M E Z Z O D R A M A

2012-02-07T18:42:00.002+01:00

Frozen, I think, for a while. A (perhaps inevitable) time out due to a nasty cold (I had been sickeningly healthy for months and months, and this came at the end of a clutch of auditions involving flying hither and thither like a mad thing), and the sudden descent of a shatteringly sub-zero winter spell have given the past few days a rather dreamlike and timeless quality.

But once past the fever-dream stage of illness, I find it invaluable to have a space in which to think, without the necessity of doing. So much of one's time as a singer is focused, full of forward momentum, goal-oriented - and that of necessity, because without such impetus it is not easy to keep one's head up and stay positive in these dark days for all artists - that it's easy to forget one also needs the introspective calm, necessary for the soul to breathe.

In the timeless space of reflection, the big questions swim up to the surface: why am I doing this? who AM I as a singer? is this the right path? is this the right aria? is this the right interpretation? how do I feel about this role? should I take this particular opportunity? what next? ... and are considered and weighed, and sink back down.

Once the temperature has given in a bit (minus 14 centigrade at one point today) and the cold has retracted its claws and I am once more firing on all cylinders, these musings will be virtually forgotten, but vitally important nevertheless - the iron at the core re-magnetised and pointing in the right direction, the swan's legs working busily yet unseen under the surface...

Well, I can but hope. In any event, a few days curled under the bedclothes means I'm rested and ready to take on the world!

2012-01-15T00:43:00.001+01:00

A somewhat belated Happy New Year!! I know it's the middle of January already, but time has gone a little crazy during the past few weeks and frankly I seldom know which way is up at the moment, hence the reckless abandonment of my poor writings here. All in a good cause, mind - out of the blue, a few auditions have turned up (which can only be A Good Thing), necessitating lots of frantic learning of new material, practising same and working through it with great coaches, precautionary visits to the spa (steam rooms are GREAT for the voice and I'm convinced that jumping from hot to cold like you're meant to confuses bugs so much that they give up...), and flying here there and everywhere.

In my defence, the time weirdness is not confined to my brain. I have slowly become aware that my smartphone (ha!) reckons it's a darned sight smarter than I am, and therefore alters any appointments I have made according to the time difference (hmm, that could have been more snappily put...). What I mean is, I note down, for example, an audition at 1440h for a certain date, in London. Because I was in Germany when I bunged that in the calendar, it then without damned well asking (or even telling me) shifts the appointment to an hour earlier once I arrive in England. This has led to me hyperventilating in slight panic a couple of times when in the UK, and once arriving waaay too early at the airport for a flight (sorry L, my dear friend, I was too chicken to admit this, you having hauled yourself heroically out of bed to transport me to the station!).

It snarls things up in the other direction, too. Having agreed when in England with a friend here in Germany to meet her at the spa in Wiesbaden at a certain time, I was gathering my bits and bobs together in a leisurely manner when she rang wondering where I'd got to. Blasted phone had switched that appointment to an hour LATER! Aargh. Mind you, that particular meeting was somewhat ill-fated anyway - I leapt on the bus and arrived at the spa rather out of breath and unrelaxed, to feel a little smug that my friend hadn't yet arrived. I texted her to say it was a bit too cold to stay outside so I was lurking in the foyer. Text back - erm, so am I, and I can't see you.... Oh yes. It turned out we had different ideas of what "the" spa in Wiesbaden was...

I do have to say, though, that I SO much prefer having pages to learn and places to go; many of the auditions I am currently facing are pretty much guaranteed to turn up nothing concrete in the near future, but the thing is I shall have sung for that particular company, and hopefully they'll remember me when it comes to casting the season after this... And I have to admit, new stuff can be glorious - whatever the outcome, I shall never forget my first musical theatre audition this last weekend (outfit as per photo above, much admired by fellow auditionees, for which I am hellishly thankful for the advice of my New York Musical Theatre Guru, who knows who she is ;-) ) - I have seldom enjoyed myself so much!

There really can't be many better starts to the new year that that, huh? Prost!!

2011-12-08T18:16:00.000+01:00

Ohh. I'd honestly forgotten how much Paris plays tricks with time. I don't think there's another city in the world in which one can lose track in such a delightful way.

I was there for a couple of days this week for an audition. Unsuccessful, as it turned out, but not for lack of trying. It's a part I would love to sing, so learning excerpts was something that should pay off one day. I know it suits my voice. And the surreal experience of waiting to audition, surrounded by at least six other hopefuls, all looking very much like me but on a 4/5ths reduced scale in all dimensions... priceless!! I know the French are very body-conscious, but this was ridiculous. A whole room full of "mini-me"s...

Still, having the entire day to myself yesterday was an utter pleasure. I had vaguely thought of bringing my return train journey forwards, since I woke early and was scheduled to leave just after 7 p.m. - but in the end I simply gave in and wandered around fairly aimlessly despite grey skies and rain.

I delighted in a crêpe with crème de marrons (sweet chestnut purée), much to the amusement of the stallholder. I had to explain that whilst the Germans do produce crêpes, they never have that particular filling, and so for me it has become somehow a peculiarly French pleasure.

The bookshops around the Sorbonne, with their tempting displays of cheap treasure, appear not to have lost any of their appeal. Somehow my small rucksack (I pride myself on travelling light) became filled with bargains (blasted places also have rooms full of second-hand CDs. Shouldn't be allowed.)

And lunch.... ohhhhh, lunch! I was craving proper French onion soup. After tearing myself away from the bookshops (my feet had started to hurt from carrying so much and marching around), I found a little restaurant in the Latin Quarter which had this on the fixed-price lunch menu and ordered entrecôte to follow. And naturally a small pichet of red wine, despite the waiter trying to entice me into ordering a large one (damn - I used to order those without thinking - this time I didn't even finish the entire jug!), and some sparkling water (bejewelled San Pellegrino - same as I had in Berlin recently. Evidently not made its way to the provinces yet!). It was simply amazing how long I lingered over that meal. Didn't even mean to - my plan for the afternoon was to visit the Rodin museum - but it felt too pleasant, sipping wine redolent of cherries and savouring exquisite food, flicking idly through a novel in French I'd picked up at the bookshop...

I made my train by the skin of my teeth. I'd even managed to make the Rodin museum, interestingly by way of an authentic Parisian street demo (only place on earth where asking for directions gets you the full and flirtatious attention of SIX riot police in full gear, I reckon...).

Photo taken in the rain near Odéon, just as night began to fall. What a beautiful city!!!

2011-12-01T12:15:00.001+01:00

Auditions, in the opera world, are very much a necessary evil. It is always an immense pleasure, therefore, to find, much to one's surprise, that one is positively having fun in the middle of one!

I was in Berlin last week for an audition I hadn't been looking forward to at ALL. It wasn't even for a job - the state agency here (the ZAV) has offices all over the country, and once a year they hold central auditions, by invitation. It means you don't have to schlep to all the different major cities for all of the agents to have heard you personally. You are of course more likely to be considered by them if they've seen and heard you in the flesh. The downside of course is that if you don't do your best in this audition, you don't have another chance to set it right. I had sung for a couple of the offices before, and knew that my write-up on the central computer was good; part of me therefore wanted just to leave the status quo ante and give the audition a miss.

The rest of me really fancied a trip to Berlin to catch up on a variety of friends, pick up a bottle of cinnamon liqueur sparkling with gold leaf which tastes gloriously of Christmas to me, and catch a cellist friend's début in a well-known Berlin jazz club. That part won.

So having convinced myself that I was actually singing better than before, and besides which I could use the audition practice, I turned up at the Berlin offices of the ZAV. I'd planned to be in plenty of time, but got foxed by building works to the Berlin subway system (I'd even remembered to bring along my transport map, being well prepared - shame the U1 and U2 had been illogically part-subsumed into what is presumably meant to be the U1 / 2 but looks like the U12 and isn't on the map...). Luckily they were running late after lunch, so I had a chance to catch my breath. I'd warmed up at the apartment of the friend who put me up the previous night, so that wasn't a problem. The poor things were on their fourth consecutive day of audition, and a quick glance at the list of singers showed an entire day of lyric sopranos... and me. I went in grinning and thinking, ha, this will shock them, and hit them between the eyes with my Verdi (Azucena, Condotta ell'era in ceppi, from Il trovatore). (And no, of course I didn't so much hit as rather cautiously let my voice out, it not being the hugest of rooms and it having windows behind all the listeners which bounced the voice back rather loudly...). All I can say is, they were definitely awake by the time I'd howled the last notes. Then, as per normal procedure, they had four more arias on my list to choose from. They were palpably delighted to find a funny one (The old lady's tango, from Bernstein's Candide) and I just relaxed then and there, had huge fun hamming it up, ending with a flourish and a stamp so hard on the last HEY! that I had to apologise for probably having just made a hole in their nice little stage, and said to send the bill for that along with the Bestätigung (bit of paper saying you were there but they paid no expenses, for tax / unemployment purposes). Leaving 'em laughing is not often an option given the repertoire I sing - I walked out grinning a lot wider than when I went in, and will try and remember this feeling for whatever auditions turn up soon!

Um, yes - the picture is a biscuit. It's sort of what happened when I landed in England for my sister's wedding a couple of weeks ago to find her in the middle of a biscuits-for-favours crisis (don't ask. Wedding stuff, only to be understood by initiates....). On no sleep, being awake an extra hour due to the time difference, and in a mood to try and get as much sorted out as possible, weddings being occasions when even the levelest of minds have a tendency to flip over details, I cut and baked and iced and piped silhouettes of the bride and groom, and picked up shattered pieces of icing and bride-to-be, and answered flatly "yes" to my sister's exhausted question of whether she was mad to do this... and at some point when she wasn't around, blearily decided that the batch of icing I'd just mixed was exactly the colour of a Moomintroll (small Swedish cartoon creature from childhood, for the puzzled). Therefore I sneaked three biscuits from the production line and iced him in three different poses... to be wrapped up and sent off with them as a surprise on honeymoon. Well, it amused ME!! I'm very glad to report the entire shebang went off marvellously, and wish my sister and her new husband every health and happiness. (And am damn glad I only have one sister to help with wedding preparations - I was knackered!!)

2011-10-27T20:10:00.002+02:00

I've been reflecting a little on the nature of memory and reality recently (this is probably why it's never a good idea to give singers too much free time...).

Two particular incidents triggered this. Firstly, when I was in Berlin, I went to see the Pergamon exhibition, with the amazing 360° panorama by the artist Yadegar Asisi. I had the unnerving feeling, standing on top of the observation tower and watching the light change and the sounds evolve on the oh-so-realistic view of Pergamon in 129AD, that I was on a balcony in some high-rise hotel; and that at some point later in life, I would think, oh yes, that was beautiful, where was I just then? In other words, whilst being perfectly well aware of the treachery of memory, how on earth could I point out to my subconscious and to my memory what was real and what was not? (And of course, the natural consequence of such a thought - does it really matter? As an artist, this is definitely one to ponder!).

The second instance is probably just me being horribly absent-minded, but again, it did make me think.

I write emails after forming them in my mind (well, the more important ones. Of course, three-second replies go off straight away). Trouble is, there appears to be a mix-up occasionally between what I thought I had written and what I actually HAD written. Not unembarrassing.

Hence the thoughts. Actually an interesting question, and one worth pondering.

And for nachdenken (things to carry on thinking about), top left is a shot of Mainz from my side of the river. Cold, cold, foggy day; is there colour there or not?

2011-10-16T02:36:00.000+02:00

Inspiration. Everywhere, if you decide to look for it out there: impossibly elusive if you're caught up in last-minute desperation.

Tonight was simple to decipher. The Italians have a word for it - sprezzatura. Virtually impossible to translate, but easy to spot - achievement without apparent effort and with natural ease (however much one has sweated and sworn in real life to get there). (Well of course it would be an Italian word - they are world champions at this subtle art - "Oh, this old thing...", upon being complimented on their agonisingly expensive new Armani suit, bought at the expense of months of dinners etc; and the nonchalant chucking of growly, flat red sports cars around suicidal bends at unbelievable speeds whilst chatting ten to the dozen and never failing to appreciate a beautiful woman en route...) Ah yes, this quality was definitely in evidence tonight, in a ridiculously talented German gypsy whose music never fails to leave me uplifted and full of positive energy. There's not a heck of a lot in common between his music and mine, but the spirit of what he is doing is catching, and thank goodness for that.

In similar vein, I was talking last night to a dancer colleague. Our conversation ranged interestingly across several disciplines, and we were in the middle of a discussion about Impressionism, when her expression went blank for a moment (I hurriedly reviewed what I had been saying for instant-boredom factor, and crossed my fingers...). Her eyes focused again, and what she said took me totally by surprise.

"This region on you," she said, indicating with an elegant sweep of the hand the collarbone/shoulder conjunction, "...so smooth and rounded; this is how I aspire to dance."

A view of the world which had never occurred to me!! Translating someone's physical attributes into a way of movement. Amazing! I immediately thought, well maybe we could work together to exchange views on, say, audition pieces - how would a dancer interpret my posture? And how interesting would it be to argue about a dancer's view of musical interpretation, and how much we might learn from that!

One thing we were definitely in agreement on. As an artist; as a human being: you learn or wither. Might not be the easiest thing to continue learning and admit that perfection is never within one's grasp, but damn it, it's a sight more interesting!

2011-10-12T13:39:00.002+02:00

So. Back from a long weekend in Berlin, completely refreshed and revitalised (despite the rain, for evidence of which please see photo). I have to thank my dear friend and voice teacher Jean Ronald LaFond (whose immensely interesting blog - especially to singers with an analytical bent - can be found here). His generosity, knowledge and advice are unparalleled. Should any of you be singers, I can thoroughly recommend him as a teacher.

I am also blessed with several good friends in Berlin, making the weekend absolutely perfect. Between the fabulous experience of the Pergamon exhibition and the unbeatable feeling of being a movie star in a friend's amazingly luxurious bathroom, I had a wonderful time, despite freezing half to death on my first day (evidently I have become a bit of a hothouse flower here in Germany, living where I do...) and severe delays on the way back due to some sort of vandalism in Berlin.

At which point the great customer service from Deutsche Bahn (German train service) kicked in. It is, according to most people, completely rubbish. I think I must be ridiculously lucky in which case, because I have always had wonderful customer service. Going out, I decided to buy my tickets the day before, in an uncharacteristic burst of orderliness. (It's not like the arcane system in England; your ticket costs the same even if you buy it on the day.) Unfortunately, upon reaching the station, the ticket office was closed all day for some sort of business meeting. There were helpful ladies by the queues at the ticket machines, but not needing any help (so I thought), I slowly prodded my way through the options and ended up with the correct ticket, but only one set of seat reservations, when I'd paid for both ways (Saturday travelling, and holidays, meant that seat reservations were an absolute necessity. I really didn't want to stand in a train corridor for six hours...).

I bearded one of the nice helpful ladies and explained. She looked puzzled, and we checked the machine for delayed bits of paper, and finally called her supervisor over. The supervisor looked even more puzzled, as apparently I shouldn't have been able to produce such a result (illogical, captain...). Eventually she told me to stay put and disappeared off with all my bits of paper (well of course I was not going to wander off - she had my ticket, and that wasn't cheap!). When she came back, she gave me all the money back in cash, saying that this was the best and fairest way to deal with it, and together we went through the process again; this time, for no apparent reason, everything went smoothly, and we were both very pleased. She'd gone to quite a bit of time and trouble to help, where she could have probably just said it wasn't their problem, and thought, heh, bloody foreigners stuffing up our nice machines...

On the way back, due to the above-mentioned vandalism, I believe, my train to Leipzig was cancelled at the last minute. Hmm, thought I, trundling back up the escalator in a crowd of disgruntled German-speaking passengers (they make the announcement first in German, then later in English, so you can spot the non-German-speakers by their bewildered expressions as 99% of the platform starts to swear and leave), what now? I made my way to the travel centre, waited patiently for my turn (they were swamped) and eventually set my ticket etc in front of a tired-looking lady, explaining that my train had just been cancelled, and asking what I could do about it. She suddenly grinned, remarked that probably the easiest thing was to go somewhere else instead (I said I'd take the Bahamas if available, but otherwise, my bed in Mainz was waiting for me), and promptly and without fuss upgraded my ticket and booked me on the next fast train, producing seat reservations without asking and wishing me a pleasant journey. I don't often think about customer service, but it is amazing what a difference it can make to a frustrating situation when it is good, and this, contrary to some ideas about Germany, was absolutely excellent!

2011-10-05T21:23:00.000+02:00

I went to the Oktoberfest, the Real Thing, in Munich!! Well, there I was doing, um, pretty much nothing properly structured, and then there was the marvellous Indian summer across Europe, and I found a Dirndl skirt and blouse in Oxfam. Well, given those circumstances and a friend in Munich, wouldn't YOU have gone along? To be honest, Oktoberfest hadn't really crossed my consciousness until I got to Germany, not being particularly into beer, but I reckoned that it was an opportunity not to be missed, hopped on a train (I spent the entire four hours finishing sewing together the apron which I was assured was a must, and replacing the buttons on the knitted tank-top thingy).

I was rewarded with the most perfect day imaginable, and an amazing feeling of... togetherness?... from the sheer percentage of the attendees who were dressed up appropriately. I can't think of anything I've ever attended that had so MANY people joining in properly. Costume parties in England tend to encompass a lot of fabulously-dressed women and a gaggle of sulking men, hideously embarrassed at the whole situation and snagged between being annoyed that they didn't dare to dress up and irritated that they were asked to in the first place. Here, just about EVERYONE joined in - the effect was most visible from the Big Wheel, where the crowd (apparently two million on that day!) looked amazingly colourful. So much less black and dark brown than normal - many men wearing Lederhosen and pastel checked shirts, and the women in all colours of the rainbow. In fact, the Dirndls reminded me strongly of the arguments for classical music. The basic costume is simple, and you'd maybe think that after having seen a few you'd be bored. However, in an entire day, seeing literally thousands of women in every possible iteration of the theme, I didn't see a single repetition of the same outfit. Classic theme; infinite interpretations. Loved it!

2011-09-23T18:02:00.000+02:00

An unexpected view of Cologne cathedral there on the right. Unexpected not from the point of view of photography, but because I hadn't thought I would be there on that evening to photograph it. In point of fact I shouldn't have been doing even that, as I had the last train home to catch - made it by a (rather sweaty) whisker - but I couldn't resist the way it loomed up so high and imposing against the cooling night sky. My resistance was lowered from having enjoyed great company, sought out on a last-minute whim, and not a few elementally delicious little golden ice-cold beers, a Cologne speciality, apparently...

I had decided it would be a great idea to break a long train journey, and indeed it was. Although just before getting off, I was on such a flat, tired adrenalin-reaction that I nearly didn't make it off the train... it wasn't so much the audition itself; I was exhausted from the logistics beforehand. I left messages and spoke to several people at the state agency (bearing in mind that I HATE making phone calls!) before finally being told I was barking up the wrong tree and should be asking quite another body... aaargh! I also had huge difficulty getting hold of a hotel room; the city was basically fully booked. I was still trying to juggle finding a room somewhere along the train route when a nice lady from one of the hotels I'd called in desperation took pity on me and rang me back when a guest unexpectedly left. This was half an hour before I set off for the station, still unsure whether any of my travel costs would be refunded...

Add to that the self-made panic of realising at the last minute that my passport and credit card were not where they were meant to be (a bit of deep breathing revealed that they were still squirrelled away in my money-belt, last used in Rome), and I was, to put it mildly, somewhat less than perfectly composed when I threw myself on the train with twenty seconds to spare...

I've no idea how the audition went - as I reported back to the agent who sent me afterwards, I haven't a clue about such things. Unless you've obviously made a total mess of things, I find that the demeanour of the auditioners means precisely nothing in the long run. Sometimes they smile and tap their feet and look ecstatic, and you never hear a thing; other times you slink off disconsolately, mentally beating yourself up, only to bag a nice contract. Sing then forget.

I was glad of the advice of a good friend, though, who reminded me when I was feeling flat as a pancake afterwards that there is a backlash to adrenalin - it's taking time to settle. Hence I believe my idea of hopping off for a round of laughter and cold beer was beautifully timed.

So, first audition of the season under my belt, and a FAR better understanding of the bureaucracy involved - now I'm ready for more!! (Fingers crossed...)

2011-09-19T21:52:00.000+02:00

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!

2011-09-15T22:45:00.000+02:00

Yes. Sorry. I ran away,,,

Well. There were those unmistakeable signs of autumn in the air. Woodsmoke, for example. A particular freshness in the atmosphere. Definite lessening of the heat of the day. At which point I thought, AARGH, this really shouldn't be happening without summer having had its say, and headed for Rome on impulse. I was lucky enough to have a favourite auntie in place, catsitting in a flat in the suburbs, so bed and company were assured, and given that there were no immediate auditions in the offing, away I flew. I'm so glad I did - a bit of sun, good food, speaking Italian, have really recharged my batteries and I'm ready for anything. Yes, even the customary (with agents) "Um, no auditions, especially none for your fach" sort of telephone conversation.

In the meantime it has amused me to make a dress. First one I ever did, and I have absolutely no idea how to make dresses. I saw some fabric and liked it, bought a bit of contrasting stuff, and improvised. Provided I can be bothered to hem a few bits I might well wear it to a premiere on Saturday (I'll try to photograph it, if so).

Such things take me through the boredom/panic of not having any immediate employment. Onward and upward, however - who knows what's around the corner? And I am keeping up my audition arias so that any opportunity can be pounced upon straight away. Whatever I can be accused of, not being ever-ready to audition will never be on that list!

2011-08-30T12:45:00.000+02:00

Last Saturday night the season turned unmistakeably to autumn. (This was a bit annoying, actually, as I had met a friend and was wandering around the wine festival in town, and my lack of jacket meant that suddenly, the idea of sitting around until late in the evening testing one wine against another rather lost its appeal.) Anyway, I decided to use the new crispness in the air to look towards the future, rather than mourning the non-summer and the past. From now on, I am a freelance singer who happens to be based in Germany, and whatever auditions come along, I shall be more than ready for them. I have been doggedly going to practise in the theatre most days to that end - all sanctioned by the new management there, so there's no need to feel awkward (although I have to admit that I did at first, seeing as how I was employed there for two years, and now am no longer. This was one of those things where you just have to take a deep breath and do it. Without such practice facilities, I'd have to heave my life up and reinvent myself yet again, as I can't really sing in my tiny flat.)

So, readiness to audition - tick. Availability of auditions.... ah, well that's another story. I sang for several agents last season and they all said they'd think of me whenever anything for my voice type came in. Then, erm, nothing did. The general advice over here seems to be, ring them often so you're in their minds. I did - and every time got the same response - sorry, there are very, very few opportunities around, and nothing for your voice type. Financial crisis is definitely hitting theatres.

So it's not the most wonderful vista out there, but I'll do what I can to expand what opportunities there are. I have rung all my agents at least once (provoking some irritation in at least one case, as not all the theatres are yet back after their summer break), and am in the process of contacting new ones (more the merrier, provided I can afford to travel to audition for them).

And finally, it's important to me to keep the artistic flame burning, as it were. I have practised my handful of audition arias until they are deep in my bones, and shan't cease to refresh them now and again, but if that's all I have to think about, they will quickly go stale. So I have chosen two roles for which I would cheerfully rip off an arm to have the opportunity to sing (Azucena in Il trovatore and Klytämnestra in Elektra, since you ask) and am learning those thoroughly. Not to mention preparing an eclectic range of song literature which I have fallen in love with over the years but not really had time to explore. Artistically I shall not be bored.

Nor, if I can help it, shall I let myself just sit around at home and mope between practice sessions and badgering agents. My current project is making a dress. Regular readers will not be totally surprised to discover that I am doing so totally without patterns and on a whim, with only the vaguest idea of what's meant to happen in dressmaking, having occasionally watched my mother sew as a child, and never made anything myself. Should be interesting to see what happens!

So - new season, new start, fingers crossed!!

2011-08-16T21:19:00.000+02:00

I have discovered where German buses come to die and be reborn into another life. Transylvania, fittingly enough. Nearly cost me at least another hour of standing by the road in scorching sunshine by "Not-Dracula's Castle" peering at oncoming traffic... I'd been lurking there hoping for a bus back to the beautiful city of Braşov, but given that there were no actual timetables, or even a bus stop, things were a little uncertain. I'd leaped off the bus there and asked where to get the bus back, and was rewarded with a grin and a gesture towards the other side of the road. It didn't occur to me that the vehicle in question would turn up disguised as a German school bus, meaning I automatically turned away and thought about something else, until at the very last moment I registered the possiblity of a cunning disguise and peered at it more closely. Naturally, it makes sense to simply stuff a little cardboard notice in the front window of a recycled bus, rather than going to all the unnecessary expense of respraying the bus, but just sometimes one can see the point of all those corporate rebrandings etc...

Sorry about the photo. It's really not possible to do Dracula-like atmosphere when the sun is beating down like no-one's business. Especially funny when the main reason I headed out there was because it was so horribly grey and rainy in Bucharest. There, I couldn't see more than a metre when I was looking for a restaurant, and the rain was so hard that there was at least an inch of water over every single bit of pavement in the city. I was fascinated by the story of Queen Marie of Romania however - definitely novel fodder!

2011-07-19T11:17:00.000+02:00

Mai pulite queste mani...

Yesterday I inadvertently silver-plated a couple of my fingertips. I was trying to get rid of a car-crash of tatty silver teaspoons that had collected on Mother's kitchen windowsill, and was informed that they were waiting to be re-plated and that she had some special Stuff that would do it. So I rolled up my sleeves and set to. I even remembered to wear gloves. The Stuff was indeed effective, apart from the places where I realised I was trying to plate actual holes rather than tarnished bits of spoon, and I was rather pleased with my haul of much-improved teaspoons (minus a few hopeless cases now safely in the bin, but don't tell Mother or she'll fish them out again...).

Unfortunately the Stuff had managed to seep through the gloves and has stained the tips of my right thumb and forefinger. Not, as one might hopefully imagine, as the poor man's version of Goldfinger, either - the skin is blackened and the nails turned blood-red.

So while trying heroically to scrub away the evidence, the lines from Macbeth came sneaking into my head - "What, will these hands ne'er be clean?", and I realised that those particular fingers had, one way or another (mainly red greasepaint, which stains like hell and wedges itself irretrievably down the sides of the nails), been continuously filthy since I started rehearsing Lady Macbeth.

An enduring role indeed!

2011-07-17T18:55:00.000+02:00

There is a very particular form of hell reserved for the expat bookworm attempting desperately to reduce the amount of clutter left in storage at home. I have spent the last few days surrounded by opened boxes of books; mainly, I have to admit, sitting cross-legged in the dust, lost in one or another within minutes of opening any box.

Over there in Germany is a life where I end up reading just about anything in English I can get my paws on; I read in other languages too, but really need my "fix" of books which can be read without turning on the extra layer of brain required for foreign languages, even those in which I am totally fluent. And then over here (I am in England for the moment) I have box upon box of temptations to rationalise; some unread (!!), some begging to be re-read; some with sentimental associations, some valuable, some simply too seminal to be given away.

I have been helped by a local school asking for charitable donations by tomorrow morning. The school will receive more money the more the donations weigh, so I find myself actually able to fill bag after bag with my precious darlings, off to a new life, but ohhhhh it is HARD!

(And then of course there are the boxes now marked "Katy's Classical Library" and re-stacked; and the boxes of academic books now re-stacked; and the pile in my bedroom for reading whilst here; and the inevitable accumulation in my suitcase ready for the flight back... I am definitely not cut out for a minimalist lifestyle!)

Having resisted the temptation for ages, I suspect I am soon going to succumb to the delights of the Kindle. Nothing like the pleasure of real books stuffed in a pocket or a handbag, and I shall miss the aimless ferreting around in second-hand bookshops, but I don't think I could face another forty-three boxes of books next time around!

2011-07-05T13:54:00.000+02:00

An enjoyable, if somewhat eccentric, leavetaking of Germany (just for the summer). A friend had planned a lawnwarming (like a housewarming, but for her fresh new lawn, of course) for the afternoon before I flew to England; this then grew, slightly out of control, into a sort of high tea / garden party (probably says a lot about us that it was only about two hours in, chatting to some German guests, that I realised we'd forgotten...erm, the tea!). I was far more occupied by planning for cucumber sandwiches, and scones (we outsourced most of the baking to a sweet American friend whose hobby it is), and correctly-constituted Pimms, than anything quite so mundane as packing a suitcase (lord alone knows what's in there - it will be interesting to find out over the summer!). We even managed to track down doilies (doilies!!) and bunting, which we scooted up ladders to hang from branches in the grey and overcast morning cool.

Amazingly, the weather brightened just as the first guests started to arrive, and it really felt like one of those perfect English days (helped, naturally, by the Pimms). Wonderful relaxation, once the pre-party scurry of peeling and chopping and buttering and arranging was swapped for the glass in the hand.

A singer, however, is seldom properly off duty. I was press-ganged (there really is no other term for it) into singing by my friend's next-door neighbour and landlord, a delightful and totally crazy sculptor with a passion for playing guitar in the pub. He dragged me to one side, eyes shining, and showed me the crib sheets for three songs, explaining that they'd fished out a music stand for me so I would be able to read the words, and that he could play in any key I wanted, and he was just DYING to make music with me. I tried a few pathetic little excuses (like, just because I'm a singer, it doesn't mean I know how the middle bits of popular songs necessarily go), but I was swept away on a tide of his enthusiasm (yes, yes; and Pimms).

Thus I found myself standing in the sunshine at an English garden party in Germany, complete with hat and gloves, belting out Moon River and Somewhere Over the Rainbow and finishing with Memories (from Cats... this one in German!!)... and grinning like a loon!! The sheer joy of performing, with no pressure at all and mainly for the purpose of making someone else happy, was overwhelming. A much-needed reminder, as I head for a period of (relative) vocal rest, of just how exhilarating being a performer can be. Cheers!

2011-07-02T01:08:00.002+02:00

OK, und das war's.

Last performance as an ensemble artiste here in Mainz. SO amazing that I got to play Lady Macbeth. Really, it was an honour and a pleasure. So many actresses would literally give their eye teeth to get their... um, teeth... into this role. And I even got paid for it!! As an artist, leaving on such a high note (OK if I'm going to be a pedant, which I generally am, technically it was a very low note, being as the last word in this role starts on an E above middle C and simply goes down and diminuendos until there is no more voice left...) is wonderful. And yes, I was inundated with flowers, wine, cards. Thanks to the Staatstheater Mainz for two wonderful seasons.

Absolutely the best thing, however, was the reaction of my colleagues. Not just the singers with whom I have shared the stage, but orchestra members, make-up artists, technical staff... I was incredibly touched by the affection I was shown, and only managed to avoid sobbing pathetically by threatening to haunt them all constantly until someone found me a decent role somewhere (translated into normal terms as, I shall be back, I live here for the moment, I have permission to practise in the theatre, and given that I am no longer an ensemble member, I no longer have to hold back on the glamour at premières, so watch out for the diamonds and Attitude!).

I'll be in England for a while (normally coinciding with the best of the weather here in Germany), but then intend to come back and hit the ground running. Renovation of the website (www.katherinemarriott.com, for those who came in via the back door, as it were) is in process. Photos done; recorded a couple of arias this afternoon with a wonderful pianist but have screeched to a bit of a halt because the software I used previously has lost its reverb options somewhere along the way, and the orchestra room we used is flat as a pancake acoustically. I'll work it out somehow (if I have time; social life appears to be running on fast forward at the moment) and put them up when I can.

Meanwhile, thanks everyone for reading my ramblings for yet another year. Next season promises to be different; who knows what will turn up? Several of my colleagues have said that going freelance was the best thing to happen to them. Yes, it's the worst financial climate for decades, but the possibilities are still out there. I am now free to jump in or work as a guest where and when I please; should you come across anyone who needs a true dramatic mezzo, do point them in my direction!

2011-06-29T01:21:00.000+02:00

So, so nearly there. Final performance this season of My Fair Lady (definite possibility of revival next season, which is good). Standing ovation. A couple of colleagues in tears because it was their last performance here, and generally raised emotion overall. There remains the last outing of Macbeth tomorrow; I'm looking forward to that. If you have to say (pretty much) goodbye to a theatre, best to do so from the perspective of a lead role.

Has to be said, though, the past few days have been a riot. Without rehearsals to worry about, I have had enough time to fully enjoy the long weekend of festival here (Johannisfest - have absolutely no idea how to translate that, not being what you might call a practising Christian). I have so enjoyed flitting from one experience to the next, simply enjoying the atmosphere and the (finally) wonderful weather, not to mention the occasional beer. The picture above marks the final moments, when a barge on the Rhine lets of a load of rather spectacular fireworks, and masses of people on either bank of the river, and in serried ranks across the bridge, ooh and aah in unison. I have evidently absorbed exactly enough German-ness to enjoy having the same reactions as a crowd of many, many thousands.

And tomorrow is predicted to bring massive storms and rain. All I can say is, please do so earlier rather than later, so that (a) I am not tempted to bask in the sunshine again (BAD for the voice on day of performance!) and (b) by the time I have to don a fur coat and belt around being nuts, the temperature will have come down a few degrees... Fingers crossed!

2011-06-24T01:21:00.000+02:00

Ouch. OUCH! Certain members of the orchestra here have FAR too good an aim when equipped with the pointy ends of a whole damned bunch of roses...

It being the last operatic performance here of the outgoing music director, the orchestra celebrated by "spontaneously" chucking flowers onstage (we had been warned beforehand about "spontaneously" picking them up and handing them to the conductor - this is Germany, remember?). I know they love her - she's a wonderful musician - so the spontaneity was heartfelt. Wonderful! However I couldn't help noticing how many smothered giggles wafted up from the pit when yet another rose landed smack in the middle of my cleavage... In the costumes we had, it was probably unavoidable, mind, when leaning down to collect fallen greenery. Cannot blame the brass section... (Although I really, really want to.)

It will be sad, I think, not to have such a constant connection with the orchestra. However, I have had two years to get to know individuals, and that doesn't disappear. Indeed, when I get back after the summer, I am pretty sure I have a couple of revenge strikes to plan. It is Not Done to lob scratchy flowers back down into the pit once they've got you. Doesn't mean one can't do weasel-planning to get one's own back in a different way eventually. HaHA!

2011-06-21T01:15:00.000+02:00

Ahhh, now that, THAT was the sort of evening in the theatre which makes all the sacrifices and frustrations and tears worthwhile. A performance which somehow caught fire, energy bouncing and magnifiying between the public and the performers, grins and ease all round, and a standing ovation. The best feeling in the world. And everyone in the building feels it.

I love my job!!!

2011-06-16T14:23:00.000+02:00

Pictured above is one side of my father's coffin. It was delivered to us as a white cardboard shell (reinforced and safe - we wondered too...), and we gathered as a family in the summer house to decorate it. Photos, handprints, paintings, all poured out of us as we chatted about him, and laughed, and cried, and tried to incorporate symbols of all that was important to him in life. I feel it was particularly beneficial for the children - they had an opportunity to contribute something (and their decorations were deeply thought out, individual and beautifully done), and the horror of the object was hopefully somewhat lessened.

It certainly helped me to giggle at the numerous double-takes it provoked as the cortège moved slowly through town to his funeral at the magnificent Beverley Minster. The occasion went as well as such things possibly can; when it is well-thought-out, the ritual is strangely uplifting, and I was desperately proud of my entire family on such a sad day. The public response was overwhelming, and I hope Daddy would agree we gave him the best send-off we possibly could (although when I was wielding my paintbrush at six in the morning in a chilly summerhouse, having woken in panic because we'd forgotten to include any windsurfing, I could hear his voice clearly, grumbling that he didn't know why we were making such a bloody meal of it when it was only going to go up in smoke on Thursday...).

Two observations from a singer's point of view:

Firstly, I had no thoughts of singing a solo in church; it would have felt too self-important, and I didn't know how far I could trust my voice at such an emotionally difficult time. I made sure the hymns we chose were strong and beautiful, and hoped to be able to add my voice to those of the congregation. Anyway, as I was drawing a shaky breath for the first line, I suddenly realised that my inner volume pedal was not going to function. It was all or nothing. In a split second, I considered my options - would the silence of a scrunched-up larynx or the shock of a singer in (literally) full cry be preferable for my family? I opted for the latter, on the grounds that they would all be able to then sing exactly as much as they could, knowing that no-one would hear any hiccups. (This has worked wonderfully at carol services etc - people sing louder en masse if they reckon no-one can hear their wobbles.) In conversation at the wake I realised it had backfired slightly - half the people I talked to said they stopped singing just to listen to me, and the other half were convinced we had had a choir hidden away somewhere...

Secondly, and this must surely apply to any aspect of performing, I can say definitively that it is INFINITELY easier under such circumstances to sing the demanding and pivotal lead role rather than a bit part where you have Time to Think.

Once again I must thank my family, friends and colleagues for the wonderful love and support they have shown throughout. A blessing indeed.

2011-06-03T11:44:00.000+02:00

"The most difficult thing I've ever done", I thought to myself as I cycled back tonight, pondering yesterday evening's performance. Then I realised that it actually wasn't. The most difficult thing I have ever done was take a deep breath the day before yesterday and walk into the room in the hospital where my father lay, dead. Yes, that's him in the picture on the left. Less than a week ago, taken on "my" Rhine beach, and looking disgustingly healthy. I am lucky to have seen him in the end times, and fortunate beyond words that when it came, we had time to gather the entire family together to support each other. This is really and truly a blessing beyond measure. For us, the tears spilled into irresistible dark humour, until we even managed to make my poor bereaved and grief-stricken mother laugh. Death nil, family one (or at least one-all, upon further reflection).

The Call came late on Tuesday. I tried desperately to get over to England on Tuesday evening, but nothing doing (despite ending up with the phone number of the poor man whose car I hijacked in desperation trying to get to the station). Had to settle for a ridiculously early flight on Wednesday. Such times are when you deeply appreciate your friends. I can't say how wonderful mine have been in the circumstances. To cut a long story short, the man whom I loved and respected more than any other finally gave up the ghost (not without a fight - despite a massive brain haemorrage his body refused to give in for quite a while. Stubborn old bugger.) the day before yesterday.

However I had a performance of Macbeth yesterday. My mother pointed out that Daddy would have had my guts for garters if I wimped out (not to mention that the theatre would have had a bit of a problem, as so few people have ever sung this role, and it would have been a miracle to find someone who could (a) sing it at such short notice and (b) throw themselves into the intense and violent direction), so back I flew in the early hours of yesterday, again with the logistics smoothed considerably by the generosity and kindness of family and friends, and girded my loins for the role.

To the quite exceptional support of friends and family I have to add that my colleagues were wonderful. Forewarned not to gush before the performance (sympathy would have made me cry, and it's simply not possible to sing when your larynx is in a knot), there was so much love and support offered after the performance, amidst tears and hugs - I am lucky indeed to have such people in my life.

So. Difficult times, but the consolation of the love of family, friends and colleagues, and even of knowing that, when the chips are down, I can perform. Strangely appropriate that it was my father who both threw down that challenge, and also supplied the qualities I needed to face and overcome it.

Guy Hawksworth Randle, 10 July 1937 - 1 June 2011.

Daddy, I shall always love you.

2011-05-23T21:43:00.000+02:00

Photo: Martina Pipprich

And thank GOODNESS that's over with!! Apologies for lack of posting prior to the premiere, but really, things got absolutely manic. I really don't think my brain has ever, EVER been quite so full. Cramming for finals at Cambridge was the nearest I ever came, but this was so much more than that.

Has to be said, though, they LIKED it!! The public reaction was astounding, given the modernity and tonal weirdness of the piece. The composer's reaction was very positive (I will admit, I was DREADING his appearance at the premiere - he has not always approved of productions of his work; in person, he was sweet and smiling). The reviews are fantastic. I can breathe again...

I am now very much looking forward to actually enjoying a few performances, as opposed to quivering with nerves the entire evening. The hard work has been done. I KNOW this music. Yes, yes, I'll make different mistakes next time, but the broad sweep is fixed and fascinating.

A short excerpt here from one of the rehearsals. Roughly the equivalent of the "Yet here's a spot; out, damned spot" point. Mad scene, I don't think I need to say.

Yes, that IS a fur coat I'm wearing. In Mediterranean late spring weather. No bloody wonder I sweated like a pig!!!

2011-05-17T23:14:00.000+02:00

Well, this is certainly a schedule that sorts the sheep from the goats (an expression I use with some hesitation as I'm never quite sure which camp I'm meant to be aiming for). TWO stage orchestra rehearsals today, meaning ready to rock'n'roll at 10 a.m. and released at 10 p.m. to wander round in a daze wondering where you left your clothes. Naturally there was time in between, but it does tend to disappear in a mulch of cycling to and from the theatre, buying forgotten essentials at the supermarket, eating, studying the score AGAIN, trying to find a way of remembering incorrect entrances etc etc, and frankly lying down on the bed and passing out for a little while; that in-between time doesn't count as pure relaxation. Not to mention I take 10 a.m. to mean ready, clothed, possessed of any props I need, and waiting to go on stage at 10 a.m. precisely. So if I want to actually FIND my rehearsal clothes (the costume department reckoned we didn't need them for orchestra stage rehearsals. Hmm. Buggered if I'm going to hit the floor with a thump more than once in my own clothes, or try to balance on mattresses on a steep rake whilst walking slowly in my own high heels, and not those provided by the theatre with nice thick rubber treads...), and get the voice warmed up into the right place, that means bowling up considerably before 10.

The kicker is, we get to do it all again tomorrow. Last orchestral stage in the morning, hopefully a run-through (and fingers religiously crossed that the solo cello in the forward orchestra, from whom I take many tonal cues, is back... apparently the theatre couldn't find anyone who could play this music at short notice!!). Then in the evening, same again but with make-up, costume, lighting, props... most of which fall under the category of "technical difficulties" at least once for me in this production.

I'm just praying that the voice survives mostly intact. There's so much pollen whizzing around at the moment that even I, a luckily non-allergic type, have had to stop and cough my guts out a couple of times while cycling. Not to mention inhaling an average of 47 tiny flies per journey. And there are some nasty bugs going around. All I can really do is wash my hands like a maniac, eat well, drink enough, attempt to sleep, and battle to retain enough sense of humour to keep the entire thing in perspective.

Oh yes, and maybe refrain from spending valuable time typing away on the computer... ;-)

2011-05-14T21:23:00.001+02:00

A short paeon, if I may, to the restorative power of social occasions. Or alcohol. Or whatever it was.

I met my Macbeth in the corridor this morning whilst trying to persuade my voice to get going after the *coughcough* few beers it encountered last night at the cast party. He was in fine (and loud, and intermittently multilungual) fettle when I saw him last; and this a man who very, very seldom drinks, and whose self-control, self-possession and cool precision are legendary amongst our current cast.

We grinned at each other like loons, and agreed that it was worth every degree of ragged voice to achieve the simple pleasure of waking up happy, relaxed, and looking forward to rehearsals. To be honest, I have been CONSTANTLY stressed to some degree or other for the past few weeks, and it did no end of good to simply kick back, pour beer down the gullet, and laugh at variously surreal and dirty jokes (these last, I have to admit, I still need help with from time to time. Luckily there was lots of help on tap last night.)

Not that we haven't gelled as a group; we are working very well together, I'd say. But somehow, having a couple too many beers together wrought a real transformation (I suspect that this has to happen at the right time to have any power, so more kudos to our director, who suggested the whole thing.)

All I can say is, I got to sing my mad scene today. And there will NEVER be anything to beat the sound of the cast and crew applauding, when you slink back in covered in sweat and with fur coat moulting spectacularly, mind still unsure and on the verge of tears. The sort of applause you carry with you to the grave.

This is Good!

Rats. Tried to insert a small audio snippet there. The host site is not keen. Sorry! Will try to get this sorted ASAP.

In the meanwhile, I intend to fully enjoy my Sunday, and wish you all the same!

Katy x x x

2011-05-09T23:54:00.000+02:00

Getting there, getting there. We have now leaped over the hurdle of rehearsing with the orchestras for the first time. Nope, that wasn't a typo. We have two orchestras; one front right of the stage, the other behind. There are some SUPER-COOL effects, when the sound swishes from one to the other. You can virtually see it flying around at certain points. Amazing.

Anyway, I think the orchestral rehearsals were interesting for everyone involved. The orchestral score without singers, and the singers without orchestra, lacked a definite something, but as soon as that something got involved, everyone's ears automatically perked up, thinking, oh yes, this could be GOOD.

Some particular moments stand out. The back-and-forth note-passing of bass clarinet and saxophone in the Banquet Scene which sounds absolutely like trance music (and is much more understandable as such; slightly more than 120 beats per minute, main accent on the offbeat). The unvoiced notes on, for example, flutes, which end up sounding like heavy breathing. Certain little "this is a private party" moments for the backstage brass (who evidently thought I was nuts when I suggested this, by the way.) Glorious interchange between the beautifully-played cello in front and my part in my mad scene. Ahhh, of such things is job satisfaction truly made.

One of the most interesting aspects of this was the sudden rush of nerves I was swamped with before each new section with orchestra. Evidently I am more worried than my conscious self would admit to about sounding good in front of colleagues I respect.

And in this respect I jüst heard today that the composer will be attending the premiere on the 21st. No stress there, then...

2011-05-05T23:15:00.001+02:00

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.

2011-05-03T00:46:00.000+02:00

There is a nightmare, familiar in detail to all opera singers, and in broad outline surely to performers of whatever ilk the world over, whereby you stand on stage frozen in the basilisk glare of the conductor, whose baton is raised expectantly for your entrance. Your brain is a total blank, you haven't a CLUE what you're meant to be singing, and you break out in a cold sweat as eternity beckons.

Well, I've been there for real several times this week and I can attest that it really isn't pleasant. Only on the rehearsal stage, thank goodness, but that's bad enough. I'm something of a perfectionist by nature and am always prepared to put the work in so that by the time stage rehearsals start, I know the music pretty much backwards. Setting scenes generally knocks the occasional phrase out of kilter, but one can forge on secure in the knowledge that it will soon gel again.

What's more, on those few occasions when my mind has gone blank on stage, I have usually been able to breathe calmly whilst thinking (with conscious humour), ho hum, wonder what comes next?, and the muscle memory has thankfully kicked in to leave me thinking, mid-phrase, aha, THAT's what I was meant to sing!

One of the things this modern opera has taught me, however, is that the way my brain learns is strongly related to the sense of the WORDS I am singing. I string things together based on responding to other characters, on the emotional surges generated by the orchestra, generally supplying my own subtexts to link disparate thoughts if there are none given in the sung text. Pretty effective, on the whole - except of course in this case. Lots and lots of repeated and broken fragments. Especially in my big scene. As far as theatre is concerned, this is tremendously effective - hell, it's a MAD scene; expecting it to make sense would naturally be a dead end.

But for a perfectionist to be in such a state of uncertainty and doubt, especially when you feel that a good deal of the overall responsibility for the opera is on your shoulders, is not a particularly comfortable state in which to live. I will admit to the odd bout of tears brought on by the stress of it all. Mind you, the irrationality is certainly not confined to me. My Macbeth, who is astoundingly wonderful, was seen to actually jump around for joy (he's a very stable sort of person; this is well out of character) on singing Saturday's performance of another opera, shrieking, oh my god, listen, there are CHORDS in the orchestra, and a BEAT, woohoooooo!! (And this is not the sort of opera where you normally sit back and luxuriate in the music...)

Ha. Yes. This aspect of the German system seriously doesn't help, and makes you realise why prompters are necessary (we haven't had one for this modern opera until now, which seems utterly mad but was something to do with politics. Fingers crossed one will magically appear from this point forward...) - over a four-day period I have played in three separate productions, with rehearsals for the forthcoming opera in between. Three and a half languages. Totally different styles... I saw a badge on sale in a shop last weekend which said something along the lines of, Oh dear, my brain is full. I would have bought it but had forgotten to stock up on cash...

Still, it's spring, and in such a beautiful place I can't help but rejoice in the season. Flowers are releasing the most glorious scents everywhere (particularly notable are a patch of wild roses on my cycle ride to work by the river, which mix with the smell of hot sand to make an unforgettable perfume, and the unexpected ambush from above of previously-unnoticed white acacia blossom), and to top it all, and make all the stress worthwhile, I am currently honoured to be quartered near a nightingale. The first time I heard it, I was belting back on the bike, exhausted and ready for bed, and all I thought was, oh what the heck is that silly insomniac blackbird doing awake at this time? It was only later that I thought, oh hang on, it really is actually NIGHT, and the sound was coming from low in the bushes... I checked via Google, and sure enough, it is a nightingale. I can hear it clearly if I open my balcony door. Truly, it is a sound to nourish the soul.

(Even if, as a singer, I am blasted well jealous of its tonality and rhythm just at the moment...)

2011-04-28T00:15:00.000+02:00

One of those wonderful coincidences today which you wouldn't go putting in a novel for fear of the sneer on your editor's face. We had just finished the morning rehearsal in the depths of the building and were variously changing, nattering, collecting bits and bobs etc, when in wandered a baritone in search of our pianist, with whom he was due to have a rehearsal for a forthcoming concert. It was completely unrelated to our rehearsal and normally you meet up with the pianists in their rooms upstairs - I have no idea why he was down there, having never come across this before - I can only guess that this particular pianist might prove slippery to pin down, being a glorious musician, but not 100% sure of his German, and just the tiniest bit eccentric. Anyway, we weren't taking any notice, until he started to sing - and the entire room turned and stared, because it was precisely the snatch of Verdi that is referenced in our modern opera. Fragmented in our case, and about ten notes of the same, but unmistakeable. I was chatting to the conductor at the time, as we made our way out of the door, and we simultaneously turned back and gawped. Weird!

* * *

The disparate fragments of my role are STARTING to knit themselves together. Extremely fragile construction at the moment, though. It resembles an ancient but beloved patchwork skirt I own, which I keep treading on or snagging in the spokes of my bike and ripping to bits, always along a new line - as soon as I stitch one tear together, another appears diagonally across it. Honestly, there are times when it feels that the more I study the role, the less I remember. I know rationally that this isn't true, that the more small connections made, noticing of differences accomplished, and odd intervals mastered, the more secure the role will eventually feel, but there's only so much you can keep in your head at any given time and I am NOT USED to having important bits of a role slither out of my memory. Grrr.

The sleepwalking scene is actually here a proper mad scene, and I am soooooooooooo enjoying setting it and looking forward immensely to playing it with a public. How often do you get to actually tear your hair out? HahaHA. Most satisfying. And working together with the director on this is a dream. Her ideas are wonderful and are expanding my possibilities; she is taking notice of what I need; and at this point in rehearsal she's allowing me to dictate the pace and the content of the rehearsals, repeating things as and when necessary for me. It doesn't always happen that one is treated as an adult and an equal colleague in such relationships, and I appreciate it.

And I think I am approaching the right vocal tone for this scene. I spent a wonderful Easter with good friends in Alsace. Relaxation, good food, fantastic wine and great company were naturally uppermost in my mind, but heck, there was Stuff to be Learned, so learn I did, in small and (I thought) discreet doses. However, I was approached one evening by a couple of the children. "Are you OK, Auntie Katy?" "Yes, thank you; why?" "Because we heard you moaning when you were in the loo and thought you might be poorly." Like the coincidence above, you seriously couldn't make it up!

2011-04-20T22:46:00.000+02:00

So, we're now in the second week of rehearsals. If a world war happens to have broken out, I'd be grateful if someone could please let me know (although obviously only if it's going to impact upon the rehearsal schedule).

Eating, sleeping, breathing this music. I awoke yesterday morning with an unholy mixture of this opera and My Fair Lady running through my head. Nightmare!!

We're pretty much working through it chronologically, which helps to fix the sequence of things in our poor overstuffed brains, although illness and planned absences make it impossible to stick to this 100%. I'm simultaneously very much looking forward to and dreading starting to set my mad scene tomorrow morning. A wonderful, WONDERFUL opportunity, but the dread stems from not being totally certain what comes where; NOT a feeling I have ever had at this stage of rehearsals. I'm definitely not the only one; thank god for the support of colleagues and their admissions of similar panics.

What it feels like at this particular stage is that each entrance and the music which follows therefrom is like a bead. Each bead has been exquisitely handmade, painted and polished. Some are large, multifaceted, complex; some small and seemingly insignificant. And now they need to be strung into a necklace, and my hand hesitates sometimes when choosing which bead is next.

Doesn't really help that my mad scene consists of odd little reflections of previous scenes, slightly distorted memories, off-key echoes; in effect, the same beads, but a little squashed and strung out of order. I am frankly astonished at how much I am using my physical location on stage to fix sequences in my head. Doesn't normally work that way. (Mind you, isn't normally this astonishingly bloody difficult to remember!)

Me being me, I wondered if actually making beads to represent the entrances would help - but came to the conclusion that (a) since my memory is very strongly visual, the kinaesthetic aspect probably wouldn't be such a strong support, and (b) I was far, FAR too knackered to try.

Ach. Back to metaphorical bead-stringing, I suppose. Silently, at this point, since I don't want to give the poor neighbours nightmares. I'll probably try the "learning through osmosis" method, as practised frequently in the afternoon, between morning and evening rehearsals (such is the German system, as I may have said before. Ten(ish, depending on how much of a morning person the director is) till two, then six till nine or ten). This consists of lying on the bed with the score under your head. Occasionally you raise your head to glance at and memorise a phrase or two. More often you fall half unconscious and dribble over the score. I mean, you're so NEAR the music, it has to be absorbed, no?

2011-04-16T23:41:00.000+02:00

As rehearsals start to sketch out the trajectory of this piece, a sense of... well, really, I can't say getting deeper into character; it feels more like finding more and more points of reference in common with my self. I suspect that lots of this is due to having a bloody good director. (As a performer it isn't always obvious why the director is needed, if you're the opinionated type. However they are crucial in bringing together the individual interpretations into an organised and coherent whole, not to mention being able to see the entire picture from the outside, which we as performers of course can't.) It's an enthralling process. I am constantly reminded that, however angst-ridden or awkward or painful the individual moments, the thrilling fact remains that I have a chance to interpret one of the great roles professionally. Lady Macbeth is a dream for an actress (at least an actress of a certain age and inclined towards charisma rather than sweetness) and however off the wall the production or music, she is MINE to inhabit for the moment.

The brain is at full throttle. Apart from the obvious difficulties of trying to remember the virtually impossible music, without a prompter for whatever reason, I am attempting to hear and respond to the other singers' lines, whilst using my entire body energies trying to sit on a hideously raked stage without slithering inelegantly to the floor (OK inelegant but darned good fun: tried it a few times when not required to sit in one place, and it was great!!). On top of all that, it seems that, even more in such modern music than usual, the inherent possibilities of the vocal line show themselves up only when one starts to inhabit them physically. I am subject to constant mental tweakings (oh yes, so HERE I might well be crying; would suit the break over the lower passaggio, and the meaning, let's see whether the conductor thinks it works) and the huge, HUGE revisions and forward-forecastings-in-case-of-trouble that are part and parcel of our work. These are often tried out en route home, startling the poor innocents I pass on my bike...

However it has to be said I am proud of myself in respect of my approach to changes here. I was DETERMINED to keep my mind open, and try everything without automatically condemning it. (Sounds bad, but with all the Regietheater over here in Germany, you get a LOT of singers who have cynicism built into their very bones.) And at a couple of points where it would have been (for me as an actress) disastrous to carry on, I was able, through diplomacy and appealing seriously to the fabulous stage instincts of the director, to effect enough of a revision to be able to stick closely enough to the original text to satisfy myself.

In other words, a decent start. Must remind myself of this when I am panicking blindly about not having the music down pat (I pride myself on being professional enough to turn up to first stage rehearsals off copy. ALWAYS. ) It WILL WORK!!!

2011-04-14T00:02:00.000+02:00

Thanks firstly to all those who were worried about me after the last post! I think it's going to be OK now, but it's great to know that people occasionally read my ramblings...

The costume designer turns out to be very pleasant, and I think we'll be able to come to a decent compromise. So far, I have agreed to an elegant trouser suit (those who know me well will gasp at the idea of me wearing trousers; I think this is a fairly important concession from my side); boots are under negotiation, and I don't think she knows what I am capable of when fighting over the issue of blouses. Smiling, we shall conquer... (I hope!).

And however intense and stress-inducing the opera itself is, and however much I am panicking about entire scenes where I currently can't remember more than two pages of the blasted music at one time, hope is not lost so long as you can laugh. And that we did, in spades: hard not to, when the serious and passionate clinch between you and your stage husband gets spectacularly derailed by an undignified three-foot slide down a steep rake, landing with a pained "ooof!!!" on her part and extremely unprofessional giggles on ours, on a previously "dead" mezzo lying unsuspecting on the floor. I do so love rehearsals!!!

2011-04-11T21:37:00.000+02:00

Hmm, I think this may have to go down as a bit of a low point. Bursting into tears before we've even had the Konzeptionsgespräch is probably not a good omen. Tonight's musical run-through was in the basement rehearsal stage where said Gespräch will take place tomorrow morning, and it was impossible to miss the concept photos and costume sketches which were already taped to the wall. I am hoping against hope that all will become crystal clear when these are explained, and that the design for my dress is so gorgeous that it has been left out on purpose... however I am not holding my breath. Although it was not obvious which one would be mine, all the women's costumes would look absolutely dreadful on me - at best, I would look like a cleaning lady, at worst a cleaning lady doing "mutton dressed as lamb". I am happy (OK not happy, but certainly willing in the name of art) to sublimate my vanity to the necessities of character, but in this case I completely fail to see how I can play Lady Macbeth in such dress. I'm very grateful that I got a sneak preview - my horrified and tearful reaction would not have been dignified in public, and this way at least I have a chance to compose a calm and diplomatic request for changes.

With such fiendishly difficult music, one hopes for a modicum of help from the set and costumes. Instead, I am presented with a virtually empty, visually negative stage, an audience in the round (thus making it impossible to maintain regular contact with the conductor), and "normal" clothes which will make me look and feel old, fat and ugly. Fate is evidently laughing at me; all the challenge dials are set to maximum all at once. I must of course rally at some point and laugh back at fate. Not bloody yet, though.

It wouldn't be so bad if I had work for next year to look forward to, but the opera scene is tremendously and obviously depressed due to the financial crisis, and I haven't even had any auditions for theatres. All the agents I have sung for have been enthusiastic about me, but when I ring them, they gloomily intone "Nothing around, and particularly nothing around for your voice type". Super. I was hoping to invite people to this last show, having worked so hard on interpreting the music, but on present showing I am very reluctant to do so.

This could of course all be the result of a particularly bad mood, the sort where you have a vicious desire to kick ducks or something, and when that passes, all will be sweetness and light, but somehow I think it's going to be the sort of fire that either tempers steel or destroys it. Well, bring on the damascening, say I. I'm not ready to give in or give up, and will throw every single bit of energy I have into overcoming these hurdles.

And of course it's not all bad. On the way back from the theatre, the sun started to set, and it was spectacular. The photo above shows one of the newly-barbered plane trees by the Rhine, on my route back home (I really don't mind paying my taxes when I can see my Euros at work in the superb gardening). Faced with such splendour, one can only breathe deeply and appreciatively and go forward with courage.

2011-04-06T20:43:00.001+02:00

Euphoria in the practice room! A small, hard-won but vital epiphany in the way I approach the tonality of this modern piece occurred in the third hour of hard slog today. The first hour was official, spent with the conductor (who growled at me for coming in early, forbade me to sing unless he gave the sign, then was forced to giggle as he didn't give me a sign for the next, totally obvious entrance, at which point I was silent) and the pianist (who is amazing; I can't believe that he can read all those lines in the orchestral score, given that no proper piano-vocal score exists, fishing out fragments from various instruments and playing them despite them being in different clefs, all on a few days' notice). From this, I knew exactly where the tonal trouble points were in this particular scene, and lugged my nice fresh score into another room to explore them; a process which is not dissimilar to poking worringly loose teeth with one's tongue.

I would like to point out that I don't usually have such troubles. Mainly because the composer has usually seen fit to have the orchestra playing melodies or at least chords underneath, which one can interpret, follow, and use as jumping-off points for finding one's own note. Not the case here. Much is going to depend on me being able to hit any given starting note cold, which without perfect pitch is - how shall I put this? - bloody terrifying.

Anyway, whilst snarling away at this scene, it suddenly occurred to me that the axes I had been using (an axis being a note around which one can hang a phrase; coming back to it, using the leading note, calculating intervals therefrom etc) could actually (and I would like to point out in my defence that this is NOT obvious!) be poked around to fit the dominant seventh chord of A major (and I know the name only from looking it up afterwards; I have anything but a solid theoretical grounding in music, and recognised the arpeggiated chord from a snatch of "Adriana Lecouvreur" with which I am familiar). No, not every phrase starts with a note from this chord, but a surprising proportion do, and many others either use the semitone on either side of a member note (known to me technically as "up a bit" or "down a bit", as attested to rather shamefully by my old score) or have such a note as the axis. I can thus construct a sort of tonal scaffolding to hold these phrases together, thus making me feel far more secure, which can only be a Good Thing.

All I have to do is burn that particular chord into my very sinews. I started today; hopefully it will become second nature soon - at present I have been waking up imagining the notes G sharp and A, and fumbling for the tuning fork on the bedside table at dawn to check my accuracy; this is simply an extension. I've already whipped through the score marking the relevant notes in a particular colour. I just wish that the T. S. Eliot quote "These fragments I have shored against my ruins" wouldn't run quite so nakedly through my brain!

Anyway, it felt good. I have a definite bipolar relationship with this opera; waves of exhilaration, waves of despair. My partner-in-crime, whom I met by chance after this revelation, laughed at me for being so excited and cautioned against the inevitable downswing. Yes, yes, yes; I know. But I'll take the elation for the moment!

To reward myself I spent the afternoon and the last of the brilliant sunshine that the afternoon unexpectedly brought on my peaceful local river beach, armed with book, remains of a bottle of wine, and palpable lack of opera score: my only companions a pair of small and incredibly grumpy geese, and the first sand of the year between my toes.

As further reward, the sunset, now I am back on my balcony and writing this, has proved rather spectacular. In one of those wonderfully self-referential 21st-century moments, the photo above shows my laptop perched on my balcony railing, this entry half written, as the sun sets along the Rhine in the background.

Perfect.

2011-04-01T17:38:00.000+02:00

As the countdown to production rehearsals for the Modern Opera starts, I have got hold of a fresh new copy of the vocal score. I needed it because the first one I was given pretty much fell to bits as soon as I opened it (tut tut, Ricordi!) and so I copied just those pages containing my part and scribbled madly all over those in an attempt to drum the thing into my head. Of course now we've started ensemble music calls, you need access to all the pages. I got the office to swap the score I was given for another, but the ensemble member who had it previously (and I think gave up the role, declaring it unlearnable) had written all over it in pencil, and rubbing everything out simply wasn't practical in the end. So, I now have my own personal copy, rather than a hire copy, and can start marking it up again; feels like a fresh start (which I desperately need, because the ensemble rehearsals have made me very conscious of how far I have to go!).

First off, then, putting in bar numbers. Every fifth bar is already numbered, but it helps me to have them all marked in - I still occasionally have trouble with German numbers when flustered - and with so much textual repetition, it's difficult to pick up where you are by ear alone. Amazing how even such a simple task can have its problems - I have had to look at my tattered copy a few times to confirm that I have marked the bars correctly, and there is one little 3/4 bar that evidently wasn't important enough to be included in the numbering so I just left it alone.

Next, translation. Because this is one of my better languages, I would normally just scribble the English underneath those words or phrases I was not familiar with. However, studying the Shakespeare text and the Italian translation together shows that the latter follows the former very closely indeed, and while it naturally doesn't include everything, what it does contain attempts to mirror the original.

While it's not quite as bad as sticking phrases through Babelfish automatic translation software from one language into another and back again, simply translating the Italian translation back into English can be ambiguous or downright misleading. Therefore it makes sense for me to write in Shakespeare's words wherever I can. With sub-notes to self where the original is a little obscure, and crib notes of the main words and concepts in German, for when it comes to interpretation discussions during staging. (Originally I did this in pencil and for my scenes only; the pencil wore off as I studied the music, and I have now realised that I am to be on stage throughout the entire piece and therefore need to do this throughout. My writing fingers now have cramp and the sort of reddened depression in the callus on the finger that supports the pen that I remember from long-gone exam days!).

Next, writing in the beats, as the conductor has agreed to beat them (a lot of the tempi are so slow in this piece, he has to subdivide the beats, and it's important for me to be very clear at all times what he's up to!). Pencil for this, or one of those super new pens which write like ink but are easily rubbed out (just in case the conductor changes his mind; or indeed, another conductor chooses different options.) I'm copying this from my existing music, thankful for a nice fresh copy, as the beats have been written in, rubbed out, rewritten, argued about, shifted, paper accidentally poked through in frustration, etc etc.

Next to highlight those notes which the conductor and I have agreed are pivotal and have to be spot on. These I have been practising separately, just to try and fix them absolutely in my voice. The conductor reckons he ought to be able to ring me up at four in the morning, give me a word and I should be able to hit the correct note. *I* reckon if he rings me up at four in the morning, I might indeed hit the right note but shan't be held responsible for the words I intone upon such note.

And lastly to try and decipher all those odd little arrows and exclamation marks and scribbles and metaphors, transferring them as neatly (and as lightly, as they can be extremely ephemeral) as possible into my nice new copy.

By which time, of course, I shall have set my coffee cup down in a few places, dog-eared a few corners and bent the whole thing by being too lazy to bring a separate bag into the theatre and stuffing the whole thing any old how into my handbag, and it will be my familiar and inseparable companion.

If only that were all I have to do to actually LEARN the blasted music!!!

2011-03-29T21:44:00.001+02:00

Sooo, the premiere came and went and would probably be accounted a great success (as in, we the singers had gratifyingly solid applause; the production team elicited loud boos and also deafening cheers, and I think the latter rather won out). Next up was yesterday night, that is to say the second performance, two days later. Has to be said, such a second performance is often... how shall we put it?... slightly lacking in energy, to say the least.

Well, not when your lead soprano has been taken unexpectedly ill (get well, S!) and you have a (wonderful) guest who will sing the role from the side of the stage and a trusty assistant director (the same diminutive powerhouse who swapped roles with such gay abandon in My Fair Lady) who will act the part (and, amazingly, wear the same costume, but with the strings etc pulled in - you seriously wouldn't credit that it was the same thing!).

The energy generated from reacting to the changed circumstances kept us all going for the whole evening. It turned into a very good performance, despite the obvious limitations. Interesting!

First reviews of the production have been overwhelmingly positive, which is great. As a singer, I have to bitch a little about the sheer amount of words expended upon the concept aspect, as opposed to the actual performance, but I suppose that's pretty much the norm nowadays, and especially to be expected given how famous our director is.

Anyway, as evidenced by the photo top left, there are now definite signs of spring appearing - hooray! I'm hoping for more of the same for at least a couple of weeks, after which I plunge once again into the rehearsal swamp and can't hope to come up for breath at anything like regular intervals. Thank goodness for my little sun-trap of a balcony; with any luck, I should enjoy at least a few lazy hours stretched out thereon in the next few days...

(PS the photo made me think especially of my dear friend Masayo in Japan... heh, yes, cherry blossom is a total cliché, but clichés are sometimes simply a shortcut in the thought process... she knows that my love and best wishes go out to her and her family and loved ones.)

2011-03-26T16:54:00.000+01:00

Ahhh, once again the sheer glamour of it all threatens to overwhelm me. Premiere tonight, so I did what I could to ensure a decent night's sleep last night (not helped by the dress rehearsal being yesterday - we usually get a free day before each premiere, but something had gone askew in the theatre's schedule, and we had to lump it). In vain: I kept having to wake up to unstick my ear from the pillowcase... leftover glue from the make-up department doing their best to keep my wig in one place whatever I may be getting up to on stage. Not that easy to get off, I tell you. I was at the time far more worried about removing the last of the thick black line of greasepaint around my jawline, which had become ingrained and looked suspiciously like five-o'clock shadow. Not to mention the stains left by beetroot-juice "blood" all over my neck, decolleté, legs... um, all over any bits that weren't strictly covered by the costume. I shall try to scrub up decently for the post-premiere party but my goodness it's difficult - even if you manage to elbow your way into make-up before anyone else (I don't; I'm far too much of a sucker for the post-show bubbly on stage...) and get the wig removed, then set to with baby wipes and the special microfibre flannels we've been issued with, and dive through the shower, there are bound to be a couple of places you manage to miss; and it's all very well donning little black dress, pearls and stunning silk scarf, but if someone then tactfully whispers in your ear that you have a suspiciously green right eyebrow and your ankles appear to have developed hives, it's all in bloody vain...

Then of course there are the incidental smudges of ash from making my toi-toi cards. I don't know why I persist in getting all excited about making these; it really isn't necessary, but I do get rather excited by the prospect of stringing something creative together, and spend time in rehearsals daydreaming about themes and colours and bits of cardboard and chocolate hippos (or similar). I always forget that what it will boil down to is being confronted by a pile of accumulated Stuff, which has to be put together on the day of the premiere (the best-laid plans of mice and men generally fail to support me in this respect). A few hours of sticking and cutting and swearing and tying is followed by me sitting with my tongue between my teeth and the German/English dictionary open, trying to think of witty or at least original things to say to all the wonderful people I've been working with, followed by my writing hand getting cramp halfway through because I'm so unused to writing things by hand.

Ah well, here goes. And if anyone is wondering, there are some production pictures here, which frankly don't even start to show the messiest bits :-)

2011-03-22T22:58:00.000+01:00

Ahh. Utterly perfect rehearsal moment this evening. Made to be shared!

So we three nasty ladies get to snaffle a tenor late in the first act. We sneak up behind him, catch a net which drops from the sky, throw it over him and drag him to the back of the stage, dumping him in an entangled heap, which is where he is found when the curtain rises on Act II.

Except the usual catching arm was absent due to illness... T, being all Canadian and athletic and whatnot, can be trusted to catch and throw without batting an eyelid. We remaining two on the other hand, well, let's just say, not so much. (Get well soon, T, get well soon!!!)

So we approached the moment with fierce concentration, *determined* that this was going to work even without T's sure hand. We hit our mark bang on, held out our arms arrogantly and full of energised confidence, and the net dropped exactly on cue... several feet to the right of us.

Apparently our heads whipped round in perfect unison, faces displaying the sort of semi-amused horror that is generally only found either on stage or when attending important social occasions in the company of outspoken children. We froze for a good second, listening to the roar of laughter from the wings (someone later told us he would have given anything for a photo, our faces were such a picture), before hastily scooping up the net, chucking it over the tenor (now speechless with giggles) and bustling him backwards, emitting odd little squeaks and ignoring the tears of laughter coursing down our cheeks.

I'm still inclined to snort a little as I am writing this, a couple of hours later. Such moments are absolutely to be treasured - great for the mood of the rehearsal, relations with one's colleagues, and the state of one's stomach muscles. Just PLEASE don't let it happen during an actual performance!!

2011-03-21T23:14:00.000+01:00

O mein GOTT, ich bin so KLEIN!!! (Oh my god, I'm so LITTLE!!). My astonished cry at seeing the attached snapshot is still making my colleagues laugh. Really, it just goes to show how warped our sense of our own appearance can be...

We're playing here three - well, bitches, not to put too fine a point on it. We finish each other's sentences, fight over a tenor's bleeding entrails (don't ask), and strut around the stage in a line, taking the same steps (well, that's the idea, anyway, occasionally foxed by circumstance). We have the same costumes (we are all entranced by the leopard-print corsets; many of our male colleagues appeared more fascinated by points further north...). Exactly the same boots, and we had a couple of costume fittings to make sure that our skirts were the same distance from the floor to the millimetre.

But there was me thinking that, height-wise, we were much of a muchness. I knew in my head that my dear friend Trish was taller than me, but hadn't realised at ALL just how much taller - and then there was the photographic evidence to prove that in cold hard fact, in this particular trio I am the unchallenged midget! (That's me in the middle there: I know it's not obvious, mind, given the wigs and make-up.)

I'm simply so used to thinking of myself as taller than average that it had not occurred to me that, paired with a couple of tall, slim, beauties, I would be the little one. Weird. Not bad at all, just... weird. I can't get over how many inches I was mentally adding to my height! (Mind you, I know who I got it from; my father has a lot of people convinced he's six feet tall, whereas in reality he has to cheat a bit to get to five foot ten...)

I fudged the outside of the photo (a) to protect the... well, innocent is maybe not quite the word, given what we're asked to get up to in this production, but at least unwary (OK, the camera angle was not flattering for one of my colleagues, and am not inclined to post a less-than-gorgeous photo of her) and (b) because costume and make-up have yet to be finalised for the production, and I wouldn't wish either to let any cats out of bags or to raise false hopes. It's Monday now; the curtain rises on the premiere on Saturday night. Plenty of time for all sorts of changes. Throughout all of which I shall remain five foot seven and rather surprised...

2011-03-13T15:39:00.000+01:00

Spring is here. There is a definite headiness in the damp green air, and unexpected small carpets of flowers keep bursting out around me as I cycle through the city - here bright blue speedwell, there small, intensely yellow crocuses - wonderful! However, as with all seasonal changes, it is a perilous time for singers. Half the theatre seems to have been ill with one thing or another over the last couple of weeks. Occasionally this leads to glorious opportunities - I simply couldn't resist sneaking into the back of the auditorium for the beginning of a performance last week, half made-up and unnoticed, to catch our tiny but ferociously competent assistant director playing a police officer, instead of the normal six-foot-something bass (she then slipped into a sexy secretary's dress to execute pretty damn complicated dance steps because the mezzo singing that part was also ill); however most of the time it simply means frustrating lacunae in rehearsals and stress due to unfamiliarity in performances.

I reckon I've got away with it lightly so far (she said, fingers crossed). I have had a cold for the last few days (I *knew* there had to be an explanation for feeling so other-worldly and forgetful last week!), but am grateful that my last performance and the one coming up tonight are in my capacity as an actress rather than a singer - you can get away with a heck of a lot, vocally, if you're just speaking. Especially if you're miked up and can ask the nice sound guys to pump up the volume a bit as you've unaccountably lost the entire top half of your voice...

And when you're even the slightest bit ill, of course, there's the question of comfort food. My first choice would always be Heinz Tomato Soup with thickly-buttered white bread... and I just can't get those over here; the alternatives are not quite right (and who would have thought that you can't get Heinz soup in Germany??). One small sad niggling downside to the ongoing adventure of being an expat.

Still, fortified with my witch's brew of a cold-killing soup (involves more garlic than you'd think possible, chicken bones, ginger and chili), and half-drowned in herbal teas and freshly-squeezed blood-orange juice, onwards and upwards!

2011-03-10T02:49:00.001+01:00

Should anyone be interested in experiencing the General Laws of Relativity on a very practical level, I would highly recommend losing one's way when speaking on stage. Amazing how the search for one blasted word can last for utter eternities.

It was just the ONE word. I started the sentence OK ... "Ich will nicht..." then ground to a halt. What *should* have come out was, "Ich will nicht exkommuniziert werden" (I don't want to be excommunicated). The following is a rough transcript of what went on in my mind during the space between getting lost and getting my act back together - in "normal" time a matter of a second or two:

"Ich will nicht WHAT? Bloody hell, I've lost the word. I'm going to dry on stage. I'm going to panic. NO!! No, I am NOT going to panic, I am cooler than that, I've done this role loads of times, if I just carry on it will probably just happen, and... ahhh, um yeah, it DIDN'T just happen, what do I do now? (don'tpanicdon'tpanic).

OK, so I just go ahead and say it in English. No probs; my character speaks in English half the time anyway. Only thing is, I can't remember the bloody word in English either. Right. Something to do with getting chucked out of the church. Ex, ah yes, I'm pretty sure it starts with ex. Then, it must be something to do with the church, right? So, Latin? Rats, what's the Latin for church? Ecclesia? Hmmm, not sure about that, sounds a little Greek to me. Put it together and damn it, it's definitely not what I'm looking for.

Keep breathing. Smilesmilesmile."

Eventually it wandered back in and made a belated appearance - the whole thing being far, FAR more relaxed than I have ever been about mislaying my text. I don't mind admitting that I was jealous. Being jealous of one's own mind in a slightly-less-than-natural state, mind, is probably not the healthiest option, mentally speaking, so maybe we'll just ignore that.

And, in terms of "mentally speaking", I am happy to say that I survived the carnival in this city once again. Photo is of a few of the papier-mache heads that generally express a lot of political opínions. This year, I understood some of them!! (Some, mind. Definitely not all. However a general sweep of the papers weekly means I have a vague idea of the political arena.)

Helped greatly that I ended up behind the barriers next to an immensely sweet girl, mentally subnormal, with a childlike ability to enjoy the moment. She was forever turning to me with a look of absolute wonder. Look at the FROG!! Look at the CLOWNS!!! Huge grin. In the absence of children, I reckon this was probably the best way to appreciate the whole thing.

The parade lasted over four hours. Luckily there was glorious and unseasonal sunshine, offsetting the icy-cold winds. And even luckier, I had ventured out for coffee on the Sunday and had realised how bone-chillingly cold it was, and altered my costume accordingly.

Details of bone-turningly high heels and ridiculously late nights suppressed, mainly because my mother is an avid reader of whatever I post on the internet. Suffice it to say that it terms of wild carousing, it really doesn't help to know that you have to be on stage at 10 a.m. the next morning, sufficiently sober to be able to sing your lines and march on in all the right places. And given that we have far more places than lines... Ah, this profession does take it out of you unexpected ways!

2011-02-27T23:45:00.000+01:00

Deep, DEEP in rehearsal hell at present. The opposite side of the coin to those aimless days and weeks of wandering around smiling vaguely and practising what and when you feel like. 10 a.m. most days, three floors under in one of the rehearsal stages, work until 2 p.m., then maybe 6-10 p.m. Four hours in the middle might seem like a lot, but add in costume fittings, having to eat, cycling to and from home in what at present is extremely unpredictable weather ("Spring" - in one week we went from snow to gales to pouring rain to sunshine so warm I dried a washload of clothes on the balcony to freezing fog...), not to mention the normal routines of housework and shopping; well frankly you're left with not an awful lot of free time. And that which you do have, does tend to be spent lying prone in a darkened room, knowing that the list of unanswered emails has now crept to over forty but feeling utterly unable to even approach the blasted computer.

The air down there is not the freshest at the best of times. This is the deepest location in the city. Normal rehearsals involve about ten soloists, either on stage or lolling around at the sides, and a line of people along the "audience" side of the room including director, conductor, rehearsal pianist, prompter, director's assistant, costume designer, set designer, couple of people from props, at least one costume assistant, and usually one bod whom nobody is really sure about but who kind of looks like they belong. Once you add in extras (including mothers etc when the extras are children), the air starts feeling a little recycled. And when you add to the mix an entire opera chorus... well, let's just say we're all looking forward to the start of rehearsals on the actual stage.

In such conditions it is tempting to grumble occasionally. I spent over three quarters of an hour on Friday splatted on the floor, waiting recumbent whilst details of a duet down the other end of the stage were being hammered out. I was tired and it did occur to me to think, ah for goodness' sake, couldn't we just nip to the canteen for a coffee while you get all that sorted out? Then I thought, well hey, how many jobs are there where you get to lie on the floor for nearly an hour pretending to be asleep and they actually PAY you for it? I giggled to myself, adjusted the leg of the oversized soft toy under my head and relaxed.

(And when I related that particular incident to a dear German friend, she started earnestly telling me about a friend of hers who had been running sleep experiments in a lab and paying the insomniac volunteers... Beautifully German - I had a bash at explaining rhetorical questions, but ran aground rather.)

Aha, and concerning language and deficiencies of learning thereof, I was recently describing to a (much younger) friend and colleague the delicacies that I had snaffled on a recent lightning raid into Alsace. These included for example Boursin with figs and three types of nuts, about twenty other sorts of French cheese, rillettes, quail with figs and Bergerac sauce, guinea fowl with chestnuts and sauce Forestière... dear me, my mouth is watering even now. I could hardly carry all my treasure back on the train; loading the bike and steering it back home was something of a delicate operation.

Anyway, I was doing OK on the descriptions until I got to the wilder shores of gamefowl in German. Attempting to elicit a few possibilities for quail, I tried "Um, like chicken, only smaller."

"Chicken nuggets?" suggested my friend helpfully...

2011-02-17T02:02:00.001+01:00

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!

2011-02-11T09:18:00.000+01:00

The face of evil...

It had never before occurred to me just how drastic the change in one's features is when one thinks nasty thoughts. I mean, you don't go plotting evil doings when you're cleaning your teeth of a morning, do you? The most the bathroom mirror usually has to put up with is an innocuous checking for random bits of spinach or mascara trails down the cheek. And photos which show such a distortion... well, I'm one of those people whose photos are either great or disastrous, so I have always tended to assume that such photos simply fall into the latter (sadly much more common) category.

Last night, however, having returned from rehearsal, I was still running through a couple of scenes in my head, and happened to glance into a mirror whilst doing so. SCARY! I mean, we're not talking about murderous schemings here, simply a totally bitchy cast of mind, but even that had made my features incontrovertibly ugly. I spent a fascinated few minutes playing around with this, and was truly shocked by the difference between neutral, spinach-checking mode, and thinking-a-bit-like-a-bitch mode. Of course I'd seen my fellow actors' faces change on stage (one of my partners in crime in this particular production is a great friend, and a very beautiful woman, whose capacity to switch in a lightning instant into a sneering harpy is simply astounding), but I had never fully appreciated how little it takes in the way of bad thoughts to re-cast one's features quite dramatically.

This is of course going to be one of those things that everybody else has realised LONG before they get to my age, but I was very struck by it - not to mention hearing my granny's voice quite clearly warning that if the wind changed, my face would stay like that...

(Oh, the eyes above are not meant to be an illustration of evil thoughts - at least I sincerely hope not, as it's simply a photo of the make-up for the Szymanowski opera, sans eyebrows...)

2011-02-06T15:20:00.001+01:00

Ah, I do so love it when an evening turns out unexpectedly to be a real treat. I went yesterday to a bar in Wiesbaden not having much of a clue what the music was going to be like. I'd been invited as part of an English-speaking group; whilst I speak German at work, and try hard to improve constantly, it is occasionally good to natter away with people in my mother tongue - you don't have to THINK all the time. So if the proposed evening sounds at all interesting, I try to go along (many of them I don't make due to performances or rehearsals - most, like yesterday's, have to be accepted on a provisional basis until I know whether I have the evening free).

Anyway, as I say, I went along for a little conversation in English and because the guitarists involved were relatives of Django Reinhardt, whose music I love. Because we were pretty late getting there, all the tables were taken. We squeezed ourselves into a corner at the front on little stools, ordered (very nice) wine, and nattered happily until the concert started.

At which point I found myself about as near as you can get without actually playing the guitar for someone to Lulo Reinhardt, and not that much further away from Mike Reinhardt. My goodness, but this was a feast for a musician! Virtuoso playing, my GOD can these guys coax wonderful sounds out of their guitars, but it was far, far more than that - they were really making MUSIC, and having a blast at the same time. Tossing solo opportunities and flamenco rhythms back and forwards (the concert was billed as Gypsy Swing, and was a glorious mixture of styles), slipping in odd little musical quotations which made me giggle, grinning madly at each other. At one point they introduced their "special guests", who were young members of the same family, one on guitar, the other on percussion; it was particularly touching to note how they supported them musically, the focused energy and attention almost visible. I felt completely part of the music they made and could feel it flowing through me. Didn't hurt that I really was so close that when they took a break, Lulo handed his guitar to me whilst he saw to something else...

I left feeling totally uplifted and inspired (the particular lesson I took from this, as a musician, is that it IS possible to be technically pretty much perfect and yet still perform with boundless passion and energy; something that we do need to be reminded of on a regular basis, as it is not at all easy to get that particular balance right). I am ridiculously lucky to have had such a glorious experience, and this is definitely one of those evenings that will never fade!

2011-02-05T17:37:00.000+01:00

To the ballet last night. Beautiful production; I enjoyed so much being with friends, one especially whom I hadn't seen for too long, and who danced when younger (I am always awed by her grace, and jolly grateful for knowing that despite all that, she manages invariably to bash her head on any available kitchen cupboard...). Prokoviev, Romeo & Juliet. Is there any music catchier than this? Literally - wasn't really aware of this production (there are totally separate worlds operating at any one time within a theatre), but when walking past the stage the other day, going to fetch my coat from my dressing room after a rehearsal, I was caught and drawn in by the syncopated thump of the most famous tune in this piece, and couldn't escape...

I always come away from a ballet with the same yearning feeling, though; why can't *I* do anything like that?? Now maybe it's because I haven't seen a ballet since my operation in the summer, and consequent possible-OCD application to practice, but suddenly the answer was crystal clear. These dancers practise their movements exactly the way we practise our singing. Their TOTAL control of their body (ahhhh, but really, it is unbelievably good - I couldn't see the Juliet breathing at ALL after she was meant to be dead) is the equivalent of our superlative voice control; hard-earned after so, SO many hours.

I still wish I could control my body better. I sincerely envy the dancers their ability to register and avoid obstacles on stage, and have vowed to improve this aspect of my art. (Mainly because I kept tripping over a particular raised board on the floor of the rehearsal stage yesterday. And it's not that I never tried ballet - I vaguely remember one lesson - the teacher asked us to put our arms out and up a little and attempt to bring our toes up to touch them. In my usual overenthusiasm I kicked a leg up... and dislocated my left middle finger. I don't remember any more lessons.)

I was strangely uplifted: what those dancers did last night seemed to me to be magic. They defied gravity, time, LOGIC. Maybe that's what we're about. Somehow keeping magic alive. A nice thought, anyway!

2011-02-01T23:10:00.000+01:00

A small jewel of Rehearsal Logic:

Full tilt immediately into Act I. Walking through the set with the director. Looking forward to this (having worked with her before, I know I can trust her not to make the character of the three gossips/bitches in any way nice); we ask what the pile of stuff in the middle of the stage is (mainly to work out what we're going to be tripping over).

Ah yes, she says, corpses. From right to left, "Schafe, Schafe, Schafe, Hund" ("sheep, sheep, sheep, dog"; indicating in turn three cardboard boxes and a dead sheep...). An eyebrow must have escaped from the iron discipline of one of our faces; cue an irresistible directorial giggle, cackling all around, and the settling knowledge that this is going to be fun!

2011-01-31T00:58:00.001+01:00

Oh yes. Haha, very funny, theatre gods...

Stepping out onto the stage for my last scene tonight, my beautiful gown snagged on one of the flowers that have throughout the production sprung up to adorn the stage.

Unfortunately these tulips come not as single spies but in batallions. Catch on one, and you have forty following you around with a nasty metallic screech.

One of those eternal moments on stage when time slows and you think calmly, well I'm not going to be able to get to him with all these blasted flowers in tow, and he's already given my cue sentence and is standing there Being Bereft, so my only alternative is to untangle myself, ignoring all the laughter from the public, murmur a few holding sentences, and hope for the best.

Once the deflowering was successfully achieved, however, I found it hellishly difficult to keep a straight face. This is unfortunately the ONLY serious scene I have in the entire evening - any other bit and I could have laughed and thrown out a witty comment. But nooooo. Had to be the earnest bit. All the little muscles around my mouth were writhing and jiggling, desperate to make me giggle. And a slight inquisitive raising of the tenorial eyebrow on the "private" side nearly did me in for good (anyone who asserts that Germans have no sense of humour has evidently never worked with this guy. Hilarious in rehearsal, and a constant menace as far as making me corpse goes onstage).

I am proud to say I got through with a suitably serious expression on my (gently wobbling) face, and saved the belly laughter until I could get off stage and join in with the delighted howls from the stage manager and assistant director...

Still. Keeps us on our toes, which (despite being horribly embarrassing in the moment) is never a bad thing!

PS the poster in the photo was a jewel which I saw when out auditioning somewhere, can't remember quite where. Italian circus, German audience, "English" tagline... glorious!

2011-01-30T01:54:00.000+01:00

I love what I do. I love being on stage, however small the role, however unfulfilling the vocal line. I am acutely grateful for being employed full-time as a singer. However there are times when you think, oh DAMN it, that's annoying!

I had such a time yesterday, when a very prestigious agent telephoned to ask what I was doing over the weekend. Um, I said, I have a performance of My Fair Lady on Sunday night. Damn, says he, was hoping you could jump in (einspringen - literally, to jump in - i.e. to substitute at short notice for a colleague who is ill).

One of my favourite roles. I would have LOVED to have sung it. Good money. Great theatre. Brownie points. Etc etc. However, a contract is a contract. And it is at this point that the Fest contract is important. I reckon they trusted me enough to give me the contract. In return, I naturally respect my contractual duties. (And yes, I did snark a little to colleagues about this, and one person in particular asked why I couldn't just call in sick for my small role here and hotfoot it over there to garner the glory... Simply not possible. Apart from moral considerations, I would be perpetually anxious that the admin staff would talk to each other (and they do, they DO! Of course! I would too, absolutely.) I will however admit to a little healthy gnashing of teeth and kicking of walls...)

So am very grateful indeed to the friends who have invited me out for a walk tomorrow, before the evening performance. I suppose I should have remembered what serious walkers they were when I accepted the invitation. But a lovely message, received during the opera tonight, reveals their intentions to pick me up WELL before most of the world is even conscious... HELP! And if, in one of those Agatha-Christie moments, should I never be heard of again, well, please, dear friends, direct your attention to M&M and their sinister obsession with the beauty of the Rhine view... ;-) If nothing else, I should sleep well tomorrow night! Hooray. We have a Konzeptionsgespräch on Monday, and it would be a shame to snooze through the whole thing!

2011-01-27T00:14:00.001+01:00

OK, for the first time here, I think, a bit of video! This is the production I was most recently involved in, and I am rather proud to have been so, looking at even this little snippet. A shame there were no solo voices involved in this trailer, as there were some really wonderful performances, but I think it works well as an advertisement for the actual production (my goodness, those statues look soooo cool when descending - never saw them myself from the auditorium, of course, because I was always on stage when the action was happening). I can be seen (this is not particularly obvious!) in silhouette near the beginning, lighting candles, and then in the last purple throes of religious ecstasy when the music (ahhhhh, this is such GORGEOUS music!! Bloody well conducted, too.) hits its climax.

One of the most notable things for me here is how involved the entire cast is here, INCLUDING chorus. No hangers-on. No unsuitable giggling onstage. Yes. I like it!

So, another performance of this on Friday. One of those weeks - we had one of these last Saturday, a Verkaufte Braut on Monday, and given at least seven weeks' interval between performances, that was interesting; and after Friday's König Roger, we have a My Fair Lady on Sunday. I am incredibly lucky to have manageable roles in all of these; what it must be like to mentally slot in huge and complicated roles one after the other, I can't begin to imagine, and hope never to have to (and CHAPEAU!!! to those of my friends who do it regularly, without seeming even to break sweat...).

2011-01-13T22:19:00.000+01:00

Well, so that was the Generalprobe (dress rehearsal)... Goodness, am I glad that there is traditionally MEANT to be a certain amount of confusion at such times.

I started off late into make-up. I am NEVER late. Pathological aversion to it due to a father who obviously at some point made a pact with the devil concerning finding parking places next to the theatre and sauntering in with two seconds to spare, and I also find it horribly unprofessional. However sometimes you are faced with a choice of two evils, and I think it would have been rather rude to simply step over an injured old lady who'd fallen in the street and couldn't get up.

Luckily I didn't completely snarl everything up in make-up as the soprano kindly stepped in for me a little early, but it meant I couldn't warm up (I'm generally loafing around in a rehearsal room for half an hour or so before I get made up). Not a problem really with such a small role, but still, felt a little off balance. Literally - at one point am meant to move as if in a dream towards a wall, and sink down against it - I actually tripped and nearly fell, but caught myself. (Interestingly, the director thought it was a neat bit of characterisation and I didn't disabuse him!)

Once I had finished singing - end of Act I in a three-act opera, I got out of my costume and into my dressing gown, and relocated to the canteen with a colleague in the same situation (there is no interval in this production, so we have to lurk around and amuse ourselves somehow before bowing at the end). I'd arranged with the costume lady to meet her at a certain time, based on yesterday's rehearsal, to change back into costume for the bows. Unfortunately both of us had forgotten that we'd started really late yesterday, and so I was in the awkward position, hearing the call to be ready for bows, of having to leap up from the canteen table, leaving my half-drunk glass of wine, and running to my dressing room at top speed. I shed my dressing-gown at the entrance, grabbed my costume and shouted HELP!!! into the ether. God bless all the make-up artists etc who came and helped me cobble together my buttons - albeit slightly crookedly (lot of buttons, LOT of buttons!), otherwise the bows at the end would have shown rather more than was seemly :-)

Still, I think this is a wonderful production, and am hoping really against hope that I can manage until Saturday's première without getting ill. Fingers crossed!

2011-01-10T21:46:00.000+01:00

Currently full of the joys of... well, not spring exactly (that would be just a little optimistic, given the freezing fog which obscured most of the morning), but the passing of that phase of winter in which the paths are black ice and windchill means that walking at more than a snail's pace necessitates triple layers on all extremities. In other words, I'm back on my bike, following an enforced hiatus due to freezing conditions. Hooray! I HATED waiting for buses late at night, in dark and miserable bus stops, having invariably miscalculated and missed the previous bus by a few minutes. (In London I simply learned the bus timetables - say, at 3 minutes past the hour and 33 minutes past the hour, etc., and worked backwards; here, the transport authorities are more cunning, and they alter the timings according to whether it's a weekday, Saturday, Sunday, or past eight o'clock in the evening; just when I think I have it licked, I miss another blasted bus and have to stand and swear for a good long while.)

As a singer, I find that fifteen minutes' cycling in to the theatre is a great start to a warm-up, and is often enough on its own. (Singers vary in their warm-up needs, from three seconds' nonchalant humming and then walking on to sing Tannhäuser, to over an hour of varied exercises before hitting the stage. Personally, if I'm out there singing every day, I seldom need much in the way of vocal warm-up, but it's great to get my body moving, as it seems to kick-start the rest.)

It also means, hopefully, that the weather is pretty much bound to improve from now on, which can only be a Good Thing!

An unforgettable instance of audience participation in the performance of My Fair Lady a couple of nights ago. During the scene in the foyer bar in which I am meant to natter gaily with whichever members of the public will helpfully stand still and allow this, before the dialogue resumes, I was accosted by a lady who accused me in all seriousness of stealing one of the glasses of champagne she'd ordered and paid for. I was catapulted out of character into flabbergasted stuttering denial (as in, oh, not fair, I'm not even drinking real alcohol!!) and felt hugely awkward extricating myself from the situation upon hearing my cue to resume the dialogue. Not helped ONE BIT by my dialogue partner, once we'd arrived at the designated table, bunging his elbows down so as to tilt the whole damned thing, sending everthing leaping into the air. As I lunged for smoked salmon sandwiches with one hand, and a glass of "champagne" with the other, I was overcome with giggles, and had to take a huge gulp of air to smother the giggles long enough to utter the next sentence. At such times, one is ACUTELY conscious of the video camera right in one's face, conveying every nuance to a fascinated audience...

As the photo says (it's a poster for an Italian circus performing in Germany, seen somewhere on my travels, which tickled my fancy): All you need is laugh!

2011-01-07T17:59:00.000+01:00

This here is a picture of my absolute favourite Christmas present this year. It's a beautiful top, conceived ("for Aunty Katy when she does her singing"), designed, modelled painstakingly upon his mother and decorated by my darling cousin's son Luca. He isn't even five yet!!! (I think. I remain vague as to children's ages.)

My entire family was flabbergasted that he had come up with such an idea totally unprompted, and had at that age seen the whole concept through to completion. Marvellous - bodes well for his future. I shall definitely treasure this unique garment, and I am sure I can find some occasion upon which to wear it!

Speaking of costumes etc, we had the piano dress rehearsal last night for the Szymanowski opera coming up. My costume is quite fabulous, in cardinal purple, and the make-up is a slightly alien effect; very pale skin, eyebrows removed (anyone who knows me will realise what a big deal this is - the secret is soap), purple shiny eyeshadow in arcs high on my forehead, and strips of my costume material around my head in a sort of mediaeval/religious reference. Marching around the corridors prior to the rehearsal beginning, quite a few people said "wow!", one was evidently rather scared, and a tenor from the chorus introduced himself to me, asking if I was a guest singer at the theatre - he really hadn't recognised me!!

2011-01-04T23:51:00.001+01:00

Irony. Theatres are incredibly good at this. Tonight, as I remarked to a member of the theatre administration before the rehearsal, the poor director had already got as far as the first orchestra/stage rehearsal, and this was the first time he'd actually had all the soloists together on the stage at one time. Ahhhh yes, she said, seems he's stuck at the airport elsewhere and won't be there...

But my goodness I am not looking forward to my dose of the cold, flu, virus or whatever it is that's making the rounds. Singers tend to spend this time of the year compulsively washing their hands, then thinking about it in terms of smooth skin and slapping on hand cream. It's pretty inevitable, though, and the usual pattern is for the illness to sabotage whatever you're actually looking forward to, so I am hoping against hope that this doesn't ruin my next premiere!

2010-12-30T01:32:00.000+01:00

The two faces of small notoriety . . . (fame it is not, but it seemed amusing enough for a comment, in any case.)

I had bought a couple of good tickets for a performance tonight, and was very much looking forward to it due to many friends in the cast, some of them previously unheard by me in these roles. Anyway, the friend with whom I was due to see the performance had been forced to cancel at the last minute due to babysitting problems, so I had offered the ticket up online, and it had been taken up by an English-speaker. Who failed to turn up. After me spending rather a lot of time surveying the audience in the foyer bar like a blooming eagle.

Now naturally this is not a totally naive audience. They KNOW that audience participation can be sprung on them at any minute, and they are prepared. It is even probable that some of them have seen me pounce on people in my My Fair Lady incarnation. However, the palpable shrinking from "an actor", or however they had me in their minds, was interestingly violent. Even as I made my way to my seat in the middle of a great row in the orchestra stalls, you could see people thinking, damn, she can't start singing from there without treading on my toes on the way out, what's THAT about?? Awkward.

And then we got to post-show drinks. Always good. And the moment when the star of the evening has been praised to the skies by a random audience member. Great, because she deserved it completely and I couldn't have put it better myself. Even better because the same lady looked at me before leaving the room and asked if I wasn't the Herodias in Salome, in which case she thought I was wonderful, and had seen me in every performance. Felt good!!

Absolutely NO moral wossname to be drawn from this whatsoever: simply an observation.

2010-12-22T06:40:00.002+01:00

CHRISTMAS!!

And there is even the possibility of a couple of days with my family (subject to the vagaries of the weather, which has been pretty appalling in the last week or so, necessitating urgent finger-crossing and underlying panic; and thanks solely to a wonderful director being human enough to recognise the need to get out of the rehearsal room and into the company of those we love at this time of year). I am packed (finally. Yes, I know I probably should have started BEFORE a long performance - somehow, the time between reaching home post-theatre and heaving myself up in order to reach the airport with three hours to spare, as per Lufthansa emergency guidelines, seems to have shrunk to a baggy-eyed and negligible amount) and heading off now, and very much looking forward to a couple of days' breathing space after the unutterable chaos of the last couple of weeks. I am of course grateful to have had so many auditions, in various countries and cities (mostly at the moment for agents; I am hoping the theatre auditions will follow in the not-too-distant future!), but between those, rehearsals and performances, have been rather vague as to where I was at any given time, and in which direction I was headed. I need a little non-singer family common sense!

Just before I go, though, I would like to wish anyone reading this the VERY best of the season. Thank you so much for persevering - it makes such a difference to know that my words are not just vanity publishing in the 21st century. To amuse even one person on a bad day; to revive the hope in a wilting singer's breast; to reassure a nervous expat that the bloody language WILL eventually give in if you hack at it with enough grit: reason enough to keep on scribbling - and thank you for all and any feedback and comments. Merry Christmas!!!

2010-12-19T01:17:00.001+01:00

Back to my current fascination with straight acting for the moment; sorry, won't take long, I imagine. I was struck tonight by the sense of a more immediate connection with the audience than when singing opera. The connection when singing feels more visceral, perhaps deeper, but relies on something felt underneath the major conjunction of voice and orchestra/conductor. That is where the emotion - feeling - uh, whatever it is that moves an entire body of people - starts, and it flows out from there. When it's just you, the audience and the words, there's a definite sense of "sounding out" the public to determine exactly when the punchline, or the emotional twist, ought to sit. My timing has been very different in each performance, not of my own volition but completely as an instinctive reaction to the energy of the audience. In opera, I feel that energy in a different way; it can feed my interpretation, but doesn't generally alter the timing of it.

So much to learn!

2010-12-18T00:54:00.000+01:00

Apologies for recent radio silence. It's been one of those "glamorous" weeks. Glamorous in the sense that many people unconnected with the arts think that these rootless, restless travels are somewhat more enjoyable than they often appear from the inside. As an example, I have stuck a picture of beautiful Munich up there. Yes, it does look like an ice floe. Because that's what I was concentrating on whilst trying to cross the road, rather than looking up at the fabulous architecture. Seriously. The snow was melting and many of the streets were inches deep in running water mixed with ice. Not easy to find a decent crossing place, bearing in mind that frozen paws are NOT going to add to one's performance at an audition, on the whole.

I will admit, however, to succumbing, occasionally and in giggles, to the "oh lord, it's Tuesday, is this Düsseldorf?" syndrome. Thank goodness for online calendars and for good friends around the world who put up with me when travelling!

While I think about it, a few pointers for those embarking on similar journeys:

modern phones are terrible wimps when it comes to running out of juice. Chargers are a MUST when travelling.
saving copies of all your arias in PDF format on a gmail account or similar is a life-saver. Unexpected auditions can be hellishly stressful without the additional worry of not being able to find copies of your (in my case) non-standard repertoire for the pianist.
the effect of repeated journeys will be to concertina the time you have available to do stuff like, say, Christmas shopping. You will suddenly and heart-stoppingly realise that you only have two hours to buy thoughtful and individual presents for all your loved ones... and you're in the middle of nowhere and what's more, all the darned shops are shut because it's Sunday.
whilst wearing all your clothes on a Ryanair flight saves hand-luggage weight and sticks one in the eye of the Irish cheapskate, if you are then seated next to a sweaty drunkard on the flight, following a four-hour delay in which he's taken full advantage of the bar, you will spend a horribly uncomfortable flight worrying about when he will vomit over every single item of clothing (bar underwear) you have brought with you. Leave one dress in the case!! (It didn't happen, by the way. Phew.)
slithering sideways to a half-hour Thai massage on impulse is never a bad thing. Especially relaxing when one's masseuse has a terribly talkative stomach, causing her first to apologise and later to fall flat over one in a fit of giggles, which are naturally catching...

Like most situations in life, I suppose, the thing that helps the most when one is belting around like a mad thing is to retain one's sense of humour. I am hanging on to mine with scratched and bloody nails, but it hasn't got away yet...

2010-12-03T23:47:00.000+01:00

On evenings such as these I am reminded of how much I absolutely LOVE acting. Singing is in many ways for me just the icing on the cake. I get to throw myself into - right into - lives that are so different from mine, their bodies react differently, their faces take on independent expressions, their reactions often take me by surprise.

For much of this evening in rehearsal I had nothing to sing, I was behind the choir on stage and the focus was on them and on other characters. So I pretty much had carte blanche, and such freedom is always interesting. You find aspects of the role you wouldn't have dreamt existed, and little tics that clarify your inner workings better than you could ever have imagined rationally. Probably the same sort of process as allowing children to be bored, hence freeing their imaginations.

I'm also fascinated at the moment by the difference between the private face that an actor (including here actress in that term) chooses to show, and their energy on stage. Some people are naturally "on" all the time. Others, and I suspect I find this interesting because I feel I am in this group, reserve their most intense outward shows of emotion for the stage. I really don't think I have ever seen the difference so readily expressed as with my dear teacher and mentor; in private, reserved, naturally polite, disinclined to criticise; onstage, an imperious whirlwind whom no-one could possibly resist and to whom one's eyes are irresistibly drawn.

These thoughts, obviously, brought to you by a rather nice glass of Spätburgunder in the canteen after the evening rehearsal!

Cheers!

2010-12-01T16:02:00.000+01:00

Oh, this is going to be fun. I mean, if a director is going to ask you to throw yourself into paroxysms of epileptic religious ecstasy at the first rehearsal of a rather severe and serious opera, it's jolly decent of him to then announce to the room in a cheerful voice "We'll start from the sex".

I'm so glad it's not just me who has difficulties pronouncing the number six in German!

2010-11-28T23:25:00.001+01:00

I'm pleased to report that the Märchen (fairytale) we watched yesterday was glorious. I have absolutely no idea how the actors keep up such energy, given their punishing schedule (often two performances a day, the first one at 9 a.m., meaning turning up for make-up at half past seven... *gulp*!), but we enjoyed the whole thing no end. Seriously jealous of the sets (there was one that looked like a proper, green, shady wood. With green painted trees and nice lighting and depth and stuff. Not just one leafless "tree" representing the outmoded "idea" of a "wood", with a video screen interjecting an ironic commentary to one side...) and the gorgeous costumes. I adored the baddie, shouted along with the children ("It's behind you!") and was particularly taken with a song entirely about potatoes, sung by a tuber-obsessed wicked magician...

What with Märchen at the theatre and the Weinachtsmarkt (Christmas market), I was inspired by the example of another friend to paint my nails turquoise. Just seemed like exactly the right colour. Said talons can be seen above right, curled around my first mug of Glühwein of the season. Now there's a drink (or three) that went down particularly well on a cold and frosty night after a few hours of colourful hilarity and hysterical children!!

I'm looking forward to the Konzeptionsgespräch - concept show-and-tell - for my next opera tomorrow morning. I feel very privileged to be an English singer working in a German theatre singing a Polish opera under the direction of a Spaniard.... This cannot BUT be interesting - Babel comes to mind!

2010-11-26T00:09:00.000+01:00

With exquisite timing, today saw the opening of the Christmas market here (and an amazing influx of tourist buses and gaudily-lit cruise ships) at the same time as the temperature plummeted vertiginously towards zero. The sudden cold brought on an immediate longing for Glühwein, and I realised that I am slowly going native - I am no longer fighting tooth and nail against the relentless seasonality of the Germans. I cycled along my street admiring the tasteful Christmas lights which appeared for the first time this afternoon without even wondering whether there couldn't have been one rebellious soul who defied convention and put them up, say, yesterday. I would definitely have given in to the Glühwein urge, but would have had to elbow my way through the crowds (not to mention, we had a concert tonight and discretion is definitely the better part of valour when it comes to chucking alcohol down one's gullet before singing in public...). And I arranged with a friend to attend the children's show at the theatre this weekend (from the looks of it, a sort of fairytale cum pantomime; songs, overexcited young audience, beautiful princesses, swaggering baddy - the latter, it is to be hoped, not displaying quite the staggering range of swear words in various languages I caught him warming up with the other day). The Pavlovian conditioning is such that I am very much looking forward to the festive season over here!

The concerts over the last couple of days have been "for young people" - a bowdlerised version of our Bartered Bride, with the orchestra oiked out of the pit and arranged prettily on stage (OUR stage!! We have to make do with running around in front of them, in costume but without scenery, and hoping to goodness the monitor catches the conductor at the right angle for tricky entries), and any risqué scenes toned down to appropriate levels. Aimed at an older audience than for the pantomime, both nights were sold out and went down gratifyingly well. Intelligent stuff this from the theatre - they're hooking them when they're young, then keeping their interest going, and could this just possibly be the reason that a much bigger proportion of young Germans don't find going to the theatre or opera a weird thing to do with the occasional evening? Anyway, I shan't quickly forget the face of a distinguished bass colleague (he's just been made a Kammersänger, which is a great honour) coming towards me to line up after his bow - "I've never been booed before!" he muttered, stunned... Evidently I play more baddies than he does - I replied that I rather enjoy my character being booed, means you did your job convincingly, especially with a younger audience. By his second bow, he was grinning from ear to ear!

2010-11-23T23:53:00.000+01:00

Moving swiftly on...

OK, time to 'fess up. This is the time of year when singers hold their breath, wondering whether their contract will be renewed. And mine wasn't. Can't complain, have had two years here on a one-year contract, but all the same, getting chucked back into the audition pool is... interesting?

I am seriously lucky, though, in that I have talked to the people in whose hands the decision lay, and am thoroughly reassured that there was no fault on my part, in fact they loved what I'd done here, but the future direction of the theatre required a different voice, and... hey, that's the business. It wasn't particularly easy to ask for an explanatory interview, but I felt I owed it to myself as an artist to ask for the truth (because really, what we feel we are coming across as is as nothing compared to how others actually see us). I'm so glad I did, however, as it means I can go out and audition secure in the knowledge that I haven't FAILED! (Other artistes will immediately recognise the incipient paranoia - those of you who don't, this is the point at which you thank your lucky stars!!).

The contract not being renewed doesn't however mean that you're chucked out on the street as of yesterday (whatever my mother may fear!). Naturally I have all the season's operas to come, and my contract here runs until the end of next June.

After that, however, it's all up in the air once more. The thing is, though, this is simply one aspect of the profession. I have a few friends who have been appalled by the randomness of it. I'm not sure I convinced them with my acceptance, but it's true. Had I really needed job security, I would have applied for a chorus job. I'll take the thrills with the spills, as it were...

Naturally, should anyone hear of a great vacancy for a dramatic mezzo, please contact me ASAP. Doesn't matter where; in fact, the workings of Sod's Law say I should probably apply for things in countries whose language I don't yet speak, since the prospect of mastering yet another language from scratch absolutely appals me!

Normally I wouldn't go so public with such news. But heck, if I'm writing about the life of an opera singer, it would be dishonest to fail to mention these things. And besides, I am thoroughly convinced that there's a silver lining to every cloud, it's just that sometimes it's cunningly hidden. I definitely, for example, wouldn't have believed that my cut throat over the summer would lead to a better and more reliable voice; and so, armed with six-pack vocal muscles, thorough knowledge of my audition repertoire (told you I'd been practising!!) and a decent amount of self-knowledge, I am ready to take the next step.

Whatever that may be.

2010-11-18T21:21:00.001+01:00

It occurs to me that there are very few things in this life more satisfying than having colleages unable to resist the urge to poke their noses around the practice room door to see who's singing :-)

Because I need to prepare properly for any auditions that may come up for next season, I have been nipping into one of the practice rooms every day since my recovery from the operation (well, pretty much every day. Certainly enough to have the porters grinning and reaching for the practice room keys as soon as they catch sight of me), and practising my audition arias. Now it has to be said that apart from the Herodias, I haven't really been required to use my full voice when singing here. So it's hardly surprising that people don't know what I can actually do.

Hence the sneaky peeks around the door. Best excuse so far was the (lovely) soprano who sent her son "looking for his mother". The fact that I'd heard her give a lesson for the previous hour was conveniently overlooked... And the one which pleased me the most was the conductor who opened the door, saw me, grinned widely and said "Haha, should have known!".

Yes of course practising singing has really nothing to do with what other people hear. But communication is really the thing overall. And if I am communicating enough to make other musicians unable to resist the temptation to open the door and see who's damn well singing, well, I'm happy with that!

2010-11-15T01:40:00.000+01:00

It never fails to amaze me how few singers venture out from their comfort zone when it comes to listening to music. I'm not talking today (although I have been known to, at length) about being open to all styles, hating some with a passion, dancing to others, turning the occasional one up to deafening levels and chilling out, but always listening and reacting. This is simply in relation to classical music.

I spent this morning listening to some glorious stuff. Bloch arranged for piano, clarinet and horn. Mahler, for all the above plus fabulous singer colleague. Fibich (no, shamefully, I had never heard of him. Czech, 1850-1900 for those who are interested, lush Romantic melodies) for quintet of piano, violin, cello, clarinet and horn. Wonderful.

Admittedly, I sneaked into this concert mainly to hear my singer colleague. I was however captivated, as I almost always am, by the interaction between the musicians in the quintet. The thought I couldn't get rid of was, damn it, singers should be FORCED to occasionally listen to such recitals, with their eyelids propped open with matchsticks if necessary. There is no excuse for the sloppiness that sometimes overtakes us on stage. Just WATCH what happens in this chamber music. Each musician is alive to the slightest impulse from any of the others. They are alert, in the moment, reacting, making utterly LIVE music. (Apologies; it appears to be a night that demands capital letters.) So often we singers fail to do this. Some of it may be down to the outward focus on the conductor, but frankly I suspect that some of it is because we forget, or are too lazy.

Not just singers, mind; over lunch with instrumentalists, the odd rather violent disagreement was noted in respect of recent conductor trials. What is sauce for the goose is apparently NOT sauce for the gander :-) Interesting, that, if not terribly surprising (whilst orchestra and singers really shouldn't feel like they're batting for different sides, it does often feel exactly like that). All the singers involved were agreed, however, that conductors should be forced into at least a few singing lessons. Some are naturally sympathetic to our peculiar needs. Some, let us say, are not. It makes such a fundamental difference.

Usual thing with the arts, I suppose. Seeing things from different angles, changing one's focus altogether, swapping lives, throwing the cards into the air... on the whole, the more facets you have to your particular work of art, the more brilliant and deep the sparkle.

2010-11-08T01:20:00.000+01:00

Well, thank god that's over with!! The première of my first outing as a "professional actress" was yesterday, and I am so relieved to say it all went swimmingly. The energy of the thing as a whole was overwhelming, and I am proud to have been part of such a wonderful production. Didn't hurt, of course, that I got a great round of applause after one of my exit lines, which was totally unexpected and led to me thumping the air on the way offstage (well, if you don't have anything to sing, you have to make the most of what you do have, right?). I suspect I rather irritated the backstage crew (the instinct of those near me was to duck) at this point, only to make it far, far worse a little later, when one of the props workers, a stunningly beautiful and elegant woman hefting a raft full of tulips, ran splat into a mirror set into one of the flats, and I collapsed into giggles with a colleague. Really, these things shouldn't be quite so funny. But, erm, they are ;-) Especially when you're due on stage a few seconds later, composed, dignified and definitely not giggling fit to burst.

Mostly I was relieved to have delivered my eccentrically bilingual lines in the right order. However at a couple of points I was surprised by a slightly different sort of energy than I'd been used to - more angry, I think - and was interested to note the difference it made. Once again, the magic of the première does its stuff... This also worked, I am happy to say, with the improvised audience participation episode. Somehow I managed to witter away convincingly to strangers. I reduced one poor man to blushing silence, but his female companions were made of sterner stuff and bantered back with me. Still, I don't mind admitting that I was bloody glad when the dialogue started up again, even if I was always conscious that there was a cameraman (solo scenes being transmitted live and amplified on screens in the foyer and theatre) pretty much up my blasted nose. Ugh! I'm OK so long as I can't see any of the screens, but as my sight is still good, this is not easy to accomplish! Never mind. Yet ANOTHER acting exercise...

Post-show, I was overwhelmed by advice to steal my grey wig. I agreed with the impulse, but unfortunately the microphones we all had to wear went under the wig, over the tremendously flattering stocking and bandage keeping my own hair clamped to my skull. Logistics were therefore against me. Otherwise, I really would have been tempted.

The post-première celebrations were rather fun this time. Considering I was playing 70 years old, I was rather flattered to receive a proposal of marriage (I had reason to suspect that the young man who proposed was not, let us say, entirely sober at the time, so felt I had to decline...). Really, though, as a singer you tend to hold back most of the time in order to keep the voice in decent singing order. Very, very strange to think that all I need to do for these performances is speak.

I could get used to this :-)

2010-10-31T20:02:00.001+01:00

I was going to witter on about something else, but got completely taken aback by my wig for the latest production, and it started me thinking. It was one of those moments where you see the future, and maybe, just maybe, it won't be too bad to go completely grey. At the moment, my hair naturally sports a white streak amongst the darkness, and I love it (it suits so many of my roles, too, which is Not a Bad Thing). However, as an opera singer, one must always be aware of the ageism within the industry (I find this idiotic - surely we are the ONE place where the only thing that matters is what you end up looking like on stage, rather than what age you actually ARE?), and so naturally I have always thought, hmmm, if that white streak decides to start expanding, I'm going to have to think about colouring my hair.

However this wig makes me think again! And also makes me think, goodness, how LUCKY we are in the performing arts to be able to try on different looks, different ages, different personalities. We can thereby explore the possibilities of different hairstyles without actually having our hair cut, of different make-up whilst reinforcing what suits our features, and of aspects of our personalities becoming something completely different.

This latter I have been working through via the (I have to admit, still utterly terrifying) scene where I have to interact with the public and improvise in German until rescued by the dialogue starting up again. We had an open rehearsal last night which included this scene, which meant that I actually had the chance to practise for real. And it wasn't as bad as I had anticipated! OK, so I had to untangle myself from a conversation which had accidentally slipped into Russian. And also greeted a few people who had absolutely nothing to do with the performance, having come for a wedding reception being held in the posh restaurant at the top of the theatre, but all in all, I am thrilled to realise that as an acting exercise, this is working. Because it isn't really ME who is pouncing on all these unsuspecting members of the public, but my character, the nerves are coming back under control. And this from someone whose hands, at the first proper run-through, shook so much that the apple juice in her glass leaped out onto the floor... (yes, YES, it should be champagne, I thought I had that in the bloody contract, seems not until actual performances, but at least they've now provided me with proper smoked salmon sandwiches...).

Really - is there a more interesting way to spend one's life?

2010-10-29T00:10:00.000+02:00

Consonant migration

(This would have been wonderfully underlined by a picture of the immense migration of geese I witnessed a couple of days ago - a MASSIVE skein arcing across the sky and making a tremendously unworldly noise, remarked upon in awe by myself and a total stranger - unfortunately I failed to fish my camera out in time, having spent too much time gawping up at the spectacle. Never mind...)

So, I thought I was doing well with my text. Words learned, even if sworn over time and time again and repeated obsessively whilst tootling around the city (luckily I'm never worried about losing my reputation since I've seldom earned one to begin with).

However what is absolutely fascinating is that whilst the words themselves appear fairly steady (certain hellish combinations aside), some of the consonants are leaking into the wrong language, which has never happened to me before in my other languages, and is presumably a side-effect of this deliberate miscegenation of Deutsch and English. The German "R" is partícularly culpable in this regard. Yes, I admit, I have been geekishly studying its formation, trying to get it RIGHT, but that really doesn't mean it is welcome to turn up in the English word "Really?, as interjected yesterday in a conversation with a good friend whose mother tongue is also English... Embarrassing!

2010-10-23T23:56:00.000+02:00

A Word to the Wise for Those Who May Find Themselves in a Similar Situation in Future...

(Unlikely as it may seem...)

Should you finally feel confident enough of your language skills to brave a serious play in German and, unexpectedly finding yourself alone in the endeavour due to a friend's sudden illness, buy a programme and a glass of wine and retreat to a table against the wall of the foyer bar in order to study the synopsis properly, it is NOT false modesty to know where the theatre has decided to place your publicity shot. You WILL inadvertently plonk yourself directly underneath it, and the coincidence WILL be remarked upon loudly and enthusiastically by a hitherto-unknown-to-you member of the public. (I cannot stress enough the depth of embarrassment I felt at having managed to do this.)

Said gentleman will be entranced and will avidly engage you in conversation until the last bell rings, at which point you will file into the theatre and proceed to fail to understand huge chunks of the play. Flashes of comprehension will occur with words concerning gods, or curses, or incest (well sorry, but opera German is, shall we say, rather specialised... I'm sure they also talked about the price of fish or whatever), but you will spend vast swathes of time utterly mystified, working up to a splitting headache, and wondering how you managed to choose a play with so little movement (movement tends to be fairly self-explanatory) and with so many Serious Speeches...

At least that's the hurdle of the first play over with. I'm fairly certain at least that it's not going to get any worse than that!

2010-10-19T20:59:00.000+02:00

Today I had occasion to really appreciate the work of our prompter. Before coming to Germany I really hadn't worked much with prompters, and so hadn't quite realised how hard they worked, especially in the rehearsal period of a musical. In opera, we are supported by the music (well, so long as it is through-written, and thank goodness I generally sing that sort), and the roles I've had over here haven't been the massively wordy kinds, so I haven't really ever needed the prompter (oh, except for one slightly panicky moment in Salome one evening, when my mind went blank, I goggled around dry-throated for the prompt box, only to discover that, because it was to one side for staging purposes, I couldn't see the damned thíng from where I was standing...).

I had my own reasons for being thankful, of course - we're in the early staging rehearsals for these scenes, so this is the first time we're out there without scripts. Naturally a few words get left out, or mispronounced, or (in my case) accidentally bunged in the wrong language or mis-stressed. The prompter carefully noted where my mistakes were in the first run-through, and even before my facial muscles had had time to tense, the missing or mangled word came through clearly just before I needed it.

The exactness of her timing and the precision of her prompting, though, I had time to appreciate from a dark hole of a storage room in the very depths of the theatre (lots of stage curtains, miscellaneous lumpy, well-wrapped objects and audience-gathering ropes, and who knows what else, since I couldn't see the edges...). It's where I ended up after an offstage-right exit in this particular scene. No getting out from there (well, none that I could see or knew about. Buggered if I was going to explore pitch-black corners!!) So, as I couldn't very well trot back across the stage without upsetting the others' concentration, I gathered my garish red polyester dressing gown (with original 70s cigarette burn - ahhh, rehearsal dress is such a joy) and lay flat on the floor to listen before my return to the scene.

Without visual clues, therefore, and from a position behind the protagonists, I could hear all the prompts. I was massively impressed. I knew how much work she put into it - her scores are a riot of colour, with every part marked up differently - but goodness, in full flow, this is amazing. Prompts were clear and precisely directed, at exactly the right moment. And they're not always the first word you have to say or sing - this isn't much help if it's another "and" or "so" or something. Nope, she picks the one which is going to recall the sentence to you. And apparently her voice is so clear and focused that if you need a prompt on stage, you can hear every word and the audience nothing.

And as a person, impressively scary for someone who comes about up to my chest, and that's if she's standing on tiptoe. The sight of her coming towards you with a scowl and the score held out in front like a weapon can make the strongest man here quail... In such moments it really doesn't help to remember that she's a mad Harry Potter aficionado, good company and bakes like a professional. Abject apology and learning the damn thing perfectly before the next rehearsal is the name of the game.

Still, always good to learn a bit more about what various people who inhabit the underworld of the theatre actually DO!

(Unrelated photo of the day is of the new synagogue here - saw most of its construction whilst living nearby and was fascinated to see it complete whilst on a bike ride last weekend. Beautiful!)

2010-10-12T23:31:00.001+02:00

*Gulp...*

Sometimes you just KNOW it's going to be bad. In the case of this particular director, the wider his grin and the more he giggles quietly to himself, the worse it's going to be. So when his smile stretched almost off his face as he turned to me, I though, oh no.... But. Oh YES.

Two of the things that - I won't say scare me exactly, but - make me nervous - are spontaneous conversation in German and interacting with strangers in a packed social environment. One particular scene in this production is going to move everyone, audience and singers alike, into the main foyer / bar of the theatre. Oh, thought I naively, I'm fine with that. I know my words and this could be fun.

Until that grin. Blithely, he told me that I each night I would be expected to shoot off the stage before most of the others and get into conversation with some poor unsuspecting members of the public in the centre of the foyer, breaking off only when the action recommenced with a colleague tapping me on the shoulder and the dialogue starting up again. All the while zoomed in on by one of the video guys, with the resulting images loud and clear on the screens. Oh, and did I mention the possibility of having to bring with me two chorus members? On dog leads? Please don't ask.

Um. AAAAARGH!!! I think the sadist was hugely amused by my reaction. I'm trying to think of how to get him back, but my brain is still in panic mode and I can't yet summon up anything vicious enough.

I reckon the only way through is to treat it as an acting exercise for which I actually get paid. My character would I'm damned sure have no problem with the situation and would sail breezily through. Fake it till you make it. Etc. Still, I feel much as the above squirrel did when he objected in machine-gun rapid coughs to my being near his tree. Only without the gorgeous bushy tail to make my point for me!!

Could be worse, though. The rehearsals are fun, the costumes and wigs look as though they're going to be fantastic (although I have to say, trying on knickerbockers with added cellulite around the thighs and rear didn't do huge amounts for me - until I realised that it was a darned sight easier to remove than common-or-garden cellulite) and... I have English butter!! Hooray. Everything can be endured with the help of proper English butter. Kindly brought by friends from England who cheered up my Sunday by making the effort to come and visit between engagements elsewhere; you know who you are, and THANK YOU!

2010-10-09T09:47:00.001+02:00

I've probably said it before, and shall no doubt say it again unless I work out how to check for such things logically, but hooray for bikes when it comes to wearing high heels. I say this because I attended a premiere tonight of a Händel opera at the theatre, and for some reason became convinced that the only colour to wear to such a premiere was light green. The only light green thing I own is a silk jacket with contrasting detail in even lighter green and gold swirls on the (upstanding) collar and cuffs. So that was a given. Then of course the silk demanded a pairing with another silk item, hence a rather nice asymmetric black silk skirt. However the only shoes I have which went with the above were teeteringly high.

Luckily, because I cycle everywhere, this was no problem. Walking or standing in such shoes is HELL; but cycling, it really makes no difference how high the heels are, so long as they don't get tangled in the pedals (now that CAN cause problems!)

I'm relieved to say (because several friends and acquaintances were heavily involved) that I loved the production. Doesn't hurt that I'm a complete pyromaniac and that various elements of the staging were alight at different times. Thrilling! FIRE!!! OK, yes, voices were good too...

What was most interesting, though, was discussing the production with various members of the public afterwards. Just goes to show, don't damn well underestimate ANYONE! Some of the most astute observations came from a lady who is getting on in years and almost literally half my height when I'm wearing these heels. She attends most of the opera performances here and her opinion is well worth listening to - and all delivered with the most charming of smiles.

I have to say, though, I really still haven't got to grips with the etiquette at such premieres. I was expecting speeches etc etc from the Intendant (big cheese) but apparently this only happens at the grosses Haus, the main auditorium, rather than the kleines Haus, the smaller, more intimate space in which tonight's performance took place. Oh yeah, unless it's an operetta, in which case, all bets are off...

I confined myself to talking to our über-intelligent but diminutive resident critic and buying her a drink, congratulating my fellow artistes, then proving to myself that the outfit was no problem in cycling home. Must be late in the season, mind - those few rabbits who dared to cross my path scarpered quickly when yelled at!

Or maybe they were just intimidated by the heels...

2010-10-03T20:14:00.001+02:00

And then there are the times... when a performance goes veering off the rails and you are called upon to react in a coherent manner, on the spot, and in front of an avid public. I honestly don't know how anyone can call singers stupid! OK, it might be a different sort of intelligence, but my goodness, in such moments you can almost hear the cogs whirring around in everyone's heads.

Prop missing? As in, not just a bit of nonsense, but one of the lynchpins of the plot? Hmm. In a millisecond: Right, has anyone else noticed? Yes. Is anyone else doing anything about it? Yes, that bass has managed to alert the prompter, who has left her desk and is belting barefoot around the back of the stage to the assistant, who has not yet noticed the glaring lack but is wondering who is thumping loudly around backstage... And all the while, donotlaughdonotlaugh while the culprit faces away from the audience and grins sheepishly at you.

Next thing you know, someone does something completely unexpected, either due to not knowing the staging perfectly, or, I don't know, having a bit of a brainfart. Your scheduled reaction would be inappropriate. The choices between not reacting at all and pretending nothing had happened, and improvising and hoping for the best, rely heavily on clocking just how glazed your acting partner's expression has turned, and rapidly calculating the least worst scenarios. And again, swallowing any giggles before they see the light of day.

Then a little while later, the music threatens to fall to bits and you have to make split-second decisions on what to emphasise to help the conductor bring it back together. Leading to starting your next bit of dialogue thinking, oh GOD I can't remember what the verb in the next sentence is in German... an.. ge... SOMETHING... do I bluff it through, shriek the end so that no-one notices, or grab the (breathless) prompter's attention? Luckily countless repetitions paid off, so I had that "Ah, so THAT's what I was meant to say" feeling, listening to myself speaking the lines; but really, I can think of very few times in my life when my brain was reacting in quite such an instant and instinctive way as when something goes awry on stage...

I blame most of this on matinees, which are the work of the devil as far as many singers are concerned. Of COURSE we want to reach the biggest audience possible, and are sympathetic to the needs of many people who either work far away and can't get back for the start, or are retired and find public transport daunting late at night, or at school and only really allowed out on weekends - but goodness knows, MOST of our best and most concentrated work is done in the evenings, and I know very few singers who actually like performing so early. Still, needs must etc, and when all's said and done, I am grateful to the giggles and adrenalin afforded by such inevitable mishaps!

2010-09-30T20:26:00.000+02:00

Highly amused yesterday, when trotting through the theatre, to run into a group being given a guided backstage tour. As I squeezed past them whilst crossing one of the bridges connecting one part of the building to the other, the tour guide announced "That's one of the singers." I smiled vaguely, and continued on my way, only to hear her say "Sieht so aus, huh?" - roughly, You can tell, huh? - cue much laughter and assenting murmurs.

I am OFFICIALLY a caricature of an opera singer!! Glorious.

2010-09-27T19:53:00.004+02:00

I was just thinking today what a sheer, luxurious, physical pleasure singing can be. If you do it for a living, it can be easy to forget, but what with me being in the interesting position of rehearsing for an acting-only role (hehe, my first professional gig as an actress, and in a foreign lingo to boot!), I have the luxury of being able to practise exactly what I want, when I want. I generally wander into the theatre in the "dead" time between rehearsals - two until six in the evening. That way I can be pretty certain of getting a practice room. Whilst reworking my voice, given the noises that came out from time to time, it was also useful that very few people are around at that time - and I guess it became a habit.

I am starting to get a handle on the über-modern opera role, but really at the moment it's a question of note-bashing and trying to get the somatic memory to kick in - some phrases are now fixed in my body, others will I suspect take much, much more time, patience and gnashing of teeth. In the middle of serious study for this, which takes a certain type of concentration and a particular, slightly-odd-for-opera-singers way of producing the voice, I find it healthy to break off occasionally and belt out Something Completely Different from time to time. Well, today my butterfly mind alighted on Je vais mourir - a gloriously lush French aria, from Les Troyens by Berlioz. This is so wonderfully written - Dido, realising that death is the only remaining path, starts - for me - with a particularly human shriek of pain (the realisation that death is real, and imminent, rather than an abstract idea), before launching into a lyrical farewell to life imbued with royal dignity. I would kill to sing this part! (It has one of the most beautiful duets ever written, between Dido and Aeneas. Nuits d'ivresse, if you're interested.) Anyway, from the first notes, I was completely in the music. And for some reason I really FELT the music flow through me, and appreciated the physical release of the voice. Such a lovely feeling, the notes flooding through, always in motion and yet grounded in very corporeal vibrations. I can totally see why singing, whether in a choir or in church or in the bath, has been proven by several studies to have life-prolonging benefits.

What's more, the sudden concentration on the physical aspect of singing meant that I experienced the modern opera in a slightly different way when I went back to it; there are several long notes that are meant to start "from nothing" (eek!) and swell, and when I concentrated on the feeling, it was interesting to note what that produced emotionally. Very much in tune with the words; I am starting to appreciate this composer in depth.

I finished off by noodling through some settings of Armenian poets by Respighi (from the book I bought in Rome). Again, the FEELING of the plaintive legato line, filled with delicacy and beauty, was thrilling. Yes, of course I'd noticed the physicality of what I do before, but somehow it seemed more enjoyable today! I hope I can remember that enjoyment as I move on.

PS the photo was from a recent bike ride with a friend; we accidentally ended up in a particularly beautiful town, and this was taken after a couple of glasses of wine with lunch - well it made me giggle! - I think we maybe should have eaten more, we ended up shrieking with laughter whilst belting hell for leather on our bikes down towards the river. No idea how we managed to stop in time...

2010-09-23T20:53:00.004+02:00

Can't remember quite how I left this one - have a vague feeling it was halfway through, having just decided not to be an inside-out and obese ferret, but anyway, this was the final result, and given that my dear sister gave birth yesterday to her first child, a son named Daniel, it has now been handed over and is officially a (seemingly rather drunk) penguin.

I'm very grateful to my parents for handing it over (given the state of the postal system between Germany and England, it was far safer to go via intermediaries), but of course sad that I couldn't do so in person. Thing is, you see, once you're in rehearsals over here, that's pretty much it, you're tied to the theatre. I am very lucky in that my sister understands. I pointed out during her pregnancy that to me, all babies pretty much look like Winston Churchill anyway, and that all the cooing etc would probably be a pretty lie. Before the birth, she laughed with me and agreed - probably a good thing we got that over with, mind, as post-partum something happens to mothers' brains, and I suspect she wouldn't find it as funny now!!

First performance of the season went just fine, despite having little to no sleep due to above situation (as the daughters of an obstetrician/gynaecologist, we unfortunately know rather more about what can go wrong than is good for peace of mind...). Feels good to be back in the saddle again, and I enjoyed the first couple of rehearsals for my Debut Professional Acting Role (this would be the one the director convinced me to do at the bottom of a bottle; actually I think it is going to be a hoot).

And I think I now have my new flat properly furnished. The furniture had amassed itself bit by bit, and is feeling good; what has put the finishing touch to the thing is a couple of beautiful original paintings by an artist friend in Berlin, which finally arrived last week, having been batted back and forth by Deutsche Post in a surreal experiment in German "efficiency". Hooray for original art, and ensuing inspiration!

PS sorry, have absolutely no idea why the penguin is insisting on obscuring my first couple of paragraphs. That's artistic creations for you. Mind of their bloody own...

2010-09-19T21:33:00.001+02:00

Still basking in the aftermath of Italy. Have a bellyful of perfectly delicious fried courgette (zucchini), personally imported from Rome. Somehow, and without prejudice, cannot imagine a stallholder either in Germany or in England doing what this one did; absent-mindedly filling the bag I'd already paid for with extra courgettes, one after the other, whilst flirting madly, unabashed by the fact that it hadn't yet got to eight in the morning.

Yesterday saw the orchestral stage rehearsal for the reprise of the Bartered Bride we premiered at the end of last season. Quite hilarious - so many people have forgotten so much, me of course included. I saw just about every soloist sticking their scores in their bags afterwards in order to have a better look over the weekend...

And tomorrow sees the first Konzeptionsgespräch of the season for me. I can't wait. Working with a director whom I love, on a role which will technically be my professional acting (as opposed to singing) debut? Fantastic. What a journey to start!

2010-09-16T23:58:00.001+02:00

Ahh, Italy, Italy.

I had a wonderful time. How could one not? (Thank you for all the good wishes!!)

I was lucky enough to have a base outside the normal run of hotels etc - my auntie was as it happens cat-sitting in Rome for a few months and the cat generously allowed me to stay (in return for plenty of worship, holding his plate up for him to eat and brushing him the wrong way up). TOTAL La dolce vita vibe - neighbours' washing hanging over the back yard, local market with everything fresh and home-made, other neighbours having near-fatal screaming match in the early evening, scooters, amusing and sophisticated octogenarian company... (oops, not my auntie I'm referring to there, but new acquaintances!). Despite plenty of Cultural Stuff (including a visit to the Galleria della Villa Borghese - my goodness the Bernini sculptures are beautiful!), I think my favourite day consisted of a trip to the market in the early morning, short social visit, train ride to the seaside (costs one Euro each way from central Rome - bargain! - however had been given three-day travel pass so all was included), sunbathing and swimming in the sea, a long walk in the pineta (pine forest, a little inland in this case, smelling delicious and utterly peaceful), another swim and drying off, then back to the flat and cooking amazingly eccentric pasta, bought at the market and apparently unique to the maker, for dinner, washed down with robust Italian plonk.

Of course all my previously pretty fluent Italian has been utterly snarled up by the process of learning German. I confidently assured my auntie (when she was laughing her head off at my Italian) that it was simply a stage, and that when the German was solidly fixed in, the Italian would return. I can but hope. And have to admit that the confusion was at times rather embarrassing. On the first morning, I enquired of the waiter whether the cornuti were included in the bill I was paying. As soon as it was out of my mouth, I stumbled over myself to say that I really didn't mean cuckolds (coming to a language via opera means you have some damned weird vocabulary), but rather cornetti - croissants. And I scared the life out of a nice Thai lady who had given me a massage on the beach (what a luxury!). She'd quoted five Euro. Wonderful value for money - I was marvellously relaxed at the end. So much so, that I slipped back into German when paying, offering her a 20-Euro note and saying distractedly, So - sechs? (Now you see, in Germany this would be perfectly normal: five Euro asked, you want to give a tip, you say, OK, six (Euro) then?... unfortunately given language misunderstandings on both sides, her eyes widened, she virtually threw my change at me, and belted off down the beach before I even realised what I'd said...

Stalked up and down the Via del Corso for a while searching for the Ricordi shop (music). Eventually found it lurking inconspicuously behind a van and went in hoping that they'd have a copy of the vocal score of Respighi's Il tramonto. First of all, I've been told by a few people that this is a work that would suit my voice; but more importantly, seeing Rome, I automatically think of his Pines of Rome - so, when actually IN Rome, under said pines, I thought of him often, and wanted the music as a souvenir. Surely, learning a piece of music thoroughly, whether as a performer or an engaged listener, is of more worth than the most expensive tangible souvenir? (Mind you, that said, I did rather fall in love with a set of underplates decorated with cabbages etc which I saw in a shop off the Via Veneto and which made me smile. Turns out, damn it, that they were Limoges. One of these days... But I did have an amusing conversation with the shop owner.) (Oh yes, and I did find the sheet music in the end!).

(And I really should at some point hand over the story my college singing teacher passed on, about the concentration camp survivor and the Verdi Requiem. Too serious for now, though.)

Coming back, I was routed via Paris, weighted down with half the contents of the morning market (and that's AFTER handing over a load of spoils to the Sainted Aunt - one stall owner kept stuffing tomatoes into my paper bag long after he'd weighed it, for example. No way to run a business, I told him - except, of course, it IS - and it works, and it's a sight more civilised than most of the alternatives.

Italia mia amore x

2010-09-12T09:18:00.001+02:00

Were I in flowery mood, I should probably write something about, now being about as well in voice and body* as I can be, I am going to refresh my artistry at the wellspring of operatic inspiration. Luckily, despite the photo (if anyone knows what the wild cornflower-like thingy is doing being pink rather than blue, I'd love to know), I'm not, and what I really mean is, hooray; having nothing much to do at the theatre just at present (there are two premieres coming up so 99% of my colleagues are beavering away madly), I am sneaking off to Rome for a few days.

I am convinced that just being in Italy helps one's legato - a little late-summer sunshine (fingers crossed), great food and wine, and excellent company should give me a real sense of holiday, which I have to admit has been rather lacking recently. As a singer, you really don't ever feel like the ground underneath your feet is safe if your voice is under par; I have worked HARD to get it back into good shape, and I thoroughly intend to enjoy myself. Ciao!

* Eagle-eyed readers will note lack of reference to sound mind....

2010-09-07T16:00:00.000+02:00

Ah, the irony...

Yesterday I had my first coaching of the season, and got back from that to an e-mail from the director of the next thing I'm in, obligingly sending me the bare bones of my script.

The coaching was on the 21st-century opera (the one that's not until May or something but we're starting now because it will take that long to learn the music...). The conductor seemed pleased with what I was doing, and we had a discussion about what exactly was happening, stylistically, so he could make suggestions to a couple of the other singers. What it boiled down to (and this is absolutely as per the composer's instructions, I hasten to add) is NOT singing. Letting go of "being an opera singer" and the need to "have a beautiful voice", and simply being an actress whose sentences happen to follow that particular musical phrasing.

The script is a comical mix of English and German (luckily it's meant to be funny). My character will be an Englishwoman who has emigrated to Germany but who has never quite got the hang of the language, nor indeed the accent.

So here I am having worked so hard to get where I am vocally, deliberately Not Singing, and having worked so hard on my German, being asked to speak with an English accent and get all my phrases muddled up! I am mightily amused at the irony of both situations, and thought it rather neat that they coincided on the one day. Satisfying!

2010-09-02T23:17:00.006+02:00

100 not out!!!

Good lord. According to the counter on this thing, this is my centenary post. Extraordinary. Who'd have thought I had so much to say? And with so little substance or logic?

Anyway, it's quite timely, as another season is beginning here at the opera house, and that means I am now beginning my second year of the Fest contract. An interesting time for me to reflect upon the past year and what I've learned along the way.

First, however, a quote which seems appropriate. Kierkegaard.

"To dare is to lose one's footing momentarily. Not to dare is to lose oneself."

Too damned right. Much of what I've done in the last year has involved screwing my courage to the sticking place, gulping and just going for it. I have been terrified more times than I can count, and in more ways than you probably imagine (I'm quite practised at covering up my fear in public!). But every time I overcome one of those nasty little moments, I feel a little triumph, and my goodness I have been surfing on quite a steep learning curve... Various disjointed observations follow!

I'm in the right place for me at the moment. I LOVE performing, even in a small role or a role not particularly suited to my voice. Walking out on that stage is a never-ending thrill, and I am immensely grateful to have the opportunity to live out the dream I've been chasing for so long.

You CAN buy lamb in Germany if you try hard enough. Turkish supermarkets are your best bet. (My GOD I wish I'd known this when I first arrived!)

Germany is great in lots of unexpected ways. Welcoming and Mediterranean climate, for one thing, and wonderful sense of humour (seriously! I have never laughed as much in rehearsals as I have here). Although I have to admit that most things were "unexpected", because I had frankly no idea of what life would be like here! My mind was a complete blank when it came to preconceptions of "German life". I really don't know why; I happily hold weird and unfounded notions of life in other cultures.

Ibuprofen gel really does work upon aching shoulder muscles. Absolutely no idea why my entire (medical) family automatically assumed it wouldn't, but there you go.

It IS possible to beat the cashier at the supermarket (i.e. stick all your purchases in your bag before they fall off the end of the counter because they're being whizzed through at such a rate); however this takes cunning, legerdemain and above all practice. But ohhhh, the joy, the JOY of outwitting them!

The health insurance system here WORKS! No disrespect meant to all those I know who work so hard in the poor old NHS, but having gone somewhat through the wringer healthwise, I am tremendously grateful for the efficiency over here.

It is technically possible to file all one's paperwork without actually reading any of it. This is however inadvisable.

Contrary to all my snobbish oenophile expectations, German red wine can be glorious. SPÄTBURGUNDER!!! Hooray. However I still get in arguments with waiters in bars about what they reckon are dry whites and I judge to be medium sweet at best...

Amazing how you can whittle down what you actually need when it comes to living space and furniture. I will however go on record as being rather pleased that I now have a bed. And that guests no longer have to sit on the floor.

Having friends who are happy to visit you even if they have to sit on the floor is a complete sanity-saver and an immense blessing!

They say you get used to anything, and it is indeed true, but ohhhh, the longing for properly-salted butter never really goes away...

The German language, whilst strenuously resisting easy conquest, can be wrestled to the floor and sat on within a year if you really try. I'm not what I would call fluent yet, but I'm happy to natter away to anyone auf Deutsch and even understand most (most) of what they say to me...

When faced with a pack of suicidal rabbits whilst cycling along a river path late at night, it is probably advisable not to have been indulging in Spätburgunder by the very large glass. Falling off so slowly is embarrassing and makes the rabbits stare.

If you like your curries hotter than "a chili was once waved over this (probably)", tell the chef in the Thai restaurant in no uncertain terms that you are not German.

Voices CAN be reworked from scratch and polished into something even better. Yep, even those whose throats have unexpectedly been cut. Not saying it happens without quite a bit of blood, sweat and tears, but it's amazing where perseverence and a stubborn refusal to give up can get you. (Some of the blood, incidentally, I found I had fished back from the hospital in one of those intravenous tubes, and stored in the fridge; something to do, as I remember, with a desire to make a "statement" necklace. Good drugs, those were.)

So there we are. I never thought I had it in me to write such nonsense, or indeed, having written it, to foist it upon an unsuspecting public. To those who've been following this, apologies for the flightiness and thanks so much for sticking with me for the ride. It's ridiculously therapeutic translating one's experiences into fodder fit to publish, and I hope you had a few giggles along the way. I have every intention of continuing to bore you for the foreseeable future at least; the eagle-eyed may have noticed that I changed the name of the blog, however. This should make bugger-all difference on a practical level (I hope!) but I have now come to the point where I no longer feel so "abroad".

Dear god. One hundred posts. BOTTOMS UP!!!

PS the photo is of the windows in one of the glasshouses in the Palmengarten in Frankfurt, taken a couple of weeks ago when watching (to be honest, nearly missing, the place was such a photographer's delight) a friend starring in an opera put on there. Something about the idea of reflections and thorns rather appealed!

2010-08-31T19:23:00.014+02:00

Ah yes. THAT aspect of the season again. Once again, I find myself pretty much at a loose end as far as official theatre stuff goes. Amazing, really, and of course something that one never considers when pondering the life of a full-time singer. (At least this year I know what's going on, roughly when things will start to heat up for me, and how to get a cup of coffee from the canteen - last year I stared miserably at the schedule every day, and upon failing to see my name, wondered in true paranoiac fashion whether I'd been sacked and no-one had bothered to tell me...).

I'm not complaining, of course. It's just a challenge of a different sort - to use the down time fruitfully. Rather like the time at university when you realise that no-one is going to force you to study or to write essays or to improve your brain at all - they're simply offering you the opportunity to do so, and it's your responsibility to take advantage of that opportunity.

I will admit, though, that I occasionally find it hellishly difficult to stave off boredom. I rather suspect that this is where watching TV would come in quite useful. However, I don't have one, and have no intention of getting one, so that's out (mainly because I find that when I do sit down to watch a programme, I find myself slack-jawed and dribbling several hours later, still in the same position and having no idea of what I've just seen. TV is not good for those of an addictive disposition!).

Of COURSE, there is music to learn. That tends just to sink in with careful repetition, though. There is my daily vocal practice. The voice is getting stronger and stronger, I am very pleased indeed with its progress, but really, there's only so long you can practise each day. But for the rest? Well, today, for example, I also:

- wrote in the IPA (international phonetic alphabet) symbols for my part in a forthcoming opera in Polish. I listened carefully to the CD with the words spoken slowly and clearly, tried to repeat them exactly, and came to the conclusion that this was not possible without the assistance of at least three vodkas;

- cycled to the store across the river to buy bits and bobs for the flat. Nearly succeeded in sticking to the shopping list too, I'm proud to say;

- dismantled previous attempts at bedside lamp because whilst it looked pretty, there was actually no light getting out of it. Thought carefully about how to proceed;

- considered the half-finished foot of my sister's forthcoming baby's penguin for a long time, then put it back in the cupboard;

- cycled to the library and asked about recordings of Tannhäuser, which is currently in rehearsal, so that I could converse knowledgeably with colleagues about the music come the premiere. This was pretty much a failure, despite the nice man on the music desk actually hunting me down in another section because he'd been busy when I was wanting to ask him about Wagner recordings! So I fished out a couple of novels in English, making myself swear to ration them carefully and read stuff in German in between (otherwise I'll have read every single book in English and most of the ones in French in their collection, and will be forced to pay full price; at the rate I read, this would be disastrous!);

- furthered my German by (a) reading a bleeding chunk of the grammar book before dropping it by the couch and starting to snooze, and (b) nattering once more (pretty much a daily occurrence) with the nice Cat Lady downstairs. I reckon it's great for my fluency, this daily practice, and vocabulary-wise, what I don't know about feline pharmacology just isn't worth knowing.

It will of course pass, this thumb-twiddling time. Meanwhile, I have Polish to pronounce. Now, where did I put that vodka... ?

2010-08-27T07:19:00.034+02:00

You'd think, really, that my brain had enough to be getting on with.

New term, right? Music to learn, of course, including some ferociously tricky modern stuff. New people to call by the wrong names, or inappropriately address as "du", or fail to recognise.

Flat to furnish. Van booked, must remember to drive on the wrong side of the road (English joke that; luckily for me I'm usually happy to swap sides at the drop of a hat). How to get to van-hire place if it continues this biblical deluge (even I can't cycle in this). What are the various addresses I need to pick up furniture from and considering that Frankfurt is a nightmare of diversions and holes in the road even when you're on foot, how on earth will I manage to find them?

Getting back to full health. Although this appears to be sorting itself out. I had a check-up at the hospital a couple of days ago. The doctor looked thoughtfully at my baggage. "How did you get here today?" he asked. "Cycled," said I. (An hour. Uphill. Blasted map doesn't show gradients...) "Hmm," he muttered, scribbling things down, "well you're a damn sight fitter than I am..."

Even the voice is starting to behave beautifully, on occasion feeling like a sports car whose engine has been taken to bits, cleaned thoroughly, then painstakingly and meticulously rebuilt, leading to purring and easy speed and manoeuvrability. On occasion.

I'm conscious of holes in my German grammar which need seeing to urgently, and of sneaky little verbal traps into which I am currently fated to leap (whilst explaining a rather spectacular bruise on my thigh to a friend yesterday, I airily let it slip that my bike had fallen for me, hard. Same mistake as in English, it would appear...)

Even, were it up to me, how to actually use a decoy duck call... long story, involves a party, needless to say, rather than actually hunting ducks. Was actually quite proud of myself for entering the weapons shop (surreally situated amongst the chichi gift shops in the picturesque Old Town) yesterday, armed with the translation for duck call. Nonchalantly, I made my request to the lady behind the counter, rather incongruous herself in electric-blue eyeshadow and amazingly high shining white bouffant. She looked at me in bemusement. Rats, I thought, obviously got told the wrong word. Again. Nope, she was just looking after things while her son was on the phone, he'd be out in a minute. Impatient snorting sounds from bewhiskered serious hunter type who'd come in just after me. Eventually the chap wandered through, and whilst evidently amused by my request (What?? Just because I was dressed in low-cut top, floor-skimming skirt with sequins and a flower in my long tangled hair, doesn't mean I couldn't have been a world-class shot. Or something.), rummaged through his box of tricks and found exactly what I was looking for. While I was handing over the money, he turned to the Serious Hunter and asked what he would like. "I'd like to be a duck!" he growled, bushy eyebrows bouncing up and down as he winked and grinned at me through his thick droopy moustache...

But no. What my brain spent a great deal of last night obsessing about was, hmm if I were to attempt to crochet the inside lining of a full-body close-fitting suit (evidently, and please don't ask me why, including integral gloves etc), would I manage to get things the right way around? And how? And which bits would be tricky, given that I appear to crochet things inside out anyway? I mean, good lord, I have NO intention of doing anything so ridiculous, yet here was my brain spending my precious sleeping time pondering the phenomenon of looking in a mirror and seeing oneself reversed, as it were, on a vertical axis and yet not on the horizontal (so left and right are transposed, but not up and down - why?), and what did that mean for trying to crochet the ends of arms and hands, inside out? No sooner had I squashed one idiotic query than another popped up. Three a.m. saw me awake pondering the deep and meaningful subject of the knees - I mean, I was thinking, even if I managed to get all the fingers right, would the knees perhaps be pointing in the wrong direction?

Sometimes I despair.

2010-08-19T21:03:00.005+02:00

A New Perspective...

OR, Silver Linings...

OR, well, the usual disjointed ramblings...

So, I was going at some point to do a bit of comparing and contrasting of last year with this, having been out here for the full year and starting again yesterday with the new theatre "term" (Spielzeit - season).

However I think that's going to have to wait. I had a small epiphany this evening - I love my voice!! This may sound like nonsense to non-singers, but believe me, it is not a given. As you know, because of the various catastrophes this summer has seen fit to dish out to me, I am still working on regaining the full range and power of my voice. Working bloody hard, I may say. Getting there. It is however a slow and frustrating progress, and the sounds that result are not necessarily the most pleasant.

Practice sessions are therefore often interrupted for necessary breaks or to check various websites. On one such, this afternoon, I found a request for repertoire help from a particularly dear online friend in America. What she was asking for was right up my street, so I nipped over to my website to check what was there. Normally I only visit my own website from the back, as it were; I don't listen to the sound clips I have posted. This was meant to be a flying visit, so I went in as a visitor. And got to rummaging around in my own sound clips, looking for something. And somehow got entranced!

Now this is amazing. Usually, when I listen to recordings of myself, all I can hear is the mistakes, the bad bits. This was utterly turned upside down, like those pictures where you can see a face which may be of an old woman or of a young woman; for a while, you can see nothing but your original impression, then looking changes everything, and often you can see nothing but the new image. Well without having lost the ability to flinch at a bum note or a sadly-turned vowel, I can honestly say that I've never appreciated the quality of my own voice as much. Presumably because what I'm hearing on the recordings is currently not reflected in the practice room; but WHAT a gift, to fall in love with one's own voice! I am sternly telling my subconscious to hold on to this appreciation, in the full knowledge that it will be rapidly superseded by the usual nit-picking, but in the hope that something, SOMETHING of this appreciation will remain, a welcome side-product of catastrophe.

2010-08-13T21:44:00.013+02:00

Above please find representative image of the glorious weather East Yorkshire has enjoyed this "summer". No, unfortunately I'm not joking; I wish I were! It really didn't help to have friends back here in Germany complaining about the intense heat via e-mail. And now I'm back, the sun most definitely does NOT have his blooming hat on. Bitter, moi? Ah well, I suppose that's one less layer of suntan-induced wrinkles to worry about!

So yes, I'm back, and it's a year since I upped sticks and headed over here. It feels so much less "abroad" than it did then. The language, whilst still refusing to roll over like a friendly labrador, is much less daunting now. I have friends here, a life (even if it feels slightly on hold because of the holidays). I'm still working on putting my voice back to rights, and going in every day to the theatre to practise. Even when, as yesterday, the heavens opened unexpectedly halfway there, and I had to stalk (inasmuch as a totally drowned rat can aspire to stalking) past the highly-amused porters, snarling "Don't say a bloody thing!!" Because I have to retrain the musculature involved, I am aiming to end up better, technically speaking, than I was before. I am inspired in this by my father. Refusing to give in to the relentlessly horrific nausea and other side effects of chemotherapy, he has firstly shamed me by continuing to get his money's worth at the gym every other day, and secondly has booked weekly golf lessons with the pro, so as to keep his hand in despite changed physical circumstances. He came back one day wryly surprised; his experience of the lessons had been one mainly of frustration; the pro, on the other hand, had grinned widely and said "Guy, you know what? Without the strength to belt the bloody ball to kingdom come, you're actually for the first time playing GOLF! Did you realise you've just hit it much further than you ever have when healthy?" Balance, that is - so I'm aiming to set up the muscles perfectly for each note in my range, so that I can forget all the technical stuff and move on... (note to self: must remember this and forbear from kicking the wall when the Zen stuff is not working!).

I do apologise to anyone who has been keeping up with this blog for the unexpected summer hiatus. I was wondering whether not having a decent singing voice meant on a deeper level that I didn't feel I had the right to have a "voice" - but I suspect it was more the lack of easy internet access and frankly being downright lazy!

Whilst waiting for the voice to get its act in gear and for friends to return from their various holiday destinations, I have embarked upon a project to crochet my sister's unborn child a toy animal. The seed for this was seeing gorgeously tasteful rabbits and teddies and suchlike in Liberty's, when in London and searching for the perfect little something for a wonderful Japanese friend, whom I had the immense privilege of meeting again whilst she was over in England for a rare visit. The rabbits were going for FORTY QUID each!! Bloody hell, thought I, and there was me counting on a baby being far more interested in crinkly wrapping paper than what's inside (have saved a lot on auntly presents in this manner) until it's at least three. Undeterred, I bought a couple of balls of machine-washable ultra-soft merino wool in the very best colours, darling (mushroom and cream, all the posh baby toys are in this colourway, perhaps it doesn't show up the sick as much, who knows?) and started to crochet. No idea what I thought it was going to be, just started at the nose end and let things happen. Well it turns out not to be a rabbit and definitely not a teddy. I hoped it might be a sort of lizard so I could do my frilly crochet stuff (I'm good at frills). Nope. At one point I contemplated it rather mournfully, thinking, damn, this is probably half of an amazingly disreputable and obese ferret, when I accidentally tipped it over and it became a thoughtful and curious (although afflicted rather with contrapposto - must investigate powers of spiral symmetry within crocheted baby toys) penguin. Currently working out small fat tails, wings, and where the hell does one buy squeaks?

2010-07-23T13:06:00.002+02:00

Apologies for the radio silence over the past few weeks. This really should have been because I was flitting all over the country visiting friends, singing my heart out and basking in the sunshine, and therefore far too busy to sit down at a computer for even a few minutes. The reality however is a little more depressing. I had been concentrating hard on recovery, physical, vocal and mental, but have had a setback in the form of a chest infection and shocking cough (I blame the grey and rainy atmosphere...) which has completely knocked out the top of my voice - the vocal cords are not approximating at all - meaning firstly that I have had to cancel a cover of a role which I was very excited about, and secondly that I am currently that most miserable of beings, a singer without a voice. In a country without a summer.

With any luck, normal communication should resume soon. It does occur to me that being voiceless in my profession is not dissimilar to the disorientation one feels as an expat, and I am sure I can work that up into a wordy, rambling and incoherent blog sometime soon! Meanwhile I must concentrate on my convalescence and work on avoiding that nagging fear, common to every singer, of never being able to sing again... (yes, OK, I admit it: drama queens, the whole lot of us!)

2010-07-05T11:41:00.012+02:00

A night to remember

Yesterday evening I was tremendously honoured to take part in a concert in memory of the late and much-lamented Philip Langridge, at the Royal Academy in London (erm, yes, I know I appear to have forgotten the entry summing up my first season singing in Germany, and subsequent account of my trip back to England; I am hatching something along those lines, but a little detail has been lost in the past week due to being in something of a drug-fuelled post-operative haze. Normal service, i.e. wine-fuelled music-induced haze, will resume shortly).

I was sharing the stage with truly great artists, and to be so near when musicians who knew and loved Philip for many, many years stuck their hearts firmly on their sleeves and performed with such raw emotion and passion was something which I doubt will ever leave me. Philip was deeply loved by all the performers last night, and to leave such a legacy of inspiration is a mark of his worth as a great man. Everyone there, however, would palpably have lopped off their right arms in a second to have him back with us again; he really is sorely missed.

My contribution was to have been a spoken tribute and the mezzo line of Soave sia il vento. As it happens, my neck muscles have finally woken up to the outrage of incision, and have spent the past few days attempting to strangle me (I can't find it in myself to blame them for this, I have to say) so I had to ask a colleague to kindly sing in for me. I was of course disappointed not to sing, but I was still able to speak (thankfully there was a microphone) and I was pleased to have managed to say what I wanted to say about Philip as a teacher and an inspiration without bursting into tears or wandering flippantly off track (I am rather prone to this when allowed to speak in public). I was a little overcome by emotion after my speech, though, and would like to apologise to my colleagues in the trio for stirring up memories of Philip, introducing the piece as one of the most sublime musical moments ever, apparently (... as was whispered between the performers just after I'd said that; oh great, no pressure there, then...), and then buggering off the stage post haste, leaving them with lumps in their throats just before launching into Mozart!

I know I appalled a few people by appearing at all, gussied up to the nines with velvet and diamonds but noticeably throat-bandaged (would have taken all the contents of Asprey or wherever to actually cover the dressings!) and choked, but it would have taken more than recovering from simple emergency spinal surgery to stop me from doing what I could for that concert, and I am so glad to have lived through such an experience!

2010-06-29T23:39:00.007+02:00

Singers' Life Lessons #36: Watch out for the bloody music! It's out to undermine you.

Yeah, yeah, I know. We always watch out for the music. But sometimes it sneaks under your skin in unexpected ways, and catches you unawares, and then you're like an upturned tortoise sans shell and there's not an awful lot you can do about it.

I thought I could deal with it, you see. I'd managed to notify the theatre last week that I wouldn't be able to sing tonight's last performance of Salome (that sounds a lot more organised than it actually was; luckily for me, one of the friends who initially came to my rescue in hospital is part of the theatre management, and I vaguely remember hanging on to her in the middle of howling and begging her to let them know I really wasn't malingering). Operation successful, sprung from hospital yesterday thanks to amazing healing (and probably lying) powers - and it's great to be home, despite my flat being smaller and rather less well appointed than my hospital accommodation... marvellous supplies of drugs, and a pair of very good tickets. My parents were due to attend this final performance, but due to my medical emergency, my mother flew over on her own to (watch over me like a hawk... oops, did I just say that out loud?) (escape from the chaos at home - nope, definitely didn't say that one) kindly look after me. So after a well-rested day, I thought it might be interesting to watch this last performance from the audience.

You don't get that many opportunities like this, you see. I mean, if you're ill. generally you're ill, and not in any fit state to bung your pearls on and pretend to be part of the audience. Either you sing (from the side of the stage if needs be) or you stay in bed. This time, however, I was in a pretty unique position. Post-operation, there was no way I could sing or even walk the part, but I felt well enough (OK, curious enough) to go and experience this great production from the other side of the curtain.

I dressed carefully, trying to not accentuate, yet not hide, the throat bandage. Not much danger of appearing ridiculously healthy to a public who had paid to see me (supportive mother hanging eternally from elbow puts paid to most of that anyway, thank goodness); I was however determined to appear dignified, supportive of my colleagues, thoroughly professional.

Well bugger that for a game of soldiers. That's where the bloody music came in, you see. I was OK until then; a few solicitous enquiries as I floated gently through the foyer, then my seat; no problem, conductor had clocked me so wasn't going to fall off her perch with surprise, all going to plan. But. BUT. I'd allowed for physical weakness. Yup, that was allowed.

And the baton lifted, and the music breathed into action, and the emotions swelled, and my eyes started leaking, and basically that was it. I cried through every single beautifully-sung or expressively-spat phrase; I couldn't do a damned thing about the way the tympani made my heart beat faster or the double basses made my heart stop.

Embarrassingly, once the taps had been turned on, they refused to turn off. I cried through what was meant to be a totally unobtrusive visit to congratulate my world-class colleagues; I wept on the director and the choreographer and made all the make-up artists thoroughly soggy with my tears. So much for the dignified and poised support of my fellow professionals.

I tell you; watch out for that damned music!

2010-06-26T07:53:00.012+02:00

I had been hoping to end the season with style, and I do indeed find myself in a not-unstylish situation. Yesterday I had a private tour of sunny and beautiful Wiesbaden, and I have been put up in a room surrounded by green leafy spaces, with birds singing, my own marble bathroom, and a balcony with ample room for four chairs and a table.

The only drawback is that the trip was in the back of an ambulance, having been admitted to hospital with the agonising pain of a herniated disc (I think). I suspect the damage had been lurking since I fell at the feet of that pilot, certainly the pain was radiating along the same lines of left shoulder into fingers, but whilst lying in bed reading (not generally considered a high-risk activity), between one page and the next I was catapulted into the most excruciating agony and only just managed to stagger into the courtyard to fetch help before fainting in a coldly sweaty heap.

The entire experience at the first hospital remains a complete blur. Luckily the lovely building management lady who first helped me had fetched my handbag from my flat, so that I had my insurance card with me and didn't have to go filling in any forms. I vaguely remember trying not to howl constantly whilst crouching at the foot of a bed, hanging on to the corner for dear life; X-rays where sitting with my back straight against a wall was a real challenge, and an MRI scan that gave off the most amazing sounds, which I chose to interpret as modern music (I suspect someone had given me some drugs by this point). The doctors I saw were wonderful and very reassuring, even though they had to run through the risks of surgery with me (the surgery was unavoidable; it is not possible to live with such pain, and besides, I was getting neurological symptoms down my arm and into my fingers). As it involved one of the cervical (neck) vertebrae, there was an risk of paralysis of the vocal cords. Of course there are risks inherent in any operation, but I have to say that one, for a singer, is not an easy one to contemplate. Still, it had to be done, and I was scheduled for the operation yesterday afternoon.

I do remember one utterly, utterly blissful hour in all this; because nothing was touching the pain, I was eventually given a gloriously strong opiate drip of some sort. Within minutes, I was floating in the sort of happiness that fills the vacuum left by agony. Really, a shining light in a dark day, and something I thought even at the time would be useful to remember for the stage.

Didn't last, of course; it appears from the number of times I threw up that I might be allergic to that opiate; there was a horribly disorienting time of pills, potions and indignities to be had before I was finally loaded up into an ambulance by sweet men who, noticing that I winced at every bump, said they would make the drive as slow and scenic as possible. Wiesbaden in the sunshine is a truly beautiful sight; it seems rather ungrateful to moan about having seen it from the back of an ambulance!

And as to the facility in which I now find myself; well, this is illness diva style!!! I have my own room, somewhat bigger and better appointed than my flat, with a marble bathroom and balcony with room for a table and four chairs. Friends who visited yesterday were amused yet somehow unsurprised that I'd managed to end up here. I would point out that this is on the basic German mandatory state health insurance (at least I hope it is! I gave them my health insurance card, which carries all the details; am fairly certain I am here because of a doctor sympathetic to the peculiar needs of opera singers - very nice man, he was!).

The operation, I am speechlessly relieved to say, appears to have been a success, and my vocal cords felt untouched when I came around (speaking French, apparently, and inclined towards a three-octave scale to test said cords). The anaesthetist had taken me seriously during our discussion, and used intubation of a size normally used on babies. His first question upon visiting me this morning was, never mind how you are, how are the vocal cords? The surgeon was vastly calm and reassuring, and complimented me post-operatively on my exquisite neck musculature. Goodness, am I collecting some interesting comments!!

The next few days will involve rest and recuperation. Given the family tendency to run before walking in such matters, I have issued stern warnings to myself not to overdo things. As the world-class drugs are starting to wear off, I can feel my body slowly starting to realise that yes, actually, its throat HAS been cut...

I have been deeply grateful for the support of friends and family in the past few days, both for support from afar and in practical matters like fetching clean underwear and reading material, helping me shower, and holding my hand while I cried in panic. Nothing will help more in quickly getting back up to snarling dramatic mezzo power than such unstinting love and assistance. Thank you all! (I am deeply disappointed that my beloved Daddy will not be able to see my last performance of Herodias in this production, but given just how much being kicked around and slipping in pools of blood it involves, maybe it's better for him to come and see me in something less appropriate!!)

Now, while I think about it, for anyone (not just singers) considering living in another country, here are some phrases which it might be useful to translate before moving. Just in case.

Please get me to hospital. NOW. Thank you.
No, it does not help to lie down. Or to sit down. I prefer to cling to the leg of this bed. Thank you.
Hello, nice to meet you, my name's Katy; please excuse the howling like an animal, it is not personal, nor is it catching.
Goodness, what an impressive scar. Thank you for showing it to me.
Please give me all the drugs you can muster. Thank you. (For those in Germany, you might like to use Medikamente rather than Drogen, as the latter are considered more appropriate for getting arrested with than for demanding in a hospital.)
How interesting that the man shouting below has neurological damage rather than being a mad axeman with access to my balcony, and that the screeching of whatever wildlife it is is probably intensified by the full moon. Now please may I either have a third sleeping pill or one of those nice drip things? Thank you.

Hopefully normal service will resume soon! Meanwhile, for me, translating such experiences into something approaching readable phrases has a very cathartic effect - it never fails to amaze me that people read this and even appear to enjoy it - so, thank you for reading!

2010-06-22T09:35:00.008+02:00

Tonight sees the second performance of the Smetana. Saturday's première went very well, although it must be admitted that the audience was pretty much divided into those who loved the production and those who hated it, and there was a little bit of booing, which is always slightly disconcerting (although surely better than a lukewarm, uninterested reception). Personally, however, I enjoyed myself, and am looking forward to singing the role again tonight without all the rigmarole that surrounds a première.

It's got me thinking, though, about how exhausting it can be to sing the smaller roles. With a big meaty role, firstly you get the chance to make up for any slight snarl-ups (I've seen a tenor do this spectacularly; having stumbled dizzily through most of his part, he took a deep breath before the final high note, held it forever, and brought the house down); and secondly, you get to use up the adrenaline that your body produces, and in a healthy manner. It is my experience that the body gears up for any performance with the same amount of adrenaline. With small roles, you simply don't use it all up, and if left to its own devices, it can turn quite sour (for me this means I end up inexplicably tearful). For this reason, it is often useful to go out dancing after singing a smallish role (or at least, it's a good excuse!). Doesn't mean you don't get tired, of course. This particular role calls for singing only in the third act, however by that time I have already had three non-singing entrances in this production; meaning that I have to actually concentrate on what's going on at all times, instead of lounging around in my dressing room with my feet up... Hard work!

Worth it, though, to feel that whatever the length or difficulty of the part, one has maintained concentration throughout and kept enough energy going to sustain the production. I was (I think!) complimented on this at a colleague's party the day after the première (at which, I am proud to say, I spoke German throughout without too much bumbling). Someone who'd been in the audience beamed and said, oh despite it being a small part, "du warst immer pregnant"... I sucked my stomach in sharply and tried to sort out what they meant. To the best of my understanding, they were admiring my constant theatrical "presence" or "switched-on-ness". If anyone reading this is falling about with laughter and they really did mean that my costume was unflattering around the middle, please don't ever tell me!!

2010-06-17T12:46:00.009+02:00

Today, it is raining. It has been doing so since before dawn and shows no sign of letting up. The sky is uniformly grey and heavy, and even the birds seem mostly to be hiding under leaves rather than singing. I am with the birds on this one. It is not a day for singing.

However, as with any other job, sometimes you just have to get on and do it whether you feel like it or not. One of the awkward things about singing is that it is glaringly obvious when the "performance energy" is missing. This impacts not only on the audience's experience, but also on the other singers on stage. Watching my colleagues, I respect more and more those who can summon up the right amount of energy *whatever* the circumstances. This does NOT mean a perfect vocal performance - sometimes that really isn't possible - but a basic commitment to the piece as theatre. Such commitment is necessary to be a decent soloist.

So today has been an exercise in raising the requisite energy to perform well in tonight's dress rehearsal. Yesterday unfortunately was our last salsa class - a group of us had managed to convince one of the extras, who is a dance teacher, to show us the basics of the dance, and we had four extremely enjoyable hours getting all the steps wrong and stepping on each others' toes in various rehearsal studios before rehearsals - that was a failsafe way of getting in the right mood! I often whizz around on my bike, appreciating the ride, cycling through nature, in order to whip my mind into shape, but today that really isn't an option. It's a take-the-bus-and-buy-a dratted-umbrella-as-soon-as-possible sort of day. Another tried and tested option for me is ashtanga yoga, but at the moment it's not helping my injured shoulder, so that's out.

Getting into a practice room and singing my heart out always works for me, too. Unfortunately my voice feels a bit under the weather - rather hoarse and scratchy (a few colleagues reported the same yesterday; we're all hoping it's just something temporary in the air) - so I have to go carefully there, and yodelling gaily through my entire repertoire is out of the question.

Even so, I have to get there somehow! What helps for me is starting *something* creative. Doesn't have to be any good (as my dreary grey and green pastel streak of misery purporting to depict the riverside today amply demonstrates) - just gets me in the right mood. I finally got around to uploading and working on my latest batch of photos, and ended up thoroughly enjoying reliving the good times when they were taken. The picture above, for example, was taken on my way to work last week...

Add in a bit of stretching, a gentle vocal warm-up and appreciating the costume and make-up as they go on, and we should be there!

2010-06-12T17:31:00.010+02:00

I love being in Germany, I really do. After today's orchestral rehearsal, however, I bumped into a little market of stalls of produce from Burgundy, providentially set up right in front of the opera house, and a wave of nostalgia for France overcame me.

It wasn't just the sumptuous array of foods, although I have to admit to succumbing to some rather aromatic cheese, a small jar of fig, rum and raisin jam, and some rillettes (come on Germany; unidentified spare bits of pig mushed up in fat? It seems such a natural thing for you to be able to make...); rather I enjoyed firstly the feel of the language and secondly the automatic flirtation. Conversation was easy at each stall, nonsense and smiles dispensed without serious thought. I had the best fun at one of the wine stalls, though.

You see, it's not that there aren't some fabulous wines here in Germany, many of them local; and there are numerous occasions to try those wines in similar situations. However it has been my experience so far that when you try wines when out on your own in Germany, you, erm, try wines. You talk about the wine in tones as serious as you can muster, and everything seems jolly businesslike.

The French domaine owner however immediately turned the charm on full flow. I was forced (oh so reluctantly...) to try a little of each of his wines and was treated to a flowery monologue whilst he deftly served other customers and sparkled even more than his fizz. This evidently amused a passing German lady no end, as she stood just behind my shoulder, oblong in a flowered dress and eyes crinkling with mischief, and kept up a rather cynical sotto voce commentary from about a foot below my ear: "Oooh, isn't he cheeky?" "Mind you, the French are like that, aren't they?" "Not bad looking, though, huh?" "I think he has his eye on you, young lady" (this last accompanied by a quick poke in the ribs).

Meanwhile in my other ear I couldn't quite block out a couple of visiting Americans, obviously under the impression that I was Foreign (and therefore wouldn't understand English), wondering loudly why I didn't seem to be having to pay for the wine I was drinking, when it quite clearly said Probierglas (tasting glass) €3... (Ladies. I was on my own, a woman, speaking French; it's against the rules for a French man to ignore that!).

I managed to tear myself away in the end, my prize a couple of bottles of excellent Pinot Noir for rather less than they officially cost, and a valedictory wicked grin. Vive la France!!

2010-06-09T08:29:00.031+02:00

Becoming

I had peculiarly intense and vivid dreams last night involving a complicated bit of theatre magic whereby, through cunning use of lighting, sightlines and mirrors, "something" appeared out of "nothing", to the amazement of public and stage inhabitants alike.

Upon waking, I realised that the most likely prompt had been my musings on how to achieve a particular vocal effect for a modern opera - the voice coming von Nichts - from nothing - however, the mind being the subtle and wonderful instrument it is, there were also reflections of many aspects of my situation, where deeper thought is currently both necessary and enriching (I find such hyper-vivid dreams often arise when one needs to think about certain aspects of one's life; useful thing, the subconscious.)

The common thread is "becoming". As human beings, of course, we live in a continual state of change, but I am lucky in that the choices are so obviously wide open in my case. New country, new environment, new flat, new roles... I do not HAVE to follow any tracks I may previously have laid. I can reinvent myself. Or choose a fresh path. I can make it all up as I go along! Naturally that's not to say I'm a completely blank slate - what I have lived through and loved has had a formative effect on who I think I am - but I believe that one can make conscious decisions about habits or prejudices, about how one appears to the rest of the world, and that the easiest time to do this is in a new environment, where others do not have expectations laid down by one's past behaviour. Let me see if I can clarify what I mean with respect to the various facets of my life I mentioned above.

Firstly, here I am as an expat in a strange (to me) country. What do the Germans expect of me? What do I expect of the Germans? I occasionally visit an expat message board dealing with life in Germany, and it is crystal-clear that those who come over here expecting the Germans to be dour, humourless and bureaucratic sausage-eaters do indeed find them to be such (these tend to be the same people who complain about not being able to find specific British or American foods in the shops and who live for the sound of English being spoken). Conversely, those who are more positive and open-minded in their expectations often find them fulfilled wonderfully - so the message I find is, expect the best, even if you're not quite sure what that is, and it will mostly happen. I have personally found this to be the case. Strangers have fallen over themselves to be helpful. New German friends can be marvellously expressive, enthusiastic and tactile. Colleagues have such a wicked sense of humour that I have seldom had such fun in rehearsals. (OK am still having a little trouble with the obsession with pig products at table, but am really trying to keep an open mind; maybe it's simply a built-in prejudice against German food on my behalf...).

As to what the Germans expect from me, well one MAJOR plus I find as an expat Englishwoman is that I am not immediately put in a box according to the perceived class of my accent. I'm just a foreigner. No-one knows or cares whether I'm more likely to have tea with the Queen or keep ferrets around my person. I'm sure that most British readers will know what I mean. For the rest, suffice it to say that it's quite a weight off my shoulders. As a foreigner, I find that the Germans are extraordinarily welcoming to those who take the trouble to learn their language (interesting comparisons can be made with other countries, but I won't go there today). I can't tell you how helpful most officials have been, simply because I've disarmed them from the start by apologising in German for how dreadful my German is. Something in the psyche means they're forced to contradict you with a smile, and whatever transaction is taking place must thereafter be pleasant...

Language and cultural considerations apart, I am in a new city, interacting with people who do not know me. I have the chance to get rid of any aspects of my behaviour with which I am bored or annoyed. Yes, that has meant having to sit down and think what I want to change, and how I can substitute new behaviours, but it's a great opportunity, and the real upside of plonking yourself down in the middle of a completely strange country! Matters of personality aside, such things as transforming in an instant from a sullen London commuter to someone who cycles everywhere are hugely refreshing and give hope to whatever other transformations await.

New flat, then. Basically speaking, white box with stunning river view and, erm, no furniture. I bought a few basics but am letting the decorating and furnishing be an organic process. I'll live with the minimum for the moment, and see what I really need and what I really want as I live with the space. I am not constrained by my previous tastes. I am also not accountable to anyone else, so if I wish to cover my bed with kitschy fake-fur throws and cushions, well I shall do so. Light parquet floor means I really need to transform myself into someone who likes sweeping - am working on that!

Complementing all the above, and indeed in many ways facilitating it, because as an artist one MUST be open-minded as to new intepretations, is my work as an opera singer. Each new role is a chance to discover something else about one's voice (especially when, because of the nature of the Fest system, one has to contend with roles which are NOT perfect for one's natural abilities). Dramatically, too, one has one's own ideas about a role when preparing it, but it's possible to learn so much from trying the fresh (or strange, or seemingly completely off-the-wall) perspectives of the director.

Gosh. That turned into a bit of an essay; sorry! Can you tell I have a free morning for the first time in a while? In fact I have most of the day to myself - time to think about the above, to meet friends for coffee and to secure a nice claw-hammer from somewhere. Tonight is the KHP for the Bartered Bride (Klavierhauptprobe or piano dress rehearsal - and in answer to a previous query, no, the piano remains in its natural state, it is we singers who get to don our costumes, find out whether we can actually run up steep slopes in the shoes we're given, and see what we look like with Mrs Thatcher hair...).

Thanks for reading!

2010-06-05T18:25:00.014+02:00

The curse of the Fest contract...

I knew it would get me eventually! I've been extremely lucky so far in having had plenty of time to mentally switch from one role to another, and, compared to many of my colleagues, have had a darned sight fewer foreign words to keep safely penned within my brain. This last week, however, we had the last performance of the Offenbach, rehearsals for the forthcoming Smetana, a talk (on the day of my performance; I did get an apology and thanks for that) about a complicated new opera, and a Salome performance. The fine detail of my Strauss unfortunately fell prey to the occasional memory lapse, exacerbated by the fact that my best friend had made the trek from London to see the show, and I naturally wanted her to see a perfect performance (they don't exist; doesn't stop every singer I know yearning for them).

Words disappearing from one's brain just before one is meant to sing them is of course a recurrent nightmare for performers. It occurs to me that I'm at just the wrong stage of learning German; were I fluent, I'd be able to make some sort of sense come what may. And were I LESS fluent, well, the words I have learned would be the only alternative, and the only thing to do in such circumstances is take a deep breath and think "Hmm, interesting, wonder what's going to come out now? Goodness, those were the words!!" (This works better than you might think. You have to get the right balance of trust and benign amusement, however.)

The problem here was that I knew the gist of what I needed to say, but unfortunately several alternatives presented themselves to my brain just before singing, and I couldn't decide which one was right. It's utterly amazing how much rubbishy thinking one can get through between one breath and the next! These were short, everyday sentences, for which I now have several options, and frankly I have no idea what actually came out or whether it made sense... Luckily I managed to rein in the panic and just kept on acting my way through, and the big set pieces worked beautifully.

It's not as if I hadn't studied the role thoroughly in preparation; I'd also gone over it with concentration several times in the run-up - as ever, the difficult bits are where I thrive, and the easy stuff, well I reckon I just took my foot off the pedal mentally. Ah well, lesson learned for next time... and there will be another occasion, especially considering the amount of time we have between performances - it's four weeks to the next (and last) Salome!

It probably didn't help, either, that I moved house (flat) (oops, apartment for the Americans) in the same week! Careful planning, that... I am thoroughly indebted to various friends for their invaluable help, and as ever rather determined not to move again for a good long while. I have a beautiful view of the Rhine from the huge picture window with balcony that stretches across my whole flat, and rather think I shall be happy here. Certainly the peace and quiet is wonderful, and the Rollläden (roller blinds which shut the light out completely) are a godsend in terms of getting a decent night's sleep. They did however lead to a completely surreal experience when my friend was here; my phone flashed up a message, which woke me up, and I thought, oops, better get that flashing light out of here. I stuffed the offending article in the kitchen then tried to make my way back to bed - only to realise after a few steps that I really couldn't see a thing, and indeed was completely surrounded by directionless and dizzyingly strange lightless space. It took me an eternity to find my way, terrified of stepping on a sleeping limb or crashing full length into a cupboard or wall... such spatial knowledge comes with time, of course, but having spent nearly all year with the residual light from a street lamp permeating my living space, it felt momentarily exceedingly odd!

Greetings from a Germany which has decided in the space of two days to switch from sullen overcast spring to hot and glorious summer!

2010-05-29T12:02:00.005+02:00

I have been amazed over the past few days by just how talented my entire group of colleagues is. (I was thinking this even before the aftermath of a post-rehearsal salsa session, where I discovered that many of them can roll their eyes in different directions at the same time, whilst still squinting.) Seriously, I've been in fits of laughter during the rehearsal period for this latest opera, which involves most of my colleagues in one role or another, and there was a particular moment, watching yet another example of perfect comic timing, when I thought, hmm, everyone I work with can be funny whilst keeping the singing at a technically high standard - how wonderful is that? Not just those for whom the comic roles are bread and butter, but also the whomping great voices, who do the serious stuff but are expected to pitch in on team efforts like this one.

Remarking on this to a friend, she agreed and added that what's more, they're also a wholly likeable bunch. So true! I feel really lucky that my work is a joy due to those who work with me. (I can write this down safe in the knowledge that none of them read this!)

Mind you, all the comic genius is doing no good to my shoulder (the one I wrenched when falling at the feet of the pilot in Stansted) - I've discovered that you sort of shrug your shoulders unintentionally when surprised into laughter, and each time it damn well hurts. I know I should be taking it to a physiotherapist or something, but simply daren't risk their reaction when I admit that what I do for a living involves serious amounts of pratfalls and lugging around three-tier wedding cakes...

2010-05-20T21:24:00.016+02:00

Yesterday I saw an astounding piece of theatre. It was during a rehearsal for our next opera. I hadn't seen this particular aria performed before, and as I had nothing to sing for a while after this aria, wandered into the auditorium to watch/listen (there really should be a verb for opera-lovers combining those activities!).

One of my personal bugbears with regard to modern opera productions is the loss of "theatre magic". Everything is upfront. And in pyjamas. There is no mystique; and the very notion of asking the audience to suspend disbelief for a while and bathe in something rich and strange is unthinkable. I really think that this mindset has thrown the baby out with the bathwater and disagree to the very core of my being. We have MORE possibilities now, for goodness' sake, with video and lighting and computerised props and... oh, don't get me started. So when, occasionally, something utilises the thrill of the theatre, I applaud loudly.

And this was really something. It made me laugh, hold my breath, and cry; sometimes two of those at once. Without wishing to give any production secrets away, it involved a ventriloquist's puppet, and the entire concept gave a real poignancy to the aria whilst staying entirely in keeping with the words that are actually sung. I really cannot praise highly enough either the wonderful singer, or the superb director who thought of this and somehow coaxed such subtleties out of him.

THIS is the lifeblood of opera, and how to keep it alive for the future. We need to take the best of the past and blast it with a barrage of modern possibilities, but keep only that which ENTHRALLS us all. I think a lot of productions have forgotten the bit about enthralling the audience. Fine, make them (us) think, but if all we think is, hmm, that was a bit bland, then we're all lost. A (fairly) recent example I'm fond of boring listeners with is the mask given to the incomparable John Tomlinson in the Royal Opera House's production of Birtwistle's The Minotaur. As the half-bull, half-man Minotaur, he could sing when dreaming and human, but only roar (in a weirdly specific way according to the score!) when taurine. This dichotomy was underlined marvellously via his headgear (a little too overwhelming to term a mask). Fashioned from a simple wire armature with overlapping layers of gauze, it really can't have broken the budget of the Royal Opera House (even given the obvious need to make a few in case the singer trips over his own feet or falls into the orchestra pit); yet given the right lighting, it changed him in an instant from man to beast, and was terrifyingly effective.

Yes, of course we need glorious, heart-rending, soul-baring singing. But such stuff as we have at our disposal as theatre creatures should be used, rather than cast aside as no longer relevant to our profession.

Long live the magic of the theatre. And I can't say just how glad I am that I have firstly a director who is willing to use it, and secondly colleagues who are happy to put their huge talents towards creating such fabulous spells.

2010-05-18T19:16:00.013+02:00

Coming off stage the other evening, sweaty and exhausted after another great night of Strauss, I had a very interesting realisation. Here I am, finally, as I have wanted to be for so long now, a full-time professional singer. Yet the one thing, the ONE thing I didn't even begin to think about on that stage was singing.

There's one particularly tricky spot in this production combining having to count like crazy, falling full-length after slipping in a pool of blood, and belting out the highest note of the role. I realised I'd thought about the counting (always part of my pre-performance preparation, looking over the potential trouble spots carefully, so that in an emergency I can hopefully rely on my visual memory coming up trumps and showing me where to get back on track!); I'd thought very carefully indeed about the fall (some physio somewhere is going to be very cross with me once I fess up about repeatedly using this injured shoulder as a shock absorber - but I have no intention of going anywhere near one, if I can help it, until this run is over) - the assistant director had kindly pointed out that the guest tenor had bled less than usual, so I had a smaller bloody puddle to aim for, and I was busy telling my legs to slither left while my upper body went forwards and right, thus neatly landing on my good side and still facing towards the audience (this worked, thank goodness); but I gave not a single thought to how that top note was going to come out (and this on a day when I certainly would have panicked previously; wrong time of the month, not enough sleep, and the air full of demon plane-tree seeds waiting to attack one's innocent gullet at the worst possible moment).

Some of this, of course, is due to the nature of the role. Some roles are simply more "sung" than others, and Herodias is pretty much at the extreme end of NOT being lyrical and linear and beautiful. And of course she suits my voice to a T. However when talking to other members of the cast, they report variations on the same phenomenon, and there is some absolutely stunning singing going on in this opera, so when I say I'm not thinking about the singing, it's not that I am not singing properly, it's just that I've got to a point where I simply trust my voice to do what's right for the character in that moment, throw myself into the situation and go with the flow.

A fascinating paradox!

2010-05-16T22:57:00.012+02:00

One of the most energising things about being an expat (although I do realise, obviously, that this view may well change over the years) is that friends and family who visit are naturally in holiday mood. So, whatever the weather, you really have to make the most of things (I don't know about you, but I would find it extremely hard to admit that I'd ended up in the lowest trough of the universe with nowhere else to go but cabbage fields or whatever...).

This was brought home to me by my auntie's visit last week. The weather for May was, to put it mildly, absolutely appalling. The sort of weather where, left to your own devices, you head back to bed and hide under the duvet until things sort themselves out a bit better. HORRIBLE!

However, café life, as usually lived in this city, was definitely not a goer unless you really fancied being laid low by pneumonia. We'd visited quite a few museums, but the one that interested us most was closed for restoration. We therefore decided to visit the spa in Wiesbaden.

Well, OK, I decided. Hadn't been there before, and it looked fabulous. Beautifully restored, originally Roman (Irish-Roman, said the translated leaflet; Celtic, perhaps, thought I, but for once decided not to quibble). I'd fancied visiting for a while, but not on my own.

It was indeed wonderful. Full points to my auntie for blenching only slightly when informed of the compulsory public nudity (on health grounds). And I thank her from the bottom of my heart for the glorious sight of her face when dared to lower herself into the freezing plunge pool... Given a little warning, I managed to compose my features into something approaching pleasure when doing the same, which was probably not fair, but rather amused me...

There are good grounds for trying to do this whether you're an expat or not (for those interested in the philosophical underpinning, Alain de Botton's The Art of Travel is a great read), but I think it's easier to do if you're on strange ground to begin with. I am very grateful for this opportunity!

2010-05-09T20:09:00.006+02:00

Time to move?

I've been looking at possible new flats for a while now. Whilst my current accommodation is lovely, its situation is a little unfortunate as it's right next to a park (bear with me, I know this is usually a Good Thing), which has benches just perfect for drunken parties, come the warmer evenings (some until 5.30 a.m., some with occasional harmonica accompaniment, many with singing - or it could be scuffling, it's difficult to tell). Come summer, we have a LOT of warm evenings here, and as the gatherings are pretty much underneath my bedroom window, I can't sleep properly. Now, I try not to get precious about my voice, but there are two basic things that singers need, and those are hydration and sleep.

So I was glad on Friday evening when the place provided me with yet another good reason to move. It's the doorbell, you see. Or rather lack of one - it stopped working during the ice storms before Christmas, and has never been fixed. I've asked the Hausmeister and his wife about it many times (it means that anything that comes by courier is sent back undelivered, which is annoying), but was presented with a series of excuses, starting with the cold weather and mutating recently into the entire system needing to be overhauled and they are looking into it...

I'd invited a couple of friends over for dinner on Friday. They hadn't met before, but I was hoping that a shared nationality would mean they got on. First friend arrived - as instructed, she rang when she was outside the door, and I buzzed her in. I fixed her a G&T (gin and tonic, for non-English types) and we went to guzzle our drinks, with a little background music and a few jokes. Eventually I thought, hmm, maybe I should ring my other friend, to see where she'd got to. I looked around. Drat, must have left the phone in the kitchen when I fixed our drinks. I retrieved the phone, saw a few missed-call notifications, and pressed "call". Only to be greeted by my poor friend in a slightly hysterical state. She'd managed to arrive on time - it must have been only a few minutes after my first guest - but her calls had gone unanswered (my fault - combination of background music, leaving the phone in the kitchen, having unwittingly turned the phone volume down, and (I must admit) assuming she was going to be late). However, evidently I'd not managed to replace the intercom phone thingy when I'd buzzed the external door open, because apparently, our voices upstairs were being relayed, albeit slightly muffled, to the outside world via the intercom system. The poor sod had been standing shivering outside in the cold, clutching her very nice bottle of Spätburgunder (did I mention I now have a passion for this grape?) and listening to us giggle and fail to answer the phone...

All I can say is, thank GOODNESS for friends with a sense of humour!!! As it happened, we had an absolutely glorious evening; once my original abject grovelling had been dealt with, I seldom recall so much laughter in one night. Wonderful! However, on my list of requirements for a new flat, along with peace and a bathtub, is now the need for a working doorbell.

2010-05-05T00:48:00.004+02:00

Over the past few days, it has really occurred to me how lucky I am to have such a relatively light performance schedule. On Sunday evening I had a Salome performance - after a long break, which necessitated lots of study and concentration to get it back up on form. Then yesterday (well technically the day before yesterday as I've only just got back home and it's well after midnight, so it's probably now tomorrow...) we had the Konzeptionsgespräch (concept talk) for our next opera, The Bartered Bride. At 10 a.m. Followed by a costume fitting (although there has to be something innately refreshing in posing for pictures in a half-sewn Chanel-like suit, with Margaret Thatcher as the costume designer's inspiration, and the suit what's more as yet lacking one arm...). My parents then figured out how to use Skype. They may however have suspected something was up with the connection, as I'd just managed to fall asleep before the phone rang... Then a rehearsal in the evening. I think this is going to be a hilarious rehearsal process - certainly I loved the director and her ideas and energy at first sight - but all the same, I cycled back, managed to divest myself of shoes and bag only, and fell face forwards on the bed into a dribbling semi-comatose state. Glamorous, oh glamorous, this opera life!

Thanks to that, however, I did manage to get enough sleep (SO important for a performer; sleep and water for me are the basics, the rest is frills), and so could face tonight's performance with equanimity. Which was a Good Thing, as it was windy today, and the blasted plane trees (bane of my singing life at this time of year; I am not allergic, but they shed tiny little needles, which get in your eyes, nose and throat when you even so much as breathe, and wreak havoc) were in full flow. I was wearing sunglasses and a sort of improvised mouth cover (yes, probably would have got stopped as a potential terrorist in London) to cycle to the theatre, but evidently still had to breathe at some point, and a few of the little needles scooted down the back of my throat, ready to drop on to my vocal cords at an inconvenient moment... No fighting these sneaky little buggers; you just have to know they're there and not panic. They caused one infinitesimal crack at the beginning of a high note, but nothing I couldn't deal with and act through. At times like these I love the fact that I'm being hired for roles which call for acting ability rather than for the controlled beauty of my voice, because if the latter were the case tonight, I would have been horribly nervous!

I can at least look forward to a couple of days' relaxation, give or take a coaching or two. The reason I suddenly felt thankful was that I have friends in other houses in Germany who are constantly on the go like this, and it occurred to me that I was very grateful indeed not to be forced into such incessant activity. It's not so much the voice - I have trained long and hard to reach a stage of technique where I can sing healthily for a decently long while - it's the poor old brain! Thinking for such a prolonged period is exhausting...

Not to mention the aches (oh yes; another of the glamorous aspects of opera!). When I got trapped in the car-hire Portakabin door the other day and, falling, used my left arm as a shock-absorber, I rather think I tore a few little muscle fibres (translation from my lovely physio sister's diagnosis of, buggered my shoulder up a bit). No worries, all it needs is a bit of rest*. Which is probably why it hurt like no-one's business, having purposefully thrown myself down upon it on Sunday night, and why it will no doubt be even more painful tomorrow morning, having done exactly the same once again tonight. Interestingly, I tried at one point to fall upon a particular un-snarled-up bit of limb, but simply ended up with bruises on the pointier bits** of the other side of my body. Evidently for this falling business I mustn't consciously think about it, but just think I need to fall and allow nature to take care of the rest of it.

At which point I'm back to being grateful for the time to fall asleep, stay asleep, and if needs be drag breakfast back to bed and use the time to recover. (Well I don't know about anyone else, but I'm pleased with myself; I have such a wandering brain that to bring it back to the topic in hand after a bit of a scout around is nothing short of miraculous!)

* If I don't post for a while, I was obviously wrong there...

** Please note; I said "pointier" not actually "pointy". Any Trades Descriptions Acts people getting all overexcited should calm down right now.