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Musical Life at the Royal Opera
House |
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It’s the job of the 120 or
so musicians of the ROH Orchestra to provide music wherever it’s needed in
the 2½ acre site that the new Royal Opera House now occupies. Obviously this
will primarily be in the pit of the main auditorium, playing for the Royal
Opera and the Royal Ballet. Since the re-development there are also the Linbury Studio Theatre, the Clore
Studio, the Crush Room, and the Vilar Floral Hall
which can also host events. Members of
the Orchestra take part in the popular and free lunchtime recital series
every Monday in the Studio Theatre, as well as being involved in education
programmes, providing a chamber group known as “The Soloists”, and giving
lectures for the Friends of Covent Garden. So we are certainly not just
a pit orchestra! The musical life at the ROH is quite different to
that of a symphony orchestra. Our involvement in an opera or ballet comes
quite late down the production line – often only ten days or so before the
opening night, and these rehearsals have to be fitted around the other
productions that are already in performance. It’s rare to have a daytime
rehearsal of the opera or ballet that we are performing in the evening, and
there can also be up to a week between the six or so performances of the same
piece, so the Orchestra’s long term memory has to be very good. We certainly perform more than we
rehearse, and generally don’t finish work until 10:30, as most operas and
ballets go for the full three hours. The repertoire is much more varied than you might
expect, mainly because nothing is safe from the |
choreographers of the Royal
Ballet. So we might rehearse Puccini’s Turandot
in the morning, perform a selection of Charles Ives’ music in the
evening, and later in the week run through Tchaikovsky’s Little Russian
symphony, Schubert’s 9th, or the new-age Still Life at the
Penguin Café. Not to mention the modern stuff like Harrison Birwistle’s Gawain. Curiously, a lot of people die at midnight in
opera, so almost invariably there is a clock chime played by a percussionist
in the stage wings at some point during the music. This is probably the part
of my job that I enjoy the most, as there’s nothing quite like it anywhere
else. The genius of Puccini’s writing for the stage bells in Tosca
provides quite a challenge in the darkness backstage, and in these days of
Health & Safety, we have to wear a harness whilst up a ladder playing the
very large tubes. We also have to provide other sound effects such as
thunder, cannons and wind – all part of creating the grand drama! The ROH Orchestra is managed by a team of just five
people, including the legendary ex-diary girl Alison Tedbury, who handles
most of the fixing. I’m sure she finds her time in Dorking to have been an
excellent grounding for her current job! Part of my job is to sort out the
percussion extras, and the Diary Service certainly makes that task easier –
there’s nothing I like less than leaving a whole string of rehearsal and
performance dates on a crackly answer phone. No article about the Royal Opera House would really
be complete without mentioning the disasters that can occasionally occur. As
with all |
ambitious projects, the
opportunity for things to go wrong is very great, and my favourite incident
is one which happened just before the ROH closed its doors for redevelopment
in 1997. Wagner’s Die
Meistersingers weighs in at just over 5½ hours on a normal day, so we
started early, at 5pm. The Orchestra tuned, the house lights went down, the
audience quietened, Bernard Haitink entered the pit
and the fifteen minute overture got under way. But after just five minutes –
a complete blackout in the pit! The Orchestra would normally carry this sort
of thing in its stride for a few seconds until the lights came back on, but
this time the darkness was complete. The stage too had also been plunged into
the black, and no-one could immediately figure out what had happened. Fortunately,
the emergency power supply was unaffected, and some safety lights could be
turned on. So Bernard and the Orchestra left the pit, and the
audience were sent back out into the Front-of-House for a complimentary drink
while investigators combed the antiquated backstage wiring for the source of
the problem. And it wasn’t too hard to
find. A contractor engaged on work for the redevelopment had stopped to have
a cup of tea from his thermos in a basement switch room. Leaning back, he had
tripped the main power lever, remaining blissfully unaware of the chaos
caused three floors above…… Nigel Bates [Nigel Bates has been one of
the two Principal Percussionists of the Royal Opera House Orchestra since
1993.] |
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MAS Charges: We are pleased to say that despite continuing
investment in the improvement of our service, we are
able to keep our increase in fees to the minimum. Although it is necessary to have a nominal increase
this year, we have managed to keep it to just £5 per quarter. Therefore, from March 1st 2002 the quarterly charge
will be £120 + VAT. We thank you for your loyalty and support and look
forward to our continuing relationship with you throughout the year. |
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Read all about it! If
there is anything you would like to see in the next newsletter pleases let us
know. We
appreciate your comments and would love to hear if you have any
contributions, news or ideas. Remember
the newsletter has a large readership - all your fellow clients, and all the fixers we deal with regularly. It is also available on our website. Our
quarterly publication goes to print in the first week of February, May,
August and November, so let us have anything you would like to include in
plenty of time! |
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The MAS clients listed
below have recently changed address and/or telephone numbers; please check
with MAS for details.
Rosina Ahmad: Has married, and will now be using her
married name: Rosina Alter. Caroline Clipsham: Has a new CD coming out soon - contact her
for more details. |
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Global
Finance Ltd. (Formerly Graeme Blair Financial Planning Ltd) Est. 1967 Tel: 01403
275050 Financial Planning and the complexities of balancing
income with investment and living is a personal problem. If you think you could benefit from an unpressured free consultation with an independent
financial advisor who has strong connections with the music profession, and a
wealth of experience in financial planning, try calling the MAS approved
financial planning consultant—Geoffrey Dykes. Regulated by the Personal Investment Authority. We
guarantee you will not be pressurised in any way during or after the
consultation to continue using their services or to take up any of their
advice. |
Tax affairs and tax problems are different for each individual.
If you think a chat with a tax expert within the industry will help clarify
your situation why not call MAS approved tax advisor Mike Harding for a free
consultation. Mike Harding
- Brooks & Co Mid-Day Court, 20 - 24 Brighton Road, Sutton, Surrey
SM2 5BN Tel: 020
8642 8681 Fax: 020
8643 8640 We guarantee you will not be pressurised
in any way, during or after the consultation, to
continue to use their services. |
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Exciting new development Message
2000 our NEW e-mail pager. This top of the range FLEX pager
features an 8 line backlit display and a zoom feature to enlarge the
characters and reduce the display to a 4 line format. It receives personal
messages of up to 220 characters and can also receive up to 175 characters from
email or web originated messages. Call LDC on 0800 0181 448 |
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Richard
Cross - Trombone
