At the moment I'm up in Manchester rehearsing The Barber of Seville with Heritage Opera, a small company based here who have put on a string of touring productions in the north west of england over the last few years.
My role, Figaro, is one which I have sung many times since I moved back to the UK from Stockholm, and this time I revisit it in the fourth version I have learnt. The first english translation of Figaro I memorised I never sang due to me only covering it for Stanley Hall Opera in 2010 (I played Fiorello in that production).
I had my debut in the role and went on to sing it many times for Opera Up Close at the small King's Head Theatre in Islington, or London's Little Opera House, and on tour. I remember our director Robin Norton-Hale writing the new translation of the opera as we rehearsed in september 2010 - we would often arrive at the studios to be handed an new pile of music to learn. This was a somewhat last minute approach to things, but it added a kind of dynamism to the process and did mean that one didn't feel snowed under with everything before rehearsals commenced.
Two years later it was time to do it in the original italian for Pavilion Opera which was a big learn, and always provides its own challenges, as of course may words need translating individually as we learn so that we have full comprehension of what we are saying. Pavilion have a memory test, with accompanying bonus for those who pass, on the first day of rehearsals to check that everyone knows their part off copy.
And now I am singing a brand new english version with Heritage Opera, translated by Sarah Helsby Hughes and Nick Sales who run the company too. The rehearsal period is quite short with them, but it is a very warm, friendly group, and the people involved with the company on all levels are singers themselves which means that there is a mutual understanding of the craft which is sometimes missing when non-singers are running the show.
People often ask "How on earth do you get so many words into your head?" when I'm learning a part. To be honest, having the text tied to music gives a logic and shape to everything which makes it far easier to learn than if it was text only. I would find it way harder to learn a play or a long speech for example. Even a short monologue such as a sonnet takes me an eternity to learn compared to a musical setting of text.
But The Barber of Seville is still one of the most wordy operas I've ever done, especially with the amount of recitative and fast patter (machine-gun speed sung text) sections. And being the fourth version of the opera I've had to learn it has meant that it has been a little harder to shunt the other versions out of the way in my head. Sometimes a line from another version just comes out of my mouth totally unbidden in the rehearsals, which sometimes works with what is happening but sometimes sounds a bit clunky. As rehearsals enter their last week now this is happening less and less, thankfully.
Let's hope that by the premiere on Friday evening, all the other versions will have finally been put to bed.
In the words of Figaro in Largo al factotum "Quick as a thunderbolt, no-one is cleverer, I am the smartest man in Seville".
Well, he likes to think so, anyway.
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