Third Week of Rehearsal
page 9

As the opera continues, a few of us help Mephistopheles unite Faust and Marguerite in the “bed scene.” I was chosen for this scene based on my silly walk. The director asked us to demonstrate silly walks, and the other demons burst out laughing when I did mine, which was a bit disconcerting. I guess that meant it was silly enough.

During this scene, we demons carry a bed through a door, whip off its cloth covering, and arrange it for Marguerite’s entrance. Well, the bed is rather big, and the door is rather small, so it almost never happens that the bed goes right through the door. And the tops of the bedposts are higher than we can reach, so it almost never happens that we whip the cover right off the bed. The props people put snaps in the cover to make it easier to take off, and last night they removed the finials from the tops of the bedposts so that the cover wouldn't get stuck on them. We’ve spent hours working out the details of a piece of business that lasts about twenty seconds.

Toward the end of the opera, demons swoop down on Faust to take him to the abyss. I'm a little disappointed that I’m not in this scene, but the director needed tall people to hide the piece of stage that lifts Mephistopheles and Faust. The demons’ role in this scene is routine—they wave capes around to hide the rising stage; the “princes of darkness” (eight members of the male chorus) get to interact with Mephistopheles, which is much more fun.

We met Marguerite, Angela Denoke, for the first time yesterday. She’s a small, slender woman with cropped blond hair. Although she joins us in the “bed scene,” we don't really interact with her, and we don't appear at all with the fourth listed principal, Gregory Stapp. Both David Kuebler, who plays Faust, and Kristinn Sigmundsson, who plays Mephistopheles, are pleasant and charming, and oddly similar looking—attractive in a stocky, craggy sort of way. They look very ordinary in street clothes—but I caught a glimpse last night of what Sigmundsson will look like during the “bed scene.” At one point Mephistopheles flashed us an evil grin, which was very effective, with his dark eyes. He’s going to be great.

I've mentioned several times the countless people involved in this production. On my way to rehearsal, I greeted a dresser boarding BART, a director sitting at an outdoor café, and a supernumerary walking down the street. It hadn't occurred to me that accepting this role would significantly expand my circle of friends and acquaintances.

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First Day - 1 2
Second Day - 3 4
Second Week - 5 6
Third Week - 7 8 9
Final Week - 10 11 12

“In this staging the chorus is—what's the word I want—a proscenium. That's it. I'm sure you've been called other things.”
—Conductor