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I can has operatic role
Breaking a long silence - it turns out that the holy grail of post-audition emails, the one offering you the part, is just as laconic and grammatically vague as the much (much) more common 'thanks but no thanks' version. Who knew? I'm sort of thinking I should print it out and frame it, but that might be weird. Miss Jessel here I come! -
The times we live in
We got back to London from a couple of days in Brighton yesterday and were unable to buy sandwiches because pretty much all the local shops were shut up/closed, although I only saw three that had had their windows broken: Blockbusters, a 'we buy gold' shop and- a kebab shop I think. The pubs on the other hand were doing a roaring trade, and ( Read more... ) -
An imposter on the hallowed turf, or, shenanigans concluded
Final incarnation of Carmina Burana on Sunday, this time at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon. Both performances went generally well though there were more Ragazzi than I was expecting - about 300 in fact - so inevitably it was more about them. It was interesting being a stray singer in what I imagine is a dream venue for most ( Read more... ) -
Verdi Requiems and starstruck-ness
I stressed a lot to various friends and relatives about how unsuitable I felt myself to be for this piece: they dutifully ralleyed round and said I'd be fine, and (naturally) in the end both concerts went really well. My dad tried to encourage me by pointing out that a particular Eminent Bass would be singing the solos, which rather backfired as it ( Read more... ) -
King of the road
In non-singing related news, I went for my first solo drive today (at the age of 32). Having had a fairly steady drip-feed of comments on the lines of 'you'll see, it'll be really useful once you qualify, you'll be driving all the time' I originally qualified in 2003, after a pretty pain-free test involving chatting to my examiner about his ( Read more... ) -
Amahl and the Night Visitors
Finally finished with Amahl and the Night Visitors, the show that has been absorbing my and Nick's free time for the last couple of months, largely in driving to Oxfordshire and back. It's his third run as Melchior with this company, so he was pretty blase about the whole thing, but Amahl and I (as the Mother) were brand new to the piece. Our ( Read more... ) -
Cats
It's been brought to my attention that I haven't been talking about my cats in this journal. ( Evidence below the cut. ) -
L'amour du loin (Love from afar)
I recently went to see this new opera at the Colisseum (first staged production in the UK, written c seven years ago). I tend to be pretty uncritical of the operas I see because I love going so much, but in this case not only did I enjoy the production but thought it was genuinely a wonderful opera as well. I think this is the first visit I can say ( Read more... ) -
Audition, James Bond, new teacher
Finally had an audition: my goal was at least three for the year starting Sept 08, so I'm 2/3 of the way. After approximately 6 months of periodic nagging (THIS time, anyway), OB rang to offer me a slot in a week's time: typically, the day before they then rang again to say the production in question has been cancelled. (Apparently the National ( Read more... ) -
Two recent consultation lessons
I sometimes wish singing teachers sat in on each other's lessons, like normal classroom teachers and (presumably) sports coaches as well, since what they do involves bits of both. I understand that every singer, and hence every teacher, will approach singing differently, but sometimes it's quite worrying how little common ground there seems to be ( Read more... )