Rehearsals: Where the Magic Happens

This meme has been floating around the Facebook pages of my various musician friends for a while now. All musicians can relate to it. For you regular people, this would be like comparing studying for days and weeks for an exam when that exam is over in 2 hours. (Cue the Doctor saying: "Well it's not really like that, but if it helps, then yes it is.")

This meme refers to the amount of work that is in entailed in preparing for a concert. Not only does it involve learning the music, it involves preparing it stylistically and interpretively; practicing your own technique to be able to perform the music in fine form; if you're an opera singer, it also involves doing character work such as an actor would do. AND it involves--you guessed it--rehearsals! Wut!

When I first saw this meme, my mind went straight to all the things I mentioned above. However over the last couple of years I've been learning what rehearsal is really for. For me, as an opera singer, I find that rehearsals are for many things:

1) Getting the jitters out. Even if you're en experienced performer, the first day of rehearsals can often be a tad nerve-wracking. Sometimes you're working with people you've never met before or you're performing a certain piece for the first time. It's like a first date. Only hopefully more pleasant.

2) Finding your family. Rehearsals are for settling into your surroundings and getting a feel for the other players. You start to establish musical relationships with your co-workers and slowly things begin to take form.

3) Breakthroughs. There's only so much work you can do on your own. You can do as much character work as you want, and practice your high notes (or low notes!!) til the cows come home; but nothing can prepare you for the feeling of singing those notes while enveloped by an orchestra; nor can it replace the inspiration your fellow cast members can offer when they're playing their character against yours; undoubtedly your own character will undergo some change.

4) Solidifying the product. This is not always reached because many times we don't have enough rehearsal for it to be completely flawless. It's also up for debate whether this stage exists at all, because in art, perfection is never truly achieved. There's always room to improve and to change and each concert we do can alter how we approach and perform our music.

I've probably told this story already but oh well, it's fitting: Last year I remember going through my Dialogues des Carmelites score and just balling when reading some passages that my character was singing. Through the rehearsal process, other passages started to touch me more and I would burst into tears when least expecting to. By the time of the performances, I was in complete control of my emotions because I had explored all that inner turmoil business beforehand. But you better believe those opera-goers were feeling things. And I think that's the point: The shows are for the audience. The rehearsals are for you.

You never know when inspiration will hit and your performance will change. Rehearsals keep things interesting and they keep things moving. If all were prepared and packaged before we got into the rehearsal space then we would never get the chance to evolve. And that's just boring.