11/7/06

Today began with a first sitzprobe where the singers sang through the first act with the orchestra.  The cast was very excited to start singing with the orchestra so early in the rehearsal process.  While not a perfect performance of the act, both the singers and orchestra were able to continue tailoring their performances to the “east meets west” style of Tan Dun’s music.  Laying this musical groundwork with the orchestra will only help the singers as staging begins.

After lunch, Zhang Yimou held his first staging rehearsal.  The rehearsal began with Dou Dou Huang, the choreographer, showing Zhang Yimou the work he had done with the ballet on the first scene during his previous ballet rehearsals both during the summer as well as earlier in the month.  Zhang Yimou enjoyed what Dou Dou had to show him, but the current choreography wasn’t exactly what the director was looking for.  The first scene of the opera puts the full chorus and ballet (130 in all!) in identical warrior costumes. Zhang Yimou wants this army of 130 people to move in concert.  The choreography that was shown to him would make the ballet too different from the chorus. Perhaps a bit thrown, but not defeated, Dou Dou returned to the ballet studio to adjust his choreography.

After a break, Zhang Yimou worked with Michelle DeYoung (the Shaman) and Wu Hsing-Kuo (the Yin Yang Master) on the first scene of the opera.  Wu Hsing-Kuo began improvising with traditional Peking Opera gestures to accompany his entrance.  Tan Dun remarked that Mr. Wu was as famous a Peking Opera singer as Mr. Domingo was a western opera singer, so it was an incredible treat to watch Mr. Wu work.  The Peking Opera style is not one that many of us get to see in performance, let alone rehearsal.  I believe his performance will be extremely powerful.  Ms. DeYoung, after some instruction from Wu Hsing-Kuo also began trying the traditional gestures to compliment the ritualistic nature of the opening scene.  Through numerous repetitions, Ms. DeYoung became more and more comfortable with the very foreign movements.

Tan Dun explained in the sitzprobe that the Yin Yang Master’s music takes the audience back 2,000 years to tell the story of the First Emperor.  The Peking Opera gestures of Wu Hsing-Kuo and Ms. DeYoung, as well as the ritualistic dancing of the ballet, serve to visually transport the audience back to that distant time.

This entry was posted by Eric Einhorn on Friday, November 17th, 2006 at 10:01 am and is filed under The First Emperor. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.