Positively Patsy Part 39

In the morning our driver took us into the old town and when we stopped the car was surrounded by children. “Do not get out of the car; they will have your wallets and hand bags in a second. Just wait for my cousins. Just then the second car pulled up behind us and two big guys stepped out and approached our car.

The children vanished like smoke. We got out of the car and the big guys smiled at us. Our driver told us that they spoke no English. He then said that he had brought us to the Museo Nautico Da Bahia, which had a lot of information we needed. He said his cousins would follow us as we went through the museum and he would stay with the car. Inside we wandered the place for a couple of hours and took lots of notes. The town had been like something out of the Wild West for almost a century. We came out and got in the car and asked if we could go somewhere equally as interesting for lunch and he took us down to the bay area and a quayside tavern where we had, not only a good lunch, but an opportunity to get photos that would allow us to build a set for the first act. Justin took pictures of the bar area as we could paint that as an authentic backdrop. We bought the three locals a good lunch as well.

For the afternoon we asked our driver to just take us around the locality and point out places of interest and then we went back to the hotel for dinner. After that he took us to a nightclub in the Amaralina district where they played music in the old ways. Justin and I both had our recorders in our pockets and turned on so we recorded the music for future use. We had been very lucky to get this driver and had got everything we wanted in just the one day. Back at the hotel I got our flight to Rio brought forward to tomorrow and booked a hotel in Rio overnight. In the morning our driver took us to the airport and we gave him a good tip with a bit extra for his cousins and then flew down to Rio where we did a bit of sight-seeing before having dinner and getting to bed.

To get across to the Moluccas we needed to fly to Lima and then to Kuala Lumpur first and we did it with a couple of days in each place. The flights to Ternate, the northernmost island and the most likely as the port of call, only happened on Wednesdays and Sundays so we had plenty of time to find out what we needed. We flew into Ternate on the Wednesday and got a taxi to our hotel, and old fort built by the Dutch in about the same period that the Manor was built. The Manor did not have battlements and cannon, though. The weather was wonderful and we girls got some use out of our bikinis at the hotel pool. The next day we went to the Ternate Sultanate Museum as the time that Drake arrived, the Sultan had kicked out the Portuguese a few years before and still had not signed a trade agreement with the Dutch West India Company. The museum was very interesting and we took photos of the fixtures and fittings that would help in our set building.

We spent the rest of the day back at the pool and had a good dinner. On the Friday we asked the reception which restaurant or café was closest to how it would have been in the early days and we were directed to the Borneo 82 Café, which turned out to be a bamboo edifice and a wonderful location for our set. We took lots of photos and had a good lunch. On the Saturday we took a tour of a clove farm and learned lots about the spice island history. We couldn’t find anywhere that old music was particularly played but was assured that the current day music was pretty close so bought a CD of local songs to listen to later. On Sunday we flew back to Kuala Lumpur and Monday we went to Casablanca, via a stop-over in Dubai.

Casablanca was, in all honesty, a bit of a disappointment. It had been a haven for pirates in the fourteen hundreds but bombarded by the Portuguese in the late fourteen hundreds and taken over by them in the early fifteen hundreds. The old Moroccan architecture could have been built in Drakes time or yesterday so we had a base-line for our set. We could not find a good museum that covered our wanted period but did have a lunch in Ricks, the replica of the café in the movie and they even have a piano player that does ‘As time goes by’ We had a Grands Taxis, a white Mercedes, that took us around the various points of interest. The Old Medina was interesting but we saw nothing we wanted to buy but the New Medina was better, with ‘vintage’ leather work and handcrafts. I bought a couple of bags.

Our biggest problem was that the port area had been built over during a couple of hundred years and then completely altered in the Second World War. I thought we could create a set from our photos and be a bit creative with the musical styles for our fourth act. We only stayed a couple of days and then flew to Heathrow and a ride to the Manor. It was Justins’ first visit there and was highly impressed. The next day I took him into the British Museum and showed him the Trove Exhibition and we spent some hours discussing what we would need to get replicas of.

Over the next week, Justin and I spent a lot of time in the studio, out of the way, to work out the fabric of the opera. We needed some dialog first, followed by a song about the privateer days and then a general song with the crew about the trip from England and the sinking of two ships. We needed Doughty to have a song to chastise Drake on his actions to set the scene for his downfall and then we needed a song from our three Tavern Girls about drinking up and having a merry time.

The second act would start with a song about plundering bullion ships with the full crew on stage, then a duet with Drake and Reece to talk about the activities of Doughty and our vignette of the beheading, followed by a song about the storm and Winter turning around.. This could end with a voice from above calling ‘Land Ho’ and Drake saying that it looked like they had arrived at Lima and the whole crew singing about the voyage of the mighty Golden Hind. The third act would be in a bar at Ternate with all the bamboo and gold drapes with Drake and Reece discussing the repairs at New Albion and the trip via Palmyra. Then they could talk about the trip home with a couple of songs about the loneliness of a sailors’ life. We then needed a song for Minh to sing about drinking up in traditional Malay dress. We could finish with a song about the spice trade.

The finale act would take place in a bar in Casablanca and would open with two tavern girls and two dusky maidens singing about the delights of the port. The two main characters would talk and sing about the visit to Durban and the trip around the Horn. There should be a song with the full crew singing about seeing England again after three years and lamenting that there were now only a third of the men who left. Drake could sing about having to see the queen again and wondering what she would have him do next, with Reece having a song about taking his share and settling down with a girl he had met before he left.

It should end with the four girls and the whole crew singing about the trip being an epic voyage and should end with the line that Drake was the first Englishman to go around the world. This gave us plenty to go on and Justin left to fly back to America. Joanne and I made time to go and see a few operas that were playing in London and the midlands. It was good to note that, although they were well over the top, there was a flow of music all the way through and I realised that I needed to come up with a tune that would catch the attention of the audience and provide a flowing link.

The music school members showed up and, within a couple of days, Joanne and I were getting tired of the drumming that reverberated through the house so we made our excuses and flew back to Nashville for some peace and quiet. Justin and I could get together now and work on the tunes. As we worked on each song, I wrote out the lyrics and he wrote the basic music and we sang the duets with him taking the Drake voice. It was coming along very nicely and was only broken by the Christmas period and Joanne and me singing with the school choir for some hospital visits.

Part 40

During the first three months of the following year we made great strides with some dialogue and songs. When we had the whole opera mapped out, we got our local choir master to come in and arrange the choir parts. Justin had written out enough music for strings and brass for us to think about involving an orchestra so, as a first point of call, I went to see the headmaster to ask him if we could borrow the school band. I had heard that they were pretty good as they were goaded into working hard to keep up with the choir. When he said it would be a grand way to give the band some real-life experience I went to see their conductor and gave him the music, explaining what we were doing and that he was welcome to flesh out the basic music if he could see things that needed changing. I knew we had not yet written any woodwind or percussion parts and I wondered if he could add some. He thought that it would take a bit of time for his band to get to know two and a half hours of music. During that time we honed the lyrics and got Jake to come in and sing his Reece parts. Justin recorded the Drake parts and we sent the lyrics and the recording over to Greg to see how he felt with the songs.

I was starting to think that we would use the band and friends again, so I got in touch with our five stars and asked them if they would still be happy to sing in an opera, maybe around the middle of the year. All sounded still keen. I auditioned our friendly security team and found four who could sing well so took their particulars and got them measured. I asked Sarah if there were any middle-aged singers in the stable who could do a grumpy Doughty and she sent us one who had already sung opera as a younger man. We contacted a stage design company about building our forecastle and aftcastle and the tavern props and they came back with prices dependant on the theatre size. This led to a discussion about where we would do the show to be big enough to hold a good sized audience and to also be convenient for the TV people. Funnily enough, one was available in the first week of August, in San Francisco, no less. That would be an interesting hook for advertising.

Early April we got the school band, the choir, our five stars, the whole ‘Amazon’ band, security guys and Greg into the rehearsal room and we worked through the first act. It took a week to get something that sounded like we wanted it so went on to the second, and then the third and fourth acts. By the end of May we were pretty happy with the result, the staging company had come up with the constructions for the theatre, the TV people were on board and our replica company in the UK had sent over authentic looking cutlasses and belts/ brace sets for the crew. Maxine had come through with authentic looking clothes for the whole cast as well as boots. We decided to do a full dress rehearsal at the Athenaeum for our supporters and I flew the headmaster and choir master from England, as well as a representative of the British Museum to verify our facts. We could use the backdrops but not the ship parts so we just had a row of authentic looking fencing from the back to the front of the stage for act two. I would go on to the stage before each act to explain what the audience would be seeing and any changes that would be made for the performance in San Francisco.

On the second Saturday of June, we had an audience assembled in the theatre in Nashville. We had our usual support crew, all of the friends and parents of the choir and band and some representatives from the various companies we had used. Simon came down from New York, along with Annette and Maxine and some TV executives. We also invited some media but warned them that no photographs or recording was allowed. Sarah had invited some other industry people as well. It ended up as quite a full audience.

Before the first act I went onto the stage and told the audience what the opera was about. I said that the show in San Francisco would have a properly printed programme with this information. The band then struck up our overture and we went into the first act. I was particularly taken with the way our stars made themselves totally buxom during their songs and our Doughty character was really good with the nastiness.

Between acts I went back out to set the scene and explained that the sides of the stage would be filled with extra ship parts for the TV show and then the second act overture started. There was a fair bit of applause at the end of this act and we all went for an intermission. I had a chat with Jim, who assured me that it looked good so far. The British Museum chap was very happy with our show so far as the clothing and sailor gear was right for the times. He told me that many producers of this type of performance go over the top with lots of silk and frills, which would be stupid for shipboard life.

The third act and fourth act went well. We had written the final song to be sung by the whole cast, so it was a rousing chorus to finish, and there was an appreciative applause at the end of it. After being used to the roar of fans at big concerts, we were unused to politeness. Jim assured me that it would be all right, on the night, and gave me a hug before he got on the bus to the nursing home. Simon said that it was certainly different from things we had done before but said that he would organise an audio master from the TV people in case a CD could eventuate. The surprise of the evening was when a couple of Sarahs’ guests shook my hand and said that they would be in touch about putting the show on in London, should I be interested. Luckily the UK headmaster and choir master were within grabbing distance so I put them together to talk about a production in England. The British Museum chap told me that we had his seal of approval.

Justin was really pumped by the end, somehow unable to believe what we had achieved. I told him to settle down and conserve his energy for the big show later on. Maxine was a bit unhappy about the drabness of the clothes when they were on the stage but I assured her it was authentic and would be appreciated as such. Jake and Greg were like two little boys who had both scored home runs. They created a wave of joy through the cast so everyone went home happy that night.

In the morning the papers were interesting. The music critic did not really know what to make of it but did agree that there were a few songs in there that could get airplay. The arts critic, though, was effusive in his praise, saying that it was a genuine story, sung well and looked authentic enough to calm any purist. He said that it was a wonderful addition to the Nashville history and looked forward to the TV performance. I could take that any day! Sarah called and told me that the guys who spoke to me last night were from a front-line opera company in the UK and had started to speak about me producing it in London, with their own cast. She also said that there were a couple of guys from New York who produced opera there and were interested in us putting it on in their theatre with our cast. I told her to talk to them about staging it as soon after San Francisco as I could not guarantee that all of the singers would stay with us after the TV show. I said I would put it to them as soon as she gave me the dates and details.

We gave everyone a break and arranged to get together in San Francisco two weeks before the TV Show. We organised the printing of the programme with a note on the cover that the opera was approved by the British Museum for authenticity. We finally called the opera ‘Drake and Reece – the World Tour!’ Joanne and I spent a few days at the ranch and then flew to London to talk with the opera company, which was quite fruitful. We then flew to New York to finalise details with the TV people and a conference with the opera company there which finalised a three-week run at a theatre just off Broadway, starting two weeks after San Francisco.

Marianne G 2020