Let's try this again!

Okay, so I'm going to try posting again.  I mean, if you see this I was successful, and if I fail, then no one has to know about it!  It's just been discouraging to sit down and try and type a lot again after losing an hours worth of work on another spectacular post.  Here I am now though!  I'm recovering because yesterday I apparently got some sort of 24 hour bug.  I had a fever and chills and just aching.  I actually went ahead and went to a recording for France Musique last night and to our Musique Sacree concert, but after the first half I decided I couldn't stick around.  So I came home, took some meds, and went straight to sleep.  Rough night, but I feel much better today.  Just a headache now!  :)

So, in my last post I was talking about all that we have going on this week.  Saturday was supposed to be a day off, but they decided to have a rehearsal for Cosi, and thus we had to work in the middle of the day.  It's interesting how most of our rehearsal are scheduled from like 11 a.m. to 2 or 3 p.m.  So, right when you may decide to have lunch through when everything for lunch is closed.  Very odd.  Anyway, on Sunday we had a morning rehearsal for a concert that night that featured all the young artists here.  Fun concert.  The people were very nice afterwards and talked to us a lot.

Then Monday we had another Rigoletto performance.  Tuesday was Cosi pre-final dress and the sacred music concert at night.  Today is the final dress for Cosi, tomorrow is another Rigoletto performance, the Friday Cosi opens for real.  Very stressful.  Also, France Musique is here.  They're recording some performances and such and broadcasting them around the world.  It's pretty cool.

Oh!  What I worked so hard to go into detail about in the last post!  Our second performance of Rigoletto.  So, the very first bit of staging that we do in the show is to come out in a party scene and blindfold a couple girls then put them up on a table with food and plates and stuff on it and have them walk across it.  Blindfolded.  From day one I thought this was a terrible idea.  The table is secure, but very bouncy, plus they are stepping on plates and sometimes fruit and stuff, so we have to hold on to them and then take them off the other end.  Well, during the second performance we ran out onto stage and there was a bowl of fruit on the table.  A glass bowl of fruit.  The bowl was also huge.  There had to be 20-30 pieces of fruit in there. So we began walking the girls across the table.  For the first girl I think we moved the bowl out of the way and then put it back in place.  But then when I was walking my girl across the table there was apparently no one there to move the bowl.  She stepped on the edge of it and sent it crashing down in front of me.  It was actually really cool to see happen because it sort of dematerialized in front of me.  Fruit went everywhere, apparently some of the glass ended up in the orchestra pit.  We all just started kicking the glass under the table and then realized that we had to move the table, so a couple guys got brooms and dustpans and began sweeping it up. The rest of the night was a little scary, but we got through it successfully.

So, I think that's all for now.  Hopefully I'll be posting more.  Thanks to Jonesboro Rotary and Rotary District 6150 for following my blog now!  I've been getting some good info about my club in Florence and am really excited!

Summer nights, summer nights

I'll probably reuse this post title later because it has interesting and slightly fond memories from CMU.  Anyway, the summer nights here are amazing because it doesn't get dark until after 10 p.m.  Usually from about 10-10:30 is a really cool twilight (not the book, the real thing) sort of glow around the island.  Several nights here I've looked up and seen a planet in the sky, but I don't know what it is!  Of course, I could easily figure it out using google, but bonus points to anyone who happens to know what it is already.

Well, now that I've uploaded these pictures, I can't see the planet!  It's to the right of the moon, which is the white dot.  As you can see, this was after 11 p.m. and it was still pretty light out.  Fantastic.

Ryan Brock is here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  So very excited.  He got in Saturday night after coming straight from the states.  That's a really rough trip.  Two planes, two trains, a ferry, and a car.  We've finally gotten all settled in and it's really nice to have my best friend here with me so we can get into all sorts of trouble on the island.  We've done a bit of hiking, which sucked for me because I didn't bring any hiking boots/shoes.  And last night we went running, which sucked for him because he didn't bring any running shoes.

Rehearsals look like they are about to settle down because we have two shows here now, which means that half the day has to be put to the show that we're not in right now.  Of course, Ryan and I will be sitting in on a lot of the rehearsals as we are "covering" some of the roles.  I talked to Richard and apparently we're going to start having master classes during the days, so I need to get some arias together and probably some duets with Ryan.  Ugh!

I found out at a party the other night that my French has gotten quite good, but my Italian has suffered.  There is a new tenor here who is Italian and I was trying to talk to him, but to no avail.  I ended up speaking to him in French and English, not Italian :(.  It will come back though!  I had dreams last night in both Italian and French, so it's still there.  For me I think the biggest thing for the switch is to switch my accent.  Words sometimes look the same but sound different, so if I can switch that in my mind I will be fine.

So, until later!  Also, since we are singing Rigoletto a lot of the music keeps getting stuck in my head.  Then I remembered this video existed!  Three huge name opera stars and then one of our teachers from CMU whom I adored!  The woman acting all sexy in the yellow dress is Mildred Miller Posvar.  She's fantastic.  Enjoy it!  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DD9MxhSxSCM

Bon soir!

I need to start coming up with more creative titles.  Anyhoo, I've been in Europe about a week now.  Yesterday was a rough day of rehearsal, mostly because we didn't really know our music (our own faults) and it was also a super long day, made worse by not know music and getting griped at for it.  I personally felt bad because I was being so unprofessional.  So, I stayed in instead of going out for Bastille Day (or 14 julliet en francais).  Today was still a rough day of singing, but we worked mostly on act I in staging and things were a lot more secure.  However, tonight will be another night of act II study.

So, on a lighter note, I took some pics today!  Let's start with when I got off the train at Quiberon and went to catch the ferry over to Belle-Ile.  This was the first beach I saw and it was FULL!

This is the Citadelle on the island.  It was an old fortress and it has a museum and hotel inside.  We rehearse and perform in here, but this year it's apparently really complicated because they have a wedding going on and also an art auction, with a few Monets actually!

That's what it looked like when we rode up on the ferry.  And now, for today's pics.  As I was leaving the Citadelle I decided I just had to take some pics of the water.  You can actually see the different depths of the ocean and way out in the distance you can see part of the mainland.  It's really quite beautiful.  You can definitely see the mainland of France at night when it's all lit up along the shore.  Maybe I'll get some of those pics soon!

Hope you all enjoy!

Je suis à Le Palais maintenant!

Bonjour tout le mond!  I'm now on Belle-Ile!  Exciting, I know.  We arrived yesterday after taking two trains, walking a fair way, and a boat.  I also kept singing, "Je suis en bateau!" but no one really got it....

So, the island really is quite beautiful.  Clear water for as far as you can see, lovely night life, and fantastic weather.  It actually got a little cold last night.  I meant to bring a hoodie, but alas, I'll just have to get a souvenir! Also, google's spell check does not like 'hoodie'.  It doesn't really get dark here until about 9:30 or 10 p.m. due to our northern position.  My house is pretty nice and it's easy to find.  It's bright yellow on the outside, and bright yellow on the inside!  My room is teal and orange.  Our bathroom is bright pink.  I believe the name that the festival kids have given it is the "seahorse a go-go house" because along with the flamboyant colors, there are seahorses everywhere...

I haven't found a bike yet.  I am really thinking I won't be able to get an actual road bike on the island because everything is really touristy and thus they only have the cruiser bikes.  It seems that there may be some mountain bikes, so maybe I can get one of those and then just do some tough trails around the island and try to ride fast but fail.

So, not too much going on as of yet.  I woke up sort of early this morning and since no one else was up I walked down to the area where we arrived yesterday, had some breakfast, then did a bit of shopping.  It's pretty nice out.  Hopefully I'll have more exciting posts soon, along with some pictures!  Au revoir!  Also, feel free to comment!  I love all my followers, but I don't know if anyone is actually reading this stuff!