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.....

Cover Up!

I started the week back in England to perform a concert, at the Leith Hill Festival, and also to celebrate my wife’s Birthday. I have ended the week covering Ferrando in Cosi Fan Tutte rehearsals here in Stuttgart.

Life

Being away from family and friends is part of the job of an Opera singer. As I have said to people who ask why I can’t work at home, there isn’t an Opera house in Hertfordshire, to my knowledge, opera houses aren’t going to move for me!

It is, though, an aspect of the job that I realised would be difficult, particularly this year with such a defined long time away.

I decided before I came to Stuttgart that I would go home when I can, if possible, and would try to fit ‘life’ time around any work I got in England, as to soften the financial blow of travelling. Happily this concert came through and meant I could fit in a few days to celebrate the birthday, see friends and family. It also allowed me to have a singing lesson and doubled up as an opportunity for an agent to hear me.

Agents

The getting of an agent/artist manager has been in my thoughts for most of the last 5 years. A few friends of mine have been represented by good agencies since they were in music college and there has often been a sense that not having the agent might be holding me back. This year in Stuttgart has been a good tonic to that thought, with audition opportunities and work coming my way without an agency signed up to my cause. I do, though, feel that now is an ideal time to be starting career development planning with an artist manager, so I was particularly happy to be able to have such a person in the audience of last Fridays concert, and have since had good feedback and the initial signs of a developing relationship have emerged.

Of course this may lead to nothing….. But it’s a good start.

Cosi Fan Tutte

Back I went to Stuttgart on Sunday and on Monday I attended another conzeptiongesprach, which in the UK would be known as the model showing but is in fact a bit more than that. Here in Stuttgart we start with all the main people involved being introduced, then the Dramaturge introduces the opera and concept, then the Director speaks more about the concept followed by the designer and then costume designer introducing their designs. (All in German)

 As I have mentioned before, I am covering Ferrando, the only tenor part in the opera. Initially it was decided that three of us opera studio members would be Musical covers, with this being a new production and there being an importance placed on the main 6 singers creating the piece together. This would mean singing from the side of the stage, with a score, whilst the main singer acted the role. Like many well thought out plans, things have changed quickly. By Tuesday one of the main cast was unwell and at home, so her musical cover was asked to rehearse the scenes, by Wednesday evening a second cast member was unwell and a second cover was asked to sing in a rehearsal. Then yesterday morning, 45 minutes before the rehearsal was to start, I was called to step in for the next three days of rehearsal. Fortunately I am relatively well prepared, but I had been given the morning off and was tired and not really mentally ready to sing and stage Ferrando…..

I very much wish my colleagues a speedy recovery….. but the last two days, as Ferrando in rehearsals, including singing the act 1 aria ‘Un aura amorosa’ 5 times this morning, have been two of the best days since I arrived in Stuttgart. Having the chance to rehearse a role I love, a role I know well and a role I feel I can bring a lot to has been really great. Of course I wish my tenor colleague no harm, far from it, I very much like his singing and will no doubt enjoy watching him as Ferrando, but I will be ready to step in if I am ever needed, and will enjoy and thrive in it if I am.

Next

The next week has Cosi written all over it. The change in status from Musical to Scenic cover means I will be spending my Sunday making sure I have everything memorised.

At the end of the week I return to London, not for singing but wedding anniversary reasons.

Now, I sleep…. Its been a tiring couple of days!

Until next time!

Final Stretch

With Easter now a chocolatey memory I am now moving into phase three of the Opera Studio year, the final furlong. 

I find splitting the year up into sections a useful exercise which can help maintain ones focuses and keep one sane! In the same way, I try to give myself the structure of a '9 - 5' job when I am not in official rehearsals/travelling. With this structure I can have time off during the day without feeling guilty that I am not working. It also helps prevent the classic self employed mistake of being 'on' all the time, dealing with emails, learning music etc. at any and every time of the day. 

Having had nothing official at the Opera house for the last week, this 9 - 5 structure has been put into good use and for once I feel on top of the upcoming projects. This includes tonights concert at the Leith Hill Music Festival in which I am singing in Lobgesang, or Hymn of Praise, by Mendelssohn, a new piece for me. 

Recordings or not

For the first time in a long time the Lobgesang is a genuinely new piece for me to learn, not one I have ever seen or heard before. Having been involved in professional music making for 16 of my 28 years, and many of those spent singing Choral music, this is quite refreshing and gave me the opportunity to get to know the piece on my own merits.

In doing this I decided to NOT listen to any recordings until a day or so before the concert, to try and get as much as possible from the score itself and hopefully for the interpretation to be a mixture of mine and Mendelssohn's, not a copying of some recording. 

Don't get me wrong, recordings are great. I love listening to the 15 different versions of 'Che Gelida' I have on my iPod and to the three different versions of Rigoletto I have. I am, though, very aware that when I try to sing bits from Rigoletto or Che Gelida at all, many of my musical decisions are already affected by what I have heard and not necessarily what Verdi or Puccini wrote in the score. 

Beyond what is written in the score there are performance traditions, take the high C in Che Gelida that never lasts the single quaver (1/8th note) that the ossia suggests and then the end of La Donna e Mobile doesn't even suggest a High B in the score, that is saved for later.

Often, though, the traditions we know are so ingrained, as are the recordings we religiously follow, that any change in performance practice or different musical decisions are difficult to take. 

The German way

I found this very much the case in the Bach Matthew Passion I sang last friday. A few aspects of the score had been interpreted in a different way to that I am used to, the Evangelist sang every possible appoggiatura in a way that I have never done myself, and in one particular movement the conductor had decided on semi-quaver grace notes instead of the quaver grace notes I am both used to and was expecting. Did I not totally agree with these because I am conditioned to expect something else or because what I usually hear is better? 

I guess this comes down to trying to have 'new ears' and an open mind to interpretations. Not just musical decisions and interpretations but also decisions of casting and production choices. This is particularly true in German Opera at the moment. The age of the 'Regie' theatre, often summarised by its critics as being productions with little or nothing to do with the actual story being told, challenges an audience to accept Operas without powdered wigs and tights, excuse the cliche. 

Tenor challenge

As a singer I wonder, looking to the future, how much I myself can challenge traditions and preconceived ideas myself. I have already been told by one agent in Germany that, though my voice is right for the repertoire, I should stay away from Bel Canto music because I am not South American, Italian or Spanish and they are the only guys who get booked for that stuff. 

One agent suggested I don't offer Bach in Germany because no one books an English tenor to sing German music. 

Someone else suggested I offer only a mixture of Britten and Handel, as I am an English tenor. Lazy advice if you ask me.

Do I follow all this advice and limit my artistic output? Or do I follow my dream of performing Rodolfo in La Boheme and iL Duca in Rigoletto one day as well as Gerontius and Peter Grimes?

I think, if you have read this blog for the last 8 months you will know the answer!

The Week

As mentioned, this week started with Bach in Germany. A lovely concert after which the conductor expressed a strong desire to work with me again, which is nice. 

I then had five days pretty much to myself, learning music, practising, going to the cinema, and exercising, before flying back to the UK on Wednesday night for today's concert. 

Not much to report then really! 

Tonight's concert is important in many ways, I have some people in to hear me, some people I am particularly keen to impress. So wish me luck....

Until next time!

Tom 

Bach again

As a choirboy at St. Paul’s Cathedral I used to love this time of year. Lent/Holy Week and Easter could always be relied upon to provide many musical highlights. I will never forget singing Lotti’s stunning ‘crucifixus’ to a  packed cathedral each Good Friday, the low late-winter sun usually streaming through the West end window and creating a quite remarkable atmosphere.

More recently, the run up to Easter has been associated with numerous performances of Bach’s Passions, with a realisation that I could sing Bach relatively well opening myself up to an almost guaranteed set of concerts each March. The involvement in the Bach passions can vary significantly from concert to concert for the Tenor. Evangelist one night, Arias only another night, both Evangelist and Arias or only Tenor 2 aria (for the Matthew Passion), so many combinations one could become confused…..

Bach at Home

I was a bit worried that I wouldn’t be able to fit any Passions in this year, with my living in Germany but, just before I moved here, I was booked to sing one aria and recit. in the Matthew Passion on Good Friday (today), up in Bad Canstatt, about 7 minutes U Bahn ride from my flat.

Singing Bach in German brings its own challenges. Inevitably, any German pronunciation that I have been confident of for years suddenly seems unsure. In order to counter this I prepared my two numbers with some German colleagues and so, by Wednesday morning, I was confident with what I could bring to the rehearsal yesterday.

I was booked for this concert, before I moved to Germany, through an agent I had contacted on the advice of some UK based singer friends. Having introduced myself by email to the agent, they expressed an interest in me, particularly since I was going to be in Stuttgart where they are based, and coincidentally they were looking for a Stuttgart based tenor for a Matthew Passion.

I got permission from the Opera house to take the engagement and received the contract when I arrived in Stuttgart in September. All clear, so I thought. Rehearsal for soloists on Thursday, concert Friday. I filled in the right form to get absence from the Opera house for the Thursday rehearsal and had, for the last six months, been looking forward to 2.30 on the 2^nd of April when I would get to rehearse some Bach with a great orchestra.

A few weeks ago I received the detailed rehearsal schedule and noted my Thursday rehearsal time, Thursday being the day I was contracted to rehearse, and noted that the only Tenor numbers listed were ‘O Schmerz’ and ‘Ich will bei meinem Jesu’, both accompanied by the choir. These are two of my favourite bits from the Passion so, despite only singing those two numbers out of a 3 hour evening, I was happy.

Come Wednesday and I am sitting in Starbucks following a great coaching on Cosi Fan Tutte at the Opera House. My internet is currently down so I was joining the crowds of slow drinkers making the most of the free internet when I received a call:

                ‘where are you? You have a rehearsal, why are you not there?’

I was confused, inevitably. I said I was rehearsing tomorrow, it is on the rehearsal breakdown.

                ‘They are expecting you an hour ago!’

I was told, as I wracked my brain for an explanation as to why I had made this mistake or whether, in fact, it was some cruel April fool on the part of the agency.

It wasn’t an April fool. I was the fool. I had in fact been hired to sing the other Tenor aria and recit, ‘Mein Jesus Schweigt’ and ‘Geduld’, though this was not specified on my contract and the rehearsal had been scheduled for the Wednesday afternoon when I was not called. I rushed to Bad Canstatt frustrated and mildly upset. I am never late, never out of line, always as professional as possible and now I was rocking up 75 minutes late to a rehearsal with a man I wasn’t entirely sure I could explain this all to. I also hadn’t prepared the aria I was going to be singing….. nightmare!

I won’t bore you with the minutiae of the following 36 hours, but happily it was all explained. The misunderstanding between the three parties was understood and time was found for me to rehearse the aria and receive a few tips on my German pronunciation. I also got the chance to hear some of the other soloists rehearse, including the Evangelist who is German himself. For a non-German speaking Tenor to hear a native singing this part is a great chance to learn and reassess some of the decisions I have made when singing it myself.

Back at home

Last weekend I returned to the UK for a couple of days to sing for the Burford Singers, a choir I have sung for on three occasions now. The music this time was ‘spring’ from Haydn’s ‘The Seasons’, and ‘Requiem’ by the English composer Bob Chilcott, two pieces I hadn’t performed before and both of which I very much enjoyed singing. Bob Chilcott was actually conducting the concert, as a guest during the usual conductors one term sabbatical, so there was added pressure to sing it all right!

I was struck, once again, by the stark contrast in concert routines between the UK and Germany. Take the Matthew Passion over here, with almost 14 hours of rehearsals scheduled for the two days leading up to the concert today and much time allocated to each number to really rehearse it. Where as in Burford I turned up at 2.30 for the three hour rehearsal during which there was only just enough time to run some numbers twice with minimal time to go into much detail. Much of the difference is down to necessity, there has never been the money in the UK to be able to have lots of rehearsals whereas in Germany there has and still is the funding for this. The English side of me finds some German rehearsals slow and, ironically, inefficient yet found the UK rehearsal last weekend a bit too short particularly as it was the first time performing both pieces. Maybe there is a middle way.

Back at the Opera

Since I am not directly involved in any productions at the moment, neither Rigoletto or Cosi (both of which I cover in) not starting rehearsals for a few weeks, I have only had a few coachings. Both of these were some of the best coaching sessions I have had in Stuttgart, partly I think due to me now being back in good voice, partly due to the work I did with Marianne Cornetti last week which has helped a few arias I was getting stuck in, and partly because the coachings were on Ferrando from Cosi, and I just love the role so much. A few more weeks of coachings on Ferrando and I won’t complain!

Back on holiday

The Easter weekend brings a national holiday in Germany and with no internet I may well rely on DVD’s to fill the time between exercising/learning music and trying hard not to buy every discounted Easter egg and trying to eat them in record time….

I hope you all have a great Easter, until next time.

Tom