As promised... a picture of The Dress I Made!!  Sorry it's not exactly what you might call sharp, but in my flat it's backlighting or nothing, and I reckon you can still see the basics (without noting that some of the seams are not exactly in Germanly straight lines).  I had such FUN making this - a great deal of which was because I had no idea of what I was doing and made it up as I went along.  

Its first outing was to a premiere (Tristan & Isolde) on Saturday.  Whilst both the dress and I aimed for sophistication, I definitely failed.  Two of the three acts passed with me acting in decent fashion.  Then came the third act.  It was so beautifully sung that despite the very modern and political production I dissolved into hopeless tears...  my neighbour, a complete stranger, offered me a tissue and even fished it out for me when he saw I was blind with weeping.  Ahhhh, Wagner!

Amazing how one exchanges one frustration for another, huh?  I FINALLY got an audition - and a good one, for a role I would very much like to sing.  This coming  Wednesday.  So I have been trying to get hold of the right person at the state agency to OK it in order to reclaim at least a proportion of the travel costs, without much success, I might add.  Then, because it is over six hours' train ride away, and the flight would have been ridiculous, I have been trying for a decently-priced hotel, only to find them ALL completely booked.  I am determined that this will work out, but the time spent on logistics is disproportionate; one really feels that here is where it would be rather useful to have money enough to ignore the annoyances.

Ah well.  Meanwhile I am wandering around muttering in Czech to myself (it is a very spitty sort of language, and I always think of the late and wonderful Philip Langridge when accidental spitting happens, as he adored singing in Czech for this very reason!), trying to reaquaint my  brain with the words to the one aria I can reasonably fish out for this audition...

See you later!