Get your tickets at this link here: https://www.sdopera.org/shows/suor-schicchi-2022/ Have fun and hope to see you two at the show!

- SD Opera Staff

We perform at the Civic Theatre!

There are two music staff people most important in a production. Dialogue begins with the Resident Conductor months in advance to decide how many strings we’ll have in the pit, what backstage instruments are needed for effects, how many singers in the chorus. Once I arrive, the rehearsals are all done with a pianist who represents the orchestra. And once (after 2/3 weeks) the music and staging are synchronized, only then do we add the last piece, the orchestra.

Like Adam and Eve. Yves is pronounced without an s at the end. Typical French to have silent letters at the end of words and names!

Even orchestras without conductor (like the Orpheus Orchestra in New York) have a leader who decides on tempo, phrasing, etc. the only difference being that the musicians have rehearsed and have to be hypersensitive to what is going on around them without a conductor. Not recommended for opera as a pit orchestra doesn’t hear as well being below the stage and then singers can be erratic at times, required a steady hand to pull it all back together!

You mean my typing?

That’s what I heard. I conducted that orchestra years ago in a recording with Susan Graham of French songs from the 20’s. That hall is wonderful. We should all be so lucky!

I always wanted to sing, but then after my voice changed, it was not to be. Either you have it or you don’t…so I shifted to piano. I love playing the piano. During Covid when we were completely unemployed, I drowned my sorrows into beautiful music by Mozart, Schubert, Schumann and Chopin.

Stephanie Blythe will perform it as a man. She has the low notes!

Minestrone!

Try Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff. The former’s symphony’s 5&6 are stunning. The latter’s piano concertos 2&3 are amazing. Then listen to Stravinsky Firebird, Debussy Prelude to an Afternoon of a Faun (a scandal in Paris when premiered).

I haven’t seen the movie yet. But I will.

Anybody can become a conductor if they have had the discipline of playing an instrument and knowledge of styles and repertoire.
But then the physical aspect of how to sculpt music with your arms and hands is a gift not everyone can have, and then the mind, psychological/intrapersonal attributes, and frankly communication skills are not for everyone.

As for Puccini, I never think anything he ever wrote is not "organic". Knowledge of Italian and the voice is paramount as phrasing and rubato are all tied intimately to how one shapes the tempi, phrasing, rubato.

Hitchcock’s North by Northwest! Lots of action and moments for arias!

Yup, we’re here too now!

European houses are generally funded by their governments, so there are many more performances, much more wide ranging repertoire being performed (as they don’t worry whether a title is popular or not and will sell tickets). In America, there are fewer companies and fewer performances because of cost. Private funding is limited. The trend in the last few decades has been to present opera in many different venues. Warehouses, parking lots, small black box theaters, etc. there’s no end to people’s creativity when they are bit by the opera bug!

You are right that many (especially younger conductors) tend to conduct scoreless for reasons that are not entirely authentic. But there are others who literally have a photographic memory and it helps them to be even more immersed in the music. I personally only conduct from memory when I can live up to my own standards and be prepared to write out the pie e by hand knowing what everyone plays. In opera, it’s not recommended as anything can go wrong on stage and throw everything off!

Nope. Don’t know that piece…sorry…

I confess I don’t listen to much modern day songs. Learning an opera takes months and symphonies about the same, and they are endlessly more fascinating to me. Doesn’t mean there isn’t good pop music being written.

It could be. Some people mature early. But the road is long in conducting. The skills needed are many and are a life’s process. Marin Alsop is largely believed to be the person behind Tar. She was a student with me at Tanglewood with Bernstein. But I believe she was 30 when she first met Lenny.

I’m a big fan of Carlos Kleiber. Great conductors are many, Karajan, Toscanini, Bernstein, etc. still alive today are Mehta, Ozawa, Muti, Barenboim, but they are all in their 80’s now…

There have been instances of performers falling into the orchestra pit. It can be very dangerous to the musicians…

Sometimes, singers get off or skip a bar. What ensues is kind of cacophonous and pretty scary if you’re the conductor. Many people will notice though it usually doesn’t last long! I already told my story at the Paris opera of the electricians going on strike in the big ending of my overture to Faust. In the darkness, the orchestra just played on by memory. It was quite amazing!

The most important instruments in an orchestra are the stringed instruments. Violins, cellos, etc. They usually get the most to do and the nicest lines of music. But every instrument is important to the mix of colors and sounds

A trained human voice. No greater instrument!

I would check out the universal favorites. The pieces that make the list of most beloved works by the great composers. In opera, Puccini’s operas, Bizet’s Carmen, Mozart operas, Wagner, and Verdi are the big names.

For classical works, listen to Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov, then to Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, and lots of Baroque Music favorites like the Pachelbel Canon, Albinoni Adagio. Many pieces have been turned into rock versions, or used in the movies.