The Work Onstage by Conductor and Guest Blogger Hal France

Apr 15, 2013

We are now just over one week into rehearsals and each day one sees and feels the promise of the work. We’ve entered the heart of the story with explorations, shaping and dramatic choices being made by artists Sam Ramey, Kara Shay Thomson and Director Andrew Eggert. In the process, each artist offers so much personal energy and investment to make things work. I’m not sure that, when seeing the performance onstage, fans realize how much personal vulnerability and ‘give and take’ is involved in the music theater collaboration.

This particular way of telling stories seeks the emotional ‘Ground Zero’ of human situations. It asks a lot of the people telling us the story, the singing actors. If we were to decide today, that there was no value in bringing out the strongest, most extreme things that happen inside people when they are pushed to the limit, opera should stop today! Most of us would not like our personal lives to be like operas. It would be just too intense. Most of us seek lives inside a comfort zone that’s manageable.

Bluebeard’s Castle as brought to life by the young Hungarians Bela Bartok and Bela Balasz in 1911 and tells the story of a situation that is beyond most comfort zones. That’s a good thing in my opinion. Do you go to the movies to see something that is exactly like your life?

Bartok and Balasz explored the ‘what ifs’ of intimate relationships and situations happening on the edge of reality. The process it shows us something of how people behave in relationships, the conflicts they have, the resolutions they attempt, and the dangers they risk. As they say, nothing about this story is something you should try at home, but getting out of the house and our comfort zones is something that we need to do.

Join us for the performances of Bluebeard’s Castle next Friday night, April 19 at 7:30pm or Sunday, April 21 at 2:00pm!

If you’d like to sample the music and story ahead of time, join me for a short preview in the lobby 45 minutes before curtain. Enjoy!

Tickets can be purchased online through Ticket Omaha or by calling 402-345-0606.

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