I was asked by a Weibo follower what the rehearsal process is at the Metropolitan Opera. I am covering now, but will sing in February and March of 2015.
First, this is very important to understand: when you arrive at the MET and ready to work, you must already have the music well learned and memorized. You cannot arrive and not know the music.
I often work in Asia and I arrive to work with different companies and all ages of singers. Many of them are not prepared with the music. This is a shame for a couple reasons:
1. if you are not prepared, it is almost impossible to catch up. If you do catch up with memorization, you may not have a good feel for the translation or for the singing, as you have been too busy memorizing.
2. You make the process slow for your colleagues and you waste their time. If you are wasting their time, they know it, and you will not be respected.
3. At the Met as with many theaters, there simply is not enough time during a production schedule to ‘catch people up’ in the process. If you arrive not prepared, you may be terminated quickly.
In the end, not being prepared means that you don’t give the audience all that they need and have paid for. You cheat them. You should NEVER cheat your audience.
So, you arrive with everything well memorized and then you have a coaching with an experienced pianist who knows the music and language. After that you have an ensemble rehearsal, and maybe one more individual coaching to clean up any problems.
Then there is a rehearsal with orchestra where we sit and listen to the artists. We make notes what the conductor does for tempos so that if we need to sing we are able to do exactly as he wants it.
The second step is the stage work where as a cover (I am covering remember, I will sing in February), they give you maybe 2-3 times to rehearse each scene -This is very little time. Then we have a piano run-through of the opera in the large backstage room. After this we are generally free unless we must go on for another artist because of illness.
I cannot stress that truly being professional means being totally prepared, a good colleague, and on time for every rehearsal. In fact, I am very nervous if I am not at the MET and near my rehearsal room a minimum of 15 minutes before the scheduled time.
These are the procedures at the MET for a cover artist.
I will write about a singing artist and what is required, soon.
