After Life

Richard Suart (Mr Walter) – Mr Walter wets himself on opening night…

Richard Suart — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 11:11:08 +0000

Now, that has caught your attention! And for many things nowadays, this is important – the actual truth, less so. Consider this story – very early in my career, over 25 years ago, i was appearing with a travelling opera company in the UK in Cole Porter’s Kiss Me Kate – it was a budget production and I had two roles – Kate’s father in Act 1 and Kate’s rich lover, Harrison Howell, in Act 2 – we thought it would look strange on the programme if Richard Suart was named as playing both characters, so I invented Dick Traus, whose surname is mine backwards, and Dick is a corruption of Richard – we even gave him his own biography in the programme which claimed that he had made his Covent garden debut as The Photographer in Britten’s Death in Venice – true, but then the role is a mute one! Furthermore he had made his English National Opera debut as the Weeping Nun in Janacek’s From The House of the Dead – true, however another mute role but for the screaming when being interfered with on the kitchen table by an inmate, (and screamed most loudly on the broadcast night for my family in Cumbria) – I had therefore ’sung’ in neither House, but the casual programme-reader might have been well impressed. I had to kill him off after The Stage newspaper gave him a better review than me!

So how did I come to wet myself? – well, I missed my mouth with a water bottle – this wonderful company thinks of everything and provides us with named bottles which we can use when off-stage – well, I never get off-stage so I take in a fair quantity right at the beginning – these bottles have a fixed straw, but I started squeezing before the straw found my mouth…a quick trip back to the make-up room, and all was well. No colostomy bag needed…yet…

So we have had two performances now, and generally they seem to have been well received – from our point of view, they have gone according to plan, the conveyor belt was a bit wayward on the first night, but I put that down to opening night nerves – it soon settled down – Sarah did not lose a contact lense, which she had done in an early rehearsal resulting in Mr Walter grubbing around on the conveyor belt in the darkness with no success – and she did not accidentally unplug my upstage TV on which there is a vital image of Otto – you might think I am looking at Video-Tapes of my life – but actually it is yet another monitor – and vital; at the second performance, the conductor’s image did not appear at the required moment which resulted in much wailing and gnashing of teeth, until someone made the correct connection backstage – this show is no easy ride!

Tonight is OperaFlirt night to which I am greatly looking forward – what a clever idea to get younger audiences to consider opera as an entertainment – this show is no laugh-a-minute, but it is totally absorbing and thought-provoking – demanding and moving, and ultimately rewarding.

And afterwards – let’s Flirt!!

After Life – trailer (nieuw)

webmaster — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 10:17:54 +0000

Er zijn nog voorstellingen op 29 september 2 3 4* oktober 2009
Het Muziektheater Amsterdam.

Bestel nu kaarten >

Richard Suart (Mr Walter) – Mr Walter learns to love the conveyor belt…

webmaster — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 11:56:22 +0000

The School of Correction to which we sent the conveyor belt has really done an excellent job, and I would recommend it for any other wayward children – it still offers surprises, but during our final rehearsals on stage, it conquered its former excesses of speed and furniture, and our General Rehearsal on Saturday night went without a hitch. Conveyor belts tend to come good in the end – I sang Ko-Ko in Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado for the Reisopera six years ago – and they had TWO belts – working in contrary motion as it were and meeting in the middle – this had the wonderful side effect of preventing the tenor from finding centre stage and delivering everything from there – you can imagine the consequences…and the temptations for the operators…I once saw a fine tenor negotiating a small revolve in an opera-house in Germany – at the beginning of his aria, and in order to try and give the effect of making a journey, it began to move and he was to start walking, thereby remaining in the same position on stage…except sometimes he forgot to keep moving (a high note?) with the effect that he sang most of his aria to the wings…it was always touching to behold the brain beginning to work again…which reminds me, there are no tenors in this show! Must ask Michel about this…

Our indefatigable conductor Otto asked me, when the posters for the show first went up around Amsterdam, whether I was recognised in the street a lot – and the answer is no, because poor Mr Suart is heavily made up, although not so heavily as three years ago! Age is important here – Mr Walter is 71 years old – and indeed he was 3 years ago, when the libretto mentioned that he had been born on April 3rd, 1935; if we had kept his birthdate the same, Mr Walter would now be 74, and if we get further revivals, he’ll be well into his eighties…so like all good mezzo sopranos do, I have changed the year of my birth to 1938, keeping me at 71, and giving the chaps who do the Dutch surtitles a big headache!

Today we open – the work of a concentrated rehearsal period of 5 weeks is to be offered; for a performer it is an enormous privilege to be able to take part in this challenge – it is truly an extraordinary piece for the stage from a composer who has a wonderful imagination and a desire to break new ground. I hope you will share this spirit of adventure with us.

After Life – episode 3 Alles komt bij elkaar

webmaster — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 15:44:12 +0000

Precies een week voor de première repeteren zangers en orkest voor het eerst samen. Michel van der Aa wordt voor de tweede keer vader van een zoon.

Prijsvraag Episode 3
Op welke dag werd de tweede zoon van Michel van der Aa geboren?

Klik op de titel van deze episode (boven de video) en vul het goede antwoord in (in onderstaand formulier). Hiermee maak je kans op twee vrijkaarten voor de première van After Life op 28 sep in Het Muziektheater Amsterdam.

Richard Suart (Mr Walter) – The Generation Game – and basic stage rules.

Richard Suart — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 11:25:05 +0000

The Computer Dress rehearsal is out of the way and one is reminded of some very basic stage rules for performers – if possible, try to avoid working with children or animals on stage: this of course is due to the unpredictability of the aforementioned categories. But the list needs to be lengthened to include “conveyor belts” – at least they don’t answer back, fly away or perform basic bodily functions, but they are about as badly behaved – and we have sent ours off to a special school for correction.
The truth is though that we cannot do without it – it moves imperceptibly from right to left upstage and brings with it life’s detritus – or rather furniture, electrical goods, toys, in fact anything that might help us remember important moments of our lives so that we may ultimately be sent away into eternity clutching our “beslissende moment”.
We arrived onstage at the CDR; this mighty machine should have been presenting the results of several visits to Charity shops by the designer – they come in bound to pallets and then get recycled (like all good waste) when they have made the journey across stage once – cohorts of stage hands are there stage left to receive them and quietly take them round the back so that they may begin their journey again in a later scene – rather like the elephants in Aida.
Nothing much was happening when we arrived but we merrily continued until asked to stop eventually because of “technical difficulties” – the belt had stopped altogether. I had delivered my first phrase and this had been enough to put a spanner in the works. Soon we were on our way again…
It wouldn’t be so bad if what I described about the conveyor belt was the sum total of its contribution, but actually it is a key element in the production as it provides us with various props at significant moments – and yes, you’re right, not content with just hunting the monitor, we’re now engaged in hunting the prop. Also we have to stay on it occasionally for a considerable length of time while there is other business on stage – there are basic rules of engagement here – do not get in the way of screen-projections or draw attention to yourself by moving quickly – but the motor for the belt has a sense of humour, so that when you are positioned comfortably it accelerates quickly with the result that you are through the side-curtains in a flash and well offstge for your next vocal contribution – the whole process reminds one strongly of a crematorium…
One also remembers the incomparable Bruce Forsyth (Nice to see you – to see you, nice!) in a family TV show called “The Generation Game”, where after having been silly things to do (Didn’t they do well?!) a member of the team has to remember as many items of goodies that are presented in front of them on yes, a conveyor belt – whatever they remember, they get to take home – and there is always a cuddly toy…
Although we tend to see the same things on our conveyor belt each night, I am told that there is a strong yearning to add bits when no-one is watching, in order to see what mirth might ensue – I was singing a final performance with the D’Oyly Carte Company in the UK some 20 years ago of Iolanthe, and the Lord Chancellor has to disappear upstage for a while to contemplate the fairies at the bottom of a stream, which is unseen to audience, as too I hope was the library of “adult” magazines that had been strategically placed for my amusement…
What you see on stage is very important for an audience – what you can’t see can be just as entertaining though!
A new beginning today as they say – the orchestra is with us on stage for the first time – another piece of the jigsaw that is After Life to slot into place – yes, life is one great big puzzle.

Richard Suart (Mr Walter) – Mr Walter goes to the car-wash.

Richard Suart — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 12:01:20 +0000

Bundled into a taxi at the stage door of DNO, as if being taken to an under-cover location, Mr Walter finds himself 15 minutes later in the West of Amsterdam in a light industry quarter being dropped off just outside a car-wash – could this be the HQ of the ASKO/Schoenberg ensemble? Brilliant camouflage I thought, but desperate that these contemporary music ensembles have to go to such lengths to protect their identity – I once filmed a scene for a TV opera in a car-wash in London – Marschner’s Der Vampyr – this was a rather brave attempt to create a true ’soap opera’ by airing it in bite-sized chunks every night of the week, with the whole show going out on the Sunday – what Marschner would have thought of such locations is another matter, or how one of his characters had become “car-wash manager” – but it was an unqualified success with one of the Vampire’s final victims being literally flushed out of a Merc in my care – valet parking was never the same again.

But it is actually next to the car-wash where the Ensemble rehearses, and this is where the joy begins – Michel announces that he has become a father for the second time – his son Tim arriving with immaculate timing on Sunday, his father’s only day off in our busy run-up to opening night – this guy will go far. Sincere congratulations follow from us all, and finally we hear Michel’s music again. During our 4 weeks of rehearsal, we have been blessed with a computer-generated sound of what might be accompanying us, which is very good as far as it goes, so the real sound does not throw us too much. In fact it is a considerable help – and an absolute joy to behold. We remember passages from before, but there is new music too, and great excitement around – he writes with such vitality, especially for the strings, and such imagination in instrument combinations and extreme pitches. This moment in a rehearsal process is always a high point – finally we all hear the whole piece; the instrumentalists have been rehearsing without the singers, and we have been listening to the dear computer for weeks – now at last, the piece comes together – and it is thrilling. So Michel has created two things of beauty this weekend – and we all applaud him again. Mr Walter, 71, childless – and dead of course, considers the extraordinary coincidence of both the conductor and composer now having two young sons – is there something in the water in IJburg?

Meanwhile back to the stage for the Piano Dress Rehearsal – so called, as it is normally the last time we do the piece on stage before the orchestra rejoin us – but of course, it really should be called the Computer Dress Rehearsal in our case – the ‘click-track’ will start, and one hour and 42 minutes later we will finish the piece if all goes well – rather like those announcements in planes that tell you as soon as you have left London Heathrow that you will land in San Francisco at 5.42pm, some 11 hours later – do pilots have click-tracks too? I think we should be told. What is for certain is that we might both suffer mid-air turbulence…

Richard Suart (Mr Walter) – Mr Walter has a screw loose.

Richard Suart — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 11:55:43 +0000

Not content with being 71 and dead, poor Mr Walter got out of bed yesterday and stood on several screws from his Ikea luxury item, now littered around the floor – yes, the life of an After Lifer is not plain sailing – fortunately when he was alive Mr Walter was a dab hand at flat-packs, so all is now restored, albeit in different holes, so his bed has a 10 per cent list. Mr Walter goes to work to ascend the masterpiece that is After Life, and it is not so much flat packs that concern him now – but flat screens; you see, not content with writing some of the most difficult music to sing and memorise in the repertoire, the whole creative team has ganged up against the singers to make life (or rather, death) as difficult as possible – there’s a “serve you right for dying” feeling about the whole thing, for the conductor has all but been eliminated from view. We reach the stage and play the new game for dead people – “Hunt the Beat” – this entails one searching furtively and unsuccessfully for the monitor that was always promised would be ‘there’ or rather ‘there’ or perhaps ‘there’. The real live conductor is behind us and above us, as is his orchestra, and the monitors that are placed for us to catch his relayed beat have to be out of sight of the screens that form the ’set’ – otherwise you, the opera-goer, would be able to see his beat too – and apparently you have not paid for that too. For a performer it’s rather like walking a tight-rope without a safety net, or swimming the channel without a support boat, or watching reality TV without an off switch – or any number of really dangerous things really. And I have to confess, this is probably an opera in which I would like to see the conductor – and even in a monitor, he is only two-dimensional – so no chance for a peripheral sensation – you really have to stare at the man to see where he is – and large screens are out – no, no, that would be too easy – the rules are not set for that.

I once did a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta at English National Opera where my first entrance was from the flies in a giant sushi-burger; I was hauled up there during the overture, and watched the first 20 minutes of the piece as if being a camerman in a Hollywood Musical movie – then came the first notes of my number, and I heard nothing more – the tail of the sushi burger started moving and so did its head creating a positive din – smoke appeared from everywhere and it must have looked jolly impressive, but I was lost in my own world of sushi and smoke and never caught the conductor’s eye throughout the number – her eye was nowhere to be seen, or her beat – but at least I knew she was a woman… Ken Russell never directed an opera again.

So you can see I am used to blindness – and now death as well – but performers can have no screws loose – it’s all in a day’s work for an After Lifer.

Off to the Sitzprobe now where we put everyone together for the first time – in a nice studio miles from the Stage – it will be the last time we see Otto Tausk in the flesh till the first night party…

Video blog – episode 2 Het aanscherpen van een meesterwerk

webmaster — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 14:38:37 +0000

Michel van der Aa vertelt over de veranderingen die hij aanbracht in de muziek, en nieuwe video’s (voor videoprojecties) die zijn gemaakt. Sopraan Yvette Bonner en bariton Roderick Williams vertellen hoe zij het ervaren om te werken met Van der Aa.

Prijsvraag Episode 2
Wie is de regisseur van After Life?

Klik op de titel van deze episode (boven de video) en vul het goede antwoord in. Hiermee maak je kans op twee vrijkaarten voor de première van After Life op 28 sep in Het Muziektheater Amsterdam.

Video blog – episode 1 Wat was het meest beslissende moment van je leven?

webmaster — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 15:34:21 +0000

Componist en regisseur Michel van der Aa vertelt over wat hem inspireerde tot het maken van After Life. Ook onthult hij wat mogelijk zijn ‘meest beslissende moment” was.

Laat jouw meest beslissende moment achter op deze website. Het ‘meest beslissende moment’ krijgt twee vrijkaarten voor After Life.

Gesprek met Michel van der Aa – 18 sep 2009 19.30

webmaster — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 09:11:59 +0000

Michel van der Aa spreekt over zijn opera After Life bij de Filmacademie in Amsterdam. Na afloop van het gesprek is de film After Life van de Japanse filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-Eda te zien. Deze film was het vertrekpunt voor de opera.

18 sep 2009
19.30 gesprek met Michel van der Aa
20.30 film After Life van Hirokazu Kore-Eda (bekijk de trailer).

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