I write this blog in the midst of Opera McGill's performances of Don Giovanni -- which opened January 26, 2012 in Pollack Hall and closes tomorrow, January 29.
Some stats:
2 casts, each performing the opera twice to nearly sold-out houses, made up of 34 McGill students. They were supported by a student team of 2 assistant directors and 2 assistant stage managers, the McGill Symphony Orchestra (38 musicians for this opera), plus a myriad of sound recording students and backstage crew. It takes over 80 people (almost all of them students) arriving in the theatre hours before performances begin to create this Giovanni production.
In the end, there were multiple set designs and many costume designs; the first done in May of 2011, the next revised sometime in October, 2011, the penultimate finished sometime in late November, the final design completed only in mid-January, 2012 during staging rehearsals of the last scene of the opera.
Every piece of text and every note written of the Prague version (Mozart's original version) was performed. That means NO CUTS. Even with a 20 minute intermission the opera came in under 3 hours (which begs the question: why cut Giovanni?)
A little under 100 hours was spent in various staging rehearsals. With the private coaching hours, the musical rehearsals, the staging rehearsals, the tech rehearsals and dress rehearsals, plus the performances, I estimate that the production took over 250 hours to prepare. That does not include any individual amounts of time any of the students spent learning their parts in a practice room, the time the designers spent creating costumes or sets or lights, or time I spent creating the blocking for the production. It would be interesting to add it all up sometime. I bet we'd be well over 1000 hours!
I filed 180 email messages in the month of January alone regarding this Giovanni production. (I hate email...)
After opening night, this blog had over 100 reads in less than 24 hours. Currently, someone in the UAE is reading my previous blog on Giovanni. Amazing.
On opening night we had over 100 high school students attend from Overton. They were a great addition to our regular audiences. They seemed very entertained by the show, which includes a kind of sword which most are describing as a lightsaber, a lot of kissing and making out by Zerlina and Masetto, and a couple of audacious touches (like the female vampire carrying in Donna Anna's maid over her shoulder and dropping her on Giovanni's table for him to feast on!)
Oh, did I mention that it takes 8 pomegranates, 8 blood oranges, bottles of club soda, orange, and cranberry juice, dozens of batteries, and 12 blood pellets in order to perform this production over this weekend?
And there are 7 vampire attacks each show and a number of attempted attacks as well?
But only 1 vampire sings...
So, what did I learn from working on this Don Giovanni?
1) The Prague version is superior to either the Vienna or the traditional hybrid version normally done
2) Gordon Gerrard is a wonderful colleague and a terrific conductor
3) My Opera McGill students constantly surprise me with their ability to imagine a new world of opera
4) Audiences want to be entertained
5) Cutting out recits cuts out parts of character's hearts. It was nice to have these amazing characters played intact
6) E flat is one of Mozart's most interesting keys
7) It's fun to design a show with such talented colleagues like Ginette, Vincent and Serge
8) Mozart challenges young singers and orchestral players to be at their best -- and it's apparent when they achieve a high standard just as it's apparent when the mark is missed; however they hit it much more than missed it!
9) Mozart's genius is a comforting blanket to wrap yourself in while working during long hours
10) I don't want to do another Giovanni for a long while.
On to Monteverdi's "L'incoronazione di Poppea" which opens March 15, 2012 in Pollack Hall. It's a LONG opera, but one of the greatest ever composed!
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Showing posts with label Don Giovanni. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Don Giovanni. Show all posts
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Saturday, January 7, 2012
Don Giovanni at Opera McGill
January finds the Opera McGill students spending most of their time in staging rehearsals, preparing for the "mainstage" production which typically opens the last weekend of January.
The fall prep for the students involves learning their music, understanding the meaning of their texts, thinking about character choices, and putting their individual parts together with the other roles during musical rehearsals. My fall prep varies depending on the opera production. For instance last year, La Boheme was being produced and I'd directed it before so there was less to think about where the details of the staging were concerned. This year, Don Giovanni is the opera - an opera I've known and worked on since the mid '80s. Normally that would mean very little "prep", but this production is SO different from any other I've ever done that the prep time has been enormous!
First off, the designers and I had come to an initial idea about the production way back in May of 2011 (that's typically when we design the January production). However, those plans were put on hold due to the McGill strike -- since it was impossible to produce the planned production without stage management. When it looked like the strike would continue through January and perhaps even longer, we re-designed the production top to bottom and came up with the idea of doing a staged concert version; i.e. the orchestra onstage with the cast acting their roles in costume but without theatrical lighting. For a "set" we thought of the idea of creating artistic "installations" that would frame the orchestra and provide an interesting look for the show.
THEN, the strike was suddenly over -- however not until December rolled around -- and by then it was way too late to design a full set and get it built (these things don't happen in a week!) So, the designers and I once again got together and re-designed the re-design trying to keep to the initial idea/inspiration from the original design. I found it interesting that many people I spoke with in mid-December thought that we'd simply just have a full production. It showed me just how few understand that in order to get a production fully realized and designed and then built, takes an enormous amount of time, planning, and frankly, thought.
So in my role as producer, that was a lot of work to focus on when generally I'm out and about on my Brevard audition trips down in the states with David Gately (and of course, during the holiday break one isn't normally putting in 60+ hours of work unless you are in retail.) However, in my role as the stage director for Don Giovanni this meant I really couldn't "block" the opera until I had an actual ground plan and set design. That happened a few days before Christmas.
Blocking an opera happens in many ways. Sometimes the director lets the cast create their blocking with very little intervention or guidance. Ask most people in the business and they'll tell you that this sort of process - an "organic" process - is interesting for the first few days but quickly becomes infuriating because no one is minding the store and many become frustrated with the "lack of plan". With students, this sort of process is not helpful. Many, if not most, are creating these characters for the first time. All are inexperienced, and very few have had acting training that might allow them to be self-motivated -- or better put, self-directed. With a new production (and all of the productions presented by Opera McGill are brand new productions!), it is vital for the director to know a show inside and out, have very clear ideas about where the singers are going to be in space, and be able to tell the casts (and most of our operas have TWO casts) quickly and efficiently how to move about in space.
Additionally, I'm there training young singers how to balance the many challenges that come with singing an operatic role: collaborating with the other cast members, remembering blocking, creating physical characterizations that work in the context of the production and period, learning how to focus on a conductor, helping to synthesize all the various production elements (handling props, walking in heels with a long dress on, stage combative elements like slapping someone onstage, moving set pieces while in character, keeping the Italian text's meaning clear both from a vocal standpoint and a visual standpoint, acting the meaning of the text, acting the meaning of the subtext, etc. -- the list goes on and on.) Because of this, I tend to block in GREAT detail how everyone is going to move onstage, most of the time down to specific measure numbers, words, or rests in the vocal score. This really helps give the singers something concrete to hold onto. I call it the structure of the show.
Structure is something that Opera needs in order to work. First off, the score is structured, as is the libretto. Obviously there are structures onstage, structures of light and dark, and physical structures on the singers' bodies called costumes. It is really necessary for the singers' physical and kinesthetic choices onstage to also have structure. From within this structure, artistic choices can be made and from those choices, actual art can come into being for an audience to witness.
I blocked Don Giovanni during the period between Christmas and New Year's Eve, something that was challenging because of ill health as well. But with that said, I'm very pleased with the results thus far. Creating a show in your head is something akin to composing a symphony, or choreographing a ballet in your head. You have to write stuff down in order to create it, but then it really doesn't live until you get live human beings in a room to rehearse what was once in your head. For me, the process of writing down the "stuff" that's in my head is "blocking".
Of course, it isn't always what I want and when I get to the process of staging in the rehearsal room I often times find myself changing the blocking that's written down in my score. That's when the real process of staging happens - when better ideas happen either on the spur of the moment, or because someone else in the room (from the pianist to the conductor to the stage manager to any of the singers) has a different idea. I've always thought the best directors were the ones that could totally dump their initial plan when a better one showed up, or at least try out someone else's ideas to see if they worked better.
Right now (moving into the 2nd week of January), the cast and I are still in the process of building the structure of staging, creating characters through physical, vocal, and musical choices (these are made in collaboration with the singer, the director, and the conductor), and getting to know the "show" -- what works and what the challenges are. The set is also being built as we speak (it's due to be delivered next week), and the costumes are getting finished (these were started back in early December and are INCREDIBLE!)
The process for the next week is to finish staging the opera in Wirth Opera Studio (we're half-way through), start running the opera in larger sections so that the students can get experience singing their roles from beginning to end, hold initial orchestra rehearsals with the MGSO, and get the program to printing as well as the poster.
Lots to do, gotta go!
The fall prep for the students involves learning their music, understanding the meaning of their texts, thinking about character choices, and putting their individual parts together with the other roles during musical rehearsals. My fall prep varies depending on the opera production. For instance last year, La Boheme was being produced and I'd directed it before so there was less to think about where the details of the staging were concerned. This year, Don Giovanni is the opera - an opera I've known and worked on since the mid '80s. Normally that would mean very little "prep", but this production is SO different from any other I've ever done that the prep time has been enormous!
First off, the designers and I had come to an initial idea about the production way back in May of 2011 (that's typically when we design the January production). However, those plans were put on hold due to the McGill strike -- since it was impossible to produce the planned production without stage management. When it looked like the strike would continue through January and perhaps even longer, we re-designed the production top to bottom and came up with the idea of doing a staged concert version; i.e. the orchestra onstage with the cast acting their roles in costume but without theatrical lighting. For a "set" we thought of the idea of creating artistic "installations" that would frame the orchestra and provide an interesting look for the show.
THEN, the strike was suddenly over -- however not until December rolled around -- and by then it was way too late to design a full set and get it built (these things don't happen in a week!) So, the designers and I once again got together and re-designed the re-design trying to keep to the initial idea/inspiration from the original design. I found it interesting that many people I spoke with in mid-December thought that we'd simply just have a full production. It showed me just how few understand that in order to get a production fully realized and designed and then built, takes an enormous amount of time, planning, and frankly, thought.
So in my role as producer, that was a lot of work to focus on when generally I'm out and about on my Brevard audition trips down in the states with David Gately (and of course, during the holiday break one isn't normally putting in 60+ hours of work unless you are in retail.) However, in my role as the stage director for Don Giovanni this meant I really couldn't "block" the opera until I had an actual ground plan and set design. That happened a few days before Christmas.
Blocking an opera happens in many ways. Sometimes the director lets the cast create their blocking with very little intervention or guidance. Ask most people in the business and they'll tell you that this sort of process - an "organic" process - is interesting for the first few days but quickly becomes infuriating because no one is minding the store and many become frustrated with the "lack of plan". With students, this sort of process is not helpful. Many, if not most, are creating these characters for the first time. All are inexperienced, and very few have had acting training that might allow them to be self-motivated -- or better put, self-directed. With a new production (and all of the productions presented by Opera McGill are brand new productions!), it is vital for the director to know a show inside and out, have very clear ideas about where the singers are going to be in space, and be able to tell the casts (and most of our operas have TWO casts) quickly and efficiently how to move about in space.
Additionally, I'm there training young singers how to balance the many challenges that come with singing an operatic role: collaborating with the other cast members, remembering blocking, creating physical characterizations that work in the context of the production and period, learning how to focus on a conductor, helping to synthesize all the various production elements (handling props, walking in heels with a long dress on, stage combative elements like slapping someone onstage, moving set pieces while in character, keeping the Italian text's meaning clear both from a vocal standpoint and a visual standpoint, acting the meaning of the text, acting the meaning of the subtext, etc. -- the list goes on and on.) Because of this, I tend to block in GREAT detail how everyone is going to move onstage, most of the time down to specific measure numbers, words, or rests in the vocal score. This really helps give the singers something concrete to hold onto. I call it the structure of the show.
Structure is something that Opera needs in order to work. First off, the score is structured, as is the libretto. Obviously there are structures onstage, structures of light and dark, and physical structures on the singers' bodies called costumes. It is really necessary for the singers' physical and kinesthetic choices onstage to also have structure. From within this structure, artistic choices can be made and from those choices, actual art can come into being for an audience to witness.
I blocked Don Giovanni during the period between Christmas and New Year's Eve, something that was challenging because of ill health as well. But with that said, I'm very pleased with the results thus far. Creating a show in your head is something akin to composing a symphony, or choreographing a ballet in your head. You have to write stuff down in order to create it, but then it really doesn't live until you get live human beings in a room to rehearse what was once in your head. For me, the process of writing down the "stuff" that's in my head is "blocking".
Of course, it isn't always what I want and when I get to the process of staging in the rehearsal room I often times find myself changing the blocking that's written down in my score. That's when the real process of staging happens - when better ideas happen either on the spur of the moment, or because someone else in the room (from the pianist to the conductor to the stage manager to any of the singers) has a different idea. I've always thought the best directors were the ones that could totally dump their initial plan when a better one showed up, or at least try out someone else's ideas to see if they worked better.
Right now (moving into the 2nd week of January), the cast and I are still in the process of building the structure of staging, creating characters through physical, vocal, and musical choices (these are made in collaboration with the singer, the director, and the conductor), and getting to know the "show" -- what works and what the challenges are. The set is also being built as we speak (it's due to be delivered next week), and the costumes are getting finished (these were started back in early December and are INCREDIBLE!)
The process for the next week is to finish staging the opera in Wirth Opera Studio (we're half-way through), start running the opera in larger sections so that the students can get experience singing their roles from beginning to end, hold initial orchestra rehearsals with the MGSO, and get the program to printing as well as the poster.
Lots to do, gotta go!
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Opera McGill's Movember Update
Wow, Movember has been a busy and FAST month! I can't believe it's November, excuse me, Movember 22 already.
So much happening. I've posted an update of my face's stache, or as is popular nowadays my "mo" (I prefer stache, sounds rougher somehow) and posted a link to the site where you can donate money to Prostate Cancer, which is why I've been growing the thing all month.
I blogged about it earlier, pursuing a Process without worrying about the final Product. I maintain this is a good outlook on life and on trying to become an artist of any sort!
A Movember update on goings on at Opera McGill:
The Turn of the Screw closed late in October. It was a HUGE success and I was so very pleased with the work the student casts did with both the stage director, Tom Diamond, and the conductor, Andrew Bisantz. I look forward to figuring a way for them both to return to Opera McGill for future productions.
The Broadway program "Opera McGill on Broadway" has been coaching this month, as has been Don Giovanni. It's been fun to work on Spamalot "The Song that Goes Like This" with singers who are also singing Don Giovanni and Donna Anna. Such talented students with such RANGE of talent here at McGill!!
The Broadway program is December 3rd at 8pm in Redpath Hall it is free and open to the public. Basically it is a class presentation of a few (okay, a lot) musical theatre numbers we've been working on this month. I think that many of my students' colleagues and professors will be astounded at their ability to sing in the musical theatre repertoire. I'm having to practice, frankly. This is one of the hardest programs I have ever played -- don't knock the rep until you've tried to play the rep!
Also this month, two students and I performed at the annual Viennese Ball here in Montreal. Geoffrey Penar and Hiather Darnel-Kadonaga sang some Fledermaus and some Wiener Lied for a very appreciative audience. I played the accompaniments trying to channel my old mentor Liberace. Lots of fun!
The semester ends with a flourish of concerts - Song Interp don't forget! - and a couple of big sing-thru's of Don Giovanni. These are really important sing-thru's because it will be how the conductor, Gordon Gerrard, and I will decide who sings in which cast. I'm looking forward to finally hearing the singers after casting them way back in September.
I spend December doing some auditions for Janiec Opera Company with David Gately in NYC, and then return to Montreal for the holidays to hunker down and finish the staging of Giovanni. Rehearsals begin January 2nd!!
So much happening. I've posted an update of my face's stache, or as is popular nowadays my "mo" (I prefer stache, sounds rougher somehow) and posted a link to the site where you can donate money to Prostate Cancer, which is why I've been growing the thing all month.
I blogged about it earlier, pursuing a Process without worrying about the final Product. I maintain this is a good outlook on life and on trying to become an artist of any sort!
A Movember update on goings on at Opera McGill:
The Turn of the Screw closed late in October. It was a HUGE success and I was so very pleased with the work the student casts did with both the stage director, Tom Diamond, and the conductor, Andrew Bisantz. I look forward to figuring a way for them both to return to Opera McGill for future productions.
The Broadway program "Opera McGill on Broadway" has been coaching this month, as has been Don Giovanni. It's been fun to work on Spamalot "The Song that Goes Like This" with singers who are also singing Don Giovanni and Donna Anna. Such talented students with such RANGE of talent here at McGill!!
The Broadway program is December 3rd at 8pm in Redpath Hall it is free and open to the public. Basically it is a class presentation of a few (okay, a lot) musical theatre numbers we've been working on this month. I think that many of my students' colleagues and professors will be astounded at their ability to sing in the musical theatre repertoire. I'm having to practice, frankly. This is one of the hardest programs I have ever played -- don't knock the rep until you've tried to play the rep!
Also this month, two students and I performed at the annual Viennese Ball here in Montreal. Geoffrey Penar and Hiather Darnel-Kadonaga sang some Fledermaus and some Wiener Lied for a very appreciative audience. I played the accompaniments trying to channel my old mentor Liberace. Lots of fun!
The semester ends with a flourish of concerts - Song Interp don't forget! - and a couple of big sing-thru's of Don Giovanni. These are really important sing-thru's because it will be how the conductor, Gordon Gerrard, and I will decide who sings in which cast. I'm looking forward to finally hearing the singers after casting them way back in September.
I spend December doing some auditions for Janiec Opera Company with David Gately in NYC, and then return to Montreal for the holidays to hunker down and finish the staging of Giovanni. Rehearsals begin January 2nd!!
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