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Today we all met at Kirke Mechem’s home for our first musical rehearsal.   I had never worked directly with a composer before, so this was all very exciting to me.  In the weeks leading to this rehearsal, I decided to revisit Jane Austen’s novel, and I also rented several versions of the movie to get a broad perspective on “Lizzie”.  I had the book’s famous opening phrase ingrained in my brain for weeks!   

    “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a

    good fortune, must be in want of a wife”.

I smiled when I first opened the score and saw that Kirke had given these words to the chorus.  In fact, there were a lot of direct quotes from the book in the score.

Being part of a new opera, and one written by a composer such as Kirke Mechem, is something I never thought I’d experience, and I had every kind of butterfly in existence in my stomach as I drove up to his house.  I was also excited about working with Bob Geary, our conductor, and looking forward to meeting the rest of the cast.  As I parked my car, I saw that Janet had also just arrived.  Sharing this experience with my teacher, also in the cast, was an added blessing!  After we all introduced ourselves, we gathered in Kirke’s living room and began to go over the music.  Bryan Baker, our assistant conductor, played for us. 

Working with a living composer is a luxury that most opera singers rarely have today, and I felt very fortunate to be one of them.  It reminded me of the many autobiographies I read of singers from La Belle Époque, particularly that of Nellie Melba where she writes about her Manon score and all of Massenet’s notations on it.  I remember thinking how lucky she was to have worked with the person who wrote her part, and to have the kind of insight that only the composer can give.  Now here I was, doing the same, and I was just....so excited.

Kirke Mechem is a terribly kind man, as is Bob Geary, and working with them both this evening was a dream. Shaping this new music was nothing short of thrilling for me; and watching the creative exchanges between composer and conductor reminded me, once more, how fortunate I was to be a part of an emerging work.

Pride & Prejudice Score

Alexandra Mena, Mezzo-Soprano ◊ Copyright © 2007-2012