Two kinds of people

Last night I was having a chat with Ian, the revival director of Flute.  He was telling me how there are two kinds of people: those who pack their suitcases two days in advance and sit there, poised and ready to go to the airport at any moment.  And people who don't.  

Three guesses which one I am.  

I'm still sitting in my pyjamas, reluctant to get in the shower because it means I must acknowledge my impending departure from this experience, my international debut, my two and a half months in London, my reacquaintance with some really wonderful friends, and my work on a production that has become so incredibly dear to me.  And when I say impending, I mean I have to leave this house in a little over an hour.  My husband would be pulling out his eyebrows with frustration, were he here to see this.  

Now don't think I'm totally unprepared.  The bed is stripped, the suitcase just needs to have the toiletries thrown into it, and the clothes I'm going to wear are laid out and ready.  It's just me that's not ready.  Last night, I got to the theatre nice and early so I could put cards in the rooms of my colleagues.  I even stocked up on mindless reading material (a big thank you to Stephanie Meyer, for writing those inane Twilight books - you're keeping the crazy away on those long flights) so I was all set when Eddy came in to do the wig.  I gave my dresser and my makeup artist their gifts - large bottles of alcohol always seem appropriate at the end of a long run of a show - and tried hard not to contemplate how many friends and important people were in the audience.  And suddenly, poof!  they're calling my name over the intercom to get up on the rock, George the birdman tells me thank you and he hopes we'll see each other again, my little dove behaves herself like a good girl should, and then Rob and I just go out there and have a good time.  This is the best part of my job.  When you're onstage with a colleague and you're both having such a good time, you can flash your eyes at them and they flash theirs back, and you know you're both doing your jobs and enjoying each other's company.  Same way in the second aria - I'm shrieking down at SJ, and she's grinning up at me, examining my back molars, and in those little secret moments, we're just two singers on stage, having a fabulous time in really kick-ass costumes.  

It's over all too quickly.  Some people hate doing the long run.  They would rather have their eyelashes plucked out at the root than do a revival of Magic Flute.  And maybe the guy from that audition is right - maybe I will have to say no to Queen someday.  But that day is not today, nor will it be any time this year, Lord willing and the creek don't rise.  

To all of my singer friends, I wish you the kind of happiness and support I received on this production.  We should all endeavor to be better colleagues, better stewards of our craft, more generous with our art and our time, and more open to the possibilities that lie in these old productions.  

Shit.  Now I really do have to get in the shower.  

1.  for my excellent and estimable colleagues - who made this experience beautiful and memorable

2.  for my sweet husband and dog - who were willing to let me go for two and a half months so I could do this

3.  for my dear dear friends in London - who came to the performances and were loud and raucous and made me feel as if I might belong here

4.  for the opera gods, who smiled on us almost every night, and for George the birdman, who made sure the birds were always magnificent

5.  for the gorgeous day outside that makes me wish I had just one more day to walk through the park, to meet my friends for coffee and cake, to go to the theatre

6.  (because my heart is swelling a little) to the city of Boston - I'm coming home!

Make new friends, but keep the old

I was walking through Covent Garden with Ayla today, shooting the bull like we always do, when I was seized by a sudden realization that I'm actually leaving London in two days.  This means that I won't get to ring up my friends and make dates for French pastry, or get on the tube to go eat pancakes with them, or even just send silly texts to talk about how crap the TFL is.  And it made me a little sad.  

I've been away from Boston for two and a half months.  I'm sitting here in my Red Sox t-shirt (birthday gift from husby last year) and jammy pants and I absolutely can't wait to be home in my house with my sweet puppy and my washing machine and my DRYER (oh how I've missed my dryer) and my DISHWASHER (let's not even go there - it's a Russian novel) and all of the clothes that I left behind.  It will be like an episode of What Not To Wear, where they show footage of some poor soul wearing the same clothes over and over again on video, and then they give her this great wardrobe.  Yep, that's me, the girl wearing the same black sweater for two and a half months, because I had to do this operation in one large suitcase.  Good thing I like that black sweater.  Yeesh.  I just want to wear a different coat.  My black trench coat needs to go back into the closet, and stay there for a while.  But I digress.  

Ayla and I ended up sitting at Pret, waiting for another girlfriend of mine and her new boyfriend to arrive.  We were joking about how we just walk around and shoot the shit (sex and boys, sex and boys, she says) and then about the occasional interruptions for architecture and art history lessons (sex and boys, sex and boys, ooh look it's a combination of neo-Gothic and Victorian architecture! sex and boys) and then my googling at dogs on the street (sex and boys, Gothic Revival, look a labrador! sex and boys).  It occurs to me how much I will miss this girl.  We met ten years ago, at very silly ages, and totally hit it off.  Ten years later, we're no longer quite so silly, but our love for pencil cases (mission accomplished!) and good cups of tea and the incredible ease of company has remained.  Hubby says it's because neither of us suffer from the "smartest girl in the room" disorder when we're together.  

After supper, I took a little time to walk around, popping in and out of shops, gently deflecting comments from people about the "smudge" on my forehead (um, hello, it's Ash Wednesday?) and realizing how comfortable I've started to feel in London.  I know my way around so much better than I ever did, and the warm fuzzies from the ENO people make me hope and pray that I will be hired back.  I'm not ready to cross London off the list.  In how many other cities could you go to a Templar church, and buy a Japanese pencil case, and then go to the opera, and see the crown jewels, and listen to a real Evensong service, all in one day?

So.  I've lapsed a little in my habits of betterment.  Let's get back on the horse.  For Lent, I'm giving up trying to relive the old lives of myself, chocolate, and sleeping past 9am.  And I'm bringing back the gratitude, because there's so much I have to be thankful for.  Let's do it.

1.  Muji - the silly store full of fun organizational things that make my heart hum

2.  good friends, who still remember how silly I was 10, 5, 2 years ago, and like me anyway

3.  an Ash Wednesday service in which I was neither leader nor singer

4.  the kindness of strangers

5.  progress, grace, and humility, in no particular order

Penitential seasons

Yesterday was Mardi Gras, one of my absolute favorite holidays that I haven't been home to celebrate in years and years. At least I was with some friends who decided to make pancakes - the yummy little thin French ones that you put sugar and lemon on. And nutella. Ohhhh nutella. So I woke up this morning, still trying to figure out what I'm going to give up for Lent.

Letting go of things is important. These last few weeks have been really strange for me. I've been grilled about my degree, I've gotten absolutely rotten reviews, I've had this enormous train of friends come through London to see the show and I've flown and driven all over the UK for auditions. And while visiting some of those old places I had to really look hard at the old times. Sitting in the pubs where I drank myself silly as a 21 year-old masters' student, I was remembering how hard those times were, how uncertain I was and how much I DO NOT MISS THOSE TIMES.

So this is where I'm at. Sometimes you can't get those things back, and you can't get those times back, and sometimes you really don't even want to. I'm giving up looking back. No more.

Three days till home. Eyes on the prize.

Greatness at work

I just got home from the dress rehearsal for Doctor Atomic.  It opens this Wednesday and if any of my readers (lurking out there in the blogosphere) happen to be in London, GO SEE IT.  I've never seen a John Adams opera before, or any opera that made use of amplification and effects of this magnitude, but it really was an amazing sight to see.  I felt that the drama was very well-written and executed beautifully, and the singing was just breathtaking.  I have a huge singer crush on Gerald Finley now, which makes me one of the many, but he's such a consummate artist.  Such finely honed singing, so excellently crafted and finessed, and with the kind of diction that you usually hear on recordings.  As a point of home-turf pride, I was happy to see that Sasha Cooke turned out marvelously well.  Our Seattle Opera parents are bursting with excitement to have two former young artists on the mainstage at ENO, and now I can go there next week and tell them I saw her kick ass with my own two eyes.  Lots of good singing up on that stage, a few minor mishaps with the raising and lowering of shades, but I was absolutely riveted to my seat.  Another one of those days where I just love what I do for a living because it means I get to sit in the opera house and watch greatness happen.  

Katrina and I were sitting in Paul today, nibbling on french macaroons and almond pastry and quiche, and I was telling her about my most recent crisis of career/conscience/life.  At an audition last week, I suddenly found myself in an episode of Jeopardy, getting grilled about everything from where I went to school to what I studied and why, and whether or not I was finishing the doctorate and why did I start it and did I really want to be a singer.  Now everyone I've told this story to butts in at this juncture and says, "Um, did you tell them that HELLO you already ARE a singer???"  While I agree with them, that's not really the kind of attitude you want to throw down when hoping to be hired, so I did a lot of creative tap dancing to get out the door without offending the people on the audition panel.  When I mentioned it to my agent, they told me that the concern is not so much that I might be less-than-devoted to the profession of singing, it's that an opera singer might be too intelligent.  Read: more intelligent than the people directing/coaching/conducting them.  It's a very complex issue for me.  I've spent all this time and effort working on finishing this degree with both speed and success, I've managed to write and edit a dissertation while maintaining a full performing and auditioning schedule, and now that I'm on the precipice of finishing (the disser went to committee last week, let's hope they will have an answer for me soon) I have to effectively shelf my intelligence so that I don't scare the people I want to employ me.  Now no one wants to hire a singing idiot who can't put together two grey cells to get from stage right to stage left, but no one likes the smartest kid in the class either.  This has been a long-standing source of contention with my colleagues that's well-documented in this blog, so I won't belabor the point by expounding further.  Needless to say, I was pondering the duplicity of this philosophy at the opera tonight.  John Adams wrote some seriously hard music, and it makes me think that the people involved in that production are of serious musical cred to be able to pull it off successfully.  Would John Adams care whether or not the singers were too intelligent?  Or would he be grateful that they had spent twelve years in higher education so they could execute his score with expedience and accuracy and artistry?  Points to ponder.

Three days till the close of Flute.  Four days till I fly back to Boston, green money, and my sweet life in my sweet house with my husband and dog.  And six days till I fly to Seattle to start Midsummer.  Eeep.