Monday

Had a nice, long day. My brain is completely exhausted after meetings the whole morning and after that, six and a half hours of straight rehearsals. But it all worked out just fine. Everybody remembers it astonishingly well. The biggest difficulty is all the little ups and downs and reactions all around, which have to add life to the second scene all the time. And it’s extremely difficult for the ones who doesn't sing constantly, to remember when it is one reaction and when it is another. But they are getting much better at responding to what is being said. James is phenomenally good at remembering. He and Susanne have slightly different tempers, but this actually suits the Wotan-Fricka relation quite well.

The pieces are coming together. I really believe that we’ll make it on time. On Monday we’ll go on stage so, until then, there is in fact only four days left for the rehearsals. But it’s going to work out just fine. They have good memories, and we have now gone through the whole opera (except for the last ten minutes with Jens K., Randi and Poul – but we’ll do that tomorrow).
Need to go and see the rehearsal for “Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria” tomorrow – haven’t seen anything yet. So Mette has to run the show tomorrow.

A fine day

Today has been a really fine day. Michael Kristensen got the opportunity to come to the rehearsal as Loge, as the rehearsal of Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria on Old Stage, where he otherwise should have been, was changed into a technical rehearsal. This was a great opportunity because next week there will be lots of rehearsals with Poul Elming, but it’ll be hard to get Michael because it’s the finishing week on Il ritorno. So we got the chance to rehearse the complete third scene with him, Sten Byriel and Bengt-Ola Morgny. They all remembered it quite well. We even succeeded in making Alberich a little freer and maybe also more painful than last time, by letting him try to have more energy compared to Wotan, so that you can see that he’s trying… But also that he’s constantly aware of being “the underdog” and therefore puffs him self up.At the end I rehearsed the torture-scene with Sten. I’m really quite proud of it. There’s really something at stake and it’s a scene which comments on the price of power and on the on a ruler’s dilemma of taking action or not.

2nd scene

Wednesday was fantastic. We were able to work through the second scene – from the entrance of the giants to when they leave again. It is undoubtedly the most demanding scene of the performance with lots of tracks running simultaneously, which have to be kept alive and to be made credible. Managed to get through both of the Loge’s and the Froh’s, and that was excellent.

More puzzles

Okay, it really is a bit frustrating mostly being able only to rehearse with just one singer at the time. When we put it all together hopefully it will fit. I can hardly complain to anyone, since I’m the boss and it’s my own planning. But now people are also beginning to fall ill here and there in large numbers.

Luckily most of the singers remember quite a lot from the last rehearsals. Today I then got four hours together with Poul Elming alone (and Gert Henning-Jensen during the first hour). Poul is Loge who, in this production, really has a lot of props and things to remember - to give him this shabby and confused reporter-look. So it was actually quite good having the time to get this settled properly.

It is wonderful working with this material but there’s only one and a half week left until we are going on stage. Next week we really have to speed up and work even faster. But we’ll manage, I think.

First day of rehearsal

Now we’re getting ahead. Monday and Tuesday Mette, my assistant, held some preliminary rehearsals and today I started working on the rehearsals for Das Rheingold. For the next four or five months there will be rehearsals non-stop! It’ll be amazing, exiting and pretty hard.

The rehearsals for Das Rheingold and Die Walküre are running somewhat simultaneously and from December the 6th we’re running Siegfried and Götterdämmerung at the same time. We have a rather intense programme on Götterdämmerung but of course the opera is also very long to say the least. And – contrary to the others – we have to finish it “in first attempt”.

I haven’t got a Wotan yet, and it’s a bit difficult to gather all the necessary singers for the rehearsals, because people are currently also working on Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria and The Tempest, and Poul Elming has a lieder recital on Sunday. It’s the biggest “obstacle” of the ensemble-house.

So today felt kind of amputated, especially as Anne Margrethe Dahl who’s playing Freia is absent because of illness. We’re now searching everywhere for another Freia to replace her. I think though that we have found a good solution.

Today I mostly worked together with Susanne Resmark, who’s new in the role as Fricka, Jens Krogsgaard, who’s new in the role as Froh, and Carsten Stabell, who’s new in the role as Fasolt – and Hans Lawaetz and Anders Jacobsen as Donner and Fafner. But they’ve both been a part of this before.

It all went really well. It’s so important for our production that the characters appear to be real human beings and that you get a clear impression of the family ties. It’s a family saga and you have to clearly sense that they come with a lot of luggage. The second scene of Das Rheingold is a challenge because there’s so much waiting time for the “minor” gods. But it is important to me that it’s alive all the time and doesn’t become hours just spent on waiting. So very often there are a lot of activities going on simultaneously.

Therefore it was actually okay working with a few of the performers of the scene today, so that we achieve making each of them perfect and give each of them contexts, etc. When Wotan and Loge are both in one place they often attract much of my attention.
It was a good rehearsal start, but also a preview of what a big puzzle it’s going to be gathering all the singers to enough rehearsals in the next couple of months because people take part in several of the Ring-operas and other performances at the same time…