Pinchgut Opera

Brian Dickie in Chicago

We have mentioned Brian Dickie of Chicago Opera Theatre before. He is, we think, the originator of the opera company blog.
His latest entry is a nice reference to the other Chicago opera company.
It's good to remember that we are all in this for the music.
Of course, Sydney has another opera company. We have gladly loaned Opera Australia Antony Walker, one of our artistic directors, to conduct a production of Handel's Alcina opening in Melbourne on 4 December.

A Friend of Pinchgut Blogs

We mentioned Neil Burns's blog a while ago. He is now in New York feasting on shows at The Met. and City Opera. Oh, and rehearsals of the New York Philharmonic.
Neil promises to be back in time for Juditha.

The Clarinet Has Landed.

One of the Denner clarinets made by David Deitch has arrived in Melbourne.
Craig Hill (who, when not playing with Pinchgut is principal clarinet with the Melbourne Symphony) sent us this message:

The clarinet arrived 40 minutes ago and I've had the great pleasure of playing it for the first time.
The sound is utterly unique. I can't imagine the same effect on any other instrument.
My wife came in while I was trying out my Vivaldi part and said "That sounds like a wooden trumpet."  Exactly!

Here are a couple of photos. I'll write a few lines over the weekend and take some better pictures.

TMI?

Google Analytics reports on interesting stuff about visits to website. Nothing to identify visitors but it includes country of origin, pages looked at and so on.
Sometime in the past few weeks the Pinchgut Website was visited by someone from the Philippines who looked at four pages and stayed for a total of five minutes. I wonder who they were?

Hamish is busy.

Designer Hamish Peters posted a comment to the blog but it deserves higher billing.

I'm sure there is some sort of Designers' prerogative to change their minds.
Seriously though, the process of designing Judith Triumphans has been one of continual discovery, frustration and delight.
Mark and I have had so many talks about how the piece will work, how it will resonate with our audience, what we want to illuminate with this production, and how do we stage something wasn't really meant to be staged.
The set design was really the first thing we discussed. Creating the world in which the opera happens is the paramount concern for us. Mark and I looked at many images that we thought would encapsulate the place where this opera will take place. We also keep in mind the dramatic and narrative needs of the piece, can anyone say beheading!!!!!!
One thing we really debated was the way Vivaldi just suddenly changes location. This is something that is fine in a concert hall or behind the screen in the Ospedale Pieta, but for a fully staged, opera in the wonderful Angel Place (a fly tower, my kingdom for a fly tower... and wings....)
We went though many different permutations of space configurations, and looks. Things were kept and things were rejected, but we finally developed a stage design that will be totally different to anything Pinchgut has done in Angel Place, and one that will give us some fantastic theatrical spaces to perform the opera in.
The costumes were something that slowly developed as we were designing the set, again things were thought up, debated, rejected, bought back, and thrown out....
Again our struggle was to develop personalities and create identifiable types of people (what is a Bethulian???)
We were also conscious of creating a totally new look for Pinchgut audiences. Mark and I have thought about the world of the set and what sort of people inhabit this world, we have also looked at different time periods, both period and contemporary to try and indicate the types of people we think Judith, Holophernes, the Assyrians and the Bethulians are.
At the design presentation we really presented a work in progress in terms of the costumes. There are some things that have remained, but in talking more about the staging of the opera we have had to alter the design of the costumes. This has actually been a very liberating thing for me as the designer. I think it has helped push the visual part of the opera to a much more exciting level, and i hope it will be something that really helps to bring this beautiful opera alive.
And yes I'll be making a lot of the costumes, but I do have some very wonderful people to help, so if you have a Singer and want to lend a hand, let us know you would be more than welcome.

Back to the SDC Cafe

Another team meeting: Liz, Alison, Anna, Andrew and Ken.
At this stage, mostly to cover fast changing operational and marketing issues.
We talked about scaffolding, socks, bare feet, squeaks, hanging microphones (for the broadcast and recording), costumes, Sydney Morning Herald, ABC Radio National, ABC Classic FM, Sunday Telegraph among other things.

Everything is still on track and more or less within budget. Phew!

Vivaldi bonkbuster?

A story in The Times last week about the novel Vivaldi's Virgins and the film on Vivaldi in production that we have talked about in newsletters.
And the blurb for another novel to be published in December called Hidden Harmonies: The Secret Life of Antonio Vivaldi asks:
"Everyone knows the name Vivaldi. His music is regularly heard in restaurants, shopping centres and on TV advertisements. But did you know that Vivaldi, born and brought up in Venice, was trained as a priest?"

Of course you knew all that. You have been reading the Pinchgut newsletters and this blog.

Clarinets

The Denner clarinets made by David Deitch in San Francisco have been shipped.

One has gone to Owen Watkins who is in the US these days and the other to Craig Hill in Melbourne.
David is sending an email to Owen and Craig about the instruments but I doubt that they will pay much attention.
As we all know, blokes don't need to read manuals. We just know intuitively how things work.

It will be very interesting to hear how the instruments sound.

Sinfonia Found.

There was almost certainly a sinfonia played by the orchestra at the start of Juditha but the music has been lost over the years.
Attilio has suggested that we use RV526A - "Concerto Grosso a 10 Stromenti" - which he believes will fit very well.
We could not find a modern edition but Erin Helyard tracked down a copy of the original in Amserdam and will produce an edition and parts. Thank you Erin.
I will try to find a recording online and add a link.

Melbourne Ho!

Melbourne is building a new space that will suit Pinchgut wonderfully. The Melbourne Recital Centre will open in 2009 and we are tentatively planning to present a production there that year. The Elizabeth Murdoch Hall will seat just over 1000 and will have an excellent acoustic for chamber music and for our type of production.

City Recital Hall

Liz, Andrew and Hamish presented the design of Juditha to the management of City Recital Hall. This is a fairly important step because we need to make sure that we are not going to damage the hall or break any of their rules. After all, most users are just concert promoters and do not install sets or lights. And anyway, the people at the hall are now very curious to see what we are going to do.
It all went well. Andrew knows the space well enough by now to be fairly confident that what he is planning will work.
At the end of what was a very fruitful and co-operative talk, Andrew said "We haven't made a final decision about the camel yet, so we'll let you know..."

The clarinets

The clarinets, being made for Pinchgut by David Deitch in San Francisco, are almost finished. They are copies of what seems to be the first clarinet, made by Johann Christoph Denner around 1700. The original is with the University of California at Berkeley, just across the bay from San Francisco.
They have taken a bit longer to make than David hoped but, as he writes, "boxwood never behaves itself".

Most important person?

Liz gave a talk the other day to an opera group - wonderful people who meet every month to hear a speaker talk about an upcoming production. As well as outling the plot of Juditha she talked about how a production comes together. Liz mentioned, as she often does, that on the night the most important person (aside, perhaps, from the conductor) is the stage manager.
This year our stage manager is Maree Kanowski and she calls the show: she gets the cast onstage and the right time, with any props needed, she cues the lighting plots and, generally, is in chage of everything that happens onstage. And she does this by sitting quietly just offstage with a copy of the score (of course, she must be able to read music) in front of her.
After Liz's talk a woman came to her and asked if we had a cover for Maree. What if she got sick? A very good question: there is an assistant stage manager but the real answer is that stage managers never get sick or have accidents. They are wonderful, strong, robust people who will always make sure that the show goes on.

Costumes

We don't know what the costumes will look like or even in what time period they are based.
We thought we knew, but Mark and Hamish have changed their minds and won't tell us what they are planning.
Who's running this bloody opera company, then? Haven't we got the right to know?
Gee, I am all in favour of artistic independence but sometimes it can go too far!

What we do know (we think) is that Hamish will make all the costumes himself (with a bit of help, we assume). Nothing borrowed.

More from Alex Ross and Liz and the chorus.

I mentioned recently the book by Alex Ross - who writes on classical music for The New Yorker - called The Rest is Noise. Alex now has set up on his blog a set of links to works mentioned in his book. An interesting way of using the internet to add to a book.

Liz talks to North Side Opera  Group tomorrow. We have discovered how many groups there are around Sydney of very serious opera lovers. Opera Australia supports them with speakers and Liz is developing quite a career doing this. Ken will lunch alone again, which is OK because he is on a very restricted diet.

We hear that Attilio and Mark have been talking about how the chorus will be used in the production. The chorus is one of the great discoveries of Pinchgut. Sure, they record for ABC Classics as Cantillation, but with us they are a very powerful group of actors.

Back to Blogging

A lack of blog entries this week, mostly because we were occupied writing the latest Pinchgut newsletter, which subscribers should get in the next few days. It will also be on the website.

The production proceeds apace. A few things to sort out. Mark would like an assistant director. There is nothing in the budget for that. can we squeeze it in? Can something else be trimmed? Liz spends quite a lot of time on such issues. We are working on very tight budgets, but we do not want to compromise on artistic matters. How to resolve it?
It seems that Mark will not need a fight director. Did you know that this is is craft of its own? Choreographing realistic fights for plays and TV. Bell Shakespeare often uses one. Shakespeare always enjoyed a good battle. But Mark thinks the principals and chorus can manage. Sara, how is your right cross?

Plans for 2008 are coming closer to being confirmed. Almost certainly another Italian composer and most probably a rarely performed work, again.

Neil Burns, a great supporter and audience member for music in Sydney has joined the blogging community. He will blog concerts and operas he plans to see in Europe soon. Follow him here.

A Beaut Concert

The Sydney Conservatorium of Music has, over the past couple of years, developed a very good Early Music Ensemble.
Last night we went to a performance at the Con of the EME conducted by Neal Peres da Costa, Chair of Early Music and a stalwart member of the Pinchgut orchestra. The strings sounded very good no doubt helped by tutoring from cellist Danny Yeadon and violists Nicole Forsyth, both of who will be in the Pinchgut band again this year.
The string section included Matthew Greco, still a student, who played with us in Idomeneo last year.
It looks like the next general of authentic early musicians is on the way. Even those who do not stay with early music will, we are sure, find their music making skills and understanding improved by the experience.

Following the EME concert we went to a New Music Network gig featuring Halcyon.
Danny and Nicole put on their contemporary music hats for this. Halcyon is a new music group set up by Alison Morgan and Jenny Duck-Chong both of who have sung as soloists with Pinchgut.

All up, we heard close to 5 hours of music - ancient and modern - last night. Just about all of it inspiring.
And among the moderns, a few composers we want to follow-up.
And so to bed.

Friday Box Office Report

A good week for sales, especially considering that there is no advertising running at the moment.
Sunday continues to sell best - there are only 375 seats still available for the Sunday matinee.
We had better have a Full House sign ready....
Monday is quieter though on past experience Monday sells very well after opening night.
Word of mouth spreads and quite a few book to see the show a second time.

Attilio Interview

Ken interviewed Attilio Cremonesi who was at his home on the Lido in Venice, using Skype. Click on the icon below to listen to the MP3.

Board Meeting

The Pinchgut management team - Liz, Alison, Anna, Andrew and Ken - meet every month face to face, though we communicate several times a day by email and phone.
In accordance with usual practice, we met yesterday at a cafe, in this case the Sydney Dance Cafe on Walsh Bay. Excellent coffee, sandwiches and salads, though no discounts for board meetings.
We reviewed progress on marketing and publicity, which Anna has under good control. Most media - TV, radio and press - is planning good publicity but the Sydney Morning Herald seems so far reluctant to run a story. Strange.
ABC Classic FM will broadcast the Saturday Night performance as usual and ABC Classics will record for CD release. We will arrange a DVD of the general rehearsal for archive purposes.
Alison went through arrangements for the orchestra and chorus. All under control though there is a critical shortage of basses in Sydney. A case for cloning?
Andrew confirmed that the technical aspects - set, costumes, lighting - are on schedule and budget.
We then talked about 2008 and 2009. But I am not allowed to report on this. You'll have to wait.

The view from the Pinchgut Opera boardroom.