So when a conductor can't make a show it falls to his assistant to do it. Well this has happened to me, only on a much larger scale. Yes in two weeks time I'm going on to conduct the Cunning Little Vixen with Edinburgh Studio Opera. My reaction to this was three fold: 1) Sympathy for the MD that had to pull out, 2) Excitement for myself, 3) Slight terror at what this was going to do for my allready behind dissertation (I'm plugging on...). And I was told I was doing it, (drumroll please) last friday. And before you ask, no I've never conducted opera before (I have done musical theatre, which actually, crazy as it sounds is a really good place to gain experiance for all types of conducting. I might write more extensively on this soon...).
The second opera scene I repped for was the last 20 mins of rosenkavelier and the first one I will conduct is the Cunning little Vixen. Talk about a baptism of fire...
Being a busy chap I went the lazy route into being Assistant MD and basically learnt the notes as the scenes came up and didn't really take the time to learn the peice thoroughly from beginning to end, which is fine(ish), except now I'm rushing through everything trying not to look like a complete wally.
It's actually going well at the moment, we've had some good rehearsals (including one with me in a kilt...) and people seem to be getting it. Plus everyone is being very supportive of me (i.e understanding that if they ask me a question I might have to think for a minute, or go away and look at it). We have two great foresters, and the Vixen and Fox are equally as good. I spent quite alot of yesterday playing with a decomissioned gun.
So I'll sporadically post about how things are going. And its www.edinburghstudioopera.com.
Monday, 15 February 2010
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