Day Six -- Cincinnati May Festival 2008

Catherine Keen visiting the chorus, getting ready for our "duet" with her: Rat a plan.

The dress rehearsal for The-Opera-Which-Must-Not-Be-Named went well. There is always room for improvement, of course. Bob Porco always says we can be better. Perfection is never achieved -- not that we came close last night.

Salvatore Licitra was ill the day before, and James Conlon told us that they were searching everywhere for a backup tenor, but there were none to be found. However, Licitra decided on the morning of the dress rehearsal that he was feeling better, so the panic has subsided. He didn't give his all during rehearsal, but he was there, participating. The light singing he did give told us a lot about what's there -- and I think he'll be fabulous.

The entire cast is pretty darn good. My favorites are Earle Patriarco, Marco Caria and Yohan Li, all baritones.

There were no underwear episodes on Day Six. If there are any on the Saturday morning rehearsal, I'll let you know.

My personal experience at the rehearsal was not a pleasant one. An hour before rehearsal, I slipped on some stairs and strained a ligament in my ankle. I had to sit for the entire three hours with a bag of ice draped over my foot. It is now the morning after, and the ankle is still swollen and hurting. I'm hoping the ace bandage, ibuprofen and more ice will help. Wish me luck -- I want to be able to stand for the performance.

Here are some vignettes from rehearsal:

Day Four - Cincinnati May Festival 2008

Tuesday night we finally got to work with the orchestra on The-Opera-Which-Must-Not-Be-Named. It was the first run-through of the music by the orchestra, and as usual, their performance was pretty good, with some mistakes here and there, as you would expect for a first take. At one point, Conlon stopped them with the acerbic comment, “There are five sharps in the signature! Have been for some time.” I think it was an attempt at humor. I’m not certain it was taken that way.

There was a lot of standing and sitting as we relaxed between little choral episodes. The trouble with opera is that the chorus can be silent for pages and pages, and then have to jump in with a quick “Eviva!” or two here and there. Once in a while there are longer passages, but there’s a lot of waiting, sort of like being on jury duty. Oh, well. All that getting up and down in rehearsal is good for the thighs. In performance, you stand most of the time, which is not good for the back.

Conlon finally introduced the soloists to us after the break, when all of them were assembled. Catherine Keen, Morris Robinson and Earle Patriarco (from Monday’s rehearsal) were there, along with Marco Caria (making his American debut), Rodrick Dixon (one of the original “Three Mo’ Tenors”), Yohan Yi, and Angela Brown. We still haven’t heard from Darren Stokes, or the mightily publicized Salvatore Licitra. I presume they’ll be here for the dress rehearsal on Thursday night.

On a personal note, I’ve had a total of nine hours of sleep over the past two nights. I’m so wired when I get home from Music Hall that it’s hard to come down from the experience enough to sleep. When I do sleep, it’s the sleep of the dead. Managing to get my eyes open in the morning requires Herculean efforts.

The schedule for Day Five is the Beethoven Ninth and Erich Zeisl’s Requiem Ebraico. I’m hoping that we’ll do the choral pieces early and have the opportunity to leave before ten o’clock.