On trust

Hot on the heels of my previous burnt offering, I know, but it springs from the same source, more or less, and anyway I promised it to a friend of mine (hope you enjoy it, B).

What got me thinking (yes, I know; dangerous) was a chance remark after my one rehearsal for this latest jump-in.  I'd been chatting to a (fabulous) colleague about the three consecutive faints in a particular place.  All to the right, I moaned.  (I always faint to the left if I can.)  He gallantly remarked that I seemed to have gone down  like a stone, and a very professional stone at that, even dropping (as opposed to dressing) to the right.

Later, I regaled a non-singer friend with this little anecdote.  She was fascinated by the concept of fainting on tap, and asked how I did it.  I started to explain before totally drying up, realising that I honestly hadn't a clue.  I confessed this, and she asked, well how do you know you're not going to knock yourself out or break anything when you fall, then?  I had to admit, once again, that I didn't know (although I do have a decent amount of natural padding helpfully in place).  I've always just thought, right ho, faint at this point, end up roughly . . . there, rolled my eyes up and gone with it.   Same with falling, and I'm quite proud of my reputation in this respect (very amused a few years ago for my Herodias in Salome to be described as a proper stuntwoman!).

And whilst this might normally have just shimmered and popped like most thought bubbles, my mind shifted in this instance in a helpful direction.  I have no doubt at all this was due in large part to the work I'd been doing over the summer with Steven Sparling, whom I am honoured to count as a coach/mentor and friend.  I can thoroughly recommend his intelligent, directed and thoughtful coaching (in my case I availed myself of his email coaching, as we are currently based in different countries.  Particularly useful in helping artists floating several feet off the ground to find their feet in the dog-eat-dog world of actual art.  More information here.  If you're curious, it's definitely worth contacting him with a query.)  Anyway, all the work we'd been doing helped me to finally make a connection between the ease with which I crash to the stage and the panic which seizes me at times and which certainly had me intermittently in its teeth in the short preparation period I had before this performance.

I'd thought the problem was fear.  And certainly that's a component.  However, comparing stage fright with the unconcerned manner in which I always fling myself to the ground, I suddenly realised that the important thing was in fact TRUST.  In the case of stage fainting or falling, I knew from experience that the worst I'd ever ended up with was a few interesting bruises; I could therefore happily trust myself to fall into the relative abyss.  In the case of singing, it's more complicated.  Fear is present because of past bad experiences - the mental equivalent of fractured bones and exploded spinal discs - therefore panic occasionally took over.  I'd really thought the answer lay in addressing the fear.  Nope.  The fear had to be batted to one side in order to actually do the necessary groundwork, yes.  Without the endless practice, the permanent word-mutterings, the DOING of the homework, panic is going to win.  I'd done it, though.  I'd practised and muttered and incanted and generally been given a very wide berth on public transport.  What I realised in that great moment when I lined up the falling and the wider aspect of performing was that the precise quality required in the moment was trust.  I had to simply take a deep breath, square my shoulders (there's an absolutely fascinating TED talk regarding this question of posture here) and trust myself to do whatever it was I needed to do.

One of those realisations that's probably gone through most people's mind before mine made the connection, but it was an epiphany for me, and I really hope that someone else might read this at the right time and benefit from it!

Well, yep.  Sometimes a day doesn't turn out quite how you expected.  I was singing the modern (Henze) role again this evening, my first outing as the Kurfürstin for... argh, nearly three months!! At times the system here feels absolutely crazy - six weeks of intensive rehearsals, then the premiere, a second performance a few days later - then a seemingly totally random series of dates, often separated by ridiculous blocks of time.  In this case it was made worse in that I started off being a rehearsal cover, then jumped in for the second performance, and then today's was a scheduled performance in my own right.  Still, as I said.  Nearly three months separated the last time I sang this from today.

So, reasonably enough, I was a little nervous about how this evening would go.  I had time to prepare and had sung through the role a few times, and had even got as far as watching the DVD twice (at least the dress rehearsal is recorded here, just for internal use, so that, should any roles need to be sung by someone jumping in at the last minute, they can see what they're meant to do when.  This probably works better when you are totally focused on your character because, for example, you have to sing it in a few hours and haven't a clue what the production is like;  I found my attention wandering horribly because I kept seeing bits I hadn't really seen from the front before and forgetting to watch my character closely.)

Which meant that I bowled up to the evening not 100% certain of being in charge of myself.  I was lucky enough to have had a refresher rehearsal earlier in the day, with others in  the cast, but still... for me, a lot of the memory problems in this piece are to do with counting rather than words or notes - I don't see WHY I should hold this particular note for four bars or six or whatever, so I have to remember to count them off rather than FEEL them,  Which, for me, is something that doesn't necessarily come naturally (yes, I know.  Those who know me personally will be laughing their heads off about that.  In other walks of life I have been known to be an OCD mathematical perfectionist.  Just not in singing mode!!).  And my brain "helped" by for insane little reasons of its own going through Act III of Tosca note by note, chord by chord.  Thank you, brain.  NOT.

So as the curtain went up I was having to breathe in a mindful manner in order not to panic.  

And then all the learning I'd so conscientiously gone through kicked in, and I SAW the pages in front of me, and I loved the prompter for saying what I knew came next but just reassured me I was in the right place...

Yep.  One of those evenings where everything comes together, and everyone grins at each other afterwards.  One of those.  I'm SO privileged to find myself in the middle of even one of those in my life.  

Happy!!!

For a moment today the world fell away and all was pure light and ecstasy... oh this has to be the best job in the world!

I was called for a Sitzprobe (rehearsal with orchestra) of Eugene Onegin - very early on in the process but the conductor wanted to get a couple of tricky scenes worked through.  There was at this point just me and the soprano, and for some reason instead of sitting on the tiered seating behind the orchestra as normal, we were bang in the middle of the players.

I will admit that I'd spent the earlier part of the morning absorbed in Walt Whitman's poetry, and was probably therefore rather more inclined towards wonder than usual - but this was really the most amazing experience.  We'd already gone through a previous scene a couple of times, and then moved on to the bit just after the famous Letter Scene.  

It starts with a sunrise.  Tchaikovsky's writing here is superb - a pianissimo start with a minor chord murmured darkly by the bassoons, rising slowly and inexorably, creeping tone by semitone upwards, in a marvellously long crescendo, to a triumphant and massive C major chord... and I was so flooded with the music, with its beauty and the actual resonance of the instruments all around and through me, that with that final held chord, it felt like the sun had not just come out in my head, but that I had actually disappeared into the light.

This is the scene in question, in case anyone's interested.  I can assure you it sounds even  better if you're lurking amongst the instrumentalists - and afterwards I reflected on just how lucky I was to experience such a thing.  

If I had any doubts that music was my religion, they would have been put to rest today.

(Mmm, I know the firework pic isn't quite right -  but for all the spectacular sunsets I've leaped to photograph here, I don't have a single one of sunrise, which tends to creep in quietly in shades of grey...).

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!

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?

"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.

 

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!!!

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!

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!

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.

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!