A production of Victor Herbert's "The Enchantress"
March 6, Rogers Center for the Arts, Merrimack College
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I volunteered to help get the lighting and related efforts put together at
this show, in a similar fashion to
last year.
The lighting designer was pretty much on his own, and given almost no
setup time in what's a fairly substantial venue.
We did what we could, but the morning show [mostly for an audience of local school kids on a half-day field trip] looked fairly wretched. |
Nonetheless, it ran, and the performers handed the mic around to introduce themselves to begin the Q&A session afterward. |
So the LD and I decided to spend the afternoon before the evening show in a second phase of improving things, when we had the house to ourselves. With the added dimension of actually being able to use the over-stage electrics [unlike last year with the band shell in the way], this was time well spent to get things looking better. |
The LD takes a quick piano break. They've still got that nice full-size Steinway, here also doubling as a parlor side table. |
The director welcomes everyone and introduces the show ... |
Act I -- The Royal Ballroom
Enter our six princesses.
The many princesses of the court are wondering if they will attract Prince Ivan's attention and become queen. |
They sing about it, and file past a place in the throne room to leave their individual messages ... |
... and then retire to the parlor to loosen their stays and recover their wits. |
The American contestant sneaks in...
An American heiress, Marion Love, joins the princesses and tells them the kind of husband she is seeking. |
She figures that she can simply buy her way into royalty. |
As people arrive for the Ball, Troute and Poff reflect on how sparkling and attractive all the ladies look from a distance, but getting involved more closely might be highly unwise. |
Enter the Regent, and much bowing and curtsying happens as he strides around the room. |
He acknowledges the roomful of subjects ... |
... and then delivers a short piece on the affairs of state and how comically corrupt they have become. |
Enter the Prince, who joins his circle of aspiring brides. |
"Oh I would have a waltz with you ..." |
Much dancing happens, but not a whole lot of decision-making. |
The program text explains:
Prince Ivan arrives, and dances with all the princesses, unable to choose or decide his bride from among them. |
Mostly because the Prince has become a great fan of the opera, both
in mind and heart...
Vivien Savory, an opera singer, arrives and enchants them all with her singing -- especially Prince Ivan. |
The Prince's internal decision becomes fairly obvious ... |
... as Vivien dazzles the party with more performance. |
This is a good spot for some more notes on lighting. We weren't 100% sure
how the stage blocking was going to play out, but after best-guessing on
focusing the wash components it turned out that it was pretty hot at
downstage-ish center in the ballroom. This actually worked really well as
the central players tended to come to the fore that area, which highlighted
them nicely. It also helps that Vivien here has the whitest-white dress amid
all the relatively pastel rest.
The camera's perception of the dynamic range difference is even more profound, and I had to do a lot of post-fixup in the photos to bring people out of the darkness in the back so we can see them here at all. That's why the background people look a little flat and grey sometimes -- I was desperately trying to pull a little detail out of very photographically dark regions, and there's only so much one can do and not have it look totally awful. But shooting any brighter [e.g. slower] would have not only bloomed the fore-people into white blobs, it would have let in a lot more motion blur, so staying on the dark side was deliberate. Setting a manual white-balance calibration was essential for getting the captured colors even close to right. Regular "tungsten" mode would have drifted way too far toward the pink, given the LD's gel selections, so I'm glad I went up on stage with a piece of paper to give the camera a more accurate notion of our spectrum. Even then a touch of "de-greening" was necessary here and there. Our eyes and brains adapt, but a digital camera is often very unforgiving. I will also note that my own knowledge of the story details gets pretty hazy past this point, so the commentary is kept deliberately sketchy and relies mostly on the program notes. Really, the point here is to just have the pictures available online. |
Post-ball, in the boudoir... |
But eventually she starts to come around:
... but she finds herself falling in love with him herself. |
The "good guys" try to break through the Prince's infatuation to warn him that there's a plot against him, but he's hearing none of that. |
The rest of the court knows that something is up, and they can probably guess, but the rumors fly thick and fast: "... he has a secret he has not disclosed ..." |
But we soon get our answer:
When the Prince is crowned King, he announces his shocking news that he chooses Vivien to be his bride. |
Since he has not followed through on this decision yet but has nonetheless come of age, he still succeeds to the throne. The crown is brought forth ... |
... and the coronation ceremony proceeds. |
More bowing! |
Act II -- Vivien's villa by the Danube
[The country may be fictional, but apparently the river is not...]
The scene moves to an "outdoor" garden party:
The royal guests are at Vivien's villa where they gossip about each other and complain about the weather. |
This is insufficient diversion:
They request entertainment and Princess Stellina convinces the other princesses to perform a song. |
Aunt Moumoute gets more information about Vivien's feelings, but if that was intended to remain secret, it won't last long. |
The supposedly very wealthy Spaniard Gorgonzola bursts in, who isn't really
himself at all:
Meanwhile, a disguised Troute seduces Vivien's aunt Moumoute to get more information from her. |
She totally falls for it, though ... |
... intrigued by this exotic and energetic character. |
Vivien and the Prince arrive, chasing Auntie away in the process ... |
... and reaffirm their love for each other, despite her misgivings. |
While back outside, the American tries to demonstrate several dance styles she's seen in her travels, and tries to get the princesses to follow along. |
And doesn't realize that as she finishes up her multi-styled demo with a flourish, that everyone else has quietly vanished! |
Everyone returns to the party, where Vivien hatches her counter-plan: |
She decides to foil Ozir's plans by getting him drunk and stealing the abdication papers.Aided by Troute once again, this time in the guise of the waiter serving drinks. |
Everything rapidly sorts itself out:
She tells Prince Ivan that she will not let him abdicate his throne but Troute steps in and announces that she is a princess and can therefore marry Prince Ivan. |
And they all presumably live happily ever after, although we're left with a slightly nagging question whether Ozir and the old Regent will receive any unemployment benefits. |
During bows they all came *way* downstage, where the lighting fell off a bit and left some of them fairly unlit. More "out of the darkness" recovery work. Here they credit the narrator ... |
... and some of them appear to have an amusingly odd idea of where tech
is actually located, but that's the general idea.
And yes, many of the male characters were played by girls. |