"Carmen" First Night in Dunedin

New Zealand Listener, Volume 19, Issue 468, 11 June 1948, Page 6

"Carmen" First Night in Dunedin

ANY a member of the New Zealand forces had his first taste of grand opera in Italy during the war. The large majority savoured it, found it good, and longed for more. New Zealand had had few visits from fullscale companies, and only at long intervals, though local societies, at times, presented their own productions. Bizet’s Carmen, with the two stars imported from London by the NZBS, some really capable minor principals, a chorus of 65, and 45 or so members of the National Orchestra of the NZBS, opened to a Dunedin audience which left no seats empty in His Majesty’s Theatre. The first-nighters took their opera seriously. Some of the women paid the occasion the compliment of wearing evening gowns and furs; a few men made pre-war studies in black and white with dress suits or dinner suits. But for this account of Carmen’s opening to a tour of the four main centres, The Listener went back-stage, from the final dress-rehearsal to the curtain-call of the first night. At the final dress-rehearsal-C-night minus one-Janet Howe was worried. Her costumes had not arrived from the pressers, and it was _starting-time. Arthur Servent was making up in his room on the other side of the stage. The stage-manager was in charge, leaving the producer to sit in his stall, watch, listen, and occasionally shout a direction. Sitting on an upturned box, the property-man (an old professional) whispered, "This is definitely my last show, and believe me, I’m right up to concert-pitch." So was everybody else. There is a stage superstition which has

it that a bad final rehearsal is a guarantee of a good show. But both, in Dunedin, were good enough for the artists to congratulate themselves on their work and the audience to express its satisfaction excitedly. His Big Moment In one scene a gunshot is required. This was the property-man’s big moment. His gun, with-a blank cartridge, was ready, biit-he took no chances. Alongside he had a chair-seat and a slab of wood-‘"Rifles are a bit iffy, you know, mightn’t go off." (But on the big first night the first pull of the trigger ‘startled the chorus, stagehands, and everybody else except the principals.) To the theatre-goer whose experience is confined to the auditorium, a backstage scene is one of apparently wild confusion. Carmen soldiers tighten up their shako-straps, gipsies tighten their earrings, and those not required immediately slip outside for a smoke. The musical director has a word «with the furnace-man, "Don’t get the theatre too hot; it affects the pitch of the instruments." A stage-hand peers around the wings to see that his carefully built campfire for one of the scenes is smoking effectively. "I always use rock-lime, you know; it soon steams up with the warmth of the lights." After a satisfactory rehearsal, everybody was sent home with the injunction to have a good sleep and be on hand early next night. With a full house the atmosphere of the theatre was changed subtly by the excitement of a first. night. Patrons enjoyed the anticipatory

moment or two. when, with the footlights on and the curtain down, the orchestra did its final tuning and the cast waited for the stage-manager’s "Beginners please." One or two more telegrams arrived wishing players good luck and then the stage-doors were closed. Anybody without a stage-pass had tot stay outside. From then on until the final curtain-call Carmen and Don José went through their stormy love-passages, the minor principals and chorus played their parts and the audience warmed to the familiar music. Seven Microphones Used For broadcasting Carmen many hundreds of feet of cable and seven microphones were used. Two were hung from the flies, one was used fot the orchestra, three were in the footlights, and one was for the announcer in the dresscircle. So as not to encroach on the normal equipment used by the Dunedin radio station, a special type of microphone, with extra cable, was flown from Wellington on the day before the opening performance. During the rehearsals and the first public peformance, excerpts from the opera were recorded by the mobile unit of the NZBS, near the theatre, to check the balance of the music and to accustom the technicians to following the cast on the stage. Test recordings of a stage performance are more difficult to secure than commercial discs, for in the latter the cast and. chorus are stationary. x On the professional stage it was the custom once upon a time to celebrate

a successful first night with a behind-the-cur-tain supper, and though the stage and its people are a close corporation, the more knowledgeable stage-door callers and regular habitues were sometimes invited to join in the fun until the early hours. But Dunedin’s chorus and the minor principals had their ordinary work to do next day and so half an hour after the curtain had dropped for the last time on opening night, the theatre was empty, save for the cleaners and a_e few _ essential workers, discussing technical details. Only one batten illuminated the stage which a_ short time. before had been a. blaze of Spanish noonday sun. And the scenery was being stacked away in order of future requirement. On the following day snatches from the opera -mostly "The Toreador’s Song" — were whistled and hummed in Dunedin’s _ shops, offices, and streets, and seats for the seven other performances of Carmen in Dunedin were almost completely booked out.