This has been a pretty good week!!! I can't believe how fast time has flown by. It has been pretty cold and rainy here, but I am not complaining because it makes riding the bike a lot easier. We have made a point of eating a lot of German food because we realized we don't have a lot of time left, and damned if we've been eating soup and pasta every day for the past 2 weeks. I have two restaurants that I frequent, and they know me and what I like to order at each of them (at Deutsches Haus, always a grosse ApfelSchorle and Saurbraten; at 7 Kreutz Gasse, always a grosse ApfelSchorle, Kartoffel und Lachs, and the most delicious Apfel Strudel in town). In other news, I fell down the stairs at the theater the other night on the way into the backstage, and luckily Sam was there to catch me, but I have major leg bruises. Oh well. We have also begun BergStadtFest this week, in which I am consuming my weight x 800 in calories every day, all day. There are all these vendors with so much food, much of it fried... and of course, the beer!!!
Friday, June 19
Today was our premiere of Bastien und Bastienne! We had our final dress/tech rehearsal this morning from 10-12, and then I went back to the Apoteke to get some more medicine, and Kaufland to get some more bread and soup (lunch every day, basically… I have realized that I live in Germany but never get to eat at German restaurants anymore, so I am going to make a point to do that, and nobody can say nothing about it!!!!). Then I came back and put my hair in pincurls and went to German class from 2:30-4:30. Katherine and Hartmut drove us to Leipzig at 4:30, and we picked up the Rebers in Leipzig at 6:30 (Susan is leaving to go back home, so they are staying in Leipzig for the weekend before she leaves). We got to our performance space around 7pm. It was an art gallery and was filled with really beautiful photographic and other visual art- drawings and paintings. Our stage was about the size of the living room we have staged everything in, so that was okay, and the audience was a full house of about 30 people. The man who owned the gallery was a photographer and he took all of these pictures of us, including profile shots, which was weird but I hope he gets some cool shots out of it. The show went pretty well, only a couple of mistakes, and we were very well received!! We did the typical 800 bows, and they gave me beautiful lilies. Then they had a small Italian reception, with light Italian fare and wines…. We had wonderful cilantro cheese cubes, melon balls soaked in raspberry sauce, and a couple other really flavorful items. I also had my first glass of wine in a couple of weeks… haha. Wine is good for the voice, really. We finally made our goodbyes and got home around 12:30am, only to find out we had to be on a bus tomorrow morning at 9:00am for the dress rehearsal for the choir concert tomorrow night!! Oh well. All in all, it was a great evening. The show was a lot of fun to finally perform, and luckily my voice held out very well, except for a couple spots where it came off because I was a little sick. Oh well! It was fun!!!!! I am happy!! By the way- Pyramis also had their premiere tonight, but poor Sasha got REALLY sick overnight (apparently we all sorta have the same thing?), so she had to go onstage to pantomime (apparently pantomiming is the thing here), and Dorothy sang her aria from offstage. Their show went very well, I hear, so great job everyone!!
Saturday, June 20
Today was an interesting day. So, we all found out on the way home from our respective premieres last night that we were to be on a bus at 9am for a chorus rehearsal for the choir concert. Not exciting, but fine, we’ll do it. So we get to the Schloss, where we are supposed to be, and it is totally empty. No bus, no people. We stand around, not sure of what to do (it was Shem, Abby, Lainey, and me… didn’t know where anyone else was), and we actually heard the 9am church bells ring, so we knew we weren’t late. We finally got ahold of Sam (Matt didn’t answer) and he said the bus was already en route. We were pissed!!!! So, we took the day, did a couple of errands, and then the 4 of us had a nice outdoor lunch at Deutsches Haus!!! It was a wonderful day!!! Then we did get on the evening bus to go to the actual concert (not sure where it was, but it was an hour away?) and sang the Tannhäuser chorus and the first movement of Carmina Burana with the orchestra. All of those millions of hours of rehearsals for 10 minutes of being onstage. It was also freezing and raining AND I lost one of my new birthday earrings, BUT I got to talk to Andi on the phone for a full 30 minutes and it was glorious!!!! These things always work out. J
Sunday, June 21
Today was a completely, totally, and wonderfully free day. All we did was have Tosca tonight! We had our third Tosca sing because the second one got sick too. We got up late today, ate food, and watched Doubt in the afternoon. It was awesome. It was also Father’s Day, so I called home and said “Alles gute zum Vatertag!” and it was good. J
Monday, June 22
Today, we had our first German Lieder class with Eckart Sellheim. We did a little bit of scheduling things and then read the original German poetry to our lieder that we will be singing this summer. Then, we had Bastienne, German class, and then Bastienne again. I am really going to enjoy working with Sellheim. He is totally cool, probably from working so long in academia, and he makes me want to be a good musician, which is always a plus and not always something you get from your professors (and thus far in the program, where we have memorized Tosca and memorized Bastienne and haven’t had any real artistic opportunities).
Tuesday, June 23
Today we had a class with Eckart in the morning from 10-12:30 in which we learned about German vowels. We also did some IPA. I thought I was done with IPA drills, a-thank-you! But I flew through it and only had a couple of mistakes, so I suppose it was time well spent. I will do it for Eckart because he is cool. J Then we had another Bastienne rehearsal (we are getting Alex back into it after he has been so sick), and then we suddenly were announced that we had another Sellheim class in the afternoon (which was annoying, since we were planning on having some actual free time, but we’ll do it for Sellheim). Then we had another Tosca tonight, and it was still the Polish Tosca (our third one). Apparently Kat is aiming to sing it again on Thursday, so we are excited!
Wednesday, June 24
Today was a very good day!! The first thing I had this morning was my first individual coaching with Eckart Sellheim in the SenateSaal, at noon. I sang Beethoven’s “Kennst du das Land,” which is a Mignon lied. I really enjoyed singing with the Forte Piano, and coaching with him. We talked about making each stroph (it is a modified strophic song) different, but only slightly, since Beethoven did a pretty bang-up job of making the piano part slightly different each time. It is a beautiful, beautiful song. We will work it again tomorrow and also start Haydn’s “The Wandering One.” After that, I stopped at Back Factory and brought home some lunch, and then we had one more Bastienne rehearsal. We put up the show tonight in Dresden, and that rehearsal helped get it all together one more time. I did not go to German today, since we rehearsed until 3:30 (German starts at 3) and we were leaving at 5 for Dresden… I needed that hour and a half to get ready both physically and emotionally. Sometimes, we all find it important to schedule in our own personal times when we are disallowed from having them. So, we left at 5 (as usual, we were late, and didn’t leave till closer to 6) and arrived in Dresden to sing in another art gallery. It had very good acoustics and really interesting paintings, and they gave us a little bit of money again! Always a surprise! We all got pretty Gerber daisies, too. And we had 4 bows AND we sang an encore! It is so nice to feel so appreciated… I think these audiences we’ve had have been major arts supporters, so they really enjoy coming to hear some musical art, so it is so nice to sing for them. My voice crapped out on me a little bit because I’m still coughing, but alles okay. Then, we went to this great restaurant called the Pulvatorum, which was a little touristy but I had this DELICIOUS veal dish, with a cream sauce and mushrooms and onions all over rice. You don’t realize how much you miss rice until you’ve only eaten potatoes and pasta for a month! Kind of the opposite of camp, where a lot of rice happens. J We got home around 12:30 and we get to sleep in tomorrow!
Thursday, June 25
Today was Abby’s birthday! It was a good day. I got to sleep in a little bit, and then I had lunch with Eddy at the Mensa. I had some kind of battered fish and potatoes. The food isn’t great there, but it only costs about 3 Euros, so whatever. Plus it was good to hang out with her! Today was the beginning of Freiberg’s BergStadtFest, which of course is the yearly celebration of the town that happens in every town. The whole town is closed to autos and there are all kinds of vendors- arts things, food, hats… everything. I had some delicious QuarkKrapfen, which are basically like hushpuppies but sweet and flavored with vanilla. Man, I could eat those things all day!!!! We had German this afternoon and I left early to go to my coaching with Eckart at 4:30. Then I rode back home to pick up my stuff for tonight and then we had Tosca at 7:30. For dinner, I had my delicious leftovers from last night. Tosca was very good again, and for Abby’s birthday we did some BergStadtFest things and hung out downtown. The cool thing is that it is totally legal to drink outside here, so it feels weird but cool to just walk around with a bottle of beer in your hand. I also bought a crepe at one of the vendors. It was filled with apples and bananas and was AWESOME. I could also eat one of those every day. J
I love reading about your adventures, but I can't wait for you to come back to the US! Hope to see you soon!
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