I am going to try to attempt to fit in 3 weeks of fun-filled and bloody hard work of rehearsals into a blog post!
Impossible, really. the last few weeks of my easter holidays consisted of rehearsals day and night culminating in the arrival of the RTE Symphony Orchestra a few days ago!
The first night we got to perform with them was quite amazing! For me, anyway! I found it amusing that some cast members were pretending to be all “cool with it”, as if they were used to singing with the RTE symhpony orchestra every day. Well, maybe, they are but even if I did this as a day job, I’d still be overwhelmed and privileged. My Father-in-Law sang with them many years ago in the National Symphony Hall and he still speaks about it.
Lisa from Athena Media dropped in last night to speak with some of the cast about their final thoughts on the Opera for Carlow. She brought my attention to the Performance Preview, which can be found here. “Shelter me from the rain” is the song that you can hear at the beginning of the podcast. It sounds great! Click here http://audioboo.fm/boos/347843-an-opera-for-carlow-performance-preview I love Damien’s reference to being in a secret society! Lisa has done an amazing job of archiving all these interviews and gelling them together in a super podcast! She’s also a lovely person and have been delighted to meet her! Everytime, I listen to her podcasts, they get me extremely motivated again!
Last night was the Dress Rehearsal, which went well. The audience seemed to enjoy it though there is still room for improvement, which we hope to perfect tonight.
Tonight is the first performance with a civic reception after with all the important people of Carlow invited! Naturally, the cast are all going!
Anyway, if you still haven’t got tickets, it’s too late! they sold out but check back at gbstheatre.ie in case they have cancellations!
I’ll update after the show and when I have slept for about a month!
The main photo here is of the full cast on the stairs in the Dolmen Hotel, I’m second from bottom left! The full photo album can be viewed here http://www.flickr.com/photos/rozzlewis/sets/72157626540073598/ and I’m constantly adding to them so please, return! I’m hoping to get loads of professional photos loaned to us so I will put them all up too!
