October 25, 2008

End of China and beginning of Königin der Nacht

Temple of Heaven
Scary looking Buddha on display
I only burned a little film.
Beats me.
And I did.
Panda!
Look closely, it's another baby butt!
We decided not to take the pleasure boat.

Well, I'm back in Berlin. The last couple of days in China went well. I didn't have to perform so I basically had the days free. The highlights were the Temple of Heaven, the Beijing Zoo where I got to see the pandas, a fun artsy shopping street, and on the last night, I shared another duck with my friend Stephanie. After the first roast duck, I didn't think it was possible for one to be better, but this one put the first duck to shame. We went to a place off the beaten track that I had read was amazing. It was a beautiful little restaurant, and you could see the oven in back with the ducks hanging and the fat dripping off. This place made its own hoisin sauce for dipping, which I could have drunk straight from the dish. The duck was perfect. Juicy and tender, not one bit of fat anywhere, and the crispiest melt-in-your-mouth skin possible. The waiter who carved it really got every bit of meat off, unlike the other place where we pretty much just got the breasts and the rest went back into the kitchen for someone else's meal. I will definitely miss Peking duck, fresh dumplings, and most of the rest of real Chinese food.

My schedule has been super light since I came back. The big thing that's happened, of course, is my real debut in a non-children's opera. Last Friday, I sang Königin der Nacht in the main production of Die Zauberflöte. Now, let me tell you how things happen around here. When a new singer enters an old production, they don't particularly rehearse. I received two rehearsals for Königin. One was about 20 minutes long, and was about four weeks ago. The other one was two days before the show, about 15 minutes worth. At my first rehearsal, I had the Pamina there, but no one else, and we of course weren't on the stage. Second rehearsal, I had Pamina and Tamino, which was better, so my arias felt slightly normal. I was told what would happen in the final scene, but never got to walk through it. Never got to wear the costume, never got to use the props, never got to see the stage. Well, the night of the show rolled around, and I felt fairly confident about the staging. I was a little nervous about the first aria, since I start by running from the back of the stage to the front, and I am followed by a number of girls in mini black dresses carrying a huge piece of black silk that covers the stage. I'm supposed to grab the knife that's stuck in the floor, collapse, and this piece of silk is brought over me and I grab it and put it around my neck like a big cape. It's a cool effect. Second aria, pretty easy staging, final scene, I figured nothing could go too wrong.

Well, here's how it went down. First off, I put on the 4-inch heels I was supposed to be running in, and I tried to run. They fell off. I got the costumer, who added some heel pads so they'd stay on. I still didn't feel so great about wearing them. Then, I put on the costume, and never in my life have I smelled riper armpits. I tried not to think about it. I was pre-set for the first aria, and ready to run. Somehow the shoes stayed on, but once I collapsed at the front of the stage, I could not for the life of me find the front end of the silk. I finally got it right in time to sing my first line. Not bad. Then the trouble started. The dress (sorry I don't have pictures, I completely forgot) is a long straight dress with about a four foot train. The bottom is wide enough to walk easily, but when you're collapsed on the floor and have to get up, it's not an easy event. My staging was to get up and sit on a chair that was about a foot to the left of me. I had such a hard time getting up! I kept stepping on the dress, or a shoe would get caught in it, and I was afraid that the shoes would just come off entirely. So I kept struggling until I finally made it onto the chair. I was fine for a while, until I had to stand on the chair, which I was hoping wouldn't require hiking my dress up too far, but it did. I almost made it on the chair at the right time. The one part that went perfectly was my stabbing of the life-size picture of Pamina. I think I was getting out my frustration at the costume and the shoes. OK, so the second aria was much better. I again had a hard time getting from the floor to standing, but the tripping was minimal. Then came the final scene. The stage for the show has an extra piece that is in front of the orchestra, it's about a three or four foot wide path. I waited with Monostatos and the Three Ladies in the pit for our entrance. I made it to the middle of the path with not much of a problem (besides hitting my head when I came up the stairs to the pit, oops). While we're singing, the Second Lady hands me a rifle. When the lightning and thunder happen, we all put our guns down and walk to the side. Well, having never done this before, I figured, I'm walking to the left, I'll put my gun down to the right so I don't have to step over it. Good thinking, until I stood up and realized that my gun was on the train of my dress. I was petrified! I didn't know what to do, so I just walked, hoping it wouldn't fall either a) into the pit and kill the conductor or b) fall into the audience and kill whatever rich old person was sitting in the front row. Well, God must have taken pity on me, because the rifle gently rolled off my train and into place on the stage. And that was it! My big debut! I guess you're probably wondering how the singing went. I hit all the right notes at the right time, and according to a couple friends in the audience, the crowd went crazy after Der Hölle Rache, which I totally nailed. All in all, I think it was a success, and I can't wait to do it again now that I have a better idea of how things work. And I will definitely be switching out their shoes for my shoes, whether they like it or not.

Sadly, my Staatsoper gig didn't come through. I came back from China, and a week later received an email that they needed to record earlier than they thought, so they had to hire another singer. Oh well. At least they know I'm around and can hit the high notes, so maybe they'll call me again in the future. I also almost lucked into singing Königin der Nacht at the Komische Oper Berlin last Saturday night. Their Königin was sick, and I got notification right before Friday's debut asking if I was available. They called the next morning saying that they had found another replacement who had already done the production. Maybe next time!

Coming up for me is another Zauberflöte on Nov. 4, rehearsals for the new production of Tannhäuser (which I don't sing until May), and Cunning Little Vixen in December. I'll make sure I take some pictures next time!

October 8, 2008

Mind the Hilly Road











Yeah, so rather than another long post you probably don't have time to read, I figured I'd keep it shorter and write about just a few days. Lots of exciting stuff to see! And lots of exciting menus to read. And the pictures are:

  1. Sign seen in many places at the Summer Palace, it's very hilly there
  2. Tower of Buddhist Incense at the Summer Palace
  3. One of the many decorated ceilings at the Summer Palace
  4. Dancers on the Great Stage at the Summer Palace
  5. Me on the Great Wall
  6. The path I walked all the way up to the top
  7. From the menu at the Hutong restaurant
  8. We ordered the first dumpling listed, can you tell what it's made out of?
  9. An item at the dumpling place we thought it was wise to stay away from

Day 8:

On Monday, we went to the Summer Palace, which is very similar in look to the Forbidden City, but more spaced out and with fewer tourists since National Week is over. I think we were there for about five hours, walking up lots of steps to nowhere, and seeing beautiful Chinese buildings. There is a little shopping street on a section of the river on the grounds of the Summer Palace, and one of the booths had a man playing various Chinese flutes and other instruments. We stopped over, and he let us try the instruments, and I played a pretty mean Frere Jacques. I ended up purchasing a beautiful little instrument that translates to Oriental Magic Flute (how appropriate for a Queen of the Night!). It looks like a small tear-shaped vase, and sounds like a low pan flute. It will be beautiful to display, and something I can’t really get anywhere else.

Day 9:

I had  no one around in the morning to do anything with on Tuesday, so I explored a bit on my own. I went to the ultra-touristy Silk Market, a huge six-story building with hundreds of vendors trying to sell you knock-off clothes, silk scarves, tablecloths, chopsticks, freshwater pearls, everything you can imagine. When you walk down an aisle, the vendors grab at your clothing trying to get you to look at their wares. As you walk away, the prices shouted at you get lower and lower. The whole experience has a bit of a dizzying effect on you.

After I got back, I met up with a friend, and we got lunch in the Hutongs where we had been before. We also did some shopping at a handmade pottery store, where the items are made out of purple clay, a type of clay only found in southern China. We both bought a number of items, they were very inexpensive and absolutely beautifully made and colored.

Day 10:

Today was the big day – the Berlin Wall and Grant’s Tomb. I mean, the Great Wall and the Ming Tombs. We went to the Badaling (not Badabing, but it helps me remember the name) section of the Great Wall, which could also be called the Great Wall of a Thousand Steps and Steep Slopes. This is the major tourist section. You start at a low point in the middle, and can either go left or right up the wall. We went left, because it looked like there were fewer tourists going left. Probably because the left side was the extra steep side. We went as far as we could go, and despite having to pull ourselves up via the handrail at times, and climbing hundreds of stairs, it was an unbelievable experience. We ended up having time to walk halfway up the right side, also, but were happy to let our uncontrollably shaking legs rest on the bus afterwards.

The Ming Tombs were another story. Talk about boring and waste of time. We were given two hours until we had to go on the bus again, and basically, there’s one building. You walk down to the depths, look at the 13 tombs of the Emperors and Empresses of the Ming Dynasty, and walk back up and wonder what you’re going to do for the next hour and a half. So we sat on cute little stone elephants and waited for the clock to move.

Once home, and starving, I went back to the dumpling place I had been earlier in my trip with a friend, and ordered six different types of dumplings I hadn’t tried before. All delicious. 36 dumplings plus tea cost 46 yuan, or about six dollars. And that includes the price of looking at the funniest menu we’ve come to so far. We actually ordered a dumpling, and had no clue what some of the ingredients were because the Engrish was so bad. Tasted good though!

So the amusing part of my day was that I had heard that there weren't any bathrooms with toilets at the Great Wall, so I tried to not drink much water so I could avoid standing over a hole in the ground. After climbing for almost two hours, I figured I’d at least look at the bathroom, and it turned out there was a whole row of stalls with toilets. Well, after I got home, I drank a ton of water to make up for earlier, and after our first round of dumplings, I really had to use the bathroom, which of course ended up being a hole in the ground. D’oh! I’m going to try to avoid those for the next few days, but I sure was kicking myself for not drinking more water while up on the Wall!

On tap for my last two days: Temple of Heaven, Lama Temple, Confucius Temple, $5 massage, maybe the Beijing Zoo if I can talk anyone into it, but probably not.

October 4, 2008

Welcome to Beijing, would you like a side of smog with that?






I have been in Beijing about one week now, and I have to say, things have been getting more exciting and delicious each day! I was thinking about just posting after I get back to Berlin, but that would be one really long blog post, and no one would actually get through it. So I'll break it up into two posts, and hopefully you'll get through this first one. I'm going to go by day, since it's the easiest way to do it. And just in case you're curious, the pictures are as follows (wish I could put them at the end, but that's not an option):

  1. Inside the Forbidden City
  2. Best laugh I've had in forever
  3. Olympic figurines in Tiananmen Square
  4. Forbidden City Concert Hall stage
  5. Bugs on sticks ready for cooking

Day 1:

The first day was a day of ups and downs for me. For the trip from Munich to Beijing, I managed to score a bulkhead exit row aisle seat, thanks to two non-English speaking Asians who were kicked out of the exit row in front of me. Watched two movies, took a sleeping pill with some sparkling wine, and slept for about 4 hours. There was a little card we had to fill out for entering China, and the start of my small yet annoying troubles began. Pulled out my pen, which had apparently exploded on the plane, so I ended up with a hand full of black ink. Breakfast came, and despite my best efforts, upon opening my yogurt, it too exploded and was all over the front of my shirt. Fine. Left the plane, and saw a woman holding a sign with six names on it of opera folks, thought it was some sort of special treatment, and found out that our luggage never left Berlin. Luckily, I’ve had luggage lost before and have become excellent at packing my carry-on bags just in case I’m stuck without my big suitcase. Still, really annoying. Once we gave our info to the Lost and Found, we walked out of baggage claim, and there were signs welcoming the orchestra and some of the higher ups (director, stage manager types), there was no sign for the soloists/singers. We ended up on the bus with the orchestra, which took forever to leave, and when we arrived at the Swissôtel Beijing, we were pulled aside, told that a mistake was made, and that we were supposed to have been in an Audi that was there to pick us up, and they seemed mad that we hadn't taken the right car.

I wandered around with two other singers for a bit in the neighborhood around the hotel, got lunch by pointing at pictures on a menu (which seems to be the thing here), everything was very good and inexpensive, and came back to the hotel, where I proceeded to smash two of my fingers in the sliding bathroom door. Went downstairs bleeding and cursing, and was especially unhappy that I had to purchase bandaids, that the concierge didn’t have a couple sitting around. This bathroom door the real version of a Chinese finger trap – the place where you put your fingers to slide the door ends up underneath the wall on the other side, and you just can’t see it coming until you have two bloody fingers that you can’t bend anymore. It’s dangerous!

The concierge, besides not having bandaids, is completely useless. We asked him where to find restaurants within walking distance, and he gave us completely wrong directions on our map. I asked if there was a place he recommended, he just said that there were lots of places. We eventually got dinner after wandering around for a while, and three of us ate a ton of food for roughly $3 a person at what looked like your standard Chinese take-out place with a few tables. Ordering was very frustrating since we were given one menu about 20 pages long with pictures, and the waitress hovered over us from the beginning until we finally ordered, and then seemed annoyed that we had taken so long. I kept trying to order hot and sour soup, and every time I pointed at the picture, she pointed at the soup above it that I didn’t want. This happened about 10 times maybe, and I still have no clue why she kept doing that! She finally brought another waitress over, and I pointed at the hot and sour soup, and she didn’t have any problem with it. Each soup ended up being enough for about 6 people, so maybe she was trying to tell us to share one, but we ended up eating almost everything we ordered.  

Day 2:

We decided since this was a completely free day, that we should go to the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square. This is a holiday week for China (October 1 was National Day, the anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China) so Beijing was and still is packed with people, and walking through the Forbidden City was slightly insane. The Chinese are very pushy, and will literally shove you and push you out of the way to get in front of you. There were a few things we just couldn't see because we couldn't push ourselves to the front of the line. The architecture is incredible to look at, and there is so much to see. When we finally decided it was time to use a bathroom, we noticed that the public restrooms had a four star rating! That doesn't include toilet paper or cleanliness, however, it did include a toilet seat, which you can't find in too many places around here. The best part of the day was seeing a little boy sitting on his father's shoulders, and the back of his pants had come undone (for families that can't afford diapers, they have children's pants that open in the back). So his butt was hanging out of his pants and it was the funniest thing I've ever seen.

Tiananmen Square is right at the south entrance of the Forbidden City, and it was still decorated for the Olympics, and also being decorated more for the holiday. Lots of gorgeous flower arrangements. In the evening, we went to a dumpling house I found online, and four of us ate 42 dumplings, three main dishes, a bottle of Coke, and tea for about $4.50 a person. Each set of six dumplings was about 90¢. Can't beat that!

Day 3:

Not too much excitement, just rehearsals for Rosenkavalier, and a rehearsal for our opening concert in the middle of the day. Didn't leave us much time for exploring.

Day 4:

This was the most exciting day for me, the day of the opening concert in the Forbidden City. We started with a rehearsal in the concert hall, which is small, but lovely. When we got there, workers were arranging hundreds of yellow and red roses in front of the stage, which looked beautiful. I sang my aria (Adele's second aria from Fledermaus) twice with the orchestra, and felt ready for the evening. We had a big late lunch at a restaurant a friend had recommended to me called Ajisen Ramen, and the food was great. Then we were told that there was a reception before the concert that we had to attend, so I ended up eating more food there even though I was already stuffed.

The concert was amazing. I sang my aria in the middle of the second half. When I went backstage, I asked the stage manager if singers were going out for a second bow after their arias, and was told no. Well, I sang, I nailed the high D at the end, and the crowd erupted in bravos and whistles. When I exited the stage, they kept on clapping, and I got to take a second bow! I felt so good!!! They loved the Rigoletto Quartet too, which was the first of three planned encores.

After the show, we were invited to a very exclusive members-only club called LAN. We were taken into one of the private rooms behind a curtain and given a seven course Chinese meal. The most interesting part was a piece of soft bamboo that had the most delicate flavor and texture, over some mustard greens. I wasn't even hungry, but managed to eat most of everything, including a couple glasses of champagne (of course) and numerous refills of a very good red wine. The next morning I felt like someone had punched me in the stomach all night. I think it was just sore from eating too much all day!

Day 5:

On the fifth day was the first performance of Rosenkavalier, and Sophie didn't get sick, so no performing for me. During the day we visited the Yashow Market, where you can go to a silk store and have traditional Chinese (or normal) clothing custom made for you. I decided to order a thigh-length jacket with 3/4 length sleeves out of a gorgeous off-white silk with a delicate silver and light pink flower pattern. It'll be ready to pick up on Tuesday. I also bought a few souvenirs and gifts, after spending what seemed like forever bargaining the price down. The funniest part was that when I was buying my second group of items, I ran out of money, so the girl at the shop told me to give her 80 Yuan then, and bring her the other 70 on Sunday when I told her I was coming back for my jacket fitting. Not sure if she actually expected me to come back, but she's kidding herself if she thinks it's going to happen. She was probably overcharging me anyway, even after all the bargaining. 

Day 6:

This was another rehearsal day, this time for Tannhäuser. Not too much excitement there. I'm covering Hirt (the shepherd boy), so I didn't have to stay too long at either rehearsal. We had a lot of fun in between rehearsals, though. Went to Wangfujing Street, a major shopping street, with chopstick shops, tea shops, and live bugs on sticks that they'll fry for you right there. Talk about fresh. Scorpions are a specialty. I decided to pass. One of the large tea shops we went into gave us samples of as many teas as we liked, I never realized how different jasmine teas could be from one another, and the more expensive, the stronger the flavor. I bought some tea and a beautiful tea mug for myself with a little removable insert for the loose tea leaves. Around the corner from Wangfujing is the Night Market, an aisle of wacky foods on sticks mostly, from live bugs to seahorses and starfish. Some smells I never hope to smell again. And all this talk of food leads me to the best part of the day: Peking Duck. Three of us shared a duck for lunch, and it was incredible. The skin is crispy and melts in your mouth. The duck meat is soft and succulent, and not greasy or stringy. Nothing like any duck I've ever tasted before. You are given thin pancakes, and you dip the duck and skin in a sweet dark sauce, wrap it in the pancake with some spring onion, and eat it. It was probably one of the best meals I've had in my life, and all for about $15 a person. I think we're getting another Peking duck meal provided for us after the final concert on the 9th, so I will just dream about it until then.

Day 7 (today!):

The second and final Rosenkavalier performance is tonight, I didn't get a call that Ofelia Sala is sick, so I'm assuming she'll sing Sophie and I'll be off the hook. I had my jacket fitting this morning, it is going to be gorgeous. I can't wait to see it once the piping, buttons, and lining are put in. I'll be sure to post a picture! It's so neat having something made for me, and it will be a wonderful reminder of this trip (until I get so fat from all the dumplings that I can't fit into it anymore). And speaking of dumplings, I had dim sum this afternoon, and had the most light, fluffy, delicious pork buns ever (among other dim sum goodies). Everything was so fresh and light, and I didn't leave feeling like I had a huge lump in my stomach. So good! After dim sum, we did a little walking trip around some hutongs (the little alleyways where people actually live, and kids get haircuts on the side of the road in the drizzle). It wasn't overly exciting, but it was nice to see some "real" Beijing, not just touring attractions. And it was great to be away from all the tourists and crowds of people. There was one street with a bunch of shops and boutiques which we will probably go back to when we have more time, because there was a massage place where you could get a 45-minute shoulder massage for about $5. The full body 60-minute massage was about $8. Makes the $7 for 11-minute Chinese massages in NY look pretty expensive.

OK, did you make it to the end of this? Congratulations! See you next time! I'll post again when I get back to Berlin about the rest of the trip. Tomorrow we're going to check out the Summer Palace and some other sights, and on the 8th we're off to the Great Wall and the Ming Tombs. Can't wait!