Monday, October 10, 2005

Mid October in Paris. Gorgeous late warm days.

We're into the final weeks of rehearsals with the Brel and to be honest we're struggling a bit with some of the choreography that Tracy's giving us: it's not that it's particularly hard, just that the levels of dance training are pretty varied in the cast and Tracy gives very detailed moves. A lot of word painting with gestures and subtle shifts of moves for every verse of a song. I think it will all come together, however we need to run the pieces over and over and over and there's not a lot of rehearsal time left where the whole company is there....

I'm more and more impressed with the solos that I'm singing.... OK, with most of them.... as usual the songs like Amsterdam ( a Tom Waits like text of the bawdy, drinking, dying, whoring Sailors in Amsterdam) or Next (a young soldier losing his virginity in an Army Whorehouse - "it is his voice that I will forever hear, Next! Next! It is a voice of whiskey and of corpses. It is the voice of nations, it is the thick voice of blood"), those songs I find amazing... the songs like Fanette (boy loves pretty girl on beach... girl falls in love with someone else... boy can't get over it) I honestly find pretty dull... I'm sure they will start to grow on me, but at the moment I'm kind of wading through them...

I just came back from some time at the house in Burgundy. The quince tree was ripe so now a box of incredibly fragrant quinces are sitting in the living room and perfuming the whole house. Bizarre and delicious fruits...

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