More French!

Just as I thought I was progressing with my music and language nicely, Maestro has added music for the women. The women are now singing along with the men on two pieces which should be fun. I prefer to have more to sing and do rather than less. The first piece we join in is the Chorale of the Swords when Mephistopheles is repelled with the broken sword held up as a cross. This is a powerful moment and full voices are definitely needed so I can see why Maestro would add the women. Most companies would use a chorus of 40 or 50 men, but we are confined to use only 24 so the additional 16 women will help with the double fortissimo that is called for in the score. The second men’s piece that we join is the Soldiers chorus. This is the music that is most recognizable (to me at least) from this opera and it is a great triumphal moment which, again, is double fortissimo. This extra music should not be too taxing and it should be fun to sing on stage. I am looking forward to starting staging in a couple of weeks when the Maestro and principals come into town. We have a shortened rehearsal period for this show, so we will be doing all the preliminary staging in four days rather than the normal eight, before we hit the DeVos Hall stage for the technical rehearsals. Things are going to get crazy real soon!

En Français

Music rehearsals for Faust are going well. The men have more to sing than the women this time so they had one more rehearsal than we did. We still have three more music rehearsals with Maestro Davis before Maestro Lyall comes into town for staging.
My studies in French are developing at a slow pace. Our Production Manager, Cat, said a simple sentence to me in French the other day and I had to ask her to translate. Some days it feels like one step forward and two steps back. My goal is to be able to understand the French of Faust in my head as I am performing rather than just singing the words with only a concept of the text. I wish I had taken French in college rather than trying to learn it on my own now. Faust and other French operas would be a lot easier to sing if I knew what I was saying!
The music of Faust is not difficult. There are a couple of possible tricky parts, but I don’t see any train wrecks so far. We have two sections that are sung rather fast, depending on Maestro’s tempo, and at least one part that is very slow, again depending on Maestro. The fast parts make the language difficult and the slow parts make breathing (breath control) hard. I plan on using repetition to get the fast language to flow fluently and staggered breathing to make it through the slow moments.
So far I feel rather confident with the memorization of the words and music. I hope I am not being overly optimistic. Only time will tell how well I learn French and Faust.

Faust

Faust rehearsals have begun. Last Monday we had our first look at the music of Gounod’s Faust (not to be confused with The Damnation of Faust by Berlioz). This production is sung in French, which can be intimidating at times, and we are fortunate to have a French teacher, Jill Marrese, in our chorus to help with the language. Jill has recorded a language tutor for each of the voice parts and that is always a great help!

Most people have heard of the phrase “he sold his soul to the devil” which is the story of the scholar Faust, his love Marguerite and the devil Mephistopheles. Faust is an aging scholar who laments that he is tired of living and welcomes death until he hears a song of springtime and praise to God. He then spurns God and calls on Satan in his despair. So begins the downward spiral of events which culminates in Marguerite being raised to Heaven after committing murder and Faust being left to serve his debt with Satan. Not exactly a happy ending; but very powerful and definitely great theater.

Personally, I believe that Satan should not be taken lightly. The story of Faust should be a warning call to all who believe they can get what they want with evil ways. Fortunately there is a moral/religious line running throughout the opera which keeps the story from being too macabre. Moral of the story: don’t mess with the devil!

I will now take up my broken sword in the sign of the cross and stride forward to the challenge of French, Faust and Mephistopheles.