Excitement Builds

Sorry for the dearth of posts on my part over the last few days. As usual, the program book was more troublesome than I planned. But the files just finished uploading to the printer, so the hard part is done! Hopefully that means you'll be hearing more of me (and seeing more photos that I take at rehearsal)...

So there was some excitement at rehearsal on Saturday. Rehearsal of certain scenes had to be rearranged because our Pong (Joel Sorensen, right) had to dash out of Princeton to take the stage at the Metropolitan Opera! Turns out he was covering the role of Monastatos in the Met's production of Mozart's Magic Flute (conducted by James Levine), when he got a call that the regular Monastatos was sick and that Joel had to go on. So THAT's pretty cool, huh? I have to ask him what he thinks of the production - this one was directed by Julie Taymor (of Broadway's Lion King) and everyone I know either loves or hates the production. It's interesting how a certain directorial viewpoint can suddenly turn a traditional beloved opera into something controversial again.

Another fun thing on today's agenda is that Ray Aceto finally arrives (right). He had to come late to rehearsal in order to finish an engagement from Royal Opera, Covent Garden in London. So now we are finally complete! DJ (NJOT's Artistic Administrator) picked him up at the airport and brought him directly to rehearsals - how's THAT for some jet-lag!

So today's a pretty full day of rehearsals, from about 10am-6pm. Tomorrow we rehearse in the late afternoon and evening, but I'll probably swing by rehearsal and let you know how things are going. Too bad there's no WiFi there, or I'd publish directly from rehearsal, so you'd feel like you were right there with me!

Rehearsals begin!

We have begun! Yesterday was the first day of rehearsals for Turandot.

We started at 9:30am with a quick meet-and-greet session which gave everyone a chance to introduce themselves and also gave the staff time to explain the big things on the agenda. It sometimes really surprises me how small the opera world can really be. It seemed like almost everyone in that room has worked with everyone else at some point in their careers - it was really fun listening to them try to figure out when and where they knew each other from.

Anyway, as part of the introductions, Scott Altman (NJOT's Artistic Director) explained to the cast about the set up of the stage. We're doing a "concert staged" version of Turandot, which means that the orchestra, conductor, and chorus are always on stage; the singers are fully costumed and they act out the action at the front of the stage, but there are no big set pieces. So the singers have their backs to the conductor, which means that we have to have monitors to display a real-time video of the conductor so the singers can pick up his cues and tempos. This is a little unusual, so we're going to practice that this week... In the picture at the left, Scott explains to everyone what the set up will look like.

So yesterday was music rehearsal day, as is usually the case on the first day of an opera rehearsal period. Basically, all the singers sit around the conductor and pianist and sing through the whole opera to get an idea of what musical ideas the conductor has. On the right, we have a picture of Steven Mosteller (conductor - in the blue sweater) working on the beginning of Act II with our Ping (Anton Belov - on the far side), Pang (Jonathan Green - in the middle) and Pong (Joel Sorensen - closest to you).


The big thing on the agenda yesterday (at least in my world) was the photoshoot. We had photographers from the Princeton Packet and the Trenton Times scheduled to meet us at McCarter Theatre during the lunch break to take photos for some upcoming articles we have coming out (both scheduled for Friday, March 2). This was really fun we hadn't seen the costumes yet (designed by Patty Hibbert). On the left, Patty arranges the costumes during the shoot. (in addition to Ping, Pang and Pong, we have Stephen Lavonier as the Emperor and Barbara Shirvis as Liu). On the right is another shot during the shoot, this time also including Matthew Burns as the Mandarin. (and, by the way, yes that is me on the right holding up some lighting equipment).

So it was a long day, as you can see by Anton Belov's expression on the left. But it was a lot of fun, too, and we got a lot accomplished. In a few minutes I'm going to head over to rehearsals again and see what's going on today. Today starts the staging of the opera, so that will really be exciting.

More soon!

Getting closer...

Turandot is rapidly approaching. Our first performance is on Sunday, March 4 at McCarter Theatre in Princeton and the second is on March 11 at the State Theatre in New Brunswick, both at 3pm.

Even though the first performance is still almost 2 weeks away, we're very busy here in the office because rehearsals begin on Thursday - yes, this Thursday. And in between all the music and staging rehearsals (pictures to follow once said rehearsals begin), I'm busy arranging photo shoots and interviews with the cast and creative staff. (Don't worry, I'll let you know which newspapers to snatch up when the time comes).

Actually, technically speaking, rehearsals have already begun. The chorus (Mendelssohn Club of Philadelphia) and the orchestra (Westfield Symphony) have been rehearsing their parts for several weeks now. Soon it will all come together... That's a LOT of people to fit on one stage - not to mention the supernumeraries and dancers!

I'm also working on getting you a couple of "guest bloggers" to come tell their stories. Otherwise, you'll be reading lots about the status of the program book, why Adobe's InDesign is the best layout program out there and what it's like to watch rehearsals. My hope is to get you the real inside scoop on what it's really like to be in the rehearsal process.

Will I succeed? I hope so. You'll just have to keep coming back to read more, now won't you?

Welcome!

Welcome to New Jersey Opera Theater's inaugural blog post! We can't wait to tell you about all the exciting things we have going on here at NJOT.

Through this blog, we'd love to share with you some of the behind-the-scenes action that goes on with an opera company. You'll get some insight into rehearsals, the design process, the singers, designers and much more.

The first production you're going to hear about is Puccini's Turandot. Our first performance is on March 4, 2007 at McCarter Theatre in Princeton and the second is on March 11 at State Theatre in New Brunswick. Click on the image to the right for a larger view of the poster and visit the Turandot page of our website for more information.

We'd love to hear your thoughts, so please leave comments here or email us at info@NJOT.org.

Have a great day and we hope to see you again soon!


Patricia Kiernan Johnson
Development & Marketing Associate