Notes on Technique

I have completed a contract at the Waikato Conservatorium of Music, directing a selection of opera works titled Fate & Rebellion.

The program was made up of:

George Handel Semele, a condensed version of excerpts selected from entire opera, amounting to one hour stage time.

Georges Bizet, Carmen

Opening of Act 3.

Carl Von Weber Der Freischutz

Act 3 Excerpts

Leonard Bernstien Candide.

Finale.

This program had a two-night season September 19,20. 2025.

Excerpts from Directors Diary.

July 11.

I attend the first of my weekly rehearsals to hear the company sing the entire program; it is certainly ambitious and there are challenges for all.

Technique.

I undertake to be cheerfully resourceful within the time and fiscal constraints. I look beyond parameters to my own renewal and artistic advance.

July 25

The singers stop and start as we set the scene. The cast are focused and some of them are pushing into experiences totally new, they are at the edge of their learning. In my mind as I walk into the studio: nurture and challenge. It is a mercurial and demanding rehearsal and is beyond enjoyable.

Technique

Sometimes I stand very close to the singers and watch intently. What is in their eyes, do they believe or are they just pretending? Together we consider the character and story arc.  I engage with the propensity, insight and skill of each student, each of them presenting as complex, restless, and as yet unaware of their true power.

August 15

We are starting to run scenes together, allowing the cast to feel the journey. Staging issues abound and I struggle to develop action that has a natural, resonate and open connection to the audience. I am continually confronted with my own failure.

Technique 

Within this fiction of opera we must create truth. What does your character want? How does she deal with the consequences of her decisions? How does the performer reveal in space what a character is experiencing inside their mind? The singer must honour the entirety by detailing shifts of thought and mood.

Technique

The singers often identify with the emotion that is woven through the music, and view this as their field of acting.

This is a mistake for emotion is cloudy, filled with the possibility of falsehood. If one tries to replicate emotion it is sure to look fake. Therefore one must not play the feeling but play the action, understand the intent of the character and drive toward the objective with a purposeful action. From the action the emotion will arise.

Georges Bizet, Carmen, Opening of Act 3

September 12.

Today we ran through the entire program and experienced for the first time the momentum and timing.  Cast do well, though struggle to retain musical and dramatic detail.

Technique.

The onstage placement of objects and people shifts awareness, creating passageways, intimate spaces and wide open expanse. How this works is my eternal curiosity. I experiment in order to find satisfying placement and design.

I’ll work with chairs, the piano, staging boxes, a bed.  Different settings are needed to create the scenes. I spend hours in my mind shifting objects and people as I search for the balance, the tension, whatever the scene requires.

September 15.

Today we are in the theatre to set the pieces onto the stage. Continual adjustments are required but the voices belong in this wonderful chamber.

Technique

I identify with the character and then I observe as an audience. I change from observer to the observed. I shift between the diving in and flying out. Go in close. Go far back.

September 19.

The entire experience is a spatial exploration of sound, shape and colour designed to elicit emotion, remembrance, insight and the uplift of spirit which is the realm of opera.

I’m grateful for the opportunity to direct these works. To engage with the classical canon in such depth is the ultimate for me as director.

September 25th.

As I reflect on my own work in this program, I am satisfied. Semele was very challenging, trying to link scenes that were not designed to link, but I managed and it flowed well with a suspenseful climax and intriguing epilogue.

Technique.

Keep close to the text, when in doubt go to the text.