Fidelio Rehearsal Chat

Learn more about Fidelio from our latest video, in which Maestro Asher Fisch and stage director Chris Alexander discuss how Beethoven's dynamic music heightens the pathos of the opera's compelling story. Video includes footage of principal cast members in rehearsal.



Learn more about Fidelio on the Seattle Opera Website

Turandot - The Hair & Makeup Challenge

Watch time-lapse footage of the Seattle Opera Hair & Makeup Crew as they prepare over 100 "People of Peking" in just 1 hour.



Learn more about Turandot on the Seattle Opera Website

Madama Butterfly: Director's Talk with Peter Kazaras

Sit in on a staging rehearsal as director Peter Kazaras introduces you to the "two great couples" who alternate as Butterfly and Pinkerton. Kazaras also shares his thoughts about other exciting artists involved in making this traditional production really sing.



Learn more about Madama Butterfly on the Seattle Opera Website

Orpheus and Eurydice - Behind The Scenes: The Sets

The sets for Orpheus have the challenge that they must portray two worlds: above-ground earth and the underworld. Go behind-the-scenes as the Scene Shop builds an 800 pound tree -- both its above ground earthly stature and its unruly underworld root system.



Learn more about Orpheus and Eurydice on the Seattle Opera Website

Behind the Scenes: Porgy Orchestra

Some of opera’s most memorable music is in Porgy and Bess, and the orchestra is responsible for making it come alive to us. Go backstage to an orchestra rehearsal and hear the songs you know and love, plus Maestro John DeMain walks us through some of the challenges of this work, why Gershwin is so difficult to perform, and why our orchestra is up to the task.




Learn more about Porgy and Bess on the Seattle Opera website.

Porgy and Bess: Director's Talk

The artists are hard at work in rehearsal, and Stage Director Chris Alexander brags on the amazing talent found in the cast and conductor. Watch Alexander's take on this production, peek behind-the-scenes at the rehearsal process, and hear commentary from the star singers themselves.




Learn more about Porgy and Bess on the Seattle Opera website.

Behind The Scenes: Porgy Chorus

When writing the score for Porgy and Bess, George Gershwin himself mandated that every performance of this work include an all-black chorus. To honor the composer’s request, Seattle Opera held auditions to find our newest chorus members, all local Seattleites with great stories to tell. Watch the chorus in rehearsal and meet a few new choristers in backstage interviews.




Learn more about Porgy and Bess on the Seattle Opera website.

The Magic Flute: Director's Talk with Chris Alexander

Learn about the magic of The Magic Flute with Stage Director Chris Alexander's plans to make an imaginary world come to life onstage. Watch rehearsal footage along with Alexander’s exciting ideas, and see that it's no wonder Alexander is a two-time Artist of the Year recipient!




Learn more about The Magic Flute on the Seattle Opera website.

The Magic Flute: Behind the Scenes: Vocal Acrobatics

Mozart uses the characters in The Magic Flute to sing virtually every note within human vocal range. From the deep bass of Sarastro to the extremely high coloratura of the Queen of the Night, learn from Maestro Gary Wedow (and the singers themselves) about the voice types required to portray these characters successfully.




Learn more about The Magic Flute on the Seattle Opera website.

Speight's Corner: The Magic Flute

According to General Director Speight Jenkins, a variety of characters combined with "some of the most marvelous music [Mozart] ever wrote" makes The Magic Flute “Mozart’s most fantastic opera.” Jenkins also introduces the international cast which features a mix of returning artists as well as Seattle Opera debuts.



Learn more about The Magic Flute on the Seattle Opera website.

This video features the brand new Don Quixote sets, which are under construction at the amazing Seattle Opera Scene Shop! While creating 14-foot-tall oversized books and giant ink wells that are still lightweight enough for easy scene changes, the shop had their share of creative challenges. The final product? A setting that is the larger-than-life desk of Cervantes, taking up the entire McCaw Hall stage. Enjoy!

Behind The Scenes with Stephanie Blythe

One of the world's finest mezzo-sopranos today, Stephanie Blythe will shine as Dame Quickly in every performance of Falstaff. Listen to Blythe discussing the role and why Falstaff is one of her favorite works.

To watch more videos or learn more about Seattle Opera's production of Falstaff, visit the Seattle Opera website.

The First Day of Rehearsal - One of the Busiest Days of the Year

Today is the first day of rehearsal for our next production to take the stage, Verdi's Il Trovatore. On the blog to tell us about the hustle-bustle that ensues is Assistant Stage Manager Ginger Castleberry.

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One of the busiest days for the Seattle Opera Stage Managers is the first day of rehearsal. The cast of Trovatore includes a lot of familiar faces but also a few singers we haven’t met. The Artist Aide buffet, a casual event hosted by our volunteer drivers, provides an opportunity for informal introductions over lunch before we begin the official rehearsal day.

Before the singers arrive, we attend Prop and Costume Viewings with the director and the production staff who walk through each detail of the show. This session gives the director a chance to ask questions or share ideas. On Trovatore I’m the Assistant Stage Manager in charge of costumes. Every veil, hanky and piece of jewelry is tracked through the opera, so we make sure to keep it all straight. I’m also looking to find out how things work – Can a performer take his jacket off, or is it built to stay on? Is that veil attached to the wig? Can she kneel in that skirt? We also keep track of how long each singer is offstage to change costumes – if they need to make a costume change in two minutes instead of twenty, the costume shop can rig all sorts of tricks to make getting in and out of the costume faster. In Trovatore, the Men’s Chorus alone changes costumes four times!

Some of the ladies in Trovatore wear costumes that include long veils. I try to think about the costumes from each artist's perspective – what would it feel like to wear that? What could go wrong that we can help avoid? Not only is it easy to trip on a long veil, but we don’t want to find out that the fabric is too thick and they can’t see Maestro conducting!

After the Artist Aide Buffet and the Costume Viewing, we attend the Prop Viewing. There are many different weapons in Trovatore, and I’ll let the costume department know if the singers need somewhere in their costume to stash their weapons. We also keep track of any wearable props, like rings, or any props that need to fit inside a pocket.

And all that’s just the morning – after lunch we shuffle singers out to costume and wig fittings and start staging rehearsals for Act One. Looking at the schedule it’s a long first day, but we’re very excited to hit the ground running on Trovatore!

The Music Librarian: Seriously, Someone Has to do That?

A composer finishes his opera. He mails it to his publisher who prints copies and sells them to opera companies all over the world who in turn take the published parts and distribute them to their orchestras. Easy right? At least until the rehearsal starts…



(Photo: Glenn Crytzer, Seattle Opera Music Librarian)


Imagine: The conductor gives the downbeat to begin, and the strings turn into a cacophony of various interpretations, the trumpets play triple forte, the first horn raises his hand to point out that his third page is printed upside down, and the second flute player has no idea whether to play flute or piccolo.

It would take hours and hours of expensive rehearsal time to work out all of those details in an opera. That’s where the music librarian comes in. When the parts arrive from the publisher I go down through the list of things that could go wrong in rehearsal and make notes in the parts that will help the musicians to avoid these pitfalls so that the conductor, instrumentalists, and singers can spend their rehearsal time making music. Here are some of the most important things I keep an eye out for.


First I check to see that the parts have adequate rehearsal markings – that way if the conductor asks the orchestra to begin in measure 235, they’ll all know where that is. The next step is to check the parts for errors. Most opera parts are engraved from sources that were made many years ago and were written out by hand. I’m sure you can imagine how painstaking it might be to write out every single part for Götterdämmerung by hand. Chances are you’d make a few mistakes while copying over those thousands upon thousands of notes, dynamics, and expression markings; therefore, it’s worthwhile to give them a once-over so that the instrumentalists aren’t spending their time in rehearsal correcting wrong notes.

After that come the bowings. It’s important that the string players all draw the bow across the strings in the same direction if they are playing the same part because the direction that the bow is drawn determines the phrasing of the musical line. Parts are usually given to the section leaders in advance to decide on bowings for their section, and then I copy bowings from their parts into the other section members’ music.

Cuts and transpositions specific to a production must be accounted for. If the director and maestro decide to cut 10 bars of music in act 2 and take the tenor aria up a 3rd in act 4, then it’s my job to make sure that this these details are marked into the musicians' parts. In the case of a transposition, I’ll generally take the whole section of music that is transposed and make a new part for each musician to use in the new key.

Bandas, or back-stage music, are often parts of an opera that were never orchestrated by the composer. Usually backstage music was played by the local town band in whatever city the opera was being performed, and the bandleaders were expected to orchestrate a piano part for that section of music to match the instruments they had in their local group. I confer with the Maestro and the Assistant Conductor to find out what instruments will be used, which version of the orchestration will be used, and from whom I can borrow a copy (banda orchestrations are usually not available from a publisher).

Anomalies of all shapes and sizes can present themselves when preparing to produce an opera, so it’s important to be flexible and to be prepared for just about anything that might come up with regard to the music. There are not, to my knowledge, any degree programs that prepare students for a career in orchestra librarianship, so librarians have generally acquired all the skills for the position through their own hodgepodge of musical experiences. My degrees are in music composition (MM Cleveland Institute of Music 2006, BM Florida State University 2003), but skills gained from my experiences leading jazz groups, playing in symphony orchestras, singing opera, and even playing in rock bands have all also proved to be valuable in one way or another as the librarian at Seattle Opera. Every day presents a new challenge and requires you to find a new and creative way of overcoming it.

Cheers,
Glenn

Glenn Crytzer has been the music librarian at Seattle Opera since June 2008; he’s the man who you see wandering around the pit in a funny hat. Glenn is a composer as well as a jazz band leader. His original compositions can be heard at http://www.glenncrytzer.com/ and his jazz band can be found at http://www.syncopators.net/.

La Traviata Behind-The-Scenes: Costumes

Watch this excited and informative behind-the-scenes video, as Costume Shop Manager Susan Davis showcases some of the beautiful costumes that will be worn in Seattle Opera's upcoming production of La Traviata.

To learn more about the upcoming production of La Traviata, visit the Seattle Opera website.