Better late than never: singing the Queen in Spain, some future gigs, and the best engagement of my life

It's been three months since my last confession...I mean blog. Guess I've been busy, lazy, forgetful, or all of the above. I kept meaning to write about my experiences in Spain singing Queen of the Night at the Festival Internacional de Música de Almansa, and somehow, I never got around to it. Until now.

So here we go, assuming I can remember a majority of the details. Almansa is a tiny little town full of very friendly people who don't speak a lick of English. They all know each other, and they all love Martín, the trumpet player at Deutsche Oper who is from Almansa originally and started this music festival. They have a theater but there has never been an opera performed in it before. The whole town basically raised the money for us to come, and while we didn't get paid much, we were staying in a fantastic hotel, got free use of the olympic-sized swimming pool in the center of town, were given discounts and freebies at restaurants, and were thrown a number of parties at wineries just outside of town with all the jamón and manchego and other Spanish tapas we could eat (and that's a lot!).

Now, due to a tremendous lack of funding, we had one makeup/wig girl and one dresser. This was not a high budget production. It was like being back in undergrad again, where we just figured out how to do things ourselves. This didn't bother me so much, but a lot of the Germans who are used to the special treatment weren't too happy. Thanks to having only one makeup girl, our call times started about 3.5 hours before the show, which is pretty unheard of in the real world. We did each other's pin curls and wig-caps to make things go faster (things that were always done for us at Deutsche Oper). By the time my wig was on and makeup was finished, I had about 2 hours before curtain. After I finished the book I was reading early in the week, I started offering to help, and ended up doing the whole wig process for the three spirits, played by three adorable little girls with terrific voices. I might be the first Queen of the Night ever to double as a wig girl. Pretty crazy, thinking back on it. Guess it proves I'm not a diva!

The performances were great and the audiences just ate it all up. I've never felt more like a celebrity. I received so many cheers and bravos, it was incredible. The majority of the audience members had never heard anything like my two arias before, and they just went wild after both of them, especially Der Hölle Rache. I had people coming up to me afterwards saying they had tears streaming down their faces when I was singing all those high notes, and the head of the festival told me that I was definitely the crowd favorite and that they couldn't stop talking about me after at the end of each show. It was an amazing way to end an amazing season!

Here are some pictures of the show and my costumes.

Here I am with Pamina, she looked very 80's. This was my first costume.

Same costume with two of the spirits that I wigged.

This was costume #2, that I wore with a cape on top for my first aria. Hello Vegas.

Costume #3, that I wore for Der Hölle Rache, the better known aria of the role.

Here I am holding my favorite Spanish snack food between acts: Ham flavored potato chips.

Action shot from Act I.

And another.

After Spain, I flew back to Berlin for a day, repacked, and took off for NJ. Then I left for Santa Fe two days later to spend a month and a half with Hal, who was singing a couple of roles there this summer. The Monday after I got there, I got some bad news. Opera in the Heights messed up, and I'm no longer singing the heroines of Hoffmann there next September. It's a long story that I don't need to get into, and I am really disappointed. However, I am definitely on the schedule in a couple of years for my first Lucia (Lucia di Lammermoor), my first Gilda (Rigoletto), and my first Blondchen (Abduction from the Seraglio). They're not coming up for a little while, so I'm back to doing auditions and trying to find singing jobs. My first priority right now career-wise is finding an agent. I should have a couple of auditions for agents this fall, and hopefully someone will want to represent me and get me into the bigger auditions.

The same day I got the news about Hoffmann, another engagement came about that evening, the best one yet. Hal proposed! We had gone out to a good Mexican place for dinner, and on the way home, he took a detour. We ended up at 10,000 Waves, a fancy spa, and Hal had rented a private bath for us, which was basically a really large outside hot tub with a cold plunge and a private sauna. After a little while of soaking, we got really warm and stepped out of the tub to cool down. We were sitting on a bench on the side and all of a sudden Hal started making a speech and got down on one knee, and asked me to marry him! And then as an afterthought, he said "And I got you a ring, too." And it is absolutely perfect! It's an antique ring from 1920, completely hand made, and the diamond is over 100 years old. It's been a couple of months, and I still can't stop staring at it. :-) The big day will be in May, and I can't wait to be Mrs. Harold Wilson!

Here we are overlooking a sunset in Santa Fe.

And here's the ring!

That's life for now. Having no jobs at the moment leaves me plenty of time for wedding planning, which is pretty nice. I'll be sure to update you when I have more singing news, and hopefully that won't be too far away. Hope your summers were also wonderful!

I posted some new recordings on my website. You can check them out at www.ericamiller.papaphonic.com. I also redid the look of the site, it's a little different and in blue instead of red. Matches my favorite Queen costume that I have on the home page.

Last blog from Berlin (well, at least for a while)!

My time here at the Deutsche Oper is rapidly coming to a close. My last performance is this Friday, I'm singing Frasquita in Carmen for a third time. I also have two Turandots, singing what is clearly marked in the score as Altra sola. As opposed to Una sola, which is the girl I'm singing with offstage for 20 seconds. Bad news is, I have to actually show up for this, good news is, one of the two shows is technically after my contract is up, so I'm getting paid extra.

Let me start with the exciting news: I'm going to Spain to sing Queen of the Night! I leave on Sunday. Originally, I was going to go home to the US of A on Sunday, but the Spanish Queen (well, not the Queen of Spain, that's different) pulled out of the show on Friday, and I got a call in the early evening. I'm singing at the first annual Festival Internacional de Música de Almansa. The music director is a trumpet player in our orchestra here and has heard me sing Queen numerous times, so he thought of me right away when the other Queen canceled. I am very excited to have another Queen on my résumé, and especially in another country! It'll look great on the bio! There are four performances, and then I come back to Berlin on the 13th, fly home to NJ on the 14th, and fly out to Santa Fe to spend the rest of the summer with my boyfriend who is singing at Santa Fe Opera. Needless to say, there's going to be a LOT of jet lag.

So, on to things I've already done. I sang Cugina in Madama Butterfly three times, and Frasquita in Carmen twice. I'll start with the Butterfly. If you're not familiar with it, Cugina is a teeny tiny role. One solo line consisting of six words, and a couple other small parts sung with other singers. I had one rehearsal, and one rehearsal with orchestra. At the first rehearsal, I felt like an idiot. I missed my solo line twice, and couldn't figure out where to come in for one of the parts with chorus. Now, the chorus was not at this rehearsal, which made entrances a little more difficult. After much confusion, I finally figured out that there was a huge cut in the score and half my lines didn't exist anymore. No one in the cast could actually tell me where the cut was (apparently nobody was told!), but I finally figured it out by the 2nd performance. While my kimono was gorgeous, I have to admit that I do better Japanese makeup on myself (see pictures below).

Real kimono at Deutsche Oper

Less-than-Japanese makeup, but great wig at Deutsche Oper

Looking more Japanese in the face, but with funny-looking wig and bathrobe kimono

On to Carmen. Carmen I actually did get rehearsals on, although never with the same cast. The quintet (Frasquita, Mercedes, Carmen, Dancaïro, Remendado) is constantly changing, which just keeps you on your feet on stage. The production itself is very traditional, almost too traditional, but the singers are fantastic and with Yves Abel in the pit, the music couldn't be any better. My first performance was June 5. Having never rehearsed on stage with the set, or with the chorus, there were definitely some interesting moments. The craziest was my entrance at the beginning of Act II, which is the big dance scene for the three girls. We had rehearsed the dance and felt very comfortable with it, but I had no idea that the chorus men on stage would be grabbing at us from left and right. There were so many times when I was supposed to travel from one side of the stage to the other, and either a chorus guy had his arms around my waist, or was picking me up and spinning me, or just holding on in some other way. I had no idea, so a lot got improvised, and it certainly didn't look planned to the audience, which it's not supposed to. The second performance, the dance was a complete mess, the Carmen hopped up on the table and never got off it (she's usually only up there for some of the 2nd verse), the chorus guys were extra crazy, but the music continued and eventually it was over! Due to the traditional nature of the staging, most of my singing required very little movement, so after the dance I was home free. I'm definitely looking forward to giving it a shot one more time this Friday. Here are a couple of pictures:

Me!

First costume – it was too short so they added some random material at the bottom

Second costume just for the end – there are gigantic black wings attached, but they take them off as soon as I get offstage so I couldn't get a picture with them. We're angels of death just in case you're wondering why I'd have wings.

In other news, I went to Toulouse, France to visit my boyfriend who was singing in Salome. I ate tasty foie gras pretty much every day, and had a great vacation away from Berlin. Right after I came back, my parents came to visit for just under two weeks, and got to see me once in Butterfly and twice in Carmen. Then my dad went home and my mom and I went to Madrid for a little vacation. Best parts of the trip were amazing melt-in-your-mouth octopus, some French-fried eggplant with honey, my first real paella, some nice hot and dry weather (we seem to be stuck in March here in Berlin), and a bullfight (not sure if I need to go again, but once was exciting).

Next blog will be about the upcoming Spain trip and my final thoughts on living and singing in Berlin for the last 10 months. This has been one amazing year!

Tannhäuser and Wonderland (with pictures!)

As per the Deutsche Oper's general feeling on rehearsing, I of course only had about 10 minutes of rehearsal for my bit part in Tannhäuser. I sing the part of the Shepherdess, who comes on, sings a song cappella, listens to a beautiful male chorus, and then sings another line before leaving. Usually the shepherdess also plays a shalmei (well, fake plays a shalmei while an English horn plays offstage) but in this production, no shalmei. Less to learn for me! 10 minutes of rehearsal may have even been too much – I literally walk across the stage, stopping about 1/3 of the way to sing, then walking almost to the other edge, singing my other line, and walking off. Straight line. No excitement. Only thing to be nervous about is staying in tune. Well, the first performance was just fine, except that the stage manager never came by to tell me when to enter, so I just made that part up. I was warned that the conductor would try to conduct my little solo, but thanks to the immense amounts of stage smoke, I couldn't even see him (I'm all the way at the back of the stage). Hope he doesn't complain later. I stayed in tune, felt I sang well and carried well into the house, sang my next little part as best I could, again unable to see the conductor, and all the while wearing a little white dress that was probably a size 16. I'll try to remember my camera next time. After three months of barely performing, it's so nice to get on stage again. All I had were those two Marie Victoire performances. Oddly enough, because I've been so happy to finally get to perform again, I haven't been nervous at all and have been thinking much more about character and motivation than what words may or may not be coming next. Those months off have taught me that I really do love doing this.

And now, what you've been waiting for. Alice im Wunderland! Let's start with some photos. The costumes are AMAZING. Only got photos of a few of them though.

Here I am!

My face and floppy ears.

My cute bunny feet and poofball tights.

Here's my cute bunny tail.

This is the caterpillar who smokes.

The mouse.

I don't actually know what he's supposed to be. It's Krunke in German.

The kids love the bunny costume. I enter from the back, step on a few kids, end up on stage, and from then on, every time I come on stage, even if just for a few seconds, the kids are saying "Kaninchen! Kaninchen!" At the last performance a couple little girls in the front row had bunny face paint on. No idea where that came from, but one of them let out the biggest smile when I sang one of my lines to her. So cute!

We did five shows, and our final dress rehearsal was for an audience, so sort of six shows. Two a day for three days. Very sweaty. Whoever thought that a thick velvet jacket lined in polyester was a good idea for a character who pretty much only dances, should be shot. I have never sweat so much in my life! And twice a day! I've never performed for kids before who are only a few feet away, and I've gotta say, it was fun! I was nervous that the talking and laughing would distract me, but instead, I felt more relaxed, because no matter what I did, they were going to laugh and point. My dance was just great every time, never thought about it or got nervous. My dialogue was fine, never forgot any words. I noticed that when I was speaking, the kids were mostly quiet, but when many of the other characters were speaking, they were talking to each other. I've had so much training on speaking loudly on stage, and it seems like most of the rest of the cast didn't, so I'll be the kids were paying attention to me because a) they could hear me and b) they love the bunny.

After one of the shows, I was attacked by a couple of the kids on the way to my dressing room! It’s hard enough to understand German, but even harder when little kids in their high-pitched voices are talking over one another and trying to ask questions. Luckily one of their mothers arrived just in time before they got the change to pull my ears off (they were grabby!). After the last performance, a mother asked if her daughter (probably about 3 years old) could have a picture with me. I of course agreed, and squatted down to get to the little girl’s height, and she was scared to come over to me! She said something about my big scary feet. She finally came over for the picture, but I have a feeling she looked distressed.

I am totally beat up from this show! My back is killing me from having to do backward rolls, my knees are black and blue under, on, and above my kneecaps, my elbows are black and blue, I have a huge scrape on my arm from something, it's definitely not as much fun as it looks! There's a big box on stage that I jump into headfirst, it's got a thin mattress inside it like a slide. Everything's fine, except that at the bottom of the slide is a step, that's not padded or anything! So every time I've gone down it, my elbows and my knees have gone over the corner of the stair, getting worse each time. Not the best planning! At the fifth show, had another costume malfunction. One of the toes on my big bunny shoes almost fell off and it was hanging there by a thread. Luckily it happened right before bows at the end, but a couple kids in the front row noticed and I thought they were going to cry. Speaking of crying, lots of that going on, I guess there are some scary parts. Not when I was there, I dried up the tears!

I have a bit of good news. Despite not having anything coming up next year, I’ve been in contact with Opera in the Heights, a small company in Houston, TX. They really liked my audition a couple of years ago, and now that they know I’m coming back to the States, they have offered me the four heroines in Offenbach’s The Tales of Hoffmann for September-October 2010. The Tales of Hoffmann is my favorite opera, I adore the music, the story, and it’s just so much fun, so I am really excited about this. I’m also penciled in for the future for Lucia in Lucia di Lammermoor, Gilda in Rigoletto, and Blondchen in The Abduction from the Seraglio, assuming I’m still around and available. These are all fantastic roles for me, so I definitely have something to look forward to once my time in Germany is over, even if I will have a year off.

Broken sets, costume malfunctions, me dancing - all the good stuff

Things I’ve learned from Alice im Wunderland:

1) I can dance!

2) If the set looks like it’s going to break but you’re told to do what you’re supposed to do anyway, it’s not entirely your fault when you break the set.

3) I am really good at German dialogue.

4) The German word for splinter is Splitter. Ouch!

5) It’s a lot harder to get out of the big boxes on the set than it looks on the DVD.

We open next week with five performances over three days. The show is adorable, with fantastic costumes and a great set. I pretty much open the show as the White Rabbit with a short monologue and a cute opening number in which I dance and sing. The dancing’s very Charlie Chaplin, complete with a cane. And I can actually do it!! It’s even fun! I managed to break a set piece (the lid of the box I come out of at one point broke in half when I opened it) in the middle of my first rehearsal and I felt pretty bad. I also came out of that rehearsal with black and blue marks all over my legs, knees, and ankles from crawling around on the floor and jumping into a big box that wasn’t as padded as it looked. Getting out of the boxes isn’t fun either, they’re about 4 feet tall and the wood at the top of the box isn’t finished or anything, so I’m hoisting myself up and climbing over. It’s not as much fun as it looks. And yesterday I got a splinter!

Moving on, or backwards I should say, I had two performances of La Novice in Marie Victoire last month. I’m on stage for an hour and twenty minutes, and I had one rehearsal before my first performance – the morning of my first performance. Lucky for me, I had attended a few rehearsals that I wasn’t called to earlier, so I was somewhat familiar with the music and staging. The hardest part for me, that I didn’t find out until a week before my performance, was that I was supposed to memorize the Salve Regina in Latin, to be repeated over and over again out loud over a dead body on stage. I resolved that I would only memorize the first five lines and repeat only them instead of the whole thing. Then I didn’t really have them memorized in time, so I sneakily wrote them on my hand before the performance. During the show, all was going well, I was singing at the right times, doing my staging correctly, and then I knelt over the body, clasped my hands together in prayer, and started reading. Everything was just fine until the lights started getting dim, and then it was completely dark on stage! And the orchestra got soft, and there I was, supposed to be reciting the prayer out loud and I couldn’t remember any of the complete lines! I think I repeated the first two words of a few lines over and over again, softer than I was supposed to, hoping no one would be able to tell. I think it worked, but to be honest, the word “shit” was going through my head a lot more than the Salve Regina! Needless to say, I memorized it for the second performance. 

Now, my other problem during both shows was a major costume malfunction. So when I had my costume fitting, they put this robe on me (I’m a young nun), and the back is completely open the whole way down and just has one little hook at the top. They made it sound like it wouldn’t be open for the performances. Wrong. The back was completely open (luckily I was wearing a tank top underneath), and of course the little hook came undone within about 30 seconds, so my robe started falling off as soon as I stood up. And since I don’t leave stage the whole time, it continued falling off the whole show. I complained afterwards, and told my costumer that the hook came undone and that the robe was falling off. For the next performance, they sewed up the back of the costume about halfway, but the same stupid hook was still there. So it came undone again and wasn’t really much better than the first time. Oh well! Nothing I could do about it! Here's what I looked like. Keep in mind that I was imprisoned and about to have my head chopped off. You woulda looked this bad, too.

I’ve been covering Clorinda in Rossini’s Cenerentola (that’s one of the stepsisters in Cinderella for those of you who aren’t familiar with the opera) for the last few weeks. I’ve been going to every rehearsal and have really learned my part well, which is good since I actually had to sing a 3-hour rehearsal last night. I was a little scared since I hadn’t seen all of the scenes we were doing that night (I had to miss a few rehearsals for various auditions), but the director was very understanding and showed me what to do. Good news is, I knew my music, and did a pretty good job with the staging. The conductor told me my Italian was very good also, which shocked me since I was trying my best to fit in all the right words into these super fast ensembles. I’ve never had a music rehearsal or a coaching, so I learned this all on my own and this was my first time singing with the other singers. I think I might have another rehearsal to sing Friday night, since the girl I’m covering has a performance of Traviata.

Speaking of auditions, I’ve had a few recently for agents, who have all pretty much told me the same thing. There’s nothing out there for my voice type right now, so there are no auditions they can send me to. They’ve seemed very happy with my voice though, so that’s a good thing. Unfortunately, Deutsche Oper is not hiring me back next year (long story, but it’s not personal), so I’ll probably be unemployed and doing auditions for a little while. But for those of you that live in the States and may have missed me a little bit this year, I’ll most likely be around quite a bit next year! I have one more house audition coming up – I’m singing for the Hamburg State Opera, so if they decide to hire me for next year, I’ll be a Hamburger. :-) 

On a personal note, I did have a bit of time off in the last month, so I took a trip with my boyfriend to London. I’ve never been before and I had a blast. And everyone who told me that the food in London all tastes like cardboard is wrong. I loved eating there! And I was there right before Easter, so I stocked up on some Cadbury eggs before coming home. I’ll also be flying off to Toulouse, France in a couple weeks to visit the boyfriend again for a few days. After I come back, my parents arrive for two weeks, and then I go to Madrid for a week with my mom. I’m very excited about all the traveling and visitors coming up! Between Cenerentola and Alice im Wunderland and a couple performances of the shepherd in Tannhäuser, my next two weeks are insanely busy, so it will be nice to take a little break.

Here's me in front of Big Ben.

Here's Hal and me in front of the White Tower at the Tower of London.

A good reason to write a new blog entry

Something is wrong with my permanent forwarding email account (not so permanent now, are we). Not sure what happened, but as of four days ago, any mail sent to eamiller (at) alumni.usc.edu is missing somewhere in the world wide web. So, if you sent me something, please resend if it was important. I'm hoping to get this problem solved, but just in case that doesn't happen, please send me emails at EricaMillerSoprano (at) gmail.com.

Yes, it has been a while since I've written a post. That's mainly because not much has happened. We finished Helena and Elektra, and opened Carmen, which I'm not in until June. So I didn't really have to go to rehearsals since it's a completely different cast in June and we'll have to rehearse then.

I've taken two little trips since I last wrote. I had an audition for an agency in Vienna, and the audition went well. After singing Der Hölle Rache (only one person, a tenor, sang more than one aria out of the 20 or so singers there), the agent told me that he didn't have any auditions he could send me on now, but that he'd call if something came up. Sounded promising. From what I've heard through the grapevine, and from other friends who have done agent auditions in Europe, apparently the agents don't sugar-coat. They'll tell you exactly what they think, so if I had done something not to his liking, I have a feeling he would have told me.

I also took a little vacation to Munich surrounding a Richard Strauss competition. I made it to the finals, but was not one of the winners. I felt like a winner though when I was unexpectedly handed 200 Euros in cash for my travel expenses. Thanks! Munich was beautiful, but there's not a ton to do as a tourist. A few days was definitely enough to see what I wanted to see. Something I was looking forward to and will hopefully avoid at all costs in the future was watching the Glockenspiel at the City Hall (at 11am every day the clock plays a merry tune and dancers spin around to the music, like a big cuckoo clock). Well, the merry tune was so out of tune that I would have sworn it was written by Harry Partch, and the action definitely left something to be desired. It was pretty sad, and maybe half the crowd actually stayed for the whole thing (we're talking 7 or 8 minutes at most). Here's a short segment if you don't believe me, unfortunately it isn't rotated correctly. See if you can name that tune!

My latest project was making a new recording of the two Queen of the Night arias. You can listen to them on my website at http://www.ericamiller.papaphonic.com/recordings/recordings.html. They came out really well, if I do say so myself. I will tell you, recording Der Hölle Rache is so hard! It can only be done in one take because there's no good place to splice, and there's a limited number of times you can sing it before you can't sing it. This was my second take of two. Whew! Now, the reason I needed to update my recordings on my website is because I just sent my materials out to about 80 opera houses in Germany, and about 20 agents in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria. My plan is to do as many auditions as possible and maybe even have a job next year! I sent out everything this weekend, and have spent about four hours already today getting email after email back from the info@ email addresses telling me where to send my materials. A lot of houses don't post the important people's email addresses on the website. I've already heard back from a couple houses who are looking for a different soprano type than myself, I have one agent audition scheduled in Düsseldorf and another possible audition for an agent in Munich, and the opera house in Leipzig said they'd set up an audition for me, and that I'd hear from them later. Hopefully some more will bite.

Since I haven't given a sausage update in a while, I should say that the Weißwurst in Munich were delish. Something else I bought that was also delish but not so delish when I still had the taste in my mouth a day later was Döner-flavored potato chips. Döner being those yummy meat-on-a-stick Turkish sandwiches that are on every street in Berlin. I think I'll stick with the ham-flavored chips from now on. The Roast Chicken and Thyme chips were also good, but they just didn't seem to go well as a side dish with anything. Ham's definitely the way to go.

There's not much coming up for me at the moment. My next performance is La Novice in Marie Victoire in April. I'm double-cast so I haven't been rehearsing since the other soprano is singing the premiere. Fine by me, the director has apparently been pretty mean during rehearsals. My entire role pretty much consists of sitting and praying and every five minutes singing some phrase that begins with "J'ai peur." I'm observing a rehearsal tonight, so I'll find out if I actually move in the hour plus that I'm on stage. I hope so! I'm also learning Clorinda in Cenerentola (as a cover), and I think I'm going to start looking at my part for the White Rabbit in Ostendorf's Alice in Wonderland. There's quite a bit of dialogue, so the sooner I start looking at it, the better off I'll be.

Happy almost spring!

Edited to add: Thanks to my sending this blog out announcing that my email isn't working, my email is now working. So email me at whichever address you desire, USC or Gmail.

Helena premiere and a couple of divas

I just sang in the premiere of Helena on January 18, and according to some of the other singers, it was the most well-received premiere here in years. The singers were all incredible. Laura Aikin, the coloratura, was such an inspiration. She's sung everywhere, is the sweetest woman, has two adorable kids, and has a voice that doesn't have any hint of age in it and is just spectacular. The Helena, Riccarda Merbeth, also has a gorgeous instrument, but expects the world to cater to her. Throughout the rehearsal process (6 weeks), she never once acknowledged any other singer's presence, and her favorite pastime was taking off rehearsal costume pieces that she no longer needed, walking by another singer with a smaller role (like me), and dropping them into our arms, as if we were her dressers. All of this while walking forward and not looking in our direction. There was one time when she simply held out her coat in the middle of rehearsal and let it dangle from her fingers for about a minute before finally realizing no one was coming to take it from her. She huffed and laid it on the bed on stage. Needless to say, the show makes absolutely no sense, but it's beautiful to look at, and the audience cheered like crazy.

The costumes were definitely cool, even if they were a little painful. My corset one rehearsal was pulled a little too tight and for the next few days I felt like someone had kicked me repeatedly in the ribs. It's fun looking like a weird 80's rock star though!

Here I am, the pink elf. (We're not really elves, we're ladies of the night.)

The three elves.

Three elves, two maids, and Laura Aikin as Aithra.

Speaking of divas, it's been loads of fun working with Agnes Baltsa, who is singing our Clytemnestra in Elektra. She is the first superstar singer I've gotten to sing next to here (even if she is in her 60's), and she's absolutely hilarious. At the first rehearsal, we were all called at 10am, and we did nothing until 10:30am because Ms. Baltsa was telling the director everything she would NOT do. Which is basically everything. The stage is basically a pit of tiny, dusty, gray pieces of cork that everyone has to stand in at some point or other. It's smelly and gross, but oh well. Well, when Ms. Baltsa saw it, she said no, she would absolutely not walk into the stuff. Now Janice Baird, singing Elektra, has to lie in it and writhe around, and she's doing it! But no, not Agnes. Then she was told she has to carry an axe around with her. What did she say? First, in her 25 performances of this role, she has never had an axe and it's not in the character at all, and second, my personal favorite, if she were to carry an axe, that would leave only one arm left to emote, and Clytemnestra needs two arms at all times. All of her complaints were followed by her opening her mouth wide enough to swallow her head, and laughing. It was pretty funny! For the scene that I'm in as her confidante, we're up a good height above the cork, and she doesn't want to be there because it's too high and too far back. For her entrance, she is supposed to walk left, then right, then down the middle, and finally end up center to sing. No no no, she says, when I come in, I make my entrance and stay, my character would never walk across 3 times. This is not a new production, by the way, so it's not meant to be changed at all. Anyway, she's, how do you say, difficult. But at least she's fun and talks to us and doesn't toss her costume pieces towards us when she doesn't need them.

The set for Elektra, including the cork, was a complete death trap the day of the dress rehearsal. The door where we stand about 20 feet up is like a drawbridge, and the front couple of feet where we actually stand had nothing to either side except a 20 foot drop down! My hands were shaking when I was up there because I thought at any moment Ms. Baltsa would bump into me and I'd drop to my death. For the performances, they thankfully closed in the gap so I felt a lot better! The cork itself has got to be the most unsanitary substance on earth. It's from last year, was packed up in plastic bags for safekeeping until this year, and it's constantly being watered down to keep the dust level low. The bacteria levels must be off the chart!

I was lucky enough to get to sing 10 days of rehearsals of Zerbinetta since Jane Archibald was at another gig. I sang through most of the role with the conductor, and a few staging rehearsals. It was so much fun! I was sad when I had my last rehearsal, but after hearing Jane do the aria, I am so excited to see her in the role. She's incredible. The conductor, Jacques Lacombe, seemed to really like me, and mentioned to one of the staff members that we had a great backup Zerbinetta here, so that made me feel great. Hopefully, if anything goes wrong with Jane, they'll give me a call.

Carmen rehearsals just started, and even though I don't get to sing Frasquita until June, I've gotten to sing all the musical rehearsals with Yves Abel, the conductor, since the March Frasquita is currently sick. Yves is wonderful to work with, and I'm really looking forward to singing the role on stage!

It looks like I'm going to be in another premiere now, which isn't making me too happy. I had a relatively free mid-February through mid-April, and I put in for some vacation time so that I can do auditions and maybe even take a little vacation. The forms were signed, the time off was approved, and two days after I got the forms back, Herr Seuferle popped into one of my rehearsals and told me that even though he signed my forms, he was going to need me to be in the premiere of Respighi's Marie Victoire due to his miscasting a mezzo in a soprano role and only now realizing it. It opens April 9 and will have 6 weeks of rehearsal, and even though it's always nice to get more stage time, I'm a little annoyed. I'm only in one act and I have about 5 lines, and it's a role that's unimportant in an opera that I will never be singing again. At least if it were something useful I'd feel less annoyed about giving up my vacation/audition time. I told him that I really needed to be available for auditions during the time of the rehearsals and performances, so I will be sharing the role with another soprano who can't make all the performances but can be there for the rehearsal period. I did have every right to say no since I already had the forms signed to be gone, but I do appreciate everything he's done for me, and I really want him on my side if potential employers call him to ask about me.

All in all, I've just been super busy since the new year started, and it looks like I'm going to stay that way for the next few months. If I can sneak in and get pictures of the Elektra set and cork, I will, but no promises.

Hope you're enjoying the cold weather more than I am! Brrrr.