Wow!
We are ready to roll for initial, tech, and dress rehearsals at
Lesher Center for the Arts (Walnut Creek),
in preparation for Goat Hall Productions / San Francisco Cabaret Opera's Fresh Voices XVI: Memories and Desires, (8:15pm, Fridays-Saturdays, August 12-13, 26-27),
featuring Mark Alburger's
Alma Maria Schindler Mahler Gropius Werfel, Op. 232, and the
Jostein Stahlheim / John Bilotta
Rosetta's Stone.
The day is not without its challenges, including a supply run,
picking up the
van,
loading,
driving
there
(with
a
nice
elevated view of environs),
having a very foreshortened set-up in order to allow sufficient time for rehearsal of both pieces.
Alma clocks in at 1:07 (X, XXX, and XLV having been abbreviated over the 10-week practice period + a few vamps added and tempos slowed), including..
I. 1879 - ANNA SOFIE BERGEN (Alma's Mother)
IV. 1882 -
OMA BERGEN (Photograph I / Alma's Grandmother)
VIII. 1886 - OSKAR KOKOSCHKA (Alma's Constant Lover)
XV. 1893 - ALMA / SOPHIE / GRETE (Photograph III / Alma's Family Portrait)
XXXVII. 1915 - SIEGFRIED OCHS / WALTER GROPIUS / OSKAR KOKOSCHKA
(Alma's 2nd Marriage)
XXXVIII. 1916 - MANON GROPIUS (Alma's 3rd Daughter)
XL. 1918 - HULDA RESERL / HERMINE MOOS / MARTIN WERFEL
(Kokoschka's Design / Alma's Son)
LVII. -
1935 MANON GROPIUS / ALBAN BERG (Manon / Berg's Deaths)
LX. 1938 - ANSCHLUSS (Alma's Departure)
149th day of summer, high 95 (92 days 80+ / 56 90-or-better ... Walnut Creek, 86), upon return, composing The Great Widow (Alma, Part II), Op. 255: LXVII. 1945 - Moll / Eberstaller / Mussolini / Hitler / Werfel (Alma's Deaths) and
LXVIII. 1946 - Thomas Mann / Bruno Walter / Clair Goll (Alma's Prospects).
