I got called for an Einspringer! My first! What’s an Einspringer you ask? Well, let me tell you.
With some exceptions, houses in Germany don’t use covers. Very often roles are double cast (partly as insurance against a sick performer) but the second cast is guaranteed performances. If a role is single cast, and the performer gets sick, the folks in the KBB (artistic administrative office) get down to business and call around to theaters, agents, and singers they’ve worked with before to see who is available. According to law (and of course there’s a law for this, because we’re in Germany), you have to cancel by 9 a.m. for an evening show. A courtesy call to the KBB the day before to let them know you might not be able to sing is greatly appreciated, but not legally required. In most cases, another singer can jump in for someone only if she’s sung a performance of the role before.
Once they’ve found someone to jump in (ein = in, springen = jump), it’s a matter of getting that person to the theater. If there’s enough time, costumes, wig, and make-up are checked and the rehearsals begin: a musical rehearsal with the conductor to go over what time allows for, then a staging rehearsal. Often times the rest of the cast, or some of them, will show up to go through as many scenes as possible.
Many times, though, there’s no time, and you go on stage having neither met the conductor nor learned the proper staging. Your costume doesn’t fit properly, the shoes are a size too small, and you go out and do the role. The director’s assistant (the Souffleur) has to run around in the wings, gesturing wildly to keep you where you’re supposed to be, and the entire show is a little more exciting and crazy because of it.
Or sometimes a healthy singer sings from the pit or side of the stage while the sick singer silently acts out the scenes. I was sick for a performance of La rondine in which I was supposed to sing one of the three girls that prance around in Act I. The costumes included 6-inch stiletto heels and there was a good deal of choreography involved, so I walked the role while a colleague sang from the pit. It was a strange experience, and one I hope I don’t have too much more of in the future.
Recalling that experience makes me realize how lucky I was to have my first Einspringer be so easy! In the moment, though, it was a lot of work, but I’m happy it worked out the way it did.
I got the phone call Wednesday morning, a few minutes after 11 a.m. The Despina at the Staatstheater Cottbus was sick and had to cancel for the following evening. Was I free? Could I see myself jumping in to the show? Now, I’ve never actually sung Despina in a performance before. I was double cast last year and sang a run-through, but never did a show. My first “Così” in Leipzig isn’t for a couple of months, and I hadn’t actually looked at the score in nearly a year.
Obstacles aside, we agreed we could make it work, and I was on a train less than two hours later, piano vocal score in hand, madly studying recitatives.
For a few minutes, I wondered why I’d been called. Despinas who have actually performed the role are a dime a dozen, right? It turns out, the Staatstheater Cottbus does a special version of “Così,” with the recitatives in German and the sung numbers in Italian. They use the Bärenreiter score and sing the printed German recits. The Oper Leipzig does an even more special version: the entire opera is a German translation made for us by a dramaturge associated with the director of the show. They wanted me because I sang the recits in German, and they didn’t much care how I did the rest of the show.
I showed up at the KBB at 3 p.m., introduced myself, and was immediately sent to try on my costume and wig. When they called the Oper Leipzig asking if I would have time to do the show, they also got my measurements (!) and had brought out the costume pieces and shoes that they felt would most likely fit me. Luckily there was enough time to alter what didn’t.
Then it was back to the KBB to get the score, a DVD of the production, and the directions to my hotel. I rode my bike to the hotel, popped the DVD into my computer, and started watching. I had watched half the show when it was time to head back to the theater to meet with the director and conductor. Then I did a run-through of the show with the conductor. He and the pianist laughed at the silly translation I sang, while I enjoyed the irony of being a well educated, German-singing American from a larger house surrounded by Italian-singing Germans.
Then it was back to the hotel to learn the recits I didn’t know, followed by bed. The next morning began with more memorization and then four hours of staging rehearsal. At first, I was alone with the director’s assistant and learned all but the Act II finale. It went fairly quickly, and when the rest of the cast showed up two hours later, I felt confident. I had done all of my scenes at least once, most of them twice, and hadn’t had any memory issues. The Souffleur had my score, so I had that insurance, and everything was working musically.
After lunch and a quick nap, I went over those recitatives again and headed to the theater. I got a quick tour of the stage and then headed to my dressing room to get ready for the show. Soon I heard the overture over the speaker in the dressing room. It was time!
Before each entrance, I would go over in my head what to do stage-wise, double-check with the assistant, and then go on. The first two were silent: Despina’s the maid, so there was a lot of furniture moving. Then: first recit, second recit, first aria. Every time I finished a scene, I turned a page in my head and no longer thought about those scenes. But I also couldn’t think too much in advance.
It was kind of amazing. I was completely in the moment, not capable of worrying about much of anything more than a few minutes in the future. Musically, Despina isn’t at all difficult, but it’s hard to make her music stay beautiful and not devolve into some sort of soubretty-quacky diatribe about men. I would just take everything as it came and not worry about much of anything. Nothing went horribly wrong—and if a chair wasn’t perfect or I wasn’t in exactly the right place, I got over it quickly and just kept going.
Just after my first aria and before the sextet, there’s a scene with Don Alfonso. We were both singing in German, which made it easier (although our lines didn’t exactly match up or make sense all the time). You know how it is with recits: if you don’t learn the whole scene, you learn the last few words of what someone is saying and then you know when you’re supposed to sing. But because our translations were different, I had to ignore what this Alfonso was saying and just follow the notes. All of a sudden, I recognized a line from my translation—but it was in the wrong place! I skipped a line, and suddenly we were both lost. We looked at each other, not knowing exactly what had happened. At that exact moment, the Souffleur was lost somewhere between the two massive scores she was trying to juggle, so she was no help. He repeated his line, I realized what had happened, got back in place, and we finished the scene.
The rest of the show went off without a hitch. Before I knew it, the audience was applauding and we were bowing, and then we were sitting in a restaurant around the corner, celebrating a great show. All six of us had been especially charged that night; when there’s an Einspringer on the stage, everybody is on his best game. We raised our glasses to toast the evening, and a short while later, more tired than I’ve been in a long time, I rode back to my hotel and tumbled into bed. I had a good role debut (which no one in the cast, including the conductor, knew about) and figured out what I still need to work on to sing it in Leipzig later this season.
But more than that, it was an amazing amount of fun. There were moments in the first finale when all I had to do was stand and sing, and it was just incredible to be in the moment and not worry about what was going to happen next. And singing in German was pretty great, too, despite what the purists may say. The audience understood exactly what I was saying and didn’t have to rely on the supertitles—which meant they were with me, word for word, for the entire night. It was amazing to feel their energy and to hear them laugh when I said something funny.
The best part of all? Five days later, I got another call to come back and do the show again—and it was even better. And I’ve got the pics to prove it!
