Competition, First round.

Yesterday I conducted in the first round of the competition. I was first on for Figaro and last on for Cav.


I ran straight through the opening duet of Figaro. The Susanna was delightful, she watched carefully and responded well to what I was doing. The Figaro read the dots from his score, and tended to be a little late on his entries. He did sound as though he knew the part so I politely pointed out that he was late and asked him to “close his book” which he happily agreed to do. After this he was always in time!


The second duet went well so I moved onto Figaro’s Cavatina “Se vuol balare”. Half way through the horns started to rush and got out with both me and the singer, so I stopped to put that right which took a minute or two. I remember how tricky this is for the horns from playing the piece many years ago. I also had to fix some violin pizz notes to give Figaro a little more time in one or two places. Then on to Bartolo’s aria which has much more to work on. I rehearsed the orchestra for a few moments to get them to play a little more marcato, there is an angry man on stage and I like the orchestra to reflect this. This worked fairly well so I brought the singer back in. To my surprise he got lost on a simple entry so I started again and gave him a slightly more vigorous cue at the entry he had missed. He was fine this time and we carried on until the cue light came on and my 20 minutes was up. I left the pit happy and feeling I had made an impression. The orchestra reacted well to what I wanted. Generally they played down and had to be encouraged to play up but did this when asked, they made a nice sound and played together. The principals also did what I asked of them. Their style and technique is rather different to what we are used to in the UK but this didn’t get in the way and I felt it was a successful rehearsal.


After conducting one’s segment of the opera the conductors are allowed to go into the theatre to listen to the other candidates. I did hear most of the others but here is not yet the right place to comment on them!


Cav was a different matter, conducting a general rehearsal of this opera with no previous work was not going to be easy. The style is very different and it is a much bigger sing, the rubati need time to work through with the orchestra and it all needs thorough rehearsal. I knew that this was going to be a big ask for all of us and so it proved. I was doing the first part of the opera from the chorus entry (not the prelude and Siciliano). The section has massive rubati and lots of gear changes. It all started well enough although the first rubato section was a little untidy, later on one of the principal wind players couldn’t follow a straightforward and standard rallentando, she appeared to be sight reading the opera! The offstage chorus bits just about worked, but if you are standing on top of the orchestra it can be difficult to hear anything offstage, but we got through it. When women arrived on stage they were set well back and looked about as bored and apathetic as one could wish. Well, this competition is going to be hell for them so I can’t really blame them. As least they were watching me for cues. At one point I cued them a bar early and bless their little hearts they took the cue and sang in the wrong place. My fault entirely, and it’s what I would have wanted them to do. Fortunately I realised and held them for a bar and got them back in again without a problem. From there on we struggled through and got to the end of the opening chorus, after which there is the short scene with Mama Lucia and Santuza. Mama L was not singing out and Santuza was getting tired and starting to mark (sing off the voice and/or down an octave) and as a result it was difficult to hear what they were doing. Even so I was able to accompany them reasonably well and they were both watching me carefully.


The next scene is Alfio’s arrival, he sings with the chorus and then has the infamous back to front bit! The first section went well, he was watching and has a fine voice. At the back to front bit the orchestra played from muscle memory and got out with me, Alfio took my cue rather than followed the orchestra and came in exactly where I wanted him to, he held on manfully but after a few bars the inevitable happened and he got slightly out, this threw the chorus and the rest of the section was a shambles. Everybody was within half a bar of me, and the orchestra had now figured out what I was doing (beating 4 in a bar!) so at the end of the section (I was not lost) I gave a thumping big cue to Alfio and it all came back together. We finished the section, did the short recit at the end and that was the end of my 20 minutes.


I left the pit totally deflated, completely the opposite of Figaro. Too many things had gone wrong, it wasn’t a general rehearsal, it was a nightmare. All my fellow conductors felt the same way.


Between the end of the rehearsal and my writing this (the following morning) I have been rationalising and pondering. I often say that when auditioning singers I know within a few seconds whether I am interested in the voice. The rest of the audition is to separate the good ones from each other. The jury panel are all opera conductors and should know what they are looking at. If the conductor is being clear and has good technique but the orchestra and singers don’t have the technique to follow him what are they to think? Was he being clear and reasonable? Did he get flustered and was he able to put things right?


Results are posted late Saturday night, so I have plenty of time to reflect!