Tell us, how shall this be done?

So, working on a new show. Where do I begin? RESEARCH.

First step:

• If there is a recording, I get it (There are several good ones listed to the right). It is really important to me to live with the music, and ideally over a period of several months. With a good composer the music tells a story that goes far beyond the text! If there is more than one recording (happily there are several for Dido) I try to hear them all, as each version may offer its own little bit of inspiration.
A small example: in one recording the guitar was strummed a particular way in “Oft she visits”, and for me, it called to mind not a royal entertainment but a casual, youthful campfire setting…. A group of friends and lovers, sitting around a fire, telling ghosts stories, singing songs… it really informed the way I view that scene. I wouldn’t have heard that had I stopped with the first recording I listened to, and thus that scene might have shaped up quite differently.

Then these things happen in no particular order…

• If there is original or good secondary source material, I read that. The Aeneid, Ellen Harris’s intensive study, Michael Burden’s Purcell Companion. Google reader can be very helpful on this.
• I spend a LOT of time on the internet, looking at pictures. Like the ones on this post. The one at the top is of Tyre (Dido's birthplace) and the one below is of Carthage in the 2nd century. Beautiful, eh?
• I find myself gravitating towards certain colors, images, and words. Sometimes I find one particular image that I feel is the key to the whole piece. For Dido & Aeneas, it was this:

Isn’t she lovely? I love everything about her…. The colors, the mosaics, the sensuality. You will see that all of these things play hugely in our production!

Coming up: Filtering the Research… what does it all mean?