Nearing the final Performance

by Barbara Rose Shuler

Back again after a break for deferred maintenance on home, family and non-Bach work. Every summer the usual rhythms and tasks of life are set aside for weeks, including time with my patient but neglected husband. By 12 days into the festival, I usually take a short break to buff up the house and garden, prepare for August work and spend time with family. The 12-day timing habit is apparently so ingrained that it took over even though it makes sense this year to push to the finish.

This week David Gordon forwarded to me a revealing time-lapse video showing the activity of the stage crew on a single busy Bach Festival day. There is no question, everyone works extremely hard during the festival including the musicians, artistic and admin staff, board members, volunteers and even patrons, many of whom try to fit as much as possible into their time.

So, it wouldn’t be fair to say the stage crew works harder than the fully immersed artists, staff and volunteers. However, these women and men do work hard and provide an essential ingredient that ironically goes unseen if done well—and their work is very rarely not done well—so most people don’t think about this behind-the-scenes work much or understand its importance to the smooth functioning of the festival.

Precise choreography takes place each day setting stages at the various venues, making sure every chair, music stand, keyboard, etc. is placed exactly where it needs to be followed by quick exact changes between sections of a concert or recital. Members of the production staff, led by longtime stage manager and festival treasure Michael Becker, undertake this complex scheduling and organizing.

Doug Mueller, who has been producing videos of the festival, created this time-lapse film of Saturday, July 25, the busiest day for the stage crew. It is posted on You Tube and worth a couple of clicks to get the idea of the quick changes and precision of the efforts to keep performances on the Sunset stage alone running smoothly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDuLHnUXGk0

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Barbara Rose Shuler writes Intermezzo, which chronicles classical music, in the Monterey Herald's Go! Magazine each week. She can be contacted at wordways@comcast.net.
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