This article appeared in full in Wagner News 207.
I
A VASSAL’S EYE VIEW OF LONGBOROUGH GÖTTERDÄMMERUNG
Rehearsal Diary by Nick Fowler
Week 1: Studio Rehearsals (London)
Monday 18th June
First day! Very nervous about Chorus Master Simon Joly who has quite a reputation, having worked at WNO, ENO and the BBC, but he turns out to be extremely nice. Definitely on our side, which is a good start. In the afternoon the German Language Coach arrives, and after a while we all start to doubt our command of even the most basic German! But he's very patient and keeps explaining what he wants and we start achieving it, we think.
Tuesday 19th June
Today we are in the presence of our Musical Director Anthony Negus who is of course becoming legendary among British Wagnerians. Still nervous, even though most of us have met him before and he is always extremely warm and encouraging. But we still want to get it as right as we can for him. Again, our nervousness means that some bits, which of course we know, we start to become uncertain about, and do them badly, and the uncertainty spreads, so things start getting worse. But the music team wisely move us on to other sections and then come back to the dodgy bits, so things gradually improve.
Wednesday 20th June
Meet Director and team. Get shown the model. Concepts explained. Begin moving it. Getting used to space. Getting used to our sticks. Hearing the people singing Siegfried and Brünnhilde for the first time Hagen (Stuart Pendred) a known quantity to some of us.
Thursday 21st June
Costume fittings today. More insight into what the production will look like. Some trepidation when it becomes apparent that we will be barefoot. Those of us who know Longborough aware that going barefoot in backstage areas not a good idea. But at least there's nothing outlandish or difficult to deal with.
Friday 22nd June
First session with the women. It's astonishing how little they have to sing. Obviously the opera has other female characters, in fact more of them than there are male characters, given that there are 3 each of the Rhine maidens and Norns, but the female chorus have almost nothing to do except drape themselves over the male chorus and otherwise stand around. This may explain why the female chorus in our production numbers only four – basically the Rhine maidens and Norns, who are doubling up anyway in several cases. I'm sure much learned and erudite stuff has been written about this as an example of Wagner's attitude to women. He's quite happy to create wonderful female characters when they are goddesses or half-immortal or water-nymphs or, as in Gutrune's case, purely mortal but still noble, but when called upon to deliver normal, mortal, human women, he chooses not to. The female chorus have precisely eight bars of music to sing! I heard our Music Director discussing one passage of our music with his assistant, and saying he wondered why, since the women were on stage at that point, Wagner hadn't got them to join in with that passage. It seemed he was almost tempted to have them join in, but then changed his mind. Perhaps thinking of how Wagnerians in the audience would respond!
Week 2: Studio rehearsals (London)
Thursday 28th June
Working on Siegfried's death and the funeral march. Realization dawns as we watch him sink down during his final aria that we are going to have to lift him! He is a big man and we have to lift him three times. For the last two lifts he is on a stretcher, so they're not quite so difficult. The Assistant and Movement Director are very attentive and concerned that we bend correctly, lift from the knees and thighs, time it carefully so we all lift together etc. We eventually do it several times and we manage not to drop him, and nobody gets hurt
Week 3: Sitzprobe (Birmingham)
Wednesday 4th July
First time on the Vassals Express! This is the mini-bus to transport us around. We get caught in traffic so we arrive late and there's a danger we won't get to our Act III bits. Sure enough, just as we get to within a couple of pages of our off-stage 'Hoi-hos', it's time to leave. Ah well. Good to hear the orchestra, even though the acoustic will be so different in the theatre. We felt that we were being completely swamped in our bits which, given the boomy church acoustic and the absence of a pit, we probably were.
Stage Rehearsals (Longborough)
Saturday 7th July
First time on stage, with actual towers and gates where before we'd had chairs. Start realising how much more time needed to move and climb, how much more difficult to manage our sticks when actually climbing. Director and Movement Director darting about trying to make us think about motivation for and intention behind each move, but we're more concerned with just getting from A to B without hitting anything or anyone. Of course they're right to be concerned and to want us to start doing it properly as soon as we can.
Sunday 8th July
Act III: tricky for we Vassals. Very little singing, but a great deal of standing around reacting to what's happening, desperately trying to remember and listening out for cues in the music and text. Even more importantly, working to take in and remember when we're supposed to do something in response to what a character has said or done. Is this the quick move across to that tower or the slow one across in front of that gate? Where am I meant to be next? How am I going to get there? What was I supposed to be thinking at this point?
Technical team have had not had time to set things up as they wanted, so having to do things around and between us, which means often having to stop until they are ready. Every time we stop and wait the concentration slips and the Assistant and Movement Directors have to jump in and get the focus back.
We do get to see exactly what we will be dealing with in the immolation scene, which almost becomes more real than it should when the flaming torches start dripping burning hot oil and scraps of material and are quickly extinguished.
A piece of good news: the initial lift and carry of the body has been abandoned. Instead Siegfried will stagger to the appropriate place and die. No reason is given, but it appears there was concern we might injure ourselves.
Throughout the afternoon there's the added distraction of the Wimbledon Final. Any break is an occasion to dash out and watch a bit more of it on the TV. Our Gutrune is Scottish, so of course madly rooting for Murray, and devastated (well, in a small way) when he finally loses.
Week 4: Stage Rehearsals (Longborough)
Monday 9th July
Day off! We're not in Act I so not required. Shame it isn't yesterday – could have watched the tennis. Very glad not to have to get on that bloody bus!
Tuesday 10th July
Stage and orchestra for the first time today, so we should be able to get some idea what it will ultimately sound and feel like. At first it's surprising how soft the orchestra is, compared to what it was in the Sitzprobe in Birmingham. In fact it's sometimes so soft that we have trouble hearing it. And our Music Director's position in the pit isn't raised enough for us to be able to see him sufficiently. Our first entry is from upstage and all we really see is the top of his head. So inevitably we part company with the orchestra and often find ourselves several beats ahead. We have several goes at it, and it begins to get better.
Thursday 12th July
The last rehearsal before the Dress Rehearsal, which, as is increasingly the case, is open, therefore essentially a performance: Performance Zero. So our last chance to get things wrong in private! Actually it all goes rather well. No stops necessary, so technically our first complete run. The bits we're able to observe are beginning to look amazing. Everything seems to be heading in the right direction.
The music staff and the Assistant Director have been rehearsing the covers. Longborough have always been strong on coaching and working with the covers. The Gutrune and Brünnhilde covers have had chances to go on in rehearsals. As cover for Alberich I get the chance to walk through the Hagen his scene on stage with the Assistant Director. It would be nice if more companies took the business of covers as seriously.
Sunday 15th July: Dress Rehearsal
Last chance to get it right before the first night. Vassals scene goes well - coordination between stage and pit maintained, everything works as it should.
My last move is to go down on one knee, and for some reason I choose the other knee to the one I normally use. Realise just before going down, hesitate, but decide not to change it. Am amazed when my wife mentions that hesitation afterwards - incredible what small details an audience notices. So, on to the First Night!
Weeks 5 and 6: The Performances
Tuesday 17th July: First Night
The Vassals Express takes a wrong turning down one of the country lanes so we arrive after the performance has started and we miss the usual pre-first performance chat and wishing each other well. Interesting to see Longborough in full Festival garb.
The show goes very well. Audience seem very receptive - bravos at the end of each act and big applause for Anthony and the orchestra at the beginning of Act III. I think our performance is the best yet.
The performance does run slightly later than expected, so afterwards we're not able to stay and celebrate. Instead we quickly pile into the bus and head back to London hoping to arrive in time to get our last trains and buses home. Forced to miss the sponsors’ party to which all cast and crew were invited, but fortified by several bottles of wine planted on the bus, which are of course appreciated. We all pretend not to be interested in the reviews, but I imagine we will all be checking on the internet the next morning.
Thursday 19th July: Second Performance
Much discussion on the bus of the reviews. It's always good to see colleagues praised in the press. It's always unpleasant to see them criticised. You never quite know how to behave the next time you see them afterwards. Usually everyone just ignores it and gets on with the job, which is probably the best approach. Some of the comments by the reviewers mystify us. It is a reminder how subjective a business it is. It does make one question the point of them (the reviews) at all.
Sunday 22nd July: Third Performance
More discussion of the reviews. Particularly the one in that morning's Observer, which we all agree is what a review should be like. It's always easy to feel that a review is good ie fair and balanced if you agree with it, and bad if you don't. But this review (by Fiona Maddocks), unlike several of the others, gives the impression that the reviewer has thought about what they have watched, and tried to understand it. Gunther's wheelchair is an example. We've all had our moments when we've wondered about this, and some of us are still not convinced about it. I have always quite liked the idea that Gunther is so decadent and lazy that he would prefer to use a wheelchair even though he doesn’t need one. Fiona Maddocks sees something else again: "Gunther seeks attention by faking a disability he does not suffer". Most of the other reviewers are openly dismissive of it, which seems to me the easy knee-jerk reaction. Surely we are entitled to expect better from reviewers in our national papers?
Good journey on the Vassals Express. We arrive just as the orchestra are tuning up. I sneak into the company box and get to see the whole of Act I for the first time.
A moment of drama backstage during the last Act. After Siegfried's death, in the process of transferring him to the stretcher upon which we carry him back on for the final scene, he drops the ring! It spins about at our feet, threatening to roll off into the darkness and be lost forever, or at any rate not be found in time for Brünnhilde to cast it into the waters as required. Fortunately I manage to grab it before it escapes and return it to our grateful Assistant Stage Manager. The implications of the standby Alberich (ie me) actually having had the ring in his hand only sink in afterwards. What if I had suddenly been possessed by its power and refused to hand it over? How would the opera have ended then? I expect there was a spare available. They think of everything, these stage management people.
Best performance yet. It just keeps getting better! Looking forward to the next. Starting to feel sorry that it will be the last. At least for a while.
