happy halloweeny

I'm not dressing up for Halloween or anything, but..since it IS Halloween here, I suppose I could comment on the fact that I do miss suburban life trick'er'treating for the BIG candy bars at the rich people's houses up the street from my high school, and I do miss 'urban' life's adult Halloween parties. What other day of the year do you have an excuse to dress up as 'sexy' batgirl, wearing pretty much nothing but pink boyshorts undies and a pink cape and parade around nyc freezing your butt off?

Last night I had another performance of Koenigin...except, this time, it was at PREVIOUS-theater...the one I've been Guest-ing at for the past year.
And I haven't done the show there since JUNE...
So, having just worked in another production, with a different maestro with COMPLETELY different tempi (if you can believe it, for the arias...yes, it's very very true)...and I found myself last night sitting in the dressing room and...thinking about whether I would LIKE to do Queens over and over and over again.
Yes, it's an 'easy' sing for me. But it's also kind of a mind-trip...going from one show to the next with no re-rehearsal. Of course, the blocking is never hard unless you're catapulted out of the depths of the earth at warp speed by a pulley-machine rigged to the OTHER Queen's weight which was not changed to YOUR (lighter) weight (yes, that happened to me right before Der Hoelle Rache), but there is of course the "pressure" of Koenigin.
The pressure that even though you know you can wake up and sing this aria right out of bed with the F's perfect EVERY.Single.Time...the pressure JUST to see if THIS time around in live performance they will all come out perfect. The pressure NOT to let your mind wander since it IS so 2nd nature already. The pressure to make it a perfect and memorable experience for the audience..who up until now is getting a bit sleepy after the long intermission and the slow beginning of Act II, and who KNOW this aria in and out...in whatever tv commercial, online version of an 11 year old boy singing it, etc. They KNOW it.
As "easy" as a sing as it can be...it's never easy once you get onstage.
And that's something that I have to keep reminding myself as I calmly sit backstage knitting or listening to some pop music on my ipod or playing wordwarp on my iphone backstage...feeling no nerves at all because I know I've 'done' it so much..but then getting out there and remembering how much of a 'performance' I do want to give.
It's like I have to remember to 'get pumped' before I'm onstage, even though that 'get pumped' feeling usually shows up by itself via nerves. Now I have no nervous feelings anymore, so I have to find something to replace that with, to get my body and mind ready to 'SANG' it.