trains, trains, and ... trains

Yesterday I woke up at 7:25, got home at 9:15pm, and in between, was on trains, strassenbahns and busses for the entire day besides 8 minutes of singing. And 20 minutes of warming up.

Strassenbahn 8:13-8:32
Buy tickets at the main station
Train #s 1-4 from 9:10-13:00 (with changes at different stations.
Arrival at 'audition location'- except that the theater has TWO audition locations (an hour apart, conveniently), and since I was sick for last week's audition, the reconfirmation and rescheduling person didn't tell me that the audition venue would also be different.
It was.
So. Bus back to train station. 1 hour train to next audition location. Bus to audition.
Warm up, sing, bla bla bla...
Oh wait, here's an actual musical part of the blog entry instead of me talking about trains and transportation.

Ok, so I was auditioning for a Donizetti bel canto role a season and a half from now that I have NOT sung before, but have prepared the aria for a while now.
But of course, I always want to start the audition with what I do best, or things I feel show me off best. Which of course is NOT the aria from this opera.
So I walk in all ready to sing DurchZ, when the panel (who was SUPER friendly) says, well, you're auditioning for Adina, so taking a look at your rep list, let's just hear that first and see if we need to hear anything else.
BOO! BOO for not letting me make a general 'musical' impression and THEN seeing if I'm right for the role.

And it's not like there were 20 other singers waiting outside. There was ONE.

Oh yea, also- if you're going to hire a pianist who gets SNIPPY because I brought the actual SCORE and-- heaven forbid, unless you crack it back with your hands really well before you play, the pages MIGHT just start jumping up at you while you're playing...
I mean, really??
He was totally like- I don't know if I can play like this.
And I"m like- EVERY.OTHER.PERSON who has EVER played this for me had NO problems with it.
Thanks.
Just bend the binding a little....is it NOT like you're a rehearsal accompanist anyway who plays from scores EVERY.DAY that there is a staging rehearsal?
Thanks.
Pipe down now.

Ok. So they only asked for the first piece. And since it's long and has line AND coloratura of course they didn't want to hear any of the pieces that I totally ROCK at...not saying I didn't rock, it was FINE, it just wasn't 'me'. There is a comfort zone around all of my other pieces....duh...because I've sung them at every audition ever.
And this piece..maybe 5 times. Only when asked for, specifically for the role.

So anyway, no 2nd piece later and I'm getting on the next bus back to the train station...but of course, the round trip ticket I bought is from PREVIOUS audition location.
But I'm not about to get on a train to go one hour NORTH of where I need to be, just to start this whole travel ordeal again with the RIGHT trains.

So I say- screw it.
I just looked up a new routing from current-station, wrote it down, and got on the trains despite not having the right ticket.
I did HAVE a ticket, it was just from city A to city B via city C and D.
And I went to city B via city E and F...from city G.
Still on the *kinda* same-priced trains (ICE--the most expensive).
So even though my ticket got checked on every train, and asked about...I managed to convince them I wasn't trying to ride for free or cheat them...but that I just had 'missed' a connection and now THIS was the fastest connection back home.

And it felt GOOD to be home.