Happy New Year, everyone!  With love from one of the most beautiful costumes I have ever had the privilege to wear, as Mrs Higgins in "My Fair Lady" in Cologne.  For something designed to flatten my curves, it is ridiculously gorgeous, and I have been trying (thus far unsuccessfully) to steal the hat since I first laid eyes upon it.

I am also having the time of my life working with utterly brilliant colleagues who respond upon a sixpence to novelty, whether planned or not.  We have the luxury of a pretty long run here (twelve performances).  Small tweaks are discussed and tried out, and we can gauge whether the public responded well to such changes.  It is a fabulous way of working, and I wish we as actor/singers had the opportunity to use it more often.  

One of the many changes which has had a very positive effect was a joke which, I realised only when we started rehearsals here (because our previous outing to Oman was a little rushed as regards rehearsal), fell flat because it hadn't been set up properly.  I can only say that I am THRILLED to be working with a tenor and leading man, Stephen Chaundy, who not only agreed with my analysis of the joke situation, but voluntarily learned new lines in order to better set it up.  Those in the business will know what an amazing coup a tenor learning new lines which don't lead directly to his glory might be!!  (Joke!)  

May your 2016 be beautiful and life-affirming.  And thank you so much for reading this!

Katy x

This was really meant to be the other way up.  Starting from the inception of this not-totally-sane venture and following it through, in a scientific and disinterested way, to its culmination.  However, heck, firstly it was me, and secondly it was me actually in the middle of all of this, never mind writing about it, and the possibility of commenting on what I was far, far too busy experiencing just went right out of the window.

So what am I actually talking about?  Well, an opportunity came up to learn a role in a Brecht/Weill piece on a terribly short timescale.  And the chance was a little random in the first place as my agency had recommended me on the basis of the wrong opera!  I'd sung Mrs Peachum in the Britten version of John Gay's "The Beggars' Opera" when at music college.  Great stuff, but musically absolutely nothing to do with the Brecht/Weill version of the same piece, which uses the same situation and characters, but utterly different music and dialogue.  (Not that the latter would have helped anyway, because the version in question was in German.)

I'd been very excited when I first got the call from the theatre.  It's a great theatre, very near me, and I'd been wanting to sing for them for ages.  When it became clear that they thought I'd done this particular role, however, I explained that I hadn't, and directed them back to the agency.  I said how disappointed I was, and that I could probably learn the role in an emergency.  Upon talking to the lady at the agency, she said in no uncertain terms that they wouldn't let someone loose on such a role at such short notice unless they'd performed it on the German stage previously, and that they'd recommended other performers, and, well, that was that.  I sighed and carried on.

However, ten days ago I got a slightly panicked call from the theatre again; evidently the other performers couldn't do that particular date or something.  Long story short - they begged me to do the role.  The message landed in my voicemail at 10 p.m.; I spent an anguished evening asking friends and colleagues for advice (I am very lucky indeed to have such a great network of contacts willing to help!).

It was a very finely-balanced decision; definitely not without the bounds of possibility, but requiring unstinted focus until the performance and a huge amount of trust in myself as a performer and as a German-speaker.  Needless to say, I didn't get a huge amount of sleep that night, but at some point in the morning, as the dawn was starting to break, I just thought, BUGGER IT, I'm doing it.  

The bloke had said he'd ring me at 9 a.m.  When he did, I said I was actually standing at the stage door of the theatre and maybe we could discuss it in person.  Within minutes we had an agreement and copies of the score and libretto and a DVD of the performance were in my bag as I headed back home.

At which point the fun started!  Naturally, the entire process was a gut-churning mixture of adrenalin-fuelled excitement and soul-destroying dread, involving the detachment of much of my brain from functioning life for the duration.  Contact with friends and family was severely curtailed (sorry, everyone!).  Food and exercise had to be plotted in as necessary; I would have forgotten them for the most part, but was conscious that they were necessary to the higher functioning of the organism as a whole, and they therefore had to be allowed a certain percentage of brain function.

A few "highlights" of the intervening days:

-  the realisation that despite having looked over the score and thought, oh that's OK, the rest of the cast being actors meant that the whole shebang would have to be sung an octave lower than my normal tessitura.  *gulp*

-  waking to the incessant noise of the words I was trying to drum into my head.  Failing to fall asleep because of the same.  Repeat unto insanity.

-  realising with cold horror quite how much stage business there was to get my head around, quite apart from words and music.

Oh yes, it was . . . interesting.  I enlisted friends and colleagues, scribbled upon reams of paper and doodled upon scrolls of wallpaper which I then draped around my flat (see photo above for one of these in its growth stages!).  This really is when you realise how lucky you are to have people who support you, calm you, slap you gently back into reality, feed you, encourage you and remind you to actually breathe.  Thank you, everyone!!

Anyway, yesterday evening was the performance.  I'd had a run-through on a rehearsal stage the previous afternoon, with a couple of my colleagues who were nice enough to give up their time.  Their generosity of spirit reassured me hugely; this was mainly an acting role, and in true Brechtian spirit, the production involved a nod to the fact that the audience knew that we were in fact actors playing these roles, rather than actually "being" the characters.  Far too complicated right now to explain coherently what I mean, but in practice, I was reassured that if absolutely necessary (i.e. totally drying or venturing into completely the wrong scene), my fellow actors were free to feed me lines, and I to ask or to shout out that I couldn't hear the bloody prompter and that they weren't paying me enough to jump in etc...

The colleagues I met were superb.  Much reassured on the acting front, I was still pretty nervous about the one classic ballad I had to sing.  Doesn't matter how many arias etc one has memorised and sung on stage, the fact remains that when you transfer anything learned on to the stage, there is normally a bit of a memory blip whilst doing so. Well, there is with me, any rate.  I was a bit worried; this is a classic Weill ballad, the audience might well know it far better than me, and the logistics (pretty much darkness apart from a follow-spot, huge movements of stage machinery behind me) meant that any prompts would probably be inaudible and any words scribbed on fingers unseen.

Suddenly, there was nothing more to be done.  I was out on stage.  And BUGGER ME IT WAS FUN!!!  Feathers flew everywhere (I really, really hate having feathers up my nose, but in such a role it was permissible to fish them out again, and with something like five changes of feather jacket, a few here and there were probably unavoidable).  Most of the words came out in the right order (I rather think a further post is demanding to be written concerning acting on stage IN GERMAN - but it's going to have to wait; it would make this post interminable).  The ballad somehow got sung.  I managed to spit out the important verbal cues, and to be roughly where I was expected to be at certain moments.  I might have trodden on a couple of extras, but they forgave me (happily, I'd worked with one of them before, and she must have given me a good report - thanks, Alice :-) ).

When push came to shove, I even got the bloody ballad right.  Not the best singing I've ever done in my life, but the words came out, and I meant them, and - for me at least - they were not overshadowed by a whorehouse in all its glory being rolled out and used to the max behind me...

I ended the evening sweating and triumphant and happy; I am a couple of new friends up from these colleagues, and have gained a world of experience from being allowed onto the stage as an actress (there is an amazing freedom of timing, of improvisation, of expression, to be found.  As an opera singer, my constraints are usually slightly different).

So, still floating on a tide of adrenaline, and happy as a sandlark, and yes (this usually freaks anyone who isn't in The Business out), all that work was just for the one performance.  Still you never know; anyone need a Frau Peachum in the Brecht/Weill "Die Dreigroschenoper"?  Correct pronunciation of "Brecht'scher Verfremdungseffekt" guaranteed ;-)

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!

Anxiety Dreams . . .

We all get these of course.  Our subconscious simply tailors them to our particular requirements.  I find them occasionally useful yet often - as at present - baroquely absurd.  I have been having ridiculously vivid dreams for the past few weeks - possibly something to do with the weather, as spring has definitively not yet sprung here on the banks of the Rhine - grey, louring clouds have been an enduring feature, along with rain and unseasonal chilliness (I had to turn the heating on this morning.  It's nearly June, for goodness' sake!).  The sun has been notable by its absence.  And such weather gives me headaches, which make me ratty and irritable, and the constant feeling that my brain is being squished from above, forcing my eyeballs to bug out in a cartoonish fashion from the pressure.  

The simple ones, shared by most if not all performers, are those where you step out on to stage, only to discover they changed the opera/play/symphony without telling you; you often have to improvise madly despite desperately insisting you weren't told and have never sung/acted/played this piece).  That's enough to make you wake up sweating.  And a nice - if pretty unsubtle -  reminder from the brain to put in more practice, make sure the piece you're working on is learned as thoroughly as humanly possible, and then a bit more for the road.  Fair enough.  I've learned to either take note and step up my game, or ignore with dignity, as required.

Slightly more rococo variations are endless - different settings, clothing, audience etc etc.  This morning's was one of those.  I'd (in real life) been to a "Fiesta" I'd helped to organise; with a Spanish theme, we were trying to welcome in the summer.  Given the weather, however, we'd been forced to set up a couple of fires (it was a garden party), and despite my best attempts, the firewood was not bone-dry (ha ha, given the recent rain and humidity) and there was a thick pall of smoke and ashes adding "atmosphere"...  However much one tried to circle round to avoid this, the changing wind directions made it impossible, and even though I tried to compensate by drinking as much (non-alcoholic) liquid as possible, it was perfectly rational of my brain to worry about the condition of my voice before the performance tonight.  Fine.  Thanks, brain.  But did you have to translate that into my voice becoming a froglike croak that embarrassed me so much I failed to sing any of my lines, and instead cawed along ruining everyone else's lines?  And somehow I'd forgotten about getting dressed, and upon discovering this before my first entrance, decided that I'd go on naked, as this would distract from my lack of voice.  That apparently not being enough, my brain decided that I would now sing my role hanging awkwardly from a splintery wooden frame, which I proceeded to do whilst anxiously squashing down bits which might suggest I was not the old woman I was meant to be portraying...  

The worst however appeared out of nowhere a couple of days ago.  I smashed into that particular dream having just murdered one of my best friends (she has in real life escaped back to Canada, and I can report very thankfully that she is still alive and kicking).  I have no idea *why* I'd killed her - even my feverish brain apparently couldn't think up an adequate reason for that - but I now had to somehow wrap her up and hide the body, and was consumed in the hunt for proper wrapping materials and tape, and proceeded in jerky, interrupted scenes, to dispose of her, with many scenes reminiscent of something out of Laurel and Hardy (feet falling out of a cupboard, tape unwinding, the body slipping inexorably down a chute into view) but desperately unfunny and heart-stopping at the time.  As light relief, these gruesome scenes were spliced with some sort of concert in a HUGE arena, where I variously heard the introductory chords to my aria but couldn't find the stage, started to sing but provoked a mass exodus from the crowd, and came on to find a tenor singing my aria instead, because I had been late arriving - at which point my dream self, enraged, stood behind the poor man and simply roared louder than him.  Oh dear!!

Really, dear subonscious, I don't need this.  My current roles are well learned, and the one I have coming up is (a) small and technically uncomplicated and (b) not yet required to be off copy.  I thank you from the bottom of my heart for caring enough to warn me, and to provide embellishments which evidently amuse your creative impulses, but... enough, please!

Once again, deep in the mire that the Germans call Endproben.  Those sticky, uncomfortable times before the première, when everyone is tired and emotional and could probably benefit from a week in bed but hey the orchestra (heavily unionised) is called for these rehearsals and so you just have to turn up and either repeat the same scene until you're hoarse, or wait endlessly and fruitlessly to be called...

These orchestral rehearsals, for me at least, are about calculating to a decimal point just how far in advance I should anticipate the conductor's beat.  (Now you see, those who consider singers stupid probably don't know about this sort of thing.)  All to do with physics.  The sound travels out from the orchestra to the public.  It travels at the same rate back to us singers.  Therefore if we wait until we hear the music from the orchestra, the public is going to hear our voice as late, compared to them.  The phenomenon gets worse the further back on stage you are, so there's a lot of thinking, hmm, moving back as I go here, must anticipate the beat earlier and earlier as I walk...  It's a particularly difficult aspect of staging for me, as it's pretty counter-intuitive.  You want, as a musician, to sing WITH the orchestra! 

Add to that occasionally-open side stages, meaning that any singing in that direction at certain times in the production is severely counter-indicated (i.e. all your colleagues say your voice is completely lost if you look left at a certain time).

And the beauty of the props or costume department substituting something totally unfamiliar at the last moment, probably without telling you.  I survived a new main prop - my samovar (sturdy Russian tea-making equipment) fairly unscathed, and even managed to maintain a freeze despite a colleague frustratedly ripping off her shoes in my ear, and throwing them, one by one, over the stage; was however despite everything proud of a conversation with the props department about sticking this new samovar together (I knew they were going to do it, there were a LOT of ribber bands around) where I actually managed to convey my wants / needs in succinct sentences, conveying (hopefully!) the fact that if they get the angle wrong, the spout of the kettle will probably end up embedded in my larynx at some point,

Not to mention the bittersweet loss of the spontaneity of rehearsals.  This is when a production is coalescing; solidifying.  From now on we are performers, but the playful, joyfully free, creative aspect is of necessity curtailed.  Every performance will feel different, of course.  However this loop back in time and memory will always take place on THIS harmonic shift; the envelope will be placed in her hand on precisely *this* chord.  Satisfying to have worked out the ways to get there at the right moment;  sighing for the time when this was all to play for and meant the world. 

Nitpicking is of course necessary at this point.  Doesn't mean we have to like it :-)

On the Importance of Posture

Thing is, you see, I thought I knew all about posture.

When I was in music college, I paid my way by working as a secretary in the School of Dental Hygiene (yep, just as fascinating as it sounds) on weekday mornings, and studying singing the rest of the time.  The sheer psychological / physical effort involved in swapping hats over and over again (as a secretary you are (a) often sitting hunched over a hot keyboard all the time you're there and (b) expected to put yourself aside to make your bosses' lives as smooth as possible; as a singer you need to be upright yet free, and frankly to put yourself first) was not doing wonders for my shoulders, which were often to be found stuck to my ears.

So I took advantage of cut-price Alexander Technique lessons and gained back the physical freedom of childhood (yes, I had to work at it, but my goodness, the work paid off).  The feeling of free and easy bodily balance, both when static and in movement, was so exhilarating that I resolved never to lose it.  Ever since then I have been aware of slight imbalances and tensions, and have corrected them at the first signs, however long it took.

The results aren't bad, either.  It helped my singing a lot, and I often get compliments on my good posture.  Or people thinking I'm a lot taller than I actually am (well I put that down to posture but it could also be my addiction to vertiginously high heels...).

I was even aware of the psychological aspects of posture, especially since having watched this excellent TED video (WELL worth your time to watch, whatever your calling in life).

So basically tootling along feeling pretty pleased with at least that aspect of my existence, and probably looking irritatingly smug about it.

Then...

Well, this week has seen the start of the Onegin rehearsals, and I have thrown myself into the challenge of portraying an old lady with the onset of dementia.  From the start I knew that I wanted tension in my fingers, producing slightly clawed "arthritic" hands, and a slight forwards stoop to my shoulders.  I welcomed slightly uncomfortable shoes from the costume department (the designer was rather amused that I asked to be made as shapeless as possible but drew the line at my hopeful request for a bosom drooping down to my knees) and allowed my neck to express a fear of the world around me.  I am experimenting with just how much to slow my movements down.  Subtle things - really trying not to "portray" old age as such; aiming rather to allow the audience to feel the aches and physically sympathise.

I think it's going pretty well, actually.  I mean, I can consistently apply the above and yet still sing freely (ahem, when the Russian words don't fly off into the ether, that is).

EXCEPT - my goodness I really hadn't banked on those small and totally physical shifts having such a pronounced effect on my mood.  Despite enjoying the rehearsals immensely, I could feel misery creeping up upon me virtually by the minute.  And it was a vicious circle; as the insecurity descended, my shoulders stayed stooped even when grabbing coffee with my colleagues in the canteen.  I found myself avoiding eye contact even with friends, and feeling, for no good reason, utterly desolate.

This was just a few days of submissive, beaten posture, worming itself into my psyche and trying insidiously to destroy my confidence.  It really is that powerful.

Very luckily for me, my best friend is something of a yoga expert, and recommended various postures as defence.  I incorporated those into my (shamefully spotty) yoga practice, and felt the results straight away.  For those interested, they were downward dog for quieting the mind, back bends and raised arms for optimism and energy, and various power postures.

So that particular crisis has been averted, and I am left in awe of the sheer power of the mind/body connection, and determined to counteract my bad posture while acting this role with supportive postures before and afterwards.

However as I look around me I see - everywhere - bad posture.  People slumping over computers, slouching tiredly in the bus, scuffing the pavements as they scuttle past me in town...  How much misery around us - and in us - is due to this correlation?

So please, if you haven't done so already, take the time to watch the TED video I linked to above.  Or if things are chronically bad, do search out an Alexander Technique practitioner - or maybe Feldenkrais if Alexander Technique is not for you.

Sorry if this comes across as evangelical, but this week has been something of an eye-opener for me in this regard and I simply want to make as many people as possible aware of the clear and present dangers of bad posture.

__________________

Photo is, as always, completely unrelated!  A rainy day coming through the graffiti-enhanced underpass looking out onto the Rhine, with a neon-turquoise-lit cruise ship as focal point.  I like that tunnel!

Well WELL.  This promises to be a lot more interesting than I had feared!  We had the concept speech for Onegin today, so from now on it's all go.  I've just about got the words nailed (although some of them currently feel about as safe as nailing jelly to a tree) and have sung through the role enough times to feel vocally secure (it's not that it's at all a difficult sing, it simply doesn't sit where my voice blooms naturally, so have had to work on keeping my voice even throughout the registers).

I have to admit, however, that I was a little - no, a lot - nervous about portraying this character.  What I tend to do really well is stand on stage and scare people.  Or cast spells on them, or seduce them, or any combination of the above.  I'm fairly tall, and I hold myself naturally pretty upright.  Which is great if you're cast as the regal lead role - and an interesting challenge if you're portraying the old nanny at the end of a life of servitude.

I had been playing around with ways of showing age without "showing" age (and naturally still being open and relaxed enough to sing properly), wondering exactly how old the director would want me to be, and hoping desperately that he wouldn't simply say "Right.  Sweet and doddery old retainer - GO!" and concentrate entirely on the leads (it's in my opinion unprofessional but, erm, has been known on occasion!).

Now I can relax, and breathe, and launch myself into what, with the right support, will indeed be a very exciting challenge.  The director had some great ideas for the whole piece, and had evidently thought very thoroughly indeed about how each and every character fitted in.  Funny how you instinctively relax when you realise the person in charge knows exactly what they're doing.  And just how quickly that realisation sets in.

So.  What he wants from me is an old woman whose mind is starting to fray but who is trying not to let it show (apart from anything else, she's terrified that if she's no use any more, she'll simply be chucked out by the family.  Historically not an unreasonable fear.).  Total vulnerability.  No over-the-top wandering around with outstretched arms looking mad, no wild-eyed panic (shame, I'm not bad at that!), no explicit "Ooh look - dementia!".  Nope.  This is going completely against physical and mental type, and doing so subtly and to the side of the stage.

The journey begins!  Wish me luck...

Learning words again.  Today, this is driving me absolutely up the wall.  I am irritated beyond belief that the phrase I have been dinning into my brain all morning will not stick properly!

And in case you think I haven't been trying properly, well let me explain what the process has been so far.  This is for a Tchaikovsky opera, in the original language.  I was lucky enough to study Russian back in the day, so I at least have the advantage of being able to read the language, and recognising many words.  I also have a pretty good idea of pronunciation.  However there are many archaic words here which I haven't come across before, and of course singing pronunciation differs slightly from the spoken word.

So the first step was to make sure I understood every word I was to be singing, and those of everyone else in the scenes my character is in.  Laborious work with a dictionary, but essential.  Next was to screw down exactly how each word in my role should be pronounced, with the help of a CD produced especially for us by a Russian coach.  As an accented language, it is tremendously important to understand where the stress is in each word, as the vowels change drastically according to whether they are stressed or not, and how far from the main stress they are.

Next was to have an initial coaching with the Russian coach (with two of the repetiteurs who will be taking the musical rehearsals attending and taking notes).  This sharpened up a few details; a rounder vowel here, a harder consonant there... and unearthed a complete tongue-twister which I hadn't actually noticed was difficult until the coach remarked upon it, after which I tripped over it helplessly and repeatedly (have to laugh at how the mind works, sometimes).  All duly noted down in my score.

And now the grunt work.  I generally choose to work from the end of the score backwards, so that my brain is always moving towards something about which is it surer.  Each sentence, each phrase within a sentence, each repeat, has to be drilled into my brain with a thoroughness that would surprise many people who see singers as fly-by-night non-musicians.  It's not enough just to remember it.  It has to be so well-absorbed as to be automatic.  There are times for every singer on stage when your brain goes totally blank.  You simply have to be able to trust that once you open your mouth, the right words will come out (often leaving you thinking in a slightly amused fashion, ah THAT's what I was trying to remember!).  Knowing the meaning of the words is essential, but this learning must also be the sort of rote repetition that sticks the sounds of the words into a deep place in your brain.  THIS is what I've been doing today.  

Some people are better at this than others.  I'm not bad, I reckon, but I have a tendency to overthink which can mean I worry about whether I will remember the next phrase, generally a self-fulfilling prophecy... so I HAVE to drill every word, every phrase, every cue in with military precision.

Hence spending an entire morning on ONE damned phrase which is a bit of a beast to pronounce and in which two particular consonants (in a previously unfamiliar word) appear desperate to swap themselves around.  

They will NOT get the better of me!  Luckily, in this age of miniaturised bluetooth handsets, someone walking around town appearing to speak to themselves is not regarded as automatically crazy :-)

(The photo is of the single glorious blazing hour when the Rhine suddenly caught fire and dragons swooped through the burning clouds; the only light and colour we've had here all year!)

Emerging from the fog, as it were.  I always forget just how all-consuming the first throes of rehearsal for an opera can be.  Especially if, as in this case, the lead role is not yet cast (it's a hellishly difficult sing, and the intended singer pulled out just before musical rehearsals began.  He is a consummate professional, so he must have had very solid reasons, but that still leaves other colleagues (luckily not me: the role I am covering is not so big) a bit adrift in a piece which requires long dialogues with the lead...  Let's just say that doesn't lead to happy relaxation, on the whole.

And I also have to admit to having been nervous before the initial music call.  I hadn't sung for this music director before; and no matter what anyone says, it FEELS like an audition when you sing for someone in a position of power for the first time.  It would of course have helped to have had masses of time to prepare this role, or even to have had a more voice-friendly opera to start with, but hey,  beggars can't be choosers, and at least (despite having missed my very first solo entrance due to still... STILL!!!... having to mentally translate numbers from German to English, rats rats RATS!!) we've got that bit over with and from now on it's simply business.

The interesting bit is just HOW exhausted one feels during this process.  The brain seems to focus itself very narrowly, and everything which doesn't directly concern the learning of this particular music is ignored. (I remember coming across a colleague, who shall remain unnamed, stealing a roll of loo paper from the theatre, in the throes of rehearsals; the (understandable) rationale was that there really hadn't been enough time to hit the supermarket...). 

However I must admit that despite all the stress and uncertainty, I really do love these first few rehearsals.  A question of how your role fits in to the rest (in this case it's quite amusing - the court ladies get to sing some really rather beautiful chords before my character leaps in and spoils it all!).  Total concentration on one thing is rather marvellous.

Even if it means you utterly forget to buy loo roll ;-)

A singer in transit...

I admit I usually post pretty random photographs, mostly unrelated to whatever I am going on about; this time however I was mid-flight from Geneva to Madrid, en route to a concert, when I looked down at the tray in front of me and thought, oh that could only belong to a singer travelling to a gig.  That made me giggle, so I thought I'd bung up a photo and write about it.

Firstly, of course, there's the sheet music.  Before a gig, I'll often use the time in transit to check and re-check everything I have learned.  Silently, of course (an aeroplane is really not an appropriate place for vocalising!).  The pencil is there in case I notice anything slightly awry and need to make a note.

On the left there is a little rectangular thingumajig.  That's my MP3 player.  It's a marvellous bit of kit, even if it freaked me out when I first got it by rummaging around in my computer and grabbing not only all the recordings, but also all the photos it could find (I didn't know until I was looking for something else that it was even interested in photos!).  Saved in a folder are the recordings of my coachings of the songs / roles I will be performing, and (if needed), me on my own bashing out the odd harmonic change or notes to listen out for, singing the phrases, and counting out loud where the timing is trickiest.  Plugged into this are noise-reducing headphones.  Normal earbuds really don't seem to work for me (they are hellishly uncomfortable in my ear canals) although they would of course take up less room.  I was VERY glad of the noise-reducing capabilities of these little darlings when waiting at Geneva for my ongoing flight - I'd naively thought I could find a nice quiet area to study in - NOOOO!!  For those who might be considering a similar thing, be warned that Geneva airport is plagued by tinny Musak.  Even in the Meditation Room I could hear it twanging away (although it was nice to see a Christian and a Muslim praying separately but in the same space).  Noise-cancelling headphones came in bloody useful, even though they're a little uncomfortable (I sort of inherited them from my father's Collection of Exciting Gadgets, but the foam padding on the ear bits had rotted.  I keep meaning to bodge something together with the feet of defunct stockings or something, but it's been summer so I haven't been wearing stockings... I shall have to try and remember, now that it's turned so definitively to autumn).  (Oh, and that's not just meanness; I tried to buy new foam coverings but was told that because each headset is different, they don't make all-purpose replacements....!!).

Next along is a slightly odd-looking device; a mask made of soft, transparent plastic, which fits over my nose and mouth and leaves me with interesting but short-term weals across my cheekbones from the elastic.  It's not really necessary on short hops, but since using it, my incidence of getting miserable colds approximately two days after each flight has decreased dramatically.  All it does is recycle your own moist breath so that the sensitive tissues of your nose, mouth and throat don't dry out - and I FEEL the oxygen and moisture being leached from the air as the aeroplane starts up! - not rocket science, but it really works.  For long-haul flights I would say it's a must for singers (unless you're one of those irritating cast-iron singers who never gets ill!).   Pretty cheap too.  It's called a Humidiflyer.  If you want one, the link is here.  Yes, it ships from Australia, but the customer service was, in my experience, wonderful.

Half-eaten sandwich - um, wonderful!  You get served up some pretty weird stuff on some of these short-haul flights (return Madrid to Zurich was a small tub of caramel ice-cream...).  I had a home-made ham baguette stuffed into my hand luggage just in case - well, I was due to spend a few hours in a Swiss airport.  Switzerland is many lovely things but cheap isn't one of them.

Finally, a glass of water - of course, as a singer, you need to keep hydrated.  I have a nifty flat-packable plastic water bottle which clips onto my handbag or hand luggage.  Nowadays you can't take your own huge bottle of water through to the plane - fair enough, given the threat of terrorism, but the prices most airports charge for a bit of water are EXTORTIONATE, so I prefer to take my chances with filling my own bottle from the taps in the airport.  Haven't succumbed to any odd diseases from doing this yet.

What?  Ahem, yes, well the wine was slightly accidental. I mean, what's a girl to do when they have run out of tomato juice (my usual drink of choice when flying, complete with accompaniments if available; I read somewhere that your tastebuds are compromised by being so far above the earth; this would of course explain the tastelessness of airline food the world over).  I am pleased to report that I reacted gracefully to this setback and enjoyed the wine a lot!

Safe travels everyone!

I have been thinking about ways of learning, of appreciating music, of absorbing the meaning of a piece.  There are, I believe, two main approaches.  The first is instinctive, emotional, reacting to the tone and energy of the accompanying music; singers who learn like this look very puzzled when asked how they learn their music - once they've sung it a few times, it's obvious to them what goes where!  The other approach is intellectual - counting beats, repetitions, rhythms, imposing order upon seeming chaos; singers who learn only like this tend to look blank only when asked what they do when emotion overtakes them at any given point.

If such things were given to us to choose, I would LOVE to be a totally instinctive singer.  But we don't get to choose, and I'm not.  I over-intellectualise as a matter of course, and whilst my reaction to the music in the practice room is sincerely emotional, I have seldom been able to lose myself wholly in the flow of things when performing.  A snide little inner voice pops up now and again and asks how on earth I know what to sing next, and am I on the first repetition of a phrase or the second...  and this is terrifying!  (This once happened in the middle of a particularly repetitive Handel aria.  I crashed and burned rather spectacularly, and I swore - NEVER AGAIN!).

This tendency of my brain to flip from one mode to the other means that, to feel anything like secure, I have to in effect double my safeguards.  Belt and braces indeed.  On the one hand, there is the need to minutely study note values, counting, working out where you can find the first note of a phrase, knowing what others are singing, knowing what the orchestra is up to in case the cue you were expecting to get from another singer doesn't happen...  Hard work, yes, but if you're not a totally instinctive singer, able to trust your subconscious, utterly necessary.

On the other hand, for a truly worthwhile performance, technical knowledge alone is not enough.  The emotional aspects of the piece have to be considered, explored, dived into, allowed to wash through your spirit; the aim is to understand on a sub-lingual level the feelings which inspire and animate that particular piece.  With any luck, such study will lead to an absorption in the performance of the piece which carries you along to such an extent that the technicalities are irrelevant (or at least required only seldom).

Like a lot of aspects of singing, it's a question of balance.  There is a constant and necessary tension in our art between light and dark (chiaroscuro), between nicely crisp consonants and legato (a smooth line joining all the words we sing, in effect), between vivid energy on stage and finding the right place to deliver the voice to best effect... oh, the list is endless. 

I may be simply in the grip of bog-standard pre-concert panic, mind (useful in that it concentrates the mind wonderfully on what remains to be learned)...  Should anyone be in the relevant cities, forthcoming concerts include the Ateneo de Madrid (23 September) and Palacio da Foz, Lisboa (Lisbon) on 22 October!

So before getting this off my chest, I'd like to clarify that I LOVE the music I sing.  We're paid, on the whole, FAR too little for it to be worth doing what we do without having an unquenchable passion for the music we live through.  Just sometimes, however, it drives you totally bonkers.

The thing is, in order to learn music, it has to be repeated.  Again and again.  And sometimes that repetition gets stuck in the brain...  and a constant soundtrack of one particular piece, however wonderful it started off, can quickly become maddening.  In German they call it an Ohrwurm.  Quite literally, an ear-worm.  Something that has wriggled itself into your brain and can't be got rid of... In this particular case it is a spectacularly beautiful Monteverdi duet (Pur ti miro, from L'incoronazione de Poppea).  Doesn't help that there are repeats in the music itself.  The effect is a gorgeous but unending loop.  I've been living with this for several weeks and it's driving me crazy!  

I've been through this a lot, of course, but (like hauntings, perhaps, if you believe in ghosts), some are more persistent than others. Since starting to memorise this duet, the simple repetition of the melody means that it sets in as soon as sung, and lasts at least the rest of the day.  Which, given that I am practising the repertoire for my next concert pretty much every day, means virtually continuous haunting by this particular earworm.

There's really no cure for this.  You can drive it away temporarily by your concentration being grabbed by something else (a conversation, another piece of music, a great glass of wine), but as soon as you remember it again, it's back.  This effect can last for years; every time I am haunted by an earworm, I remember a holiday in France over a decade ago, when a supermarket visit in the pouring rain instilled the advert for Géant Vert, a French sweetcorn concern, which has remained with me stubbornly ever since... and the ad invariably starts playing in one ear, over and over again.

Worse, it would appear that it is possible to be haunted by two earworms at once.  This is mind-blowing (in my experience they are never in the slightest bit compatible) and even many musicians don't understand why your eyes have crossed and you are incapable of rational thought...

Ah well.  This is simply part of the price we pay to learn.  I am very glad of a couple of concerts coming up for which I have had to learn music new to me, don't get me wrong; it's just that the wriggling of these earworms has been driving me insane - any friends who have found me inattentive during the past few weeks might be reassured by the explanation!!

I've written before about the importance of learning music correctly in the first place, and am currently reinforcing that lesson in my practice... I am re-learning huge chunks of Carmen (which I adore) for a forthcoming concert in England (which I am looking forward to) and discovering to my dismay that my initial preparation was bloody slapdash (in my defence, I accepted the contract with one week to learn the opera, one week to rehearse, then flying straight out to Thailand for a tour, so I didn't really have the time for proper preparation!).

It's not so much the broad sweep of things - the words are pretty much stuck in my memory, the arias of course have been part of my repertoire for years (you can't look like I do and fail to have a Carmen aria or two up your sleeve for concerts!), and the basic rhythms are just so right that they can't go wrong.  No, it's the little details.  Where notes are dotted and where not.  How long to hold a particular note for.  Very quiet here, slightly louder here...  Emphasize this note, pull off on that.  Oh, there's a world of nuance and sophistication that I missed the first time around, and am now under a moral duty to correct.  Bizet took the time to compose this with particular effects in mind, and as an interpreter I am failing him if I ignore his intentions.

Damned hard work, though.  It really is so much more difficult to re-work something than to learn it correctly in the first place.  The slightest lapse of attention, and your brain reverts to previous patterns...

Still, definitely worth it.  I love how, as a singer, you discover new aspects of a character every time you sing her.  It's similar to re-reading classic novels; you are never the same person you were when you previously read them, and new angles present themselves to the older you.

Right.  Back to annoying the neighbours with the same little phrase repeated thirty times!!!

I did recognise the irony.  Wanting to muse a little on the amazing powers of the human mind, specifically in relation to memory, and I couldn't damn well remember whether I'd written on the subject before!!  Just goes to show, though, what a complex and fascinating subject this is.  (Or that I am prone to forgetting quite a lot...)

What made me think was a performance yesterday after a very long and stressful day waiting with, waiting for and worrying about a friend undergoing a rather nasty operation.  I hadn't slept well the night before, either, so by the end of the day - well, by the end of what normally constitutes a working day, I was pretty much exhausted.  Except I then had to get costumed and made up and venture out onto the stage.  Now, this is a part I have done several times before.  I learned it very thoroughly at the beginning (having learned over the years that to undo mistakes takes about ten times more effort to put right than going to the trouble of taking endless care over the first studies).  I'd mentally rehearsed while I was waiting for my friend to come out of surgery.  I was prepared!

The peculiar combination of extreme tiredness and relaxing due to playing with colleagues I know and in a piece I have done over and over again, however, led to a couple of the cold-sweat moments where you hear your cue echo strangely through your brain and have absolutely NO idea what comes next.  

This is where experience kicks in, and actually, being knackered helps.  You simply have to trust the unconscious bit of your brain to come up with the goods, whilst standing aside with the conscious bit.  

Goes a bit like this:

Conscious mind ("C"):  AAAARGH what the hell comes next???

Unconscious mind ("U"):  Breathe!  It will turn up!

C:  No, really!  I am meant to be saying/singing something here and I have NO clue what it is!!

U:  Chill!  Set eyes to neutral, breathe, and trust.

C:  Ooooookay . . .  here goes! . . .

U:  (comes out with the right words, heard with fascination by C)

C:  Ahhhhhh, so THAT was what I was meant to say!!! Congratulations!

Hopefully the opera continues without many more such soul-stopping panics as this...

Really, though, you have to admire a biological structure which has all those built-in safety nets!

I must also take the opportunity to reinforce the confidence in that unconscious layer of the mind when it comes to auditions.  Doubts are so pernicious.  Learning to take a deep breath and trust to one's preparation is surely a laudable aim for a musician!

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

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

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

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

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

This is Good!

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

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

Katy x x x

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

* * *

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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