tired, audition, opera

Last night was the final performance of our Revue. It went really well even though we have all been exhausted, the temperatures have been in the mid-90s for the past 3 days, and the orchestra concert before we began got out late (again), so we had to begin after 10:30pm (again).

We pulled together one last time to give the folks a great country-western musical show, and it was really a lot of fun.

Today- auditions for company X, manager Y, and conductor Z.
They were supposed to be yesterday but were cancelled due to a missed flight by company X.

So today at 8:15am I woke up, showered, drank some Emergen-C, and hoped that I'd have that high G for any of the selections in which I interpolate them, and went off to the practice room.
Boy, was it slow-going. After 45 minutes of not even singing a song, I graduated from lip trills and raspberries to caro mio ben on vowels only.
And I still felt not warm enough, that the top was squeezing, and that g could go at any minute.

Then we had 2 hours of dance rehearsal (which will soon be dance and sing rehearsal, but right now we can only dance it and look on in anguish as the conductor's baton keeps getting faster and faster and our feet have to keep up).
THEN I got to put my dress on, get prettied up, kind of warm up for 10 minutes (by singing through the one aria that no one ever picks because of time- Zerbie), and then beg people for a vitamin-C drop or a ricola for the next 10 minutes, and then it was time to go in.

I had heard about this particular company X that they like to pick your piece, so I just handed them a replist with 5 that I was ready to sing.
Durch Z- second verse and Glitter (wow! not been chosen in over a year, I think!)- for English? ;)
Everything was fine.
I think I have to find some new way to love my arias.

They really aren't going to change unless I add some early Mozart or early something else coloratura-ish to the package---and it's not that they're stale, it's just that I feel like I WANT to approach it differently to make it interesting for me AND the panel.

Because really, I know Durch Z is my kind of character and rep, but I've never gotten the chance to explore her as a whole character, it's just this darn aria- where I'm not very nice, but have to be sweet anyway.

I do like Chacun because I still feel it impresses above all my others due to the high added in, and that I've done the role and know what I'm doing.


Anyway, Vanessa opens tonight and me being the spritely maid Clara, I have to take a little nap now so I can get ready for my big (silent) crying moment in the last 10 minutes of the opera.
This is a truly gorgeous piece, and I'm lucky to get to see it every night even if I'm just bringing in things and taking things off people.
It's not every "modern" or contemporary piece that I like, but this is one of them, and it's because of the classical structure, but new musical aspect of it at the same time.

g