Dress rehearsal done. Production meeting over. Overnight crew fed. Lighting and projections tech continue. Darkness. Quiet. Humidity. Art.
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Traviata Liveblog: 22 Hours to Curtain
Dress Rehearsal Photo Essay
Read MoreTraviata Liveblog: 27 Hours to Curtain
After this afternoon’s orchestra load-in and sound check, a 2-hour “spacing” rehearsal. We’re fast-forwarding through the opera, cue-to-cue, allowing the singers a short time to acclimate to the new environment. It’s hot. You thought I meant the temperature? Nah, that’s nothing… This opera is hot.
Read MoreTraviata Liveblog: 42 Hours to Curtain
Overnight rehearsal #2. Projections, props, light cues. Assistant stage managers “light-walking” until the sun comes up. Putting the Keurig machine into motion at 1:45am. Quiet in the theatre, with middle-of-the-night slow modulated talking into headsets.
Read MoreTraviata Liveblog: 49 Hours to Curtain
We’re in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall for the “Sitzprobe” – when we bring together all musical elements: National Symphony Orchestra, Washington Chorus and Wolf Trap Opera. I’m a musical animal, having entered this business through my life at the piano. The shaping and shepherding of lights, costumes, sets and projections is exciting to be
Read MoreTraviata Liveblog: 68 Hours to Curtain
Ian Anderson loads out of the Filene Center, and Verdi moves in. Welcome to Wolf Trap. In order to tech opera – to focus and cue lights and projections – you need darkness. Ergo, overnight rehearsals are a reality of amphitheater opera. The obvious negatives (goodbye, normal sleep cycle…) are mitigated by adrenaline and by
Read MoreTraviata Liveblog: 76 Hours to Curtain
Leaving the Rehearsal Room… The team is completely assembled for the very first time, and the production designers (costume, scenic, projections, lighting, wigs, makeup) watch a run-through. It’s 4pm on a Tuesday, the singers are working through the opera in street clothes in a regular room. And you still cry when Violetta dies. Rehearsal ends,
Read MoreGolem & Godzilla at the Opera
It’s almost here… At the charming Children’s-Theatre-in-the-Woods…. Instant Opera! Final rehearsal was this afternoon, and Wolf Trap employees stopped by to engineer the Mad Libs-style plots. Following their suggestions, this is what happened in the world of opera this afternoon: Golem stole Liza Minelli’s jewels. Hillary Clinton and Godzilla had a outer space battle over
Read MorePlaces to Live, Wonders to Wander to
We traveled around the world twice, in a new and fascinating fashion. For the first time, we forsook the proscenium space of the Barns stage, and artists and audience alike took the trip from the floor of the theatre. As any performer who’s done theatre-in-the-round knows, it is both a gratifying and terrifying experience. Nothing
Read MoreThe Rossini Gestalt
In opera, the whole should always be more than the sum of its many parts. Rossini’s Journey to Reims has so many sparkling moving parts that if it were to be simply the sum of them, perhaps that would be more than enough. But sometimes you get luckier than you imagine. We have high hopes
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