Artistic Director of Schwab Vocal Rising Stars and New York Festival of Song, Steven Blier gives insight into the week of rehearsals at Caramoor.
Day Six...
March 12, 2016 – We’re ready. Well anyway, the cast is.
Dress rehearsal went quite beautifully. We have the luxury of actual lighting (a rarity in my concerts, something I don’t get at Juilliard or in San Francisco), and the show flows quite well. We’re not quite sure how long it runs—there was a bit of controversy but it is somewhere around 70 minutes, which I of course hope will turn into 75—or 80!—minutes with applause. It seemed a perfect length.
"“At Home” has the quality I prize most; an aliveness in the performance—that NYFOS spontaneity, the sense of ownership we always want from the people with whom we work."
It was interesting to see the way the cast has been growing in their music over these last few days. I made an instinctive decision to be as hands-off as possible today, leaving the lion’s share of the note-giving to Michael and Alison. I made a few surgical strikes, no more. “At Home” has the quality I prize most; an aliveness in the performance—that NYFOS spontaneity, the sense of ownership we always want from the people with whom we work. I can see there will be more of it every day.
I can’t say I had the most graceful afternoon at the piano, and I literally woke up playing one of the passages that slipped away from me yesterday. Today I’ll finally have the time to massage those few errant spots back into submission. I just need to quarantine myself for about an hour when I can have a little negotiation with my hands and the 88s.