Calling all opera singers...

Having finished my first novel and sent it out to agents I've been keeping myself busy by starting work on a second. The main character of this book will be an opera singer (lyric soprano with a tendency towards Mozart & Strauss in case you're wondering).

I know quite a bit about opera and am busy reading up on singers and singing technique but could really do with some input from people who either sing themselves or work with singers (repetiteurs, coaches, conductors etc). I'm interested in hearing from people at all points of their career - whether just starting out, auditioning for jobs, establishing a career, bringing the house down at the Met or whatever - anything can and will prove useful!

So, if you're an opera singer or work with singers and would be prepared to spend 10-15 mins answering a few questions then email me and I'll send you a short list. Let me know who you are and what you do when you get in touch so I can send you relevant questions.

Apologies for using a graphic version of my email address (making it tricky to cut and paste) - it saves me from getting loads of spam from bots trawling the web and picking up email addresses

Cheers in advance

Matt

Pulling focus - working with Mozart's music for film

The Guardian reported today on a new British film starring Richard E. Grant and based on Mozart's Cosi Fan Tutte - the working title of the film is First Night.

As you'd expect, the film features plenty of music from Cosi but also uses Mozart's music for the score as a whole. This posed some interesting challenges for writing/production team Morgan-Pochin who were given the task of turning Mozart's music into a modern film score.

James Morgan took the time to answer a few questions about the process.

How much of the music is from Cosi and what else is used?

Anything the characters perform in the film is from Cosi (we deliberately went for all the best bits!), but most of the incidental music is other pieces of Mozart - the soundtrack as a whole uses a whole range of his best loved works. Of course, none of the music was written with a movie in mind, so we've had to adapt and arrange so that it works with the picture. There's also an original arrangement of ours, the classic Perhaps Perhaps Perhaps performed in an operatic, Carmen-esqe style by Juliette Pochin, and a great big band number by crooner Rick Guard - all of these are used in the party scene in the movie.

What were the challenges of adapting Mozart's music to another medium?

The challenge of adapting the existing music is that, having chosen a piece that suits the general mood of the sequence it's accompanying, we then had to make sure it enhances the action rather than getting in the way - Mozart does have the habit of pulling focus! For example, we used the famous Don Giovanni opening for a sequence where there's a horseriding accident. The director wanted an imperceptible start to the music, so we had to rewrite the opening, starting only with lower strings, and reducing the size of the orchestra. The music then needed to quicken its pace and build to a terrifying climax - so we had to truncate the opening bars of the piece and rework all the dynamics to suit the picture.

In another, much longer sequence, we used the 'Elvira Madigan' piano concerto, but there's a lot of dialogue during the sequence, so we had to switch from Mozart to 'underscore Mozart' depending on what was happening on screen. The idea is with this and every other sequence is that the viewer doesn't notice the changes we've made, but is only aware of the score when it's the right moment in the film to hear it - otherwise it sits underpinning the picture, so that the viewer is barely aware of it.

Was it daunting working with such well-known (and revered) music

It was daunting working with such revered music, but it's also fantastic to see Mozart's genius brought to a whole new audience - people have reacted to test screenings with great enthusiasm. The film is a romantic comedy that happens to have the most amazing music within it - it's not an opera film - so it's a brilliant way to introduce some of the best music ever written to a whole new audience.

Disc of the Day #20 - Le Nozze di Figaro ROH

Mozart - Le Nozze Di Figaro [DVD] [2006]
Disc of the Day #20 is odd for two reasons: it's two discs not one and, more importantly, it's a DVD.

This particular Figaro is the Royal Opera House's current David McVicar production and is quite possibly the most complete realisation of an opera I've ever seen (I saw it at Covent Garden three times but it works just as well on DVD). The drama is full of comedy, wit and - vitally - humanity.

Our cast, which is uniformly excellent both vocally and dramatically, is:

Figaro - Erwin Schrott
Susanna - Miah Persson
Count Almaviva - Gerald Finley
Countess - Dorothea Roschmann
Cherubino - Rinat Shaham

the ROH forces are conducted by Antonio Pappano.

Schrott is a vigorous, passionate Figaro who gets the balance just right between being nobody's fool yet not quite the brains of the operation. That role goes to Susanna, who is delightfully played by Miah Persson. She combines a delicate sweetness with a clear love for both Figaro and the Countess without falling into the trap of over-sweetness (she is, after all, the central figure in this opera, no matter what the title tells us).

Gerald Finley's count is an intelligent, dark character who knows exactly what he's doing. The age-old question of whether he truly repents at the end is answered (as it always is) by the orchestra - Mozart's sublime, human melody leaves no room for anything other than true humility and repentance on the part of the Count. Whether he feels the same way in the morning is another matter...that's life though, just because you feel something to the exclusion of anything else one day doesn't mean that's how things will be in perpetuity. My guess is that he's off chasing the ladies again by the end of the run.

Opera directors dealing with 18th (and 19th century) repertoire face a similar dilemma to their theatrical counterparts when faced with Shakespeare; with so many years of performance history out there should they do something new and thought-provoking or rely on the traditional? Happily McVicar manages the perfect balance here, highlighting the inner workings of the drama within a traditional production and adding a whole host of deft touches that help the text sparkle anew. This DVD is a wonderful document of a brilliant production and the perfect argument to counter all those who would have us believe that opera is no longer relevant or necessary. It is both and so much more.