January 21, 2009
fidelio
Michele got us tickets for the Fidelio dress rehearsal, yay. Beautiful beautiful music. And for once, even very great stage design. But then something really odd happened. One of the singers was totally out of sync with the orchestra. At first I thought it was me, because I am such an amateur. But then he sang a piece with two other singers, and they sounded perfectly fine, it was just with this one guy that Beethoven suddenly sounded two centuries too modern. And then, in his third or fourth aria, how humiliating, a voice out of nowhere joined in and started singing his part right. The singer left the stage, he looked very angry. And the others had to bring Fidelio to an end like nothing was wrong. Fortunately the Fidelio part was sung by an amazing voice. I wonder what can cause a singer to be so off in the tempo, could it have been a migraine that put him in some sort of time lapse? It was very strange.
Update: the story made the newspaper!
Posted by eliane at January 21, 2009 11:10 PMWell, they do say a bad dress rehearsal means a good opening night. Do you think they'll pull him from the part and give it to the understudy?
Posted by: Gwen at January 21, 2009 11:42 PMI have no idea, I have never seen something like this happen before. Later I thought maybe he had an anxiety attack, because his first appearance was when he was tied up. Maybe he just freaked out.
Posted by: eliane at January 22, 2009 07:20 AM