Gianni Schicchi Diary pt. 4

Aureliano Perile, tenor

I'm going to include a photo of a singer folks should know:

Puccini: Gianni Schicchi
Opera Project Columbus
 June 15 and 16
operaprojectcolumbus.com

Last night's rehearsal had more singers but no Gianni Schicchi. Puccini and Dante's Gianni had an adult daughter. My Gianni has a toddler and a cancelled baby sitter. I missed him. But we went on and did some good work.

I arrived at the church basement to find the room set with tables, tablecloths, chairs,  even a vase on each place. I had to move things around to make room and was sweating away when who should show up but the church sexton. Nice older gentleman. He wasn't too pleased with me since he had just finished setting UP these tables, etc. I don't blame him. "Big luncheon here coming up." I doubt it's during the week but okay. I promised him everything would be as he left it. And it very nearly was. I can't promise every table cloth was on daintily but I did my best. Never mind the piano is missing a caster because I stupidly moved-dragged it -myself. "And they ripped up part of the floor" said the Sexton. "Imagine!" I replied. How careless!

Then my morning was cheered by a photo my myself looking like a fat godfather, taken in rehearsal. You want to brag about weight loss? Don't wear a baggy untucked shirt on a hot night.

Well yes, but its not about me. Rehearsals are going well. One role still not cast. Another was kind enough to e mail me to say I live far way, it's  three lines and if I get to one or two rehearsals that's plenty. O-KAAAAY.
And our ten year old boy was so proud of getting his line right! He's three measures ahead but I will personally beat up anybody who gets on his case about it.

The Maestro will be at rehearsals next week .He's my friend and I love him. He's a fabulous musician. To listen to him playing with the Italian text is a joy. What if he hates the staging? Non mi frega niente. It is important that he establish the tempi he wants so the stage action is better timed.

Also I was shown a diagram of the stage with the orchestra seating re-arranged. Initially the orchestra-twenty six pieces-was to be split in half onstage. Leaving us a mall 'corridor' to use. And use it we do but we also use the house and every corner where the orchestra is not. (I'm an audience participation kind of guy)
Now we may have the orchestra all together on a slant upstage This leaves a piece of the area but it will be all ours-and we will still have the lip of the stage for our 'promenades' plus the house. This might be a good compromise.

 

I've been thinking about the blood and guts of performance. See the above photo of Aureliano Pertile. He wasn't born with a great voice but words, guts and musicianship made him a great artist.Verdi and Puccini do not lend themselves to a pristine performance (paging Renee Fleming) You need some blood in your singing. You need just that touch of arrogance that tells the audience THIS IS IMPORTANT AND I OWN THE STAGE. Verdi and Puccini always win, mind you-but you need to sing and act LARGE (you no longer need to BE large)

Guts. Fearlessness. Like this:

Gianni Schicchi Diary pt. 3

 Opera Project Columbus
Gianni Schicchi
June 15 and 16
see opera project columbus dot com 

We had a three day weekend. A surfeit of Reese's cups had me bound up and crabby, but I was rejuvenated
by the time rehearsal rolled around last night. We were at St. Marks church in the choir room, very nice with rather skimpy air conditioning. Oh, well. Beggars can't be choosers.

 I needed an emotional pick up today and speaking of Puccini:



 Moffo. What a beauty. A diva of my youth. She died in 2006 after a number of bad years career wise. When it as beautiful it was very beautiful.

 There's another opera production in business locally. That's a good thing. My old mentor Sarah Caldwell at the Opera Co.of  Boston wasn't the least bothered by neighboring college productions and a week long visit from the Met. "The more opera, the better." I agree but I haven't Sarah's gifts.


Rehearsing with many cast

Sarah Caldwell

members missing is  a challenge. Not so much for me but for the people on the stage. Remember once the show goes up I revert to my favorite position, hoping our hosts in the Jewish Center won't mind my putting my feet up.

Elvira Puccini

No notary and no Gubbio yet. Meaning it was quite tricky to stage mini processional on to the stage for Gianni/Buoso to dictate his will.  I and another fellow participated with our Pinellocchio, God bless him who comes a distance and never misses rehearsal. Still, we were crowded. I have them working in a (I hope please God) smaller space that we'll have deliberately. (You'd rather have too much booze than too little at Grampie's wake). Spinelloccio can only come late and since he's in part one only and we're working on part two.....well, I'm going to have to continue to adjust. god is good. So is zoloft..
Back to the other opera in town. Several of my key people are involved. What can I do? I'm the last one who would tell them to give up a paying gig.

Our baritone sings well and has the rare gift of singing with enough joy to enchant any audience. Many of the other singers are well prepared and fun. Some need work. I've been asked to save time in staging rehearsals for some  music touch ups. Withal, we've staged the whole thing, now its fine tuning, a few changes and eventually complete runs. Since there's so much physical action I need the singers to develop  muscle memory so their singing is not affected. I have asked for a brief meeting in the venue with as many as can attend.Even if a few show up, if they see the actual space it may offer better perspective.

Puccini by Mary-Jane Philips Matz

And how many directors do YOU know who send out a prop list for spoons, forks, dishes, a night cap and long johns? Take THAT Franco Zeffirelli!

I've been re- reading Mary Jane Philips- Matz's biography of Puccini. Her Verdi bio is the book of choice. No one in recent times has better documented this great composer. Puccini is a more friendly read and less scholarly. Matz makes good use of several very elderly people she met years ago who knew the composer. I wanted to interview her and mailed and e mailed and called and a week later read her obituary in the New York Times. She was pushing ninety. No one who loves Verdi or Puccini should miss her books. 

Puccini loved fast cars, women and hunting. He was quite the ladies man. His first serious girlfriend was the wife of another man. She and Puccini had a child together-scandalo!-and composer rued the day he took up with Elvira. Batshit crazy the lady was.

Hmmm. Maybe I can turn Ciesca or Nella into Elvira Gemignani Puccini. Scary!

Gianni Schicchi Diary, part 1 and VOICES

Robert Merrill

Renata Tebaldi and Franco Corelli

I'm in love with voices. I heard a lot of fine ones last night. It was the first staging rehearsal. We were locked put of the venue for about 20 minutes, this while a local reporter was hovering on the steps, waiting with us. Once we got to work it was great. We had to make do in a very nice choir room (tonight's venue is not as nice I'm sorry to say)

We had a new addition tonight, the young man playing Gherardino. He was sweet and fun and he'll probably walk out off the show, God bless him.

I also met our Marco, a young man who had done the role before. He asked if I wanted to see how it was done in Kent and I said NO. Too abruptly probably. I was in the moment. But really, I need to figure it out for myself.

Licia Albanese: Take risks!

I had to REALLY approximate the playing area. Most of it will be IN the theater not on the bit of stage we have. There was a lot of positioning and running around last night. We had our wonderful rehearsal pianist, thank God and me pacing and yelling and positioning. Years ago at OSU a somewhat hippy dippy guest director asked me "Do you have a lot of experience working with young people?" Well, yes, since before you were born I thought. "You handle them too much. It makes them uncomfortable." I don't get off on handling people but y'all shoulda seen Frank Corsaro or many other great directors, who thought nothing of flinging people into the wings if it made a good affect. Jeez.

Some confusion reigned but all of the singers 'got' what I was trying to do quicker than I did. I'm deeply impressed by the talents and professionalism of these young people. Many have kids, responsibilities, day jobs, other gigs and here they are at 9 pm rehearsing another-unpaid=performance.

I had wanted Schicchi to be more Donald Trump, arrogant and cool and we'll get there if I can get past he beauty of GS's voice. Lauretta immediately got princess ' concept-that she's not such a nice girl. Rinuccio's gonna be whipped, if you know what I mean. We'll work harder on giving each of the relatives a specific characterization.  Zita's got it. Simone pretty much. Rinuccio great, well tone down the OSU football hero stance-and this boy knows how to sell the notes. Nella and La Ciesca I need to think about. No Jewish mother. Too clingy. No Irish mother, too aloof. Italian mother, eat but with a menacing undertone (mangia idiote!)  Nella,  at least rules the roost. Gherardo is a husband typical for 1299 and typical for today. Sweet, responsible and clueless.



I think we listen to singers differently today. Until the early 1960s one on one listening was less adulterated. IPODS, APPS (I had to ask tho years ago what the hell is an app) we didn't listen while doing something else. This appointment listening is endangered./ Tough for me since a lot of my producing involves 'appointment' style programming. We had radio, TV and film of course, but people were still used to hearing great singers-or any singers, either live or with most of their attention tuned to the performance. Years ago I knew a voice teacher with some fine students, but her mantra was "too big too big". She wanted an Elisabeth Schumann style delicacy in everything, which is  fine if you're Elisabeth Schumann, but it ain't gonna help you sing Verdi. Most of us view today's technology as a blessing.  A few of us see it as a barrier. We are more about the technology that enables us to listen than experiencing what we are hearing. That's part of the reason oldsters say "Oh there' no voices today. you should have heard Tebaldi." I did and she was glorious. Her generation of singers were monsters. They sang without fear, straight out, go-to-hell no shortcuts, filled with courage. Do singers today do the same? Yes! But the voices seem smaller and less characterful. Today's most famous soprano is a beautiful woman with a beautiful voice but to me she's dull. The gift three notes are gorgeous and twenty minutes later so are the last one. There's no risk.

Tebaldi, Del Monaco, Stignani, Merrill, Warren, Tucker, Callas all planted themselves on stage and sang and sang. They loved their own voices, the knew the texts and they cared about what they were doing. The audience sensed this. Many singers today are no different but we  hear them differently and they hear themselves differently--ears have been readjusted, diluted if you will, by smaller attention spans and technology

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I tell singers today. Sing! Don' be afraid! Take risks! In an interview elsewhere on this blog, Licia Albanese told me, "I tell young singers make mistakes! Take risks and use the text!" This from Toscanini's Mimi and Violetta (still going strong today at 100) 



I also think some current teachers either distrust a student with a big voice or don't know what to do with it.
Because a huge voice in the current technology may be thought vulgar. (When the hell is opera not vulgar. Do you think the Count was trying to draw Susanna a picture?)  Don't forget. You are STILL singing primarily for the live audience.In a 3,000 seat house, less is not more. More is more.

LA BOHEME FOR COLUMBUS

Opera Columbus continues its renaissance with a new way to present La boheme.

You know the drill. Impoverished students in Paris circa 1850 live in cold and want but manage to find wine, women and (obviously) song.  Puccini used Henri Murger's Scenes de la vie de boheme as the basis for his opera. So did Leoncavallo, composer of Paglicacci, who also wrote a La boheme, a wonderful opera never heard. That's another story. Call me up on the phone.

La boheme. The cold, the poverty, the wine, the muff, the death:




Along comes Opera Columbus wanting to do something new. Rent is based on La boheme and its been a smash for years. Can Puccini build a new audience?

YES!

Last night  I went to see Opera Columbus's new production of La boheme at Shadowbox, a venue in the Brewery district reminiscent of the shoe-biz 'rooms' of an earlier time. It's a lovely restaurant and bar, and a performance space with its own company, led by Stev Guyer (no 'e' at he end, please.) Stev's a favourite guest of mine on All Sides Weekend. So is soprano Peggy Dye, Opera Columbus's new Head Diva in Charge.

Together, Shadowbox and Opera Columbus are presenting La boheme, in English, sung by attractive young local artists.  (Last night the baritone had a wardrobe malfunction giving the audience a bonus.) The show is performed in the restaurant, and I do mean performed. Shadowbox has long been the home of the most creative and entertaining revues, with its artists encouraged to work the room. Musetta sang her waltz (beautifully) five feet from me. If several gentlemen nearby had coronaries, I'm here to tell you the died happy.

La boheme. Intimate, musical, sexy, lovey and in English. Almost in your lap. Don't miss this Sundays at 5 PM through November 18. FREE.  Shadowbox is at 503 S. Front St.

No excuse. you don't need to watch another presidential debate or reruns of The Real Housewives of New Jersey. The baritone has probably bought a new belt by now for his britches, but Musetta and company remain potent and wonderful. They, with their formidable, multi-tasking pianist, will delight you. As will Puccini..

Welcome back, Opera Columbus.