70 degrees and sunny!

Though I haven't seen too much of the weather so far...

We've arrived in California and basically hit the ground running. Arriving on Thursday, we were rehearsing by 10 am Friday morning and had a performance that very evening. I am broken hearted I didn't bring my camera to that performance, because we were at the Topa Towers in Ventura where the dinner club is on the 22nd floor, over looking the city lights and the dark void beyond that in the daylight is an ocean.

The first performance was good, though somewhat nerve racking. I performed a duet from the Merry Widow that I had run with piano for the first time that morning. It went fairly well, which I am proud of because I generally rely on having run something a million and a half times for comfort. My singing was fine that evening, but my nerves dealing with new people and the general director of the opera company (who is very nice and in now was utterly supportive) there MCing the performance. Last night, our second show, was much better for me vocally. I utilized some of the techniques in "Power Performance for Singers" in my mental preperation before the Habanera, which requires the utmost control of breath and vocal weight. By calming my mind and becoming Carmen, I am able to execute these lengthy passages without excessive breaths. The Habanera is known for these crazy long lines and few places to breathe, but Lara Bolton, the fantastic coach we are working with here, said that Bizet wrote it knowing that it was possibly to sing while only taking breaths where he wrote rests. I said something like, "You're kidding, right?" But as we tried it, taking an efficient and simultaneous monstrous breath during the 16th note rests, I was able to get through the whole thing that way! AND, even more importantly to me, I was able to do it during performance last night.

Today we are performing for a retirement home in a festival preview concert. Today is somewhat relaxing and I hope to make it to the beach late this afternoon to try to catch some dolphins!

With Jonathan Smucker, tenor, at the Opera Night performance in downtown Santa Barbara. Yes, he is in fact related to the Smucker family of jelly fame. :)