Brahms Requiem done and dusted; two Dolly "techs" this past weekend and more rehearsals coming up

Eglise des Dominicains Brussels at the general rehearsal

Hello Dolly all day Saturday and then the raccord before the concert

during the Brahms Requiem performance

It's been a very busy time.  Friday I had the single rehearsal for the Brahms Requiem, which went rather well, but ran quite late.  The church was freezing cold which also didn't help.  But the young conductor Clio Zois was really very good, and the orchestra and choir were well prepared.

Saturday morning was an early start, with a Dolly technical rehearsal that started around 9h45.  For those who don't know, a technical rehearsal is for the sound and lighting and stage crew to prepare their performance.  They need to start and stop musical numbers, fix lights and check microphones, verify props, and coordinate the movement of scenery.  As I discovered when I did stage management for the opera The Ballad of Baby Doe many years ago in Toronto, there is a lot of performing offstage that is just as meticulously prepared, rehearsed and coordinated as anything that is happening on stage.  It's quite exciting to see how the ol' razzle dazzle amplifies everything that you have been working on in isolation as the musical director.  I'm feeling much better about the show than I was a week ago, but there's still a lot that can be worked on.

I left a bit early at 16h30 to drive to Brussels, to sing the Brahms raccord.  This also went well, but then we sat around in a cold church for another couple of hours before the concert, which was tiring.  I find being cold makes me tired these days, unless of course I am running, which warms me up.

The concert itself was very exciting, with a capacity crowd (they added extra chairs at the last minute).  Friends and neighbours Christophe and Isabelle, and David Lloyd and Margaret Brusasco from St. Andrew's Church attended, which was a very nice surprise.  I was able to do some new things with my solo sections, which is always satisfying.  This was my eleventh performance of this work and so I am starting to feel that I know it a bit better now, and I hope that I sing it more expressively than when I first was performing it, back when I was still living in Canada.  The audience gave us all a protracted ovation at the end, which was appreciated, and Maggie liked the nice bouquet that was sitting on the counter when she got up the next morning.

After a late night on Saturday I was up early again the next morning for another Dolly technical rehearsal that went from 9h45 until 18h15 or so.  Again it involved more stopping and starting.  While I am the musical director, there have been times when I've been helping the kids run their spoken word scenes, and am trying to make the characterization that the kids have developed for the songs meet closely with their spoken word declamations.  Also I am trying to sensitise them to the rhythmic musicality of their spoken text, so that they don't throw away good lines.  (For proper training in comedic timing I would probably prescribe a full course of comedy classic films, including the Marx Brothers, Abbot and Costello and Mel Brooks, maybe with some Wayne and Shuster thrown in, but we don't have time for that.)

It is slow going, but there has been some progress.  The dialogue scenes are the trickiest as there is a lot for them to remember, and there is no music or dancing to connect to their movements and upon which they can hang their text.  It's very clear who in the cast has put in the drudge work to get their lines memorised early and who still is struggling.  It's mentally very tiring to watch staging rehearsals so closely, and needless to say I was happy to fall into bed last night, fairly early.

Today I was up around 8h, thinking that I would go run with Kiana, but the weather wasn't so great and so we have postponed it for another time.  I am just getting ready to head to the school again, for another long rehearsal tonight.  We're going to run the show tonight and tomorrow.  Wednesday will be the last run for the Friday/Sunday cast before their performances, and then we do the Thursday dress for the Saturday night cast (with some private invitees).

By dinnertime on Sunday I will likely be drinking a very large martini with the rest of the production team!