Behind the baton

Tonight we spend some time with one of the most recognizable members of a production team, the music director. The music director is responsible for ensuring the cast and the orchestra learns the music and conducts all the shows. The music director is involved in a production from the very start and must be an expert on the music, analyzing and interpreting what is in the score and reconciling it with the stage direction. Our music director for The Mikado is Aaron Schultz. Aaron first joined Lyric Theatre in 2009 as our music director for Yeoman of the Guard, interestingly Yeoman was Aaron's first Gilbert and Sullivan show. Like many of us who did not grow up with G&S, Aaron found out that he really liked the style and has been music director for several shows since then. I asked Aaron to share some of his thoughts on how the rehearsals have been going;

"Rehearsals started off great with the first all-cast gathering. The main issue with the evening was the inability of one's stomach to endure the amount of good deserts the mouth wants. Seriously, the cast delivered a fantastic first read, it appears that not only is the cast gifted in talent, but also a friendly group of super nice folks. I am very excited to work with them! And indeed, after two days thus far, I have not been disappointed. I had scheduled the leads on the first night over a four hour span. The goal was to bring people in and out in such a way as to touch at least half of all lead song moments, while requiring a minimal amount of time. The arrivals and departures worked, but the leads were so strong that we got through what I thought would be 4 hours of music in less than 3."

The men's chorus hard at work
under Aaron's baton

Not to be left out in the cold, Aaron has this to say about the chorus; "Four days in and, wow, the chorus has learned a LOT of music over 7.5 hours. We have pretty much 95% of the chorus measures, including combined, men's only, and women's only. Even though there is no substitute for seemingly dull parts banging out, in the end I feel that these early rehearsals have still managed to create some real music and enable some shared performance experiences!"

About The Mikado, "The Mikado deserves its reputation as a top tier G&S show, and indeed a top tier English opera. While it may not have the overt beauty of Puccini, the drama of Wagner, or the 'greatness' of Verdi (in my opinion, The Mikado does not aim for this). The opera does span the range of G&S and is fun to work on and a delight to perform"

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