Wardrobe malfunction

So I'm doing this run of Flute in Frankfurt.  For the second aria, I come up through the floor of the stage on this trap door thingie.  My dress is gorgeous but massive and there's a cape that's just begging to get caught in the crack between the trap and the stage, as it did in the very first trap door run I did for this production back in March 2012.

Ain't she a purdy Queen?

There are two women who work as Ankleiderin (female dresser) in the Damensolo Garderobe (women's dressing room) in Frankfurt.  Anna and Anja are the two lovely women who push and pull and lace and hook me into this gorgeous getup and, since I can't actually walk through a door in this dress without assistance, they hold doors for me as I make my way to the trap underneath the stage.  Every performance.  Except last night.  Last night, there was someone new.  She didn't introduce herself, but Anja said, "oh, she's going to get you dressed and go with you tonight."  Um, okay.  Does she know the special magical configuration of gathering the cape up in my hands and then tucking the tail of the dress under my left foot so it doesn't slip and I don't sing the whole Vengeance Aria from two square feet of real estate?  Yikes.  

Well you can imagine.  It was a comedy of errors.  She stepped on my dress twice on the way to the trap, almost making me fall over.  Did I mention there's a dagger in my a pocket of my dress?  She thought she was supposed to hold the cape, so we had this hurried whisper conversation about how it was I who was supposed to hold the cape and she was supposed to tuck it under.  Finally, I'm hoofing it up the little stairs into the trap and she's following me, when my heels gets caught in the underskirt.  Not just caught.  Hooked.  Like it's gone through the underskirt and it's stuck.  I can't see it, I can't move forward or back, it's dark, and we're supposed to be really quiet because I'm supposed to be zipping up that trap door in about 8 seconds.  7.  6.  5..... I manage to free my heel from my dress, promptly stepping on the front of the underskirt and almost doing a faceplant onto the stairs, I step onto the trap and she throws the tail of my dress up and hops off the trap, and up I go, just in time to hiss, 

"Zurück!"

The dialogue in Frankfurt is of a goodly length.  I had a new Pamina last night (who sang beautifully, btw) and we had run it once.  While we were both in our makeup call.  I was so rattled about all the bullshit with my dress and cape and crap, it wasn't until about 20 bars into the aria that I realized I was in the scene.  My conscious mind was elsewhere, still shaking off the anxiety of getting stuck, and then I jerked back to the aria just in time to sing this part, which always makes me crazy, when I realized, "Wow, I'm really kicking ass tonight!"  It only got better from there.  Nailed it.  

Long story short, it is possible to be too present.  My friend Lizzie says that, henceforth, I should ask my dresser to smack me in the face before I go on.  If that doesn't produce some full-blown Queen of the Night stink-eye, I don't know what will.  

To read more about creativity and distraction (plus and minus) see this article in Bulletproof Musician.