Tito, Lensky, Detmold…
This week we began with Tito rehearsals with the stage director and conductor. It is I believe a good team, the few days working on this opera have been really interesting, because we are working deep into the psychology of the characters and I like the direction to where is going.
On Thursday evening I got a call from Theater Detmold to jump in on Friday to sing Lensky from Eugen Onegin. I sang this role the last time in July so it is still somewhat fresh in my brain. Russian language is something I really respect, so I dedicated a lot time working on it and it paid off because I could remember quicker the text of the role for this very last minute jump in. On Thursday night I saw the video of the production I got from them, Friday morning on my 4 hour train to Detmold (With Akiho by my side) I went through the music with my score and then I watched the video for the second time. After arriving in Detmold I met the reggie assistant and went straight to the costume fitting and soon after that we went to a rehearsal room where we once more watch the video and then I acted and marked the whole opera, just me, her and the pianist. We talked about some key point and entrances and that was it. I went to the hotel, had some food (light salad and bread, plus 2 boiled eggs Aki prepared before we left home), then I was back at 6 pm at the theater for checking the stage and see the space plus I met the mezzo singing Olga to go through some parts on the stage, just marking positions. At 6:30 pm I warmed up my voice, alhtough it was pretty warm cause I was humming the opera and going through the text over and over during the whole day, so I needed very little time to warm up. At 6:50 pm I had my make up call and afterwards went to my dressing room and watch once more the video of the first act to double check the movements and also sang my first aria and a bit of the 1st and second act. At 7:30pm the show started. After I sang the first act I had some time before my entrance on the 2nd act so I look again to some parts of the video to check once more and then again back on stage. It was a crazy day, but the performance went really well, I managed to do all the staging and I was together with the conductor the whole time except one bar. My colleagues on stage were really nice and helpful. It was a lot to learn a whole staging in few hours and I am actually surprised I did all of it, plus the singing. I was a bit scared before the performance because generally I know the language I am singing in, but this time Russian is a language I do not speak, so If I forget some text in the middle of a phrase it is really difficult to get again into it during singing. Luckly I did not forget one word during singing. So that was my main concern, that during singing, because thinking what to do on stage, I would forget the russian text and then have trouble remembering either the stage or the text, but nothing happened, so that was a big relieve and I was really happy about it. The audience was really, really nice and we got standing ovations, the conductor was very glad everything worked out well and I was really glad I could do my job well. After the show I returned to the hotel and tried to sleep cause the next morning I had to wake up at 6am to catch the train at 7 am to be back at 11 ish , because I had rehearsal of Tito here in Wuerzburg. That was tough but worth it. After the rehersal I was a bit brain death from the day before.
I was overall very happy to sing again in another theater. It is always really nice to jump in somehwere else, and get to know and work with new colleagues and make music with different people, I love that about this profession.
This week I did not find the time to research the relationship with Tito and the Stoics that I am looking for, I will definitely do it this following week and I tell you about it in the next blog.
Take care.
