A personal account by Elgan Llŷr Thomas:
The role of Tom Rakewell in Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress is gargantuan.The story takes him from a cocky and careless country-boy to a browbeaten beggar of Bedlam and this progression takes over two hours of near-constant singing; tiring but fabulous.
The last time I played Tom was as an EQ Young Artist back in 2019, taking the production to Brussels, Ojai and Aldeburgh. When Barbara asked me back for this tour, this time as an alumni of the programme, I accepted with giddy eagerness. Not only was it another opportunity to step into this wonderful role but also to benefit from all else that Equilibrium offers and to make my debut in Sweden with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra.
I had expected the first week of rehearsals to take place in Paris, as they had in 2019, but I was pleasantly surprised when Barbara invited us to Morlaix in Bretagne, it was somewhere neither myself nor anyone else in the team had been, other than Barbara herself of course. The town and its residents were delightful and we quickly settled in for our week of rehearsals and workshops.
As these were to be semi-staged performances for concert halls, meaning that Barbara and the orchestra would be behind us as opposed to a more traditional presentation with the orchestra in the pit and Barbara in front, we knew musical preparation would be the first priority. This score is tricky for all musicians involved, the singers, orchestra and conductor. It’s true that most of the music had stuck in my brain from the previous time I’d done it, but not all. There are some moments in the role that are fiendish, and in every performance those moments would require my full attention. We worked quickly to stage the entire opera that week with our marvellous director, Josie Daxter. In order to use all the time we had effectively Josie introduced us to some acting exercises so that we would have a short hand for any physicality she wanted from us, this was highly effective and saved a lot of time (an opera like The Rake’s Progress would normally be given six weeks to rehearse if it were fully staged, in total I think we had less than two).
As well as rehearsing we would have yoga every morning with a wonderful local instructor, she would wake our bodies up and get our breath moving. The only downside to this was the realisation that we couldn’t each take her with us in our pockets forevermore, we would have to do it alone without her dulcet, French tones guiding us.
We also benefitted from having a dreamy rehearsal venue, SEW. Not only did we have the use of multiple studios but we also benefitted from the restaurant downstairs where our lunch was prepared every day by a Michelin starred chef. Life as an opera singer is not usually this way, I swear.
We all left Morlaix feeling positive that when we would come together again in Sweden that we were in a good place musically and dramatically, all we had to do was to retain all the work we had done over the following five week interlude… piece of cake…right?
Well we didn’t forget everything! In fact we were all surprised by how much had stuck. We all arrived in Örebro ready to work and got right back to it with staging. We now knew how much playing space we would have on the concert platform, more than we originally thought and we made full use of the hall. We now had our costumes and props, we had lighting and most importantly of all we had our orchestra! When working for an opera company singers very rarely get to spend much time with the orchestra, we meet them once face to face for the sitzprobe (first orchestral rehearsal with no staging, just pure music) and then we have our onstage rehearsals with the orchestra in the pit. We may bump into some players around the theatre but usually its a polite smile and maybe a ‘you’re all sounding fabulous!’ said in passing. It’s a little sad that it’s like this but there really isn’t time for much more… but not with Equilibrium.
Barbara introduces the singers to orchestra and orchestra to singers in such a way that we are instantly connected, knowing we are all equal parts of the performance no matter how many notes we have to sing or play, all there for one common purpose which is to bring the score to life and have fun along the way. Musicians tend to be very friendly and so one naturally would assume Swedish musicians to be even more so, and we were not disappointed, a more lovely an ensemble I couldn’t wish to meet.
It doesn’t happen on every job but one of the things I love most about being a musician, and more specifically an opera singer, is when a cast becomes close enough to drop our egos. When we can turn to each other and say ‘does that sound ok?’, ‘are my words clear enough?’, ‘am I pulling a stupid face?’ I know we’re onto a winner. This kind of openness and trust is difficult to achieve but Barbara creates an environment where this is encouraged, it isn’t about inflating one’s ego by fishing for compliments, it’s a genuine striving for the best possible performance and interpretation.
With all our rehearsals done we were ready for our first performance which was met with a standing ovation and smiles all round. Our remaining performances in Stockholm and Cologne were equally well received and all that’s left to say is: Barbara, can we do it again please?
