Final Dress

Our final dress rehearsal was last night and went quite well. The show is about 3 hours long which includes 2 intermissions. The chorus had to stay longer to work on sound checks and to receive notes from the conductor/director so it was another late night for us. Tonight is a “dark” night so there is no rehearsal and the performers can relax for a day. Some of the production team still works today, but not everyone. That is one nice thing about working in professional opera; a day off before performance.
I tried to take some pictures backstage and will post some when I can. I have a great shot of our Faust (Bryan) showing off his tights, but I think I will preserve his dignity and not post that one!
For now, it is a night off and hopefully everyone will get some rest.

Sunday Night Stumble Through

Last night was our first rehearsal on DeVos Hall stage with the set and most of the props. This was the night when we discovered that there are poles and stairs that we had not envisioned previously. I felt like everything went rather well. We had to re-work a few areas and place people differently on the stage at certain moments, but for the most part it seemed to function as planned. One scary aspect of this set is the platform which is made of steel grate with large holes. The women cannot wear heeled shoes so we all now have to get flats to go with our costumes. I will be trying out a couple of pairs of shoes tonight to see which will work best on the set. When the whole chorus climbs onto the platform it sways and some of us have found it a bit disconcerting, but so far we have not had a casualty.
I am feeling better about my knowledge of French; I can actually understand some of what the principals are singing without reading the libretto first. Some day I would like to be able to comprehend Italian and French well enough to follow a conversation. Fluently speaking French will take a while, but understanding the language is a big step for me. Once again I regret not taking French and/or Italian in college; but I was a theater major and never even dreamed of being an opera singer!
Tonight we are adding costumes and other technical aspects to the production. I am trying to get by on only 4 hours of sleep from last night so my goal is to stay alert and not make too many mistakes.

A Devilishly Good Show

Staging for Faust began this week. We are back at the old Dunham’s store which has plenty of space for our rehearsal needs. The principals are here and it has been fun interacting with them. Marguerite Krull (Cherubino, The Marriage of Figaro) has returned for another pants role. This time she is the young boy, Siebel, who is in love with Marguerite (the character; not herself). The other leads are new to Opera Grand Rapids. Pamela Armstrong (Marguerite) was originally booked at this time to sing for another company that cancelled their season. Their loss is our gain. Bryan Griffin is our Faust, Quinn Kelsey is Valentin (Marguerite’s noble brother) and Kirk Eichelberger is the “cute, but creepy” devil Mephistopheles. Having heard all them sing a bit at rehearsals, I am looking forward to the sitzprobe on Saturday when we sing the entire opera with the Symphony for the first time. It will be the first time the chorus will get to hear the principals in full voice sing all the arias that happen when we are not on stage. No one should miss that!
Tonight we are running through the whole show in the rehearsal space. The principals don’t have to sing full voice in staging rehearsal, but sometimes they do just for the practice. This is our last chance to work on staging before we get to DeVos Hall on Sunday evening where the whole show takes on a new dimension with the technical aspects of lights, sound and real set pieces.

Fittings and Faust

Another week has past and my memorization of Faust is coming along. I didn’t use my music during this Monday’s rehearsal and I felt rather confident with the notes. I hope I had the majority of them right! I don’t have the new part memorized for words, but I think I have the notes locked in. Now I need to work on the dynamics and mood of the music. I know that will all fall into place when the principals come into town and we start staging, but it is nice to have the atmosphere set before we hit the rehearsal hall. The opera always takes on a whole different feeling when we put our bodies and minds into the moments we are performing.

The costume shop is up and running and most of the women have been fitted for their dresses. I was supposed to have gone last Friday but they were not ready for me so I still need to make an appointment this week. I know we are peasants so I don’t plan on having a beautiful gown; probably something brown or earth-tone. The nice thing about being a peasant is that the costumes are usually light-weight unlike the ball gowns we have to wear for shows like La Traviata. If the dress is very pretty it most likely will be cumbersome. As long as my Faust outfit doesn’t itch or pinch, I won’t complain.