Being part of an Opera production

For the past month, I have been travelling back and forth from where my company is based to Vienna, to rehearse for an opera production. Never in my life I thought I would be rehearsing and performing on the Vienna State Opera stage. The rehearsal process for an opera differs vastly from the rehearsal for a ballet; through the preparation for the premiere of Madama Butterfly I am exposed to another side of dance which is very different from what I usually do as a dancer and as a ballerina as well. Being able to experience working in an opera house is a rare opportunity.

 

The role of a dancer in an opera differs from production to production; in one production you could be jeté-ing and chaîné-ing across the stage while in another production you could be shifting props and creating the atmosphere of the scene by manipulating lighted lanterns. 

 

 

'Madama Butterfly' an Italian opera set in 1904, Nagasaki, Japan tells a story of an American naval officer and a Geisha which ends with her committing suicide as her child would be taken away from her. There are a lot of references and opinions on how Japan and its culture should be portrayed, and for this production that I am part of, our choreographer took a minimalistic and simple approach.

 

 

When I first learnt that a group of us would be part of an opera production, I thought "Oh, that's exciting! What would be dancing in an opera? Would there be a dance scene within this opera production?". My understanding of being a dancer has always revolved around the idea of turning, jumping, extensions and basically moving the body in many different ways that I wouldn't do when I'm outside the studio. Though I know that I am able to move my body in ways that a normal person or a non-dancer could never achieve, I have never fully grasped how big the difference between our bodies is until being in this opera production. Growing up with dance being a huge part of my life, I always had the concept that what my fellow dancers and I are able to do is considered 'normal'.

 

When I first learnt that the most 'dancing' in this production for the female dancers would be a Japanese fan dance that doesn't involve the usual arabesque, pirouette, chassé or even just a contemporary contraction that I am familiar with, I questioned my role as a dancer within this production. For all the training that I have done over these past 10 years and also having to catch an early morning train in order to start a self-organised ballet class with my colleagues at 9am, what am I doing here in this opera production? Putting aside the fact that I would be performing on the stage of an Opera House, I did not fully understand why it had to be trained dancers to be doing this production when it doesn't involve any actual dancing.

After the 1st week of learning the 'choreography' and knowing the marks that we should be at with the props, the rehearsal assistant started to work more on the details and quality that the choreographer would like to see, and this is where I started to understand the reason behind the need for a trained dancer. Although I'm not doing the movement vocabulary that I'm familiar with or fulfilling what I have been training all these years for, the rehearsal process of this production allowed me to gain more awareness of my body - how each breath and muscle can make a difference - something that I have never really thought about in deep detail even in contemporary classes. This inner peace within my mind that would translate to my body and onto the prop would affect how the whole picture looks.

 

At the beginning, I wasn't too sure of my artistic input and eventual takeaway from this production but now, at the end of this whole month of rehearsing and now preparing for the premiere, I am clear of the takeaways from this whole experience. Being a dancer is beyond the turns, jumps and extensions that I am familiar with and have been doing for the past 10 years, it is about how our movements translate into a message or something visual for the audience. Though what I am doing in this production wasn't what I expected, the takeaway from this experience was a pleasant surprise that I think it would benefit me in the long run.