1996, Die Fledermaus
Rehearsals
Die Fledermaus was out of copyright and we were able to hire Chris White's sets from Babirra Players. The New Year started with the appointment of Alice Bugge as director for Die Fledermaus. She was an experienced director, but not in the musical field, so she was happy to accept the rehearsal schedule drawn up by Ian, which took into account his involvement with The Marriage of Figaro for EMO in March, and as musical director of Fiddler on the Roof for Mountain Districts Choral Society in June. Busy man!
Auditions were held and Mavis Ford was back in a lead role as Rosalinda playing opposite Peter Churchland, with Darren Rosenfeld as Alfred. In spite of some strong competition from some good mezzos, the role of Prince Orlofsky was given to David Cox. With Graham Ford retrenched and doing consulting work up the country during the week, he was to share the role of Falke with another new baritone, Chris Russell. This proved to be a positive move, as Graham ended up with a severe cold for the season. DVS had a lot of new blood, with Geoff Dawes playing Frank and Michaela Bloom playing Adele. Michael Try was unavailable due to his studies at the Melba Conservatorium and commitments with the VSO chorus, having been accepted for the first time, Peter Churchland played the lead tenor, Eisenstein.
Meanwhile rehearsals were progressing for Die Fledermaus. The show was going very well, but, as often happens, we had to deal with the unexpected. The minor role of Ida ended up as a challenge. The first person cast was in the Army, and learnt that she would be on a camp over the rehearsal period, and so dropped out. Then the second took the adage "break a leg" too literally after the first weekend and had to sing chorus. Fortunately, Julie Wright (later Geddes), daughter of the leader of the orchestra, stepped in for the second week.
The set was hired from Babirra Players, and very heavy it was too. The first time it was set up, Mavis Ford found she could be seen by the audience from the top of the stairs and took a step back -and fell off the side! She climbed back up and went on with the scene and later had a large gash on her arm attended to, not to mention extensive bruising. She didn't feel much at the time, but was very sore that night.
Die Fledermaus - performances
Show Program
The morning after opening night there was a call from Adele, who had laryngitis and didn't think she could sing that evening. After much chasing around to try to find a substitute, it was felt best to drop her two solos, but by the time she got to the theatre her voice wasn't that bad and everything proceeded as usual. On the second Friday Michael Try stepped on stage for a waiter who was missing. He managed to drop the glass that was thrown in his direction, but then organised for one of the kids to sweep up.
At the cast party after the final performance Geoff Dawes introduced some awards, which have continued on since. There was the "biggest bruise" award for Mavis, the "best ad-libbing" award won by Graham, the "break a leg" award to Ida, and the "So That's How it's Done" award to Julie Wright for being the only principal to not fluff her lines after twenty-four hours rehearsal -as opposed to everyone else's six months! -and many others.
The show in general was a very attractive visual spectacle and of course, the music was delightful. Cast and audience alike had a very enjoyable time.
These history notes have been kindly provided by our long-term artistic director and co-founder, Graham Ford.