Camelot Final Dress

Just home from tonight's Final Dress Rehearsal for Camelot at Ash Lawn Opera (in the Paramount Theatre in downtown Charlottesville.)

It's an interesting moment for a director - when to choose to enjoy the show and when to continue noting the show (i.e. light cues, props notes, etc.).

I've spent the last few years not enjoying my final dresses as much as I'd like to.  As a conductor, you try to move into that final dress in performance mode -- getting into the moment, enjoying the sweep of the evening, preparing for the rush of opening night.  As a director, it seems like the last chance at making an impact on the show -- or for lack of a better word, controlling the show.

Control is hard - particularly in the last rehearsal in a theatre.  

After tonight's dress rehearsal, which went VERY well thank you mum, it seemed as if I had lost a chance at enjoying the performances being given by my very gifted cast. Made me sorry to be leaving the city after the opening...

So Friday night we open and I will try to sit back and enjoy the show!  Favorite parts of the show so far, in no particular order: Katy's portrayal of Jenny when she meets Lance for the first time, Chris' first scene with Peter (Lance and Arthur meeting for the first time), Peter's monologue that ends the first act -- riveting, Corey's Mordred (come see the show for his 7 Deadly Virtues number), and our South African Pellinore as played by Christian.  I must say that it's been QUITE a pleasure to work on this show with everyone.

Oh - and thank the lords above that Erin is calling the show; AMAZING psm!!

Tomorrow is a day off and I'm heading to Monticello to commune with Jefferson.

Dialogue of the Camelots

So tonight we finished staging Camelot, a book scene between Mordred and Arthur. Done!  Well, sort of... we've got two full run thrus between now and Friday night (the 1st night of tech) and it is readily apparent that we need to run lines, run lines, run lines, run lines.

Don't get me wrong -- the cast is TERRIFIC, but these Camelot book scenes have a lot going on in them.  Giving clarity to Arthur's dream of civil law and civility, focusing the delicate balance of love between Arthur, Gwen, and Lance while moving plot along is the big challenge.

One of the delights of tonight's rehearsal was seeing Corey Trahan rehearse as Mordred.  He's wickedly funny, as is our Pellinore, Christian Bester.

I'm really looking forward to running the show tomorrow and seeing how it all fits, blends and moves forward.

On another note, Brevard rehearsals for Hoffmann (one of my least favorite shows!) have started with Dorothy Danner directing and Mo. Larkin conducting.  I hear the cast sounds exciting, and I look forward to seeing them in THEIR tech week in a less than ten days.  We did end up casting the scenes programs this past Monday night - after hearing 43 arias that day - and I hope the singers are excited: 20 duets in the first program and I think it's 17 or 18 scenes in the second program, including scenes by Torke, Britten, Kern, of course Mozart, and WAGNER; more on that later!

Fun fun fun

Camelot onto 2nd week...

This past week has simply flown by! 

Working with a very talented cast I've managed to get over 50% of the musical numbers staged. During the next two days, the goal is to finish the rest of act one.  The Arthur arrived into town today and is exceptional - as are all of the principals. That makes life much easier...

Tonight I worked dialogue with some of the cast and had a really interesting time talking about the piece.  In order to shorten the musical (it's rather long), I had made some pretty significant cuts.  However upon hearing the lines spoken by the players tonight, I decided to open up a number of those cuts.  It'll really help the show, and certainly makes me feel good as I love so much of the dialogue - being a fan of the Arthur legends since I was a young boy.

It's getting late, so I'll cut to the chase: I think that musicals AND operas should be treated much more as living entities that need to be reborn each time they are presented. We're currently in a present, operatically speaking, where directors and production designers re-think the operas, but where the music directors strive for note perfect renditions based on critical editions.  It presents problems when one is trying to create a whole piece in a genre that is based on sung text.

Just a thought on this late night out in the country in Virginia...

Leaving on a Jet Plane

Thursday I get on a plane and fly to Charlottesville, VA to start rehearsals for Camelot, which I'm directing at the Paramount Theatre for Ash Lawn Festival.  It's their VERY first production inside a theatre (and not outside in the backyard of James Monroe's estate), so the pressure to have a fantastic production is intense - sets, costumes, props, sound, everything...

The first day on the job I'm expected to show up at a Guild cocktail party - directly from the airport. Then the first week of rehearsals will focus on staging any and all scenes withOUT Arthur (who is coming in a week later).  Staging a show out of order has its challenges - most of all continuity of exits/entrances - but also it presents a focus challenge for both the director and the cast.  We'll see how it goes.

Looking ahead, it'll be an interesting few weeks. Rehearsals running from 9:30am to 4pm at a local high school, and then moving to a different rehearsal venue for evening rehearsals 6:30 to 9:30pm.  I'm hoping to get in a ton of work preparing for design meetings for another show I'm directing in January of 2010 during the two and a half hour break, but usually that means I'll go out for dinner and chat away and not get anything done.

Charlottesville, for those who don't know the town, is a TERRIFIC city.  The mecca for DMB, it was voted "Best City in USA To Live" about 5 years ago.  It has an amazing downtown pedestrian zone (the Paramount Theatre is right on the mall there), with tons of great restaurants and coffee shops.  I like the city alot.  It's about a 1 and 1/2 hour drive to DC and sits below Monticello.  If you get a chance to visit, you should.

I'm hoping the cast is prepared on their dialogue - I've cut pages and pages, but it's still WAY too long I think.  I'm hoping to tweak scenes in the evening rehearsals once I hear how everyone does.  That's most of my worry - that and figuring how to make the "Jousts" number interesting.

Must pack for my three weeks in Charlottesville AND then my five weeks at Brevard.  More on Brevard later!

Patrick

Premier Blog

So this is my first real blog!  Ending my second year as director of opera studies for Opera McGill up in Montreal and heading into a really busy season: directing Camelot at Ash Lawn, along with David Gately running Janiec Opera Company at Brevard, then back to McGill to direct Agrippina, off to the Kennedy Center to direct an Evening of Puccini (semi-staged scenes with huge chorus and orchestra!), 2010 begins at Opera Memphis directing every version of Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice (!!), then some crazy 20th and 21st century operas for MusiMars, and ending in March by playing La tragedie de Carmen and directing Trouble in Tahiti.

That's 12 operas in the next 10 months!

It's going to be busy, and I hope to blog about the trials and tribulations of creating opera both in academia and in the professional world.