The Copenhagen Ring - Directors Blog

This is it!

2006-04-27T09:02:00.000+02:00

Now we are busy. Das Rheingold was truly breathtaking. It was one of those evenings where you can feel all the energy uniting and the whole performance rising to a higher level because everybody is responding to one another. Die Walküre was also great. We had a few annoying technical problems in the 2nd act. But the 3rd act raised the performance to a higher level again.

Tuesday evening I was completely ecstatic, thinking: “Waugh, now we are actually having the premiere on our Ring”. It is kind of surrealistic, but it is also a great experience being able just to lean back and witness all the pictures run by. Maybe exactly this will be one of the most striking characteristics in our Ring – that you will get the experience of having seen a stream of pictures running by – just like if you turn over the pages of a photo album.

Domingo

2006-04-13T19:27:00.000+02:00

I haven’t had time to write during Domingo’s stay. Needless to say, it was a very great experience. He is so incredible generous – a fantastic voice and a huge personality.

Beside the fact that it was a great performance, it gave us all a lift having him in the house and working with him. (I shudder to think what might have happened if he had cancelled the performance. After all, he has cancelled a number of performances earlier this year. After the performance Domingo himself said to me that this was the first time during the last four months that he had sung such a big role as Siegmund!).

He gave inspiration to us all, and everybody in the house proved their own worth by playing and singing better than ever.

We are almost ready for the complete Ring cycle. But now there’s also less than two weeks left until it begins…

That was it

2006-03-02T18:40:00.000+01:00

Long silence since the premiere… have I fallen into a coma? I could just as well have been, because that was the kind of emptiness I had expected to feel and actually felt – mixed with suitable pride and greatness of the moment … and alcohol –last Sunday.

No, seriously, I have just had the chance to take a much needed vacation together with my wife far away from Denmark under distant skies - far away from opera and work, computer and mobile. I left everything behind. This is the reason for my silence.

I received the reviews by fax. A lot of them were really good. It saddens me a bit though that the newspapers Berlingske Tidende (and partly Jyllands Posten) were bad. Isn’t it typical focusing on that, since the reviews in Politiken, Weekendavisen, Børsen, Information and Kristlig Dagblad were all good?! I actually don’t quite understand what Mr. Kassebeer from Berlingske Tidende missed in the performance. Well yes, he didn’t like the scene with the norns. That’s fair enough since it is a really radical choice. Some people think it’s perfect and other people find it stupid. I actually have had mixed emotions about the scene also. But I’ve ended up liking it very much – mainly because the three singers are playing this part in such a wonderful way… Well, tastes differ.

I felt extremely proud and after the circumstances the premiere went good. Now I’m looking forward to experience the complete Ring performances in April (and to have Domingo staying with us for a week in the beginning of April – it’ll be fun). But in the meantime there are a lot of meetings and a huge pile of unfinished paperwork on my desk.

Tomorrow I’ll travel to Cardiff to attend a meeting in “Opera Europe” and after that I’m going to see “Der fliegende Holländer” with Bryn Terfel. Not bad.

Premiere today

2006-02-19T11:14:00.000+01:00

In a few hours from now the premiere of Die Götterdämmerung will take place. Right up till now I’ve hoped that Stig would recover miraculously, but it didn’t happen. We had rehearsals all day yesterday with Christian Franz. He is a great singer and he was very positive and in a good mood. He was almost a bit too relaxed and calm, compared to my own mood anyway…

It was not his fault at all and I’m positive that he’ll do fine at the premiere. I was just sad since I have been working on this project together with Stig for so many years and Stig has been an extremely important factor for the development of the Ring. Besides Stig has an extraordinary sensitive and original way of being present on stage. I hardly know anybody else who’s able to put up an act like his. And since we have been rehearsing for months, working with all the little details and nuances, etc., nobody will be able to take over and come up with the same results in just 24 hours.

Christian will do just fine and everybody will be pleased, but today’s premiere is not that kind of ending I’ve dreamed about after all the years of work with the Ring. Anyway we are very lucky that Christian would come and save the premiere.

I’m excited, happy, downhearted and nervous at the same time. I wish that I could just sit back and enjoy this day, but of course I’m also a little anxious to know how everything will work out. That’s the name of the game when working with opera. It’ll be just fine.

The baby

2006-02-17T19:50:00.000+01:00

We got a mail from a woman who had been present at the dress rehearsal yesterday. She was very upset because we had used a baby in the performance. She wrote that the baby would surly be traumatised for life and she even compared it to incest. I was pretty shocked at her accusation. We have taken all precautions to insure that the baby will not be harmed in any way. We’ve been in contact with an expert from the Centre of Crises and Disaster Psychology at “Rigshospitalet” who asserted us that being on stage would not cause the baby any damage at all. The baby will be away from its mother for about one minute all in all and will be in the arms of a woman who’s also a mother. The mail shocked me. We have to trust the experts (- and also the parents) judgment and we all agree that no harm will be done. I’m a bit worried if a lot of people will react with this kind of intensity. Personal I look at the scene with the baby as a tribute to life.

Luckily I have also received a lot of positive and enthusiastic mails, which made me so happy. I don’t think people really know just how important it is for me to receive all this positive reactions. It makes me extremely happy!

Urrgh!

2006-02-17T19:46:00.000+01:00

Urrgh! Stig is ill and can’t perform on Sunday. He is very sad and so am I. All this work with the little details… and then a guest performer is taking over in the last minute. Stig is such an excellent singer and his personal character and presence is so important for the performance. No matter how good the replacement might be, without him it will never be the same.

Christian Franz, a brilliant singer, is taking over and we will rehearse with him all day tomorrow. It’ll be okay at the premiere. But still it is an aggravating way of ending the Ring. It’s a strange kind of anti-climax and I feel so sad for Stig, who’s a great part of this Ring.

Well, we’ll have to look at this as an experience and see how much we can catch up with today and tomorrow.

Dress rehearsal

2006-02-16T21:21:00.000+01:00

Today we had our dress rehearsal at 12 o’clock with me as Siegfried. Yes, me! Peter and Guido are both well again and Ylva’s health is slowly improving. Unfortunately Stig is now ill. I hope though that he will be ready for the premiere on Sunday. But we decided to spare him from singing today.

We didn’t have the time to find another Siegfried (now we have found a standby for the premiere on Sunday) but it seemed a little grotesque that my assistant, Mette should play his role - so I played the part myself. I promised not to sing though. Instead Michael Schønwandt sang from time to time. It was a strange feeling standing on stage and, of course, this had never worked out at a real performance. To me it was a quite extraordinary experience. It’s a crazy way to complete the Ring.

I can definitely find traces of a self-portrait in both the character Siegfried and in the production as a whole. To me it was funny playing Siegfried. I’m sure it must have looked quite awkward and confused, but I decided to just let go and play the part no matter what. It was a strong experience getting the chance to give expressions to all the emotions – especially performing the death scene felt quite extraordinary to me.

Being close to the actors and to feel and experience the sweat, the sound and the intensity is fantastic. What looks so calm among the audience feels really intense on stage; the concentration all around before entering the stage, how incredibly loud it sounds when Irene sings while you lie with your head on her stomach, playing dead feeling how everything is evolving around you, and to look up in the lights and to feel this special magic going on at stage. I really had an extraordinary experience today! It almost went to my head– I don’t really feel like taking the ring off my arm ever again :)

I’m truly moved – and sad. Now it is over. I don’t know what to do with myself. Still I’m looking forward to Sunday. Now I can only hope that Stig and Ylva both will be ready for Sunday. I almost feel like call them and begging them to get well. But they also want to get well off course…

A hard Monday

2006-02-15T21:47:00.000+01:00

Monday we had our last run through, this time with an audience. They were very positive and everything went quite okay, except for one single technical mistake.
My assistant had to replace Ylva who was ill. Of course this took a lot of energy out of the performance. Peter was back but did not sing, and Guido had a cold. It felt like somebody had pressed the button “mute” in some parts of the first act. But we’ll catch up on that.

Nearly done

2006-02-10T17:47:00.000+01:00

Now we’re almost done with the Ring. How strange! Our rehearsal today with the orchestra on stage went very well. The orchestra is doing very well and it’s getting better and better day by day. For the first time the rehearsal on the final scene went perfect; all details fitted wonderful together and the timing was perfect. It feels so strange. Soon it’ll all be over.

On Monday we’ll have a run-through with mask and costume (Tina Kiberg’s dress rehearsal) at 5 p.m., and on Thursday we’ll have the dress rehearsal at 12 a.m. We don’t have any “real” rehearsals left, so now I’ve completed the whole “Ring”. It feels so strange to me – it’s lovely, but also a bit sad. Tonight the whole “Götterdämmerung-team” is going out for a meal, celebrating the completion of our work.

A nice week

2006-02-04T19:43:00.000+01:00

It has been a really nice week. Monday and Tuesday were very stressful because I wanted to put all the scenes together and to make all the effects, like fire, stage techniques and baby, etc. function perfectly. Happily, our efforts gave a payoff later this week. Thursday we rehearsed the final scene with Tina Kiberg. It turned out to be a bit chaotic and it made me rather worried as we would have to be ready for the run-through at 4 p.m. However the run-through went extremely well. We still have to make some technical adjustments, but suddenly we’re felling on top of it. We have the time we need to have it all finished on time.

The orchestra sounds so excellent and they’re working very hard with this material! Saturday’s rehearsal was Michael Schønwandt’s last chance to make corrections on the first act together with the orchestra.

All in all it felt so nice being able to finish the week with great reserves of energy left. We also ran both set changes on time today. If we can stay clear of any illness or technical difficulties (knock on wood) we will make it. Lovely!

Making progress

2006-02-01T13:00:00.000+01:00

Now we’re making progress. Monday was a difficult day with a series of new technical problems: The first part of the rehearsal had to take place behind the curtain because the safety curtain could not be raised or lowered. After the break the curtain had been fixed. Die Fledermaus was to be performed in the evening, so we had to finish the rehearsal on time and I lacked precisely 15 minutes to get through what I had planned.

Monday and Tuesday there was a sitzprobe in the orchestra rehearsal room, where the singers were rehearsing together with the orchestra for the first time. Meanwhile we worked with the technique on stage. Tuesday we had four hours of rehearsals with Iréne, Ylva and Peter. We had the time to get through the whole final sequence of events technically – with fire, special effects, stage elevator, etc. We’ll do it all again on Thursday together with Tina, so she’ll be confident about the fire on stage and the set changes. On Thursday we will also have our first rehearsal with a real baby in the final scene… The hospital has confirmed that we can use a real baby without causing it any harm, and I think it’s going to be an intense scene. Well, this should have been a secret saved for the premiere, sorry!

Luckily, the fireman has approved everything – including nine gas fires and a man set on fire on stage - and the stunt man Martin Spang Olsen is guiding and helping us so that it won’t be dangerous for the singer who’s doing the stunt.

Among other things we still need to make the lights for the final scene and to see how it all works together with the music. We also have to find out how we can put the ring on the fire without melting it for real. Moreover, we haven’t had a complete run through yet and we haven’t seen all the fires light up automatically at the same time. And I still need to make the choir’s final entry, where they don’t sing.

An emotional week

2006-01-28T14:16:00.000+01:00

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

2006-01-22T16:21:00.000+01:00

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

2006-01-17T17:52:00.000+01:00

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...

2006-01-13T21:31:00.000+01:00

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

2006-01-12T14:09:00.000+01:00

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

2006-01-08T16:48:00.000+01:00

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.

Christmas

2005-12-26T12:09:00.000+01:00

It has been nice with a short Christmas vacation away from Wagner. Tomorrow we will carry on and I’m looking forward to that. Unfortunately Ylva Kihlberg is still ill. However Peter Klaveness too is not going to be here between Christmas and New Year’s Day, so it’s not of that much importance the next couple of days. But then I really hope she’s getting well very soon because we seriously need to get ahead with her and Guido (who has been busy with Die Fledermaus). It must be hard for her being ill for so long!

Die Götterdämmerung is really quite long and we will already be on stage rehearsing from January 20th. I’m getting more and more stressed not knowing if we’ll have time enough to prepare it thoroughly. Fortunately everybody knows their material quite well, so we won’t waist time on rehearsing lines. That’s good.

I’ve really had my doubts about the exact realization of the sequence from Siegfried’s death till the end of the 3rd act. Should I choose the more “realistic” version, or should we make a less realistic version, that might be more emotional in proportion to Brünnhildes’ experience?

We have to make a connection between the beginning of the Ring, where she strikes a match and the point, where she searching through her fathers’ lumber room, to make the leitmotif appear clearly. This connection is very important to the whole concept of the book shelves, etc. It’s so difficult to make the final scene, because a lot of pieces must fit together and it has to come to an end. It is more difficult than anything else in the Ring and it certainly causes more doubt. That’s how it was when we made the design and that’s how it is for me realizing it now. But it’s necessary to make a choice and see how it works. I’ve made up my mind and have chosen the less concrete-realistic and more emotional interpretive solution. Tomorrow Irene and I will start rehearsing the final scene, so I’ll have to make a final decision now.

No rehearsals

2005-12-14T13:31:00.000+01:00

The premiere for Die Walküre went incredibly well. Lovely. Especially the 3rd act was completely astonishing at the premiere. Got a fine review in the newspaper Politiken. It’s so lovely that they mention that the standards of perfection are ready for the complete Ring cycle now.

This week causes a bit frustration. Due to my own tight schedule and different leaves of absence among the singers we have only few rehearsals for “Götterdämmerung”. In addition the rehearsals have been cancelled the last two days because of illness. Anyway, we’ll make it in time, I think. I’m getting impatient. I just want to get started.

Should have attended a performance meeting this morning, but it had fallen out of my schedule, so ten people sat and waited for me at 8:30 a.m. and I didn’t show up. Embarrassing! I hope my apologies were accepted.

Anne is running “Siegfried” and I hear that everything goes very well. Now I just hope that we can get on with “Götterdämmerung” very soon!

Dress rehearsal

2005-12-08T01:36:00.000+01:00

We got through the dress rehearsal. Die Walküre is not quite as tight as Das Rheingold. A greater part of the set design has emerged at the last moment and parts of the lighting aren’t quite in place yet. But all things considered it went well. The first act was a bit shaky: Partly because Eva Johansson hasn’t had a single rehearsal on “the field of poppies”, and partly because the spotlight, which illuminates “the field” with moonlight had a wrong “shutter” and therefore lit up and dimmed too fast.

But the second act went just fine. Randi and Christian were both in good shape, and the third act was really breathtaking. Irene, Eva and James were fantastic in the third act.

In the final scene the pigeon flew into the prompter's box - and our poor prompter Karen is terribly afraid of birds. She has often talked about the risk of the pigeon flying into her box, but we have always made a joke of it telling her: What’s the chance of this happening? But it happened. As a result she screamed out loudly at the most emotional part of the scene. Everybody – besides Karen - laughed a lot. She was pretty shocked. But it REALLY WAS a funny experience…

This is really a hard week. There is work to be done every single day and every night. Well, from 8 a.m. tomorrow there will be meetings, so off to bed I go. We got a good start today with the introduction and the first rehearsals for Götterdämmerung. Really promising. Lovely to get started with some new material.

Two rehearsals to go

2005-12-04T19:32:00.000+01:00

Friday we had a pretty bad day. The stage technicians got tremendously delayed taking down the scenery for “The Tempest” from the stage. Because of this most of the first act was turned into an orchestra rehearsal in the orchestra pit. Therefore we have a number of light-cues and some smoke in the first act that we are still uncertain about. And since Poul Elming is singing at the rehearsals on Monday and Wednesday it was Stig Fogh Andersen’s last rehearsal – and he didn’t get the chance to rehearse the transition where the house is rotating and the trees are lowered from the ceiling and everything has to be timed very exact! But we’ll have an extra special rehearsal on that with Stig on Monday at 3.30 p.m.

On the other hand Stig has rehearsed more on the new field of poppies in the 2nd part of the first act. Poul has only had the chance to try it once, so just to be sure that he’ll remember we’ll do the scene again before the run-through with the orchestra tomorrow at 5 p.m. Gitta-Maria Sjöberg remembers everything quit well by now, but next Tuesday Eva Johansson will be back from Zürich after having performed in “Electra”. She will have a kind of rehearsal on the first act on stage on Tuesday and after that she’ll go straight to the dress rehearsal Wednesday evening! But she’s usually very quick…

Tomorrow the rehearsal is scheduled for 5 p.m., so we’ll have the chance to slow down a bit, and the stage technicians will have the whole day to put up the set and to get the last pieces in order: We still have problems with the fire in the last act. It has a tendency to light up and be put off at random. And we still miss the right, newly made trees to the first and second act. They must be made ready and put up and it’ll take some time too. So Die Walküre is really running on a tight schedule now. We will make it on time, I think, but only barely. The ensemble-house also has an extremely tight schedule, but they are playing better than ever. It sounds incredibly beautiful. We have to admit that we’re pushing it very hard on everybody these days, but that goes with making the whole Ring!

A week

2005-12-01T01:42:00.000+01:00

I haven’t been writing lately and a lot of things have happened. This will be a short summary:

- Revival on Das Rheingold. It went incredibly well, became tight, living and exact. I was very pleased with it and tried to start a party afterwards, but I seemed to be the only one in the mood for a party. Was filmed by Zentropa the whole evening - tried to act natural, but that wasn’t easy being filmed all the time.

- Friday and Monday: Rehearsal with piano on Die Walküre. It went well, but the new field of poppies is very demanding because there’s so little time. Steffen Aarfing suggested rotating the tree so you can see the sword being pulled out. It is superb. Strange that we haven’t thought of this before. The lighting is demanding and we had some difficulties during the run-through Monday, but we will get it under control, I think. We worked on the lighting the whole Saturday at the Opera House and I was a bit short short-tempered to everybody. I’m surely tired – it is a bit overwhelming to perform Die Walküre shortly after having done Das Rheingold. But, after all, it’s also a great experience!

- Right now I’m aboard SK910 on my way home from New York. I went over yesterday to attend some meetings about a performance I will be directing at a place north of NY next summer. Quite intense to travel there and back in 48 hours (it was the same flight crew on my way home and they noticed that I was on the plane again. They are good to me – actually I think they pity me a bit). It’s so amazing that you can check your e-mail on the plane now.
Now I will watch a good movie and get some sleep. I have a long day ahead of me with meetings on Thursday, and on Friday we’ll have orchestra rehearsals on Die Walküre from midday to 4 o’clock and from 8 to 11 p.m., and furthermore some technical rehearsals and more meetings.

Die Walküre on stage

2005-11-22T17:44:00.000+01:00

Today got a pretty bad start, since the field of poppies, which as something new will be outside Hunding’s house, has been delayed for several weeks already, was even more delayed this morning due to a misunderstanding.

There was a feeling of depression all around and we were almost about to drop the field completely, which would be a shame after all the trouble making it (and since we finally got it after having wished for it in the two earlier productions in 2003 and 2004). But with our joined effort we got a hold on it, and eventually it turned into a surprisingly good day.

Stig and Gitta both did a good job improvising the arrangements for the new field of poppies. Now there will be less jumping around when they come out of Hunding’s house. But this only stresses the fragility of their love affair and I think it’ll work out fine. Stig and Gitta were really cool. They both threw themselves into it without hesitation. Today it is the only real rehearsal I attend at the first act (the next two rehearsals will be run-throughs), but we made it I think.
The difficult part is that the tree with the sword has to be lowered from the ceiling and hit a hole in the field so it will stay fixed when Sieglinde pulls out the sword. But it looks like it is going to succeed. Phew! Altogether it still looks like we have an extremely tight schedule on the Die Walküre. Now I am more optimistic than I have been for the last couple of days. The stage technicians worked very hard today and did a great job – even though they struggle with narrow space at the backstage and bay areas which are completely filled with the gigantic decors from The Tempest, Die Fledermaus, Das Rheingold and Die Walküre at the same time. When we present the whole Ring cycle (and La Traviata) next year the stages will really be packed with decors.

The dress rehearsal

2005-11-21T18:55:00.000+01:00

Today at 12 o’clock we had the dress rehearsal on Das Rheingold with audience, so now we are on the go. It went well and it is very clear that we’ve had almost too much time – or, at least – enough time for Das Rheingold. That’s positive. All the singers have had time enough to develop their characters, which brings clarity and life to the performance. It also seemed like the audience was very attentive.

On the other hand the time that’s been scheduled for Die Walküre seem terribly tight. It’ll be difficult to have the decoration finished in time and there is only about the same time scheduled for rehearsals as for Das Rheingold, even though Die Walküre is more than twice as long. But I brought that on myself, since it was me who planned the schedule.

Die Walküre is easier though in many ways, because there are fewer people on stage at the same time, and most of the singers are very experienced. Now we’ll see. Tomorrow at 12 o’clock we’re back on stage, and then we only have two weeks left until the dress rehearsal on Die Walküre.

Today I also spoke with the orchestra committee. It is obvious for everybody that we are running on a very tight schedule right now. It is ambitious to make the whole RING in repertoire together with the already ambitious program we have. But it also seems like everybody are proud and have big demands for the level of ambition.

We also had a set model for “Tosca” delivered today, that Peter Langdal is going to direct next season. It looks really exiting! And everybody seems to be well (touch wood), after we had to put a replacement for a singer on a taxi-plane from France to save “The Tempest” on Saturday.
PS! I think the blog was hacked the other day. It was so funny - and it almost felt a bit cool that somebody had done the effort to hack my bloc – but there are no ostriches in Das Rheingold, if you got the chance to read the fake contribution from me.

Almost done

2005-11-18T16:01:00.000+01:00

Das Rheingold is almost done by now. Wednesday we had a long day rehearing with the orchestra during the day, and with piano (and a photo shoot) in the evening, Thursday we had a really good orchestra rehearsal, and today we had our preview, which went very well. It has become very tight and touching.

Johan Reuter arrived from Madrid yesterday and went straight to a rehearsal with the piano and immediately after that to a rehearsal with the orchestra as Wotan. Highly impressive. He is really doing a superb job, so now we have two good Wotans. We have a problem with our new lumps of gold, so I think we’ll use the old ones instead. Apart from that it all fits together now.

We have just made the new correction with the lighting, so now we’re ready for the dress rehearsal on Monday. And right after that Die Walküre are staging on Tuesday – even though I haven’t been present at most of the rehearsals for it. But I’m confident that Anne, my assistant has it all under control.

Yesterday evening I was suddenly overcome by a sense of the grandeur of what we are doing. You speak about setting up the whole Ring and then - all of a sudden - I got this out-of-body experience on my way to the stage, and I realised “My God, now it is happening. This is it!” And suddenly I could see everything from the outside and I sensed a mixture of humility and arrogance! But maybe I only got the chance to think this way because we’ve had plenty of time to work on Das Rheingold. Die Walküre will be exciting but we also have an extremely tight schedule, particularly the stage technicians. But we’ll take care of that next week!