The choirs have done their overdubs in Bergen ably assisted by BNO’s wonderful chorus master Håkon Matti Skrede. I will be able to be at all of these sessions ‘virtually’! Then Freddie recorded his vocals in England with me, Ketevan is doing hers in a studio in Barcelona tomorrow, Andrej similarly in Ukraine on Saturday and Beate on Monday in Oslo.
A speedy turn around, adding a click track and a video of Maestro and sending the files out to the singers and choruses happened almost overnight, thanks to Elaine Maltezos who is responsible for capturing all these early recordings. We recorded the BFO at Grieghallen, wonderfully held together by Eivind. Just writing it down makes me breathless! This is a massive logistical enterprise and will take the co-ordinating skills of a military commander to bring together. Freddie is in the UK, Ketevan in Barcelona, Andrei in Kherson (a small town in Ukraine) and Beate in Oslo. One problem - all are in lockdown in different countries across Europe. And we started the process of imagining a world where we could work with all of the current restrictions of social distancing and limitations on people being too close to one another and create a coherent film. Or even perhaps exploring what happened after the end of the opera?Ī script was put together, with the help of the great John Ramster, who directed a magnificent new production of The Flying Dutchman for BNO a couple of years ago, and a director, the brilliant Anders Lindstad from Oslo, was found. I had to think of a new way of telling the story.
But we are still not yet in a position where we could simply make a film of the original opera - with its massive chorus scenes, large orchestra and cast. So when Mary Miller called me to ask me to come up with a project involving film and opera I found myself thinking about our art form in yet another new way.īetween us we came up with the idea of basing this new project on Carmen - an opera beloved by all.
The whole ‘zoom’ collage thing of seeing artists recording themselves and stitching it all together, whilst a wonderful idea to begin with, has seemingly now run its course and reached saturation level. And both the company and the city of Bergen had me hooked - and I have never looked back! So, when this whole fever season first started back in March (my how long ago that seems now!), I was delighted to be able to play my part in creating our version of the Easter Hymn from Cavalleria rusticana, with soloist Elisabeth Teige, which was seen around the world by thousands, and which celebrated the wonderful choruses of Bergen who are always the backbone of our productions in more ‘normal’ times.
My involvement with BNO goes back to 2016, when I came to work on Madama Butterfly.
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