Dear members of PDO Philharmonic Doctors Orchestra,

exciting things have happened meanwhile which will make you excited about our project of the Magic Flute!
Please read all of this and react fast and definitely on the items which are relevant for you.

We have cracked the 40 member line, so we have surpassed a critical size and it can be assumed that we will make it
and get a full cast with MusicHealers - phantastic!!!!

You will tell all of your MusicDoc friends world-wide at once to participate in our project when you hear what happened to me in Berlin beginning of September: I was playing piano on a high-level congress "Hospital World" with top managers from big hospitals.
The marketing manager of Dubai Health Care City HCC was enthusiastic about this idea of an opera production of an
all-docs-ensemble and he said he would love to invite the entire group for an inauguration event of a new part of HCC at the end of 2010! This nutritions also the hope that we can get some expenses paid or even get some modest fees for our professional MusicDocs - which would be acceptable, right? They live from it. But please keep this Dubai information TOP SECRET among us. Just share your increasing fun to participate in our project and having interesting perspectives.

Finally having a definite option to play in the beautiful barock theatre in Stuttgart/Germany http://www.wilhelma-theater.de/theater.aspx (click on "mehr Fotos" several times!) for the entire week 19th July 2010 to 25th July 2010.  This would be an absolutely necessary proof of our newly founded froup and the functioning of our production before we would possibly go to Dubai or any other place alltogether. Well - in the arabic world you can be sure that it works out when it has happened.

Please have a look at our big table of the cast-list: http://www.pdo.name/2010-MagicFlute/2010-MagicFlute-cast.htm and see how the situation is - let us look at the different COLUMNS:

• Function:
  • Tugsal Mogul is very interested to be our stage director (!), not finally decided yet. Click for his presentation!
  • stage decoration master and costume design still missing - do you know a doc (medical doctor, dentist, veterinarian, pharmacist, psycho-therapist, spiritual healer) for this task? (maybe Silke makes StageDecoMaster, then the assistant will be missing?)
  • We are missing ca. 15 solo singer parts (the smaller parts - could be done partly by amateur voices or choir singers, some only speaking parts, 3 boys might be hired from a boys choir) yet. But this seems to develop very well, some requests are in the pipeline. Write me which part you like to do. Check the libretto or other material. The Philips label has a cheap entire recording of the magic flute. Listen here (only for us - do not share this link!)
  • probably an entire DoctorsChoir would join us and fill up the choir in just one moment. They are deciding very soon.
  • with this the choir director would become definitive in his participation (even right around his medical exam May 2009)
  • some wind player positions are already filled and even covering each other - rotating so that everybody gets 2 of 3 performances. Please look around for other wind instrument players to fill the gaps!
  • strings: most needed viola, rest nearly set, hopefully we'll get another double-bass which will do.
• cast A / cover B:
  • it is good as in a normal theatre to have a double cast for one part. This reduces risks essentially. Having three performances (at least one general rehearsal and two performances) a rotation is possible so that a "cover B" cast will sing at least one performance. Because of this please let us continue to get colleagues so we can build a strong group. (This will be important for our sensational second project in 2011 or 1012, read later)
• name  (22) (link to personal URL)
  • if you are represented on any web site please let me have your link! I would like to link from every name.
  • if you have NO web site please send me your photo and some text about your MusicDoc life and I will put it on our web site linking to it from your name in this column.
• paid membership
  • Luxembourg is super with financial things - Danièle from there was the first one (except myself) to register as a full member of the beneficial www.DoctorsTalents.com association which is our "organisation" carrying out PDO. We have to speak a bit mor about finances later but everybody must become regular member, please! Register and click here. There are costs for this project and just 60 Euro per year is really a low contribution to keep it running - you MAY become sponsor or super sponsor.
  • please feel like in a competition: who will be faster to register??
• countries (10)/town
  • please let me know your country and town if not filled out yet. In the web form I have added a field for that - it is good to know this essential location to get an idea where you come from. (Well, after your application form as member of the association you will have told this anyways).
  • as of today we have members from 10 countries:
    Germany
    Austria
    Switzerland
    Quatar
    Poland
    Luxembourg
    Italy
    Persia
    UK
    USA
• e-mail
  • good-luck: everybody has an e-mail. Working without it would make it nearly impossible for me to communicate.
• phone (1st cell then other)
  • if you have a cell phone please let us have this as first source. If you do not have a cell phone please give us your office number AND your home number.

Important to participate regularly for all 4 practice sessions!Reserve your time, please and keep it!In EVERY session we will make stage rehearsals, music rehearsals, correpetition with singers, build decoration, develop light concepts and do all organisational things around. If you bring partners with you they can help organising.

Each of the first 3 practice sessions will have a final opera-symphony concert. May 2009 we might play in the "Abteikirche" of www.Fuerst-Leiningen.de (in negotiation, secret) and have the famous organ of Mr Stumm available. In this setting we should add the "Magic Flute Mass" to the program as an inner connection between opera and the room of a big church. At times of Mozart it was normal to make masses of opera themes. Read below about Manfred App...

Talking about money

your costs are:

Our joy will be to have contributed to the unique humanitarian work of Beat Richner www.BeatoCello.ch in Cambodia.

Apart from that: The rent of the theatre would have to be covered with the sale of 3x300 seats = 900 seats and would be about 12.000 Euro. The risk to get enough seats sold to cover the rent seems to be rather small (900 sold for 13.30 Euro. Or 600 sold for 20 Euro. But we want to make an "auction" to get them sold at high price of 100-300-500-1000 Euro for the beneficial purpose!
I guess you understand that I cannot take this risk all allone from my assistant doctor salary. So if just we ca. 60 people would share this minimum risk: (ONLY THEORETICAL CONSTRUCTION!)

Each one would cover 200 Euro (just risk, not cash). Assuming we have several students it would be great if some would be willing to "cover" more.
Only with the coverage of 12.000 Euro I can book the theatre definitely!
Please act NOW and tell me what you can cover. So we can concentrate on musical issues.

I plan to copy the partition and send you all music electronically so you can print it out and play right away.
As an example how this works you can see www.Ellenberger.name/Haydn .

Then you just need to practice until our first meeting in Castle of Weikersheim on thursday May 7th, 2009. Go right in front of the central building to the entrance of the "MusikalischeBildungsstätte". There we are to be.

In the meantime I have met Manfred App who dug out Magic Flute II after the fall of the Berlin wall in 1990 in East Berlin! The librettist Emanuel Schikaneder had written a follow-up piece MF2 and Peter von Winter has composed the music. This had been performed about 70 times in Vienna with great success.

Manfred played some samples to me which you can also listen to online:    

Magic Flute 2: www.papageno-music.com
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Das_Labyrinth

Imagine to take up again the "old" MF1 and produce the "new" MF2 in 2011/2012 we could create a music-historical sensation of the first time ever to perform MF1 and MF2 in a double-pack! This is why my intention is to build double coverage of instruments and singers so we can unfold to a (partly) double ensemble and do both productions in a paralell-mode!!

Manfred has some other things to play: The Zauberflötenmesse (a mass with themes of the Magic Flute).
We could add one piece to each of the session recitals.

Looking forward to hear from you!
Please write to Wolfgang@Ellenberger.name
or give me a call at +49 (1520) 176 71 55 (cell phone)
or +49 (6284) 21 28 21 (work)

Yours

Wolfgang