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Big fat concert!
As a change from the current general gloom on the singing front, I have been booked to do a big concert at the end of March with a pretty prestigious choir in Cheltenham. It's the second performance of a piece commissioned for the choir a few years back, and there is plenty of material for the soloist. I'm about 60/40 excitement and glee mixed with ( Read more... ) -
Die Fledermaus
Run of Die Fledermaus in Guildford last week (Wednesday to Sat, 5 performances in total counting the Saturday matinee) went very well on the whole, and the audience seemed to enjoy themselves. The tech on Sunday was the first rehearsal in the theatre itself, which wasn't ideal: the stage was shallower than we expected which led to traffic problems ( Read more... ) -
My, it's been a long time since I posted anything.
On the singing front: Audition season, had two so far, both unsuccessful, currently nagging about half a dozen other companies. Blah blah - it doesn't seem any easier third time around (since I left college), but at least I am now a more hardened phone pest thanks to working in the office. Opera Brava are reviving the production of Carmen I was in ( Read more... ) -
Concert on Saturday & singer waffle
Well, it wasn't really what I expected... still not sure if it was a disappointment or not. Turns out the big Covent Garden donor is on the board of the London Business School, so we were part of the entertainment at was basically the student summer ball. Most of them were postgrads by the look of it, but still. However, the front row of tables ( ( Read more... ) -
Still here/gloves
Embarrassingly long time since I've updated this. It's like when someone writes me a letter: the longer my natural laziness stops me replying, the more there is to tell and so the less likely I'll actually get round to it ( Read more... ) -
Big hair Figaro (belated)
I had fairly high expectations for this production, based on what N told me about the group (Aylesbury Opera Group). The learning curve got a lot steeper very fast towards the end of the rehearsal period: it brought home to me that wandering around on stage with a copy is pretty useless for anything but basic blocking, because it's impossible to ( Read more... ) -
Busy, busy
... which is good, although I still suspect in a few months' time I'll have nothing to do again. No BBC Singers job, though the audition went ok on the whole. By that I mean an inexplicable total memory failure in my Mozart piece, lasting almost exactly a bar and a half of paralyzed silence; ritual humiliation in the sight reading according to ( Read more... ) -
Concert and a couple of book reviews
Haydn's Creation last Saturday with the Thame Choral Society - when N first texted me the details I assumed he'd left an s off, but it turns out to be a thoroughly picturesque little town sort of northwest of Aylesbury. It must have been such a shock to the system to people hereabouts when a huge alien pile of concrete was dropped into their ( Read more... ) -
Dress rehearsal & costumes
Arrived home last night feeling absolutely wrung dry after the orchestral dress. Not really sure why as the chorus are not on stage that much: a lot of the time was spent hanging about "backstage" (ie behind the large silver tent containing the stage) trying to discourage tourists on the walkway above from shouting comments on our costumes during ( Read more... ) -
Undignified squeal of glee
Have just been booked to do chorus for a production of "Anna Bolena" (Donizetti), which is part of the summer music festival at the Tower of London. We actually received a flyer for this production at my day job (corporate hospitality at various events) and I thought it looked cool because the Tower is where many of the events in the plot actually ( Read more... )