Here’s the latest episode of Story Time with Contrabass Conversations. These stories recount some of the funny, sad, poignant, and painful moments in the life of a freelance road warrior. Find the text version of this story here, and check out Contrabass Conversations for more weekly double bass content.
Hydraulic stages are both a blessing and a curse! I’ve played on them in a variety of venues, and while they’re usually a blessing for stage and pit logistics in multi-use halls, they can yield some amusing (and potentially disastrous) unintended results.
I have played performances with a variety of groups in Milwaukee’s Uihlein Hall over the years, but most of these performances have been with the Milwaukee Ballet. This hall has a hydraulic stage, which is raised for full symphonic performances and lowered in the front for ballet and opera performances.
For many years, this stage would do these funny little readjustments throughout the course for a concert, like a little earthquake under one’s chair. I recall many instances where I’d give a little start as I felt the stage quiver and readjust itself upward.
The Milwaukee Ballet Orchestra was playing a prickly modern piano concerto for a series several years ago, and the piano was down in the pit with us, nestled right up against the conductor’s podium. We were particularly cramped in the pit for that run (not that we ever have a ton of room down there–and we’re a small orchestra!).
One evening, mere seconds after the conductor had given the downbeat for the beginning of the first movement, the entire front half of the pit abruptly dropped about two inches. The other half of the orchestra was on a concrete surface behind the hydraulic pit and didn’t budge an inch.
Dropping a few inches down at the start of a difficult concerto is enough to throw anyone off, but to make matters worse, many musicians had their stands and chairs right on the crack between stage and concrete, causing utter pandemonium in the pit. Stands began tipping over, violinists looked like they were about to fall into each other like a row of dominoes, and a sudden panicky flurry of activity erupted as folks tried to readjust stands, pick up fallen music, and move their chairs onto flat surfaces.
The conductor, eyes wide with surprise (probably thinking that his might downbeat had sent us all plummeting into the depths), kept conducting, and though much of the opening section of the concerto ended up featuring only piano (our soloist didn’t even flinch as the piano dropped those couple of inches–what a pro!) and the woodwinds that escaped the hairy plummet.
Nothing like the fear of an orchestra collectively falling to its death to rally the troops and get the blood pumping. The rest of the performance was full of energy and actually better than the rest of the run!
This slight stage burble (at an unfortunate time) is not the only time that this hydraulic stage has messed with a performance. I recall a popular story from Milwaukee Symphony folklore about this very stage (feel free to chime in with any corrections, Milwaukee Symphony folks–this is coming to me second or third hand).
Apparently, during the middle of a Milwaukee Symphony concert, the entire front section of the orchestra (including the conductor!) began to descend into the darkness below the stage. The orchestra members closest to the lip of the stage played on like musicians on the deck of the Titanic as they slowly sank underneath the stage, disappearing from audience view…
Photo credits:
Anyone who’s spent some time in Chicago on a Wednesday morning knows that this is when the city tests its emergency alert system. These loud sirens can be heard all over downtown Chicago for a few minutes each week, letting folks know that the city is ready for emergency situations.
The Grant Park Symphony was recently holding viola auditions in the beautiful new Pritzker Pavilion, the outside doors shut to keep the elements out. This new arrangement is much better than the pre-Pritzker days of renting out various downtown facilities for auditions.
Well, moments before the preliminary round of viola auditions began, these sirens started wailing, resonating through the pavilion. Even knowing that these are tested at this time of day every Wednesday, I can’t help but smile at the timing.
Image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/duckiemonster
As I was wheeling my bass down the street the other day, I passed by a homeless person with a shopping cart filled with all sorts of stuff–blankets, cans, old bottles, newspapers, and all sorts of other various items piled high.
I approached, carrying not only my bass but also my stool and my laptop bag crammed with books, pads of paper, and my giant Acer laptop.
As I neared him, he started grinning, and said:
"Now that’s a big load!"
___________
Image credit: flickr.com/photos/scottua/402957792/
No matter how you cut it, pit musicians are an easy target for falling debris (whether confetti, props from the stage, or even singers sometimes!). After all, we are crammed shoulder to shoulder in a small dark space, with a stage full of (gasp!) singers emoting onstage without necessarily watching out for that pit.
I was recently playing an opera performance where, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed something rolling quickly toward the lip of the pit. The musician next to me heard this same object and, with lightning reflexes, pulled herself under the lip of the stage, just as a giant knife fell into the pit right onto her chair, missing her by less than an inch.
This knife, while thankfully folded up (it was like a giant wooden switchblade), was a big heavy hunk of wood and metal that would have conked this musician on the head, back, or shoulder as it fell into the pit. Yikes!
At intermission, people from the balcony came down to the pit, convinced that this falling knife had smashed one of our instruments. The sound of the knife falling was audible from the balcony, and to them it sounded like it had solidly impacted something.
Ah, the perils of pit playing!
A conductor recently shared an amusing story about a similar situation that occurred years ago at the New York City Opera. A staging of Prokofiev’s "The Love for Three Oranges" featured a whole bunch of paper mache fruit being thrown around onstage. Apparently, a whole lot of it ended up in the pit during the rehearsal process, with big painted apples and oranges sailing into the pit, bonking musicians and causing……well, a little frustration in the pit!
After being bonked repeatedly, the musicians requested that some alteration be made in this scene’s staging that wouldn’t involve big pieces of novelty fruit sailing into the pit. The action was moved further upstage, hopefully keeping the bouncing fruit as far away from the pit as possible.
All was proceeding smoothly when, all of a sudden, a big yellow paper mache banana got loose, bouncing end over end downstage….and directly into the pit.
Bonk!
The music instantly ceased from the pit–one could hear a pin drop. This was the last straw for the musicians. The stage director, furious that the music had stopped, ran up to the conductor, who turned around to explain the situation.
You can push musicians to a point, but there’s always a line that you had better not cross, and that big bouncing banana was apparently the last straw.
Image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/30666479@N00/2396948964/
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial
Share Alike 3.0 License.
Loading ...
