When Our Virtual projects bear fruit...with technological help!
Thanks, pandemic, for teaching us!
Last night’s Giulio Cesare was the culmination of a long period of preparation and reorganization for all involved in SINGTHROUGH CENTRAL’s reading. (July 26, 2020)
The singers and I collaborated on the requirements needed for the pre-recorded piano aria tracks that I then made—on tempi, style details and cadences— with great success. I made the tracks on my iPad, using Voice Recorder Pro app and all its bells and whistles.
I rewrote the cut sheets for this iteration—which included ALL the principal parts ! (I’ve done without an Achilla or a Tolomeo in past versions depending on who was available.) Using pdf editing technology for the first time, I was able to lay out the cuts in a simple clear manner by using colors for my annotations (not using a table or chart with all the details mind-numbingly listed. Being able to do this, meant no longer would I or my singers go through HELL to check on and use the traditional types of cut sheets, given all the different editions of the score out there. Finally, when I sent this VISUAL version out to everyone, it was with a sigh of relief and pleasure at how much simpler and precise it was.
Then came the actual coaching. Online with each singer using two devices: one for the video conference, and the other for playback! Different systems led to varying levels of sound quality and degree of delay….something the experts are all still feverishly working on. Solutions are starting to be found out there, but not really easily available right now…. so we did the best we could. Microphones and headphones that plug into your computer are a big help. As is an ethernet connection (hardwired) from the computer to the router.
Doing recits in real time was closer to the ideal, and since there’s less coordination and more back and forth with the piano anyway, the need for precise timing was a bit less urgent. Again being cognizant of the delay, I adjusted my playing as did the singers their delivery of lines…certain effects could be done—like agogic accents—with some prior discussion. And letting go of some perfectionism was also required. But on the whole, good success was achieved most of the time….for a first attempt, with no staging and some rudimentary ideas of the dramatic aspects of the moment. A metronome was very useful both while I recorded (my phone’s metronome and earbuds for me), and for the singers’ own practice, since the singers couldn’t always hear the music themselves while singing….or keep up with the tempo during their coloratura passages without visual cues.
Everyone’s good will was amply in evidence and for that I’m grateful. We are and were pioneers for the whole process.
Some things to consider for the next time:
Marking certain moments in each aria during a recording with a timing (like 2’34”) to indicate cues where something began….since measure numbers are of no use while performing from a recording…..
Building in ritards or cadences, in ways that are comprehensible for the singers. In this instance I counted aloud to give them cues or explained verbally how I brought the tempo down to half, and then continued to the end or snapped back into the final refrain.
Next time I'll try perhaps to video my piano tracks instead of making mp3s so I can give visual cues or breathe as I would while conducting from the piano… I won’t speak of all the time it took to record (well, practice and then—record AND often re-record—about 35 arias.)
And finally this WAS a “first”: the group recitative online sessions during which we read aloud the libretto were STRIKINGLY SUCCESSFUL according to everyone…… and FUN!! This sort of preparation sessions rarely happens even in productions done in the “before” times, due to time restrictions or the director NOT knowing Italian. Now I consider them an integral, useful aspect of any future work on any Italian opera but especially essential for those with secco recits: Handel, Mozart, and bel canto!!!
In so many ways this was a great challenge from which the take-aways are HUGE. And for that I’m grateful as well as always deeply thankful for Handel’s music and psychological genius (and his librettist Nicola Haym’s) for such a masterpiece that resonates as much now as it did at the premiere in 1724, almost 300 years ago.
