ORP EUS IN THE UNDERWORLD

by Jacques Offenbach, new translation by 5noo Wilson and David Poultney

Mike HUl1tillgtOlt's lIutt'S all Hellley Alllnte ll r Operatic alld Dramatic So iety's productiol1 at the Kl'I1toll Tileatre, H i' III ey -u II . Til a III e s, April 2000

Henley's Kenton theatre is reputed to be the fou rth-oldest working thea tre in the

K. It Wil5 bui lt in 1805 ilnd has a somewhilt cheq uered career having been a Chapel a t one Jime. It is now owned by the loca l Charity commiSsioners and is administrated by He.nley Op ra tic Society and other loca l societies who fo rm tbe theatr managemeil t. It even has its own ghost!

HAODS came into ex is tence in 1922 with iI perfo rmanc ' of Tile Mikado and have been p roducing musicals and dram,,$ at the rate of two or three per year ever since. We hav ~ s trong stlciNy wi th over 200 members.

AUDI

These arE' Jlwil\ " We have usually stuck to the tr ied especially for the <.11 and tes ted musicals over the I' ears, the worry that the ­indeed in 1950 there was · near ra ll y ~ r th to til kt- p~revolt in the society's ran when it the nece sury good wa mooted that an A ml! ri nn come for, ard. W \ t. musica l Okla]lOl11a be prod uc d ins tead of the usual , &5 or Novello. In 19 th commit te decided thM the time had corne to d e lve into more serious s ing ing in the hopes of promoting gre ter scope fo r our Singers. Firs t choi e was Tile M.erry Widow but we had problems in acquiring the licence, Die F1ederl11flu. was considered until Eventual'" we fin a lly plumbed was ca~t

for Orpheus in 111<' complctdr Ul1derworld. society, on l ~

one SingerHaving been outside the acqua inted with the

NO's production in We s tarted 1\'"

1984 w hich us d a before C hrislP" new trans la tion and concentratin > fea tured sets designed music, esped by Gerald Scarfe, we chorus PJ r ts decided that this was principal sing, · the show to welcome some lessons

16 ,UN

_ ng coach and were able to their parts in great depth.

NUARY

new yea r started with most of p rinc ipals knowing their songs

we were behind with the 'ill S learning. This month was en over almost en tirely to

entrating on the chora.! pilrts. r new M.D. was adamant that the vocal parts be sung. Our

• .. <1 1 rehearsal pianist w as \ ai lab le but we were more

In lucky in gain ing the se rvices a ta lented pianist w ho could a lso Jeh the parts.

d ecid ed from the start that there puld be a corps de ballet w ho ·o ldd not only undertake the

t>ru nt of the dancing, but 'llso take " er the various du ties of maids, ,crvan ts, devils, even stage hands. This necessitated recruiting a -horcogrilpher skilled in both lass ica l and I11(Jdern dance. From a

d irector 's point of view there were now three aspects to con s ider:

inging and dancing chorus parts, pure dancing, principal singing m d movement. It is essential to bear in mind thilt il lead baritone has a lot to concen trate on

usically.

FEBRUARY

At last the show is comi ng togeth r. It ha- been a diffi.cult show to block as the principal s.ingers h,we p rim aril to sing very difticult p iu ts so complicated dance routi nes are to be avoided, even the . horus parts need concentration. The dancers h~d to be supported in s inging by lhe choru' in a few instances. They have p a.rticulMly enj yed the fist-raising in Revolte.

W

JUNE

costume plot and visited a number of cos tume warehouses. We decided that the se tting would be tLlrn of the century 1900. The opening scenes Wl~re set in Henley at the regatta, this created an opportwli ty ·for lovely large ladies' hats (see photo of Euryd ice clnd Orpheus wi th violin) and boaters for the men. Th Olympian Court of Jupiter would be s imiLar to Edward VIr. Our costume d '· igner has decided to make e labora te cos tum 5 for Pluto (with tai l), Cu pid and Diana. Offenbach created some delightful character which are omitted in the lI . lIa l amateur version, the Love Police (see photo). Our co tume des igner designed and made a ll these costu mes.

MARCH Th", last few weeks are always fraught wi th prob le ms as the opening delte ilpproaches. It is now time for all the various sections to come together, as up until now princ.ipa!" dancers, and chorus have to some extent rehearsed separately. It always comes as a su rprise to chorus members how fast a production progresses, the time between numbers is all to often very short. This opera is in four acts and I decided to make ac tion continuoLls between ,lcts w ith only one interval. Th.e only answer i.s to go for c,)mplet run­th.roughs 50 the cas t app rec iate w here they have to be a t any onf2 tim e ilnd als o wh, t they are wearing.

APRIL We are lucky in theatre hire in tha t we can get into the th eatre for three

weeks which i - a lu , ury. This time is used in se t building, etc.

I usually hnve an as istan t d irector who is most im portant in the closing s tages of a prod uction. There arc a number of tasks to be fulfi lied which require the at tention

SOUND, SET, AND MU~,

Ligh ting must be considered from

ted1nician who also provided extra thunder-bl'lsts, e tc.

of the director so th e assistant rehears es with the actors w hist 1 can no\'V concentrate o.n the production prob lems.

the s tar t. his is a single-set production with lots of mood changes. A syrilpathetic lighting­plo t i <;5en ti al. I us ually mark up my book d uring rehearsal and will present this as a working plot for the lighting m anager. We spent ma n I hours d i CUSS ing changes b fo r rigging to . ave nergy and tim C'. [ had a ve ry experienced technici n and re lied on his

periCllC '. This opera has many varied . enes to be lit, for ex amp le, Pluto's d scen t into I-lad es.

rp heus' aSCl!n t to Olymp ia, the tria l of Orpheus in Had s.

Jdesigned the set myself as I knew this wDu ld b the only way to get my requirem ents . I n eeded the utmost space the s tage would permit. Th set was very simply a box with rostrn s ides and back for chorus inging. J found that the rostra were idea l to keep the chorus in place and no t wander all ove r the place. l he s ide flats were embe llished wi th cut-outs of cu pids and devil 's heads to recrea te a baroque theatre.

This opera req ui red as large an ordles tra as po ·ible. We have a small pit a t the Kenton, but w e man aged to. fit in ten p layers with two on side wings. Our M.D. had th e onerous task of recrniting them!

Publicity is a most im portant part of any p roduction. Ou r publicist w as tasked w ith the problem of P , 'enting our opera to Henley as a fun show. We came up w ith a poster of a smiling nymph pouring wine (see ... ).

Since all of the cas t have to sing J decided tha t the best approach was to mic up the complete s tage instead of individual singers. I had the services of an ex-BBC

Orpheus proved a milestone for the sDciety. We all proved tha t we could do it . The reviews from the papers were very complimentary. We all learn t a lot about new s inging techniques, dancing, discipline The main problem in staging an opera is tha t there is more to learn for everyone, especia lly the chorus. As w ith any production th secre t is plann ing. Work out before you s tart wha t you want the chorus to do itt all times. 1 found it beneficial to keep the voices together, e.g. the ·oprcmos in one group, especially if some are inexpe rienced. Instead of concentra ting on individuals I w as able to block in groups. By using specific area · for chorus J had the main centra l acting areas free for princip als and action. J w o u ld recommend any direc tor 10 king for a new challenge to research and find out if th ere are any othe r trans lations of these class ics, mus ic has been around a lot longer th~ n the 20th century.

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