An emotional week

It has been a very emotional week. At daytime we’ve been on stage rehearsing and in the evenings we’ve worked on the lighting design until 11 p.m. almost every day. I have been pretty nervous thinking if we were able to make the story appear plain in the 3rd act. In this act we have to make it clear that Siegfried is dreaming when he meets the rhinemaidens, and we also have to make a kind of split-screen with the lights between the world of the Gibichungers and Valhal (between the march of mourning and Brünnhildes’ great aria in the final scene). Jesper (the lighting designer) has come up with some excellent solutions to this problem.

Unfortunately we have had some technical problems on the stage this week, so I had to cancel the rehearsals Wednesday and Thursday. Friday we were back on stage rehearsing. It went all right, even though we had a tight schedule. It bothers me that I’m feeling kind of stressed because of this rather limited time frame, instead of being able to enjoy and use the time we have for this process. But I’m beginning to feel just how important it is for me to make a brilliant performance – it’s the ending of “The Ring” and of six years’ work!

Thursday evening we had a rehearsal with costume and makeup for the first time. We had to move from one rehearsal room to another several times while the stage was getting repaired. At first we rehearsed on the main stage, then on the back-stage, and after that in a rehearsal room on the fourth floor - and then on the back-stage again! What could have been a terrible rehearsal actually went very well; the costumes and makeup looks great on the characters.

We haven’t had the time to rehearse the great final scene. We’ll rehearse the scene together with Iréne on Monday and Tuesday and hopefully together with Tina on Thursday.

On stage

Friday we rehearsed Die Götterdämmerung on stage for the first time, which was very satisfying. The stage set looks promising and the choir is excellent. The male voice choir plays a big part and is expanded with 20 men in Die Götterdämmerung. It’s important for me that their characters brutality and coarseness is clearly apparent from the moment they enter the stage. Day by day we’re getting closer to this rough expression.

I love to work together with a choir again, but I also find it difficult to accommodate the choir into “The Ring” aesthetically, since there’s no choir in the rest of the operas. After a few days spend worrying if it is too “opera-like” in a bad way, I now believe that it is actually elevating the performance.

The singers are advancing every day and we’re on schedule. We got the time we need – neither more nor less.

I’ve struggled a lot with the 3rd act, where Siegfried meets the rhinemaidens. In this naturalistic production the rhinemaidens have grown old, naturally. These three old coquettish women are very funny, but they also make the scene appear a bit harmless and less exciting. But Stig, who’s playing Siegfried, helped me analyzing why the scene was so harmless and together we got the idea to turn the whole scene into a dream of his.

The scene is taking place in the ruins of the reservoir where the first scene of Das Rheingold was taking place. Here Siegfried fall asleep and the three rhinemaidens appear in his dream, old and seductive at the same time. At first they’re trying to tempt him and then they threaten him. Their message is that the ring will be the cause of Siegfried’s dead. His dream turns into a nightmare – a scene of madness. And suddenly this scene became fantastic relevant and exiting. We still have to work on it, but now we’ve solved the main problem.

Siegfried is completed

After a challenging dress rehearsal on Siegfried the revival was really really excellent. The performance - and especially the two “new” singers Johnny and Iréne - made me feel so proud. What a major role début for Johnny.

It feels good though being able to concentrate on only one opera at the time from now on, and to focus completely on Die Götterdämmerung. We’re progressing nicely, even though it’s a long performance and there’s a lot of work to be done. But we've come a long way. We are now able to work on longer sequences of events and the characters begin to appear much more sharply. Since yesterday the chorus has joined in on our rehearsals, which is funny but also a bit hard and stressful. These scenes will inevitably differ from the other scenes in The Ring where there’s only one, two or three persons are on stage at the same time.

Yesterday we didn’t have time enough to rehearse all that we had planned. Today however, we’ve managed to work all our way through the whole scene with the chorus in the 3rd act, which gives me a bit more energy. Tomorrow as well as Thursday and Friday (where we will be on stage rehearsing) I’ll spend some more time with the chorus rehearsing the 2nd act. From Friday on they will be on winter holiday, so we need to get a general view of the situation on Friday.

I’ve decided not to rehearse on Saturday. I think we all need a nice weekend to calm down and get some rest…

Difficulties...

This is not the best day of my life – A very long day with rehearsals on Die Götterdämmerung and after that straight to the dress rehearsal on Siegfried. And the stage technique has broken down completely, so we were much delayed and partly had to perform without a set design. This is really not good. Everybody is doing the best they can, but it is extremely frustrating being so heavily dependent on the technical equipment.

Long days

These are rather long days. I haven’t spent much time on Siegfried, but I like this performance quite a lot, so I neither can nor will keep my self completely away from it. Yesterday I had rehearsals on Die Götterdämmerung from 11 a.m. to 5.30 p.m. and on Siegfried from 6 to 10 p.m. on stage. With Siegfried I think everybody has underestimated how challenging it is, since it’s just a revival. But we are getting ahead with it.

Tomorrow we will have worked our way through the whole Die Götterdämmerung and I really believe it is all coming together. I have had my doubts about several parts, but we have found good solutions for all of them. Today we came up with a really emotional and strong idea regarding Siegfrieds’ death. It is SO funny working with this stuff, but it is a long opera, so there are still a lot of things that have to be done!! Anyway, we’ll make it in time, even though we’re in a hurry.

It’s strange suddenly getting the feeling that this will soon be over. It already feels kind of sad, since it is so wonderful working with the Ring.

Johnny van Hal is really good as a new Siegfried - a highly impressive performance. I wish I could have been more there for him during the rehearsals – I really should have been! – But he is doing a great job coming up with a lot of personal ideas and suggestions himself!

Week 1

Now we are really getting ahead with the rehearsals on Die Götterdämmerung. This week we changed a lot of things and it’s a great relieve to see how good things are working out. We had a long discussion about the consequences of Brünnhilde’s pregnancy. It means that Gunter and Gutrune have to doubt if it is Brünnhilde Siegfried forgot when they gave him the “oblivion-drink” earlier than planned. Maybe it’s not so bad that the doubt is nagging everybody a bit more during the 2nd act - on the contrary I actually think it’s quite good.

We still need to get through a part of 2nd scene in the 1st act, 2nd scene in the 2nd act, and the final scene. We will have the time to do that next week. The week after that I will rehearse with the choir, and from Friday 20th we’re on stage rehearsing. Things are starting to move really fast and the prospects are very promising, I think.

The rehearsals on Siegfried got hampered by an accident on the Main Stage which illustrates that the time schedule is too tight. In spite of that it looks like it’s progressing very well though, and I think that the three new singers on the cast; Johnny, Ole and Kjeld are doing a fantastic job! Anne Fugl has run the rehearsals without me, so it was quite strange actually to join a rehearsal and to see the three singers in my own staging, not having worked with them at all! But it all looks good and they’ll do great on stage.