equal rights

Something has got me all riled up this morning. I got a few emails from friends yesterday regarding the upcoming vote in California on proposition 8, which will remove from the state constitution the right for gay people to get married. Now, I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but WHAT THE HELL? I cannot, in the deepest recesses of my brain, comprehend why this beautiful thing allowing two people to declare their love, and which affects NOBODY except those two people, would be denied anyone. And why religious and conservative groups are fundraising and putting ads on television to try to get people to vote to overturn this right! I think about my gay best friend who has a boyfriend from another country, and how if they were straight they could get married and the boyfriend would never have to worry about his visa or his green card again. How would this negatively impact anyone? I also have two friends who just tied the knot in California this past weekend. I can't stand the thought that intolerance might yank this away from them. If you can't vote in California, you can donate money to the following two organizations if you are so inclined:

no on prop 8
equal rights california

There are many political issues which can be two sided, and which can be argued from a plethora of opinions. This is not one of them. This hurts no one and gives so many a basic human freedom. Why on earth would anyone think otherwise?

feeling hot hot hot

Today it was in the nineties, and yesterday supposedly reached 100 degrees in L.A., where I went to see a friend and have a coaching. It's a little shocking to have summer in the middle of October, and yesterday I was dressed in a very new york outfit - a long sleeved dress, leggings and tall boots - and the Californians were all staring at me like "what winter are you preparing for?"

This morning we had a photo shoot, and I asked the director to take some behind the scenes photos of us. My costumes are really truly beautiful and as I mentioned previously I am getting in touch with my irish roots with this fiery red wig. The temperature makes me hot, but wearing a costume made just for me - like couture, as one of the costume makers pointed out to me today - makes me feel as hot as the 100 degree weather. The people in the costume shop here are INCREDIBLY nice and accommodating, always asking me how I feel and if I like the costume and whether I feel comfortable. And the wig and make-up people gave me a whole jar of free eye cream because I was complaining about my puffy under-eye situation. And they made me look so Rosina-ey:

Here's a photo of me with the Count, Brian Stucki and the Figaro, Jeremy Kelly. They are both great, nice guys AND they have mad skills: During the Count's serenade in the first act, Brian is accompanying himself on the guitar!!! Then for the second verse he hands the guitar to Jeremy, who then ALSO plays the guitar, accompanying his second verse! I've never been in a Barber where the tenor played the guitar for himself, much less where the baritone did too. I am very impressed. I can't even accompany my voice students on the piano when they sing Caro Mio Ben in C major. Here we are pretending to sing the trio:

Now, I need to go and get my MSNBC fix. Keith (Olberman) and Chris (Matthews) are totally my peeps.

throwing the schtick

I arrived to the first day of rehearsals here to discover that the director is someone I have worked with before and who I really like. At the meet and greet, he talked about his concept of Barber of Seville, and how he wanted the action and the comedy to be more character based as opposed to using the same gags that we see over and over in productions of this opera. I was nodding my head vigorously because I thought that was a fantastic way to approach the opera, and I find so many of the old physical jokes to be trite and overdone. Let's rise above all that and do some serious character work, I nobly thought. Until he started to want to cut MY schtick.

I think this is the 6th time I've sung Rosina, and the one piece in which I have really developed my (ahem) skills as a physical comedienne is Bartolo's aria near the end of the first act. In this aria, Bartolo is lecturing Rosina, and she's usually really annoyed to be hearing his lecture once again. There are several physical gags I developed when I sang the role at City Opera, including puffing myself up to look as much like Bartolo as possible and imitating him by lip synching his text, crying hysterically with snorts and gasps, and falling onto the ground several times. I would be lying if I told you that my ego wasn't stoked by the fact that one of the reviews from new york mentioned what a great comedienne he thought I was and compared me to Lucille Ball. So I kept all those gags in all the productions and just kept doing them with more and more vigor, while eating up the cheap laughs and guffaws they elicited.

We got to staging this aria yesterday, and I started in with all my cheap tricks. Wait a minute, the director cautioned - I thought we weren't going to get all schticky in this production? My initial thought was - well, yeah.... but my schtick is... frigging FUNNY! But then I realized that he was right; the bits may get guffaws in the moment, but they leave the characters less human and less likable in the end. Maybe if I want the audience to take the journey with me, I'm going to have to edit out my groaning and snorting like a stuck pig. Oh phooey. That means I have to actually act like a human in this aria, and think about my genuine motivation and basically recalculate everything.

Comedy is a tricky thing, no doubt about it. Physical comedy can be hilarious, but it's the most funny when it comes from a place of genuine human emotion. If I fall on the ground and my dress goes over my head because that's what I think is funny, then it's not actually that funny. But if I really need to grab Bartolo's hand and convince of something, but I miss him, fall on the ground and my dress goes over my head, that's comedy. Maybe that seems obvious, but too often with these oft performed roles, we fall into a kind of comedy rut, and play for the laugh instead of for the truth. But this time, thanks to a savvy director who's got my number, I get to reach inside and find a new honesty. That's fine, as long as I get to fall on the floor at least once.

sing for your supper

Okay, I think my life has officially done one of those full circles.

It's friday night, and we had a full day of rehearsal, staging my aria, my duet with Figaro and some various and sundry other scenes in the first act. However, it's one of those gigs where after the rehearsal is over, everybody seems to go their own way. This is fine, I'm used to this situation, especially for some reason with Barber of Sevilles. And in this opera, I'm staying in a town where no one else is, so it adds to the aloneness of the situation.

As I was driving home, I was deciding between going home to my apartment and going to the italian restaurant where I had felt so at home speaking italian to one of the owners. But it was friday night, and I hated the idea of walking into a restaurant alone on a night like tonight. I actually drove home and parked my car, but I didn't get out. Then I kicked my own butt, restarted the car, and drove to the restaurant.

When I arrived, there was a different brother than the one I had met at the front of the restaurant seating people, so I immediately started talking to him in Italian. He asked me if I was italian (what a compliment) and I explained to him that I was an opera singer, and I had met his brother the other night. "Ah si!!" He had heard about me!

We talked for a minute, and he introduced me to the singer who they hired to sing italian and american standards in the restaurant on friday nights. The singer immediately sat down at my table and started chatting me up in italian. He asked me right away if I was married and explained that he had been married three times. I think he is now divorced from his third wife, but has a girlfriend. I told him I was looking for the perfect man. "Take it from me" he quipped "there's no such thing. And I should know!" He was adorable and I enjoyed listening to him sing Fly me to the moon and Volare.

As I sat there, the various brothers came up and kept talking to me in italian. One of the brothers, the one I met the other night, said he wanted to cook for me. I don't get the feeling that he is always in the kitchen cooking, but I know he went in there and made a spaghetti with seafood just for me, and he brought it to me himself with a flourish. In the meantime, the other brother was constantly checking in on me and bringing me more wine. Both of them sat down to have extended conversations in italian with me, which is very good practice for my italian language skills, which are probably fading somewhat due to lack of use.

After two glasses of wine and a tiramisu, the singer and the brothers said "Now, what are you going to sing??" I usually would not get up and sing in a situation like that, but I felt like it would be rude not to. I asked the pianist what he knew, and we settled on Summertime. After I sang it, and everybody cheered, and the italians yelled "more more!!" the pianist asked me "Do you know Musetta's waltz?" Now, I just got finished singing Musetta a few weeks ago, so I couldn't exactly say no. And because the pianist was playing by ear, I looked down and noticed that he was playing the aria a half step lower than it appears in the actual opera. Woo hoo! This was too good to be true!! The one opera aria he knows, I happen to have just finished singing the role, AND he is playing it in a BETTER key for me!! So I gladly belted out some Quando m'en vo, and easily made it up to the high notes, even after the vino and the dessert. There was a guy and his son seated right in front of the piano who happened to be opera buffs (how unusual) and they made me give them an autograph. Some other patrons, who were seated right next to me, stopped by and said "We were wondering why you were here alone!!!" (Like my singing explained that, but I guess to them it did). The italians were beside themselves, and they comped my whole dinner. I was so glad I changed my mind and decided to push myself to be a little social, because I obviously made some people happy, and I got a free meal in the process. It's amazing - sometimes it's easy to be selfish with our gifts, but sharing just a little bit can be so rewarding.

What I mean when I say my life has come full circle, is that I'm back in California, my home state, spending time with Italians totally because I spent time in Italy earlier this year and learned to speak italian, and I'm somehow singing Quando m'en vo for them, which I wouldn't really know had I not just sung it in Bogota. All the parts of my life are coming together at once, and it's funny and special. Life is better when you take risks. I have to keep reminding myself that, but it's so true.

The best of all possible worlds

Okay, so this place is sort of a paradise. And having become the somewhat cynical and jaded new yorker, I am slightly suspicious of it. How can it be so beautiful? Is the ocean really supposed to be that warm and that blue?

I arrived yesterday in the Orange County Airport, and was immediately shocked by how hot and tropical it feels here. Apparently it's even warmer than normal for this time of year, but it was probably 85 degrees when I landed yesterday. I picked up my rental car, and thanks to my trusty new gps device, found my way to my "bungalow" in Laguna Beach. I had my sunglasses on and the windows all rolled down, and at some point I rounded a corner and saw nothing but white sandy beaches and blue ocean. I thought to myself, "you have to be kidding me." I mean, I grew up in California, so I shouldn't be surprised, but I've lived in dark an dangerous new york city for 11 years now, so seeing people hopping around the beach with their shirts off and playing volleyball made me feel both joyous and nervous. And my little bungalow is about a 5 minute walk from this shirtless volleyball ridden heaven on earth. I have all the fans on in here and I'm still a little hot. Phew - rough life!

Today was our first rehearsal - a musical run through with the conductor. I learned today that 3 out of 6 principals had cancelled in the last couple of months for various reasons, so don't despair if you're a singer with no work - I mean, 3 out of 6 - you never know when something's going to come along! Luckily they found great replacements (that's the singing business for you - there are good singers around every corner) and everyone involved in the production is extremely nice. I had a two hour costume fitting after the rehearsal. It was long, but I never mind standing around and getting laced into corsets when I have the pleasure of wearing costumes that have been made just for me. I've had my share of god-awful costumes, so I was thrilled to see that these are going to be totally beautiful and interesting. Plus I get to wear a red wig, which always makes me feel saucy.

When I finished my day I was too exhausted to cook, so I stopped at an italian restaurant very near my house. The food was really good, so I asked one of the waiters if the owners were in fact italian, and it turns out they are, so I started speaking Italian with one of the brothers who runs the place. As is typical with Italians, he was totally friendly, and especially impressed that I was an opera singer (again - Italians know exactly what that means - there is never an awkward "what does that mean" moment when you tell them you're an opera singer). After offering me tons of free dessert and limoncello, he made me promise to come back, and meet the rest of the family. Who knew I would get to practice my Italian in southern california? I asked him why his family had chosen Laguna to open a restaurant and he replied, "It's very nice here, no?" I answered "Si - e come un paradiso!" and so far, it really is.

Debates and Dancing

First of all, I want to say thank you for all the supportive comments that everybody left after my last post. I'm glad that people are reading and enjoying this blog and want me to keep writing, and I was touched that people took the time to tell me so. Thank you!

The last couple of nights here in NYC have been varied and interesting and I feel compelled to report about them. Last night for the presidential debate, I was invited to a debate watching party hosted by a gay pro-Obama group called "Obama Pride" held at a swanky bar in Grammercy Park. The listing in Time Out New York read "don't miss the chance to hiss at John McCain in good company", so how could I refuse? The bar was one of those fancy places with dark hardwood floors, modern glamorous furniture and huge pink chandeliers, and was PACKED to the gills with hot gay guys in tight jeans ready to yell and scream at the huge tv screens set up all around. People were even given these small nerf balls to throw at the screen for when Mc-oldy said something particularly hideous. I hadn't ever watched a debate in such a public setting, and it felt more like a sporting event than a political one, which was really fun. I groaned with all the gays when McCain repeated his same old talking points, and especially after about the 12th time he accused Obama of "not understanding" something, and together we all cheered at the few zingers Obama managed to get in. But the best part about it was the feeling of lightness and humor that I was able to take away from the setting and the company, which prevented my head from exploding in frustration as it might have if I would have been watching the debate alone. I just want Barack to say "shut your effing mouth you lying old geezer!" just once. Please?

Tonight I had the opportunity to do something completely different. I was invited by a friend who had an extra ticket to something called the "Fall for Dance Festival" which brings together different dance companies from around the world to perform one piece each at NY City Center. My friend Marina, who invited me, is a dance expert, and so in going to dance concerts with her I am getting educated about the history of dance and getting entertained in one evening. There were two modern ballets in tonight's program that really affected me - the first was a dance choreographed by Twyla Tharp called Sweet Fields set to traditional shaker hymns, and the last piece was a piece called Esplanade which is apparently a famous dance by the Paul Taylor Dance Company. I'm not well versed enough in dance to write about it intelligently, but those two dances in particular elicited a bunch of emotions in me and were both beautiful and stunningly athletic with little bits of humor. I felt something and that felt good.

Now I've gotta go watch Tina Fey impersonate Sarah Palin. Tina Fey should totally be the vice president. Who's with me?

thoughts

I've been a little blog-blocked lately, hence the lack of entries. As you might have gleaned from one of my recent posts, some of my attempts at humor made some of the people at Opera de Colombia feel bad, and when I found that out, I felt horrible. The reason I started writing my blog was actually to make people laugh and smile, so discovering that the opposite occurred gave me a very bad case of writer's block. But I really don't want to give up on the blog because it brings me a lot of satisfaction to be able to share my adventures and mishaps with others, so I am actually forcing myself to write this entry in order to overcome this newfound trepidation. (And if you plan to go back through my blog and reread the entries on Colombia to see what I'm talking about, don't bother, because I deleted anything that I thought in hindsight might have been offensive to anybody, out of respect for all the people there).

I learned something important from this experience; Be careful not to shit where you eat (excuse my french). Even though I by no means meant to say anything negative about the opera company, my attempts at humor and sarcasm were read by some as criticisms and humor at the expense of others. In my experience, every single opera rehearsal situation presents challenges and unusual situations, and I like to report on and comment on those unusual and sometimes funny happenings. But I realized that if you a) don't know me and my sense of humor well and b) don't know the complete context of the situation I'm in, what I'm saying can come across in an entirely different way from how I intend it. I always think everyone is going to know that I'm nice and have good intentions, but time and time again I realize that what I feel inside my head and the way people perceive me are actually often completely different. This used to happen to me a lot in life - I would sit in rehearsal totally focused on what was going on, but people would think I was scowling or looking mad, when I was just concentrating. Then they would say to themselves (they would later report to me when we became friends) that they thought I must be either really unhappy or a real bitch, neither of which was the case. "But that's just my face!!" I would cry. (In Cincinnati a couple of summers ago they all teased me about it and called it "The Rivera Face". Somebody even took a picture of it when I wasn't paying attention.)

But my not feeling mad didn't change how they perceived my expression, and the opinions they initially formed about me based on this unconscious behavior. I have gotten to the point now where I'm so much more aware of how the things I say and do are being perceived, and yet somehow it never occurred to me to think about this in regard to my blog. So I fell into the perception/reality discrepancy again, and it left me feeling deflated, like - "when am I gonna learn??"

But, after thinking about it a lot, I have decided to keep writing my blog. I got worried for a minute that I should stop because I might accidentally write something at some point that would cause someone not to hire me, or not to like me, or not to want to work with me. But then I decided that if I know I have good intentions, and I pay a little more attention to the tone of what I write, I should still be able to make people laugh and share my thoughts and feelings as I have so enjoyed thus far. I believe in the end that good intentions win out over incorrect perceptions, and I'm almost always able to win people over once they actually know me. This should be true with the blog too - the more I write, the more people will know me, and hopefully the more they will understand me and maybe even like me. And if not, well, that's life, and I just have to accept that too. But in the meantime, I'm leaving for Southern California in a week to sing another Barber of Seville, and if living 5 minutes from the beach in 78 degree weather doesn't make you hate me, maybe I can find something really nasty to say about Californians and offend even myself (since I am one.) Here's hoping :)!

Shopping! Yippee!

First, a disclaimer; If you are not a woman or a gay man interested in fashion, you probably should skip this blog entry.

Okay, so the shopping in Bogota is tooooooo good, and Georgia and I are verrrrrrry bad. We're not bad, we're just both shop-aholic enablers, and neither of us can pass up a good deal. There is this neighborhood here in Bogota called the Zona Rosa, which has a lot of really nice restaurants, several great shopping malls, and a plethora of interesting designer boutiques. And those nice designer shops and boutiques have high quality merchandise at much cheaper prices than we would find in the U.S. There are several things that are particularly specialized here in Colombia, and the thing that has Georgia and I reeling is all the leather boots and handbags. Every other store has an amazing selection of leather shoes and boots and interesting and different purses and bags. And since almost every woman I know is a sucker for a good pair of shoes or a beautiful bag, you can imagine that the two of us are like kids in a candy store.

The first problem is that if one of us were here alone, we would maybe find someone to go shopping with once or twice, but we probably wouldn't be taking taxis to this area of the city alone. But since we are together, and we seem to share this weakness for "acquisition therapy" we somehow find ourselves going together to this very fun neighborhood on each of our days off. We'll tell ourselves that we just want to have lunch at our favorite asian restaurant over there and maybe do a little window shopping, but inevitably, something too good to pass up will appear before our eyes and one or both of us will NEED NEED NEED that thing.

The second problem is that neither of us could really be labeled as the "sensible one" when it comes to shopping. I certainly have friends who are very frugal with their income, and who scoff at those who love to buy clothes. Both Georgia and I are the opposite of that. I mean, neither of us is going to squander our rent on buying a pair of Louis Vuitton sunglasses or anything, but we both REALLY love fashion and REALLY love to shop. It's a problem. We freely admit it. And yet we seek no help.

The third problem is that both of us are addicted to finding bargains. We like to buy things, but we ESPECIALLY like to buy things that are somehow on sale or discounted or just plain inexpensive. And that's a problem here in Bogota because almost everything is less expensive than what we would pay in the States, and it kind of makes everything therefore completely irresistible. I mean, if you find a gorgeous pair of really well made leather boots, and they cost HALF of what you would pay at home, you would HAVE to buy them, right? I mean, they are this beautiful dark brown shade of leather, and they go up OVER THE KNEE! And they are NOT EXPENSIVE! How could a human mortal resist these? You would have to be superwoman to try them on and walk away empty handed (or should I say empty-footed). And ladies and gentlemen, I am NOT superwoman, and I succumbed to their power. But actually, wearing them kind of makes me feel like a super-hero, so it all balances out in the end. Right? RIGHT???

Dear Colombian readers,

It has been brought to my attention that many more people than I realized are reading this blog, including a lot of people here in Colombia. I am surprised and flattered that anyone besides my mom and dad would be interested in reading my ramblings, but I was also made aware of the fact that some people have found some of the things I have said about Colombia to be offensive. I was so upset to hear this because in fact, I adore the people I have met here in Bogota, and find Colombians to be such kind, polite, wonderful people. I was horrified to hear I may have hurt someone's feelings. So I want to take this opportunity to apologize to anyone who thought I was being in any way disrespectful or insensitive, and to explain a little about why I write this blog. I think if you know a little more about my personality, you will see that my humor and even sarcasm is completely out of love for what I do and for the people I meet.

I first had the idea to write this blog when I was singing not in Colombia, but in Columbus, Ohio, U.S.A. Columbus is a really cute college town with lots of nice things about it, but the hotel/apartment where the singers were staying was slightly outside of the main part of town off a highway and was totally overwhelmed by this gigantic billboard hanging over it. The billboard was an advertisement for a radio station and it featured a close-up photo of a woman's chest. I can't explain to you how big this poster of this woman's breasts was - it was the biggest billboard I had ever seen. She was wearing a thin white t-shirt, and the only thing the billboard said was "Pray for Rain". As the production coordinator dropped me off at the hotel, he said to me, "some people say when it rains, her shirt becomes transparent, but I've never seen it." When I got out of the car, I realized my hotel room was directly facing this gigantic picture of this woman's breasts, and it was the first thing I was going to see every morning and the last thing I was going to see every night. It reminded me of everything that can be wrong with my country - using sex to sell things, treating women like objects, general lack of class and sophistication, etc etc, but it also really made me laugh. I mean, THIS was my glamorous opera singer's life? Waking up every morning and staring at this woman's boobs? I thought - if only everyone who says to me "oh, how exciting and glamourous your life must be!" could see a photo of me standing underneath this sign, and see all the other hilarious and ridiculous things that happen behind the scenes everywhere I go, they would probably laugh their heads off.

Soon after that experience, I went to work in Italy for the first time, and I knew that with my difficulty with the language and unfamiliarity with the culture, plenty of funny things would happen to me. And while Italy is absolutely one of my favorite places in the world, I found it amusing that the grocery store was closed every wednesday for no reason, and that it was impossible for me to mail a letter or do my laundry because every other day is a national holiday in Italy. I laughed about these funny italian idiosyncrasies, but it didn't make me love the country any less - in fact, if possible I think it made me love it more. I started writing about my experiences, and people started reading them, and telling me that I was making them laugh and brightening their days, so I kept at it.

Which brings me to my feelings about Colombia. I have been laughing at the small challenges and unusual situations that have presented themselves during this production, but all of them are things that could happen in any company in any country. The thing that stands out to me the most about Bogota has to be the people - the fact that everyone is so polite, kind, supportive, and seems to be so full of energy and happiness. I have sung here twice now and would return in a heartbeat if I was asked because I enjoy myself so much while I'm here. In fact, having the opportunity to spend time in Bogota is one of the things that actually IS glamourous about being an opera singer, and one of the reasons I think I'm so lucky to get to do what I do. But I also like to find humor in any situation I can, and to make people laugh, so that's what I've been trying to do with my writing.

The main point of this posting is that I really admire and respect the people here, and I want to make that clear. Please feel free to hate my writing style, to think I am NOT funny, and to tell me I have terrible grammar and spelling, but please also know that I respect you all too much to ever intentionally insult you. I am in fact honored to be singing here, to have this life, and to get to experience everything I do. It's a pleasure to know you all, and I hope you will keep reading.

nerves vs sickness

Now we've done three performances of La Boheme - Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Thursday, the opening, I was just feeling the beginning of being sick, but nothing really, but I was a little nervous because it was the opening performance. Saturday, I was much more relaxed, but feeling sicker, and yesterday I was the sickest. However, the performances on Saturday and Sunday went MUCH better for me than the opening, even though I really didn't feel well physically. Which leads me to an important conclusion; For me, nerves hinder my performance more than any defects like illness going on with my body or voice. This is big! On the opening performance, my whole energy was just up high - I was breathing high, I was running out of breath, I wasn't in the moment at all, and my singing suffered. The second performance, I commanded myself to calm down and slow down. To take longer for any intake of air, to move more slowly around the stage, to take away any extraneous movements that might get me breathing harder, and I forced myself to take a good low breath before the high note at the end of Quando m'en vo, and boom! It came out clear and easy and free. This was an important lesson on just how much I allow nerves to affect my performance. And I say "I allow" because I believe that if I force myself to slow my highly impulsive and fast personality down, I think I can perhaps get a handle on some of the performance problems I've been complaining about recently. It may all be a matter of focus.

Yesterday before the performance, I almost had a real problem. I was feeling so congested and awful, but I forgot to pack sudafed in my suitcase like I usually do just in case (if I had packed it I surely wouldn't have gotten sick). Luckily Georgia planned better than I did and brought my favorite non-drowsy non-drying sudafed, and she brought some to the theater for me to take pre-performance. I took it from her about an hour before the performance and was very distracted while I was trying to get those aqua colored horse pills out of their silver wrapper. I kept talking to people and getting distracted and not being able to free them from their cage. I finally turned over the package and started picking at the back of the silver foil. That's when I noticed what was printed on the foil; "Nyquil cold and sinus". They were identical looking to the sudafed I always take when I'm stuffed up - except they were nighty night pills that would have put me right to sleep had I taken them. I mean, Nyquil really knocks me out when I take it - and I was seconds away from popping those suckers in my mouth and swallowing them. "THESE ARE NYQUIL!!!" I accusingly shrieked at Georgia. "Oops." Luckily, the director went to the drug store and picked me up some Pax Dia, which is the Colombian equivalent of sudafed and it seemed to do the trick. But can you imagine trying to sing a performance while you were stoned on Nyquil? I would have been hallucinating high b's instead of singing them. Yikes.

One more amusing thing about the performances. On the opening night, they gave us all a copy of the program for the show, which looks quite lovely and professional. Georgia and I were in our dressing room flipping through the pages of bios when we came upon the side by side pages that contained our pictures and bios. Now, Georgia and I are absolutely best friends, and we are very connected to each other. We somehow managed to wriggle our way into coming to do this job together, and some people tease us that we should walk around holding hands because we're so close. Also, we've both seen each other's headshots dozens of times, and both helped the other one to pick from the proofs the shots that were chosen for programs. Only somehow we'd never noticed the similarities between our shots until we were literally back to back in the program. This is just too much. We're both wearing strapless dresses, facing slightly away from the camera, but looking into the camera with almost the identical pouty sexy look. We both have our shoulders back and our chests out and have smoky eye make-up. How we never noticed this before it beyond me, but seeing it in the program like this made us both burst out laughing. The two of us together are just too much, and we freely admit it.

fire extinguisher

In the final act of La Boheme, Mimi dies, and as she sings her last words, it's as if a beautiful flame is extinguished forever. This is a wonderful metaphor, but it's one that I don't personally recommend coming to actual life on the stage.

In this particular staging of La Boheme, in the middle of Musetta's big prayer for Mimi, she notices that the candle is about to go out, and asks Marcello to put a screen around it to prevent it from extinguishing. The prop they chose to have him shield the flame with is an open book, with it's paper pages mere millimeters from the open flame. The candle is real, and the first time they put an open book near it, both Georgia and I thought, "hmmm - that seems dangerous" but she was too busy dying and I was too busy being dramatic and singing my prayer to think more about it. Until last night's premiere.

Just after Marcello says "coraggio" to Rodolfo and he collapes onto the bed with those big chords and wails "MIMI!", I looked over my shoulder and noticed that the book was on fire. I was torn - the curtain was going to come down in about a minute - should I let it flame and hope the set doesn't catch on fire so as not to disturb the dramatic climax of the opera? But then it was REALLY flaming, so I made a quick move and at least moved it away from the flame of the candle. Unfortunately it didn't go out on it's own and started to look like the beginnings of an action movie (it was on a wooden chair right next to a wooden set). I removed myself from my embrace of Marcello, and picked the book up from the bottom and tried to shut it on itself to extinguish the flame. It didn't quite work so I had to bang it down one more time until the flame finally went out. I went back to my crying embrace with Marcello. Curtain. Georgia sat up immediately from her deadly coma and yelled "WHAT'S BURNING???"

I was sorry to have potentially altered the moment, but was relieved to have saved us all from dying in a fire. I had to do that metaphorically a couple of operas ago in Elmer Gantry, and those fake flames were scary enough.

Other than the fire, the performance went well. I was a little sick and so not as thrilled with the way I sang, but I didn't embarrass myself, and Georgia really was fantastic. Now if we can only prevent any natural disasters from distracting us from the next few performances, we ought to be golden.

Opening tonight

So, tonight is the premiere of Boheme here in Bogota. The final dress rehearsal went quite well, but still with some room for improvement for the opening tonight. Unfortunately for me, I woke up feeling a little bit under the weather this morning. Just a tiny sore throat and a slightly groggy and sick body. But, I have done performances when I was MUCH sicker than I am now, so I can't say I'm terribly worried. Adrenaline does amazing things to shove your body through whatever it has to. And I sort of only have myself to blame because I haven't really been eating enough good food or getting enough sleep, and I haven't been taking my daily dose of emergen-c that usually keeps me healthy. But, as usual, the show will go on. Sometimes I actually sing better when I'm a little sick because my body has to really concentrate on making everything work and I can't go on automatic pilot.

Here are some photos of Georgia and I getting made up before the dress rehearsal. The make-up and hair process is slightly different than what we're used to, and while the end result looks great, the middle look was cracking us up. The eyelashes they put on Georgia were so gigantic that they looked like sleeping caterpillars up close (mine kept falling off, so we ended up just taking them off and using my real lashes). Also her hair looks pretty scary in this interim state, but I swear it looked very sweet and Mimi-ish when they finished.

We also thought it was fun that we were having our make-up and hair done side by side like this, and our Colombian make-up artists thought it was funny that we kept taking pictures of ourselves in the mirror. I also love that the make-up artists have their combs sticking out of their heads at the exact same angle in this shot.

We'll do our best tonight and let you know know it goes!

Before the show

The last week has been interesting. The rehearsal schedule was unusual, and we never really knew what was happening exactly. Tonight is the final dress rehearsal and Thursday is the opening, and I suppose we'll be ready, but last night was not the best indicator. Last night we had a dress rehearsal and it was really our first time on the sets as they will be (we think). There were some big surprises - like the fact that the bohemian's apartment is actually on a platform that limits the amount of stage space we thought we had into about half of how we rehearsed it, and there is a giant post in the middle of the set which you can end up standing behind half the time if you're not careful. It's always normal to feel confused your first time on the set, and this rehearsal was no exception. My biggest faux pas last night was that when I was supposed to throw a snowball at Marcello, I missed him and threw it into the pit. I thought it was going to be a ball of rice that would fall apart when I threw it, but instead it was more like a tennis ball covered in coconut shavings, so it sailed right past Marcello into the pit, missed the conductor by inches, bounced off his stand, bounced off the first violists stand, and landed at the conductor's feet. In the States, if something is thrown into the pit, the rehearsal stops and the orchestra may decide to leave and go home because the chances of the flying object damaging one of their instruments is too great to risk such lack of cautionary measures taken by the production team. We didn't stop the rehearsal, but I was horrified.

The other thing about last night that was really funny was the fact that Georgia and I share a relatively small dressing room, and we each have a dresser and a make-up person to ourselves, so often times there are six of us in this dressing room which is the size of a large bathroom. As usual, the Colombians are incredibly nice and kind, so we love having them around, but at times the feeling in the dressing room can get so claustrophobic that I have to go outside and stand in the hallway. This was one of those times (you can't see Georgia - she's sitting behind one of the ladies, but she's in there too).

The costumes are really beautiful. My first act dress is this incredible shade of green and I adore it. Here's a photo of me in the costume wearing my own jacket because I was a little cold. I promise to put some better shots of the dress in later blog entries.

Georgia has this really cool costume in the third act with this very sassy fur collar. She loves it, but it's really HOT. Here's a photo of her overcome with heat stroke and general colombian exhaustion.

We're going to do our best and have as much fun as we can tonight and with the rest of the shows. It won't always be easy with strange platforms and heavy snowballs, but we'll do what we can.

short break = fast food

We've been having this strange rehearsal schedule where we rehearse from 2 or 3 til 6 on the stage, and then come back at 7 to rehearse with the orchestra. The only place for us to eat with only an hour is the food court in the mall across the street from the theater complex. Every day, we try to find something that doesn't give us stomach aches from this food court, and every day either Georgia's or my stomach starts to hurt an hour after we eat the stuff. This is us trying mexican-colombian food the other day. You can tell by our expressions how scared we are to eat it.

make it work

So, I've been having some problems with the internet since I arrived. For some reason, the wireless signal is too weak when I sit at the desk in this apartment, but when I go just a few steps out into the hallway, it's at full force. Since I can't very well sit out in the hallway and call my parents on skype, I've compromised by moving a large armchair right by the door to the hallway and getting a medium signal from there. I've never experienced anything quite like this, with the signal strength changing drastically with only a few feet difference, but good luck trying to explain this to anybody at the Residencias Tequendama, and even better luck trying to get them to fix it. Plus, the internet works perfectly fine in Georgia's room everywhere, so it's apparently a problem that only afflicts room 2410. It was a lot of work to get this big chair over by the door, and I didn't want the maid ( who comes in and cleans my room every day despite my do not disturb sign) to move the chair back, so I left her this sign on the chair. The spanish may be funky, but when I came back tonight she hadn't moved it back!

She may however have been dismayed by the fact that I put the big bunch of wildflowers from yesterday in the trash can and filled it with water.

Crazy that I'm in Colombia

Bogota is such an unusual place. There is huge a dichotomy between the feeling of danger that is constantly a part of things here and the kindness of the ordinary people. I'm not sure I have ever met nicer, more friendly, funny, welcoming people as I have here in Bogota. So I wonder why this country has such a history of violence? Why are things so bad here that there are armed guards everywhere, that there are drug sniffing dogs at the entrance to the theater, and that our bags had to be x-rayed both before we got on the plane AND when we landed? Maybe the unluckiness of having a good climate for growing cocaine plants has lead the people to be incredibly nice in order to offset the damage that the drug industry has done to their country. I really don't know, but I know that I am always amazed when I get to rehearsal at how wonderfully kind everyone is.

First of all, I want to say that everything about going to a job with your best friend is fantastic, beginning with not having to travel alone. The only negative thing about us being in Bogota together is that two blondes in Colombia are even more of a spectacle than one for all the brown haired Colombian people, and people full on stare at us when we go anywhere. But I digress. I am so used to traveling everywhere alone, and it was such a luxury just to have someone to watch my bags while I went to the bathroom. But also, having someone to talk to on the 5 hour flight, and having someone to arrive in Bogota with, because it can be a little daunting. As soon as you get to Bogota, there are soldiers and guards literally EVERYWHERE. At the airport, in the streets, in front of our hotel, at the entrance to every major building, etc. Instead of making you feel safer, you always wonder "why do these guys need to be here? What must have happened in this town that it requires this kind of supervision?" Here is the entrance to the apartment/hotel where we are staying.

We arrived at the Residencias Tequendama, where we have both stayed before on previous singing jobs in Bogota, to discover that nothing had changed. No one speaks any english, and while everyone is incredibly kind, no one understands what you need even if you think they do, and when you finally are able to communicate what you want, implementing it takes an extraordinarily long time. We were exhausted, but we spent almost an hour at the front desk while they tried to find us rooms on the same floor. Then, when we got to the rooms, they were the wrong size (we are supposed to have one bedrooms and these were studios), so they told us it would be another couple of hours until the new rooms were ready. All either of us wanted to do was go to sleep (having awoken in NY at 4 AM) but we went and had lunch instead. When we came back, they told us it would be another half hour, so we waited in the old rooms and both fell asleep. Another hour later we went downstairs and after another 10 minutes or so, they led us to our new rooms. Except they were in the middle of cleaning mine, so I had to wait in Georgia's for another 15 minutes. Finally we got into out rooms, but we didn't unpack because we discovered that there was no hot water. Then we went off to our first musical rehearsal.

The rehearsals so far have been a lot of fun. The music rehearsal after no sleep and flying all day was a challenge, but the staging rehearsal yesterday was great. We managed to stage the first two acts in one day, including my big act (II) with the chorus. Georgia and I are already having a blast because all of the guys in the cast are totally hilarious in different ways, and are making us laugh a lot. I knew two of them from when I sang Cenerentola here, and Georgia had sung with all four of the Bohemians before. There is also a fantastic childrens chorus which is almost entirely made up of girls from a private bilingual high school, so they all gather around me after we exit stage and start excitedly talking to me in english, which is impeccable. They are trying to teach me spanish, but I'm not very good so far.

I'm glad to be back here and experience the place in all its grit and glory.

Welcome to Colombia

This is just a quick post to say that I have arrived safely in Bogota and all is well. I have plenty of stories from the travel and arrival yesterday, but not enough time to post them just yet. Last night we (my friend Georgia and I) flew all day, arrived, ate, rehearsed, and then I fell into bed exhausted immediately. Now we're off to more rehearsal, but hopefully tonight I should have time to tell the whole story. More soon....

And the gold medal in procrastination goes to......

This score has been sitting on my piano taunting me since July 1st. I was determined to learn the whole thing this summer (even though I don't have to perform it until November) simply because I had the time. But it sat there and sat there, always saying "oh, you have soooooo much time! You don't need to learn me now! Go play with your friends!" And now here we are, August 17th, I leave for Bogota in 4 days, and then I just go from job to job until I arrive at the one belonging to this score in November. I mean, of course I'll learn it (actually, knowing me, I'll be convinced I'm under-prepared until the first rehearsal when I discover that I am WAY over-prepared) but now I'll have to learn it while on the road. I felt that score staring at me scornfully today so I yanked it down and highlighted the sucker. That's something, right?

Pedagogy 101 - I figured it out and it only took me a decade!

I have a confession to make: Sometimes when it comes to singing, I have absolutely NO idea what I'm doing. I realized this week that I have been studying with my voice teacher for 10 years now. I began with her while I was a student, and even though I haven't taken weekly lessons since I finished school (I'm out of town all the time) I still feel like I learn quite a bit from her every time I see her, even after all these years. Now that I'm actually a voice teacher myself, I find myself listening to what she tells me in a completely different way. I've never been a big "practicer" or thinker about vocal production, but now that I'm teaching, I kinda have to know what the hell I'm doing so that I may impart some of that wisdom to the poor impressionable youths in my charge. And guess what - it's sort of about time that I'm finally figuring out the mystery of what's happening in there.

In my lesson today, I was working on those treacherous high B naturals in both Musetta (I leave to start rehearsals next week) and Rosina (which I will sing directly following Musetta and again in December). She was noticing what was going on technically when the notes were not their best (my larynx was riding up, I wasn't getting a good breath, my shoulders were collapsing, and I was trying to do the work with my jaw instead of with my breath) and we were trying all sorts of ways to get my body to remember to do all the right things to produce the best sounds every time, not just sometimes. We then got into a discussion about something she talks about a lot, which is hearing the phrase in your mind before you actually sing it. It's not like this was the first time she has told me to do this, but today I was feeling a little argumentative, so I whined, "but how can you hear the whole phrase when you only have a nano second to breathe???" Her idea is that you have to integrate the thought of every phrase into the breath before you sing, so your body will be mentally AND physically prepared for everything it has to do to make the phrase have all the depth, height, and body it is capable of having vocally WHILE also possessing the meaning and intention of the words. Phew!! That's a lot. But isn't it true that when you hear a singer who is effective in every element of their singing, their voice is produced in a way that sounds like the optimum sounds they are meant to make, AND you are able to feel the emotion of what they are communicating from the inside of their every vowel? Their vowels have emotion inside their very cores. I'm not a philosopher, but that's deep, dude.

When I got home, I thought about what she had said, and I actually kind of got it. Then I saw that she had sent me an email, which further clarified her thoughts on the matter:

"The other thing is to put the emotion into the vowel line and not into a physical contraction of the rib cage or shoulder area, or jaw, for that matter. When that happens it inhibits your ability to stay open physically and keep your larynx relaxed and easily down. Keep your neck relaxed so that the emotion can go down with your breath and be released with the vowels. I think we have worked with your having your hand around the back of your neck and breathing into that. I think hearing ahead really helps with all of this because it gives you those "nanno seconds" to execute well and with some poise. The breath itself has a "Life force energy' and if it is bathed in thought and that lower feeling of emotion and support things should really work. It's just a different way of feeling emotion--the thought is inspiring the emtion. Thought, breath, speech."

After a decade of work with her, I am still having "aha" moments, and I had one today. And it wasn't just that singing is freaking hard.

The olympics of singing

Watching the olympics, especially the gymnasts, brings to mind certain comparisons between what those athletes do and what we do as opera singers. I gasped, with the rest of america, when one of the female american gymnasts fell off the balance beam, and then fell on her butt during her floor routine. Watching her fall off the beam, you know immediately that she has performed this routine literally thousands of times without single mistake, and that in this moment - THE moment of her (albeit young) life so far, the nerves were just too much for her and she made a misstep that surprised even her. Then, in the next exercise, she is so shaken from the previous mistake, that she falls yet again. I could soooooo relate to that, and it made me think about nerves, mistakes, and my own career as an opera singer.

For a couple of years I became crippled by stage fright. I'm not entirely sure what started this bout with performance nerves, except that somehow, repeatedly performing before the scrutinizing and critical public of New York City started to wear me down, and I got all into my head about it. I started worrying that I would get a bad review, and the worry would turn into a kind of panic that a couple times actually shut down my ability to sing. The first time I remember it happening was during my first aria of Barber of Seville at City Opera, and it was almost like an out of body experience because I was so nervous. I felt like I wasn't even singing with my actual vocal cords, but instead going through the movements in some sort of dream sequence. I didn't sing particularly well that night. The following year, during a performance of a new opera, Lysistrata, I got so nervous for the opening night that as I approached a particularly climactic high note (one that had never given me any problems in rehearsals), my throat closed up, and I started the note, but sound just stopped coming out a second later and there was nothing I could do. In both situations, the nervousness and worry changed my ability to execute my pieces to the best of my ability, which was both frightening and frustrating. Thank god I wasn't on national television with my whole country's expectations on my shoulders. I don't know how the girls who keep from cracking under pressure do it.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately because I'm learning Musetta, which is a soprano role with plenty of high B's in it. Now, I can sing high B's, sometimes more easily than other times, but they are in there somewhere. However, if I start to think about it too much, to second guess myself, and worry about how it's going to come out, it's not usually very pretty. But if I'm relaxed, not thinking too much of it, and just singing, they come out perfectly fine. So the ultimate question for all of us who have to perform difficult tasks while under pressure is how the hell to relax enough to make everything go like it did in rehearsal? The answer is different for everybody, and I'm still trying to find the best one for me. I've noticed that often, when I'm exhausted, I sing fantastically because the fatigue balances the anxiety to make me relatively even. But I don't really want to deprive myself of sleep before every performance. I'm still looking for that magic ticket. Maybe one day I'll become so Zen that I won't feel nervous at all - only a profound sense of peace and harmony as I go to sing those high B's. I'll let you know if that ever happens.