Amahl and the Night Visitors
Finally finished with Amahl and the Night Visitors, the show that has been absorbing my and Nick's free time for the last couple of months, largely in driving to Oxfordshire and back. It's his third run as Melchior with this company, so he was pretty blase about the whole thing, but Amahl and I (as the Mother) were brand new to the piece. Our comparatively under-rehearsed state wasn't helped by the stage (the Cornerstone Arts centre in Didcot) being roughly twice the size of the rehearsal venue, throwing out all our timing and blocking. Along with a last minute - ie on the day - decision to change the number of entrances from two to one, this meant I was adjusting numerous moves on the spot during the two performances: I could have done with a couple more shows just to get used to the space.
Grumbling aside, we made a very good show I think. Amahl is just an hour or so long and perfectly constructed, certainly better than the only other Menotti opera I know, The Saint of Bleecker Street: when I did it at college there was a seemingly endless pause at the end before the applause while the audience convinced themselves it really had finished. Though I can only think of one genuinely good tune in Amahl (the quartet with the Kings and Mother), it is bound to please as long as it has a good actor/singer for the title role, and ours (the 13 year old daughter of our MD, convincingly boyish looking and sounding if maybe a bit too well behaved to be ideal) was great. Once we'd got used to each other she was happy to follow my lead on stage and coped with the odd duff line from me like a pro.
I went up to the auditorium (only half full sadly - c 80 people) to watch the second half, a piece composed by our MD based on the fairy story 'The Selfish Giant' by Oscar Wilde, with Nick as the Giant. This had taken the lion's share of the rehearsal time, but I think needed it, because the chorus of about 15 kids (aged 7 to about 14 I suppose) were often alone on stage and had a lot of dances and mildly complex choruses. Despite an ickily sentimental ending, the piece is full of lively and catchy tunes and the audience - containing a lot of cast parents - loved it.
Grumbling aside, we made a very good show I think. Amahl is just an hour or so long and perfectly constructed, certainly better than the only other Menotti opera I know, The Saint of Bleecker Street: when I did it at college there was a seemingly endless pause at the end before the applause while the audience convinced themselves it really had finished. Though I can only think of one genuinely good tune in Amahl (the quartet with the Kings and Mother), it is bound to please as long as it has a good actor/singer for the title role, and ours (the 13 year old daughter of our MD, convincingly boyish looking and sounding if maybe a bit too well behaved to be ideal) was great. Once we'd got used to each other she was happy to follow my lead on stage and coped with the odd duff line from me like a pro.
I went up to the auditorium (only half full sadly - c 80 people) to watch the second half, a piece composed by our MD based on the fairy story 'The Selfish Giant' by Oscar Wilde, with Nick as the Giant. This had taken the lion's share of the rehearsal time, but I think needed it, because the chorus of about 15 kids (aged 7 to about 14 I suppose) were often alone on stage and had a lot of dances and mildly complex choruses. Despite an ickily sentimental ending, the piece is full of lively and catchy tunes and the audience - containing a lot of cast parents - loved it.