She Says 'Go!' and Makes the Opera Sing
The Voice of San Diego has just published an article about our wonderful stage manager, Mary Yankee Peters. It is a great article about a great person. You can read it here . Enjoy! - Edward
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All Hail Technology
As budgets are being cut and operas need to operate on less and less funds many are turning to soft sets - that is video projections that are used to create scenery in place of traditional hard sets. Here at San Diego Opera we've used soft sets before, but only in conjunction with actual hard sets. The incredibly magical transition from the Venusberg to the Wartburg in Tannhauser is one moment that sticks out in recent years. The Philadelphia Inquirer takes a look at the surge in usage of soft sets and how technology can fill the void when there is not enough money for traditional sets on the stage. You can read the article here . - Edward
Before The Final Show
A wonderful photo, that came through on one of my daily email alerts, shows two of our dancers practicing their dance moves before closing night of Don Quixote . Our Assistant Stage Director, Keturah Stickann, took this photo, which I simply love. Something about this image, with the sliver of set showing, makes it seem like this could be a photo from any number of a dozen towns in Europe. I find it charming, even peaceful, especially when I consider all the hustle and bustle that is going on outside of the frame. You can check out her entire San Diego Opera photo set online here . - Edward
Thousands Of Tissues Onstage, Not A Dry Eye In The House
Sure, we still have Don Quixote on stage, but here in the opera world we work many many months ahead. So today, taking a break from writing our 2010 press release, I decided to look a little closer into the future at Madama Butterfly which opens in May. Fine, I'm procrastinating. We'll be presenting the incredible Francesca Zambello production of Butterfly , which, for those of you who have not seen it, has thousands of flower petals fall during the "Flower Duet." I'll let you in on a little secret. They're not real flower petals. They're thousands of pieces of hand torn tissues. And what better way to get these pieces of tissue than to use free labor. Late last year, during our supernumerary auditions , we put these eager beavers to work tearing petals for Butterfly . We even had a little contest to see who could tear a stack of tissue paper into regulation sized petals the fastest. Regulation, because they all need to be uniform in size so they all f...
Just Another Day...
Working here at San Diego Opera is hard . Some people might think all we do is sit around and listen to opera. This is true Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays but today being Tuesday we have a lot of work to do. To show you how much goes on during a day at San Diego Opera I've pasted what we call a "Daily" down below. It shows every single thing that is happening here throughout the day. With two casts in town now, you can see it gets quite busy with a Tosca performance as well as a Don Quixote rehearsal call. We get one of these every day, six days a week, from January 1 until the season closes, usually at about 4 or 5 in the afternoon for the following day. This is good because it reminds me of the things I've forgotten to put on my calendar while giving me enough time to fake my way through whatever it is I forgot about. You'll need to click the actual image to read it. Phone numbers and addresses have been redacted to protect the innocent as well as the guilty.
The Best Seat In the House Might Be Backstage
English National Opera will be broadcasting an opera from backstage with its upcoming La bohème so viewers can see "all of that furious paddling under the water that you don't normally see," said John Berry, ENO's artistic director. As someone who has seen plenty of opera from the wings, it truly is a sight to behold. Of course it does not replace seeing an opera from the audience, but it truly is orchestrated chaos and I think the average opera goer would be surprised to learn how many people are backstage making the show happen. (The answer: ALOT , just take a look at everyone involved with Samson and Delilah in the picture). Here at San Diego Opera we've gotten to showing a scene change during intermission for one opera each season. It is widely popular with a large portion of the audience staying to watch the scene change and applauding when it is complete. Then there is OperaSpotlight , our program that offers glimpses into the backstage activity of each pr...