First Two Weeks

A pictures tells a thousand words, right, so these six pictures should make up a bit for my lack of posting over the week. Right? It’s been a full week, with staging rehearsals for Turandot (we had our first ‘stumble-through’ yesterday, with a week to polish it up before tech rehearsals start); chorus rehearsals and cover coachings (1st Niece) for Peter Grimes, which I think starts staging on the 23rd; a rough voice lesson, followed the next day by an incredible lesson with a different teacher (more on that later); and my ‘re-audition,’ where I sang one aria in order to reacquaint the music staff with my voice so they can start thinking about assignments for scenes. I’m really hoping for a good bel canto duet or scene, maybe from Don Pasquale or Elixir of Love. A romantic scene with a tenor would be great, because we have so many tall tenors here!! It would be really fun to get to wear heels and still gaze UP into my partner’s eyes . . . I’ll let you know; we hope to get our assignments this week.

Also this week, I’ve have to get used to not having Erik here. He was here for ten days, and fell very quickly and naturally into his role as ‘house husband!’ He made me breakfast and coffee every morning, helped with dinner, and did all kinds of errands and chores while I was at work. It was great! A real glimpse into what we hope our future will look like at some point. But this week I was often running out the door a little late, forgetting breakfast or my snacks for the day.

Tomorrow we start music rehearsals for Ainadamar. I talked with the coach last night, and when he learned that I’d performed the opera before, he said I could chime in at any time during rehearsal to let him know if he was getting something wrong! Well, I’ve actually thought about this, and I’ve decided that I am not going to be that annoying singer: “That’s not right. When we did it at Tanglewood/in LA, we did is this way.” That can get old really fast!! So I told him that I am planning on keeping my mouth shut (except to sing), but that if he had questions, he could ask me anything. He seemed to agree that that was a better way of approaching things! Staging rehearsals start the week of July 4th for this opera. Another coach mentioned that my singing role, which was offstage in past productions, may not necessarily be offstage this time. That would be great, but we’ll wait and see. Regardless, I am looking forward to seeing what Peter Sellars has to bring to the table. And it will be so good to see Dawn and Osvaldo again.

Time to round up the dogs and head to bed. Another busy week starts at 10am!