Campbell Vertesi

Today was the second rehearsal, and I have to say I'm starting to look for the panic button.  I'm not ready to push it yet, but I want to know where it is, just in case.  For those who aren't familiar, Figaro is a long opera.  More than 4 hours at full length, and our production has only the barest of cuts.  A lot of it is recitative, which is brute memorization work.  The rest is arias and ensembles, each of which can stand a surprising amount of musical work to get "performance-ready".  Putting on a show like this in 2 weeks is a difficult task, to say the least.

The entire cast has arrived knowing their parts, but I'm learning about the special requirements of Mozart.  This isn't like Boheme, where the parts all interlocked, but the piece keeps moving if someone messes up.  In a Mozart recitative or ensemble, if one person trips up the whole beautiful construct comes crashing down.  And though we all know our parts individually, the moment we put down our scores and try to sing together, it becomes very easy to trip up.  Frighteningly easy.

This would not be such a problem, if we had some more time.  The plan is to stage the entire opera in two days (!), and have a staged concert version ready for performance by a week Friday.  I consider myself an optimistic guy, but this is looking dicey.  The music is good, but it needs a lot more work to be ready... and we're about to add staging?  I just don't know, but I don't like the look of it.

In the end though, this isn't my lookout.  My job is to do the best I can at my (small) part.  If the rest of the production crashes and burns, at least Bartolo will be scintillating, I guess.  To be honest, I'm not sure what do do.  The director is a friend to me as well as a colleague, and at some point I think I have to say something, even just in private.  I just want a plan B, in case this ambitious project proves to be as difficult as I think it is.