Internship at the Estonian National Opera (Rahvusooper): Part Three

Lovely Old Town of Tallinn. (Picture taken by Aleksi Joensuu)

My work assingments during the on-the-job learning period  included a lot more than is shown in this blog's pictures, because I didn't always remember to photograph everything. Anyway for example, I did a lot of repairing the clothes, some clothes from almost the beginning to finished product or for fitting, changing zippers, sewing buttons and hooks and anything that I was asked to do. I learned to use some new techniques and to handle materials that I hadn't used much before.

The working culture and the culture in general are quite similar to Finland, so it was easy to adapt to the environment. I felt welcome at the costume department of Opera as well as in my flatmates' home in Keila. Sometimes it was challenging to communicate with co-workers because of the language barrier, but my bosses/counsellor and assistant counsellors spoke english so I had no problems understanding the tasks. I could always ask for help and there were some people who could translate in english, finnish or estonian if needed. I would recommend learning the country's language if you're considering to study or work abroad. It would make things easier. I should have done it, but I was too busy before the internship.

I'm glad that I could help the hard-working people at Opera and I feel that my work was appreciated. Despite my occasional personal diffuculties (not related to work) the period went fast and it was wistful to leave the place. Maybe I'll return there some day. :)

Some tips about Tallinn and doing internship abroad:
- Travelling: In Estonia you can buy a travel card, which is cheaper than bying single tickets. For example one month card that I had (3 zones / train, tram, bus, trollbus) cost about 50 euros. There are also day tickets and so on. You can buy it from R-kiosks, some stations and online. Travelling by public transport in Tallinn is free for it's habitants.
- Language: English is good to know, but study the language anyway! Especially if you're going to some place where people don't speak english very well.
- Accommodation: I was very lucky to live with a couple I knew before moving to Keila and I had my own room there. The downside of it were the long commutes - it took about an hour in total in one way. I'd recommend to get an apartment or room nearer to the working place if possible, because long commutes mean longer days and for some people it might be quite hard at times.
- Restaurants and shops: Pegasus - popular restaurant and good food for a moderate price, Olde Hansa - medieval restaurant, a bit pricy but the food and atmosphere are lovely!
Humana - a vintage shop, Karnaluks - the paradise of fabrics, materials and equipment, KangaDzungel and Abakhan Fabrics - fabric shops both worth checking out.

*****

I'd like to thank everyone who had been part of making this intership abroad possible!

Internship at the Estonian National Opera (Rahvusooper): Part Two

After the Sleeping Beauty premiere my friend Aleksi came for a visit for a weekend.

Old Town on Friday evening. (Picture taken by Aleksi Joensuu)

On Saturday we walked around in Old Town with Aleksi, my other flatmate Jana and her brother Reno. We had sushi at a restaurant called Silk. (Picture taken by Aleksi Joensuu)

(Picture taken by Aleksi Joensuu)

Preparing for pizza and movie night! (Picture taken by Aleksi Joensuu)

Sunny Sunday walk in Keila. (Picture taken by Aleksi Joensuu)

St. Michael's church in Keila.

Back to work!

Many clothes in theatre are worn a lot, so you need to make sure they are strong enough. This technique in the picture was totally new for me.

Golden pants!

Next bigger project was making two acrobat suits of lycra. First experiment was to make material from stripes. It took a whole day to cut the stripes and another to sew them together.

Costume desing by E. Kálmán and piles of stripes.

One of my bosses/assistant counsellor cut the suits from the material and I sew them together.

In the fitting it turned out that this idea didn't work out, because when the costume was on the dancer, the stripes went lopsided on the legs. 

Chrismas market in Old Town.

 I made also this big collar with another trainee. A lot of sewing by hand.

The collar is for next the big premiere, Circus Princess (Tsirkusprintsess).

I almost finished this vest and the separate sleeves (not seen in the pic) similar to the costumes in the picture below. The clothes were in the middle of the making when they were assinged to me.

Vests/jackets for The Sleeping Beauty.

The next step with the acrobat costumes was trying different technique that worked fine. It took a long time to get these ready, but in between the process I did some smaller assingments too, like sewing buttons.

The costumes look kind of funny when just hanging there, but they were alright when worn by an actual person.

Stars and stripes.

Internship at the Estonian National Opera (Rahvusooper): Part One

In the end of October I started a new exciting phase in my life and Monday 20th was the first day of my on-the-job learning period at the Estonian National Opera. The following 9 weeks would include a lot of work, two premieres and some sightseeing in the city of Tallinn and living in Keila.

Most of the pictures are taken by me, otherwise the photos are credited in the captions.

Estonian Opera House (picture taken by Aleksi Joensuu)

My working counsellor, assistant counsellors and other co-workers showed me around the costume department and the building. For example there are a costume storage (you can rent costumes from there), shoemakers, jewellery makers and milliners, fabric dyeing department, shoemakers and of course the stages and halls and all the other departments.

As my first assingment I did money pockets, belts and a bow tie.

The example of the money pocket (in the middle), money pockets in progress (right-hand side) and a glimpse of white and black lace soon to be a belt (left).

A black bow tie and a belt (above) as an example for the products I was making (the silver below). Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture when they were ready.

A costume for The Sleeping Beauty -ballet. This ballet's costume desinger, british Peter Docherty arranged and pinned the ribbons in place. I attached them on the lycra suit with a sewing machine.

Same suit from behind.

This ribbon was challenging to handle, because it fell apart very easily as you can see from the picture.

I made a lot of lace cuffs and collars, which I enjoyed as the materials were nice and the results pretty.

One bigger work assingment was making parts of the costumes for the Evil Queen's minions for The Sleeping Beauty. Assistant counsellor cut the fabrics and gave me instuctions. Putting these together, covering some parts with fabric and sewing the edges with pieces of different materials took many working days. It was interesting because these costumes were very different than anything I had done before. I also sew some parts of the lycra suits (attached zippers etc) and it's a shame that I don't have photos of them, because the fabric's print was beautiful.

Work in progress.

Close-up.

These were worn on the hips. The other parts were on the shoulders.

And of course I sew some buttons and hooks, changed new zippers for jackets and repaired broken clothes and made them bigger or smaller when needed.

A dancer tried the vest on the stage, but the change in between the different costumes was so fast, that half of it's buttons needed to be snap fasteners.

Same thing happened with these blue jackets.

November 14th was the premiere day of Pjotr Tchaikovsky's The Sleeping Beauty (Uinuv kaunitar in estonian). You can read more about it here. That week before that was very busy for all of us and everyone worked hard to get everything ready in time. We got to see the main rehearsal of the ballet - in my opinion it was beautiful! The sets, the music and atmosphere, the skilled dancers - and I've always loved to see the costumes on stage and in use. In the end of the day we celebrated at the premiere party with the scenographers and set constructions workers etc!