anticipayayshun

At this time next week I will be probably on the road after having spent a day and a half seeing friends, teachers and coaches one last time before I leave for the big move. I'll be on my way to my parents' house to load up the car, then do one last competition, and then drive across the country.

Until that happens though, the following:
Opening night, scenes program, closing night.

I got the dancing down, I even swish my skirt for the opera.
It's the scenes that I feel less good about.

In some programs you receive your scene/role assignments well in advance of arrival. Here you receive them sometime during week two.
I have "learned" it. I know the notes, words (I hope!), style, history, but I can't say that I've routined this large scene to a place where I feel comfortable performing an aria, duet, arietta, duet for 10 minutes and not thinking at some point about notes, words, technique, staging. In other words, how do I fake this feeling and make everything seem natural and easy?

Usually before performing an aria I would have had a chance to sing it for at least a teacher and a coach. Get some feedback. Maybe do it in a masterclass setting to see how it goes.
Now I'm just up there winging-but-hopefully-it-doesn't-look-like-I'm-winging it.

Then there are ensembles- two duets- where if anything, the reaction of the person who is not singing is stronger than the one who is. I would just like to spend more than 30 minutes on it musically and then 30 minutes dramatically before the run-through (tomorrow) and the dress (Friday) and the performance (Saturday).

I'm just frustrated because I know there is so much more that COULD be done, that COULD be in the scene dramatically and vocally, that MAY not happen just because we haven't had two to three solid hours of run-through. In fact, I think it's been around 1 hour musically (for three people in a 10 minute scene) and 45 minutes for staging.
It's not that I can't "work under these conditions" I just know that I have more, I can do better, I can give more and make it more.

g