“I feel as conspicuous and out of place as tan shoes on a pallbearer,” said Arthur, who was not given to simile in the ordinary way.
“But I want to see what they’re doing,” said Maria. “After all, we must have some rights. Have you looked at the bills lately?”
Perhaps they had expected lively doings, with Powell standing in front of a stage filled with singers, shouting and waving his arms like a policeman at a riot. Nothing of the sort. The rehearsals were quiet and orderly. The unpunctual Powell was always present half an hour before a rehearsal began, and he was stern with latecomers, though these were few, and always had reasonable excuses. The ebullient Powell was quiet and restrained; he never shouted, was never discourteous. He had absolute command and used it with easy authority. Was this artistic creation? Apparently it was, and Arthur and Maria were astonished at how quickly and surely the opera began to take shape.
Not that it seemed like an opera, as they conceived of an opera, in the first two weeks of rehearsal. These took place in Toronto in large, dirty rooms belonging to the Conservatory, and the Graduate School of Music, which had been hired for the work. In charge of these was Waldo Harris, the first assistant to Powell; he was a bland, large young man who never lost his calm in the midst of complexity, and he seemed to know everything. He had an assistant, Gwen Larking, who was called Stage Manager; she had two other girls to do her lightest bidding. Miss Larking occasionally and excusably showed some emotion, and the assistants, who were beginners, did run and fuss, and brandish their clip-boards until Miss Larking frowned at them, and even hissed at them to shut up. But these young women were serenity itself compared with the three students called gofers (because they were always being told to go for coffee, or go for sandwiches, or go for somebody who was wanted in a hurry). The gofers were the lowest, most inconsiderable form of theatrical life. At rehearsals these seven clustered around Powell like iron filings around a magnet, and talked in whispers. They all dealt very largely in paper, and took notes without cease. The provision of new, sharp pencils was part of the gofers’ job.
But these were all less than Mr. Watkin Bourke, who was called the répétiteur, or coach.
It was Watty’s job to see that the singers knew their music, and this meant everything from long hours at the piano with the principals who knew their music but wanted advice about phrasing, to principals who read music with difficulty (though they never admitted this) and had to be taught their parts almost by rote. It was Watty’s job to train the Chorus, and this meant the ten gentlemen, apart from Giles Shippen, the tenor lead, and Gaetano Panisi, who played Modred, who made up King Arthur’s Knights, and the Ladies who were their vocal counterparts. The Chorus were all good musicians, but twenty-two good singers do not make a chorus, and they had to be gently persuaded to sing together, and not merely to sing in tune, but to sing in tune as a unity, and to vary their intonation subtly to agree with leading singers who might become the teeniest bit flat or sharp under dramatic stress. In all of this Watty, a small, hatchet-faced, intense man, and a brilliant pianist, was masterly.
Watty, like Powell, never shouted or lost his temper, though from time to time a great weariness might be seen to pass over his small, intelligent face. Such weariness, for instance, as was brought about by his encounter with Mr. Nutcombe Puckler, a bass baritone entrusted with the role of Sir Dagonet.
“I quite understand that Mr. Powell wants us to have individuality, as Knights of the Round Table,” he said. “Now, the other chaps are all pretty straightforward, aren’t they? Knights, you see. Just brave chaps. But Sir Dagonet is described as Arthur’s Fool, and of course that’s why I have been cast for it. Because I’m not a chorus singer or a small-parts man—not at all; I’m a comprimario with quite a big reputation as a comic. My Frosch, in Die Fledermaus, is known all over the operatic world. So presumably I’m cast as Sir Dagonet to get some comedy into the opera. But how? I haven’t a single comic bit to sing. So something has to be introduced, you see, Watty? Some comic relief? I’ve been thinking a lot about it, and I’ve found just the place. Finale of Act One, when Arthur is haranguing the Knights about the wonders of Knighthood. It’s heavy. Lovely music, of course, but heavy. So—that’s surely where we bring in the comic relief. Now what’s it to be—my Blurt or my Sneeze?”
“I don’t follow,” said Watty.
“Haven’t you seen me? They’re my two best laugh-getters. When Arthur’s going on about Knighthood, couldn’t I have a cup of wine? Then, just at the right moment, I give ‘em my Blurt. I choke on the wine and spew a lot of it over the people near by. Never fails. Or, if that’s a bit too strong, there’s my Sneeze—just a simple, loud sneeze, you see—to relieve the atmosphere. My Blurt is really a comic extension of my Sneeze, and of course I don’t want to obtrude, so the Sneeze might be best. But you ought to hear my Blurt before you make a decision. I’d like to know now, you see, before we go into rehearsal on the floor, so I can be thinking about it and tailor my Blurt—or my Sneeze—to come in just at the right moment. Because timing is everything in comedy, as I’m sure you know.”
“You must talk to Mr. Powell,” said Watty. “I have nothing to do with the staging.”
“But you see my point?”
“Yes, indeed.”
“I don’t want to be obtrusive, you understand; I just want to bring what I can to the ensemble.”
“It’s Mr. Powells department.”
“But may I say which you think best? The Blurt or the Sneeze?”
“I have no opinion. It’s not my department.”
It was an astonishment to Arthur and Maria, and to Darcourt as well, that Watty played from a full orchestral score, instructing the singers what they might expect to hear as they sang, and when they were momentarily silent; the singers worked from sketchy music, giving their vocal line and a hint or two of orchestration; the preparation of all this music, which was in Schnak’s wondrous hand, had cost a small fortune.
At the musical rehearsals Dr. Dahl-Soot was present, but not a voice. She spoke to no one but Watty, and very quietly. She whispered now and then to Schnak, who was her shadow, learning her craft—learning eagerly and rapidly.
The first general rehearsal took place in a dirty, ill-lit basement room in the Conservatory. It smelled of the economical lunches that had been consumed there for years by students; there was a pervasive atmosphere of bananas in their last stages of edibility, mingled with peanut butter. There was not much space, for there were three sets of timpani stored there, and in a corner an assembly of double-bass cases with nothing in them, like a conference of senators.
“How are we going to work here?” said Nutcombe Puckler. “There isn’t room to swing a cat.”
“Will you all please sit down,” said Gwen Larking. “There are chairs for everybody.”
“As this is a new work,” said Powell to the group, “and because the libretto offers some complexities, I want to begin today by reading through all three acts.”
“No piano,” said Nutcombe Puckler, who had a fine grasp of the obvious, as became an opera comic.
“Not a musical reading,” said Powell. “You all know your music—or you should—and we won’t sing for a day or two. No; I want you simply to read the words, as if this were a play. The librettist is with us, and he will be glad to clear up any difficulties about meanings.”