The Big Project: Status Update
After several months' hiatus, I am nearing completion of the first draft of the Yeomen score. This is so far beyond anything I've ever made before, and, much like my vocal score for Princess Ida back in 2001, I am having to develop my formatting standards as I go along.
The vocal score for Yeomen was more or less finished by the end of the Sudbury beta-test in 2008 (just about the only good to come out of that traumatic production). However, as I mean to bring it in line with the full score, as part of a complete edition, I've found that there are several changes I'll have to make to it, once I've nailed down the full score.
The biggest thing right now is finalizing the framework. What that means is getting all the information into the score in such a way that it'll fit: establishing how many measures are in each staff system, and how many staff systems are on each page; making sure all the tempi and dynamics are there; making sure the dialogue and stage directions have been included, and so on. I'm about halfway through Act Two with this. The two large choral numbers in the act (the Arquebus Scene and the Finale) are especially tricky, in that when everbody's singing, and the whole orchestra's playing, it's difficult to fit all the staves in each system onto the page, while still making sure there's still enough space among them that the music is easily legible.
Another unexpected wrinkle is just how many differences there are between the early editions, published in Sullivan's lifetime, and the later ones which came after Gilbert & he were dead. Because engraving new plates were so much work, most of the revisions to the 19th-Century editions were reserved for glaring errors and major rewrites, not little tweaks. So it's possible that certain small changes (especially those by Gilbert, who kept making or approving changes to the texts of the Savoy Operas even after he no longer oversaw every production) may not have been recorded. On the other hand, acoustic recordings of Yeomen (and other G&S operas, come to that) all follow the earlier score - even those supervised by Rupert D'Oyly Carte. So in many cases, I'm finding it impossible to tell which of these changes reflect revisions by the authors, and which arose from performance traditions in the D'OC.
My solution, for now, is to adhere to the earlier versions, which have at least some claim to authenticity, until I can know for sure. Hopefully, I can get some G&S scholars to weigh in at some point. This does mean some interesting alterations, such as "I Have a Song To Sing, O!" in D, rather than E-flat, some extra lines for Point, Elsie and Kate, and some lyrics which may well raise eyebrows among the long-time devotees (e.g. "The man we sought, as truth will show / Had vanished into empty air!" [emphasis mine]).
Also, I've got to get some cover art made. I've got a month's free trial of Photoshop Extended (CS5), so now's the time to do it. I'm just not sure what I want for it yet. Not even whether I want to a full-color thing like Ida and Iolanthe. I know I want the Tower involved, and preferably the White Tower itself, as it's the most recognizable part, and featured in the original design of the set. But beyond that, I'm still vague.
In any case, my goal is to have the first draft finished by the end of June. Which means I shall need people to help me proofread this thing soon - people who are accustomed to reading orchestral scores, and preferably who are familiar with this particular opera. Then, eventally, I'll need to find companies crazy enough to beta-test the whole shebang in actual productions.
The vocal score for Yeomen was more or less finished by the end of the Sudbury beta-test in 2008 (just about the only good to come out of that traumatic production). However, as I mean to bring it in line with the full score, as part of a complete edition, I've found that there are several changes I'll have to make to it, once I've nailed down the full score.
The biggest thing right now is finalizing the framework. What that means is getting all the information into the score in such a way that it'll fit: establishing how many measures are in each staff system, and how many staff systems are on each page; making sure all the tempi and dynamics are there; making sure the dialogue and stage directions have been included, and so on. I'm about halfway through Act Two with this. The two large choral numbers in the act (the Arquebus Scene and the Finale) are especially tricky, in that when everbody's singing, and the whole orchestra's playing, it's difficult to fit all the staves in each system onto the page, while still making sure there's still enough space among them that the music is easily legible.
Another unexpected wrinkle is just how many differences there are between the early editions, published in Sullivan's lifetime, and the later ones which came after Gilbert & he were dead. Because engraving new plates were so much work, most of the revisions to the 19th-Century editions were reserved for glaring errors and major rewrites, not little tweaks. So it's possible that certain small changes (especially those by Gilbert, who kept making or approving changes to the texts of the Savoy Operas even after he no longer oversaw every production) may not have been recorded. On the other hand, acoustic recordings of Yeomen (and other G&S operas, come to that) all follow the earlier score - even those supervised by Rupert D'Oyly Carte. So in many cases, I'm finding it impossible to tell which of these changes reflect revisions by the authors, and which arose from performance traditions in the D'OC.
My solution, for now, is to adhere to the earlier versions, which have at least some claim to authenticity, until I can know for sure. Hopefully, I can get some G&S scholars to weigh in at some point. This does mean some interesting alterations, such as "I Have a Song To Sing, O!" in D, rather than E-flat, some extra lines for Point, Elsie and Kate, and some lyrics which may well raise eyebrows among the long-time devotees (e.g. "The man we sought, as truth will show / Had vanished into empty air!" [emphasis mine]).
Also, I've got to get some cover art made. I've got a month's free trial of Photoshop Extended (CS5), so now's the time to do it. I'm just not sure what I want for it yet. Not even whether I want to a full-color thing like Ida and Iolanthe. I know I want the Tower involved, and preferably the White Tower itself, as it's the most recognizable part, and featured in the original design of the set. But beyond that, I'm still vague.
In any case, my goal is to have the first draft finished by the end of June. Which means I shall need people to help me proofread this thing soon - people who are accustomed to reading orchestral scores, and preferably who are familiar with this particular opera. Then, eventally, I'll need to find companies crazy enough to beta-test the whole shebang in actual productions.