“Dear God: Could we please get through Day 1 of our revival of Porgy & Bess without some major disaster? I’d really appreciate it. Thanks.” That’s what I was hoping for on my way over to Opera Lyon. Of course, there’s that great expression – “Man plans, God laughs.”
The day started lovely enough. I’m back in the beautiful city of Lyon, food capital of France, and certainly home to enough beautiful people to make one wonder why anyone leaves this town. I’m ensconced in the old city area, left bank of the Saone river, just underneath the beautiful Fourvière cathedral, and it was a beautiful morning to take a 30 mile bike trip up the river. The French are very kind to cyclists, so there was no honking or obvious attempts to run me off the road. Shortly before noon I wandered over to the Opera to drop of my scores and say hello to folks.
On arrival I immediately found our Maria, Jake, and Robbins, all looking well. I sauntered upstairs to say hello to Robert, the head of production at the Opera Lyon. In western hemisphere terms he would be the Artistic Administrator. We clasped hands, did the awkward male chest bump thing, and then he whispered in my ear “we have no Crown.”
Now, I’m not very good with languages, so I was pretty sure there was something lost in translation. This surprised me since Robert is fluent in German (his native tongue), French, and English, so I quietly meandered over to the other chair in his office, sat down, and said “Friend Robert, I could have sworn you just said that we have no Crown!” The look he gave me was one of a man who has not slept much the past 4 days. Quick plot recap – the character Crown is essentially the root of all the problems in Porgy & Bess. He’s a rapist, sadist, drug addicted megalomaniac, and the fact that he eventually gets his comeuppance from the business end of Porgy’s knife is not mourned by anybody. In short, this is a MAJOR character. And the guy playing it has gone AWOL. In the background I hear, very faintly, what can only be described as a rather ethereal voice cackling with glee.
So we have to replace Crown on very, very short notice. This is the second major change in the cast – our Serena bailed about a month ago – and this is going to cause havoc with the video people. In this production there is extensive video shown as part of the set and much of it is of the cast. Some of it will have to be reshot. That’s going to be a pain in the tuchus. More about this when I know more about this.
There’s nothing to do but run though the opera with those folks we have. Our new Serena, Andrea Baker (who I just now realize was a classmate of mine at Eastman!!!) will be coming in tomorrow, so that left Porgy, Bess, Sportin’ Life, Mingo, Robbins, Jake, Jim, Lily, Annie, Frazier, the Undertaker……. uhh……… did I miss anyone? Did I mention, lately, the Porgy has way too many parts? We were still missing the Detective, Strawberry Woman, and a host of others, but we had most of the major ones there. Robert came down to welcome everyone and he was slightly puzzled why we were all standing around chatting 10 minutes into the rehearsal. I said, “Robert, we’re BLACK!!! We’re socializing!!” He just shook his head.
The funny thing is that we had many of the same musical problems today that we had two years ago!! Human beings is funny, and if you learn something the wrong way it is frequently hard to change it. Our Waterloos of yesteryear were the same as today. But it was great fun hearing the music, hearing the voices, laughing with the personalities, and generally enjoying this fantastic opera again. Whatever hiccups we had today we’ll iron out once we get into staging. And speaking of which – that starts up tomorrow!!! Once more unto the breach, dear friends!!