Director's Diary

Director's Diary image

Aidan Lang, Director
The Marriage of Figaro


Director's Diary, 16 June, 2010

An email from Nuccia Focile - the last of our guest artist to depart - informs me that she has arrived safely back in her home in South Wales. Our conductor, Lionel Friend, had to fly out a mere six hours after the curtain fell for the final time, and is now already in rehearsals for his next project in the UK. This is the reality of our profession. A group of artists is assembled. They arrive, get to know one another and work together at an extremely intense level - and then suddenly disperse again to all points around the globe. I have worked in this profession for nearly 30 years, but still find it strange to return to work the following day and find them all gone.

Like a performance itself, the rehearsal process is ephemeral. But also, like a great performance, a rehearsal period such as the one we had with this Figaro leaves a legacy. It is a given that we hope our performances linger long in the memory of our audience. In this case, the ensemble ethic that every member of the cast, creative team and technical crew brought to this production will produce long-lasting and treasured memories for everyone at The NBR New Zealand Opera.

This feeling was best encapsulated by a rehearsal day in Wellington. We had begun rehearsal in our studio in Auckland, because there we had been able to rehearse with all the furniture and props, some costume elements, and if not the walls of the set - they were far too high for our studio - then at least the actual floor. Having these elements available to work with is a real plus, as it grounds the cast in what they will expect when they arrive for the final rehearsals on the stage. When we got to Wellington, all this was naturally no longer available to us to work with, as the production had to be fitted up on stage in the theatre. It takes a good four days before the stage is ready to receive the cast, and there is a distinct danger, in such circumstances, that the rehearsals go off the boil. After four weeks in our studio, we found ourselves in a carpeted room in the St. James Theatre, with none of the furniture, which defines the scenes for the singers, and only some of the props. Something different was called for, and came in form of a day spent entirely on the recitatives.

Recitative forms about a third of the opera, and for me they define the evening. They carry the bulk of the plot, and when they shine with a fusion of crisp Italian text and a correct sense of flexibility in keeping with the action, they give a Mozart opera its glow and its distinct character. I think all New Zealand singers would admit that they are at a disadvantage, when it comes to recitative. Italian is not widely spoken on these shores, and while we perform Mozart as often as we can, our singers are not being continually exposed to recitative, as they would be if they were working in a big European opera house. But thanks to the generosity and help of our wonderful Italian Count and Countess, Riccardo and Nuccia, we experienced a transformative day. Hitherto, the recitatives had been OK, but only OK. At the end of six hours, with nuance, cadence, stress and tempo subtly modified, we had sections which not only told the story more clearly, but also had become key indicators to the individual characters. It was one of the most collegial days I have ever experienced in my professional life and its results defined the production that ended up on the stage.

Spare a though also for the unseen crew of technicians in both cities. Four big walls on tracks, each weighing three quarters of a tonne, had to be moved to an ever changing set of marks for each individual scene. The moving side walls and floor were hand-operated by winches. What made the whole operation difficult was that all the technicians were effectively flying blind. With each movement of the set, the various elements needed to travel different distances at different speeds, often in different directions. It took time and practice to ensure that there was an element of magic, each time we moved to a new space. There were 21 set moving cues throughout the evening and nothing went wrong at any of the 9 performances.

Well, now it's all over. The set and costumes are packed away, although we will be working hard in the background to find them another outing somewhere in the world. But the work doesn't stop, as Macbeth is now looming large on the horizon. Work visas, travel arrangements, final rehearsal schedules. The finishing touches are being applied in order to bring in the next team of artists, in the hope that they too will deliver another great production.

 

Director's Diary, 28 April 2010

"... when Riccardo and Nuccia both arrived after lunch soaked to the skin from the lunchtime downpour, they were both whisked away, stripped of their wet clothes and re-dressed - Riccardo in his actual costume for the production, and Nuccia in a fetching 60s number from our costume stock...."

Different operas take different lengths of rehearsal time to work through, and the time needed is not always in proportion to the playing time of the piece. Despite their length, one can create the initial 'shape' of a Wagner opera sooner than one can with the three Mozart - Da Ponte works, Figaro, Don Giovanni and Così fan Tutte. And of these, Figaro is by far the most complicated. There is a lot of essential stage business in this opera that has to be executed with precision; and this takes time and care.

A psychological milestone is reached during the rehearsal period when the director and cast arrive at the final bars for the first time, so I am happy to report that we are absolutely on track with The Marriage of Figaro. Our rehearsal period is six weeks long, and as we expected, it has taken us the first three weeks to get from A-Z.  Any production brings together singers from many walks of life and our cast is a happy blend of overseas artists and New Zealanders residing both on and off-shore. It is always fascinating to watch their relationships - both as characters and as people - develop during the rehearsal process. On the one hand, it is like any group of people coming together - except that rehearsals massively accelerate the whole getting-to-know-you business. Performers work with a high level of mutual respect and trust for each other. In creating a character, singers inevitably reveal aspects of their personalities which go far deeper than usual workplace familiarity that most people experience in their working lives.

The constant repetition of core repertoire means that invariably one has a mix of some singers who have previously performed the work and some who are new to their roles. Our wonderful Italian duo, Riccardo Novaro and Nuccia Focile (Count and Countess Almaviva) sit in the former camp, whereas Wade Kernot (Figaro), Emma Pearson (Susanna) and Wendy Dawn Thompson (Cherubino) are debutants. It is a great bonus to the three 'newbies' to work with two such experienced hands. Both Nuccia and Riccardo have an unusually strong sense of text and enunciation, so rehearsals with them both are like a masterclass in Italian Mozartian singing for our Emerging Artists who attend the rehearsal as part of their internship with us.

Well, we have got to the end of the opera in three weeks, so what next? We spend another week in the studio during which time we refresh, refine and polish what we have done so far. As director, I need to be especially wary that ideas I might have had for the early scenes have not been rendered redundant by what has developed with the production further down the line. There has to be a cohesive whole. So we start again, and look at every scene afresh, guided by the framework we have set for ourselves.

One of the benefits of our rehearsal and technical complex in Onehunga is that we can have elements of the scenery to work with right from the start. We have also added costume elements as they become available. As the production is quasi 'in period' it is important that the female characters rehearse in a skirt akin to an 18th century dress, complete with panier. Not only does one walk in a different manner, but one also takes up a lot more space on stage. Our costume workshop and store is divided from the studio by a single door, with two-way benefits. Elizabeth Whiting and her marvellous team work to the sound of Mozart's music next door, and we in the studio can get an instant response when we need something. So when yesterday, Riccardo and Nuccia both arrived after lunch soaked to the skin from the lunchtime downpour, they were both whisked away, stripped of their wet clothes and re-dressed - Riccardo in his actual costume for the production, and Nuccia in a fetching 60s number from our costume stock - while their day clothes were put into the dryer.

 

Director's Diary, 11 December 2009

"So what's it going to be like?". "Will it be traditional?" Just two of the many questions I was asked at a Friends of the Opera soirée in Wellington about the new production of The Marriage of Figaro in 2010. Well, of course the design team - set and costume designers Robin Rawstorne and Elizabeth Whiting - and I are well down the path towards the end result. Key decisions have been made and the overall approach has now been decided upon, but there is still a long way to go and it's a bit early to provide a concrete answer.

There are some important milestones along the way, and we have just passed the first of these. The set design is eventually delivered by using a 1:25 scale model and the necessary technical drawings. What we don't want, however, is to go to the expense of a completed model only to discover that the production would be over budget or impossible to realise for technical reasons. We therefore met with the company's Technical Manager Steve Crowcroft and Production Workshop Manager Wayne Ashton last week to show them a rough model of the production, and go through in detail how it works. A marathon six hour discussion produced some terrific solutions to some of the challenges the design has thrown up. Steve and Wayne now do a first draft of a costing, and Robin has gone away to refine the designs by incorporating the new ideas. It's all highly detailed stuff - the size of casters, the standard widths of plywood - and most of it is out of sight of the audience; but it can greatly affect the overall budget.

Elizabeth, in the meantime, has not been idle. The balance between the set and the costumes is a subtle one, and it is important to get it right. I believe that there is a vital ten minute window at the start of any performance, when the audience is in its most alert state. Who are these people? Where are we? What's going on? The costumes are the initial indicator of the characters for the audience, who the second the curtain rises instantly start to play with a myriad of associations derived from a wide range of sources: paintings, TV, cinema, real life. The Marriage of Figaro requires a range of costumes which clearly delineate the differing social strata of the piece. Clearly there are aristocrats and servants, but that is the tip of the iceberg. Where do the individual servants work? In the kitchen? In the garden? On the land? There are also the middle class characters who don't live in the castle but come from town. Are they wealthy? Modish or old fashioned? So the process for Elizabeth and I is to delineate precisely the circumstances and personal history of each character, and her eventual costume decisions are then defined by these discussions.

So it is a case of work in progress. The next milestone is when the final designs are presented to the company towards the end of January, and more updates will follow in the New Year.