An interview with John Bell

Posted by Sian Ellett on 10 February 2012 | 0 Comments

Tags: John Bell, Director, The Rakes Progress, Stravinsky, interviews, Victorian Opera, directors

John Bell is the Artistic Director of Bell Shakespeare. Sian Ellett and Lisa Wallace chat to him about his involvement in The Rake’s Progress as Director, his interpretation of Igor Stravinsky’s opera and the importance of music in telling the story….

Bell describes The Rake’s Progress as a story with an ancient feel to it, bordering legend. Having founded Bell Shakespeare in 1990 it seems only fitting that he cares deeply about the retelling of old stories and finding new angles to familiar tales.

When asked about the difference between working on opera as opposed to theatre, Bell tells us there are many distinctions in working on the two art forms. “An opera focuses on the music. It is the starting point in the artistic direction of the play. The visuals, the staging and set design revolve around the tempo and style of the sound.”

He also explains that singers come to the rehearsal process already knowing their role and somewhat set in terms of the vocal and the musical demands, where as an actor will come to the rehearsal process as more of a blank slate ready to be moulded. The honesty and truth of opera must be found through the music, rather than the realism of the performances. Bell tells us it begins and ends with the music and in his own preparation he will “listen again and again and again.”

Bell wants to tell The Rake’s Progress in a very modern context. “Who is today’s Rake? Who is today’s devil?” The set is deliberately minimalistic to allow the singers and their vibrant costumes to speak for themselves. The chorus will also play a large part in telling the story through movement and tableaus of a simple and graphic nature.

Stravinsky was aware of avoiding the dangers of stereotypes and one dimensional characters. Anne Trulove and Tom Rakewell are figures filled with painful humanity and it is this that Bell will foreground in his interpretation. He enthuses that it is all there in Stravinsky’s rich and complex score.

It is only day two of rehearsals, but we are already wrapped up in the music and the concepts, especially when Mr John Bell is speaking about them. We’ll be checking back in the coming weeks to see how things progress.