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.