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...)

There's definitely one thing to be said for an absolutely skin-tight rehearsal dress - it's pretty obvious when one has been sampling the best of what the city's restaurants have to offer for a few days (thanks, Mother!). A slight discomfort when sprawled alcoholic and fainting (yet again) across a sofa, with a mezzo balancing on my knees and a baritone fanning my forehead, means that my culinary talents are going to have to be severely curtailed for at least the next week. Luckily, of course, the German supermarkets are helping me in that respect...

I am attempting to hold off the diatribe against the supermarkets, trying to give them every chance before I leap in there, sword in hand, but it's hard, it's hard.

With the autumnal weather yesterday came an interesting phenomenon - I returned after lunch to find my flat absolutely HEAVING with ladybirds. There were so many I was a trifle worried that I might have done something to warrant a Biblical plague. However a friend living a couple of hours to the east of here also reported being bombarded by the same insects, so I heaved a sigh of relief (surely we are on different sinning timetables, so I reckon this counts as a natural phenomenon rather than divine punishment...). It took me two hours, having closed all the windows, to collect the little creatures using glass and paper, and stick them all out on the balcony. I wonder what's next?

Here's something you don't generally come across when on the way to work... it appears to have been a farmers' protest (as far as I can work out, they want a minimum price for milk, are not prepared to be anyone's inflation-brakes and have it in for herring (or maybe someone called Herr Hering). Most of the tractors had set off around town by this point; I couldn't help wondering whether the group on the right were discussing actually parking their cows for the duration!

Got properly measured up today in the costume department - every single inch was encircled by the tape measure and the results noted - luckily they were in centimetres, so I've no idea what they actually meant! Huge advantage, that, of the English habit of using imperial rather than metric measurements. Although we did get a little stuck on height - managed my 12-times table to convert from feet and inches into just inches, but then my brain rebelled at the thought of multipying by 2.4 and we wrote down an approximation based on the fact that we were of similar height!

They wanted a couple of snaps for reference, and we went onto the glass walkway between the houses for this as it had the best light. The director of costume took a full-on and a sideways, then asked if I'd hoick up my skirts for a shot with my legs in, so they could see clearly what skirt lengths would suit me. Gladly, said I, hitching up all the lacy material - it was only once she'd got the shot she wanted that I glanced down and saw a chap looking up in absolute delight and giving my pose the thumbs-up...

On the way home I decided to stick my nose in a glass of Federweisser. This is slightly cloudy fermented grape must; stalls had been springing up all over the city in the past few days, and I was curious. It was super! Sweet, very refreshing, doubt there was much alcohol in there, just the right amount of fizz. It reminded me of nothing so much as a batch of elderflower champagne I once made (several bottles exploded in the cellar rather spectacularly; one inexplicably survived for over a decade but no-one dared drink the stuff!). Prost!

Note to self:

Treading in and completely squishing the dead shrew which has been mouldering quietly for the past few days by the bike racks, then uncontrollably throwing up all one's breakfast and half the lining of one's throat, is probably not the ideal way to prepare for singing to a new conductor and chorus...

Seeing red...

OK, I will admit you'll probably have to be English to appreciate this one, but today I saw both a red squirrel and a red deer in the wild!

I woke up this morning convinced I simply had to wander through woods - yesterday was wonderfully hot, and I spent a lot of it in an open-air pool on an island, which was fabulous but left me with slightly pink patches in rather odd places (tankini slipped... what can I say?). So today I resolved to find a gorgeous German wood and walk serenely through it. I headed west on my trusty bike - only to damn near scupper myself because it was SO hard to get there! Having headed back on a roll, virtually without pedalling, I realise that the entire journey was probably on a slight, unnoticeable incline - but in the immense heat of the day (and it was hot - especially compared to recent London temperatures!) my poor thighs were complaining loudly. I overruled them, and ended up (eventually) in some lovely woods; exactly what I needed. Several hours went by with me happily switching between riding the bike and pushing it along; I had a super time.

The best moments were a red deer leaping across my path (literally - I nearly crashed into her! She flew into the air about a foot in front of me, a flash of bright copper from right to left, then was gone. Far too quickly to fish out the point-and-click!) The squirrel, however, squirted up a tree, but couldn't resist looking back down at me and winking. It may not be the sharpest photo ever, but it gave me huge amounts of pleasure. (A RED squirrel! Whilst I actually love the grays - at one point my family were taking care of one - obviously called Nutkin - and I took it into town in the cowl of my jumper - some interesting reactions when his little head peered out in the coffee house! - I don't think I've ever seen a red squirrel in the wild, and this was special to me.)

Now going abroad from abroad - Italy is my destination, so no more posts for at least a week. I am really looking forward to a break. However last week felt like such - it occurred to me today that the last time I had felt this free was the the time between finishing my finals at Cambridge and getting the results. I remember quite a bit of fizzy wine and the pool at Emma - bliss! I am so lucky to revisit that feeling!