This week

Sorry to be quiet all week, it’s been kind of crazy around here. To make it up to you, here are some bullet points!

• I have summer employment! More on that exciting opportunity and it’s unorthodox development later… once I sign something.

• Opening Night was wonderful. I sat in the artists’ cafeteria trying to get more translations written into my Elixir score. I think I maybe got ten pages done! That’s something, right? KW and I “held court” at a table and chit-chatted our way through the evening, entertaining other singers and friends as they came through the café throughout the evening. We learned all too late of the opening night reception, for which neither of us was attired, so after our characters’ last words were sung in Act III, we headed home. But rest assured that opening night of Helena will have us both dressed to the nines and ready to drink champagne on the Grand Tier!

• There are three radio broadcasts of Jenufa, so I’ll be in house for those performances (likely in the café with KW again). Tonight I’m attending the performance, actually sitting in the auditorium (with a date, who is nervous about being left all alone, should I suddenly be called to the stage!).

• I’ll also be in the house for the performance on the 10th, since Judith Forst will be singing Kostenlicka that night. You may recall that she was my mother in Cendrillon last summer, and let me assure you: she is every bit as gripping and terrifying as Kostenlicka as she was hysterical as the Stepmother! Watching her in our cover staging rehearsal was a lesson in commitment and dramatic focus. KW and I will be sitting in the company box for that performance, gripping each other’s arms until the blood flow to our hands is cut off.

• I had my first coaching for Helena on Wednesday, and it was fine. Not great, but fine. I’m singing the middle line of three or four voices, and that’s really hard! KW admits that her line – the top – is “easy” since it’s always the melody. It’s Strauss, so it’s not easy by any means, but I’ll agree that it’s easier than mine! Once we start rehearsing with all of the voices, I think I’ll feel much more comfortable; trying to hear how my part fits in with just the piano reduction is tough. Hopefully we’ll start those music prep rehearsals this week or next.

• That’s all for now! Time to get dressed, but what to wear when you want to look nice and it’s wintry-mixing outside? No easy answer…