Ohhhh, I just knew this opera was going to be one of those.  From abject misery to exhausted elation in less time than it takes to explain the plot...

Tonight we took a collective deep breath and dived in for the first run-through without any breaks, whatever happened.  Totally scary.  Yet when we got to the end, the feeling of being able to GET to the end without bursting into tears and running away (and yes, this applies to pretty much everyone involved!) was exhilarating.  Of course there were mistakes, and late entrances, and nonsense words.  And I am utterly certain that the next couple of weeks leading up to the premiere will contain their fair share of tears and panic.  Given the nature of the piece, I think that's fairly inevitable.  The overall feeling, though, was tremendously exciting - we've all worked hard on this, and it is shaping up to be a very strong theatre piece.

Definitely worth a few knocks.  And tonight had those in plenty.  My first (passionate) scene with Macbeth has me at one point sliding down the severely raked stage and then climbing back up.  My Macbeth later commented that he loved the sound I'd made... I had unfortunately to disappoint him by noting that the "fantastic sound" he commented upon was actually my head hitting the ground so hard that I saw stars for at least two minutes afterwards.

And I think we need to have a little talk with make-up about my hair extensions.  The one I pulled out at the start of my mad scene took a decent amount of my own hair with it, and I know I have plenty to spare etc etc but damn that HURT!!

I need to constantly remind myself that we have two weeks yet in which to correct mistakes.  I wake up each morning counting, counting, finding the right note; obsession just doesn't begin to cover what we live through in such situations.  Thank god for friends and family who bring me back down to earth.