Lesson #143:  there is a time and a place in which to be light of foot...

There is a spot during the opera for which we are currently in rehearsal when we three girls have an offstage entrance.  In order to make sure it was 100% correct, I wandered behind the rehearsal pianist to sneak a look at his score, and came in confidently bang on cue.  At which the pianist shot vertically up a couple of feet, startled out of his wits, poor chap.  Not quite sure that there's actually a lesson involved there, apart from maybe, if you frighten your pianist that badly you probably owe him a drink, and (perhaps more germane), never assume that people have noticed where you have got to...

Actually, the same thing led, during rehearsals, to a rather dramatic blow from the heel of a colleague to my cheek today*.  Nobody's fault, just one of those things, and I suppose inevitable when you're fighting over who's going to rip the guts out and who's going to gnaw on the exposed heart.  Perfectly natural, I would have said, with a half-dead tenor to play with...  What I also learned today was, for some reason I can't put tights in my mouth without retching.  The situation had never before arisen, surprisingly enough, but the innards I'm meant to oik out of this tenor are in rehearsals represented by a couple of pairs of tights stuffed into a pocket of his suit.  And when I bit into them in order to drag them slowly out... ohhhh dear.

At least my German is now good enough to explain the slight problem to the costume designer!  I was so proud of holding my own during the ensuing discussion, which covered the actual guts we would be using  being lifelike, rubbery, elastic, slimy-looking, and hygienic... my goodness, is my German vocabulary coming on in leaps and bounds!!

*  Mother please don't panic, it's just an interesting bruise with an integral scratch for emphasis; nothing to worry about!