Hell Week

The TOR has started "Hell Week." Over six days, we'll be putting on two dress rehearsals and four performances.  For me, the challenging part isn't so much performing onstage as waiting in the wings:  time seems to slow down then, like in those movies with a time bomb about to go off, where the counter seems to slow down as it gets close to zero.

This evening we dress-rehearsed TALES OF HOFFMANN.  The chorus wore makeup for the first time.  I can put it on pretty quick.  It was pretty chaotic when I first started nine years ago, but now they've posted the system on the wall.  First you put on foundation over your face and visible forehead. (You apply it with a sponge which you've wetted, squeezing out the excess water.) Then you apply shading under your chin, below your cheekbones and around your eyes.  Then you lighten your upper cheeks, nose and chin.  Then you use an eyebrow pencil to darken your eyes.  Then you add some rouge and lipstick. (For men it's a bit simpler than for women.)

The dress rehearsal went fairly smoothly, except at the start of Giulietta's story:  they had just 15 minutes to prepare the stage, and there was nobody to bring in the tree and statue decorations.  Some soloists had been helping with that, but now they're occupied with costume changes, so in future they'll need chorus people like me to volunteer our assistance.