Road to Opening Week 7: Cynthia Dale On Rehearsals for A Little Night Music

It can be difficult to sing with a lump in your throat, but this week we had our Sitzprobe, and that seems to be exactly what happened.

We stood in a rehearsal room with our hearts beating full and hard, and sang with the orchestra for the first time. We listened to the extraordinary beauty of Stephen Sondheim's music played by some of the best musicians around. We heard the arrangements that Jonathan Tunick so masterfully created. We let the glorious music wash over us and inform our interpretations. We are all keenly aware of how unbelievably lucky we are that we get to play in this special sandbox this year - "A Little Night Music" - here at the Stratford Festival.

When the most recent revival of this show happened on Broadway in 2009 the arrangements were reduced to just eight musicians. It is a sign of the economic times that this happens more often than not.

No matter how big a score, many times there is limited money and the sound is condensed. Yet this season, for our show, we have nineteen musicians.

That is spectacular!

It is a testament to the integrity of this theatre and this music director, Franklin Brasz, that we have an orchestra of this size.

Yes, this is a full lush sound for a deeply masterful score.

How can anyone not be rocked by this music?

How can anyone not feel their tectonic plates shift when they give over to the beauty of solo clarinet at the beginning of "Send in the Clowns"?

Or the horns that overwhelm after six minutes of "A Weekend In The Country" that fill up your soul and ears as fourteen performers finish singing and nineteen musicians finish playing. A cacophony of voices and instruments meeting together in one wondrous flourish.

"Every Day a Little Death" pulses and plucks like there is a tacit agreement between heart strings and harp strings to recognize each other purely. To be there for, and with, each other.

This music makes me want to be a better performer.

I love to act.

I love to sing.

I love being on stage.

I love to work.

I hope I get to do this until I am (a lot) older and (a lot) greyer.

I know how unbelievably lucky I have been in my career.

I know that this show this season will always be one of the peaks.

I know that every night when I hear this orchestra start to play I will count my blessings.

I know that I will do my best to honour the beauty of this score.

I know I will have shows that will feel spectacular and ones that will leave me unsettled, because I'll feel I could have done something better.

I know that I will learn things about myself and about music that I didn't know before.

And I also know that this will be a truly special experience for anyone who chooses to open their hearts... and come to the theatre.

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