California, here I come...

My painting of Carmen... I painted this when I still thought I'd never get to sing the role!



I am so excited for my upcoming experience in Santa Barbara, but this departure is bittersweet. Before grad school, I had been working in a cubicle and feeling somewhat isolated in my life. Many of my best friends, particularly women friends, left Chicago after college and I had yet to fill that void (not that people can ever be replaced, especially not the amazing friends I have been fortunate enough to find in this journey called life, but a woman always needs girlfriends to spend time with). In coming to Roosevelt, I have made some wonderful new friends, both men and women, and I am so grateful for their presence in my life and the laughter and support. Saying goodbye to them, even for just a couple of months, is sad.

It's always difficult leaving for these things... I feel anxious, excited, nervous... I get there and we immediately start rehearsals and have a performance the day after we arrive. So I will drink alot of water today and tomorrow, allow for a day of vocal rest as I travel tomorrow, pack only my scores/music, my journal and Harry Potter 5 in my bag so that I will study and solidify my memorization while on the planes and in the airports. This week home has been good but of course extremely busy and hectic, so I could use a day essentially "by myself"... while surrounded by planes and airports full of people. ;-)

I am also so grateful that my mom and dad live close to Chicago, so that even though I have sublet my apartment, I have a place to stay where I can relax while still being close to my teachers and coaches. And my dad can drive me to the airport and send me off with his constant encouragement and assurance that, like all of these other adventures I've had so far, I'll have a wonderful time.

I drove Maria, the wonderful woman who cleans my mom's house, to the train station today, and in a bizarre hodgepodge of english, handgestures and polish, I explained to her why I was leaving for California and for how long. This is a woman who works so hard and helps to support a son who is confined to a wheel chair. We lamented about the price of apartments and bills in Chicago, and she really felt sorry for me that my jobs were so unsteady... 3 weeks here, 7 weeks there. I tried to explain to her that I really like what I do, which is why I can deal with the lack of consistancy, but I think that got lost in translation. But it reminds me to also be very grateful that I have to means to pursue a career that is not consistent, to go back to school. I am blessed to have the opportunity to do what I love.

Back home for a few days...

This time of rest is not so much a time of rest... I'm working hard on learning my music for the scenes that we're performing the first few weeks. I've got the first two choruses well learned (not even including the Habanera chorus, which is memorized inherently), but Carmen is FULL of chorus music! It's really overwhelming, but I want to be very prepared when I arrive. We have the first week where there are just 4 of us and I assume the chorus music won't be rehearsed until the regular program starts, but as with CROT, I can't assume that I'll have ANY time once I get there. And, as I've seen at CROT, it really does reflect extremely negatively on someone as a professional. That being said, it's HARD to learn chorus music on your own!

I had a great coaching with Francesco Milioto today. I trust his opinion on good singing, and have known him and been singing for him for years, and he said I sounded good, better than I ever have before. We did some great work on the Habanera and got En vain pour eviter to sound good, emotional. And my French doesn't suck either!!!

Tomorrow's a long day of singing, and then I get to see the Marlena Malas master class, which I'm sure will be interesting. I will go through all of my arias with Tracy in the afternoon before the class. I know now that my audition success relies heavily on feeling extremely prepared, and I already feel quite good about what I'm presenting. I plan on starting with the Habanera and then I will bet $100 I will be asked to sing Mozart. So I will practice that order.

I'm not actually betting $100... ;-)

It's freezing in Japan...

                                                                       

 Tonight is opening night of Madame Butterfly.   And despite sub-zero temperatures, a new theater and ever changing makeup to make us, most of whom are definitively Caucasian, look Japanese... it is shaping up to be a beautiful show.  My favorite part is hearing our Butterfly, Indira Mahajan sing.  She's sung all over,  and is a tiny person with a fantastic and sizable instrument.  She seems to be very kind and does not have an ego that made he prove herself in rehearsals...  she saved he voice for the performances, which I believe is the smarter and more humble way to rehearse a show, particularly a role of the magnitude of Butterfly.  She's also elegant on stage and a magnificent actress.

Also notable to me is Rebecca Ringle, the mezzo playing Suzuki.  At first finding out that she's probably just a year older than I am, I was jealous of her success.  But it's also heartening that someone of that age is singing roles and performing with companies such as NYCO.  Rather than being jealous, I will work towards creating a career like hers.  I must also remember I had a few years that I was sort of "off"... so if I allow myself that to consider...

I got very excited talking to my friend Amy Stewart last night about the possibility of moving to Europe.  I have one more semester of school at RU and then, if COT doesn't work out, I will seriously consider applying for a Fullbright.  With something like that I could go to Berlin and audition there.  AJ Wester, a director friend of mine, has always told me that because I'm not the typical "pants-mezzo", I may not have YAPS knocking down my door, but I could end up working alot, being cast as the female mezzo leads...   Charlotte, Dorabella, Carmen, Rosina, etc.  So I will remember that and be heartened.  I am young but my voice is becoming settled and I could sing these roles now in smaller European houses.  So I will leave myself options and not feel like getting Santa Fe or Merola will make or break my career.

It was -26 degrees out here in Cedar Falls this morning, so again I'm staying in until I MUST go out.  Erin and I are having an early dinner with our home stay host, Loree Rackstraw, with is exciting because she seems like an extremely interesting woman who I look forward to talking to.

Here are some photos from the production at Lincoln Elementary in Waterloo....

Cedar Falls

We arrived safely in Cedar Falls, where Madame Butterfly will be performed due to Theater Cedar Rapids still being under renovation after this summer's flooding. I am now living with Erin Smith, a lovely soprano who plays Little Red in our production, and we have been put up in the home of a fabulous woman named Loree Rackstraw, a former professor and a published author who recently released a memoir about her friendship with Kurt Vonagut!!! Crazy, right? Not only that, but she has original art work by Vonagut, who also happened to be an artist as well as an author. Erin and I have been given something of our own apartment in the upstairs of Ms. Rackstraw's home, with our own bedrooms, bathroom and kitchen. It's just fantastic and I've felt very comfortable and at home here, with a coffee pot and kitchen table I can write at in the mornings.

Over the summer I read the Artist's Way again, which was great because for the first time I really had the TIME to give to it and was working through many things in my artistic life that were able to be synthesized through the process. It has been extremely difficult to keep up with my morning pages so far while in Iowa, and only with starting them up again do I realize how much their absence in my life was negatively affecting me. And perhaps the relaxed schedule has something to do with it as well. ;-)

Our last performance of Little Red was yesterday, and it went well, probably my best vocally... though the comic timing wasn't as sharp since we hadn't run it at all since the Thursday before. Monday's show was cancelled due to the extreme cold and blizzard predictions.

We had a frustrating run of Butterfly yesterday, with a new set, costumes, makeup and orchestra to deal with... Hopefully it will all be better today. It was hard to hear the orchestra, and therefore watching Maestro Kleinknecht is even more important. He's a very clear and giving conductor and easy to follow. But then there are sightlines to deal with (the accusation scene has me in the far back and behind a large crowd, so I have to rely on other people getting the cue visually), obstructions from the set and other people. But you make due. We have only one more run before the show... and I believe it's an open run... and even though I'm just in the chorus, and the chorus isn't in much of the opera, it's still very important to make the show go as smoothly as possible.

Tonight I plan on going back stage and taking pictures of the principles for some possible paintings. I caught this view just before we were supposed to line up for curtain call, where Sorrow runs out to Butterfly an interrupts her suicide attempt. They are framed by the traditional Japonese doorway with Suzuki leaning up against the fram. It was so beautiful. I hope it's recreated tonight so that I can capture it and turn it into a picture.

I just realized that the two operas I'm working on over the next three months happen to be the "opera" paintings I have already done: Butterfly and Carmen. Perhaps I will elaborate on both of them as a series of paintings.

Today, since I have a day off, I will finish my written proposal for RU to skip next semester and come back in the fall. I will submit it with copies of both contracts. I will do the same for Graduate Seminar, including the link to this blog.

I have some great pictures of Little Red's Most Unusual Day that I will post in my next entry...

Physical Comedie and Physical Maladie

I've learned so much from this outreach experience here in Cedar Rapids. Again, like all outreach, more so than any other performance situation, the show is NOT about the performers but about educating and entertaining. During the first few performances I found that the kids weren't responding so much to the humor of my "aria" because the situation and jokes were a bit convoluted (see last post), so I decided to figure out a way to establish Granny's "cougar" and man-craziness before the singing even begins. So I grabbed a flower left over from Valeria's scene where the mother picks the bouquet of flowers, and gave it to Tony, our fabulous pianist, with a little wink. This geared up the kids' minds to the idea of flirtation and seemed to work. They seemed to get the joke more quickly... this confirms that elementary age children respond to physical comedy the most strongly. The words, unless they are very well articulated and indicated, are generally lost other than just telling the story. Dancing with the watering can, kissing it like it were a man, and then directly talking to the youngest kids in the front row, seems to keep them engaged and makes them laugh. The kids are a great barometer for the effectiveness of physical comedy, because their laughter is only given when they're really tickled. They are not there to judge or critique... they just exist and react in the moment.

I wish my brothers could see this show, if only because it would prove to them that I'm not adopted... since they're all hysterical and I've always been the more reserved of the four of us. I'm proud of the improvisations that I've felt comfortable enough to throw in... particularly of the "Haaaiiiiiiii.... YA!" that comes as I smack Mr. Big Bad on the rear end with the broom.

I'm not sure there's anything better than the sheer joy of making these kids laugh and enjoy themselves. Many of the children we've sung for are victims of the floods this summer, having lost their homes or had their lives altered because of the tragedy. Many were already low-income and, as the music teacher at one school told us, are excited to come back to school after the holiday because that is where they are happier. Needless to say, what we do is very important if it makes these kids really happy for 45 minutes.


Now... today was an adventure because Chaz, one of the main characters, woke up quite ill this morning. He was going to brave it and do the show severely under the weather, but found at the last minute that he absolutely couldn't do it. So we stared at a gym full of students with a full set behind us and half of us in costume, telling the the show wasn't going to happen. So Tony had us all pull out our music, arias or songs from the Broadway show we could sing. Ironically, this as the only day I didn't come with a backpack full of music. Luckily, we were a 5 minute drive from my homestay, so I just popped back while the other guys sang. A good lesson to learn though... ALWAYS keep your audition book on you, because you never know when a situation like that will occur. And this time it was for kids, but who knows if it could happen in another situation.

We also just found out a few other cast members are sick, so hopefully they will improve with the weekend while the rest of will stay healthy.



On a different and more positive note... I found out that I will be singing Carmen in both the quintet and Card trio in a scenes concert at the beginning of OSB. This is exciting because I thought I'd be singing Mercedes, which is my official cover. I'm so excited to learn and perform "En vain pour eviter", where Carmen sees death in her future predicted by the cards. I have so much music to learn, so many french words. I will spend much of my free time next week with my face buried in the score, ipod headphones keeping out the sounds of the real world. Bizet during the day, Puccini at night... what a joy. I am grateful.

Rapids Update: Auditions and Outreach

After an intensive week of rehearsals, Little Red's Most Unusual Day got on it's feet in front of a audience other than Washington High School's orchestra room wall, and I'll say that the K-5 kids at Arthur Elementary were MUCH more receptive! The show went fantastically despite all of us feeling a little frazzled by having to figure out how the puzzle pieces of our set went together, delaying our start time by 5 minutes. The magical thing about outreach is that no matter how perfectly you rehearse it, the show will inevitably change and come to life when in front of the audience. The kids were extremely engaged, and our performance was definitely heightened by their enthusiasm. Strangely (or perhaps not so strangely) enough, I thought that EVERYONE sang better than they ever have in rehearsals, fed by the non-judgemental presence of the kids who really just wanted to have a good time. So a good time was had... by ALL of us, audience and performers alike.

Interesting observations... at this age, kids can tell if you are having a good time and feed off of that, so it's a great lesson in performing. And audience can sense whether or not you're really into it... kids are just more vocal about it. The beginning of my "aria" is introducing the fact that "Granny" is a "cougar" and really loves MEN, but the text is somewhat convoluted:

I am a little Granny in my little garden with my pretty little watering can.
I'll take this little seed and plant it in the ground and watch it turn into a little man.
Then he will be my lovely little lovey dovey cutie pie and cootchie coo.
Then I will be his little bride and love him. Well, at least I will a year or two....

So I don't think the kids got it at first, but then when I started talking about wanting a boyfriend of my own and kissing my watering can which I mime and being a man I dance with, they get it and react. Their favorite moments were when my fabulous tenor friend Chaz Ali-Williams, who plays forest ranger Dudley, the object of Granny's affections, holds out a long high Bb (??), which they apparently think is hysterical. I think they are also just fascinated by it, and it also feeds into the humorous stereotype of "opera singers". But when you ask them afterwards whether or not they like opera, they answer definitively "YES!", which means we have succeeded.

This has been my observation with all outreach shows I've done. Kids are much more accepting and able to enjoy and understand opera than most people would guess. It goes to show that opera really is just musical theater and meant to entertain, and if you do your job and touch the audience, they'll dig it.


Above are pictures of my trees that I painted for the set as well as me as "Granny"...


So far it has been a real joy being back in Cedar Rapids with great friends from this summer, and making new friends as well.