Act 3

Act 3 of Napoli is sometimes done on its own, [indeed it is what we did in Prague last year], it is unofficially called "The Joy of Dance" and I must say you would have to be very mean-spirited not to be swept along by it all - it is truly joyous. Despite the noise of the yelling of the choreographers - 'ligne - ligne' they shriek, the director of ballet shouting instructions and the chatter of various departments giving notes, the sheer exuberance of the dance and the whirling colour really does make the heart beat a little faster. And it's been working its magic since 1842!

I'll try and get some better pix tomorrow with the first cast.

Act 2

Don't think I can stay in the flat much longer today, a work party is decorating the hallway and drilling enthusiastically, apparently into my door - the noise is deafening.

Here is the the bad water-god being wigged up, with his very engaging daughter in attendance.

I got fed up with being told that I could only have his body decorations stitched on to net that looked like granny's lisle stockings - not sexy at all, when suddenly Mrs Golfo introduced a friend who did body art! Brilliant, she arrived, took a brief look at the costume drawing, got out her little pots of make up and produced a fantastic seaweedy tattoo.. It looked a bit like cabbage leaves yesterday, but will be lovely when the colour is right.

I tried to get some pictures of this act, I quite like the swirly one - Will try again more selectively tomorrow.
Today is the dancers' day off, so the wardrobe don't want me there to give them yet more notes, they will have quite enough to do finishing the pages they already have.
So I shall go out in a minute - it's my last chance of sight-seeing.

Act 1

I haven't really solved the problems of taking good on-stage pix, even though there is more light than usual for Napoli. Here are 2 for Act 1 - taken from the side of the stage, which is close enough, but hardly the ideal view-point. There are moments when the dancers freeze and hold a pose, but they are few and fleeting.

There was a small door in the proscenium arch that would have pitched me into the orchestra pit had I gone through it too far, good vantage point though, but embarrassing!

Orchestral Dress Rehearsal 1

More Act 3

I asked for absolutely everything to be put on stage after this morning, even it was unfinished so at least we could see where the holes were, as the casting muddles had caused a number of peculiar results. Despite the strange lack of urgency about seeing even quite important costumes on stage, it was actually quite encouraging.

In Act 2, however, the underwater scene, the water-god has a huge silk cloak over his variably god-like form. The applique´d waves and seaweed are far from finished, and we only saw the said cloak last night after a huge fight on my part. [It was in bits in the art department - still damp.]
"Technical rehearsal" , i.e. to rehearse using all the practical bits and pieces must mean something rather different here.
As you see, these pictures are still Act 3 - will try and get photos of the rest of it this evening.

Back in the Studio

The dress parade didn't help much, it was in the studio and the costumes that were still in the workrooms couldn't be interupted. I think we discovered where the problems were and worried some more, but that was about it.

Photographs will now be more of a problem, as the band is in, the way across the pit, between the harp and the piano and up some wobbly steps has been deactivated, the pit is enormous to cater for those 120 piece Verdi orchestras and my rather domestic camera wont really stretch to taking good pics from the stalls. Here goes anyway.

1/2-Dress Rehearsal

The show is beginning to come together on stage now. I was expecting a full technical piano dress rehearsal with most of the costumes in place, but what with one thing and another, that isn't quite what happened!
It’s actually in fairly good shape despite the seeming chaos. The big problem has been the head of the ballet [Russian], issuing a different cast list to the wardrobe from the Choreographer/director [Danish]. These lists line up quite a lot of the time, but when they don't, well, costumes have been made for the wrong people, Tourists as distinct from Neapolitans, for instance.
Mmmm.
I have to be careful what I write here, [I would like to work again] - I will just say this - if you think ‘musicians in charge’ should cause you to duck, you should try dancers – they communicate best in mime!

I love these dancers sitting on the side of the stage, one darning her pointe shoes, the other with her woolly leggings under her finale costume.

The soloist in the very Bournonville pose, [look at the hands] is Teresina in her wedding dress for Act 3.

Today, heaven help me, we have a hated "dress parade", an infernal invention designed to allow all dancers and choreographers to grumble a lot and cause confusion and give notes to the wrong people. However, given the list fiasco, it is the only way anyone can think of to sort things out.

The Trtyakov Gallery

Last Tuesday I went with Mikael Melbye to the Tretyakov gallery, which is simply amazing. Whole schools of Russian painting such as 19th century landscape, portraiture and genre paintings that I hardly knew existed. I particularly liked this little pair of sisters. The other impressive thing is that by lunchtime it was full of families on a day out, it isn't free, and there are very few tourists at this time of year. Good news for the appreciation of Russian culture, I thought.

Saturday Afternoon again.

A blog-free few days as to begin with I felt too tired, and then had 3 WiFi free days, O how one misses it! All functioning again now though. I was unable to do any fittings this afternoon because the entire cast + extras and children have been in the rehearsal studio all day, and will be tomorrow as well.

I made enquiries as to how on earth one got the people you needed as I hadn't seen anyone who might be called a stage manager to insist that fittings happened, and it seems there is no such person. The only person, apart from the Choreographer, his assistants and the ballet teachers is a trade union official who's present principally to prevent anyone doing anything during their breaks - she doesn't care about costume fittings... There is, I'm told a being who manages the stage, in the sense of running the show, but no team as we know it who attends the rehearsals and then moves into position to run things when the stage time begins. Mmm- 5 maybe 6 ballet masters but no stage manager! Therefore the person to whom the Head of Wardrobe is wont to scream "no fittings - no frocks" at regular intervals simply doesn't exist, and of course, nobody else cares that much, they will soon though.

Next Wednesday which is the 1st piano dress rehearsal in costume, could well be pandemonium. Everything in the workrooms looks lovely, but some things are still being cut out!

Saturday Afternoon.

Just 2 fittings yesterday, one for the mother, Veronica which was very good, and the second one for the Flower Seller" who turned out to be the most extraordinary little person, called Viola. She arrived in the fitting room wearing a brilliantly coloured kimono, outsize shower hat, dark glasses and killer heels, no unseemly scrabbling about changeing from her street clothes or undignified underwear moments for her.
She could hardly have been more unsuitable as a flower seller, really, as she was entirely queenly throughout, and accepted it as completely her due when I complained that it was difficult to make her look un-aristocratic.
She was one of the tiniest human beings I have ever met, and must have been a sensational Odette/Odile, her most famous starring role 40, maybe 50 years ago. [She was born in 1933, they told me, so that makes her still performing at 76.] She probably joined the ballet school 70 years ago, hard to imagine really. She executed a perfect curtain call bow when I said she could have a hat for act 3 - it was beyond my skills to describe a "fascinator" to either her or the interpreter, so a hat with flowers it will have to be. And she brought me chocolates and a minute embroidered hankie for "womens' day" as I was clearly man-less in Moscow.

Friday

Managed to get in on the metro without getting lost. This is Pushkinskaya Station, where the theatre is.
I went to watch the dancers rehearsing, this is Teresina, our heroine with Frank Anderson, the choreographer.
Then loads of fittings.
The underwater people, naiads and so forth are supposed to look as if they are dressed in seaweed and water crystals. This is really hard to do, as the combination of apparent fragility and hardwearing toughness is quite a challenge. We are not there yet...
The humans look much better, very pretty, or full of character, according to what's wanted. The Russian makers are very skilled indeed once they get going, luckily I do quite clear drawings, have an interpreter at all times, and am getting almost as good as the dancers at expressive mime!

Moscow March 2009

This month sees the culmination of the complete version of the Danish ballet Napoli, of which we did act 1 in Prague almost exactly a year ago.
I arrived in Moscow for the final rehearsal and production period on last Monday, [March 2nd] for once the plane was early, and immigration hassle free. The Stanislavski Theatre owns 5 0r 6 apartments in a strange bleak Moscow suburb of high rise blocks, a 15 - 20 minute walk and 4 alarming metro stops from the Pushkinskaya station round the corner from the theatre. which I must attempt again in a minute ... They will send a car if it if too dark, wet or I'm not feeling up to it, but I feel I should make the effort when all is OK, and the sun is shining, like this morning.