Happy New Year!!

What an utterly surreal end to the year!  I have spent the last month or so immersed in Verdi, covering a small role in rehearsal, frantically scrabbling to learn the words whilst actually blocking all the moves (if I didn't say before, I was asked to jump in on the first day of rehearsals...).

Anyway, yesterday was the piano dress rehearsal.  For pretty much the first time, I was watching rather than singing, and I looked forward to seeing everyone in their actual costumes and make-up (and what a luxury, to see it from the auditorium!).

As I rushed into the theatre, people kept popping out of the woodwork, giggling, asking me if I'd seen the colleague who will be singing the role in most performances, and for whom I was covering.

Once I saw her, I understood.  Not only was she, understandably, dressed as I had been for the past month, but the costume designer had evidently got a bit of a thing about my hair.  There it was, in exactly the same mess as I generally pin it up in for rehearsals (the one time I wore it loose, a couple of weeks ago, it got tangled up in the wheel of a wheelbarrow.  Don't ask.).  And there, in all its glory, was my white streak.  Yep, the designer had decided that her idea of Flora now included the Morticia look, and so my colleague had had a fake white stripe stuck into her hair.

Combined with the occasional physical mannerism that I recognised as my own, it was an amazingly surreal experience to, in effect, watch myself on stage (yes, yes, in my dreams - my colleague has endless legs and is taller and slimmer than me, but the general effect was spooky).

Great end to the year, though!  Fabulous music and an unrepeatable experience.

Thank you for reading this, and I wish you a MAGNIFICENT year in 2014!!