Beginning of rehearsals / ENO Julietta blog

Last week I introduced you to Claire Pendleton a soprano with the English National Opera Chorus, who will take us through the rehearsal process for  Bohuslav Martinů‘s Julietta which is opening on 17 September 2012. This week she looks into the musical preparation before the first week of rehearsals and the first contact with the director of the production and the chorus master.

This is a little insight on how we start rehearsing for an opera – specifically, Julietta.

The chorus started looking at the score during the last couple of weeks of season 2011/12, in July. We do not have a chorus master/mistress at the moment so Martin Fitzpatrick (known to all as Fitz); the Head of Music has taken over the hard task of preparing us for all operas until a suitable candidate has been found.

Fitz is very knowledgeable and well-regarded by all at ENO. It is such a privilege to have him putting us through our paces for each opera. He is very specific in what he wants to hear and how we should sing it, this is invaluable with an opera like Julietta as the chorus sections are small and sporadic, so detail is important. There are no long, legato lines. It’s all punchy, little lines interspersed with the soloists.

Only six female chorus members are on stage in act one and act three. Act two has eight female choristers and during the rest of the opera, the chorus sing off-stage.

As we sing every opera in English, the diction is very important but it mustn’t get in the way of the musical line. We spend rehearsals working through the score, marking up difficult rhythms, tempi and key changes. We continue to repeat sections in order to memorize chunks of the opera, and then we can put them all together and get ready for the first production call. Hopefully by that time we have managed to memorize the whole opera.

We have had costume fittings which for some of us have been made by external seamstresses. They bring half-made creations in for the first fitting and make adjustments whilst we wear them, other times they adapt existing costumes. This method helps produce a fabulous tailor-made costume that fits perfectly and is very comfortable to perform in. I will take pictures of my costume once it’s finished and we’re rehearsing at the Coliseum. I have long hair so it will probably be styles rather than wearing a wig. I’ll know more once we get into the theatre and everything is ready!

We’ve started production rehearsals with the director, Richard Jones. The venue for the rehearsals is the Lilian Baylis Studio inside Sadler’s Wells Theatre. We have a wooden mock-up of the different parts of the set, which is helping us to get used to the exact space that we’ll get on stage. Richard is a man of great detail, he is also very easy to work with and is one of the favourite directors of the chorus. He has specific moves, gestures, noises for us on certain parts of the music and scene. It is so helpful to work with a director that knows the score so well. In my opinion Richard’s operas have lots of mad-cap ideas. Always exceptionable, a little dark and totally off the wall. I love working with him. He has a great sense of humour too. We always laugh at something he says every rehearsal, which is fun and lightens the atmosphere during the long days in the studio. During the rehearsal we get to run through chorus sections with the music director. Our esteemed leader, Ed Gardner is conducting Julietta.

We’re coming up to the sitzprobe* this week (Wednesday 29th), which will be the first time the singers get to work with the orchestra. This is always a magical experience for me, the opera really comes alive then. I am looking forward to it so much! Watch out for the blog next week to see how did it go and what comes up next.

You can also follow Claire on Twitter, her handle is @ClaraButt .

*Sitzprobe (German) is a term used in opera and musical theatre to describe a seated rehearsal – which is the literal translation of Sitzprobe – where the singers sing with the orchestra, focusing attention on integrating the two groups. It is often the first rehearsal where the orchestra and singers rehearse together. The equivalent Italian term is prova all’italiana.

The trailer for the production