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!