APPENDIX 1 - All the ‘useful rules’ in overview, for those who make opera

Summary

What is opera?

✭ Opera: enacting a story through music.

✭ Understand the difference between music, and music for a purpose.

✭ Define the purpose of the music.

✭ Become a ‘music detective’.

✭ Know the orchestra.

✭ Give the orchestra a reason to play.

✭ Train your imagination.

The heart

✭ Go straight to the heart.

The seven ‘W’ s

✭ Start with the six ‘W’ s: Who? Where? When? What? hoW? Why?

✭ Then define the seventh: Whom? – the addressee.

✭ Locate the addressee.

✭ Change the addressee where necessary.

✭ If the addressee is imaginary, choose a fixed point and address it instead.

Sense and sensuality

✭ Find out: what does the work mean?

✭ Consider: what does your role contribute to it?

✭ Make sense. Both in the details and in the overall context.

✭ Sense trumps effect.

Bodies in space

✭ The body in the space is already part of the action.

✭ Develop a feeling for space in relation to your co-performers.

✭ Sameness is boring. Be dissimilar.

✭ The singer stands further upstage, the listener further downstage.

✭ Position yourself according to the golden section, not in the centre.

✭ A king can't play himself. Those surrounding him play him.

✭ Stand at an angle to the stage ramp, not in the ‘pancake position’.

✭ Maintain your relationship with your partner. Avoid the ‘tenor's turn’.

✭ Seek a position between two fronts. It's dramatically effective.

✭ Wherever possible, place the leading voice in an ensemble on the left.

✭ Leave space around you. Otherwise objects can become competitors.

✭ Hold your stance – don't wobble around.

✭ When you move, make sure it's with a purpose and a specific goal.

✭ Violence and torture have a greater impact on a live body on stage than in the two-dimensional images of film and TV.

✭ Fill the space with breath. If the audience coughs, you've got too little breath.

✭ Regard sentences and musical phrases as the arch of a bridge. Make sure to reach the other side.

✭ Master the play of tension and release.