. My tip for this week is Piotr Beczala singing ‘Di Rigori’ from Der Rosenkavalier. Enjoy!

Have a lovely week,

Tom 

Winter is coming

As I look outside, the grey skies and light drizzle could place me anywhere in Northern Europe. The refreshing breeze that has finally arrived here in Stuttgart has replaced a warm and stuffy period which threatened to ridicule the wardrobe choices I made when packing my bags in England. Being in Central Europe, at least from the perspective of a Londoner, I’d been told that it will get cold and I am delighted to be able to start using the selection of jumpers (pullovers) at my disposal.

Rehearsal Costumes

Another reason for the relief at this weather is the use of rehearsal costumes, something I mentioned in my last blog.

This week, before I had even removed the last fleck of blue makeup stubbornly lingering on my eyelids from the previous night’s Freischütz, we started rehearsals on Mussorgsky’s epic Khovanshchina. This 5 act opera is being brought to Stuttgart in the production by Andrea Moses first seen in Dassau in 2011. Unlike the Freischutz rehearsal process, we have the best part of 7 weeks to put the show together. With so much time on our hands we were able to spend 12 hours over Tuesday and Wednesday on the opening scenes, time enough to really warm into the characters. Not that my character needs warming up at all. As the first person to sing I have been ‘on stage’ for all 12 of these hours and with the scene opening outside during the Russian winter my rehearsal costume has included a massive, heavy, thick Russian army coat. It has been a bit like being in a sauna whilst also singing, in Russian, and being pushed around. I am loving it!

The sauna coat aside, it is great to be involved in a rehearsal process like this. The director is able to give even my little character the time to discuss small details, character arches and back stories. These are aspects of theatre creation that I worked on in the past, including during John Ramster’s acting classes at the Royal Academy of Music, but never expected to have the time to discuss in rehearsals on the professional stage, particularly with a small role like mine and following my Freischütz whirlwind.

Small roles

Someone once said:

                ‘there is no such thing as a small part, only small actors’

I don’t think they were talking about Opera at the time but it is a little statement that opera studio members need reminding of, me included.

My role in the Mussorgsky is small, in terms of how much I sing. I probably sing enough music to fill 5 – 10 minutes of the piece. That is more than the Freischütz and significantly more than the role I have in Ariadne auf Naxos later in the season. I sing in the very first scene and then half way through act 3 and at the end of act 4. Including a little silent appearance in act 2 I am probably on stage for closer to an hour though and so the best part of 50 minutes will be spent reacting to the scene, being alert to the action and running the story in my head in order not to look like a spare part on stage. This is, of course, a difficult skill and it is a skill that I haven’t spent too much time trying to perfect.

The thing is (oh yes, I said ‘the thing is’) that there are very few young singers, if any, that prepare themselves to do small parts. We are all very ambitious, most of us want to be Rodolfo, Mimi, Tosca, Don Giovanni etc. Not 2^nd prisoner, iL Paggio, 14^th Lady or whatever other small roles there may be. I am the same as everyone else here. I am very ambitious. I want to be singing the Duke, Rodolfo, Nemorino, Romeo, Alfredo. I want to be singing them as soon as possible and in as prestigious an opera house as possible. I want a recital series at the Wigmore Hall and a recording contract with Decca/Sony. These things don’t happen overnight though, sadly, and 99% of singers leaving music colleges will, if they are performing anywhere at all, be performing small roles.

What is an opera studio?

This brings me nicely onto a topic I have been wanting to cover. What is an opera studio?

From the point of view of the young singer, an opera studio in an opportunity. An opportunity to be employed for a year, to make contacts, to perform on large stages in big operas with great singers. An opportunity to watch the proper pro singers, to see how they work, to ask questions and learn the ways of the profession. In many ways it is a half-way house between music college and the full profession.

Practically speaking, and I only know the full story here in Stuttgart, it is a very busy year performing any small roles that an Opera house needs you to do. You are treated in same way as the normal soloists, you may get a few more coaching’s and the odd Masterclass but you are treated like a young professional.

There are many reasons why Opera studios exist. They haven’t been around for ever and back in the good old days, apparently, opera houses would nurture singers without the label of a studio. For many opera companies, having an educational programme such as a studio allows the fundraising department to tap into new revenue streams. In the case of Stuttgart, the opera house was approached by a successful local businessman who wanted, as an opera lover, to see Stuttgart have an Opera studio like other big German houses. He agreed to fund it. This was only 6 years ago and, luckily for me, Stuttgart now has a great reputation as one of the best studios available. It allows the opera house to keep a pulse on young singers who may not otherwise be on their radar.  

One thing an Opera studio isn’t is a guarantee to future work.

I know for a fact that there isn’t currently a spare contract going as a tenor for 2015/16 in Stuttgart. If I impress them enough there may well be work in the future, even the consideration of an Ensemble contract in a few years or in 2015/16 if things change. There is no obligation though and as such I must always be looking to the future. Looking to auditions, competitions, at potential management and contacts. No time to sit back, as ever.

Here and now

At the same time as I look to the future I am also alert to the opportunities I have here.

On Sunday I made my debut here in Stuttgart, my first solo performance in a real Opera house. However brief it was I really enjoyed myself. I had the inevitable nerves but I was mostly excited by the prospect of performing in front of 1400 Germans. (1399 actually, my lovely wife was there, she isn’t German). The management of the house came up trumps, all coming to wish us well before the performance and being equally positive and supportive at the end of the night. My German dialogue was even good enough to be understood, so I am told.

Having my wife in the audience was wonderful. She arrived on Saturday morning during the final stage rehearsal, which went well btw. I was able to show her around Stuttgart, the town centre, the park, the bread and so on. Knowing she was in the audience at this important moment in my career made me feel great and I am so grateful that she flew over for the few days.

My second performance on Freischütz was last night, Thursday. A much calmer affair without the first night nerves yet still with the supportive opera house management and grateful audience. We don’t perform the show again for 8 days, long enough for the next show to feel a bit new again, so I will need to remind myself of the aria and dialogue over that time.

Colleagues

The pattern of daily life in an opera house has settled by now, four weeks into the season. I am delighted to say that my colleagues remain friendly and supportive and the opera studio singers, though we aren’t yet in shows together, and I feel like a good team.

Away from the opera, I am keen to give VFB Stuttgart, the football team, a try. In fact it would be a second try as the first experience wasn’t the best and I decided to leave that out of the blog. The Canstatter Wasen continues, though there seem to be fewer and fewer extremely drunk people around.

Having now settled into life I now have three focuses. Learn German, get fit, further my career. All three will aid each other and if you have any tips about any of those do please get in touch. Those of you on Nike Running + can challenge me (my username is Thomas Elwin I think) and we can all run together through the internet.

I hope you all have a wonderful week.

Speak soon.

Tom

Time to Perform

‘So, have you fired a gun before?’

Not the first question you expect to be asked at 10 am on a Wednesday morning, the morning of many firsts. First time meeting the chorus, first time being on the stage at the Opera House and first time singing an actual aria in a theatre like this, first time I’ve performed German dialogue in front of a load of Germans and the first time I’ve messed up shooting a gun on stage (more about that later.)

As I mentioned at the end of my last blog, this week has been the lead up to my debut performance in Stuttgart, a moment I haven’t really spent much time considering despite it being the aim of the whole exercise. On Sunday 5^th of October, at 7pm, the curtain will come up on Der Freischütz with me playing the role of Killian. At about 7.15 my role will be complete and then at about 10 pm I will come out for a bow, probably having been forgotten by 99% of the audience (my wife is coming along, she’ll remember me I hope).

Prepare well – A ‘Freischütz revival’

Bettina Giese, the head of the Opera Studio here, had told me to make sure I was well prepared for the Freischütz staging rehearsals as there isn’t much time. She wasn’t joking.

My first stage rehearsal was at 10 am last Saturday, 8 days before the show opens. I had initially been called for 11 but received a text message at 2 am from the assistant director informing me of the change. This production is famous in Germany and is Stuttgart’s longest running staging of any opera. In fact during this run we will take part in the 150^th performance of the production. All of the Principles have been sent DVD’s of the production and the initial skill is to replicate what you have seen.  Frustratingly for me, the director wants me to replicate the performance from the production as filmed in 1982 not the 2008 one I saw, so much of the preparatory work I did was thrown out immediately.

After an hour of watching the right DVD and then running my scene alone the rest of the cast turn up, I am introduced as ‘Thomas Elvin from the Opera studio, his German isn’t great yet but we are working on the dialogues.’ The term ‘Opera studio’ feels almost like an insult and I immediately feel like a second class citizen. Inevitably as a result I want to make a good impression even more.

Twenty minutes later I am heading home, my scene having been run once in total, the dialogue a couple of times but there being no time for any more.

The next call is Monday. We run my sections twice but on this occasion it isn’t for my benefit as such as we have to work two sets of children into the scene. The kids laugh at my German pronunciation. I ask for more coaching.  

By Wednesday we are in the theatre for ‘stage rehearsals’. Before opening night I will have had three of these rehearsals on stage. On Wednesday it is a technical run-through, making sure the numerous technical aspects happen safely and correctly, like when the stupid English opera studio Tenor is meant to shoot a rifle but forgets to ‘cock’ it and fails to fire it at the right time so the chorus end up singing ‘victorious’ before anything victorious has happened.

In my defence, I was nervous. Very nervous.

It was my morning of many firsts.

At 945 I turned up to my dressing room to find the complete costume, including a tailor made hat as all the other hats in the ginormous costume cupboard didn’t fit my massive head. I would try and describe the costume to you, but I think on this occasion, pictures definitely speak louder than words.

At 10 am, whilst wearing my jolly Germanic costume, I was taught how to shoot a rifle by the lady in charge of the armoury, what a cool job. Most important thing, she said, was to make sure the safety cover is clear of the back of the bullet. Then ‘cock-it’, but only just before you are about to shoot, and never aim the gun at anyone. As most of you will know, even blank bullets let out a shot and can be extremely dangerous.

From Frau Armoury, that’s not her real name, I then went onto the stage. Here I was met by the whole chorus, there are probably 40 of them but at this moment it felt like hundreds. In what must be an attempt to make the soloists feel even more intimidated, the chorus are not in costume. Like all choruses, they are a very jolly bunch, banter flying, much laughter and chatter, and they are good. Award-winningly good. Everyone has told me how they are one of the best choruses in Germany and how most of the singers could be doing ‘our jobs’ as soloists. This of course makes the fact that I am about to sing in front of them that much more nerve wracking. To make this that bit worse I’m not only singing in German but I am also doing spoken dialogue, in German of course, in a 5 minute scene with three other singers, two of whom are have German as their first language and the other, an American, has been here for 30 years.

The first time we run the scene I psyche myself up… ‘come on Tom, you can do this’….. I prance to the front of the stage, down the not inconsiderable rake, grab the gun and go to shoot. I clear the safety cover and pull the trigger. Nothing. Oh, the chorus are now singing ‘victoria’, what to do with the gun. I haven’t cocked-it. OK, I’ll do that. Now its just unsafe. OK, I’ll shoot it anyway. Phew!..... Whats next? Oh yes, my aria. Whats the first line? Erm….. I can’t really hear the prompt. Bollocks. That’s it. Feel’s very low. It is a Baritone part anyway. Done. Great. Not so great, dialogue time. I am probably the least qualified person in the whole theatre to be doing German dialogue. Dialogue finished. Now for the long scene where I have to stand and react to the music for 5 minutes but am the only one on stage not actually singing (thanks Weber!!). That was easy. Last line of dialogue to do, what’s the first word? Oh yes, off I go. Finished!! I wonder if the audience could read my thoughts through that?

Inevitably, on this most petrifying of occasions the feedback was not 100% positive. ‘You need to be in the character more’ ‘Have you shot a gun before?’ ‘Do you know what it all means?’ If I had been rehearsing the show for a few weeks I may be upset by these questions, on this occasion I understand, I must have looked a bit like a doomed rabbit up there. I go home keen to improve on Thursday, the first rehearsal with the orchestra.

The thrill of the music

Our stage and orchestra rehearsal has a different dynamic to the technical one. The assumption is that the technical aspects will now all work and theoretically this rehearsal belongs to the conductor. The experience of Wednesday morning appeared to have rid me of nerves and suddenly I enjoyed myself. Even if the role I am singing is a baritone part and one that I will never sing again, the chance to sing with a great orchestra and on stage with a great chorus is inspiring. The difference between the piano and the orchestra is huge and the inspiration it gives transforms my performance. I receive very good feedback. What a relief!! Next…. The dress rehearsal and first night, both this weekend.

Away from Freischütz

Away from the whirlwind of being in a revival I continue to settle into Stuttgart life. At the moment Stuttgart is in the middle of Canstatter Wasen season, Stuttgart’s own version of Oktober fest. As a result half the people on the U-Bahn are wearing lederhosen or durndl and they are very drunk or well on the way.

Last Saturday evening three of the English singers here in Stuttgart, and I, met up for a drink and bite to eat.  The three singers were Henry Waddington, a Bass here rehearsing ‘Jakob Lenz’, Rebecca von Lipinski, a soprano in the Ensemble and John Graham-Hall, Tenor, who is also rehearsing ‘Jakob Lenz’. It had the potential to turn into another educational ‘how to be an opera singer’ evening and I was yet again grateful for the advice and stories from three working professionals. I found hearing the different challenges faced when balancing a career and a personal life particularly thought provoking as I consider my next step.

I was glad to meet and talk with John Graham-Hall, who I had last met in 1999 when I was 12 years old. On that occasion I was playing Paris the Boy in King Priam by Tippett in a concert performance at the Royal Festival Hall. John was singing the grown up Paris in a cast that also included Susan Bullock, Kurt Streit, Dan Norman and Brindley Sherratt. I seem to remember being quite overawed by the whole rehearsal process and also thinking that the adult soloists were the best singers I had ever heard. I was Head Chorister at St. Paul’s Cathedral at the time and such engagements with, in this case, BBC Wales and the like were one of the perks of the job. John told me some of his memories of the gig, of the dynamic between the fellow Principles and how big a gig he felt it was for him.

John and I also discussed writing, seeing as I am now a distinguished writer of a blog, and I was very interested to hear his experiences writing a novel, ‘My Wife the Diva’. I have since read the book and I thoroughly recommend it. It is very funny but also heart breaking and highlights many of the issues facing a career in Opera or the arts today.

Time to see the wife

During our dress rehearsal tomorrow my wife arrives in Stuttgart for the first time. It has been almost four weeks since I last saw her and it will be great to show her my temporary home, introduce her to my colleagues and have her there in the audience at my first performance.

This week I have found it particularly hard to be away from family and friends. I was delighted to receive a letter from a friend of mine who has fallen on very hard times. He sounded positive and hopeful for the future, I am only too aware that I can’t visit him from Stuttgart.

I am not the first member of my family to live abroad. This last week in fact we remember my Grandfather, Dr. Norman Cockett, who died on the 30^th of September 1964 in Ghana, aged just 36. Initially he had moved with his young family to India, where my father was born. In a world where even making a phone call back to England would have been a challenge, India must have felt a long way away. My Uncle Norman, my Fathers eldest brother, tells me that his father had a lovely tenor voice with similarities to mine which, having obviously never met him, gives me a nice feeling of connection to the past.

Fritz Wunderlich debut

Fritz Wunderlich, the great German Tenor, also died aged 36, two years later than my Grandfather in 1966.  The recordings of Wunderlich have always been an inspiration and I was thrilled to learn that he also made his professional debut in Stuttgart. Didn’t do him any harm! I better make the most of it.

I’ll let you know how it goes next week

Tom