Jul. 6th, 2006

pallas_athena: (Default)
"We're doing the Weinberger," said the plummy voice on the other end of the phone. This was two weeks ago. Previously I hadn't known what translation of Fledermaus these people were doing, so I'd been working on it in German.

Huge sigh of relief: I went out and bought the Weinberger edition of Fledermaus with English translation by Hassall. This was the same translation I'd learnt for another production many moons ago, so a week's work got me offbook.

Last night was the one-and-only rehearsal, and I went along feeling very positive. The conductor introduced us all, then gave the signal to begin Act I.

And the chorus started singing.

"Hang on," I thought, "There's no chorus in Act I of Fledermaus!"

Then the tenor started his solo, and the words he was singing bore no resemblance to the words in my score.

Turns out that Weinberger also do an opera-society version of Fledermaus with lots more chorus, random repeats, random cuts and everything in different keys. And, of course, a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT TRANSLATION from the one in the standard Weinberger edition. I sight-read my way through it last night, and now I have one day to get it performance-ready. That whole month I spent working on the score? Wasted.

Felchbuckets.
pallas_athena: (Default)
"We're doing the Weinberger," said the plummy voice on the other end of the phone. This was two weeks ago. Previously I hadn't known what translation of Fledermaus these people were doing, so I'd been working on it in German.

Huge sigh of relief: I went out and bought the Weinberger edition of Fledermaus with English translation by Hassall. This was the same translation I'd learnt for another production many moons ago, so a week's work got me offbook.

Last night was the one-and-only rehearsal, and I went along feeling very positive. The conductor introduced us all, then gave the signal to begin Act I.

And the chorus started singing.

"Hang on," I thought, "There's no chorus in Act I of Fledermaus!"

Then the tenor started his solo, and the words he was singing bore no resemblance to the words in my score.

Turns out that Weinberger also do an opera-society version of Fledermaus with lots more chorus, random repeats, random cuts and everything in different keys. And, of course, a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT TRANSLATION from the one in the standard Weinberger edition. I sight-read my way through it last night, and now I have one day to get it performance-ready. That whole month I spent working on the score? Wasted.

Felchbuckets.

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