Final Countdown: Nightmares and vampires

Only a few days left to practice and a few nights not to sleep. What are your nightmares like before a big performance? I've had the classics: desperately searching for the stage door, but never finding it - having forgotten the music - not wearing the right clothes - and then some weirder ones, like having the hall filled with spiders and other unpleasant things. So that's the nights.

Latest in fashion: winter wear

The days have been more pleasant: we've been really working hard this week. Last week we had a break, since our soprano wanted to change her last name. So don't be surprised to read Anna-Maija Oka in the program notes; no-one was kicked out or replaced. Having returned to business on Monday we started to gather troops for the final battle. I have managed to buy fake blood, and Itzam has managed to get his arm seriously sore from waving it around in front of hardworking musicians. Milla has been down with a vicious flu, but thanks to the Benevolent Gods of Voice, she starts to be back in fighting form. And Anna-Maija sings just as beautifully with a shorter last name, too.

Today we took over Camerata for the first time, and went through all the motions and the running around. We won't have the actual lights until Monday, but today was anyway more about getting a feel of the hall and testing distances and suchlike. What you always should remember in staging things is that if you're not super-rich, you probably will have to practice in a place different to the one where you perform. That takes planning, caution and luck - for example, the Camerata stage was a bit narrower than we thought, so some things had to be reorganized. There's also one insanely heavy door, and some things had to be changed because that door takes way longer to open than we would've guessed. So remember: do your homework and leave room for surprises if you attempt something similar!

We asked for a sun and this is what Eero came up with..

Tomorrow the band will practice with the performance clothes for the first time, and it will be exciting to see what kind of a vampire army we will make. (Seriously, we're not going to be a vampire army, but it's a persistent joke. We don't really know what we are. You'll have to use your imagination.) Eljas will be making final tweaks and directional touches, and on Monday Eero will work his magic with all the lights in action. There is no way this opera could be anything but spectacularly awesome.

Final countdown: Joining a band

Sometimes a person needs some arrows to survive.

A bit over two weeks left, and the band met for the first time to make art. If you've seen any posters or other advertisement, you probably know we're called Korwamato-ensemble. This group consists of

Johanna Kärkkäinen, flute; Kristjan Parts, clarinet; Natalia Vaskinova, violin; Iiris Tötterström, cello; and myself behind a piano. Itzam is conducting, since he's the one who made the stuff we're supposed to play.

So we met and we rehearsed, twice. For me it was a surprisingly big change to become a part of the band. Having been rehearsing with the sopranos alone for quite some time, suddenly I had to stop being the leader of the situation and start following Itzam's orders. I realized halfway through the first rehearsal that I'm sometimes just blatantly ignoring whatever Itzam's doing and taking my own tempi (a bit embarrassing, that). I also realized that I felt really defensive about my previous role as the person in charge - perhaps I was enjoying it more than I was willing to admit to anyone. However, as the rehearsal continued life got easier, and the second rehearsal was free from any personal crisis.

Here's a quick clarification about the life of a pianist:

Usually, when doing a full-scale opera, the pianist is the one rehearsing with singers, and then the band and conductor take over and finish the job. Our case is different because I'm also part of the band - and that's where my role changes.

Now enough about me. Rehearsals were first a complete chaos, as they always are. Luckily the musicians we've got are complete pros, and the second rehearsal was much more of a success. Jääkausi is not an easy piece for the players, let's get that straight. It's got microtones (Microtones are notes that exist between the notes you can play on the piano - they sound wrong but that's how they're supposed to sound. It's art.) - it's got complex rhythms (That's when people are playing really different things and it sounds messy but the mess is actually calculated to sound exactly like that.) - it's got fast things that change to other fast things. The other instruments have plenty of flashy and weird techniques to use, too, and sometimes we really sound like the army of the dead; which is what the director pretty much wants us to look like, too.

Today is yet another rehearsal, after which we will have a creative break for the rest of the week. That's due to a certain private event that needs some peace around itself. And then comes next week and that's the last and most intense one. Stay tuned.

Final countdown: Three weeks left, and where's the fake blood?

Three weeks to the premiere looks like this:

Eljas and Milla finding meaningful things from the score.

Jenna pointing out meaningful things from the score.

So we've got the date, we've got the posters and we've got some publicity. 

(If you don't have anything too important to do tomorrow at around 14.25, tune your radio to Yle Radio 1 - or your computer to Yle Areena. We're performing an unforgettably shamanistic duet from Jääkausi.)

But what's really going on? - I thought I'd tell you.

I'm little by little hunting down things we will need in our performance, like red heels, fake blood and white overalls. I'm also finding out things about the things we will need in our performance, like how washable is fake blood really? (Answer: some brands are easily removed, some not quite so) and how noisy are the overalls in Motonet? In the meantime Eero, our visual designer, is coming up with solutions like how to have a sun in a bowl, or how to create the eternal spiral of time. Itzam is going through the score and learning how to conduct it, and the singers are trying to remember everything by heart.

In the rehearsals we're going through a mixed phase, which is beautifully reflected in the multiple schedules I've sent to people, depending on what they need to know. There are the rehearsals with only the band dealing with stuff; rehearsals with band and singers, tying to make music; then there are the rehearsals where only I'm playing and Eljas is making his staging art with the sopranos; and finally the full rehearsals with everybody and everything happening at once.

The staging side of things is slowly forming into a coherent whole, and music, too, begins to diminish. Diminishing in this context - for me - is as follows: When you start to learn a new piece of music, it feels huge. Moving from one page to the next is a lot of stuff, and the end seems to be very far from the beginning. Getting more acquaintanced with the music it starts to feel more like a graspable thing - you begin to have a sense of its structure, the overarching shape, and it really feels like the piece is getting smaller. You're not looking at it like an infinite field of notes, but more like a detailed map you know how to navigate.

(Reading this again I have understood that explaining myself clearly is a skill I'll have to develop further. But hopefully you grasp my meaning, or half.)

So. Having this petite piece in our hands and turning into an acted thing where players are also doing stuff, lights are on and a conducter is whirling his hands around - that's what happens now.

Ps. Have you seen a poster yet? I've heard they look amazing.

Artistic director, the meaning of trying to be an

The rehearsals have begun in earnest and a lot of things are happening. Fast. Having appointed myself "artistic director" I think now's the time to look at that title and the things it entails more closely.

Artistic director sounds like an important person who does big, important things. Looks down from majestic heights upon common singers and musicians alike. Not really true, that. In reality I'm more like the janitor of this project: doing the bits and pieces that need doing, so others can make art happen. Of course I'm also the pianist of this extravaganza, but for me that's the easy part.

Being a janitor includes things like the poster (designing, creating, and printing it and spreading it around); program notes (what's in them, what's the layout like); being the contact person for press; being the contact person for everyone else; rehearsals (finding out schedules from 9 people, finding common times, booking rooms); the score (helping the composer edit, copying it, binding it); making sure everyone's informed about everything;... The list goes on.

Confession:

As a janitor, I feel perfectly uncertain - I stress, worry, and occasionally panic. But someone needs to do that, too; and it's good that only one person out of thirteen concerns themselves with the panicking business.

However, I guess the point I'm trying to make is that if you ever consider doing something like this yourself, I strongly recommend you make a list first about all the little details that will need doing. Not just the performance, but the tiny details that someone will have to take responsibility of. Then understand that all of those take more time than expected and they can go wrong. Accept that. Accept that there also are many things that you don't yet know you will have to take care of, and they can go wrong, too.

But delegation is the new black: I get plenty of help from this wonderful group (and from an irreplaceable, fabulously helpful significant other). Doing everything alone and dying under the pressure maybe misses the mark.

These are the ramblings of a self-appointed artistic director, who's probably having a power high ;)