In August 2021, I mixed monitors for an opera premier at the Bing Concert Hall at Stanford University. This was a unique opera, with a baroque orchestra playing contemporary music, situated upstage from the playing area rather than in a pit beneath the stage. The “offstage” areas were onstage in plain sight to the audience. My role was to build the monitor mixes for the conductor and musicians so they could hear the singers and each other, and to manage the wireless microphones on the vocalists, a violinist, and a cellist, both of whom moved around the stage.
During technical rehearsals, the monitor mixing area was onstage, and it was moved backstage during performances.
I also managed wireless microphone systems. This included:
Assembling over-the-ear clip assemblies to correctly position miniature DPA electret microphones using a Hellerman tool and rubber sleeves
Cleaning and placing mics on singers and instruments
Keeping beltpack transmitters clean and free of moisture
Replacing batteries
Monitoring RF signal strength
Muting wireless mics when offstage
The opera, The No One’s Rose by Matthew Aucoin, was a collaboration between the American Modern Opera Company (AMOC), the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra. It is titled after a painting by Anselm Kiefer, which is in turn inspired by poet Paul Celan’s poem Psalm, which contains the phrase. It had an eclectic array of music, including new compositions by Aucoin, a song by Paul Simon, arrangements of music of Bach, Schubert, and Berlioz, among other pieces.