Auditions have to be the weirdest things out.  They simply do not comply to any rational scheme of things.  Logically, to do ones best, one should be well prepared, calm, decently rested, hydrated, etc etc etc.  That's what we aim for; we book travel so as to arrive in good time, we splash out on hotels when we have no money, in order to sleep well, we determinedly push problems to one side for the duration, in order to keep our minds clear and our focus untainted.

So how on earth could I have arrived at an audition a few days ago utterly ragged with exhaustion (travel plans had, to put it mildly, gone to pot), in anything but a calm and focused state of mind, only to somehow take a breath and surpass all that for the duration of the audition?  I even walked in apologising for squelching (there had been a bit of a plumbing failure in the corridor; my audition shoes are actually dance shoes, as they are light and flexible; fabulous for bunging in ones case, but slightly less wonderful when soggy, due to their suede soles...).

It doesn't work when the panic of other circumstances is deliberately induced (please don't ask me how I know this), but sometimes the hysteria of adverse circumstances allows one to slip into an attitude of devil-may-care (or MoFo, as expounded brilliantly years ago by a tenor friend of mine whose fascinating blog is a must-read for anyone in the opera industry), which turns incipient nerves into amusing passing thoughts, and lets the voice rip out unhindered by overthinking.

I have no idea yet whether I got the job, but I at least achieved my audition aim, which is basically to sing as well as I can on any given day; if I don't get the role, well it's not because I let myself down in my performance on that occasion.  They simply wanted something else...

I was vaguely playing in my mind with starting this post along the lines of "Last week I found myself in Spain..." (I write pretty much everything mentally first, and only when it's polished and shiny do I actually head for the computer.  This can lead to problems when I perfect an email, for example, then forget to actually send it.)  Firstly, though, it sounded a bit disingenuous.  I mean, I admit to travelling with the absolute minimum of planning and organisation - in this case, I don't actually speak Spanish, nor did I know exactly where the airport was, nor the ins and outs of getting from thence to Toledo, but I had actually booked the flights a few weeks beforehand and had a rough idea of where I should be heading, so I can't really claim to have "found" myself there, as it were.  The second thing was, I got to thinking about the phrase "I found myself..." and realised (after a couple of days there) that I had actually rediscovered a part of myself that has somehow got lost here in Germany.  I have no idea what it was - the light? - but the urge to paint was incredibly strong, indeed almost overpowering.  I realised only then that my paints had been gathering dust ever since I came to Germany.  Strange.  I'm not a particularly good painter, I simply like the process, and find it really helps when appreciating great art (shout out to El Greco's hand of Christ, as seen in the eponymous museum in Toledo, top left...).  I have tended to photograph rather than paint whilst I've been over here.  Must have simply been a different energy, a different vibe, as it were;  I returned on fire with artistic inspiration (I also fitted in a visit to the Prado whilst I was in Madrid for the weekend - what marvels!),  but strangely, whilst I have managed to prep a couple of canvases and even do a few preliminary sketches, the urgency, the necessity even, has evaporated.  Hmmm.

At least I have more to concentrate on than simply the audition.  I know singers for whom the audition is the be-all and end-all; I honestly can't do that.  Yes, if concentration is necessary, I concentrate.  But if there's the slightest chance to investigate the marvellous places I find myself when auditioning, I certainly take it.  I adored Toledo (I was there chasing down a Spanish touring company.  Totally normal to be squished between two sopranos in audition, therefore simply wandering onto stage, grinning out into the auditorium to an conductor whom I hadn't actually met, singing for, oh, three, four minutes, then sauntering off . . .  had I not a train to catch in order to paint Madrid red with a friend whom I'd previously only known online, it might well have seemed a long way to come for such a short audition opportunity.)

Should anyone be contemplating a visit to Toledo, I can thoroughly recommend my little hotel, La Posada de Manolo (website here).  Probably not for those who absolutely require trouser presses and international cable channels - I spend a lot of time trying to avoid such things when choosing hotels - but central, charming, quiet, clean, inexpensive.  Let me see if I can insert a video taken from the breakfast room in the morning, looking over the city.  It had been wonderfully quiet until I turned the camera on - cue delivery lorry below and random helicopter above!!  Not to mention, I left my bag there whilst spending the day trotting around the place, returning shortly before my audition to grab my stuff.  The lady on reception grinned whilst handing back my bag and coat, and presented me with an envelope.  I explained (well hopefully, as I said, my Spanish is not wonderful) that I'd already paid, and had simply left my excess stuff.  She said this was a present from the staff, because they loved my singing!  (All I'd done was test the voice out in the shower after breakfast.  I'd been rather ill due to a spot of nasty gastric flu, and hadn't sung for a week...).  They had presented me with a lovely necklace, engraved with a bird, in typical Toledan style.  Now if that isn't a good omen...

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!!

 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!!!

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!!)

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...)

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!