Creation.

We are plowing through this opera! Plowing I say! It's so nice to finally have a rehearsal experience down here that is not completely decimated by a hurricane or riddled with tension and frenzied energy. These days are smooth but intense. Full of interesting character conversation and a few laughs even. Mark cancelled reherasal tonight because we are in such good shape. It's nice to know that he's feeling confident enough to leave well enough alone even when he's leaving in four days.

I guess it should be making me nervous, but I watch those singers stand up and chew the scenery (what there is of it) every day in rehearsals and I'm happy with what we're making. We have our second chorus rehearsal tomorrow and should finish up the architecture of the show. Now comes the nit-picking and polishing. What Shirley Mordine, my composition teacher in college, called "emroidering the piece."

"Embroidery" rehearsals are unbelievably rewarding and integral to making a great piece of theater, but they can sometimes be the most intense and the hardest to get through. As we've slowly begun doing more character-driven work than basic blocking over the last couple of days, I've been welcoming the intense conversation. The temperment of this cast and staff is conducive to this type of detail work. I can't wait to see what more we can pull out.

Until then, however, I've got nothing to do while we cancel rehearsals here and there. I'm typing this before I do some work on my score, send some emails and watch "American Idol," which has become an unfortunate obsession of mine. I wish my social life could get back to what it was during "Fanciulla." It dropped off the face of the earth during the last opera and I would love to do something other than sit on my bed and watch television while doing menial tasks. Feast or famine I guess...

Boycott South Dakota..

If this incarnation of the Supreme Court has plans to overturn Roe V. Wade, South Dakota's Governor, Mike Rounds, has plans to speed up the process. Behold the following:

Gov. Mike Rounds said he is inclined to sign a bill that would ban nearly all abortions in South Dakota, making it a crime for doctors to perform an abortion unless it was necessary to save the woman's life.

The rest of the article can be found here.

Prince of the Night

I just had to share this video I found on YouTube. This little liederhosen-wearing treble blew me away and put a grin on my face. I love the absolute blank stare he's mastered as he belts out the aria. I love how effortless he makes it look from the neck up, but if you look at his shoulders you see a world of tension sitting just under the surface. I wish I could see what he was doing with his hands.

This is one of those boys who has such a beautiful gift that, on the one hand you really hate to see him hit puberty, and on the other hand you feel fairly certain that, as his voice lowers, he will maintain his breath control and pitch and will finally have enough past behind him to truly grow as an artist.

I love the internet!

One More Opera and Why I'm Not A Figure Skater

Decompressing from the first three days of rehearsals for "Rigoletto" at Florida Grand (that's Caruso in the opera at the right), and watching Sasha Cohen botch her chances for gold at the Olympic Women's Figure Skating competition in Torino. I could never do what they do. I think about my work and how stressed I get, and then I think about how stressed out they must be before each of these competitions. To go out there on the ice for four straight minutes and try to be beautifully artistic as well as incredibly athletic, landing jump after jump on a thin blade of medal and doing it well enough to garner more points than the other twenty competitors.

I did compete for a while. I did the dance competition circuit in junior high and high school. I remember how hard the nerves used to hit me. It was exhilirating and wounding all at the same time. As soon as you fell out of a pirouette or found that you weren't in sync with the other dancers, your heart sank into your heels but you had to continue and emote just as beautifully to pull the best score you could muster. All you could hope for after a mediocre performance is that everyone after you would screw up more. Even when you were at the top of the game, you could never think for a moment that you had a medal in the bag. That kind of lazy thinking was a sure fire way to lose. Competing well is being able to walk a fine line between being confident and being realistic. I feel bad for Sasha Cohen, being labeled as a skater who can never make it through both programs without screwing up. Perhaps for her it is a self-fulfilled prophecy. She may try not to believe what people say about her but it's so easy to let that self-doubt sneak through. She was skating with a groin injury too. Fighting through that kind of pain and stiffness is a massive undertaking, no matter what you're doing.

So...back into the reality of muggy, mold-filled Miami. These three days have been the easiest start of a rehearsal process I've had here yet. I think it's because everyone knows exactly what they're doing. Mark Lamos is directing, and has such a steady hand in rehearsals. He is very measured and also quite pleasant. I love watching him work with singers. He responds well to singers who come in with knowledge and insight into their character. I think it's so important to understand who you're playing and what you're saying. Not just what the words mean, but what's going on in between the lines.

We have very intelligent singers I think. Bruno Caproni, our Rigoletto, has played the role many times, and it shows. He enters each scene with such a command of both his role and the connection of the scene as a whole to the rest of the show. Our Gilda is Leah Partridge, who is doing double time singing in "Dido" and "The Padlock" at my opera alma mater, Chicago Opera Theater, this week. Audrey Babcock and a rather monolithic (in stance only) Morris Robinson are a formidable Maddalena and Sparfucile, and Stefano Secco is our Duke. He's the only one I haven't met, as he is coming in on Saturday night. This is why we get a wonderful two days off this weekend. Missing Gilda and the Duke for two days puts a cramp in our staging style. With such an easy rehearsal atmosphere, we blasted through everything we could do without them, and will start back fresh on Sunday with our first time with the Duke and our first stab with the chorus.

Remounting an opera, when done efficiently, can be accomplished in a very short amount of time. Mark leaves to mount "Carmen" in San Diego in 7 days, and by that time we should have the whole opera up and running. What takes the time is fine tuning: finding those moments of juicy acting and response that take the audience to another (and performers) to another level. The great thing about having performers seasoned in their roles, is that they already understand the emotional through-line and have had many runs of the opera to learn and fully understand their character. The ultimate joy of these processes is when a bunch of people who truly understand what's happening in a show come together and, through their collective knowledge, find unbelievable juicy tidbits to bring out in this, a new manifestation of the opera.

It's this reason that I love, love, love opera (and live performance in general). The other part I love, love, love is the backstage mayhem, of which there will be a substantial amount in this production. That's a post in and of itself.

Right now, it's Irina Slutskaya's turn on the ice and time for me to power down for the evening. (a little too sinus-y to burn the midnight oil this week it seems).

Back to the (Bump and) Grind

So I'm back in Miami. That's Lucius showing me how glad he is that I'm back with him. His enthusiasm blows me away. He actually welcomed me back to the land of humidity and breast augmentation by purring a little then promptly vomiting on my magazines. Fitting somehow.

The air here is stifling. I noticed it the second I got off the airplane, a pervading sense of suffocation and seawater, condensation on my arm . . . my arm! I commented to my landlord as he drove me home and he replyed by saying that he thought it was really dry here this time of year. People here are in denial. Though I can't say that I didn't get a little bit used to it. I wasn't as bothered by the heat and moisture when I left three weeks ago.

I spent the whole day getting my bearings today. I talked to my boss on the telephone and cleaned my room and went grocery shopping. I watched a little television in the middle of the day. Weekday television is always interesting because of all of the career community college commercials and "get-out-of-debt-quick" ads. There's always someone on the screen trying to convince me to start up an "exciting new career in accounting," or realize my potential as a court typist.
There was one commercial that caught me off guard today and made me realize that I was definitely back in Southern Florida. Two leathery girls in string bikinis were laying on the beach and one looks at the other and says, "Isn't it bothersome that we have to go to all of these different places to get each procedure done?"

The other girl looks incredulous. "Yes," she says, "I go one place for breast augmentation and another place for a face lift, and a third place for lipo!"

The first girl continues, "Wouldn't it be great if we could just go to one place for all of them?"

Then the voice over comes in: "You Can!" I am insulted for no particular reason and suddenly quite aware of my surroundings. Miami is Los Angeles on crack.

Despite, we are starting "Rigoletto" tomorrow and it should be quite a ride. I can't wait to regale stories of giant moving scenery, missing singers and running around like a crazy a.d. girl trying to get it all smooth as silk.. I had dinner with the other assistant director tonight and we vented about our jobs and talked about the woes of being freelance. Both of us would love to find a company where we could stay for a couple of years without having to constantly uproot ourselves. This job cannot be good for anyone's health.

Audition Anxiety

I was lucky as a young performer. I really didn't have to audition that much once I got to the college level. I know I sound like I'm bragging - perhaps I am a bit - but I watched many of my friends go to auditions every weekend, and I just seemed to get jobs by people calling me. I either had impeccable timing and took a class where someone just happened to be who was looking for a dancer, or I became good friends with people who were doing interesting projects. I was lucky. I don't think I would have gotten as far if I had to audition for everything I did.

I remember when my audition cycle did start, right before I left Chicago. I didn't make several in a row and was so nerve-wracked by the situation that I actually decided to leave town. Malashock's audition didn't seem as nerve-wracking because it was done in the guise of a three-week workshop. He got to know me before he chose me. I think it's the first impression thing that always gets me. I feel like I'm the type of person that one needs to know for a while before they see the real me come shining through.

When I was in high school, however, I auditioned for summer schools constantly. I went to three or four auditions every winter at the least: Aspen, Pacific Northwest, SAB (which I never had any hope of getting into but which my teachers kept telling me was "good experience." At least I got a free T-shirt), Jacob's Pillow, Interlochen, etc, etc, etc. I was a nervous wreck. It took me forever to warm up, I could never get my hair to work with me that morning, I would undoubtedly start my period fifteen minutes before I had to be standing at a barre in pink tights. I just had a hard time auditioning. Despite, I got through many of them, some with flying colors, and ended up having my share of the summer ballet school experiences that I so longed for. I think, often times, the teachers were surprised to see me walk through the door poised and coifed when I finally got to the school. I always felt like a mess on my first impression.

The reason I'm waxing on about this bit of my harried, nervous, self-conscious past, is that I was on the other side of the table today, auditioning young singers for the San Diego Opera Intensive Workshop for Singers (see the link). It's not the first time I've been an auditioner. Not by far. I've auditioned dancers in Chicago, actors in La Jolla, dancers for the "Pearl Fishers" productions I did across the country with Malashock, and many, many supers and dancers at all of the opera companies I've worked for. Yet, everytime I sit down at the table and watch that first scared face peek through the door and walk the endless walk to the middle of the room with their resume and nervous smile, I get a twinge of nerves in rememberance.

It's so odd to be on the other side and realize what all of those auditioners were thinking when I was out there dancing my heart out in front of them. We are nervous for you. We want you to succeed. We cringe at wrong notes and moments of forgetfulness and clumsiness because we've been out there ourselves at one time. I watched all of these young singers be so brave and open today and wondered if I was ever that composed. Nervous habits aside (and we all have them...good auditioning is an art in itself), I was so proud of each and every person who walked through the door.

And on an aside, one of the worst experiences I ever had as an auditioner (not because of the dancers in front of me at all) was at the Opera National Du Rhin in Strasbourg, France. I had gone over there to help put up Mary Zimmerman's production of "Akhnaten," and the dance audition was held at noon the day after we arrived in France. Daniel Pelzig, the choreographer, and I had gone through a horrible string of missed flights and awful delays, lost luggage, and no one to meet us at the airport. Starting out in San Diego, I had been traveling for over 24 hours straight. We were jet lagged and turned around and I was without any bearings whatsoever. Thirty young dancers met our bag-supported eyes and I downed an entire bottle of water, then got up and taught the combination. The kids were so eager and asked questions (which I tried to answer in my pidgin French) and worked hard to get what I was teaching them. By the time I sat down to begin cycling through groups, I was shaking all over and unable to formulate a complete sentence. Half way through the audition, Danny jabbed me hard in the side with his elbow. I had, apparently, dozed off as one of the groups was going, and he'd been trying to wake me for some time. I was so embarrassed and so upset that I must have appeared unbelievably rude to all of these people vying for a place in the corps. I stood up for the rest of the audition for fear that I would, yet again, slump in my seat and not give each dancer the attention they deserved.

So, no matter what side you're on, it's a hard process. Necessary, but hard. I am so glad to have passed through the door to the other side of the table, but I don't think I could ever remove myself completely from the experience of the performer trying to get their foot in the door. It is being able to take that brave first step to the front of the auditioning table, and do it without crying or running off to vomit, that separates those who will make it from those who won't.

Blasted Cartoons..

I've tried very hard not to comment on the whole cartoon debacle in Denmark. I think the whole thing is blown quite out of proportion. I was at a dinner party the other night and spoke to a Danish woman with strong opinions and smart answers. She couldn't understand, one: why the whole Muslim world is speaking out against the whole country of Denmark for the stupid decision of one, privately-owned newspaper, and two: why the editor-in-chief of said paper didn't stand up and apologize for an act that was obviously meant to be offensive. It was great to hear from a Dane about the issue when most of the news I've been hearing has been from every source but Denmark.

Yesterday I read this on Zuco's Blog. I think it is the best explanation and analysis of the situation that I've come across thus far. My favorite quote:

Yes, I do believe in the concept and practice of freedom of speech. But at the same time, I also believe that in exercising one's right to a freedom, one should not impinge on the freedom of others. It should never be the case of "my freedom is of paramount importance, therefore I don't give a shit about what you think." Exercising one's freedom in an enlightened and liberal society is a fine balancing act.

Or maybe this:

But I also think that it's kind of ironic to be using violence in protest against someone who claims your religion is violent. Aren't you proving the cartoonist right?

You can read the whole post yourself. The writer is from Singapore - a place where I'm sure the citizens have plenty to say about freedoms (especially freedom-of-speech).

The more I read about this whole issue, the more ridiculous I think our world has become.

You're Not So Big.

You know those days where you just can't seem to live up to the standards you set for yourself? Those days where you seemingly fail at what would normally be a relatively simple task? That's how I feel today. I just couldn't seem to get it together. I was three pages behind everyone else at work, I was on a different plane than every person I talked to. I couldn't explain myself well, I seemed to have a lot of trouble formulating complete and correct sentences. Just now I had to spell and erase "have" four times before I got it correct. I'm just not on my game.

I told a friend today that I felt a little like Apolo Ohno. Here he is trying to do his job, knowing he has certain expectations to meet, knowing that people see him a certain way and feeling like he has to be there for them, that he has to accomplish things in a certain fashion in order to stay on top. Here he is with all of this in his mind and when he finally steps out on the ice, the first thing he does is bobble a simple task he's done a thousand times, grab someone else's skate, plow sidelong into a bunch of lane markers and . . . well . . . lose.

Not that anything in my life right now is as dramatic as a speed skating heat at the Olympics, but sometimes those simple tasks gone awry just take you down a notch and you feel like you've failed your heat.

As my mom used to say, "I'm not mad, just disappointed."

Thoughts on a Career

I was conscious of my dance career's mortality before I even got out of college. I'd had medical problems, was suffering from massive shin pain (later diagnosed as exercise-induced bilateral compartment disorder), and was not feeling at all at the top of my game. I thought I should have been, graduating from college, dancing in a company I helped create, but I just saw it there, the end: dark, hollow, down the road waiting for me, and it put me off for much of my senior year. I even choreographed a piece about moving from the stage to the audience for my senior concert. I called it "Succumb" and it was a solo in which I moved through the stage, touching the curtains, leaning into the scrim, feeling the coolness of the marley floor, staring directly into the lights, until I noticed the audience and, fighting less and less, made my way to the front of the stage, climbed down and sat in the first seat.

It was a facade of acceptance. I thought I was okay with my future like that. I was lying to myself.

The next time I saw the end closing in on me was several years later when I was in my second season at Malashock Dance and Company. I remember the moment: working on a duet, using everything I had to pick up another dancer by wrapping my arms around her neck and pulling, and I felt the muscles in my lower back stretch beyond capacity and give way to excruciating pain. I laughed it off, hobbled around the room with my hand on my sacrum, told everyone to "give me a minute; I'll be fine," and took some deep breaths before plunging back in, but I saw it there. I thought, "here's where it ends. I'll never be the same again."

Though I think, ultimately, endings are rarely that dramatic. I persisted. We all do when we want something bad enough, but as I grew older I got stiffer in that same back, unable to lift my leg as high in arabesque, unable to drop down as low, unable to find as deep a contraction. Four years later, I had finally found the stage presence and dramatic understanding of myself as a dancer, but had lost some of the physical prowess I had as a teenager. How frustrating.

So frustrating that I stopped taking class on a daily basis as I always had. So frustrating that I refrained from stretching in the morning, that I found other things to worry about, that I pretended that it was no big deal that my jumps had lost a bit of their loft. I was still competing with the best of them, it was just little things I noticed. We all notice those things - especially dancers who are so hyper aware of their body. For instance, I would wake up in the morning and walk into the bathroom and go, "Huh, my ankle's a little stiff. I've never noticed that before..." I'd take ballet class and say, "Huh, how odd. I don't have impeccable balance on my left side anymore. When did that disappear?"

A year and a half ago I had emergency abdominal surgery. It had been coming for some time methinks. The signs were there that something was going to go terribly awry. I was going through incredible social upheaval, I'd been sick with the flu that was then strep that was then a sinus infection. I remember getting ready for a First Night Escondido performance, and I was going to fill in for one of the dancers who couldn't be there. I jumped in to do her role (along with my own) and, still recovering, got so winded and dizzy that I promptly sat down and started crying in the middle of rehearsal. I don't think I'd ever cried in a rehearsal before. I, as a rule, don't cry in public. I was just so exhausted and so spent and so frustrated that my body couldn't find the stamina to do one more thing, that I lost it then and there. I don't think my fellow dancers and choreographer knew what to do with me. I was the polar opposite of this blubbering, heaving lump, slumped down along the mirror at the San Diego Center for the Moving Arts.

I got better, but not really. In Detroit, I would go for six weeks and dance in my second round of "The Pearl Fishers." I was dancing better than I had in some time, but at night I was waking up in a cold sweat and my intestinal tract decided to suddenly stop working entirely. I knew something was up but was too scared to do anything about it. Three weeks later I was rolled into emergency surgery to remove my appendix. My whole life changed at that moment.

I gained weight, lost flexibility, my sleep patterns changed, my stamina changed. Anyone who says that an appendectomy is minor surgery has no idea what they are talking about. Any time you get your abdomen cut open, things change inside of you. I recovered within six weeks, but my balance and metabolism were off forever. Dance became such a frustrating experience that I stopped doing it at all. The end seemed to be sitting right in front of me - I was all about changing careers, and I wasn't coming to terms with it. It makes me sick to think about not being a part of the dance world anymore.

I'm back from Miami for three weeks and I've been taking class and feeling like a beginner in an advanced world. I see all of these other people that I danced with for years circling around me and I feel like they've improved so much when what's really happened is my abilities have declined. I don't know how to reconcile with this loss.

I was at a dinner party last night with some members of the dance community here. We were talking about beautiful dancers in San Diego and then some who have taken long breaks and look like they aren't ready to be on stage. I am longing to perform again but very conscious that people see the lack when you've been out of the picture for so long. I'm not sure if I look like I've not been training or if I just notice my own short comings in hyper mode. I want to do my own work, but sometimes worry that I will work down to myself and still miss that challenge of going on stage and performing something to perfection that could, very well, knock me on my ass.

And you know...I think that's really what's irking me as my needs and career changes. Well, maybe two things. One is that I can't find the willpower to work beyond the pain anymore. I've worked through pain my whole life and now I just can't seem to do it anymore. I don't find it comforting and it doesn't improve my performance. I'm already strong; I don't need to be in excruciating pain in a dance class to prove that to myself anymore. The other thing is that I'm too much of a perfectionist to look like crapola when I dance. When my leg is a la seconde, I want to see the sole of my foot and I want my leg above 90 degrees. I want my back attitude to be parallel with the floor, I want to execute double turns without any wobble and find a perfectly balanced finish on one leg. When these things don't happen because my body's changed or my flexibility has fallen away, I get pissed at myself. There's nothing I can do about it but I'm pissed anyway. What happened to the beautiful precision that I once had?

I remember being at Jacob's Pillow in 1993 and watching Danny Grossman, stiff, in pain, lacking in his own former precision, warming up in one of the studios. I was so enamored of the fact that he persisted; that he couldn't execute the movements he used to, but he was still in the studio every day warming up. What dedication and strength of will he must have had.

Maybe I don't want it as bad as I think I do, or maybe what I really want with my career is actually down an avenue I haven't tried yet. Either way, I feel like I'm grasping at something that doesn't want to be taken anymore.

Mad Hot Ballroom

John and I watched "Mad Hot Ballroom" tonight, a documentary about a New York City Public School's program that teaches 5th graders ballroom dances so they can compete in a city-wide ballroom dance competition. We both really enjoyed it.

For John's taste, it was a fabulously edited, beautifully shot and conceived documentary with wonderful interviews with the kids involved and great footage as they learn the merinque, the rhumba, the foxtrot, the tango and the swing. For my taste, it was a terrific tale of how dance and the arts can save kids on the edge. There were several kids filmed for the documentary who were pegged as "at risk" and who, according to their teachers, turned around during the course of learning these dances and preparing for competition.

The kids were amazing. As I said in an earlier post, we completely underestimate what kids of capable of understanding and accepting in their life. We have no idea how hard a child will work towards a goal until we give them the opportunity.

At the beginning of the documentary, one of the teachers states that she was wary about the program at first because she doesn't agree with competition because it creates winners and losers. I guess I'm a bit tired of the way so many curriculums are going these days with this "we're all winners!" attitude. I think telling kids that no matter what they do they're winners, that "everyone can be a dancer" that "everyone is as good at everthing as everyone else" has aided in creating the lazy students that we see in so many schools today. Competition, if approached the right way, gives kids something to work for. Losing (just like winning) is part of life, and if a child never experiences it, then they won't be prepared for adulthood.

The kids who didn't win the big trophy in this documentary took it very well. They learned valuable lessons simply by being a part of the process. They learned where they could improve and they also became aware of personal limitations in certain areas. We can't have everything go immediately right for us all the time, and I was extremely impressed with this program's ability to show this and treat it as a beautiful, enjoyable learning experience.

It's a great film. It shows off some amazing kids doing some amazing things with nothing but their own gumption and an hour a week to guide them. Rent it.

A Teen's Travels in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado: Travelogue #2

The pinnacle of a young ballerina's year is her time spent at summer schools and festivals. It's at these institutions that she gets to meet and study with big wigs in the business, that she gets to spend time with other ballet-obsessed girls and boys her age, that she has the opportunity to spend time away from her parents, perform for an unknown audience, and push herself further than she's capable of in her normal "hum-drum" life.

For three straight summers during my terrible teens, I spent a lengthy period of time at the DanceAspen Summer Festival/School in Aspen/Snowmass, Colorado. Sadly, the ballet program is now defunct. It closed due to financial difficulties thirty years after it opened its doors to scores of young ballet dancers, many of whom would go on to be big names in their field.


I was here during the Tenley Taylor years, and had the pleasure of studying with the likes of Eddie Villella, Jillana, Violette Verdy, John Callender, Violetta Boft, Garth Fagan, Sean Lavery, Sandy Cooksey, Elizabeth Nesi, Robert Desrosiers, Toni Pimble . . . the list goes on and on. I performed Balanchine works at the Festival Theater, I got to see world class dance companies perform and was exposed to such an intensive experience that my body changed completely in just three week's time.

Within all this, however, I also got to know the area of the country quite well. I fell in love with Snowmass Village so much that I have gone back to it in my adulthood just to walk around and feel its "vibe." The village itself is punctuated by a huge open-air mall with great restaurants and shops. My favorite restaurant being The Tower, which was known for its fondue. On the last night, many of us would gather there and order several pots of chocolate fondue to celebrate us getting through the experience. Reckless teens with chocolate and no supervision - I'm sure the other diners loved us.

I was also a fan of Paradise Bakery (by the ski ticket pavilion) which had the largest muffins I've ever laid eyes on, and Moondogs, a fast-food joint made out of an old trolley car, where skinny little bunheads would throw caution to the wind and munch on huge trays of fries and onion rings, sometimes large pieces of pizza.


On those long summer nights, the bunny slope turned into a concert venue for the Snowmass Summer of Music. The concerts were free, so we gathered there in droves to see Lyle Lovett, the Byrds and Zulu Spear. The last being one of my best memories of myself and four friends losing ourselves in the music and storming the stage, where the band let us dance with them for a brief fifteen seconds before we were escorted off to the side.


We stayed in the ski lodges there, empty for the summer, three to a room. Every week we would switch beds so that one of the three would get their own bed for that particular week. The rooms were large and comfortable, some had Murphy Beds and some had two queens. Snowmass Inn was the first one filled, with its views of the pool and hottub used by the entire community and the huge sand volleyball court. Down the hill a ways was Stonebridge, where many of the younger students stayed. I was there for one summer. It had its own pool and was quite a hike up to the tents that made up our dance studios. I have a memory of having a mid-session party one night in the lobby of the Stonebridge. Some of our friends were leaving the next day while the rest of us prepared for three more weeks of classes. We stayed up all night in the lobby playing Mau (a hideous card game) and watching scary movies. I had eleven cups of coffee (I counted the cups that I stacked next to me) and was up for 48 straight hours. Bruce Marks from the Boston Ballet taught the next morning and several of us were unable to even execute a simple demi-plie without shaking uncontrollably.

Snowmass Inn was easier to sneak out of, and when I was 17, and in my final year, several of us snuck out on a regular basis. The only hard part to get past was the metal stairway, which could make quite a ruckus. I had local friends, having been there for so many years, so they would meet us at the bottom with their pick-up trucks and we would hide in the bed and drive down the mountain. We spent many lovely nights around campfires on the cliffs above town, watching the Aspen groves glistening in the moonlight and listening to the coyotes howling.


Nature abounded there. Once we got used to the oxygen deprivation (visiting companies would have oxygen set up backstage so they could take hits in between pieces) we would hike all over the place. Every summer we took an obligatory trip to Maroon Bells, a mountain range with a roaring creek and lovely summer colors. The first summer I was there, several of us separated from the group and hung out by the parking lot only to get terrified by a guy sitting by himself in a van at the other end. I followed the tour from then on. The second summer I was there, my Mexican roommate, Rocio, had an uncle who lived in town. He came and got us one night and took us up to Independence Pass. We wrapped ourselves in blankets and felt our way to a group of rocks in the pitch dark night (no moon). We laid back and soaked up the meteor shower as the stardust rained down upon us from so far away.

I miss that incredible place. I miss watching the sun rise up through the mountains, eating fabulous food at Hite's, dancing in an outdoor tent with a flash hail storm rising up and pummeling the canvas roof with ice chips. I miss the original Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory, where Tom and Jerry (yes, that was actually their names) would sometimes let us behind the counter to help whip up some tiger butter. I miss running down the hill with stiff, bloody feet, pointe shoes slung over my shoulder, to rip off my leotard, change into jeans, and go hiking up the bunny slope with ten other teens. I miss chicken fighting in the pool. I miss how fresh the air smelled ALL THE TIME.

It's when I think about DanceAspen that I miss being a teenager.

Let Me Shave Your Crop, Let Me Cut Your Mop...

. . . Daintily

Friday night John took me to see "The Barber of Seville" at San Diego Opera. It was my first show at SDO in some time, and their opener for the season. We had great seats in the orchestra section although I find the Civic Theater to be problematic in its continental seating. Heaven help the people who are seated in the single digit seats, for they must traipse across leg after leg after old-lady purse with no end in sight. The theater has no center aisle which makes it impossible to come in right at curtain if you aren't sitting on the end. I also find the orchestra section of that theater to have some massive dead spots. The acoustics on the ground floor of the Civic are negligable which is unfortunate when going to the opera.

Be that as it may, I enjoyed the show. The Sets/Costumes were from New York City Opera, and the direction was Lotfi Mansouri. Lotfi is interesting director. I find that he pulls out some incredible bits (especially humor) from his principals, has a great sense of timing with them, but when it comes to chorus work I think he must lose interest. His chorus work is fairly straight-forward, a little banal. I think it is also, unfortunately, a byproduct of our money-less arts world where chorus time is cut down drastically to save bucks. Good chorus staging takes a lot more time than most opera companies can afford to provide. Be that as it may, I wish that he could have pulled them out of their straight lines and boring formations more often.

The singers were great. Christopher Maltman, handsome Brit, as Figaro, and Eduardo Chama, little Argentinian man with the most pliable face I've seen in some time, as Bartolo, were terrific actors but sometimes had trouble sending their voices over the orchestra in that acoustically-challenged house. Kirstin Chavez was a charming Rosina - a natural role for her, having done Carmen so many times, because, though Rosina's station is different, she has the same fire. Lawrence Brownlee played Count Almaviva. He is a little guy with a big fat voice. He'll play the same role at the Met soon as well. The director of the company predicts great things for Mr. Brownlee and I can see why. He has some body issues, but these will be solved as he works with good directors.

The star of the evening, in my book, however, was Ferruccio Furlanetto, who played Don Basilio, Tall, Italian man with the largest hands I've ever seen, his voice boomed out over the others, had greater inflection, and greater timbre than anyone on the stage. He had perfect comic timing and my eye was drawn to him whenever he was on stage. The program states that the only two places he sings in the U.S. are here and the Met. How lucky I was to hear him.

A good time. Makes me miss working at San Diego.

The Arts Are Not Appropriate for Colorado's Youth

So here's a great little article that adds to my fear of the Midwest and the Neocons and the fate of our country in the coming years. I am appalled by the reactions of the parents in this school district. I can guarantee that none of them have ever seen "Who's Afraid of Opera," because they ARE afriad of opera and any other art form that might make them think for more than a second.

The most appalling part of the article is the comment from one mother, "I think the opera is glorifying Satan in some way." How intelligent of her. I can't stand comments that come out of ignorance. If she'd watched the program she would see how little of the opera is actually shown, if she'd read a synopsis of Faust, she would see that the opera does not glorify Satan in any way. If anything, it shows how unmerciful Satan is and how people who make pacts with him end up destroying everything around them. Much worse, methinks, are the video games that let kids kill each other and walk away with no consequences whatsoever.

And so the arts are knocked down yet again in our country. But this shouldn't surprise me coming from Colorado who was, of course, the first state to create anti-gay laws in the early '90s.

When I was in 4th grade, I did a ballet from the opera "Faust," and we were told the story in very basic terms and we understood it just fine. Children have an innate sense of good and evil and "Faust" demonstrates this sense perfectly. We need to stop underestimating what our children can grasp in this world. (and stop overestimating what's going to go right over their heads).