How Much is Too Much?

Admit it. Those of you who did Carmen were exhausted by Sunday. Yes, yes, some of us did work the Rossini Festival on Saturday, but even without that, I'll wager everyone was glad when the curtain fell late Sunday afternoon.

Two performances. That doesn't count the weeks of rehearsals required to stage those two performances. "But," you say, "What performances... and what rehearsals!" Yeah, yeah. I hear you. It was grueling.

But, to put things in perspective, check out this NYT article about the Kirov Opera doing two concurrent Ring cycles at the Met this summer. Yes, on consecutive nights! The four Wagner operas! Twice!

Okay, let's just about this for a moment. What kind of forces would be required to do such a feat? Well, you'd probably want two groups to do each cycle, and you certainly wouldn't expect the major roles to be done by the same people on consecutive nights. One analogy I read said you wouldn't ask a soprano to sing Brünnhilde on consecutive nights any more than you'd ask a major league pitcher to start on consecutive nights. So, you'd need two of Brünnhilde and Siegfried, at least. (One might be pressed to find one set of singers for those roles.) Then there's the folks in the pit, which may or may not be interchangeable, not to mention tons of IATSE (production) folk and all appurtenances thereof.

What's amazing to me is that there was only one conductor: Valery Gergiev!

How many people have tried conducting? Show of hands? A few? Maybe you conduct your church choir in an anthem or two Sundays and rehearsals on Wednesdays. Of course, Christmas and Easter presentations require a little more preparation and length of time on the podium--a 45-minute cantata. Or maybe you teach choir in the schools. That's a little more conducting. Daily rehearsals, concerts for PTA and other civic groups, and one or two performances at semester's end.

Now, imagine waving your arms in the air for 4 hours a night for eight nights in a row! (There was a day off in there somewhere.) And people say, "Oh, music! That's a profession for wimps!" Ha! Think you're in shape? Workout at the gym? Free weights, you say? Two or three games of tennis or racquetball a week? (Maybe racquetball is passé nowadays.) Ooo! You're pumped!

Let's get an idea of what Maestro Gergiev had to do. Stand up and just put your arms up in front of you. They don't have to be out all the way, just out from you in a comfortable position. Now, stay that way for, oh, let's just say, 15 minutes. After 5 minutes, you begin to get that burning sensation that means that oxalic acid crystals are building up in the muscles; at 10 minutes, your arms begin trembling; at 15, you're probably on the verge of cramping.

Okay, rest a minute. Now repeat the experiment. This time, flail your arms in the air. Vary the amplitude--sometimes large, grandiose general movements, other times small precise movements. Maybe this time it's not quite as painful, as your muscles are at least getting some variance. If you're feeling fine after 15 minutes, try aiming for 30 minutes. Still going? Try 45, 60... Maybe, if you're lucky and have the biceps of Mr. T., you might get through an hour.

But Gergiev? Four hours! Every night! For 8 days! I would think that, rather than training for a single attempt at your best dead lift, one might take a leaf from marathon runners. You'd probably want to pace yourself, and learning perfect form would certainly be a must. The strength of economy. Still, that's a lot of arm waving.

The moral of this story is, if you see Valery Gergiev anytime soon, I'd refrain from challenging him to any arm wrestling.