NOVA Workshop - Day 3

So unfortunately I missed Day 2 as I had an audition, but day 3 certainly made up for my absence! Today we had two rehearsal sessions, both led by the indomitable Richard Gill. For the first time the entire ensemble (guitar, violins 1 and 2, viola, cello and piano) performed with the singers (sop, mezzo sop, colotura, baritone) and the results were definitely illuminating! After some teething problems like sorting the instuments in the most effective order and rearranging the singers we finally got down to smoothing out the music and bringing out the best in the orchestration. Some photos of the sesh below:

Richard Gill conducting the ensemble

Our 'Jane' singing her aria

The cast singing together at the climax

We've been blessed with a spectacular cast and ensemble so we're very much looking forward to their final performance in a couple of days. More news to come soon!

NOVA Workshop - Day 1

Today was the first day workshopping our short opera 'Little Deaths' as part of the Victorian Opera/Chambermade Opera's New Opera Ventures Australia (NOVA) program and for Paul (my composer) and I it was pretty exciting stuff:

Paul in front of Victorian Opera!

We're very lucky to have a super talented cast and conductor (Daniel Carter) working with us this week and so far it's all sounding pretty great. So far we've bashed out a first run through and are looking to keep refining with the piano and vocalists tomorrow.

More NOVA posts to come!

Little, done, deaths

I was very excited to put together the final touches on the short opera my composer Paul Castles and I wrote for the New Opera Ventures Australia (NOVA) program at the Victorian Opera/Chambermade Opera last year. We've been working on a second draft and it's been looking pretty spick. I'm printing off (pages and pages) of the score at the moment and will hopefully get it in to head office some time tomorrow:

Last minute touch-ups...yes, I am working on my couch (!)

The workshop is on in September and I'm very excited about hearing it all come together. I've never written a libretto for an opera before so it's going to be a huge learning curve for me - and I'm very much looking forward to the challenge. In the meantime though, there's dreaming up a new opera/musical and working on how to improve the current script further.

And of course, if you're around in September, please come and have a listen...