08.01.10
10:18 am with Titania & Bottom in rehearsal
“Come, sit thee down upon this flowery bed,
While I thy amiable cheeks do coy,
And stick musk-roses in thy sleek smooth head,
And kiss thy fair large ears, my gentle joy.”
12:34 pm: Artist Transpo
A quiet moment waiting at the Hilton,
catching up on email on the now-indispensable iPhone
1:43pm with Hannah Montana and Bob the Builder in Instant Opera preview
Hannah & Tiffany shopped for shoes in Pisa, and Bob & Pongo played ice hockey until Harry Potter’s spell mistakenly melted the rink.
3:04pm: Places, Ladies & Gentlemen!
Peering around the corner while backstage left with Amanda,
a most excellent place to be
3:08pm with CameraMan in the balcony booth,
protecting the music from the click of our shutters
3:10-5:20 Invitation to the Dance
In a future life, I want to be able to sing, play, and dance like these folks.
A terrific concert, topped off by an encore dedicated to yours truly on the occasion of my 25th summer with Wolf Trap Opera.
(Have I really not had a summer vacation since 1984?)
5:38 pm in the English Barn with this wonderful cast.
(Minus Danny, ever the working drummer, packing up his kit.)
6:25pm. The house and lobby are clear.
(Except for RT & JB, loitering at the box office)
Time to send the cast and company off to Chef Geoff’s for a party, then head home to visit my brother, who is visiting from Colorado for just one day!
Lazy July Weekend
Prepare preshow talk for Turk… manage last-minute ticket requests for sold-out shows… plan to write a blog post… kick off the Vocal Colors recital series… get ready for first Blier residency… think about writing a blog post… set up rehearsals for concert with NSO this Friday… gather notes for meeting with Midsummer Night’s Dream stage management team… make Inspector premiere plans with Foundation colleagues… feel guilty about ignoring the blog… go to Castleton Festival on day off… finalize audition tour cities for the fall… sit on the balcony stairs during Turk matinee and write this blog “post.” (Back soon with actual content:))
Earth Day, WTOC Style
There are advantages to working next door to a National Park.
To celebrate Earth Day and National Park Week, our staff meeting was held on the move, at the park. (This works particularly well with a staff of two.)
A beautiful 3-mile hike in sunny 70-degree weather was just the ticket to make all operatic trials and tribulations feel manageable.
“I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.” (John Muir)
July 26 – In All Its Infinite Variety!
A lovely late start, affording a long night’s sleep after a 90-hour week. (Yes, I did the math. Not to qualify for martyrdom, but to justify feeling like I’d been run over by a truck.) The day started with a touch of weights and aerobics, setting up 150 chairs in the rehearsal hall!
Why the chairs? Well, we’ve been terribly fortunate to have an audience that loves its preshow lectures. We’ve been holding the preshow talks in our small 99-seat space, but lately we’ve been turning away dozens of patrons due to the capacity of the hall. So I decided to give today’s talk in the Boheme rehearsal space, and setup was required!
2:00 pm Inside the Opera Preshow Talk
Being in the rehearsal hall meant that I was without my fancy-pants powerpoint presentation, but it was a good call. We had 151 patrons in attendance, and we were pleased to not have to turn anyone away.
3:00 pm Ulysses Performance #2
Packed to the gills, no house seats, no givebacks. Yikes. Nice to have a hot ticket! Fabulous performance. YouTube moments to come, I promise. As soon as I have the time.
6:10 pm Steve!
Mr. Blier himself is in the house, rehearsal with the cast for this Saturday’s Pursuit of Love. Grieg, Villa Lobos, Granados, Sondheim, Kahane, and Robinson (Smokey, that is).
7:30 pm Instant Opera Dress Rehearsal
Darth Vader and Kermit steal prom dresses from Hannah Montana. To the strains of Mozart, Verdi, Donizetti and others. The real deal begins Tuesday at 11:15am!
9:30 pm At the Desk
Catching up on email, writing Boheme supertitles, and checking my RSS feed. Which is where I found that according to the blog metrics flavor of the day, we rank surprisingly high :)
