If you're not familiar with Dirty Coast, do yourself a favor and google it. I have a long wishlist on that website, from the 504ever t-shirt to the Believe in the Trinity poster that will hang in my kitchen as soon as I get back. Little pieces of home that allow me to feel not quite so lonely when I'm far away.
Which brings me to Germany. In the first week of rehearsal, I was taken in by a lovely American who brought me to her friends' home for dinner with their kids. It was so delightfully refreshing to sit at a big table with a 5 year-old clamoring for my attention (because he had serious business with dinosaurs) while his lovely singer parents were trying to persuade him to eat the rest of his green beans. This is something that's usually conspicuously absent from the singer life - normal dinners with kids. I will say, that appears to be a big advantage to the Fest system. It seems that most singers on Fest are able to have a quasi-normal life, bringing their kids to kindergarten, calling in sick when someone has the flu, and no one really bats an eyelash. Second lady is out today- why? - her kid has an ear infection. Oh, poor thing. We'll catch her up tomorrow. And we go on with rehearsal. Basta cosi. There seems to be a very low-drama approach, because it's a job. These lovely people come to work, and they do their job. It's not without faults (cuckoo directors who double-book singers to be in two rehearsals at once), as I'm sure they'd tell me, but everyone seems alarmingly normal.
And then I met a woman from the homeland.
This fierce dramatic soprano is singing in another production that's going on at the opera house right now. I saw the show last weekend and was completely blown away (King Lear + german opera = whoa). She was chilling backstage during our dress rehearsal, introduced herself to me, only to find out we're both from New Orleans. [I want to take this moment to give a shoutout to the Baby Jesus, for knowing that I really needed to talk to someone from home. Thanks, Baby Jesus.] She's about 17 years older than I, but we know all the same haunts - Liuzza's, R&O's by the lake, Sal's snowballs - although I concede that most of my haunts are technically Metairie. She's super nice, sassy, and within about 15 minutes of meeting, we've got a dinner date. We go in search of good food, because it's always about the food, and have a generally fantastic time. We talk about work, her family, my family, our parents, loving and leaving NOLA, and the never-ceasing gravitational pull that tugs at us to come home. She comes to opening night and tells me she'll come back at intermission, just to give me the check-in on how I'm doing, which she does, and she brings me a copy of the New Yorker, which I didn't realize how much I'd missed. [sidebar: having my New Yorker subscription with me on the road might be reason enough to get an iPad....] She tells me I'm kicking ass, and that my costume makes me look smokin hot (both of which were true), and we go out for a beer after.
It's not that this behaviour is unique to someone from New Orleans. I've experienced plenty of kindness and compassion with people from all over. But when you meet someone from your own corner of your home country, it's really special. It's that beautiful moment where you recognize yourself in someone else and you get to touch back and say, "oh right, this is that part of me that's always there," but you probably don't get to express it when you're going through your daily life in German. I'm so very grateful for this, and I only hope that I can do the same for someone else on the road. Life's too short, and this career path is too complicated to travel it alone.
That said, I'm going to put on the Meters and make myself breakfast. It won't be grits (I don't know that the Germans even know what grits are), it won't be a pecan waffle from the Camellia Grill, but at least I can sing along with those voices that call me home. They all ask'd for you, I hear :)
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