Never a dull moment

I'm coming to you live from a bar/restaurant/internet cafe a few blocks from the apartment I've rented for the month of September. For some reason, the internet in the apartment decided to quit today, and even though I spent 2 hours with 2 germans trying to fix it, alas, it was not fixed. So for now, I have to come down the street and log on. If I look to my right, I see a group of 9 people huddled in the corner tables of the restaurant with handheld video games and a computer having some kind of group video challenge. They are all just sitting there looking at their little nintendos (or whatever they are - I'm video game illiterate) and not saying a word. Now that's community. I'm drinking a german pilsner from the draft and eating something - I'm not 100% sure what it is because my german still sucks.

The last couple of days have been both delightful and scary. Mostly I've had a blast - the only scary part is when I think about what's going to happen on the 18th of September (my first performance). So far, I have had a total of one hour and 45 minutes of rehearsal with just me and the director, and otherwise I've watched the entire opera about twice. A couple times yesterday and today the director had me jump into some of the ensemble scenes, since this will be my only opportunity to interact with the other singers. They will leave after the performances and go to their respective homes, only to return the night before the next performance. Basically, this experience is going to prepare me for if I ever get called in on a moments notice to fly somewhere the next day and sing a performance without rehearsal because someone is sick. This is certainly the least rehearsal I will ever have had for a performance, but it's the role I've sung the most often, so I guess it balances out.

Yesterday, when the director put me into the finale of the first act, I surprised everyone by basically knowing where to go. It was surprising even to me because I had only seen them run the finale twice, and I had never walked it myself. But I have been double cast a few times before, and I have this method that allows me to memorize the blocking without ever actually doing it. I just need to imagine the entire scene in my head and picture myself doing all the moves. Then somehow, the moves enter into my memory and I'm able to stand up and do them. It only works if I know the music - everyone's parts, not just mine - extremely well, so I can basically rehearse in my head while I'm walking down the street. It also helps that this happens to be an incredibly nice and supportive group of colleagues, and they quietly remind me where I'm supposed to be whenever I'm in earshot. Which is good practice for them, because they will probably have to incorporate those whispers into their performances on September 18th. I know I'm always talking about how wonderful my colleagues are, but honestly, if I had to generalize I would say most opera singers happen to be really nice supportive people. That's been my experience anyway.

Tomorrow I will watch the final rehearsal, which will be on the stage with the orchestra. I could probably actually do the rehearsal - I think I have a good idea about most of the staging now - but since the conductor who will conduct the first two performances is not the same conductor that will conduct my performances, it doesn't really make sense for me to sing a rehearsal with him. So I will watch, listen, and learn as much as a I can. And maybe between now and the 18th I will take up praying.

In an unrelated story, I got a mention today from my very favorite opera blogger, Opera Chic. She not only plugged my story in The Daily Beast, but she pointed out the fact that I share a name with a Mexican pop singer who recently gained some infamy for making a sex tape. So now when you google my name, "Jennifer Rivera sex tape" is the third or fourth entry that google wants to send you to. Incidentally, if you've never checked out Opera Chic's blog, she's pretty much the coolest, smartest, most erudite yet funny blog about opera on the web. So check it, baby.

P.S. I'm SO HAPPY that I have all these new readers who are also commenting on my blog entries. It gives me great joy to share all of this with you, so please keep the comments coming! One of the weird things about this job is that I'm having all these great and sometimes crazy experiences, but I'm so often all alone. Knowing that I'm sharing them with people makes everything a little more interesting. Plus, when something really horrible happens to me, I can immediately console myself by saying, "God - I'm such an idiot! I can't wait to write about this on my blog!"

Uh Oh

I might be in some deep Sheiße.

Today was my first day or rehearsals, and I got to see what the scoop was here. First of all, as seems to be typical with European houses, they don't hold your hand and show you where you need to be and chew your food for you and spit it into your mouth like you're a little baby bird. In the U.S., somebody usually picks you up at the airport, and even if they don't there's an office you report to on your first day and they show you around, they tell you where to go, they sometimes even give you coupons for some restaurant where you can get 20% off your hot wings.

In Europe they assume you're a grown-up and can figure out where to go and how to get there. Except I want somebody to take my hand and lead me to my special rehearsal room. I don't want to try to explain to the security guard in my weird pigeon German that I have to get to office 222, and have the word I'm using for office actually mean something else, so that she scans her list of keys and solemnly shakes her head at me. And then I want somebody to lead me to the costume shop, the wig shop, and the rehearsal room which are all three not only on different floors, but in different buildings.

No such luck here, but the other mezzo was incredibly nice, and took me everywhere I needed to be, thank god. Because I would have been utterly lost without her. I got to try on my costume, which looks great, and my wig, which is white, so not super flattering on me, but I will recover. Then I realized what deep doo doo I'm actually in.

I am singing performances 3 and 4. The reason is that the house fest singer (the singer that works at this theater year round) was slated for this role, but she also sings Octavian, and there were these two Barbiere performances where she would have had to do Barbiere and Rosenkavalier on subsequent nights, and they didn't think that was a good idea, so they got me, trusty stand in, to sing those two peformances. But it turns out there are only three days of rehearsal, one stage rehearsal, and that's it before the opening. And during those three days, there probably won't be time for me to work with the other singers at all, much less get on the stage or sing with the orchestra, so basically I will watch the rehearsals, rehearse separately with the director, wait two weeks, and then make my debut at the Berlin Staatsoper. If that doesn't sound absolutely frightening to you, then read it again. 3 days of watching rehearsal and two weeks off, followed by a debut at the Staatsoper. It's so beyond frightening that I'm kind of laughing.

Some people are not that into rehearsing. They like the excitement of just going for it, without all the preparation. I am not like that. I like a good solid month of rehearsing, even with a role I've sung before, possibly because I just really enjoy the rehearsal process. I like determining the intricacies of the character, and trying each scene ten different ways. But this should be fun too.

One problem is the fact that in this production (which I found out today is from 1969!!! and still going strong because people love it so much) there is a lot of movement. Today I watched the first act finale, and literally, I couldn't write everything down that was going on. At one point I actually wrote (I'm not exaggerating or making this up) "scuttle around in figure 8's flapping arms like bird." Yup. try to decipher that one. And now try to imagine doing that without rehearsal.

Berlin!! Ich bin hier!!

I arrived in Berlin this morning absolutely wrecked from the 8 hour overnight flight on which I didn't sleep a wink. I cannot sleep on planes unless I have had a previously exhaustive schedule (like the time I flew back to New York from Japan, and was only able to acclimate about half way to the time difference when 5 days later I had to fly to Spain. I slept like a baby on that flight). Oh, and don't even get me started on the whole charging for checked bags business. Delta is now charging $50 for the second checked bag on international flights. Don't they know that I have my packing down to a science where I manage to fit my entire life into two suitcases, both of which must weigh less than 50 pounds? Not to mention the fact the Delta terminal at JFK is a NIGHTMARE beyond words, and no matter what time of day it is, there is always someone about to get into a fistfight with one of the Delta employees. I myself have nearly come to fisticuffs more than once. But that's another blog entry.

I arrived in Berlin at 8:40 AM and was just praying that my hotel was going to let me check in early because after flying all night and not sleeping, my eyeballs feel like there is a layer of sandpaper between them and my eye sockets. The first thing I noticed about Tegel airport - the main airport of Berlin - was that it seemed like it was about the size of the airport in Columbus, OH. It is seriously TEENY! I read in one my books that they are building a really big airport set to open in 2011, and I can see why! The first really stupid thing I did was I wandered outside in a daze to try to find a taxi, and I actually started to get into this regular guy's car who was just waiting there to pick his son up. I think I had read something about how the taxis in Berlin are Mercedes, and in my sleep deprived deliriousness, it didn't occur to me that if there is no sign on top the taxi that says TAXI, it's probably just, oh, I don't know, a CAR. I mumbled something to him in totally incoherent german, and finally I just said in english "are you a taxi?" and he responded to me in perfect english, "No! I'm just waiting to pick up my son. The taxis are over there, with the signs on top of them that say taxi." He pointed in another direction and I felt like a total doofus. Poor guy, just minding his business at the airport, when some blond american starts telling him to open his trunk so she can put her suitcases inside. Oy.

I arrived at the hotel at around 9:45 AM and tried to be as friendly as possible so the hotel clerk would take pity on me, but she didn't seem all that interested in the fact that I was sleepy and told me to leave my bags and come back later, at check-in time. I managed to kill about an hour, but eventually I was so miserable that I just came back to the lobby and sat on the couch in front of the desk looking up at her miserably every few minutes, until she finally probably decided she couldn't stand looking at me any more and gave me a room. I planned to take a two hour nap, but it turned into four. I was so sleepy that at one point someone knocked at my door, and I thought "I should call out to tell them this room is occupied, but I'm too tired. They'll just see my lying here when they come in and go away." Luckily I think they must have been knocking on the door next door because I don't believe anyone actually came inside. Although, I felt like someone had slipped me a roofie I was so tired, so they might have come in and napped beside me and I didn't notice.

When I finally woke up, I showered and decided to get my bearings. I walked over to the Staatsoper, and was delighted to see that the orchestra was performing an outdoor concert in the plaza next to the theater with Daniel Barenboim conducting!

People always ask me "are you getting excited?" when I'm about to go to a new place for a gig. The truth is I rarely feel excited until I get there, and it always hits me at different points. Today it was when I started to near the theater and I heard the music playing and realized what was happening, and then simultaneously walked by a sign with my name on it. Then I started to get really excited. It's real!!! My name's on the sign!!!!

I walked to the apartment I will be renting for the month, although I'm in a hotel for the first two nights because the apartment wasn't vacant until September 1st. A lot of people ask me about how housing works when you go on a gig like this, so let me just explain in case you don't know. Most opera companies in the U.S, with the exception of a few big ones, provide housing for their singers. It seems like in general, the higher the fee the company pays, the less likely it is that they will house you. In europe, you always find your own housing. You figure it all out yourself and just arrive at the first day of rehearsal. Last year when I sang in Italy it was my first gig in Europe, and I didn't even know where the theater was, and I certainly didn't know what to do when I got there. But at least with the Staatsoper I was here for my audition so I know basically where I need to go. Sorta.

My observations about Berlin will have to be saved for another blog entry when I'm more coherent, rested, and better able to form opinions. For now I'll just say that it has an incredibly nice, relaxed vibe that I'm really liking. It's astounding to think that all of East Berlin has become what it is now just since 1989! I will also upload some photos later, but right now my internet time is about to expire, and I really have to go out in search of water. I must HYDRATE for tomorrow's first rehearsal! Guten Abend!

The Internet - learn to pray to your new God

After about a hundred billion voice lessons, a master's degree from Juilliard, and countless productions of The Barber of Seville, who would have guessed that the internet and not my voice would be the thing to catapult my face into people's sight lines. Okay, it was my voice that first got me the review that lead to the blog, that lead to today's shout out on The Daily Beast. But still, the internet is a powerful agent, even for those of us whose music comes from before the time of the dinosaurs (that is a highly misleading and unfair representation of opera - there are several operas composed BY dinosaurs, so we shouldn't pretend they are all prehistoric.) Anyway, here's the blurb that appears in today's "The Week in Culture":

"Opera is rarely seen as “cool” anymore, especially on the Web, but perhaps mezzo-soprano Jennifer Rivera can help bridge the gap a bit. This week, the young singer got a rave review from the L.A. Times for her work in the Bard College Music Festival in New York, and also a shout-out to her witty blog, Trying to Remain Opera-tional. For what it’s worth, the blog is a tell-all look behind the scenes of opera life, from onstage makeouts to world travel. It’s a fascinating and funny read, and in some small way, does its part to increase opera’s cool factor (a tall order, to be sure)."

Seriously - what a crazy juxtaposition. In the opera world, we are preserving an art form that is really old school, and thank goodness, because otherwise no one would know what it sounds like to hear someone make a single sound without a mike jammed down their throat. Yup - I think opera is pretty much the only place you can still hear an unamplified voice in all it's guts and glory. And of course, opera companies are doing great things to bring Mozart into the 21st century, often by updating productions and casting hot young singers that look and sound great. But the internet is this whole other animal that has yet to be fully exploited by those of us in the opera world, and as we've seen in my little case, can spread news like wildfire even to the mainstream public that wouldn't necessarily know about opera.

So, I would like to take this opportunity to ask any of you who may have navigated to this blog from the Daily Beast (maybe you meant to check out the Olsen twins new clothing line but you ended up with me instead - sorry - but at least I washed my hair this morning) to please allow me to convince you that opera IS cool. It is more than cool, it is way badass. Although the fact that I just used the word badass sort of makes me an immediate dork. But I digress. The thing Europeans seem to be more aware of that I hope Americans will start to learn, is that opera can be like seeing a Quentin Tarantino movie with singing. It gives you so much stimulation both visually and aurally, makes you laugh, makes you cry, and something about hearing a voice without a microphone stirs your soul in a way that, in this day and age of constant editing and photoshopping, is not really explainable. Opera still gets to your ears raw, and often it comes out of lips you would like to kiss as well. Plus, it's a known aphrodisiac - I'm not making this up. Okay, I made up the aphrodisiac thing, but I'm probably right.

I will certainly do my best to continue to spill all the juicy details. Stay tuned. And now I really must go because I leave for Berlin tomorrow, and in my highly glamorous and amazing life as an opera singer, I must go do my laundry.

You REALLY never know

Okay, this is getting ridiculous (and by ridiculous I mean fabulous). I had always imagined that I should probably name my first born son Doctorslavit, honoring my incredibly dedicated and wonderful ENT who has seen me through years of being a singer with a deviated septum who likes to pick up sinus infections in foreign countries along with souvenirs. But now I might have to change my plan and name that (as of yet unconceived) offspring Markswed after my new FAVORITE journalist MARK SWED who has now given me not only a fantastic review in the L.A. Times, but has written a follow up post about me and my blog! You can't buy this kind of publicity, people!

Honestly, this comes at such a wonderful time. I'm leaving on Saturday to go to Berlin to make my debut at the Berlin Staatsoper as Rosina. And I would be lying if I said I wasn't a little nervous. So having somebody important write something positive about me gives me a little boost of confidence that I can take with me on that transcontinental flight, and if I start to feel scared I can pull it out of my pocket (I'm talking figuratively here - I'm not going to print it out and carry it around in my purse. Well, okay, I might.) and remind myself that there is somebody in the world that thinks I deserve to be there. And that just might be enough to keep me from peeing in my proverbial (or literal) pants.

You NEVER know

One of the things drilled into your brain at music school is the fact that you never know who will be in attendance for any performance, and you must always give everything you've got because at any moment someone important could see you and "make you a staaaaahhhhh". Well, I've never been able to help myself but to take every performance extremely seriously no matter who the audience was or whether anyone "important" may be watching. Sure, I tend to get more nervous when I know that all the major New York newspapers are in attendance, or when someone tells me that one of my singing idols happens to be in the audience (like the time Susan Graham saw me sing Cherubino - mamma mia!!), but I tend to treat every performance with equal importance. It's not so much because I think somebody important will be there, but because no matter who is or isn't there, I feel the same way if I don't think I gave it my all; sucky.

This past weekend was no exception for me- I was participating in the Bard Music Festival by performing on a concert called "Bearable Lightness" which featured light music that was somehow influenced by Wagner, this year's composer of focus. The concert featured four singers and a pianist, two solo pianists, and a musicologist to discuss aspects of the program. The unusual thing about the concert was that it took place at 10. Oh, 10 at night you say? Well that's kind of late but a fun time for a concert of operetta music. And I reply, NO - TEN IN THE MORNING. The festival is packed with tons of incredible music making - so much so, that they have musical offerings all day long on the weekends, beginning at ten in the morning. Have I mentioned that it was at ten in the morning? Yeah, well, that's a tiny bit early for singers to perform. It's funny, all through high school I had choir at what we called zero period every morning - that was at 7 AM - and I never really thought much of it. But now 10 AM might as well be 4 AM for how crazy early it seems to be singing. Add to that the fact that our sound check took place at 8 AM that morning, and you had a very sleepy group of singers. Add to that the fact that for some reason I could NOT fall asleep the night before, and finally drifted off around 3 in the morning, only to wake up at 6 to get into my concert attire, and you had one very cranky mezzo.

However, the singers on the concert were all really superb, as was the pianist who accompanied us. And they all happened to be really nice, supportive, good natured people who make singing an operetta quartet, even at an ungodly early hour, really really fun. Plus Bard college is really near to my parent's house, so I got to have a fun little retreat at home, and Mom and Dad only had to drive a few minutes to come see their daughter sing. So despite my sleeplessness, I had a really good time singing on the concert and made the most I could out of my two little solos, one duet, and one quartet. After the concert I went and had a big juicy hamburger with the 'rents, and then fell into bed and took a long nap.

Then tonight, a colleague and friend forwarded me this article from the L.A. Times written by classical music critic Mark Swed. He attended the entire weekend of music, and wrote an interesting article about his observations about the music making and about Wagner himself. And then, to my surprise, the last paragraph of the article said,

"The festival’s performer list is too long to go into. So I will leave you with just one name of an emerging artist to jot down. You’ll want to hear mezzo-soprano Jennifer Rivera the first chance you get.

-- Mark Swed"

So it just goes to show - you really never know. Sometimes at 10 in the morning in a little auditorium on a college campus in upstate new york, you can sing a little arietta by Gilbert and Sullivan, and the critic from the L.A. Times might be in attendance. And he just might like you. Sometimes life is strange and wonderful.

The Barber of Berlin

So, I found this video on youtube - it's a teaser that shows scenes from the production of Barbiere at the Berlin Staatsoper that I will sing in next month:

I was pretty excited to find this. First of all, because it's always nice to have an idea of what you're in for before you arrive. Second, because it looks REALLY funny, and because it seems like Rosina gets to really flex her comedic muscles. And if you've read my blog during times when I was singing Rosina, you know that I, ahem, like to be a bit of a ham. I know I only have a few days of rehearsal, so you'd better believe I watched this video several times to try to be as prepared as possible. Then I felt compelled to go over the entire score, just to make sure I still remembered it. Having sung 6 productions, it turns out I know it pretty well. Go figure. FEE-GARO, FEE-GARO, FEEEEEEEEEE-GAAAAAAAA-ROOOOOOOOO! (Cue intro to Largo al Factotum or Bugs Bunny)......

Berkshires, baby

Warning: sometimes I find REALLY positive blogs about how everyone is SO WONDERFUL really saccharine and hard to take. If you're the same, you should probably skip this entry. Although, I have to say, the stuff I'm about to write is all TOTALLY TRUE!! Really - sometimes even I can see how nice things are!

This past weekend I sang my first Dido (as in Dido and Aeneas of Purcell) at the Berkshire Choral festival in Sheffield, MA. This is the third time I've had the pleasure of singing with the Berkshire Choral Festival, and I always really enjoy myself there. First of all, the Berkshires are beautiful.

Second of all, the Berkshire Choral Festival is basically a place where people who adore singing choral music pay to have a choral vacation - where they go to practice and perfect a piece, and the week culminates in their performance of the piece. Normally, when you sing a concert piece, the chorus is made up of paid singers, often times solo singers just waiting for their turn in the spotlight and singing a chorus gig to pay the bills or bide their time until they have the chance to move on. The BCF however is filled with people who just love singing in a chorus so much that this experience is a wonderful and fulfilling vacation for them, and their enthusiasm for music making is contagious. The feeling the night of the performance is so positive and filled with passion and love for music that you can't help but be filled with inspiration.

Third, the people are all so happy to be doing what they are doing, that they are all incredibly nice and supportive. In all three concerts I've sung there, I've never met a single person that was anything other than positive and lovely and kind. There is no "opera drama" or negativity of any kind ever. Just pure, unadulterated enjoyment of music. Who wouldn't want to be a part of something like that?

Fourth, everything I've sung there has been music I have loved outrageously a lot. First, I sang Bach there, second Mozart's Mass in C, and this time Purcell's Dido. The Queen of Carthage might be really sad, but she sings some awfully purty music, and nothing quite compares to the beauty of "When I am laid in earth" followed by the celestial chorus that finishes the opera. If only Dido wasn't constantly complaining about wanting to kill herself, I would have been smiling all night during the concert because I was really enjoying myself. Ah, the exquisite pain.

The lovely people at the festival gave me one of their giant cargo vans to drive around so I wouldn't be stranded in the rural Berkshires without transportation, and I really wanted to get a photo of myself at the wheel of the monster van, but I never found the right opportunity to stop someone and force them to take my photograph. However, if someone could have witnessed my attempting (and repeatedly failing) to try to parallel park the gigantic vehicle just before the concert with my hair and make-up coiffed just so, and practically falling out of the high driver's seat only to have my suitcase spill open and my extra full water bottle go rolling down the hill, they would have noted the extreme lack of glamour that can often actually accompany a singer on their way to a concert. Here I was getting ready to sing the role of the Queen, and I was busy sweating bullets as I furiously spun the steering wheel full right and then full left trying to 50 point turn the massive 12-seater into a spot before practically falling out onto the pavement.

But it was all worth it to get to make music with those smiling, engaged faces, and to get to pull my big van over to the side of the road to snap moments like this one just before the sun set.

It's time

For me to start blogging again.

How do I know? Because my facebook status updates have been getting so long, I'm ready to sell them to the New Yorker as short stories.

Seriously though, why have I barely been writing this summer? Well, I've been embroiled in something that I have wanted to wait to talk about until it was all completely settled. But I really don't know when the ultimate conclusion will come, so I have to just go on with my life at this point and see what happens. In the meantime, here's what's up with me:

I'm going to Berlin at the end of the month to make my debut with the Berlin Staatsoper as Rosina in Barbiere di Siviglia. Then I'll come back the the U.S for a couple of months for a Romeo and Juliette in New Orleans and a Messiah in Virginia, and will then return to Berlin to sing Nerone in a new production of Agrippina conducted by Rene Jacobs. I'm really excited about my entire season, but especially Berlin for many reasons. First of all, it's a big time european company, and I get to sing not one but two roles that I really like there (and that, thank god, I've sung before). Second, the new production of Agrippina allows me to work with somebody I REALLY admire - the former countertenor turned conductor Rene Jacobs. He is super famous - and with good reason. His interpretations of baroque and classical music are intelligent, refined, but also out of the box. Having been a singer himself, he brings a very vocal perspective to the podium - I don't know how else to describe it - and I really appreciate the finished product he comes up with. Now I get to be a part of creation of that product, and I'm really freaking thrilled about it.

I'm thrilled and excited knowing that I will be spending a lot of time in a city I've only heard amazing things about - Berlin - singing with a company that I always only dreamed I might one day be lucky enough to grace the stage of. I'm not ashamed to tell you that I cried tears of joy when I found out I had gotten the gig, and I won't soon forget the elation of that moment. Now it's up to me to live up to my own expectations and deliver the performances that I know I'm capable of. And also maybe utter a few intelligible words of german while I'm in Germany for 3 months. That second one might be a bit of a stretch.

A day in new york with a new toy

I got a new camera - a "real" camera - as an early birthday present from good ol' mom and dad. I took it outside to play with it today and it really got my creative juices flowing. Here are some scenes from a beautiful summer day in the city.

almost....

I'm almost ready to start posting again about career stuff. Things are ALMOST all worked out and squared away, and as soon as they are, I have a lot to tell you about. I'm just being a little cautious and superstitious about not posting anything until all the contracts are signed, emails are sent, tickets are bought and people are in agreement about things. I know, it sounds mysterious, but it will all become clear soon enough.

In the meantime, here is a funny story for you about how performers are always "on" even when they think they're not.

A few days ago, I went to see a performance at the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival of a play called "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare Abridged" which is a hilarious spoof on all the plays presented in just one evening of comedy filled theater. My parents and I went on a "date" with another singer friend of mine and her parents, and a good time was had by all. It was special to see this particular play because one of it's authors was actually in my dad's sixth grade class many years ago, and he had heard of the play but had never seen it. But I digress.

During the first half of the play, they present all of Shakespeare's plays in a hilarious and energetic frenzy, and they save the entire second half for Hamlet. There are only three actors, and one of them plays all the female roles. At one point, the other two actors are telling the one playing Ophelia that the role is quite simple and anybody could play it, and to demonstrate this, they pick an unsuspecting audience member to come up on stage and participate. And they picked me.

What was funny was that, as soon as I got up onto the stage and under the lights, I had a rush of adrenaline exactly the same as when I enter the stage to do an opera performance. Now, I knew intellectually that I wasn't going to have to do anything difficult or sing or anything, but I had this visceral response to the stage lights that I found really interesting. The only thing I had to do was let out a shriek when they said the line "get thee to a nunnery" and then be mercilessly teased by the guy who had been playing Ophelia - all part of the quite funny shtick. I did the scream once, and, as is part of the show, had the actor tell me my motivation was all off, my timing was wrong, that I didn't understand the essence of the character. I had to stifle the urge to go into a riff with him where I started improvising some return ribbing. At one point, when the other actors were working with the audience on their participatory part, he whispered to me, "you're not an actress, are you?" and I whispered back,"No, but I'm an opera singer." "Oh - the scream at the end will be great then!" he replied.

My final instruction was to let out a scream at the end of a big audience participation part, and as they prepared the audience, I wondered whether I should instead of screaming, sing a big high note and freak them all out. It seemed too perfect that they were asking me to do something so close to what I do normally (come on - how far is the walk from screaming to singing - not far.) In the end though, I rationalized that my "job" was to be a normal slightly embarrassed woman who was unexpectedly pulled on stage by actors. If I opera-fied it myself by singing, I wouldn't really be doing them any favors, and it would change the point of pulling a non-actor into the action. So I did my best imitation of a regular person screaming (while still protecting my vocal mechanism, of course), but I couldn't help adding in a little melt to the floor as I did it, such is my penchant for dramatic flair. They thanked me and I returned to my seat. It only took the rest of the play for my heart beat to return to normal and the adrenaline to drain out of me. Phew!

The play was wonderful and funny, and for anybody in the new york area, I highly recommend the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival. More soon about my life - I promise!!!

Blogcation

Wow - I have been on a major blog hiatus. I figured I'd better write something before 30 days went by with silence or the blog police might arrest me.

Why have I been so silent? Well, partly because I've basically been on vacation, and haven't had any interesting singing or traveling anecdotes to write about. But more than that, I think I've been waiting for certain things to work themselves out so I could make some big announcements about my upcoming schedule and how those upcoming things make me feel. Except all that "working out" is taking longer than I anticipated, so I kept waiting and didn't write.

The first big thing that happened was that I was supposed to go back to Poland for another performance, but it got cancelled. I won't go into more detail than that, except to say I was very disappointed because I was really looking forward to singing some more Lucrezia Borgia (I really grew to LOVE the music in that opera - so much so that I was going to all the rehearsals, even the ones I wasn't called to, just to listen to it some more), but also because I was excited to see all my Polish friends again. When a gig ends, it always hurts either a little or a lot, depending on how much you loved the gig. But saying goodbye to new friends is always a little painful, although I'm really used to it by now. This time, I didn't have to say goodbye, I only had to say "see you in a month" and I had big plans to bring fun american presents back to all the guys who were in my character's stage gang, and have my final hurrah in Warsaw. So that was sort of sad - and in fact the performance I was supposed to do was tonight, so it's fitting that I'm at least writing a blog entry to commemorate it.

All the issues with my upcoming schedule are taking time to iron themselves out, and I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that it will all work out for the best. I'll be very excited to announce what I'm doing and the circumstances that lead up to it as soon as I dot the i's and cross the t's.

In the meantime, I'm having a fun "staycation" here in new york, and finally catching up with friends I haven't seen all year. I can't quite believe how much I've been gone in the last year, and how long it's been since I've just been home and had some time to relax and decompress. Of course, with me, relaxation gets boring really quickly, so I'm busy finding projects to keep me feeling artistic and productive. But not too many, because once the schedule gets completed, I should be off and running again, and that's exactly how I like it.

Things change, Jo

This weekend, my best friend Georgia, who I have spoken of often in this blog, got married.

The title of my post refers to a line from Mark Adamo's opera "Little Women" which I've sung 4 times. I don't have any sisters, so when I sang Jo, I always thought about Georgia and how close I am to her to try to understand the character better. Jo is really upset at first that Meg, her closest sister, decides to get married. But she learns though the course of the opera that even though things change, sometimes change can be beautiful and special and wonderful. I have been learning that lesson in many situations in my own life, and I often quietly remind myself, "Things change, Jo". I'm so happy for Georgia and her new husband Micah, and I wanted to share with you all the speech I gave at the reception to honor this very special moment in their - and also in my - life. Here's the speech:

I have to admit I was dubious about Micah at the beginning. Here was my best friend – as close as a sister – who was always careful and measured about all her important decisions – announcing to me a few days after meeting Micah that she was going to marry him. I remember saying to her “Micah? That guy you met 5 minutes ago?” when she called me on her last day in New Orleans and told me they were going to be married. It turned out not to be the official proposal of course, just a declaration of their commitment to each other before they left the job they met on, but it still really freaked me out. I always imagined that of the two of us, the one to impulsively announce they were going to marry somebody they just met would definitely be me, not Georgia. But she said to me, “knowing me, and knowing how careful I am, don’t you think I must be pretty sure about this to make a decision like this?”

And so it was almost reluctantly that I met Micah for the first time. “This is all too fast, “ I grumbled to myself, “this can’t be the real thing.” Except that during the first five minutes of meeting Micah, and of seeing him and Georgia together, I knew she was right. She really had found her soul mate – the person put on this earth meant to “complete” her, if that’s not too much of a cliché. It was so obvious, just from that first meeting, that Micah was not only the person who could get along with, understand, and support Georgia like nobody else, but that the love the two of them felt for each other was incredibly special and deep – the kind of love that inspires the phrase “when you know, you know.” I remember noticing the way he was always checking to make sure that she was okay, and the way she listened to everything he said with intensity and affection. The way they supported each other without competing for attention, and the way they each gave the other the space needed to exist exactly as they were. Neither wanted the other to change. And that’s probably the closest definition I can come up with for true love, and for why people should marry each other; because they accept and love each other for their true authentic selves.

I’m sure part of the reason I was initially reluctant to believe that this connection between them was as deep as she said it was had to do with the fact that I worried that if she found a person who so understood and supported her, my role as best friend would somehow become obsolete. But what I have come to realize in knowing Georgia and Micah as a couple is that finding someone who so admires and supports you the way Micah does Georgia and Georgia does Micah, doesn’t take you away from your other relationships or change your need for other people. It just makes you more secure in who you are, and allows you to find an even deeper truth to how you love others. So if anything, meeting Micah has deepened Georgia’s ability to love, trust, and support and be supported, because his love for her gives her the confidence to believe more completely in herself. I think connections like theirs are rare and beautiful, and I’m so grateful that my dearest friend has found the person who is so clearly just exactly right.

more travel

I’m on a train on my way from Brussels to Stuttgart, where I will spend a couple of days on my way back to Warsaw just visiting some friends. The last couple of days haven’t been as crazy as the La Scala day, but I thought I would report on them nonetheless.

After my Scala audition I got on yet another train to Venice for an audition the following day at Teatro La Fenice. The trip was uneventful, and I stayed at the same hotel I had stayed at the year before, when I took the trip all the way to Venice, only to wake up the morning of the audition with a severe cold forcing me to cancel the audition. I tried not to focus too much on the fact that this audition was actually costing me double, so I’d better sing well.

When I arrived to the theater I discovered that there were 5 singers auditioning and one of them was an American I had worked with at City Opera. It’s always so funny to be in such a far flung place and see someone you know. The other funny thing about the audition was that all five of the singers sat in the theater and listened to each other audition, which I haven’t experienced before. But I was glad we had that opportunity because La Fenice is stunningly beautiful and it was nice to be inside there for an entire hour or so while everybody sang. I understand it was rebuilt because it burned down, although I don’t know the details about when. But it is exquisitely beautiful and seemed tiny to this American used to giant cavernous theaters. The colors were also really unusual, with a beautiful fresco on the ceiling and lots of turquoise sky colored paint on the boxes and walls.

The audition went well enough, although they asked me to start with my aria from Lucrezia Borgia, and it felt funny singing it suddenly without the staging and my buddies onstage singing the choruses. Afterwards I had lunch with my fellow American singer and had yet another chance encounter with another American friend.

I knew my friend James, who directed me in Barbiere in Tampa (and who I talk about in a previous post) was going to be in Italy with his family at some point, but I didn’t have any idea exactly when. But I posted something on facebook about how I was going to Venice, he noticed and wrote to me saying “I’m arriving in Venice Tuesday – will you still be there?” We emailed a bunch, and he was flying in and meeting his parents who were there for a vacation, and I had to leave and catch a train back to Torino where I was leaving early the next morning to go to Brussels. During the day we were emailing each other back and forth – his flight was delayed, my audition wasn’t over yet, etc (thank god for mobile phones that have email!!) and I kept saying “I don’t think it will work out for us to see each other unless somehow you’re near the train station when I’m leaving”. Venice is really difficult and slow to get around in because you have to take boats everywhere, and I don’t know any of the parts except the part where I get on and off the train and the part where the theater is located. But lo and behold, I emailed him when I was getting onto the Vaporetto (the water taxi that takes you do the different parts of the city) and he said, “we’re at the train station waiting for you!” So when the Vaporetto pulled into the station, there he was with his parents, waving at me. It turned out their hotel was only a short walk from the train station – che fortuna! Here was another case of seeing people you know completely out of context in a strange environment. I took a slightly later train and sat and had a pizza and sparkling water with him and his lovely parents (who I had met when they came to see the Barber in Tampa) and was off again on the train. How amazingly small the world is that here were three people that I hadn’t seen since December in Tampa, Florida, and now I was having a pizza with them looking out at the canals of Venice. Amazing.

I made it back to Torino, and then next morning it was off to Brussels bright and early. I was looking forward to seeing this new city that has several of my favorite things in it (chocolate, frites, beer, waffles – I could live on those things alone I think) and I was also happy to note that one of my colleagues from Warsaw was working there and so I would actually have someone to have a meal or two with instead of the usual days of solitude when I go to a city and do an audition (Venice was an exception!). However, as luck had it, he happened to be released from rehearsals for the exact same two days that I was in town, so he went back home to Italy for a little R&R, leaving me to explore Brussels all on my own.

I didn’t waste any time getting myself some frites and delicious Belgian beer, and did as much exploring as I could without wanting to over-tire myself before the audition. The audition the next day went well, and I met someone else I knew – or at least knew of – a colleague of my best friend Georgia’s whom she had worked with in Warsaw and who is Polish. I had plenty to chat about with him and I practiced all my polish swear words to keep myself distracted before the audition. After the audition I had moules and frites and more beer (I managed to splash something greasy all over my silk blouse) and off to bed to rest up for another day of travel. And now I’m on the thalys train to Germany to wrap my mind around yet another language.

Speaking of languages, I got to see exactly what shape my French was in during this little sojourn in Belgium, and while it’s not bad, I’m getting tired of always messing up words I KNOW by saying them in Italian with a French accent. I have studied far more French than Italian, and at one point could communicate relatively well in French. However, since Italian has taken over that second language spot in my brain, I have trouble thinking in French and what comes out when I try to speak is a jumble of words in several languages. My brain and my mouth don’t feel in synch, and a second later I can remember exactly how to say all of the words I have just jumbled, but by then I’ve already managed to disagree with the concierge in the hotel when he tells me I need to use my key in the elevator (I thought he was asking me if I needed an extra key), causing him to look at me strangely and switch to English. Ah, the dreaded switch to English. That’s when you know you really suck. If I’m feeling particularly prodigious, I will INSIST, “Non monsieur, s’il vous plait, en francais!” but usually I’m so deflated by the switch that I just say, “Yeah, okay, got it. Use key in elevator. Will do.”

On a final note, today is my Dad’s birthday. Always being on the road, I miss being with my family on a lot of holidays, and I really appreciate the fact that they never ever expect anything from me other than living my dreams. They encouraged me to go to college on the other coast, to come to europe to do auditions, to be wherever my dreams might take me. Pretty amazing, isn’t it? I definitely lucked out in the parental department, and for that I'm very grateful. Happy Birthday, Dad!

Getting to La Scala

Today was to be my audition at La Scala.

I had scheduled the day rather tightly - I was planning on waking up promptly at 8 AM, in order to make it onto a 9:25 AM train, to arrive in Milan at 11:20, to rehearse with the pianist at noon for a 1PM audition. But I figured with all the running around maybe I wouldn't have a chance to get too nervous about singing an audition at LA SCALA and that might be a good thing.

I woke up on time, and took maybe a few minutes more to get ready than I had anticipated, but the thing I hadn't planned on was the traffic in Torino. They close the main street for some reason, and there were a couple of accidents slowing things down, and I didn't arrive at the train station until about 9:24. I ran like a crazy person for the train (in my heels) and just as I arrived at the track, I saw the train pulling away. No biggie, I thought, this is Torino to Milano - a very popular route - there will be another train in about 20 minutes. So I went to the biglietteria and was informed that the next train for Milan left at 11:18 and arrived at 12:40 in Milan. At first I didn't believe the guy behind the counter, and when he turned his computer around to show me the schedule I almost started crying. My audition was supposed to be at 1:00 in Milan - was I really going to have to cancel the whole thing because I arrived at the train station one minute late? I decided better late than never, changed my ticket, had my friend Vincenzo call the theater and explain what was going on, and that I would just have to make a run for it when I got there. The problem was that a) now I wouldn't get to rehearse with the pianist and b) now I probably wouldn't have time or a place to warm up.

I was pacing around the Torino train station waiting for the next train to leave when I thought about the fact that Italians are really nice and supportive of opera singers. I went back to the nice man who had changed my ticket, and asked as sweetly as I could if there was maybe a small room I could warm up in because you see, I'm an opera singer, and I have an audition today at LA SCALA and now, because I missed the train, I wouldn't have time to warm up!! And he said he couldn't help me, but I should try the passenger help desk around the corner.

So I made my way to that office thinking, well, this is probably kind of a long shot, but it's worth a try. I told the story to the nice lady behind the counter, emphasizing LA SCALA and MUST WARM UP THE VOICE, and surprisingly, she took pity on me. She took me around the corner to the eurostar lounge (like the business class lounge at the airport) but it was all open to the rest of the offices and I explained, "but it will be very loud" and grinned at her sheepishly. She explained the situation to the eurostar lounge hostess, who suggested I use the bathroom because there are a couple of sets of doors between the inside and the outside. So I gratefully made my way into the stall with the toilet, shut the door, pulled out my little casio keyboard, and sang full out for about 10 minutes until I felt a little more like a singer again. I thanked the eurostar lady profusely and made my way to my train.

I got into Milan Central train station at about 12:45 and hopped in a taxi hoping for the best. I arrived at the artists entrance just about 1:10, and eventually found my way to the floor with the offices. They put me in a (beautifully appointed) dressing room for about 5 minutes - just enough time to use the bathroom and sing a few scales, and then ushered me to the stage. OF LA SCALA. I waited for the guy who was singing to finish La Calunia, and then it was my turn. A few more steps and there I was, on the stage of LA SCALA, looking at that famous facade of beautiful red and gold boxes and seats. I handed the pianist my binder of music and he took it while looking at me quizically like "who the hell are you? I rehearsed with all the singers, I thought.." but I just opened it to Parto Parto and apologized for missing the rehearsal. "Okay," he told me in italian, " but stand close to the piano so I can hear you since we didn't rehearse" (it was a little upright on stage right). So I sang Parto Parto, and it went remarkably well. Then they asked for Una voce poco fa, which also went quite well. I had absolutely no opportunity to get nervous or to psych myself out about the fact that I was singing on the stage of LA SCALA, and so I was completely relaxed and actually enjoying myself, taking time with the parts I liked and playing with dynamics and phrasing. It was actually the most relaxed I've been in an audition in awhile.

I have no idea what will come of the audition, but for now, I'm really content with how it went and the fact that I at least once in my life sang on the stage of La Scala. When I analyze why I wasn't more careful about planning and taking an earlier train and leaving plenty of extra time to get to the station, I have to guess that I was trying to be as normal and easy going as possible about the whole endeavor so as not to freak myself out about a big audition, and it kind of worked. I was too busy dealing with the details of travel to get all worked up and nervous, and I was actually able to just sing and enjoy myself. Would I recommend this strategy? Not exactly, because I could have totally missed the audition, and had they asked for something I didn't know as well as Parto or Una Voce, it might have been difficult without a rehearsal with the pianist. Plus it's just irresponsible to miss trains and arrive places late. But in general, I think it might actually be a good rule to live by - just normalize your life around your opera commitments, and they will be easier and more fun and less of A BIG DEAL. BUT don't expect the officials in every train station in every country to let you warm up in their lounge bathrooms - it takes italians to understand the importance of an opera singer on a mission.

(not so) triumphant return to Italy

For the past month in Warsaw - nay - for the past year in the world at large, I have done little other than to sing the praises of everything Italian. Obviously a lot of my blog entries from last year were love letters to my new favorite place, and since then I have found it difficult to meet a new italian person without attacking them with love for their country. I think sometimes they want to say, "um, yeah, I know you like it. It's really nice there. CAN WE TALK ABOUT SOMETHING ELSE PLEASE?" And the thing I seem to talk about almost more than anything else is the food - the quality of the ingredients, the care in preparation, etc etc ad naseum. So you can imagine my horror and everyone else's hysterical laughter at the cruel irony when my first night back in italy I spent the entire night puking my guts out from some weird food poisoning.

I arrived on Sunday ready to eat (if I had mentioned to my italian colleagues in Warsaw one more time how much I was looking forward to eating gelato, they might have politely punched me in the face) and went almost immediately to a restaurant that I frequented a lot when I was here before and that I loved. There was one particular dish of calamari and shrimps cooked in this white wine that I had been dreaming about for the entire year. I gorged myself to capacity, then added two scoops of Gelato from Grom to my already full stomach, before coming back to my friend's house to get some much needed sleep.

Except. At 3 in the morning I awoke not feeling so good. I want to spare you the details, but suffice it to say that a) I ended up bringing my pillow into the bathroom and just resting when I wasn't throwing up because I was too sick to go all the way back to my room until about 8 in the morning, and b) I have never, ever thrown up so much in my life. I spent the entire next day in a strange delirium with a fever of about 100 degrees, and could only seem to drink red gatorade because everything else made me feel sick again - even plain water. By the following day my fever had subsided, but it took several more days for my stomach to feel normal again, and even now, almost a week later, I'm still feeling a little weird. I don't know if it's because of this little incident, but I've been grumpy with the former love of my life country this time around, muttering to myself when the stores aren't open, or wondering why I can't buy shampoo anywhere in this town on a frigging sunday. We need to make up, Italy and I, because I can't have this experience ruining my pure and eternal love for all things italian. It's just wrong to mess with something that beautiful and pure.

Being in Italy again has also been making me wonder why I haven't been blogging more regularly recently. I've had the occasion to talk about blogging with a few people here who have encouraged my writing, and I was explaining how being so "myself" in a public forum scares me sometimes. There are days when I'm confident and proud of who I am, and when I want to share how I feel and what I think with the world at large, and then there are days when I feel like an ignorant dumb-dumb, and I want to try to do everything possible to prevent anybody from knowing about it. I fluctuate between wanting to blog every day about my most intimate feelings, and wanting to never blog again, close my facebook account, and delete the letters g,o,o,g,l and e from my computer altogether. But in the end, the thing I value most about the internet is probably the fact that it connects me to people - both friends and family that I need to have as my support system when I'm always on the road, and also a whole world of strangers who do and say and feel the same way that I do about a lot of things, and who want to feel that mysterious human connection of knowing that you're both always and never alone. I guess in the end the idea that life is too short to fill it with doubt and regret wins out, and I drag myself back to the keyboard to analyze yet another element of my delicate psyche. Or to talk about puking. Both things resonate.

Warsaw wrap-up

above: just one of the guys

I’m sitting in the Warsaw airport nearly two hours before my short flight to Torino is set to depart, so I have plenty of time to write a wrap up of my experiences in Warsaw.

First, a few thoughts from the performance side of things. The performances both went well, although, as often happens, the second performance was better for me than the first. Not only did I have the hindsight of knowing how I felt in the first performance, I also had the extreme advantage of being able to watch a dvd of the first performance, and this gave me great insight into things I wanted to do differently. I feel like opera performances rarely get put onto video (except maybe an archival video where you can’t see anything) and so I don’t get to watch what I’m doing physically that often. Watching this video was a real eye-opener for me about some things I was doing unconsciously with my body that I really needed to correct. I was making all kinds of extraneous movements that were not adding anything to the drama, and to my eye just looked weird. In the first aria, when I was standing still, I noticed that I was rocking back and forth on my feet a lot (I think I do it to try to feel my grounding and to eliminate tension – but it’s totally and completely unconscious) and it was very distracting. During the duet and the second aria, I was unconsciously swinging my arms way too much– also distracting. During the second performance I was able to focus on tranquility of the body, and I think it made a huge difference. This lesson goes right along with the one I learned during Cenerentola about how unconscious body habits (like lifting my shoulders) can have negative effects on both vocal production and dramatic effectiveness. I wish I could have a dvd of every performance to try to correct any weird body things I might be doing – but since I probably won’t, I will just have to be vigilant about my body in a way I haven’t up til now. I think it will be a great tool in fact, for when I’m feeling nervous or not centered – to focus on relaxing the body and staying still and tranquil. If 2008 was a year where I learned a lot about my voice, 2009 is proving to be a year where I learn a lot about how my body and movements affect my singing.

Now for some general thoughts about the experience of working in Warsaw: In a nutshell, I had a great time! I liked the people I was working with so very much – I am sad to leave them and to say goodbye. At first I thought it was going to be bizarre to come back to Warsaw in June for just one performance, but I’m so glad now that I didn’t actually have to say goodbye, and could just say see you later to everyone. I don’t know if most opera singers are incredibly nice, or if I’ve just been really lucky, but it seems like so many of the gigs I’ve had in recent memory have been extremely enjoyable because of the people I’ve had the opportunity to meet. There aren’t too many professions that allow you to constantly meet new and interesting people with whom you have a great deal in common, and this is something I really treasure about this job. And the people on this gig were particularly nice and supportive which made the time fly by.

And now I’m on my way to Italy, where I will rest a bit before having a bunch of auditions in various countries and cities. I’m salivating already at the thought of my first gelato.

War Wounds

Often when I play pants roles, I end up with mild injuries. Usually they are bruises on my knees from all the kneeling that inevitably occurs, and sometimes I pull muscles in my neck and back from running around like a teenager. In this production of Lucrezia Borgia, I have incurred some injuries which are completely mysterious to me. I have these two bruises on the back of my thigh, and I have absolutely no idea how they got there. I know they occured during my two dress rehearsals, but I don't know how I got them. I spent the next couple of rehearsals watching the other Orsini to see if any of her positions looked "bruisey" but they didn't. But these are serious bruises, so you'd think I'd remember getting them. However, I have absolutely no idea where they came from - my best guess is either from sitting backwards in a chair and swinging myself around too furiously or from leaning too vigorously against either a spiral staircase or a bed frame. But I still can't pinpoint the actual moment, so I may incur yet another beauty during one of the remaining performances. I think something might be seriously wrong with me that I can bruise like this and not notice.

opening - some thoughts

Last night was my first performance here in Warsaw of Orsini in Lucrezia Borgia - and my first performance ever of this role. It was sort of a strange night. While it was the first performance for me and the soprano, everyone else in the cast was singing their second performance, and second performances always have a different energy than firsts, so this was funny to begin with. The other weird thing was that because of the schedule, my dress rehearsal had been 4 days before and with the other tenor, so I hadn't rehearsed with this tenor in a week, and never with the full set (which made a big difference acoustically in our duet). So, there were factors to be dealt with. And in fact, I dealt with them fine for the most part in the first two acts and everything for me went pretty well.

But then, after the beginning of the second Act, I don't come on again until the beginning of the third act, and with the long intermissions they take here, there was about an hour between when I left and came on again - maybe an hour and a half even. So by the time I got back onstage for the last act, which was my biggest part in the opera, I felt kind of weird. Tired, but nervous, and kind of out of it somehow. I remember standing backstage and feeling really strange and thinking to myself, "I hope I don't have swine flu or something." The duet was fine but it kind of exhausted me, so when I got onstage for the last scene I didn't really feel centered. It's interesting - I really think that roles where you stay onstage for most of the opera are far easier than roles where you have to go away for a long time and come back - I tend to have such a great deal of energy on the stage that when I have to wait a long time in between scenes, it's difficult for me to keep it up. Especially in this situation where I have the first aria of the show, and then the bulk of the rest of my role comes at the end of the opera.

So anyway, when we got to the final scene, I think I was fighting against this lull in energy I was feeling, so I was doing way more physically than I should have, or than I needed to and actually wasting my good energy. By the time we got to my aria, my breathing was quite high and I just didn't feel like I could get centered on anything - on my voice, on my interpretation - it just felt like I was kind of flailing around and circling around the right feeling but not landing on it. Of course, there was plenty of muscle memory, and no one in the audience would have known anything was wrong unless they had seen me sing the aria before, and then maybe they would have heard me do it better. But I still felt annoyed that I couldn't get centered enough to make it what I wanted to. I find that in those situations usually not that many people can tell the difference between your good nights and your bad nights, but it's not as fun to sing and perform when you don't feel in absolute control because then you can't play as much.

It's always a learning process, this job. I know for the next performances that I can't expend so much physical energy in the scene right before my aria, and that I really have to stay focused in the lead up to the aria so I can do everything I want with it. This is probably something I needed to do a performance of the role to learn because my energy is often so different with an audience, and I'm glad I figured it out. When I came out and bowed I got a lot more applause and cheering than I was expecting based on a) how I thought I did and b) the fact that I didn't know a soul in the theater - but I couldn't help but wanting to tell them all to come back because I know it will be better next time. But I guess that's the beauty of live theater - you never know what you're gonna get.

Boo-nanza

I have never participated in a production where there was booing during the curtain call - in fact, I've never even been in the theater to witness booing - until tonight. Tonight was the premiere of Lucrezia Borgia here in Warsaw (I was in the audience as I'm singing the "second premiere" as they call it here) and the show, in my estimate went extremely well. The audience seemed responsive at the end of the first and second acts, and the singers all sang very well. It was my first time seeing the production in it's complete form, and I thought it was very effective and beautiful. All of the singers and the conductor came onto the stage to receive hearty ovations from the public, but when the director entered, there was an eruption of boos coming from all parts of the theater. I was a more than a little shocked to experience this - I mean, it was loud and it was serious - especially after everything seemed to work so well.

This production definitely had a lot of elements added to it that could be considered shocking to some people; it was updated to 1930's fascist Italy, two male characters are played as gay and have a duet which takes place on a bed and involves kissing (even though one of the characters is played by a woman), there is a scene where all the men gather around Lucrezia and simulate urinating on her to punish her for having killed members of their families, and a few other moments that weren't directly in the libretto. But when I watched it tonight as an audience member, I felt that all the dramatic and shocking elements really worked with the libretto, and that it made for a very captivating evening of theater. So I was pretty shocked when the booing started.

After the performance, someone told me that an audience member explained to them that the booing was completely a reaction to the homosexual kissing - that was apparently the only thing that was offensive enough to make people boo. Really? Even when one the people doing the kissing was obviously a woman? Even when the libretto makes it pretty clear that the two guys had something going on? Even in 2009??? But apparently, it was too much for this audience. On the one hand, it's too bad this had to happen because it kind of marred an otherwise very successful premiere, but at the same time, I have to admit that I find it exciting when an audience is passionate enough about the opera to react in a way that is so extreme, even when I don't agree with their opinion.