Orchestrating details

The schedule for today is listed as ‘Faust, stage and orchestra.’ It’s the first time I will have heard the orchestra — in this case, The London Philharmonic — since the last season, and the sound they make is nothing less than glorious, bringing the music alive with shivering, magical verve. Already the corridor outside the pit doors is cluttered with cello cases, and the sound of their locks clunking open echoes off the walls. 

‘Pearl!’ calls Simon the timpanist as he wheels a giant kettle drum into the pit. He re-emerges a moment later to give me a hug and a kiss on the cheek. ‘How are you?’ He asks. As I reply that I’m doing well, he pumps my rib cage so that my voice comes out all vibrato, and what can you do but giggle? He’s been swimming that morning, he tells me, in an outdoor pool. ‘So invigorating,’ he explains.

‘Pearl!’ It’s lovely Lee, the tuba player. 

‘How are the kids?’ I ask. ‘One’s a teenager and the other is warming up to it,’ he replies. Others are standing about amidst the rubble of instrument cases, making plans for the show. ‘It’s forty minutes until I play and then another forty minutes until I play again so I’m thinking, maybe I could go for a little run in-between? I feel I ought to do something.’

‘Well, I can’t run because of my knees…’ and so on.

Back in the ladies’ chorus dressing room, I’m lacing a singer into her dress coat. ‘I know I don’t really have to pee,’ she tells me, ‘It’s just a phantom feeling. It’s because I know that this will be my last chance for a very long time.’

The rehearsal gets underway. But as the morning progresses, the conductor keeps hauling everything to a stop and jumping back and forth in the score, which makes our plots, timed to the second, meaningless. Those of us who are not yet intimately familiar with the opera are quickly lost, and it doesn’t take long before I miss a cue for handing out masks. The chorus men are teasing me, loudly grumbling about how it’s such a lot of bother to have to bend over and pick their own masks out from my basket instead of having me hand them out. ‘Such a waste of time!’ says Andrew, winking at me. I sit back down on the bottom step of the tread unit, shrouded in the dark, and decide to stay put so that I don’t risk missing anything else. 

As the musicians sweat it out in the pit and on the stage, the crowd of shadowy figures backstage are getting restless and bored, and have descended into burbling gossip and chatter. 

'I do like a radish, but they’re very noisy.'

'I met the human sperm, and he was quite good looking actually.'

At lunch time, I am glad to escape the backstage darkness and dissolve into the magnificent, sun-soaked gardens. As wonderful as it can be, working backstage means a big sacrifice in daylight, so I sit by a warm wall in the rose garden and take off my socks and shoes, resolving to suck up as much vitamin D as I can. can’t be sure when our cues are coming up. On the way back in I pass Blossom, holding court in a corridor with a gaggle of makeup artists. ‘Does everyone know it’s the opening night party next Saturday?’ She’s asking.

‘Are you organising it, Blossom?’

‘No, I’m just interfering,’ she says, and starts counting off party tasks on her fingers. ‘So, we need to make sure the posters are going up, and that everyone knows, and that there will be transport, and fireworks on the lawn...’

During the afternoon, the chorus are being held captive on stage, which means their dressers can sneak into the auditorium to watch some of the rehearsal. 

Exhausted singers and dancers are practically dragging themselves around the set, but the conductor will not let up on them. He makes everyone stop and redo a scene change, because someone carried off a table too noisily. I hadn’t noticed the distraction myself, but when they try it again, I can hear that the glimmering alchemy of the music is able to weave its spell unfettered. A few minutes later, he stops the orchestra again. ‘At the top of the crescendo, I want to hear a thpt - a poison dart.’ He stabs the air with his baton. ‘David, your vibrato was too fast.’ Piece by piece, as it comes together, the music combined with the libretto is stunning.

Chris Purves, playing Mephistopheles, steps downstage to deliver a monologue in French. Resplendent in ghoulish makeup and a wig that hangs past his ears like pond weeds, he looms over the orchestra as spooky lights play across his face. The unsettling drone of a deep, eerie bass tone colours the scene with an ominous ambience. ‘Shit, hang on,’ says Chris suddenly, fishing in his coat pocket as the drone plays on. He pulls out his lines, prompting himself.

Finally, we get around to the curtain calls, but the day isn’t over yet — it has been decreed that some earlier scenes need more work. Meanwhile, the wigs and makeup crews are necking caffeine in the kitchen to try and keep up.  

When I finally make it back to Lewes, I have to dive into the supermarket and stock up on emergency energy fuel myself.