This afternoon was our first sitzprobe. For those of you not in the business, a sitzprobe is the first time the conductor works with the orchestra and the singers together. In the staging rehearsals, we work with a piano. The conductor works with the orchestra a few times before the sitzprobe (or sitz) and then they are brought together. Sitzprobe basically translates as "sitting go-through". In other words, the singers sit (or stand) and go though the show. There is also a cousin to the sitz, called the wandelprobe, where the singers move about the stage (or wandel) and go through their blocking. The sitz is always interesting to me, and important as well. After 2 weeks of listening to the score on the piano, it is important to be reminded of the subtleties of the orchestration. This is especially true in comedy, which needs to be so closely aligned to the music. It is all too easy to create a comic moment that relies on a strong "sting" in the music only to realize that what sounded like a nice, strong percussive sound on the piano is actually soft winds, or gentle pizzicatto strings. This happens a lot in Rossinni and Donizetti which have a lot of very audible and articulated chords.



That is our conductor, Mo. Illick at the head of the wonderful St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. They're rehearsing in Powell Symphony Hall in downtown St. Louis--a beautiful old theatre built in 1925, to which these pictures do not begin to do justice. I was especially gratified to learn that it had hosted vaudeville performances early in its history, due to the close ties between G&S, Music Hall, Vaudeville, and early TV and Film. Obviously each is a distinct art form, but there is a definite flow and intermingling between them.

I'm blogging in the afternoon today, because tonight is the Opera's spring gala, which I'll be attending. Apart from good food and good company, I'm looking forward to hearing an audience's reaction to the lyrics of Ko-Ko's little list, as written by our Ko-Ko, David Kravitz. The biggest ingredient to any comedy is the audience, and any hint one can get of the comic potential of a scene of a bit of business is very useful. When I tell my theatre friends that we open a comic opera without a week of previews to learn what is funny, they are horrified. Somehow we make it work, but it is always a bit touch and go.

Tomorrow is our first run through of the entire opera, and our last rehearsal in the room before moving to the theatre.