Ah, Carmen!!

I can now officially say I have sung my first complete opera role live in performance of the actual opera itself!! (Albeit an abridged version).  The resume now includes "Frasquita" in Bizet's Carmen and it was one heck of an experience.

We had seven rehearsals in total - five with principals only and two with the chorus who had been rehearsing seperately for longer.  Of those seven rehearsals our lovely leading lady was, unfortunately unable to actually sing due to illness for three or four and as the problem failed to resolve, she couldn't make the one night only performance either - with about 4 days notice.

We were sad for her, but no time to dwell on that as we all had to ensure we were absolutely focussed in order to support the professional mezzo parachuted in to carry the show.  No easy task to be a last minute stand in for the title role of the whole opera - although I can see from various programme notes that in the professional world these "einspringen" are fairly matter of course. 

The life of an opera singer seems to be beset by the risk of illness, the effect of illness and recovery from illness and my twitter timeline is strewn with singers gutted that they have had to drop stuff, singers standing in for other singers who are ill and operagoers sharing information about who is standing in for who!

Our replacement leading lady appeared in the final rehearsal as if by magic several pages into the quintet - and if you have ever sung one of the five characters who sing it, you know the it as the one that everyone calls the quintet.  (Or to give it it's full names "Every time I've directed this it has taken ages to get right" "This is fiendishly difficult to sing" or "Don't worry it will fall apart when we first put movement with it" and "Do you want to go over that one more time").  She simply appeared vocally at precisely the right moment, singing a totally different english translation from the one we were using but not being thrown by that at all. Good start.

All the singers - many of us not professional - rose to the challenge and I think we all enjoyed ourselves enormously.  Our Carmen was great, totally relaxed and unfazed. 

Thankfully we did have a stage manager for the night who knew who should be where and with what props - quite a challenge for a "semi staged" (read "actually in full costume, with movement & props") production on a concert hall stage.  I know she will remember fondly the broken table - unfortunately the tenor bullfighter hadn't got that message so leapt onto it with gusto.  Talk about rapt attention - Escamillo has never been watched so carefully by Frasquita & Mercedes (with legs wedged under the table legs). Am sure she also enjoyed running round the building Benny Hill style with three gipsies and a bullfighter trying to find the correct unlocked door for the final entry.........

The show was exhilaratingly successful and extremely well received and for both those things I feel profoundly relieved and not at all personally responsible!

I loved every minute and I still can't really believe I did it.  The chance to sing Frasquita was fantastic - I hope to have the opportunity to sing roles rather than arias in future.

Watch this space!

Taken down in evidence....2012 resolutions

At the start of this year I began a draft blog post about my resolutions for the year.  As we are somewhat past the halfway point I found it quite illuminating to reflect on them:

"I have always found the idea of a fresh new start, a clean slate, those optimistic rose tinted resolutions very beguiling! I usually set myself some pleasingly sweeping and unrealistic targets, which I then have to re-examine after, on average, two weeks.
So this year, what should I resolve on now that I am definitely Not A Lawyer........I don't have career goals in the way that I used to.  But then, really is the way that I approach life so very different these days? No.  I still have aspirations, goals, targets, and HUGE areas for improvement!!
I'd like to tackle the impertinent weeds growing up through my previously attractive gravel patch in the garden.  It currently looks like a disheveled and unloved scruff in need of a haircut."

And that was it.

I can confirm (smugly) that I have tackled the weeds.  But why didn't I record any other major aspirations or tricky little targets? Didn't I have any? Perhaps I ran out of time to write them down.

Well I don't think that was it - and of course I did and do have aspirations.  This just over half a year has been pretty satisfying from an achievement point of view.  I've enjoyed singing in a run of The Gondoliers, and expanded my operatic concert repertoire.  I even sang my first proper opera role (Frasquita in Carmen) just this month.  And I felt like I'd climbed Everest (and, admittedly, as if I had been hit by a train).

On the parenting and autism front we've been on autism parent training, successfully made & implemented MAJOR decisions about The Boy's education and have some other exciting news which I could talk about but I'd have to swear you all to secrecy! (NO, not a bun in the oven). And our beautiful daughter is now getting some support as a sibling of SEN and she and I are having a blast spending girls-only time together (she made me ride the Sonic Spinball rollercoaster at Alton Towers and I threw up in my mouth a little bit.  Good times).

But why didn't I record any other goals or resolutions?

Well, I think probably because if there was any one motto that typifies this year it would be (say it with me) "one day at a time" - if you want to get King James on it "sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof".

I don't know what each day will hold.  But I know I can get through it and I usually have strategies these days of how that is going to happen.  And that will do for me.  For now. 

(But I want to sing Susanna in the Marriage of Figaro in the next year or two, so there!)

The roar of the greasepaint...

Dear Reader,

It's that time again when I enjoy immersing myself in the turbulent waters of stage & singing until only my nostrils remain visible above the surface and my children start to invert their usual behavior patterns by pushing past me to ask Mr Life After Law to fulfil their every despotic whim.

Yes: SHOW TIME! Which means I have been imagining that I am actually in the Biz for real by swanning about during the day "resting" (ie ignoring the -to me- unacceptable level of misfiling of kitchen utensils and bedroom floor clothes hanging) so that I have all my faculties about me each evening when I transport myself to another time and place and wear an improbably large wig while singing about love interests swapped at birth.....I am, however, assured by Actual Proper Singers that the swanning about all day is not a luxury available to those who do earn their crust by singing for their suppers!

Mr Life After Law is now officially and permanently to be known as World's Best Husband for parental fortitude above and beyond the call of duty.  Due to a slightly longer than usual commute to the theatre, WBH has been engaging the enemy (Operation Bedtime) on land, sea and in the air - battle-weary yet triumphant he and the children have emerged into the pale light of a new entente cordiale in which I promise not to go off singing at bedtime for a little bit.

Usually the end of show week is marked by a terrible case of post-show blues, which in its most severe manifestation led, recently, to the creation of Random Opera Company by friend and fellow blogger baritone, Richard Jones - I may have egged him on every so slightly.

However, this year, thanks to the promise/threat of future engagements and the learning of repertoire required,  I'm not feeling too much like the fun is all over.  Time to banish the old from my brain and embrace the new, which thanks to the ready availability of recordings I can start in the length of time it takes to say "one click ordering"......so here we go.Handel, and Mozart and Bizet, Oh My!