It’s finally performance week! After months of work, the cast and crew are in the final preparations for performances that start this Thursday March 22nd. The show plays Friday and Saturday nights and ends with a Sunday matinée on the 25th.
This week, I sat in on the Sitzprobe as well as seeing the dress rehearsal last evening. If you’ve been following this vlog all along, you can appreciate seeing all the parts of the opera come together in these clips. If you’ve just tuned in, you can catch up on the past vlogs to see the entire process of The Rake’s Progress all the way back to the auditions almost a year ago. The set looks amazing as do the costumes. The orchestra sounds incredible and our singers are at their peak. I’ll let the clips stand on their own to whet your appetite for the show.
The Rake’s Progress is quite possibly my favorite opera I’ve seen at UM. Congrats to all involved! You don’t want to miss it!
The opera is in full swing! In the last few days the staging process for Rake’s Progress has finished. The opera was completely staged just before students left for their winter break and once back, the casts have been running and cleaning large sections of the show. In testament to the high level of students UM attracts, several rehearsals last week were cancelled because the cast is so well prepared and not all of the rehearsal time is needed. Although this is practically unheard, it’s great for the cast because it affords them some time to get rested and stay fresh for the show’s opening.
Now that we’re getting close to opening night, several of the opera’s elements that have been rehearsing separately are coming together. For example, when I stepped into rehearsal last Friday, the chorus was present. Early this semester, they began rehearsing with the Chorusmaster, one of our choral conducting students. Once the material is learned and memorized, the chorus heads to staging rehearsals, where they are added into the already staged principle cast. It’s exciting to hear so many people singing on stage together; suddenly the opera comes into focus in the mind of the viewer. This “coming into focus” process will continue in the next few days as the cast moves into the theater (Wednesday), sings with the orchestra (Thursday), and dons their costumes (Saturday). While the staging may be finished, all of these steps along the road to performance present their own challenges to overcome in the next week.
Speaking of the orchestra, they’ve been rehearsing now for several weeks and I also filmed a bit of their rehearsal. While a few of the cast members have already come in to sing with their arias with the orchestra, for the most part, the singers will be hearing and singing with the orchestra for the first time at the Sitzprobe. These orchestra students are some of our younger instrumentalists and they’ve worked hard on these difficult parts. They sound great!
In the next few days, I’ll be stepping into the Sitzprobe, a piano tech rehearsal, as well one of our dress rehearsals-- the moment where all the elements of the opera come together for the first time-- and getting some last thoughts from the cast and crew as we wrap up the process. Get your first glimpse it all here and most of all... don’t forget your tickets!
In the last few weeks I made a couple of visits to the University Production set shop which is housed in The Power Center. They are finishing up the set to The Rake’s Progress and simultaneously beginning work for their next show, Chicago. While the set only has to move across the street to get into the Lydia Mendelssohn Theatre, the logistic considerations of moving the pieces in and out of each theater are a primary concern for the builders as they construct the set. I was able to meet many of the behind the scene workers on the show, both students and faculty. Russ Jones, on faculty at Perdue, is the scenic designer for the show and was in town when I was filming, so I chatted with him about how he created all this, as well talking with Toni Auletti and Doug Edwards who are just a few of the UProd staff working on the show.
As well as hearing from a few of our fabulous production staff, students have the opportunity to work behind the scenes for the shows. Some do it for work study while others are mandated to work in the shop because of a class requirement. One interesting combination this has created is that a student who will be performing Nick Shadow in the show is also working on painting the set. I catch up with him and plenty of other students who were working in the shop when I came by.
This week, the students are on winter break and hopefully getting a delightful repose from their hard work on the opera. Once school is back in session next week, I’ll be visiting a bit of the final staging rehearsals as well as orchestra rehearsals and following everything as we move from the Moore rehearsal halls into the Lydia Mendelssohn Theatre.
