Given how much of a cliché it is for opera singers to float around in satin ballgowns, dripping with jewels and made up to the nines, I can't believe that I have never once gone on stage in a fabulous meringue creation!  

So when I was rung up a couple of days ago and asked to leap in as an alternate for a small role in a Verdi opera (pretty urgent as the scheduling difficulties had evidently only come to light on the first day of rehearsal), I immediately accepted, thinking, aha, even in Germany in this day and age, surely this role is a shoo-in for cinched waist and fabulous décolleté (well OK if I'm honest, considerations of it being actual paid work, and keeping myself off the streets, also contributed to some degree to my decision).

So the first thing I did upon arrival at the rehearsal stage this morning was to trot hopefully over to the wall of costume designs.  It was filled with drawings of absolutely gorgeous ball- and evening dresses.  Hooray!!  Pay dirt!!  I eagerly scanned the bottoms of the drawings, where the character names appeared.

Tight black leather trousers and jacket... *sigh*.  I am sure it will look fabulous, but there's my ballroom dreams shattered once again...

Not the only things that were shattered, mind.  I came out of the morning session absolutely in a heap.  Having been laid up with a cold for the last four days, and only getting the score yesterday evening, I wasn't expecting perfection.  However a combination of the increasingly oxygen-free environment (it's never particularly pleasant down there, but when the entire chorus, soloists and production team are working hard, the available breathable air soon appears to vanish), a hot and sweaty rehearsal costume, and - basically - not knowing what the hell I was doing (in terms of character, music, staging - in fact, admit it, the entire bloody opera), took it right out of me.

Still, can't complain.  Great music - and all I have to do is cram it into my reluctant and stuffy brain (note to self: does not work properly in the aftermath of a cold).

Speaking of cold - and this of course is not helping either my voice or my return to full health - this was the view as I cycled in for rehearsal this morning.  No, I didn't mess around with the colour balance - it was minus 4 and everyone was suddenly frozen!

Back in rehearsal, as the weather slithers greyly and inevitably towards winter, for a revival of Mainz's Eugen Onegin, with me gladly resuming my role as the increasingly demented nanny, and one question looms large in my mind;  why the bloody hell did we put so much blasted KNEELING into this part??  Argh.  

 

I am very nearly there* with regard to my knee, but the act of sinking to my knees and staying there currently makes my body very uneasy, and I don't believe a chorus has EVER lasted as long as the eternal peasanty jubilations in Act I ...

* I hope!  Mind you, I was most chuffed today, having run into (almost literally; I was on my bike and it was raining...) a lovely choreographer I know, who seemed to assume I was built of the same essential stuff as dancers ("Broken knee?  Oh no, no, that won't have stopped you for long...").  I was immensely flattered.  It's not, of course, true - dancers will regularly practise and perform through unbelievable pain levels, and generally only give up on limbs when they actually crunch and fold underneath them...  I am in awe of such bloody-minded and strange creatures.

Unexpected side effect of this damned knee injury:  my buttocks have declared war on me!  Yes, those poor overworked bunches of muscle, to which I had frankly never paid that much attention, have decided that they would be far better off without the rest of me and are threatening to secede.  The way they are feeling at the moment, I am inclined to let them...

First it was the right buttock, taking ALL the strain when I was oiking myself around on two crutches.  When there can be no weight at all on the left leg, there's only one possible pivot when heaving oneself to a standing position or trying to sit without crashing inelegantly and painfully back into sitting.  One side which has to take all the strain when standing, and, naturally, one buttock which bravely bore all the strain for about three days before protesting in the strongest possible terms against this unfair distribution of labour.  I apologised profusely but the resulting sulk built to epic proportions.

Then there was the left buttock.  After weeks of inactivity, it was finally forced to do its bit as I abandoned the crutches and attempted, hampered only slightly by the fabulously cyborg-like knee brace, to walk without a limp.  All that time listing desperately to one side really takes its toll on the musculature, and it requires conscious effort at all times to pull errant limbs into place (whilst attempting to avoid bashing the right inner knee with the brace, which totally spoils the effect, what with all the swearing and stuff).  And the cramps and aches as the left buttock finally had to pull its weight, after so much time out... well, let's just say, I had to have severe words with it.  Turning the other cheek is not all it's cracked up to be (erm, so to speak!).

And finally, now that I am back on my beloved bike (oh, the freedom!  The wind in my hair - OK a lot of it actually blowing sideways, it having turned rather viciously into autumn, rather than streaming through my flowing locks, but you get the idea; the sun on my face - yes, yes, mixed with a bit of rain, but I MISSED being mobile so much!), both aspects of my gluteus maximus are up in arms (wait; very dodgy figure of speech there; sorry).  The knee itself is quietly doing its stuff while I am cycling, humbly aware of the trouble it has caused and trying wholeheartedly to improve.  But ohhhhhh the pain in the backside that comes from renewed acquaintance with the saddle!

On a serious note, I am however all too aware that all of this shrinks into insignificance compared to the health problems of others.  A wonderful friend, one of my sources of true inspiration in overcoming whatever obstacles life chooses to throw in one's direction has again been clobbered without cause by the universe, and this time, despite all her courage, strength, and relentlessly dangerous sense of humour, could probably do with all the positive thoughts there could be.  So if anyone has time to send good wishes speeding towards the Blue Mountains in Australia in this coming week, please do so!  Get well soon, Carol x

Apologies for the long hiatus.  I would love to report that I have been lazing on tropical islands, exploring long-lost cities in the jungle, wrestling alligators, overthrowing governments or pottering aimlessly along the Rhine; in fact I have been out of action due to a fractured knee.  First I came off my bike in order to avoid a small child in the road; then (evidently to make sure the knee was properly wrecked), I slithered and crashed on a suddenly-wet pavement, despite flat shoes (SO not me) and a crutch due to the earlier injury.

We shall pass quickly over the painful and inelegant stage immediately following the second splat (it involved ambulances, hospitalisation, more crutches - I stuck diamante on those, mind, just to give them a bit of je ne sais quoi, sad little changes of plan, helplessness and quite a bit of humiliation, including but not limited to being shoveled around in a wheelchair and crawling carefully up and down stairs on my bottom...).  Suffice it to say that I am at present in the totally frustrating state of being written off sick until the end of September, without a firm date upon which I shall be back to normal (apparently this is par for the course with knees, which are capricious things, but is not the easiest thing to convey to the Powers What Be at the theatre), and forced thereby to miss the première of Mefistofele, with my tigerlike role involving leaping around in vertiginous stilettos having been reluctantly handed over to another singer. Damn it.

I am very aware that Joyce di Donato went on as Rosina with a fractured leg, in a wheelchair - and I would have loved to work around this in a similar fashion - but she was the Star, and I am just a jobbing singer, and besides, the director's concept includes half the chorus dressing in identical costumes later in the opera, complete with silly shoes, all of which had already been bought and rehearsed in.  It just wasn't possible this time.

Not an awful lot more to say (for once, huh?).  Onwards and upwards, with a slight lean to one side and a state-of-the-art personalised knee brace providing that little extra something...  Come on, femur, you can do it.

I would be grateful, however, if in future, people could refrain from wishing me out on to stage with a hearty "break a leg!"...

So, I have a cold.  Or the sniffles.  Or whatever it damn well is.  Something is irritating my vocal cords, the upshot being that I can't sing at present.

Well hey, you say, make a good strong batch of your patented Singers' Soup (bashed-up chicken wings, ditto masses of garlic, ginger, and as many chilis as you can stand; boil for hours, allow to cool, reheat, strain, add soy sauce to taste, sip endlessly) and go to bed.  I DID.  Whatever this is managed to live through that and continues to plague me.

The trouble is, I am flying to Lisbon today in order to give a concert on Monday, and I don't know whether the voice will be there, and even if it is, how it will behave.

It's hard for non-singers to grasp just how terrifying this is, I know.  Imagine that you are going to play tennis at Wimbledon, for example, but you won't know until you get onto the court and the first serve is flying towards you whether the racket is sound and the strings taut.  There might be a satisfying thwack as you demolish your opponent's serve; there might just as well be a nasty soggy little tearing sound as the ball goes through your racket and the crowd falls silent in sympathy...  You just don't know what state the racket is going to be in as you pull it out of your kit bag.

Such is the uncertainty that a singer faces when nobbled by something as simple as a cold, or allergies.  Then there is the tendency to allow that uncertainty to affect the psyche, which can be fatal to a performance.  Some days you need to accentuate the positive and believe the voice will be sound despite all the gunk on your vocal cords, and lo!  all is well.  Some days you do the same and your voice gets progressively hoarser until you know that if you sing any further you will do some serious damage.  It's a judgement call based on the throw of the dice.  And people wonder why we singers can sometimes come across a little neurotic!!

I am therefore setting off armed with cold medicines, positive thinking, lots of water, my trusty Humidiflyer for the plane, my fingers firmly crossed... and my very flashy "diamonds", given that a nice low-cut dress combined with madly-sparkling jewellery can distract at least a fair proportion of the audience if the voice is not 100%!

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!

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!

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!

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.

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.

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?

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!)

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!

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!

Storm clouds

I love what I'm doing. I am eternally grateful for the chance to perform to the best of my abilities and to create something meaningful as part of a team. And sometimes, I wish I could just walk away, but I am restrained by conscience and by responsibility and if I'm really honest with myself, by the wish to bring this role to fruition. I am utterly torn, as my father is currently in hospital, having apparently somehow managed to explode a kidney; as a daughter, I feel I should drop everything and fly back; as an artist, I am tempted to throw these terrifying fears into the mix with the rest of the negative energies I am exorcising with this role, and see what happens.

I am so lucky to have parents who have taken the decision out of my hands by forbidding me to fly over before the première, and feel even luckier that such a flight is not currently necessary.

To those considering following in footsteps similar to my own, I offer the following thought: not every Mephistopholean bargain is absolute. One can sell one's soul in incremental, measured-out packages. It may well be worth it; but it certainly needs to be weighed up carefully.

Goodness, what happened there?

I am slowly emerging back into the light, blinking in a slightly dazed fashion. Today was the first time I've aired my voice at ALL for - let's see - twelve days (an eternity for a singer; a little voice deep in our brains invariably shrieks that we'll never sing again, which as you can imagine does not speed up the recovery process). A morning run-through with new conductor for the Offenbach - having cycled slowly to the theatre, ice crunching underneath my bike wheels, stopping only about fourteen times to hack my lungs up as the freezing air hit my throat, I stood in the rehearsal room wondering what was going to come out when I opened my mouth to sing.

Luckily my voice appears to still exist despite the combined efforts of flu and bronchitis, although the muscular support was utterly and weirdly lacking; I'll have to build that back up. I think I need to take things carefully, too; although it wasn't a long or strenuous rehearsal, after I came back to the flat and had a spot of lunch I virtually passed out for an hour. I'm notoriously bad at taking things slowly and gently, though, so this will be a test of my patience!

On the road to recovery (I blasted well HOPE)

If you're going to be ill over here for more than three days, you need to provide some sort of bit of paper from the doctors to your place of employment. So first thing on Monday morning, I dutifully trotted down the road to a general practice I'd spied before and thought, aha, useful, a doctor within five minutes' walk. I signed up (nothing easier; they scanned my insurance card and relieved me of €10, which is, it would appear, the quarterly mandatory fee) and settled down to wait.

I was thunderstruck by the general level of politeness in the waiting room... I'm used to the English way of doing things - sneak in, cast a lightning-quick eye around the room to judge the least sticky-looking chair furthest away from the snotty wailing children and the obligatory gently-rocking weirdo, then dive into position, wondering what everyone else is in for but spending a lot of energy avoiding catching anyone's eye. Here there was a cheery round of hellos as each new patient entered the room and hung their coat up, and equally polite goodbyes when anyone left. Goodness, it almost felt like being in the doctor's surgery on a Monday morning was a respectable place to be!

Once I finally saw the doctor (I sat for two hours, grateful to have brought a nice fat book, and thinking, well good thing I'm not desperately ill any more!), he diagnosed acute viral bronchitis within seconds, forbade me to sing whilst any vestige of it remained (not that I would anyway, as I said to him - I'm a singer!) and signed me off work for a week. I'm actually quite proud of getting through the whole thing in German; it never even occurred to me to look for an English-speaking doctor. Not to mention, I understood that the bits of paper he gave me should go to the theatre as my place of work and to my insurance company; and THEN I even managed to ring the insurance company and ask for an address to send said bit of paper to...

Of course I had to ask whether I was infectious - and unfortunately the answer is yes, until I finally stop coughing. This is the point at which it occurs that everyone I know here is either a singer or works closely with singers - I am effectively in quarantine from my entire social life! Roll on recovery....

[Flu hiatus]

This entry was meant to have been a jolly paeon to the 'umble bacon sarnie, which could have led to any amount of musings on the oddities of homesickness, the inadequacies of German supermarkets, or the kindness of friends.

Instead I got the flu.

So until my poor fever-wracked brain recovers some of its coherence, I shall simply post the following:

Haiku to Boots Max Strength cold&flu Capsules

Yeah, I KNOW they're drugs

But they're bloody effective;

Thank god they exist.