Thursday, June 11
I don’t have much to write about today since it was a normal (boring) full day of rehearsals. More from this weekend!
Friday, June 12
Today was a dark day in the theater because Tosca opens tomorrow. Therefore, we had Bastienne ALL DAY, which is fine because we open in a WEEK. I am a little bit freaking out. Tonight we went to Chemnitz to see Anatevka, which is Fiddler on the Roof. It was really, really good. Dorothy knows someone in the cast and her father, so then we hung out with them in the theater’s Kantine until after midnight…. Which means we still had an hour drive home… and by that time we were starving so we stopped at MCDONALD’S on the way home!!!!! I had a Hamburger Royal TS (same as a QP with C!!!!), Kräuter Kartoffeln (basically steak fries with chives in them), regular Pommes (fries), and a Fanta… with ICE. It was a huge day. We got home around 2am, but it was worth it. Tomorrow is going to be a very long day!!
Saturday, June 13
So, today was the Premier of Tosca!!!!! We coached the Bastienne this morning, and then went over our arias with Dr. Reber. The premier was an amazing success. SO much applause, and Christian and Katarina did a fab job. Then, we American students got to sing at the after-party. It was interesting because we had to sing into a microphone….. so I got thrown off a couple times aiming for the mic, listening to the keyboard, and all around just being cold AND distracted…. But it was still really fun. I sang Marietta’s Lied (Die tote Stadt) and Jewel Song (Faust). I think I did a really good job. J Dorothy got up there and announced us all, and told them how old we were and that “even though we’re young, we’re working hard” or something like that, which was mildly embarrassing, but whatever. After I finished singing I chugged 2 flutes of champagne, tee hee. It was wonderful to get to congratulate everyone. Actually, the whole Opening-Night process here is really great. I got to the theater for my makeup call and everyone is just “Toi, toi, toi”-ing everyone else. Apparently the culture here is that you can ONLY reply toi, toi, toi when someone says it to you, and NEVER say “Danke,” and never say it to anyone who is not going to be onstage. So, when the makeup lady says it to you, you are supposed to just smile back. Very interesting. Even between scenes, if you run into someone you haven’t seen yet (as in, after the thing starts), you still say it. It’s a really very friendly night. We also had a minor disaster because the tradition here is the same as at home- opening night cards, etc., and Dorothy had told us she’d get some for us to give out (which we could have done ourselves, but she said she’d so it, so we counted on that)…. And she didn’t. So we quickly had to throw together some origami figures that Matt made, and we signed them, and passed them out. They were well-received, but we still felt (again) like chumps. Oh well. After the party was over, I went to play pool with Daniel, Sam, Michi, Lulu, and Matt. We got in at like 2:30am but that’s okay because we get to sleep in tomorrow!
Sunday, June 14
Today we got to sleep in until 11 and it was awesome! We left for Dresden at 1pm and made it there by 2ish. We walked around for a long time, just acting like tourists, and went into this beautiful church called the Frauenkierche…. Which is this huge dome, and the Americans totally bombed it out, and then the Dresdeners picked up all of the stones and rebuilt the thing to the EXACT specifications as the first time. The inside was beautiful and I was totally moved by it. This woman started singing Ave Maria in there. She kind of sucked, but it showed off how cool the acoustics were. Then we sat at this outdoor restaurant for dinner, and I had pasta with salmon filets and lemon dill cream sauce. It was amazing. I also had a water AND a large Coke Light…. Two drinks in one meal, and one of them was .4L!!!! I was SO hydrated!!! Haha. These Europeans and there non-drinking-at-meals. It’s crazy! Then, we got up and walked around a bit more, and then sat back down at another restaurant for these huge, giant, beautiful, and delicious ice creams. They were seriously the most beautiful things I have ever seen. I got a Kiwi Sundae…. Kiwi ice cream, with whipped cream, pieces of kiwi, and kiwi flavored sauce. It was amazing, seriously. Everyone got something different, and they were all beautiful. We acted like idiots and took a million pictures of them, but whatever! Then we went to the SemperOper and saw Il Barbiere di Siviglia (Rossini). I actually own the production on DVD, so it was cool and also a little disappointing since I had seen it before (I own the Madrid production, but it’s the same). The singing was really fab, though. The tenor was AMAZING. Not once did he biff ANYTHING. The freest, most agile voice I have heard in a long time. Rosina took most of her embellishments down, which either means she didn’t want to sing high OR the conductor could have wanted that, I guess. I still like hearing high notes, though. The whole area was beautiful… right on the Elbe River… and we had a great day because we actually got to be on our own and just enjoy ourselves. We even got home before midnight!!
Monday, June 15
Today was another one of those northern European days where you get 4 different weather patterns every hour. We saw bright, hot sunshine, 95% humidity, sideways rain, regular rain but with big drops, hail, and mist all in the afternoon today. It started off as a good day, though, because I actually got to sleep in until 10am. I have been battling a cough for about 5 days now- it started off as a sore throat which I thought was a reflux thing, but now I have a stuffy nose, drainage, and coughing. It is uncomfortable, and the Apoteke is not open on weekends, so hopefully I will get to go into town tomorrow to get some meds. But actually getting 10 solid hours of sleep last night was so great! So I woke up, studied my Bastienne (I am FREAKING OUT), had lunch (soup and a roll…. They have these delicious half-baked rolls here, and you stick it in your oven for 5 mins and it comes out warm and delicious, plus these soup packets that you just add boiling water to…. Awesome!) Over lunch I also watched a little bit of Paul Blart: Mall Cop, which is one of the wonderful AMERICAN movies I got for my birthday!!!! I am watching them slowly to prolong the joy of actually having entertainment in English. Then, we had our first three-hour German class. Apparently for this course to be approved by JMU, we had to have 60 hours of German lessons, so for it to all work out, this week we have 3 hour lessons every day instead of 2. Let me tell you…. Three hours is ROUGH. We can barely make it through 2. Luckily, Frau Heineke is super cool and plays games sometimes. Today we filled our last 45 mins by reading German poetry and figuring out what it means. She is also really sweet because she came to the Tosca premiere, and then stayed for the party to hear us sing!!! It was really special of her to come. So, German was done at 5:30, and then I watched a little more Paul Blart and had some tortellini and Gemüse (vegetables) for dinner. We started Bastienne rehearsals at 7pm, and (I’m not sure if I’ve written this before?) our Colas has been really sick for over a week- Strep Throat, or something- so he can’t sing, so we’ve had to hire out a Colas. He is a real German singer from Chemnitz. He is about our age, and is perfectly nice, but I started getting more and more frustrated tonight because what was originally a rehearsal turned into Martin giving us diction coaching. Which is GREAT, of COURSE I want to be understood…. But he is now the third person to give us notes, and is therefore the third dialect we’ve been told to use. He told me that he did not understand one single word of any of my arias tonight. I was super frustrated!!!! I am working hard. He told me everything I did was too legato…. Which is hilarious because nothing I ever sing is legato ENOUGH. So, I was pretty glad when that tortue was over at 10pm. The problem is that our show goes up FRIDAY, which is in three days. THREE. And NOW we are getting diction coachings?? Just in time to be freaked out about not being able to re-learn everything I learned “wrong?” I am not memorized on my dialogue at all. Freaking out. I have it about 50% learned. I know what I’m saying in English, but I just can’t make the German words come. And since we are doing this for a German audience, it has to be perfect, and I can’t fake anything, so….. freaking out. On top of the cough, and not really being able to sing, and getting no sleep so no time to heal….. freaking out.
Tuesday, June 15
Today we had Bastien in the morning and then a Tosca matinee at 2:30. Our Tosca, Katharina, is sick, so they hired a cover to sing the Tosca from offstage, and our director Judica went onstage to pantomime it! I have never seen anything like it! She didn’t know the words, so she didn’t even try to lip sync- she just acted. It was amazing, and still SO moving. It was as if she had all these thoughts that she couldn’t communicate, and they were amazingly communicated just in thought. Does that make sense? It was amazing, seriously. Then, we had to go to a party at the TU for international students, and these high school bands were playing, and then Dorothy wanted us to awkwardly get up there and sing opera arias…. But Alex and I were sick, Shem, Matt, Sasha, and Lainey were at Pyramis rehearsal,…. So that left poor Abby and Martin (our Colas cover from Chemnitz) to sing. Oops. Luckily, there was free food and we drank, so all was okay. Plus Daniel came along, so I was happy.
Wednesday, June 16
We had a delightful morning to get to sleep in a little bit today, so I slept until 10 (which is helpful because I am sick!) and then got up to study and finish memorizing (haha) my Bastienne. Then we had German from 2:30-5:30, a dinner break, and then Bastien from 7pm-10. Actually, I skipped German today because I am really sick, and the Pyramis people had rehearsal…. So Abby had to go to German by herself today. Oops. J
Thursday, June 17
Today we rehearsed Bastien from 10-3 in the Freiberg Theater, which was awesome, but I had to leave halfway through to go to the doctor. It was my first (obviously) doctor’s appointment totally auf Deutsch, and I survived! She is an ENT, and she scoped me and said my voice is fine, I just have an infection, so she painted some Grenchen Violet (??) in there to kill it. She also prescribed me some awesome cough drops that have anesthetic in them. So I called Dad to tell him, and told him I still had a cough… and he diagnosed me with Bronchitis. Awesome. So he is mailing me an inhaler and antibiotics, but since German customs is closed over the weekend, it’s not getting here until Monday. Until then, I will continue with my aspirin/pseudoephedrine regimen and wait. I feel okay, I just have this big cough in my chest that often keeps me up at night, so I have to sit in the steamy bathroom for a while. But I am okay. I have been totally marking my Bastienne for a few days and am just saving it all up until tomorrow night. Usually this plan works for me, and my adrenaline holds out and I sing okay, so I’m sure I will be fine tomorrow! We also had a Tosca performance tonight, and Katharina is still sick, so the Tosca cover actually sang it onstage tonight. She was fabulous and the show went well. They even had to add extra seating.
Friday, June 18
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!!
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