Saturday night was our first performance, the Eröffnungsgala. It was an evening of opera scenes, arias, and some solo orchestra stuff. My part was singing Frasquita in the Carmen Card Trio and in the Toreador Song. We also ended the evening with Vaughn Williams’ Serenade to Music, which is apparently a tradition here. For those of you that know the piece, I had the first and last female solo, “…of sweet harmony.” Well, it was an interesting and eventually successful evening, but I’ll start at the beginning.
I shared a huge dressing room with three other ladies, and I was told before I got there that we would be getting our hair and makeup done. (We also have dressers, so the one time I tried to be helpful by zipping up someone else’s dress, I was pushed out of the way so the dresser could do her job. Fair enough.) After putting curlers in another singer’s hair, one of the makeup/hair ladies came over to me and asked what I wanted done with mine. I basically told her to work her magic and do whatever she wanted. For about three minutes, she brushed my hair with a curling brush, then tucked it behind my ears and put in a little hairspray. Looked EXACTLY like it does every day I show up to rehearsal. Then she did my makeup, which looked lovely. After she left the room, I started teasing my hair and spraying it to make it actually look like I was about to perform. I will most definitely do my own hair next time!
Next interesting moment. We’re all backstage waiting for the cue to enter for Toreador. Gerlinde, our director for Zauberflötchen, was acting as stage manager for the evening. She told us to get ready to go, and I’m first out, so I’m trying to pay attention. My friend Heidi is on stage bowing to thunderous applause for her aria, and as she goes offstage, I hear Gerlinde say “Go go go!” So I go go go, and from the other side of the stage, Heidi is coming back for her second bow, at which point I turn around and go back offstage. And Gerlinde says, “I said ‘No don’t go!’” Yeah, well, between the German accent and the rhyming English words no, don’t, and go, and her standing behind the four of us instead of at the front like a normal stage manager, I ended up making my debut entrance with Deutsche Oper Berlin at completely the wrong time. Anyway, I figured that since I messed up before my actual singing, the singing would be glitch-free, and it was! Both Carmen numbers were terrific, the audiences out here are so enthusiastic and after the Serenade we came out for about six bows, and Kirsten Harms, the Intendant (basically, the lady who runs the place) came up to me afterwards and said she really liked me.
And there we have it! I’ve made my debut, and I think it was a success! My official debut with the company in a full role will be as Königin der Nacht in the middle of October, and before then I have a few performances of Königin in the little Magic Flute for kids, and my big trip to China (still haven’t finished learning Sophie in Rosenkavalier, but that’s what random days off are for).
Just to let you know, my internet is spotty at best, and hasn’t been working so much lately, so if you email me and I don’t reply, or if I’m not on Skype, there’s a good reason.
Have a great day!
No comments:
Post a Comment