Wednesday, October 31, 2007

The Stars at Night are Big and Bright!

I arrived in Dallas, Texas this evening. Earlier than I thought actually. The flight I was supposed to be on was hopelessly delayed so they shoved me into an earlier flight. I crossed the arid Southwest in the early afternoon and touched down at DFW somewhere around 6pm. I was glad to get in earlier. The more time I have to settle in, the more comfortable I feel when I wake up and start working the next morning.

The flight was pretty smooth. Arriving in Dallas was a little rockier. Because I was early and couldn't get ahold of anyone at the opera, I ended up, somewhat grudgingly, taking a cab after standing on the curb in a state of semi-disorientation. It's so odd to drive through a completely foreign terrain in the back of a taxi. No matter how many times you've looked at a map, the streets still wind in confusing patterns and all of the directions seem to get switched around. Fortunately, all Midwestern cities hold similarities. We passed strip malls galore, churches, and the "President George Bush Expressway" before finally arriving at my corporate housing. Actually...we didn't even arrive there. We arrived at the apartment building next door. The robust cab driver pulled my three immensely heavy bags out of the trunk, left them in the doorway and drove off. As I watched him go, my eyes dropped down and I noticed the door mat with a completely different name than what I was expecting.

A little old man hobbled towards me with his walker and pushed the handicapped button on the side of the door. As he passed I said "I think I'm in the wrong place," asking him where my hotel might be. "Oh dear, you are in the wrong place," he eked out. "This is an apartment complex. You want to be next door." He hobbled past me pointing and I looked up the hill to the big hotel sign, then grudgingly lugged my 100 pounds of luggage down the street. Everything else had been so smooth and quick. My two bags were even the first ones out at baggage claim. Ultimately it's just not possible for me to have a smooth traveling experience. I've accepted this every time I travel. It gets exhausting.

So finally after a long, disjointed day of travel, a Cuban sandwich and a beer at Cheesecake Factory, and a somewhat delirious shopping trip to the local grocery store, I'm settled in and unpacked and sitting on my couch in my great little apartment. My bag is packed for the morning, my coffee's ready to brew and all of my papers are in order.

Let's get this show on the road.

Saturday, October 27, 2007

Briefly

I'm prepping five scores at once right now. Four of them are for San Diego Opera. I start work there in December but I want to have my scores ready to work by the time I walk into prep there. The fifth is this "Merry Widow" I'm doing in Dallas come next week. Prepping consists of adding tabs so I can flip to specific scenes easily, marking in any cuts we are doing, and highlighting each character's vocal line in a different color so I can quickly tell who should be singing what line on any given page. It's a lot of tedious busy work but completely necessary for me to do my job later on.

Incidentally I've been watching a lot of "Law and Order SVU" while madly highlighting and tabbing...

John took me on a Hornblower Dinner Cruise tonight through the San Diego Bay. It was a terrific evening and we both deserved it so much after a whole week of not feeling so hot. We didn't really date much before attaching each other at the hip so it's nice to go out on a bona fide date every once in a while. We dressed up, drank champagne, stood along the railing letting the wind hit us in the face and ate cheesecake. The only thing we didn't do is dance. John doesn't dance. I may have to see about fixing that...

Monday I have to pack for another five weeks away.

I don't wanna. (stamps foot impetuously).

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Feu

So I come home from New York and all of Southern California goes up in smoke. It seems to happen that every time I come home from traveling somewhere the weather changes for the worst here. When I came home from Cooperstown we were dealing with record highs and record humidity. The first week I was home was pure misery. Now I come home from the City and the weather is beautiful. John and I travel to San Francisco and have a gorgeous time. On the way back we drive down the coast and hit some pretty smoky air around Los Angeles County. Unbeknownst to us we were driving straight through the beginnings of the Malibu fire. I'm in town for one more week before I go to Dallas Opera and we are dealing with fallout from the Witch and Harris fires. Unbelievable.

Not nearly as unbelievable, I'm sure, as all of this is to the thousands and thousands of people who have been displaced in San Diego County alone. Despite my bitching I am one of the lucky ones. The city has not yet been threatened and we are only suffering from the bad air, hot weather and lack of services due to businesses being closed while everyone figures out where they are going, what they are doing and whether or not they still have a home.

I feel helpless somewhat and can't help thinking in the back of my head that this is all my fault. Why do these things happen only when I come home? Dallas was a last minute gig and I was actually not really looking forward to it since I have been away from home so long. It doesn't look so bad right now as I see the mild temperatures on their weather forcast. Just to get away from the campfire air will be a blessing. I only wish I could bring John and the cats with me.

The picture is of the setting sun from our front porch. It's beautiful and horrifying all at the same time. Interested in helping out? Please follow this link to the San Diego chapter of the American Red Cross and this link to the San Diego chapter of the Humane Society. Many, many displaced horses and other furry creatures : (

Sunday, October 14, 2007

Last Night in the City

I started this blog to give insight into this strange, disjointed life that I lead. This world of crazy career, far-away home, coming together and falling apart. Keeping this up is harder than I thought it would be. Partially because there are so many things I want to talk about that aren't always appropriate in a public forum (memoirs someday...when I don't care anymore) and partially because when the most interesting things are happening I become too busy to sit down and write.

We opened Agrippina today. I wasn't sure how to react, as usual, to the end of my work. I loved watching everyone on stage. I got to bow, which is always an exhilirating experience, and I have a great time when I can dress up and mingle. On the other hand, I felt like my foot was partially out the door. I stood around after the curtain fell and watched everyone bustling around. For them this is the beginning of a run and so their priorities in the moment are different. I had a friend tell me I looked sad which was really not the case at all. I was more....well....I think I had already moved on. It's the only way I know how to survive these frequent transitions. To survive living out of a suitcase and leaving people I care about every few weeks.

Because I haven't written in a while and I have to pack now, I'm leaving you with a journal entry from the summer. I wrote this sometime in late July or early August. I don't know why it seems appropriate right now, but I think it reflects my feelings about life and the way I am living it.

I've got major goals right now. For the first time in my life I'm feeling like my future (or the one I want) makes sense. But I think we never stop searching for the meaning behind it all...

I went to the grocery this evening and as I walked back into my kitchen I had this sudden feeling of claustrophobia and panic. I had to get out. I dropped my bag and purse on the counter and jumped onto my roommate’s bicycle, sliding out of my flip-flops, wide-legged jeans flapping against the chain, ballcap pulled low.

I rode around the block and down a side street, over a creek I spent hours peering into on a late, thundery afternoon and into the glassy, gravely driveway of an abandoned factory I’ve been drawn to lately. There was an eerie quiet there. A tree rustled greenly against an old propane tank. A bird flew through the broken panes of glass to a hidden roost in the depths of the decimated building.

I was tempted to ride all the way into the back of the grounds but looked at the falling sun and felt that female twang of fear that comes from being alone and unprotected. That missing father syndrome that women fall prey too when their entire childhood is predicated by an understanding of their comparable weakness.

I peeled out of the loose stone and cigarette butts to ride back up the hill, calves squeezing out every last pinch of oxygen as I passed the boarded up bowling alley, the shingle-free dive with the fish-fry sign flapping about over the front door, and a green house that always has the strains of a sad country song creating a desolate wrinkle in the surrounding airspace.

As I passed the firehouse, origin of a strange, wailing horn Richard and I’d heard several times over the past couple of weeks (turns out it was a call to volunteer firemen throughout the area), I looked up and saw a flock of large birds flying towards me. Hawks. Beautiful brown hawks with majestic, pointed heads and large beaks, riding the wind space over my head. One flew so low I could hear the air compressing downward in a rush of swept-up sound as he flapped his impressive wingspan.

I counted seventeen as I stood over the catch bar of Richard’s bicycle. None making a sound but for the fwoosh of the wings as they picked up speed. The last one to pass was riding on the tailwind of his neighbor as one of his wings was broken, laying at an odd angle when it was fully spread from his back.

I burst into tears. There was something so amazing, so unprecedented about this flock of majesty flying over my head. I didn’t know how to react but to feel the breeze of their flight on my cheeks and let the tears of intense beauty roll down my face and drip off the end of my nose.

It’s those moments that life dawns on you that bring about a yearned-for perspective that sometimes seems just out of reach.

Saturday, October 13, 2007

Almost Home

Agrippina opens tomorrow. The picture on the left demonstrates, I think, exactly how this experience has been for me. Lots of good knowledge and moments, some incredible people and amazing talent, but ultimately stressful. That's me drinking a manhattan in Manhattan with members of the creative team after our piano dress rehearsal.

It's funny. I'm so excited to go home, but I'm feeling really sad about leaving New York. Every time I come to work in this city I love it more and more. I've become extremely fond of the Upper West Side. I love meandering along Central Park West from the Natural History Museum to the Dakota. I love noodles at Ollie's on 84th (better than the Midtown location). I love walking through Zabar's, taking in whiffs of cheese, olives and coffee and listening to the hustle on all sides. I love hazelnut or pistachio gelato at Grom and the Civil War Memorial on Riverside. San Diego just doesn't feel the same. The good stuff there all exists inside my house: my husband, my cats, my books, my stuff...

The end of each project is always, always bittersweet, and always for different reasons.

Tuesday, October 09, 2007

Tension Personified (That's Me)


Some shows take more effort to get to stage than others. It could be that the action is more detailed or the sets are problematic to move through or the music gives the singers substantial issue. Sometimes the reasons behind the extra stress and effort are harder to pin down even though everyone involved knows they exist.

"Agrippina" is a complicated show in the fact that it's a baroque comedy. Comedy is detailed and nuanced and tremendously hard to get perfect, and Baroque opera is known for its difficult coloratura and (in the case of this opera) its massive, endless recitative.

We have a piano dress rehearsal tomorrow and in some ways it seems too soon and in other ways we already seem long in the tooth. I don't really know which end is up right now. My reasons for not writing stem from this...

I love my job. Dearly. I am in constant awe of what I get to do for a living. I am also very proud of the group of people I'm working with. I think they've put together a very good product and are working hard to get it up and running. I think it will be a tremendous show.

At this point, however, I think I'm just ready to go home.

Much, much more after we open and I am back in California...