final orchestra dress

Well the big day arrived (at 10am this morning).
First time that I would get to rehearse in full costume and makeup with orchestra...and my last rehearsal before opening.

First the costume- slinky extremely sparkly silver v neck, low cut, halter gown to the floor. In the first act I come out with a totally huge and heavy black diva coat (no fur trim, but there might as well be for the largesse of this manteau... and then when I'm 'inspired' by the (coloratura section) moment--I take it off and sing the 2nd part of the first aria.
Oh yea, with a silver crown that is a foot tall, made of wires that won't stick in to the wig, which has to be placed on my head by the First Lady, after which I have to somehow secure it enough to get up on a bench and be inspired to SING the rest of the aria.

Nice.

2nd act. Same slinky dress, but this time there is an overlay of black cape with peignets (read: hips for days), with a cloak/cape type train in the back, which ALSO is a halter (yea, this costume is not so great for neck tension).
And it's so heavy that it has to be corseted at the waist and at the neck, lest, it strain my neck.

In THIS costume I have to once again wield the crown, a knife, black gloves, some ICE (read: super fake and huge glitzy diamond bracelet, drop earrings and necklace), and then crawl on the floor like a dog AND flap my wings like a chicken.
I wasn't kidding you when I said this production was 'euro-fabulous' people.

The singing went really smoothly today. Meh- what can I say.
Koenigin is actually not a hard sing at ALL except for the "expectations" of the role.
Everyone knows what it sounds like. Everyone knows whether you hit the high notes. Everyone just knows...
So in THAT sense you can just not mess up...any of it. Ok- definitely not the high F's or any parts of those cadenzas..and MAYBE something else may go unnoticed.

Queen for me is generally fun to play around with and offer to those who find it appropriate for my vocal timbre.

The one thing that's strange (and now I do believe those that warned me about singing too many Queens or only being singled out as a Queen in Germany especially), is that I agree that it could temporarily mess with your voice.
I mean- ok, granted I had a 10 am rehearsal for the last 2 days for which I had to wake up at 6:30 and get on trains to get to the theater...
But. After the rehearsals. I.Was.Tired.

I didn't want to sing ANY more--and, come on- it's just 2 arias and the finale!

Having only had a total of something like 5 rehearsals for this production, I was under more pressure than usual, and was singing the arias over and over and over again for the 2 days that we had the orchestra with us. I was staging at singing at the same time....it was just a lot a week and a half ago, and a lot these past 3 days.

And even though nothing feels "bad" right now, my voice doesn't feel as easy/breezy as usual.
Meaning, after the F's on Sunday I'm officially shutting up until the F's the next Friday.
Of course when I warm up and 'test' myself on my usual audition arias- DurchZ, Doll, etc- it's all there. It just feels like I'm warming up not from a day of rest with glittering E's,F's and G's that I can sit on forever, but--from a previous show day!--where I have to be a bit more scrupulous about approaching the high notes and how long I'm actually going to hold them for.

In some sense of the matter, that could be a good thing or learning experience. After all, for 2 of my upcoming productions I have to sing leading roles on Saturday evening/Sunday Matinees back to back. Not just 2 arias and one quintet for a total of 10 minutes.

I'm feeling good about this being my semi-official European debut--ok, well it's my stage debut in Europe, seeing as how Candide was "Semi-staged" concert-style.

Excited of course, looking forward to seamless singing and seamless costume-crown-knife-wielding.