Nassau Park Pavilion

There was another Preview Concert on Saturday night - this time at Nassau Park Pavilion in West Windsor. The weather was GORGEOUS (much better than last year's deluge) and there was a huge crowd - about 385 people. It was a great night of music - a fewPirates, some Flute, a little Romeo & Juliette and a bunch of Musical Theater - how great does that sound?

You can see more Nassau Park Concert pictures here.

Don't forget that you can catch more Musical Theater THIS WEEKEND at Palmer Square in Princeton: Friday at 7:30pm and Saturday at 2pm.

2 Previews down, 1 to go

So last night there we had 2 previews (one was a mini-concert). The big concert was at the Princeton Public Library and from all accounts it was amazing. There were at least 150 people crammed into the Community Room - since I had only made 125 programs, they had to scramble to photocopy more. You never can tell how many people will show up! As you can probably guess, I wasn't at that concert last night. Instead I went with a couple of our singers and a pianist who were performing a mini, 20 minute concert at Crossing Vineyards in Washington's Crossing, PA. It's a really gorgeous place and we had great weather last night, so it was lovely. We sang just a few numbers at the start of the dinner concert that they were having. We had a great time and we should be back there next year - stay tuned!

Tonight is the Nassau Park Pavilion preview. I'll be there, so be sure to look for more pictures tomorrow. As always, the web album will contain even more photos!

Preview Concerts

In case you're dying to hear what our wonderful singers sound like, you're in luck! This weekend we have 2 (count ' em) TWO preview concerts.

The first takes place at the Princeton Public Library at 7pm tomorrow (Friday) evening. The second preview takes place at Nassau Park Pavilion in West Windsor (behind Panera) on Saturday evening at 7:30pm.

There will be pieces performed from each of the three operas (Romeo et Juliette, The Magic Flute and The Pirates of Penzance) as well as some Musical Theater.

Summer Season Poster

Everyone's here!

So the whole gang for the summer is here - they have been for a few days, but as usual I've been too busy to tell you all about it. Mea culpa.

But I do have TONS of photos to share with you. Take a look at our web album!

Sounds of summer

OK, so while singers did arrive last week and they were rehearsing the scenes concerts, the chorus music and participated in a series of masterclasses, it wasn't until today that it seemed like the season really started.

The principals for Flute and Pirates arrived today (see full company meeting to the left). Now we're just waiting for the Romeo crowd to arrive later this week, then we'll be fully set.

So we started music rehearsals for Pirates and Flute, which is really exciting. To the right is a picture from the first few minutes of the Flute music rehearsal. I think we should take it as a good sign that our 3 Ladies happened to show up dressed similarly - that kind of like-minded thinking can only help their harmonies! :D

Scott, who is stage directing Flute, was at the Flute music rehearsal today, observing before he starts staging later this week. A little while into the rehearsal , he leaned over to me and said "I am so happy," meaning that he's very pleased with how everyone sounds. It made me think about how scary it must be casting our season. I mean, you hear hundreds of singers for just a couple of minutes each in December and then have to wait until June to hear them sing the role!

Switcheroo tidbit

So the opera world is really funny sometimes. We often will schedule our season and our singers a year or 2 in advance - it's not unusual for our Artistic Director, Scott Altman, to rush into the main room of our offices and say something like "Who wants to hear about my plan for 2010?"

Yet at the same time, there are also very often last-minute casting changes. Sometimes a singer will get sick at the last second, so we have to scramble for a replacement. These things happen, so it's great when everybody's quick on their feet and has the connections to make a good switch.

This past Friday was just such an example of this "rolling with the punches." At about 7:30am on Friday morning, one of the chorus members was forced to leave our season due to a personal reason. Well, by the end of business on Friday we had found a wonderful replacement, thanks this time to the connections of Jose Melendez, our summertime Principal Coach.

Hopefully we don't need to demonstrate our ability to be quick on our feet again this summer season, but I'm sure we'll be able to handle it if it does...