Anyway, Mozart & Co is being relaunched. We ran it several years ago, and are hoping to perform it again this school year. Unlike our other productions: Hansel & Gretel, Little Red Riding Hood, and Cinderella, Mozart doesn't tell a story. It's a series of operatic vignettes, bit and pieces from various operas. Mostly Mozart, but not all.
One of my numbers is the Marcellina/Susanna duet from Le Nozze di Figaro ("The Marriage of Figaro"). I play Marcellina, the older lady, who is arguing with Susanna over who will go through a door first. Insults fly. We play it up a bit more, but this will give you an idea of what we do. (Don't try to understand it, unless you speak Italian; this one is not sung in English.)
I pulled the bins out of my garage, where they've been stored (the company has a storage unit, I've just been too lazy to drive there!) and looked over the costumes. They had been thrown together sort of at the last minute. Nothing was planned out, and they looked like it. So this week I've been sewing costumes. Again.
Costumes are a vital part of any production. They can set the mood of a scene, tell us about the characters, give us relationships, and make a company look good or look cheap. For the two women in the cast, I'm sewing a lot of skirts. How many is "a lot?" Two for the Marcellina/Susanna duet, one for Muzetta, and two more for The Merry Wives of Windsor scene. So, five.
Each costume has several requirements: they must set the historic era, be colorful (we are performing for the K-5 crowd, after all), be durable, fit a wide variety of sizes (we have several people in our pool of players), and be easy to get on and off (costume changes are made while we're talking in front of the kids). Oh yeah, and since we're a non-profit, they need to be cheap.
That's quite a list of requirements, but not impossible. Actually, I think it's kind of fun. You see, I really do love to sew. It wasn't something that my mother taught me growing up: Dad bought me my first sewing machine and taught me how to use it. But he didn't know how to read a pattern, so my skills didn't really take off until college.
I was a theater major at first: I tried to have a double major (theater and music), but it was a small school, and the music department consisted of only one person. He didn't like my dad. (Yes, this matters to the story. Dad was the head of the education department there, and so I had free tuition.) To make things even worse, he didn't like the theater department (which consisted of about 3 people). He told me that I had no talent and should get out of music. (You can see how well I listened to that jerk!)
So, anyway, I was a theater major. And the faculty had the idea that we should learn how to do everything ourselves: acting, makeup, lights, set design and construction, and costumes. I even learned how to wire a light switch there.
The first costume I ever made was a tunic made out of a beautiful red silk velvet. Velvet is supposed to be difficult to work with. It's possible that this was an example of the bumblebee principle (which says that aerodynamically, the bumblebee shouldn't be able to fly; the bumblebee, not knowing this, flies anyway*). Because I didn't know that velvet was hard to work with, I didn't have any problems.
Since that time, I've sewn with just about every fabric I can think of, and have tackled many an advanced project. Yes, I've also ripped out many, many seams and started over, but the finished product is usually pretty good.
Today has been dedicated to working on a doublet for Sir John Falstaff for a scene from The Merry Wives of Windsor. (I tried to find a video of the scene that we do, and failed. Sorry.)
But I'm working with two lovely satin brocades: one is blue with gold, and the other is gold on gold. How can I work with such gorgeous fabrics on little to no budget? The answer is that I went to thrift stores, and bought draperies. We could never had afforded these luxurious textiles at a fabric store. But since I bought used window dressings, they are suddenly really cheap. Yes, I have to get a little creative with cutting out the pieces, but I love that kind of figuring and piecing. It's a challenge. (You'd think I'd be better at Tetris.)
As I said, this hasn't been about music this week. But costumes add so much to any production, that I thought they deserved their own week. I keep hearing the music we're working on while I'm cutting, pinning, and sewing. I'll leave you with Susanna's dressing aria from Le Nozze di Figaro. When I sing this in Mozart and Company, I'm putting a clown costume on a little kid. (Like I said, we are playing to the K-5 crowd!)
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* If you are curious about how bumblebees fly, here you are - straight from the bees themselves.
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