Final Dress

Tonight is our final rehearsal for Manon Lescaut before we debut the show on Friday night. Tonight will be the test to see if we have everything ready and how an audience will react. We expect around 1,500 students from local colleges, middle schools and high schools to attend. It is exciting to do a show that has never been performed here before, and you would think that after over 40 years we would have done every Puccini out there, but there still are a few that we haven’t performed. I hope that we can do La Fanciulla del West some day but, like Manon Lescaut, Faciulla is a work that is not often presented by companies the size of Opera Grand Rapids. A successful Manon Lescaut may lead to more variety in our repertoire. I sure hope it does.

Sturm und Drang

The principals came into town on Monday night. Poor Jill Gardner (Manon) was delayed a number of times and didn’t make it until after 9pm! So we went ahead and worked through most of Act 1 without her. On Tuesday we finished Act 1 and worked on Act 3 with an impending blizzard bearing down on Michigan. Wednesday was Act 2 and now we have to go back over everything to make sure we all know what we are doing. Act 4 doesn’t involve the chorus so the principals will work on those scenes during the daytime rehearsals with Maestro Lyall. From what I could hear from my office this afternoon, I do believe that Marco and Jill were going over Act 4 today. On Friday night we will run the whole show for the Tech people to watch and on Saturday we will sing the whole opera with the Grand Rapids Symphony for the first time. I always love that first sing with the orchestra because it really brings the music to life.

Hopefully we won’t encounter any more storms to interrupt our drama.

An Early Start

Opera Grand Rapids started the staging of the chorus for Puccini’s Manon Lescaut last week. This is a new twist to our normal schedule. Usually the chorus meets a couple times in December to get our music and run through the score. After a holiday break, we gather again on Monday nights in January with Chorus Master Duane Davis. Then, a couple weeks before the show, Maestro Lyall comes into town and we work on staging the production. For Manon Lescaut, Maestro has opted to come into Grand Rapids early to work exclusively with the chorus and supers. I have to admit that I like getting the staging earlier because it helps with musical timing and memorization. Some people find the “stand and sing” to be easy, but I need to move around and have a motivation to really feel the words and music. In Manon Lescaut the chorus is involved in a card game which may prove to be a challenge both musically and theatrically. Have you ever watched a production where the characters are obviously just standing there waiting to sing? Ugh! My favorite director’s quote is “If you don’t have a purpose to be here, get off my stage!” So everyone should be actively doing something at all times on stage and the challenge is to make it all seem effortless and natural. Opera is so much more than just singing pretty!