BEHIND THE SPOTLIGHT

Following our work through yesterday, we spent today working in detail on specific scenes. We took the morning off, and started the afternoon with a private coaching for our Mike Teavee, countertenor Jason Abrams.  Peter has written an incredibly amusing and virtuosic parody of a baroque aria for Mike, in which he very creatively uses coloratura to portray a boy obsessed with television violence.  One of the best things about an extended workshop period is the opportunity for singers to work directly with the composer.  Jason actually started an email dialogue with Peter to discuss this aria before rehearsals started, and today, he had the opportunity to work through some of the ideas they discussed with our music staff. It was a very productive session, and by the end of it, Jason was transformed into a very disturbed and funny teenager!

We then moved on to an extended session for Veruca and Lord Salt.  Tim spent most of the session working with Abigail Nims (Veruca) and David Kravitz (Lord Salt) not only on the musical structure of the scene, but also on the fantastic dysfunctional relationship between the spoiled little rich girl and the father that stops at nothing to make her happy.  

After a dinner break, the full chorus assembled for a three hour session with Tim.  The chorus had two weekends of preparation time with our wonderful chorus master Jennifer Peterson before the formal workshop period started last Wednesday. Now that Tim is with us, he is building on the foundation Jennifer laid, and getting them to embody - both musically and dramatically - all of the different roles they have to portray.  In The Golden Ticket, the chorus plays the role of Oompa Loompas, Workers in Lord Salt’s Factory, Townsfolk, and Turkish Nut Sorting Squirrels in Wonka’s Factory…  Is there any other opera in which the chorus play such an wonderful array of characters?  Our chorus is fantastic and is embracing the challenge with an enthusiasm that is contagious!

Tomorrow, more individual scene work, with video footage to follow…  

As promised, today I took the video camera into the rehearsal studio as we did our first work through of The Golden Ticket.  I have to preface this with a note of thanks to our wonderful cast for being willing to share the process on this blog. Rehearsals can range from performance caliber to very bumpy, but I think it can be really interesting for people who are not singers to see into the studio from time to time. Today’s work through went incredibly well, thanks to all of the preparation our wonderful cast has put into the piece.

The session was incredibly productive.  We read through the entire opera from start to finish - stopping along the way to fix some sections, and making notes about other sections that we want to call more extensive rehearsals to address. Ultimately, the main purpose of the run was for the full cast to get a sense of the overall shape of the piece.  We also were able to take preliminary timings and start assessing certain production related factors, like how long we have for scenic transitions.   

The video above features about nine minutes from our three hour work through.  The rehearsal is led by conductor Timothy Redmond, with our Assistant Conductor Brian DeMaris at the piano.  

Tomorrow, the chorus will have an extensive session, and we will work individually with a few singers on their scenes.  Donald and Peter (the composer and librettist of this amazing opera) arrive tomorrow as well, and I feel good knowing that we are well along the way to very polished performance next Saturday.

Do you have your tickets for the showing yet? If not, CLICK HERE to buy them now!

OK, I know I said I’d post daily - It’s day three of our rehearsal period for The Golden Ticket, and this is truly the first time I have a few minutes between rehearsals and grant proposals to quickly let you know what’s going on… I promise to post more regularly from now on…

The first day and a half of the workshop, all singers were provided with individual coachings with a member of our music staff.  Before “throwing them into the fire” with ensemble rehearsals and a work through of the opera (which we will do tomorrow, on day 4), we wanted to give everyone a chance to work through their parts individually with a pianist. After those sessions, which ranged from one hour to four hours, depending on the size of their parts, we started putting scenes together with small groups of singers. Again the emphasis was on gaining comfort with the score, and getting a sense of where each person / character / voice fits into the overall texture of each scene.  Last night, we brought the full cast and chorus together for the first time to work on the finales of Act I and Act II - enormous and exciting pieces that filled the studio with electricity, laughter, frustration, and ultimately, some beautiful music making.  First rehearsals are always bumpy, but I must say I’m incredibly impressed at how well the cast is prepared.

Tomorrow, we will work through the opera.  What is a work through? Well, exactly that. We have two three-hour sessions where conductor Tim Redmond will work through - from start to finish - the full opera with the entire cast and chorus.  Tim will stop and start as necessary to give notes, make corrections and adjustments. The main purpose of the work through is not to polish the piece in any great detail, but  for everyone to get a sense of the piece as a whole  - dramatically and musically.  Only after the preliminary work through will we really dive into fine tuning both the music and the dramatic shape of the piece.  I will be video taping this work through, and promise to post some footage on Sunday so you can get a look into the rehearsal process. 

Of course, while we’ve been having full rehearsal days, I’m busy juggling press inquiries, meeting with potential producing partners, ensuring that grant proposals go out on time, confirming arrangements with our venue, and even sampling deserts for our Wonkalicious reception at Bouchon Bakery on April 4th.   Yes, there are some perks to this job, and chocolate is one of them!

Over the weekend, we began assembling the preliminary schedule for the entire workshop of The Golden Ticket.  Our sessions will begin in less than two weeks, with Chorus Rehearsals for the men who take on the daunting task of creating some of Dahl’s most beloved characters: the Oompa Loompas! Donald and Peter have expanded the Oompa Loompas’ role since our last workshop, and I am very excited to hear the new scenes they have created.  Beyond Oompa Loompas, the chorus also assumes the roles of factory workers in Lord Salt’s factory, townsfolk, and the gifted, slightly aggressive nut-inspecting squirrels inside of Wonka’s factory.  Before we begin our rehearsals with principals on March 25th, the chorus will have rehearsed for a total of 20 hours. Jennifer Peterson, our chorus master, has her work cut out for her, but our workshop chorus is comprised of 12 incredibly strong singers, and I have no doubt they will be very well prepared by the time Tim Redmond arrives on the 25th.

Now I dive into the challenging task of putting together a preliminary schedule for our rehearsal period between March 25th and April 4th.  Ten days might seem like a long time for a workshop, but the times flies quickly, and the music is challenging! All of the singers received Act 1 of the opera over a week ago, and we just sent out most of Act 2 to everyone Saturday. (Two scenes are still being edited by Peter, but we expect to receive them this week).  We are very fortunate to have Christopher Burchett reprising the role of Willy Wonka in our second workshop. Chris (pictured below in ALT’s Opera in Eden Showcase at Symphony Space) has a gorgeous voice, is an exceptional musician and actor, and is a very generous colleague. His experience with the piece in such a huge role will definitely make putting the workshop together a lot easier than it would be otherwise.

Scheduling is a delicate art. We want to rehearse as much as possible, but we can’t exhaust the singers, pianists or conductor. No artist is called to more than six hours of rehearsal a day. We have two rehearsal studios at our disposal: a very large hall that easily accommodates the full cast; and a smaller studio that is more appropriate for one-on-one or small group coachings. During the first two days of rehearsal, we like to provide one-on-one coaching for each singer with our music staff before we start to put together scenes with multiple characters.  We schedule these one-on-one coachings based on the size of each role during these first two days, and then we estimate the amount of time we expect it will take to put together each scene in the remaining rehearsal days.  Though we put together a draft-schedule for the entire workshop period, it inevitably gets changed based on degree of preparation of each artist and the complexity of each scene and part. I’m always pleased when we can move forward more quickly than anticipated, but have to build in ‘buffer-time’ to ensure we can deal with any unexpected things that arise.  In addition, as it is a workshop, we often come across sections with which we want to experiment.  The collaborative relationship with all of the artists helps solve problems or challenges that are not apparent when just looking at the score on the page.

Two weeks ago, all of the invitations went out to our producing partners (confirmed and potential). Last week, we put a small number of tickets on sale to the public.  (Note there are a limited number of tickets which will only be sold in advance.)  This week, invitations go out to funding prospects. This workshop serves multiple purpose for us: to further explore the piece artistically; to allow the production team (director, choreographer and designers) to continue their work on the production itself; to show the opera to other opera companies who will be co-producing OTSL and ALT; and to introduce potential funders to opera and let them know our production plans in more detail.  So, while the workshop is structured in the way it is for artistic development, it has to serve other purposes as well!