Now I start to feel the energy of the theatre pick up. Everything is neat and clean throughout the house, ready for a sold-out paying crowd of anxious patrons. As we drive through the main parking lot of the theatre to get to the staff parking, we notice lots of tables with full linens and china on them. In the PARKING LOT. It's explained to me that the patrons who regularly attend the opera take tailgating to a whole new level. More than three hours before the doors open to the opera (and more than four before the opera begins), patrons dressed in full suits and ladies in evening gowns take to the parking lot and have a seat at a table with full china, linens, wine and multi-course meals. Enjoying the sunset and the weather, they dine in high style, a style that is continued to be held high during tonight's performance.
This concept really struck me, and I wanted to run out on a break and photograph these folks dining on steak and seafood in a parking lot, but duty came first, as we prepared the theatre for it's grand reveal. Panning the conductor cameras back and forth, we can see the house begin to fill around 8pm, but most patrons are exploring the theatre, hanging out at the north or south bars, taking in the scenery and the gorgeous weather. Not 15 minutes before the doors opened, I was on the half-roof re-dressing some cable, and the weather was nice and breezy.
I speak too soon.
The show begins, and i'm camped out in the A/V Control Room, running the audio and video side of things for this show (which is "Madame Butterfly") I sit in front of a fairly hefty sound console (not as wide as the one in the picture, but close) and monitor the audio feed going to our CD recorders, video recorders, and speakers strategically placed throughout the backstage. In front of me are two televisions: One with the conductor camera (the same feed that goes throughout the backstage), and above it is a front-of-house feed, which I can change from a remote-controlled color camera, or a black-and-white low-light camera. In the catwalks we have an "IR Illuminator", which puts out light just outside the human range of vision, but this black-and-white camera can see as bright as the sun. In essence, it gives us night vision on the stage. The light is so powerful that when there is a black-out on stage, if you're looking at this camera feed, it's as though no lights have been turned off. I typically watch this night-vision feed, because it gives the most consistent lighting throughout the show.
Surrounding me are many different audio channels, all critical to the running of the show. In the audio rack to my left is an intercom box feeding me the Stage Manager's cue calls. Behind me is the electrics crew on a different intercom channel, going over spotlight cues and levels. Finally, clipped to my right collar is a two-way radio. There are about twenty or thirty folks on-stage with two-way radios, and while the intercom is the show-critical communications tool, the two-way radios are equally as important; the props crew uses them to organize what goes where, the stage crew uses it to communicate about scenic placement or personnel location, and A/V uses it when something fouls and we need to run across the theatre to fix it. Oh, and there are always two CD recorders, a DAT recorder and a computer recording the audio feed coming from the stage for archive purposes.
Did you get all that?
Act I starts strong. The audience is chatty and very involved with the first half of the show. Over the two-way radio, however, we hear the technical director tell us of a strong storm cell moving in our direction. Shawn (the Stage Manager) doesn't miss a beat or get nervous, and simply says "keep me in the loop". As the first act progresses, we hear calls over the two-way from stage crew about the wind picking up. The Assistant Stage Managers are also noting the wind, and a light drizzle. As the act begins to close and intermission approaches, the wind and the rain pick up dramatically. The act itself ends on a romantic note, with soft music and love in the air. As the lights go to blackout, a bolt of lighting streaks across the sky behind the theatre, silhouetting the set and performers, before the house lights come up for intermission. It's one of the most spectacular pieces of foreshadowing i've ever seen in theatre.
The cell stays north and makes its way west over the mountains. During the changeover into Act II, I stepped out to upstage left, and bolted the camera to a nearby pipe to get the following shot:
The lightning storm was incredible, but I couldn't stay long as we needed to start Act II. The second act ran without a hitch, but as Act III began we started getting calls over the two-way radio that a storm worse than the first was starting to hit. Before long, wind and rain were blowing the backstage around. As Act III progressed, the wind and rain started to make it's way on stage. From the video screens in the control room, I could see pant legs and dresses getting blown around in the wind. It was an unbelievable coincidence that the weather was following the story line, as the plot itself was becoming more unstable. Tempers were flaring, and the cracks of lightning throughout the back of the theatre were great accents to the acton on-stage. The lightning was so bright that I could see faces of audience members through the conductor camera when the lightning flashed.
However, nothing beats the finale of the show. As the lead character resigns herself to fate, the wind begins to blow the rain sideways on the set. You can see the mist in the stage lights. As the character's world crumbles down on her, so is the weather. She enters her house, grabs the knife, and commits suicide, with the wind and the rain blowing it's hardest ever. Stage Mangers are scrambling with the Stage crew to secure scenic elements, and the stage goes black for the end of the show.
Lightning flashes and streaks behind the set again. The audience goes crazy with applause and standing ovations.
One of the most amazing pieces of theatre i've ever seen.
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