The Queen(s and Kings) of the Night

Rehearsals for Porgy are in full swing and it’s hotter than the Hind Hinges of Hades on Catfish Row.

Yep, it’s been in the upper 80s here in Lyon, and our rehearsals have been in the Gymnase, the off-site rehearsal space in the south of Lyon Part Dieu.  It’s not air conditioned.  Wowzers, with a whole passel of black folk it can get a wee bit close in there!  But we’re professionals – we soldier on.

The beautiful thing about doing a revival is that for most of us we don’t have to learn blocking from scratch.  Rather, we just have to remember what we did the first time around.  Needless to say the video recording of our earlier run helps tremendously.  Still, there are those occasions where you go “aren’t you supposed to be over there?”  Sometimes the memory is a tad faulty.  But, again, the video helps.

Our Serena is here, my old friend Andrea Baker (Spike).  When I first knew her she was a high soprano, but after her time at Eastman she took three years off from singing.  When she went back to the grind she discovered that her voice had dropped a third, and she’s much more of a mezzo now.  That brings a different color to the character since our previous Serena was definitely a high soprano.  Andrea has done the opera several times so she is diving right into blocking.  Good thing, too, because it’s not like we have that much time to bring it all together.

Today, the third day of rehearsals, found me in the company of the Choeur de la Nuit, my affectionate name for the black chorus.  These folks hail from all over – the States, the UK, the Caribbean, France…. they’re a real great bunch of people, and we have most of the ones from the previous run here with us again.

The play a very vital role in this opera as the denizens of Catfish Row.  I had one musical rehearsal with them, and then in the afternoon we were straight into blocking for the opening scene.  There’s a lot of to-ing and fro-ing and crossing and everything else here because it is not only the introduction to Catfish Row, but it also has the all-important fight scene between Crown and Robbins, the spark for the whole story of Porgy & Bess.

After a long day of rehearsals it was time to walk back to my studio apartment in the old city.  I decided to take a route I had never traversed and lo and behold!  I looked up and there was a charming little children’s park named after the wonderful French composer Charles Marie Widor.

Being a sometime organist I was thrilled to run across it.  I have respect for a society that recognizes the contributions of its artists.  Tomorrow we are back in the Opera Lyon house, and back in air conditioning!  Even better – rumor has it that we’ll have our Crown, the wonderful Gregg Baker.  He should be a most imposing Crown – not only a fabulous artist with a lot of experience with the part, but he’s a good 6’6″.  I will NOT have a Napoleon complex.  I won’t!! I promise!!!!!