Cherry Potts, Writer

Tag: Tchaikovsky

  • Eugene Onegin – Sitzprobe

    Eugene Onegin – Sitzprobe

    One of my fellow chorus members kindly explained what sitzprobe actually means.  I assumed it was some kind of abbreviation that was lost in the mists of time, but it turns out it’s German and means ‘sitting rehearsal’ not terribly accurate, but at any rate standing still rehearsal.  Back in the Halls (hurrah) and I’m…

  • The Blackheath Onegin: Backstage at a Community Opera

    The Blackheath Onegin: Backstage at a Community Opera

    Coming Soon (Late August probably) The Blackheath Onegin Backstage at a Community Opera By Cherry Potts 80 pages of comment and photographs £15 All profits will go to next year’s Blackheath Halls Opera If you pre-order, we hope to have enough orders to get a bulk discount, which means that, provided you are prepared to…

  • Eugene Onegin – 5th Production Rehearsal

    Eugene Onegin – 5th Production Rehearsal

    The second of our back to back rehearsals.  Saturday afternoon, and we have added Andrew Greenan as Gremin, to our principals.  We at last get a proper go at Act III and Stella and the dancers from Laban Youth Dance are back to present a divertissement at Gremin’s society party.  Harry explains that this is a very cold, brittle, affair;…

  • Eugene Onegin – Fourth Production Rehearsal

    Eugene Onegin – Fourth Production Rehearsal

    Well! The marketing of the Opera is in full swing, I’ve been handing out fliers and putting up posters and getting it listed on referral sites like Bachtrack, and the Halls team have been putting up interviews on Youtube with Harry & Nick so if you still need convincing you should be inviting ALL your friends to come…

  • Eugene Onegin – third production rehearsal – arrival of the principals!

    Eugene Onegin – third production rehearsal – arrival of the principals!

    A swelteringly hot Sunday and I’m very glad that the rehearsal has been moved to the morning, and to Brooklands school, where the doors of the hall are flung wide onto a very pleasant square shaded by a vast tree – Thank you Brooklands! The Principals have arrived, and so has the poster.  We’ve worked with Nick…

  • Eugene Onegin 2nd Production Rehearsal

    Eugene Onegin 2nd Production Rehearsal

    So we are upstairs and don’t have enough doors for our entrances and exits, and have to crunch against walls and pretend we aren’t there.  It’s hot and it’s raining, and there isn’t enough light for photographs; good job I took loads last time. This is one of those rehearsals where there is a lot…

  • Eugene Onegin – 1st Production Rehearsal

    Eugene Onegin – 1st Production Rehearsal

    Our first production rehearsal is six hours long. Nick is stuck on a delayed Eurostar, so Duncan is conducting from the piano, Bryony is poised with measuring tape to review costumes, Tom has collected flower pots, (which he later walks into and sends in all directions) baskets, cushions and a watering can, and the floor is marked…

  • The Future for the Onegin Posts

  • Eugene Onegin – 6th Rehearsal

    Eugene Onegin – 6th Rehearsal

    This is the final ‘Music’ rehearsal, and Nick is trying to get us off ‘the book’. Some of us require weaning, others are trying to go cold turkey. The waltz scene from Act II worked pretty well without the words ‘n’ music in front of us, although the words on some of the more exposed sections…

  • Eugene Onegin- 4th rehearsal

    Eugene Onegin- 4th rehearsal

    In order to help me write this blog I scrawl things in the margin of my score, then erase them when I’ve updated the post.  This week’s scrawls say: Marvellous Nearly marvellous Will be marvellous. This being either Nick or my assessment of where we’re at.  I write things down because my memory is unreliable…