under pressure

The past week and a half has been really pressure-filled for me- with things that mostly I can't control:
Will the plane arrive on time? Will the car make it to the airport on time? Will I find a parking space before my call to the theater in 5 minutes? Will my audition go well (well, I can control that- but not so much evidently, after a flight on the same day).

We have been assigned to put together (on top of the world premiere and the next opera where I'm singing one of the leads) a scenes program, where I'll be singing all of Zerbie in the "Opera" act of Ariadne.

What a musical assignment like this means to me:
Awesome! Strauss. Love it. Learned it. Now to take it in to a Strauss expert and pianist to really get it under my skin before staging begins.

Where it is right now: Awesome! Strauss. Love it. Learned it.

Yes, I can always sing my part when the crazy piano and other ensemble members aren't around, but it takes some time to gel things like this together, and with what has been going on at the opera and current-program and benefit concerts, valentine's day donor concerts, auditions an hour before curtain for VIPs to the opera, leaving town, coming back to town, and coachings on everything EXCEPT this scene, all of the members of the scene feel extreeeemely behind at this point. And when are the performances?
Ah, yes- upcoming. 15 days.

And how many days to actual rehearsal time to we have until then? 6. Why?
Monday- dark day. Tues/Wed/Thurs- yes. Friday- director of scenes is out of town. Next monday- dark day. Tues/Wed/Thurs- yes. Friday- the show.

Ok. 6 days. Now then. How much scheduling time within those 6 days will we have to get musical rehearsals to put both ensembles and the aria together? And how many hours will we have for just staging? Oh yea, I'm also in ANOTHER scene that needs just as much time for both!

So you can see why maaaybe..just maaaybe- all of us would be jumpy about trying to get rehearsals for this and the performance on its feet.

I'm still loking at the schedule for other things too- I've marked in all of these auditions that I'd like to do---but I can't even begin to finish the applications or mark off where and when I want to audition.

All of them involve one day turnaround flights to NY and Chicago for different things.
I won't be released for most of them except one, and some are in different cities on the same day. I know I'm going to have to sit down SOON (ie, before these deadlines of probably sometime around this weekend!) and really figure out what I can miss and what I can't.

My official days off for the next two months are:
2/26 and 3/5.
The short of it:
school-from-last-year-that-wanted-me wants to hear me the week of the 26th. They have offered the 28th as a possible alternative to me not being able to make their live auditions.
Do I tell them I have the 26th available- fly in sunday, sing monday morning, and fly back here monday night? For an added 500 bucks to a place that will PROBABLY take me, but that I don't want to go to...and may not accept that I've been offered certain-role to sing HERE next year that conflicts with their school year?

Or save the money? And increase the heartache when I don't have the option anymore next year?

And on the 5th:
Other-school (ok, academy) that I'm interested in applying for- live auditions in city-i'd-love-to-live-in (a short flight either way..can be done same day)
OR do I go ahead with my original plan to try to audition for 2nd-most-well-known-house-of-opera in NYC? (and also spend 500 bucks getting there, back and staying over again)?

I just need to breathe. I can handle pressure when it's my own and I can be on task and get things done. But when so many things hang in the balance and I have no say- that's when I get tense, can't sleep, and feel like I have no control over my life and the situation.

It's not really the music. I can put that together and memorize it and it will be fine. Better than fine. It's everything else that's going on and the vortex into which all of my breath is spiraling.

Whew.