holy European debut, batman!

People of the blog-o-sphere that sometimes visit here (yes, all 42 of you), behold my thunderous announcement and try to refrain from shock and awe:

I am making my European stage debut (well, kinda- if you don't count that semi-staged Candide at a summer festival 2 yrs ago) singing the role of Koenigin der Nacht- in TWO WEEKS!

Yep, you heard me.

Here is how it went down:

Tuesday 2:30pm : missed call
Tuesday 2:50 pm: listen to a voicemail from an agent telling me to call them back as soon as possible
Tuesday 3pm: call agent who asks me how quickly I can get to Heidelberg from Frankfurt (it takes an hour), and can I audition for Queen that same day--ie, in a few hours?

Me: SURE!

Me between 3:40-4:50: (getting stuff ready, warming up briefly, getting on the train, getting to the theater ...early.....of course)

5pm- change at the theater and warm up
6pm- audition on stage. They request Der hoelle rache and then O zittre nicht.

6:12pm- they say- we like you, come meet everyone, oh yes, and- we have rehearsal at 6:30- can you STAY for it and sing the arias with orchestra?

UMMM--yes please!!

I still didn't have an official 'offer', but during the 'pausa' 1.5 hours into rehearsal, the head of the KBB pulled me aside and said they would like me to take over the contract for the other Queen who had to withdraw from the performances and they would be very happy to have me...and...could I show up to rehearsal tomorrow at 9:30am?

Yep, and Yep!

So- I get home at 11:30pm, exhausted from the frenzy of the last 6 hours and the general awesome-ness that is to be my life for the next few months...
Email the agent who set this up with a few requests and clarification questions (since- I started working with no contract I had to see what I was in for...and the agent had no idea they hired me on the spot, of course).

Next day (yesterday): Call the agent in the morning, go through my requests regarding the contract. Go to rehearsal, get blocked into the show (which--is so "Euro-amazing" (some would substitute another word for 'amazing'))...run the arias once and the finale once. Have 5 hours off in the afternoon. Come back at night to work a few details in the first aria.
Released.

And with that, I'm 'blocked' into the show. Aaaand we open October 4th.

Aaaand: go!