We have finished a full week of stage rehearsals. I’m one of the stage managers assigned to Meistersinger, Tom Connell and Ray Menard are the others. Tom is first on this production, he follows the score and calls cues for lights, sound, curtains. Ray is third. He also follows the score, but he cues the singers for their entrances and double checks that the props and set, especially offstage, are the way we need them. I’m second on this opera. I check props and make sure that the singers are in place for their entrances and have what they need for their entrances. I call the performers to stage. I don’t follow the score but use a stopwatch to let me know where we are in the performance. I can move around and so can deal with unexpected happenings if necessary.Yesterday, Thursday, we rehearsed Act III with orchestra. We had the full set, lights, costumes, the whole works. It’s easy to forget that the folks backstage as well as those seen by the audience need to rehearse. Yesterday was our chance for Act III.Wagner is not action-packed, but there are moments in each of his operas that are certainly packed with action, or as a colleague once said, “Nothing happens for hours and then all hell breaks loose in 5 minutes”. We have a moment like that in Act III, but the audience doesn’t get to see it, because it is the scene change from Scene 1 to Scene 2.The first scene is set in Sachs’ cobbler shop. It is a large interior set that is at least 40’ wide and 15’ deep. The second scene is set in a meadow outside the city. This set is a full stage meadow with the city wall behind it and a large arch leading into the city. The first scene ends with the wondrous music of the quintet, only 5 people on stage. The second scene begins with about 180 people on stage preparing for the festival. No problem, except that there are only 98 seconds of music from the time the big gold curtain comes in until it goes out to reveal this throng (and not the back stage crew)!Yesterday the scene change worked very well, but we always have a few adjustments to make and like anything that needs to be rehearsed, as we do it, it will work more smoothly. I’d like to take you through this minute and a half from my perspective behind the curtain.As the end of the first scene approaches, I call all of the performers to positions near the stage (but clear of the moving scenery, lights and all of the men necessary to make this “magic” happen). I forgot to mention that there are 6 offstage trumpets that play down by the curtain in the midst of all of this conducted by Jeffrey Goldberg, one of the assistant conductors. Tom calls the crew to standby for the scene change. In addition to the performers waiting to go onstage that adds another 80 to 100 people to the mix.As the curtain falls, electricians unplug and strike lamps; carpenters move platforms onto the rolling unit of Sachs’ shop and get into position to push it off Stage Left; the flyman starts moving drops in and out and some are pulled out of the way so the cobbler’s shop unit can roll into the Stage Left wagon well; prop men are standing by to pull the meadow ground cloth down into position, and other carpenters are ready to set bleachers Stage Left after the shop unit is clear. There is no shouting and very little talking; all that can be heard is the music.Just as the curtain is falling I escort Magdalena and Eva out of the shop and up to the arch in the city wall that is already in place and pass them along to Ray so that they are out of the way of the change. Ray has a large group of performers around him to get to into place when their way is clear. Then I go back to make sure that David goes to the side he needs to make his next entrance from and immediately make sure that Sachs and Walther go the other direction toward their dressing rooms and momentary quiet.By the time I head to Stage Right to cue the chorus, supers, and children, the shop unit is on its way to Stage Left, the props crew are laying the ground cloth and the electricians are setting, plugging and focusing their last lamps. When Ray and I see that the performers won’t be in the way of the change and that they can move safely into place, we send them into their preset positions. About 20 seconds remain, and as the members of the crew are finished with their assignments, they clear from the stage as the performers enter. The trumpets finish playing and go to wait for their entrance cue.Tom may have one of the hardest jobs in all of this. He has to sit still, follow the music, no distractions with literally all hell breaking loose around him, trumpets in his ears, call the cues and trust that each of the rest of us does our job. The curtain goes up and in less time than it took to read this, an incredible scene change has happened.Did I mention the 40 or so people that are waiting upstage center to make their entrances through the arch just after the scene starts with flags and standards?This is a great place to work. We work on the best with the best!

This entry was posted by Gary Dietrich on Monday, February 26th, 2007 at 3:23 pm and is filed under New Production Countdown. 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.