SIS summer

Ok, I think I've been on a 'break' since the competition and many auditions this past month for long enough.
Time to get back to SIS- self-imposed-study.
Well, this time it's not so self-imposed as much as necessary for learning my upcoming roles.

So far I've gone out walking a few times with an opera playing in the background of my headphones (really not as much fun as my 80s and early 90s playlist), I've spent a few afternoons either just going through words and looking at the score, or, tonight, actually trying to write the words down from memory.

So far I think I'm doing pretty well and am in that horrid 'memorization' phase where it's not really useful for me to sing with the score open anymore, because I SHOULD be testing my memory, but it's just so TEMPTING to sing with the score open, because it feels good.

Zerb Act I - memorized all of the little recitative lines. Need to memorize the aria/duet still.
Zerb Act II - Memorized all of the 'singing' parts- quinetet/aria/quintet, but NOT the little recitative lines while Ariadne is complaining (much fewer, so this is ok).

Najade section one- memorized probably/kinda
Najade section two- worked on tonight and mostly memorized but could use some more practice since when I sing interjections in a trio it's tougher to test my memory.
Najade pretty section x3- There is a ONE sentence word change in the 2nd time around, and once I remember to do that, all will be well.

NOW, to OTHER upcoming things--
I received the score to crazy-modern-opera 2012, and as expected, it's crazy in a not-cool way.
Like, not as fun as the Tempest, and definitely not as FUN as modern-opera-from-April which I THOUGHT was going to be SO HARD to learn and in the end, I did spend a LOT of time on, but by the time it got to performances it felt like a piece of cake.

Will this happen every time I have a modern piece to learn? I will hate it, and the grueling painstaking hours that it takes me to dissect and understand the POINT of the freaking composition (yea, it's COOL to only use three lines of the staff instead of 5...and just write some squiggly lines and symbols with no words and no rests marked...and have to learn how to sing that over ACCOMPANIED, MEASURED orchestra). Thanks.

And in addition, I received one more score in the mail for a maybe-project that would actually be happening BEFORE both of these next things.
It's not HARD musically, but it's a pastiche of a composer's work strung together into a short opera, and it has A LOT of German dialogue. Let me repeat... a LOT. Like, probably more 'words' in my dialogue than 'words' that I have to sing.

And what's more, because it's coming up so soon they sent me a dvd of the production and guess what? Ze Germans, as always, have totally AD LIBBED the dialogue in the majority of the show. Which means I can't follow the score, and which means I don't really know what to learn, because if I say a line that is correct and they jump around or skip something, I'm done. My German is good, but not THAT good that I can improvise WITHIN an opera with specific dialogue.

Yea.
So I still have to decide about this one. I WANT to say yes, because that is who I am.
I say yes to all the jobs that fit in my schedule. They are new opportunities with houses that I have not sung before, or they are opportunities to come back to an opera house, do them a last minute favor, and hope that they remember my name when the BETTER roles come along.

I'm pretty sure you'll find me tomorrow...trying to learn that dialogue.