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!

Puccini's First Hit

Opera Grand Rapids has started chorus rehearsals for the February showing of Giacomo Puccini’s Manon Lescaut. In recent years we have presented the more famous works of Puccini: Tosca, Madama Butterfly, La Boheme and Turandot. Maestro Lyall and the Board of Opera Grand Rapids decided it was time to try the very first success that the master had composed, Manon Lescaut.

Since Opera Grand Rapids has not performed this show before, none of the chorus singers, or the pianist, or the chorus master has a past in which to refer. Usually Maestro Davis can recall tempos and cuts in music that Maestro Lyall has done in previous performances. Now the two Maestros have to have long phone conversations about particulars in the score.

And that leads me to the score itself. Whoa. I have been working on this music for most of the past two weeks and I don’t feel like I have even made a dent in my memorization or knowledge of the notes! I am very grateful that we started music rehearsals this early because if we had started at our normal date, mid December, I would be very scared. We are a chorus of 42 men and women who are divided into characters of students, girls, citizens, and villagers. Some of the chorus members also sing a Madrigal part and others are coupled as Beaus and Abbes. The confusing aspect is that we are all interacting at the same time, but singing different parts based on our characters. Our rehearsal last night was challenging, but then I remind myself that the challenge is why I started singing opera.

Am I up to this challenge?

Joyful Noise

Porgy and Bess will be performed this weekend at DeVos Hall. Since I am not in that chorus, I accepted a role in a community theater show called Joyful Noise at Master Arts Theater. The ironic thing is that I play an opera singer. We opened our show this past Thursday and will continue this weekend and next (through May 8). When I am at work during the day at the Betty Van Andel Opera Center, I can hear the leads for Porgy and Bess rehearsing and am humbled by their talent. It makes me feel like I am not worthy to even “act” the part of a true opera singer; even in community theater!
Darla Wortley, another Opera Grand Rapids chorus singer, is also in Joyful Noise and she too plays an opera singer. Darla is a strong soprano and her character is a comedian actress who fights my character for parts. We actually get to have a “cat fight” which is a lot of fun. The show is about the time when Handel wrote the Messiah oratorio. It was a low time in Handel’s life and he almost gave up on composing. London did not appreciate his works, and the church took offense at the idea of having Drury Lane actresses sing passages from the Holy Scripture, so it was a tumultuous experience. The show is endearing, funny and educational all at the same time.

Another Dead Soprano

Fellow chorus member, Christian Vigrass, posted a Facebook status of “Another opera sung, another dead soprano.” That sums up most tragic operas and Pagliacci is no exception. I had a good time rehearsing and performing this little gem and I wish that Leoncavallo had written more verismo operas of this caliber. It was nice to work with Mark Rucker (Tonio) and Georgia Jarman (Nedda) again. I worked with Mark in Tosca and he is set to do our Rigoletto next November. Georgia was Violetta the last time we did La Traviata and I hope she returns again someday.

The next show of our season is Porgy and Bess which has a contractual obligation to cast an all African-American chorus. Since I am Dutch-American, I do not fit into this category and won’t be onstage for this opera. Even though I can’t participate, I am excited to have OGR perform Gershwin’s story of Catfish Row again since the last time it was very successful.

Opera Grand Rapids has finally moved to our permanent home at the Betty Van Andel Opera Center. We are unpacking and trying to adjust to new phone and computer systems as well as new furniture and fixtures. My office is disorganized and I am not sure what to do first, next and last. I think I need a break from opera for a few days!

Dress Rehearsals

We have started our Dress Rehearsals for Pagliacci at DeVos Hall. Usually we have a “stumble through” on Sunday night, a rehearsal in costume on Monday and then two reads with the Grand Rapids Symphony on Tuesday and Wednesday. For Pagliacci we didn’t get our Sunday night time on the stage so Monday night became a costumed stumble. It is now Tuesday and all of West Michigan is getting hit with a lot of snow which isn’t expected to stop until tomorrow afternoon and we hope that all the local singers and musicians can make it into town from the outlying areas. I live on the lakeshore so it may take me a long time to get home tonight since Lake Michigan likes to dump more snow on the shoreline counties. For now, we will hope that God will be kind and spare this area from too much winter weather.