Workaround for Hiding a Staff in a Choir Reduction?

Dorico
1

I am curious to know whether there is a workaround for hiding a staff within a multi-staff instrument (for example, a choir reduction) when that instrument is assigned to a Player who holds multiple instruments.

Daniel noted a limitation of Dorico in this thread, but I wondered whether anyone has since found a practical solution. In the piece I am currently working on, there are many passages where only the men or only the women are singing. Ideally, I would like to reclaim some vertical space in the score by hiding the staff containing only rests.

My setup uses a single Player holding a large number of singer and choir reduction instruments, as this greatly simplifies instrument label changes. Unfortunately, that arrangement seems to prevent the staff-hiding behaviour I would ideally like to achieve.

2

What other instruments is this choir holding?

Perhaps you could just use staff hiding instead of instrument switching throughout?

Or just use a Soprano and a Bass staff with a manual bracket for the “choir reduction” passages?

3

I have a Singers player that holds around 18 solo singer instruments (the named characters), together with several choir reductions representing different ensemble groupings. For the most part, the score formats beautifully, with instrument labels appearing, disappearing, or updating automatically as required. There are a few quirks with this approach, but the ability to hide or create labels as needed resolves them. I’d be reluctant to change it, not least because the score contains a large number of flows and already runs to well over 90 minutes of music at this stage.

Thinking out loud, and as you suggest, perhaps I could create two single-staff ensemble instruments (one for the women and one for the men) and use those whenever only a single line is needed. My hesitation is that musical theatre scores are constantly evolving, and anything that complicates the workflow has the potential to create unnecessary stress when revisions inevitably arise under tight production deadlines, or when people are standing around waiting for an updated score to be produced as quickly as possible.

Ideally, I’d like to be able to hide a single staff of a choir reduction whenever it contains only rests, but as I understand it, Dorico currently doesn’t allow this when the Player holds multiple instruments.