Rehearsing the Haircut

As our rehearsals in the the staging studio have wrapped up over the past few days, I managed to get a few snapshots (with the help of Jenny's camera one of the days, as mine was at the camera doctor) of some of my colleagues at work. I'm new at the whole taking-pictures-of-moving-people thing, and I happen to be on stage most of this show, so my pictures are a bit limited in in terms of what scenes I could photograph. Nonetheless, enjoy some tidbits of our rehearsals - we certainly have been!

Rosina

Rosina writing a love note to Lindoro (and maybe singing an aria)

Rosina and Figaro

Bartolo and Rosina fighting over paper and pens

Rosina two steps ahead of Figaro

Rosina looking mighty sure of herself

And now we move to the theater...

10 Seconds

The brilliant Rosina out here, Jennifer Rivera, just bought a new toy and has seemingly mastered how to use it in a matter of days.

Below is some of her handiwork, previewing our upcoming Barber over a few beers on our day-off:



If you don't follow it already, be sure to check out Jenny's fun and witty blog here.

Mission

"Portland Opera exists to inspire, challenge, and uplift our audiences by creating productions of high artistic quality that CELEBRATE the beauty and breadth of opera."

– Portland Opera Mission

As we began our first rehearsal for Barbiere on Monday, right before I sang my first notes in the opera, I looked up and saw that the mission of the Portland Opera was displayed prominently in the center of the wall, right above the conductor's head.

Never before have I seen an opera's mission statement, let alone seen it displayed in a rehearsal room. It wasn't even something that I had ever thought of. I mean, an opera company's mission is to produce opera, plain and simple, right? As I've gotten to know the building during this first week of rehearsal, I've noticed that the mission is displayed almost ubiquitously, serving as a constant reminder of everyone's purpose at the company.

On my walks to work this week, crossing the Willamette River, I've found myself still pondering the idea of approaching this profession as one of service. As a music student, I often felt selfish for pursuing a career in music. I watched as my closest childhood friends grew into adults and took their places in the world community, and marveled at their accomplishments. One dedicated her 20s to an organization called Operation Smile, traveling throughout the developing world helping children in need connect with doctors to get the treatment they were so desperately in need of. Another has chosen a career in promoting cancer awareness and educating communities how to better take care of their health. One is now a Psychiatric resident in New York at Cornell, caring for many mentally ill patients and researching the mysteries of how the brain works. One is a college professor who has dedicated much of his research to education policy. One used her law degree to provide legal aid to youth in need in New England. One is finishing her Ph.D. in anthropology, researching many of the mysteries of how we evolved to be as we are today. Educators, researchers, doctors, volunteer coordinators – it was easy to see how these people who have inspired me my whole life are giving back to society, each trying in their own way to make the world a better place.

As a young musician, it's really easy to forget why what we do is important. It's a tough world out there to get established, and we have to devote much of our focus to figuring out a way of paying the bills, carving out careers for ourselves. I'm not sure that many of us as young musicians ask this question of ourselves, but it is a topic that I have pondered much of my adult life. Over the years, I have come to feel that my personal mission is one close to what my colleagues and hosts here at the Portland Opera maintain. Music really does inspire, it really does challenge, and it really has the power to uplift us. In an increasingly secular, scientific, stress-filled, capitalist world, music feeds the soul, and I've really begun to feel that to be a musician is to choose a career of service – service to the human spirit. Each time I walk on stage, I hope to entertain, to move, to create a little beauty, and to help people ponder and revel in the richness of human experience.

I've looked up at that mission statement everyday this week in rehearsal and been so grateful to have that constant reminder of what is really important in our work. In a day where many are intimidated by the elitist aura that surrounds classical music and opera, it's refreshing to work at a place where we are reminded that reason we strive for excellence is not simply to be good or the "best", but because we want to give the best to the community we serve, and the community we live in, even if (as in my and my fellow castmates' instances) only as temporary guests.

Newbie

It became evident early on yesterday during our first day of school here at Portland Opera that all of my cast mates have sung The Barber of Seville numerous times and are all pretty much veterans at their roles. Listening to everyone's mastery of their arias and incredibly clear initial ideas about recitatives and ensembles, I felt a little awestruck and impressed at everyone's facility. As we neared the finale of the opera, and I wondered why it felt so unfamiliar to me, I was reminded suddenly of the fact that at my last performance of this piece (back at Wolf Trap in 2003), the power went out, and we were forced to stop the performance after the trio in Act II, making the grand total of performances that I have done of this piece a whopping 1 ⅞.

Needless to say, I felt hyper-conscious of my inexperience, particularly because this is an opera with a lot of performance traditions, many of which I can't say that I understand. But rather give into my insecurities, which contributed to my first-day jitters that I always feel at an initial music rehearsal, it occurred to me what a gift this is to be surrounded by so many experts. While my slate is fairly clean in terms of expectations, I will be experiencing this for the second time with colleagues who have incredibly rich and layered concepts of the story, their characters, and their relationships. By the end of the day, my apprehension had given way to excitement about the adventure that is to come these next five weeks here in beautiful Oregon.

Soli Deo Gloria

Last week, I was asked to attend a performance of Charpentier's Leçons de Tenèbres that was being given at a St. Thomas Church in New York City. Sitting in the dimly-lit, stone, Gothic church, listening to the sacred, angelic-sounding music and performance, I realized that it was the first time in a long time that I had been in a church at all.

My mind drifted as I listened to the music, my thoughts meandering towards church, God, and Eastertide. I grew up very actively involved in the Greek Orthodox Church as a kid. I spent many Holy Weeks serving as an altar boy, assisting our priest and reading many of the readings in the church liturgies and services. I attended Sunday School regularly, and I went to the church's Greek School every week. I participated in the church's oratorical competition, was president of the youth group, and danced in our Greek dance group.

As I grew up, for a wide variety of reasons and as many people do, I grew distant from the church. As one learns more about the history of the church, the history of the Bible, and the history of religion in general, it's easy to grow disenchanted with religion. I began to see religion as more of a political entity rather than one of faith, and as the power and voice of the religious right in US politics has risen over the course of my lifetime, it has become even easier to view it through that lens. The concurrence of Holy Week, the most important holiday in Christendom, and the seemingly unending string of scandalous revelations about the Pope and the Catholic Clergy didn't help matters much last week either.

The day after the concert, I was catching up on reading some of the blogs I follow when I read this post over at the Huffington Post. Reading Albert's entry and thinking back to how I felt the previous night at St. Thomas, I was reminded how my faith has always been kept alive though music. When I called to wish her a Happy Easter on Sunday, my mother gently tried to make me feel guilty (in that way that Greek mothers do) for not going to church last week, yet I didn't feel an ounce remorse, because after having spent the past month immersed in both the St. John and St. Matthew Passions, I felt like I had been celebrating Lent, Passiontide and Easter all in my own, more personal, and musical way.

In getting ready for tonight's performance of the St. Matthew, I've been constantly reminded how Bach's music demands humility and meditation. Whereas with other composers, I can put the score down for a while without feeling like I am losing anything by letting it go for a bit, in order to feel ready for tonight, I, a person who considers himself more "faithful" these days as opposed to "religious", have had to sit with this score daily, aside from practice, simply to study and absorb it. The Passion of Jesus Christ according to St. Matthew has consumed most of my waking hours for the past month. It makes me wonder – have those "religious" pundits on the 24-hour news channels who debate about gay marriage and argue about the latest church pedophilia scandal spent this much of the last month studying the Bible and pondering what it is to be part of a religion?

S. D. G. – Bach wrote this at the end of each of his Church cantatas, standing for Soli Deo Gloria: For the Glory of God alone. Whether it's for God, for music, for Bach, for the people in the audience who come to hear us tonight, or for all of those, it's that kind of humility and sense of service that I hope to carry inside me when we walk out on stage tonight.

Rossini meets Bach

Before our last concert of the St. John, one of my colleagues (who is also a close friend) came to my dressing room to say hello, saw my suitcase, rolled his eyes and said, "oh…you're one of those singers…" He was disappointed that I wasn't going to hang around for the evening and go out on the town to celebrate with him and his partner. But after so little time in my new apartment and being surprised to be spending an unexpected extra week in Chicago, I had decided to run right home straight after our last matinee. I made that choice for two reasons – firstly, because I was anxious to have some time to enjoy sitting on my new couch, and, secondly, because I knew that I had to get to work on my next two upcoming projects.

While being back at the CSO was an incredible, fun, and exciting opportunity, I lost a bit of time in terms of preparing for the two huge projects that are on next on my docket – St. Matthew and Il barbiere di Siviglia. While I have done Barber before – I haven't even looked at the score since 2003, and (as I posted the other day) this St. Matthew Evangelist will be my first. To make matters even more stressful, three days after my first performance of the St. Matthew Evangelist, rehearsals begin for Barbiere in Portland, leaving me just enough time to fly home, unpack, then repack, and fly off to Portland. So, while I have been trying to enjoy some time at home these last three weeks, I have been forced to keep my nose to the grindstone, so to speak. The morning after I returned home, sheer panic set in, and I dove directly into a daily routine with an intensity and total immersion that I rarely experience outside of my summers at Marlboro.

This process has quite literally felt like burning a candle at both ends – Rossini and Bach are two very different, almost opposite musical forces to contend with. Rossini is all about virtuosity, flexibility, and bel canto technique, the needs of the voice dictating the musical line and phrasing. Bach sits on the opposite end of that spectrum, requiring the singer to treat his (or her) voice like an instrument. Rossini requires ego, bravado, and showmanship. Bach has no room for such qualities, demanding humility, meditation, and selflessness. The one thing that both do require is a lot of practice.

As I settled into my working rhythm, my initial panic gradually gave way to enjoyment, and I started to notice that burning this musical candle at both ends was, much to my surprise, yielding numerous positive and unexpected results. Almost immediately, I found that rather than feeling like I was juggling two voices, my work with one composer would inform my work with the other. I discovered I didn't need to feel quite so rushed in Bach. I discovered that I could stand to be a lot more precise and clean in my approach to Rossini. I also discovered things that were non-musical, as well. One day, writing my morning pages, pondering my fraught and nerve-wracked relationship with Rossini, I found myself posing the question: Am I anxious that I won't live up to the music or am I more scared of what my colleagues and the audience might think? Considering an answer, I realized that whenever I feel nervous about Bach, it is because I am afraid I won't be able to do justice to the music. Disturbingly, I also became aware that my nerves about Rossini did not stem from the same source. Identifying that fear was incredibly liberating, and also allowed me to finally open up and take some huge strides forward with Mr. Rossini, as I applied my more Bach-ian psychological approach to practicing his music.

Normally, it's difficult to be this disciplined when I am at home – at times it can be exhausting, and it can be easy to feel blocked. But these past few weeks, I've really enjoyed myself and felt myself enjoying singing in a way that I haven't in a long time. It's been three weeks in which I feel there have been countless discoveries and technical growth spurts, making me very excited for the weeks to come.

Tenors, Bach and Passions

After my unexpected week back in Chicago, I still find myself in the land of Bach and the Passions – this time in the realm of St. Matthew. In a couple of weeks, I'll make my way through my first Evangelist in the St. Matthew Passion. When it comes to these two larger-than-life pieces, I feel like I've had the opportunity to discover each aspect of them in the perfect order. In college, my teacher, who loved these pieces dearly, pushed quite hard for me to begin learning them, hearing the possibility for them in my voice, but I never really dug in very hard without the impetus of an upcoming performance to force me to learn them. So, I bought the scores and glanced at them in college, but didn't really pick either of them up in earnest until my first St. Matthew Passion with Music of the Baroque a couple of years ago, in which I sang the arias.

The tenorial responsibilities in these passions differ greatly in terms of difficulty. All four roles (one tenor narrates the story as the Evangelist and another sings the arias in each) are challenging in the way that all of Bach's vocal writing is, but their challenges vary as does the level of difficulty. In both Passions, the challenge to singing the arias is the prolonged amount of time one has to wait before singing anything, as well as the fact that it seems that when Bach was writing the arias, he had two very different singers in mind, as the technical requirements and hurdles differ vastly from one aria to another. In the St. Matthew, the first aria and recitative are fairly high in tessitura whereas the second aria sits a lot lower. In the St. John, the differences are even greater. As in the St. Matthew, one aria sits significantly higher than the other, but the lower first aria is also quite dramatic and disjunct with the relatively heavy orchestration of a full string orchestra, while the much higher second aria requires not only some of the most delicate and controlled singing Bach ever demanded from a tenor (it is only scored for two violins and continuo) but also the utmost endurance. The phrase are almost never-ending, requiring incredible breath control and smooth, legato singing. The arias in St. John are perhaps some of the most technically treacherous music Bach ever wrote for tenor.

The challenges to both Evangelists are not just the normal vocal and harmonically challenging twists of Bach's vocal writing, but also the intellectual and dramatic challenge of narrating the story of each passion. In both cases, the Evangelist is responsible for the flow of the evening, linking the varied sections of each piece, and engaging the audience over a period of more than two hours. It's a lot of German, a lot of harmonically brilliant and strange recitatives, and a lot of storytelling. Vocally, the St. John is lower in tessitura than the St. Matthew as well as a bit shorter in length. I find the St. John Passion a bit more dramatic and direct, whereas I find the St. Matthew more meditative and longer, which, combined with it's much higher tessitura, requires much more concentration and focus as a result.

The order that I have had the opportunity to learn each of these parts has been ideal, and I am grateful for the chance that seems to have led me to these various circumstances. Beginning with the most manageable of the four roles, I was able to discover what the experience of performing one of these Passions is like. Then, by learning what seems to me to be the easier of the two Evangelists, I was able to make my first foray into telling this story and begin to get an understanding of what kind of responsibility that entails. Being pushed to learn the St. John arias so fast and in such a pressure cooker, now viewed through the luxury lenses of retrospect, was ideal. I was forced to look past the intimidation I felt when examining their technical pitfalls and rise to the occasion. Being with such a first-class group of colleagues inspired me to push through that intimidation, as well. And now, having had all of these experiences with both Passions, I feel ready to tackle what I consider the greatest challenge of the four - St. Matthew's high-voiced and long-winded story-teller.

Chicago’s Magnestism

After the mad rush of the Marlboro Tour and a concert of incredibly challenging Bach Cantatas and the Magnificat in Philadelphia the following week, I tried to settle into a comfortable routine of being at home for about ten days before hopping off to Chicago for some concerts with my good friends at the Music of the Baroque. I got off the plane in Chicago on a Tuesday afternoon and immediately felt the calmness of being somewhere familiar. It was so nice to know where to go in the airport, know the person who was picking me up, and just feel the comfort of being in the part of the country where I grew up. As diverse as my ethnic background is and as much of the world I have traveled these past 9 years singing, I am a Midwestern boy at heart, and there is a certain sense of hominess I feel in Chicago that I never feel any other place I work. As I stepped out of the airport, I breathed a huge sigh of relief.

Part of my relief was the knowledge that after the Music of the Baroque concerts, I would begin a month off – my first chance to spend more than 10 days in at once in my new home, and to put my feet up and relax a bit. I spent my week in Chicago visiting with some very close friends who live here as well as friends who were in town to work. I also sang at a few Chicago high schools on my days off as part of an educational program that Music of the Baroque has. My educational colleagues and I drove from school to school, sharing many laughs along the way, taking the rather early class times in stride. Rehearsals for the MOB concerts were great fun, as I was making music with friends – we laughed our way through much of the rehearsals and just enjoyed working our way through three scores of rarely performed pieces by Handel (my favorite composer to sing).

After the concerts, I stayed for a few days to see a performance at the Lyric and to visit with my aunt, who lives nearby. I flew back home to New York on Thursday afternoon and immediately unpacked my bag. I was excited to get home, as I had just ordered a new couch and piano, which were to arrive on Friday. Once I had reorganized my place Friday afternoon and had enjoyed sitting on my new couch for a few minutes, I headed out to for a meeting with my manager. As I was making my way down to her office, my phone rang – it was my manager. "Nick – I have an urgent matter to discuss with you: The Chicago Symphony just called…" she said. "You're kidding…" I said.

It turns out that a colleague was not well, and had to cancel singing the tenor arias in the St. John Passion this week. After some decision making on both ends (I had only ever performed the Evangelist – not the arias), I had a flight booked to go back to Chicago and a rather pressing reason to park myself at my new piano to woodshed. Saturday, I repacked my freshly unpacked bag, and Sunday morning, I found myself flying straight back to where I had just been. At rehearsal on Monday, I saw a colleague who had just played the MOB concerts and who also is playing these concerts with the CSO. He smiled when he saw me, and said, "Long time, no see!" and I replied "This city is like a magnet – I just keep getting pulled back!"

The week has been pretty spectacular, despite the stress of learning these incredibly difficult and tricky arias and needing to get them up to a very high level so quickly. My colleagues are some of the best people in this repertoire in the world, and having the unexpected chance to sing with CSO again is pretty dreamy.

Browsing

Last Wednesday, after our train pulled into Washington, DC, and before the unfortunate drama of our poor soprano partner-in-crime falling ill, I was to meet one of my best friends in the world for lunch. I called to tell her that I was making my way from Union Station to our rendez-vous point in Dupont Circle, and she told me not to rush, because something had come up at her office and she was going to be a little late. Her delay turned out to be fortuitous, allowing me time to enjoy an afternoon of sunshine before the first blizzard of the week befell the east coast and take a leisurely walk down to 15^th and P streets where I could attend to an errand that I needed to take care of before I left DC – pick up a score that I needed for an audition that I had with a conductor the following week.

I was relieved to find that Musical Source was where I remembered, and that my memory had not failed me. I descended the few steps to the front door and walked in to the spacious store, filled with shelves and shelves of music, classical music softly playing on the radio. I breathed a sigh, enjoying being in this store that was designed for browsing and discovery. One of the people who worked there asked me if he could help me with anything. I told him what I was looking for, and he then directed me to a stack near the near the front of the store. I then checked the time on my phone and decided I had time to dawdle.

I walked over to the shelves that housed a lot of the music for voice and discovered a treasure trove of vocal chamber music. I perused scores for voice and harp, voice and flute and piano, new editions of Telemann cantatas, and Beethoven Scottish songs, my mind humming with new ideas. I found countless things I had never even heard of, fascinated to discover what all of this music was like, and I started concocting schemes to explore all of it and, perhaps, to program some of it. It felt electric and exciting. I took a stack of things that I thought looked good and interesting to the cash register along with my Beethoven score and paid. I had come in looking for one thing, and I left having spent well over a hundred dollars more than I had intended to and with a much heavier suitcase than I expected to lug home on Friday.

Once upon a time, we had places like this in New York, but alas, no more. As I (very happily) paid the man who worked at the store, I told him that I hoped that Musical Source would be around for a long time to come. I would never have even thought to look for any of the things I bought – I only bought them because I discovered them purely accidentally and could open the scores and peek inside to see if any of it looked palatable or interesting. As I left the store and headed back to Dupont Circle to meet my friend, I felt a bit wistful, sad that the only resource left to me at home, shopping online, will never feed me that same rush that I felt in the store that afternoon.

A Little Improvisation

So, my thirty day project has sort of fallen flat on its face since I got back to the States. I'm a little disappointed, but not surprised, as I always find it difficult to keep writing when I back home in the States. There is something about being in Europe – perhaps it's foreignness and the isolation that entails – that makes writing easier. Part of it has also been as issue of time. I've found it hard to carve out the time for the blog with these past two weeks' intense schedule. One special treat about this tour has been that I have been travelling with friends – something very special for me, being so accustomed to travelling alone all the time. We have shared countless laughs on this trip, and on top of our packed schedule of travel, rehearsal, and performances, I've found I've wanted to spend many of my free moments catching up with these friends from my Marlboro family and enjoying the company.

Wednesday evening, after arriving in Washington, DC, I was getting ready for a reunion with my 6^th grade best friend, when I received a text message with some sad news – my duet partner for the tour was letting us know that she was ill and would not be able to complete the rest of the tour. Wishing her a speedy recovery, we immediately went into crisis mode, trying to figure out how to make the show go on. After a variety of options were explored, it was decided that Lydia and I would replace the two sets of duets with two sets of solo lieder. Thursday was a flurry of scrambling to find rehearsal space and then rehearsing these new pieces, with barely enough time to iron my shirt for the concert. Before we knew it, it was time for the concert, and I found myself explaining the unfortunate circumstances and announcing the program change to our very understanding DC audience.

The last two concerts and days have been a blur, as I put my blinders on, shutting out the noise of my nerves about having so little rehearsal for such nuanced music as much as possible and narrowing my focus towards giving everything I have to putting on a good performance for the lovely people who have been filling these halls to see us and support Marlboro.

Marlboro Tour, Part I and II

On Saturday, the weather in New York took a nose dive into frigid temperatures, inducing me to set roots into my couch as I channel surfed all day on Saturday. By the time pre-concert-prep time rolled around, I found myself unwilling to uproot myself and brave the cold to journey down to Union Square for the first concert of our tour. It took me a while to get warmed up and energized, but once I saw the other, string-playing half of our touring company, I found myself both warmed and charged by our happy reunion. Assuming that the rest of New York City felt as I had all day, I was pleasantly surprised to see a completely packed theater filled with eager listeners on Saturday night.

The trip to Greenwich the next day was an easy, laugh-filled train ride away from the city. After our second concert, we were whisked off to a reception hosted by one of the donors to Marlboro, where we ate delicious food and sipped on exquisite wine. Our host asked us to speak a little about Marlboro to the group, and I found myself gushing about how special it is to me and how it revolutionized my relationship with music, helping me reconnect with my passion for music, reminding me why I fell in love with it. Unexpectedly, I found myself surprised as my voice almost broke with the amount of emotion that I was suddenly feeling, and I was reminded just how much of a treat these two weeks are for me.

Blissful Routine

Since I moved back to New York a few years ago, it's been hard to find my rhythm here. In the city that never sleeps, it is easy to feel pulled in numerous different directions. The constant hum and bustle here can make it difficult to relax and recharge – what I used to associate with coming home. Sometimes, I almost feel more at home on the road than I am at my own apartment.

What has been so lovely about this week is that I have felt myself settling into a comfortable routine here, almost blissfully monotonous – something I've never experienced here. Every day, I've woken up in my lovely new home, done some work around my place, headed out to rehearsal, lesson or some other appointment, and then settled into my kitchen to make dinner for people I love. It's felt so wonderfully mundane that I almost haven't felt like I've had much to write about this week.

So, while it may seem boring, it's a great joy to feel home in my actual home for a change.

Views

The view leaving Dusseldorf on Monday morning

The view greeting me as I arrived in New York on Monday evening.

Revisiting Marlboro

Waking up in my own bed this morning was heaven. At the end of yesterday's delayed, excruciatingly long (14 and half hours door to door) and turbulent journey, I was rewarded with the best night's sleep I have had in a while. After a breakfast at the local diner and a morning spent unpacking, I ran off to my first rehearsal for the Marlboro tour.

We started with warm hugs and some catching up, and then dove right into Haydn. We set off into the world of Nisa and Tirsi, a world that we only briefly explored two summers ago, opting to focus on Schumann's duets instead. We reminded ourselves of the twists and turns of Haydn's music, trying out ornaments and decorative flourishes as we went. After a while, we shifted our eyes to Schumann, revisiting these pieces that we performed two summers ago up at Marlboro. At one point, I joked that I was experiencing a bit of déjà-vu, Lydia replying that she felt just like we were in the dining hall up in Vermont even though we were in wintry New York City. We finished our second Schumann duet, and I sighed, realizing how much fun it was to be making music with this group again. It not only felt good to sing with friends, but also to make music on such an intimate level again after months of singing opera - music at it's most flamboyant. It felt like putting on a beloved t-shirt – familiar, happy, and comforting. It made me realize just how much I am looking forward to the next two weeks.

I'm Home

I spent the day in the sky above the Atlantic. I'm home now. That's about all I can muster today, unfortunately. Be back with more tomorrow...

Tchüss, Lindoro

I would love to say that today's Lindoro was perfect, but, of course, that is not the case. How could it be? Such is the nature of live performance. What makes it exciting is it's imperfection – the vulnerability of being openly human on stage in front of an audience. No safety net, the possibilities endless. Aside from being incredibly happy with today's very successful show (our best yet in my opinion), what I will say is that today was undoubtedly the most fun I have ever had on stage in Lindoro's shoes. From the first notes of Languir per una bella, his first aria, I felt a freedom and a focus that I had never felt before singing this music. It was exhilarating. And what was more was that I felt the audience react – as I enjoyed myself more and more with each note and just gave over to the music more than ever, I felt the audience join me on the ride and enjoy themselves, as well.

I thought I wouldn't be nervous about this final foray, but I was wrong. I woke up this morning about forty minutes before I wanted to, and as I hopelessly tried to grasp onto a few more minutes of sleep, my mind started to race. It dawned on me that I was nervous, which caused me concern. Part of the reason I felt that Friday's show had been so good was that I felt so calm. I started writing my morning pages, and my nerves about the show started to morph into anxieties about the future and what was next. I had to jerk myself back into the present and remind myself that I should enjoy this final show.

While I was nervous, for the first time I was not afraid. In Frank Herbert's Dune there is a motto that is repeated over and over: fear is the mind-killer. Today's performance really illuminated precisely how true those words are. Free from fear and energized by nerves, I found that choices would open themselves up to me in those scary passages where, in the past, my mind would simply go blank as my fear overcame me. It was liberating, and I really started to have a lot of fun with it. At the end of the first aria, as I lay on the floor (as the staging here has me do), I couldn't help but crack a small, proud smile.

At intermission, I found myself pondering exactly what it was about this piece that struck so much fear into me. Of course, it is nerve-wracking music simply because of its virtuosic difficulty, but there had to be another layer to prevent me from conquering that until now. It got me thinking about visiting the Tate Britain last fall with my friend, Susie, who was invaluably helpful getting Lindoro back in to my voice after a two-year hiatus. The exhibition that we went to see, named Turner and the Masters (which is still on until January 31^st) highlighted his competitive relationship with both his contemporaries and the masters who had come before him. A description on the wall in the first room of the exhibit discusses how "it is impossible to be an artist without engaging in the art of the past." It goes on to say that in Turner's time, it was expected for artists to "aspire to greatness by copying, then trying to rival those who had come before…"

When it comes to the training of singers and musicians, nothing could be more similar. We are surrounded by countless recordings of all our repertoire, performed by both past masters and our contemporaries alike, and we spend our careers trying to rival them if not, at the very least, match them in the level of their quality. A while back, when I was looking for management, I remember auditioning for an agent with Languir, and while she was interested, I immediately received a lecture. "Why are you beginning with this aria?" she asked, "It's an incredibly big risk you're taking. When you sing for people, you will automatically be compared to whoever it is singing this repertoire at the Met, the Vienna State Opera, at Covent Garden, and whoever just made the latest recording of it. This is a massively difficult aria – are you sure you want to put yourself forward for a first impression like that?" While I didn't end up working with this person, their message had wormed its way through my confidence, preyed on my insecurities and stuck with me. Thinking about what I was so afraid of at intermission today, I realized that I had been afraid this whole time that I wouldn't – that I didn't measure up. Today, singing this for the last time, I realized it didn't matter. My performances were mine – that is what makes them unique and special, and having had so many opportunities to do this was not only proof that they were worthy, but also something to be grateful for and enjoy.

Lindoro, more than anyone else, has been the greatest voice teacher that I have ever had. Every time I have encountered him, I have left feeling like I have taken four or five steps forward vocally and each time I am met with more challenges. Today was the wonderful culmination of those lessons, and it felt like, to steal the words of one of the managers I did end up working with, bidding a fond farewell as opposed to running away. Taking my final bows today, I was beaming, feeling a sense of accomplishment that I have never felt before after a run of performances. I am so grateful to him for everything he has taught me – and for helping me conquer my greatest vocal and technical fears over these past seven years. I look forward to taking all of these lessons into all of the incredible music that awaits me – including that other Lindoro, that is actually a count named Almaviva.

Day Trip

On my last free day in Germany, I elected to make a rather long day trip to Heidelberg to visit a colleague and good friend from my HGO Studio days, Aaron. We had tried to get together a couple of other times this trip, but our timings never worked out until today. Every time I come to Germany, I make it a point to see Aaron, as it is so easy to get around here with the train system, my favorite mode of transportation.

We had lunch and caught up on each other's lives since the last time we saw each other, which was about a year ago, and reminisced about Studio days, talking about our friends from those intense times. Oddly enough, it was my second HGO reunion in two days – I spent a large portion of yesterday morning on the phone catching up with another one of my friends who went through the program with me and has since become one of my closest friends in the world. Both yesterday and today, it seemed like those days were really far away even if we only finished 5 or 6 years ago, and it was quite fun to take a trip down memory lane. When we were there, the music director of the Studio, Richard, used to refer to the place a "singer boot camp". Revisiting those memories, I was grateful for the strong bonds of friendship and camaraderie that were forged in the intensity of that experience. They have truly become friendships for life, and I miss going to work with those wonderful people on a daily basis.

Penultimate

A short post today...

Our 4th performance of L'Italiana in Algieri was tonight, and it was perhaps our best yet. Everyone is completely back to health, and we were all relaxed. Perhaps it is because my final Lindoro is approaching rather quickly, but I felt quite calm tonight as I began the first aria - something I have never previously experienced performing that piece. I felt a focus and energy that was exciting, and it opened up some new possibilities. It was the most fun I've ever had singing it, to be honest, and I find that I am really looking forward to having another crack at it again on Sunday.

That paired with an unexpected, yet brief visit with a colleague I hadn't seen in almost ten years who came to see the show made it a really lovely evening.

Time is flying by. I can't believe I have only 2 days left until home!

Falstaff Overdue

These photos are incredibly overdue, but I finally took the time to go through them tonight. I spent most of the day in recovering from a night out in the Altstadt with some friends from the Opera (the beer here is good - and so is the Schwein...) and resting up for tomorrow's show, providing ample time to sift through pictures.

During our final show on the Glyndebourne Tour, I experimented for the first time with taking my camera backstage and trying to snap a few photos. Here are the results of that first experiment.

Me trying to figure out how my camera works in my dressing room

The Ladies reading Falstaff's letters in Act I, scene ii

Falstaff and Ford (Sr. Fontana) in Act II, scene i


Alice and Meg plotting in Act II, scene ii


Nanetta/Elena posing backstage right before our heavy-petting fest behind the screen in Act II, scene ii


Mistress Quickly standing strong in Act III, scene i

Revisiting Pulcinella

Almost a year ago, I arrived in Chicago to begin rehearsals for a project that I had been very much looking forward to for a very long time with the Chicago Symphony. Originally, when the idea was proposed, my manager simply asked if I would be interested in auditioning for a series of concerts with the Chicago Symphony, and I was excited at the simple prospect of singing with them again for the first time since I made professional debut with them back in 2003 during a run of concert performances of Part II of Berlioz' Les Troyens. When I found out that the project was to be Stravinsky's Pulcinella, I excitedly jumped at the chance to audition for it, and immediately ran to my music library where I pulled down my score of the piece that I had inherited from Rosie, my teacher from my Michigan days, who had inherited it from her own teacher. I quickly learned the first movement, and then a few days later traipsed down to the audition, where I sang for all I was worth, determined to nail this. All of this was before I knew who would be conducting or anything else about the concerts. None of it really mattered to me – I had been dreaming of singing this piece since I first encountered the music as an orchestral musician in high school. Stravinsky's arrangements of Pergolesi's music had been entrancing me from the age of 15, and I was not about to let any chance to sing this rarely performed complete version of the ballet slip by, no matter who my colleagues were going to be. I had simply loved this music for too long.

That I would later find out that Pierre Boulez was to conduct or that we would also bring the program to Carnegie Hall after a run of concerts in Chicago was all icing on what was already (to me) a pretty delicious cake. As the concerts approached, and I found out more about who my colleagues were to be and where we would be performing the piece, it just started to become even better than a dream come true. It was becoming to be something more incredible than I could have ever imagined. So, to find out that we would also record our performances that week in Chicago for release on the CSO's own recording label blew my mind.

Yesterday, our recording of the piece was released on iTunes, and it will be released worldwide tomorrow and next week in the US. I must admit that seeing my name on an album cover next to Maestro Boulez, my wonderful singing colleagues, and the Chicago Symphony is incredibly surreal, and I am tremendously excited and, well, giddy about it. It really seems almost too good to be true.