Yesterday was May Day, and this being France it was a national holiday and a day off for us. And boy could we use it……
t-15. The countdown has begun. It’s May and there’s no turning back. Two weeks from tomorrow we’re in front of the public whether we are ready or not. So best to get ready.
I’ve had two rehearsals with the orchestra, the first 1 1/2 of which we spent slamming through the opera. This is rather a unique experience for this ensemble. They don’t the chance to play much music like Gershwin’s Porgy & Bess but it’s fairly obvious they’re looking forward to it. There are advantages and disadvantages to this scenario. Disadvantage – they’re not a Western orchestra so many don’t have the performance knowledge to deal with the score yet. Advantage – they’re not a Western orchestra so many do not have all the performance baggage that comes along with playing this type of music.
Frankly I prefer the latter. American music gets surprisingly short shrift in the West. I can’t count how many times I’ve gone through American in Paris and then absolutely shocked an orchestra by saying “Ok, now we’ll rehearse.” The response is always “What? We’ve played it the same way we’ve played it for 40 years!!” That’s usually the problem. Now it’s time to actually look at what Gershwin wrote and give it a go. That turns out to be an eye opening experience.
What we need to do the most here in Lyon is run scenes. Just run them until they’re almost second nature. That’s what I’ll be advocating for over the next week. Then we start putting singers together with orchestra and finally (hopefully) the whole works will be in place. Then it’s all on my shoulders, and it’s going to be a heavy weight.