Is Dorico 3.5.1. ready for large opera scores?

Ah, I see - so the topmost vocal line of the system at the points where the stage directions are required?

I put them wherever they seem to fit clearly.

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If they only need to appear in the score then Shift-X text will work fine. Consider that when you copy and paste/alt-click/repeat a Shift-X item it will retain its properties even if you edit its actual content.

Typically my use case for this is the reverse: I have “V.S.” text that goes in the parts at tight page turns, but having set one instance to hide in the score I can Alt-click it around in any layout and know that it won’t appear in the score. If I then decide I want instead to show e.g. “(time)” - because there’s no space for rests before a page turn but a heap of multibar rests after it - I can alt-click an existing “V.S.” and edit it so it says “(time)”, and it still won’t show in the score layout.

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Many thanks, both, for your wise advice!

Nothing much to add; but had a job last year making a piano reduction of a new opera. Dorico was absolutely ideal for this and the composer is now a full-time user himself.

A thought struck me at about 05.15 this morning - there are some stage directions above the piano stave in the vocal score (usually descriptive of what should be happening on stage during an orchestral interlude), but of course the piano won’t be in the full score, so those directions won’t appear on it.

So have I got it right that, in those circumstances, I attach those directions to a suitable staff (presumably the top staff of the system in the full score, whatever that happens to be at those particular occurrences) and then hide it in the associated part?

This is where a “Conductor Staff,” as requested in some other threads, could, if it allowed a zero-line staff, be a great asset for attaching text cues and stage directions in place of conductor symbols via SHIFT+X text.

But of course the Dorico Team may be planning something much more inventive down the road.

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