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Jess Crawford

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PDX OPERAbeat | A Company Blog is the blog for all things Portland Opera, featuring a variety of guest contributors who will provide insider's tidbits on all we do to celebrate the beauty and breadth of opera. Jess Crawford is our primary blogger. Jess spends much of her time eating enormous amounts of cake, making long lists of books she'll probably never read, and challenging people to arm-wrestling contests. During the day (and sometimes at night) she is Portland Opera's music librarian. She writes more about her escapades at her personal blog: http://bravissimi.blogspot.com
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Falstaff: Even more mischief

Submitted by PDX OPERAbeat on Mon, 05/13/2013 - 11:29

 

Never a dull moment, part 2 of an apparently ongoing series

I spent part of last week frantically searching for a last-minute replacement for one of our principal wind players, who had to leave the country for an extremely pressing family emergency. We also found ourselves short a string principal on opening night, a development which happened at the eleventh hour, and for a similarly pressing reason. As Mo. Manahan and I chatted in the hallway before Friday's opening, he wondered, "What is this, Macbeth?!"

 

All of this is to say: it's been a very long week. I swear at some point I'll tell you what the music librarian conference was like. In the meantime, a prize goes to the person who can come up with the best collective noun for a group of music librarians. Some inspiration: it's been suggested that a group of regular librarians should be called 'a hush of librarians' (or 'a shush of librarians').

 

Now, the last onstage installment from super Diana Harris.

 

 

Monday, May 6: Orchestra Dress #1

 

make-up room

So, here's the routine: you have a make-up call and must initial the sign-in sheet at or before your assigned time. I'm the last face Vonda does, because I don't go on stage until well into the second part. All chorus members, basket-men, pages, and innkeeper (who are also supers) get made up before me.

 

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Falstaff: More mischief than we bargained for, frankly

Submitted by PDX OPERAbeat on Mon, 05/06/2013 - 10:08

 

Opera: never a dull moment

Tonight is the first Falstaff orchestra dress rehearsal, after a weekend of tech. Ordinarily tech rehearsals mostly involve working through aspects of the show like set changes and costume changes. We use all the real props (as opposed to rehearsal stand-ins), and everyone is, for the most part, in full costume. But last week, our Ford, Weston Hurt, fell and injured both his legs, putting him -- for the show, at least -- in a wheelchair. (He is going to be OK but can't walk around the stage for 2+ hours). He still very much wanted to sing in this show, so much of the past several days has involved restaging the opera to accomodate a wheelchair. This has meant the cast has come in for extra rehearsals; we've had carpenters building ramps so that the whole stage is wheelchair-accessible; our production crew has altered stage calls and dressers and dressing rooms and a whole lot else. We more or less ran the show with all these changes last night, and everything is going to work out fine. Weston is in good spirits, the cast are 100% rockstars, and our production folks are, I'm quite certain, the best on the planet. Here's an industry secret: 'the magic of theater' is made entirely of very hard work. 

 

By the time you see the show, it'll look like the wheelchair was a part of things all along.

 

Dispatch from the spot booth

the NASA station

surtitle score, George Manahan via maestro cam, surtitle computer

 

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Adult Super-vision: On the set with supernumerary Diana Harris

Submitted by PDX OPERAbeat on Tue, 04/30/2013 - 12:45

The Major Orchestra Librarians' Association (MOLA) conference, which took place in Portland this weekend, is officially wrapped. It was a TREMENDOUS success -- the Oregon Symphony librarians totally nailed it. But I am exhausted! That's why this post is a day later than usual.

 

I have a lot to tell you about the conference, which I'll do in next week's post. In the meantime, this week I bring you a report from the Falstaff frontlines from board member Diana Harris, who is a supernumerary in our production.

 

 

I've loved opera for as long as I can remember. Why? With story, singers, orchestra, costumes, and sets, opera is the ultimate combination of music, theater, often dance, and the visual arts. Sometimes an opera needs a supernumerary or two. "Supernumerary" means "one who appears onstage without speaking lines or as part of a crowd" (Random House Dictionary of the English Language). They're referred to as "supers."

 

As an opera lover who is neither singer nor musician, I wanted to be a "super" for decades; it was the only way I could be in the middle of the music. The current production of Falstaff, in which I am one of two adult "supers" in the final scene, is the fifth time I've been privileged to do so.

 

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