In The Dark

The following was written in the pitch blackness of a theater during the third performance of "Fille Du Regiment" at Florida Grand Opera:

"Here I am at one more performance of "La Fille Du Regiment." It's at this point where I start to wonder if I can really make it through 4 more of these. I'm listening to Bob Heuer's curtain speech (the general director) about the new (much-needed) opera house. I get so tired of hearing the same thing over and over . . . somebody shoot me.

"We had our cover staging today. I was actually nervous. I didn't think I would be because it is so informal, but I saw people walking in and Joyce Castle walked in and sat right behind me (which I knew unnerved Fenna since she was playing Joyce's role), and then Maestro Leonard walked in and I thought, "stop it Keturah. This is no big deal." And it wasn't. My singers did very well and made some beautiful choices that garnered great laughter. Everyone was very complimentary to me afterwards as well. It was a boost of which I was in desperate need.

"I've been in quite a funk lately. Missing home and all that but I think also a fear of impending career. There's something about sitting in the back of a dark theater, listening to the first strains of an overture I've heard a thousand times, thinking of all my singers - like young charges - in the wings waiting for that first entrance, that makes me think of my career. I miss the adrenalin of being on stage each night. It's lost on me when I'm in the audience going through the motions of watching and hoping that nobody does anything that warrants a note.

"Am I done performing? I don't think so . . .

"I love looking out over a crowd when the lights are up on stage. Like moonlight on the ocean's surface, the light casts across their faces looking up at the action on stage. That back corner of the theater is comforting to me. I can close my eyes and hear the music fill the hall and imagine every movement as it happens on stage. Opera, unlike theater, cannot change it's rhythm drastically every night. The same gestures happen at the same time every night, the same cross happens on the same bar of music, with the same intention. I can open my eyes at any time and the stage is configured exactly how I saw it in my head. Opera staging, when done well and executed well, is the missing link between dance and theater."