One Weight Off My Shoulder, Several More To Go...

The Opera Workshop is over. Friday night was a beautiful recital performed by 19 very eager students. I was so proud of them; a couple of them actually leaped over mountains to achieve their performances and deserved every bit of applause as it rang out through the Copper Room in the Civic Plaza Concourse.

I think I was proud of myself too, helping Cynthia stage all of those numbers (and staging all of the group ones myself) in only three days. My favorite to throw onto the stage was "Chacun Le Sait" from "Fille Du Regiment," only because I'd recently done the opera in Florida and was excited to attack a bit of it myself. I needed to light a fire under a few arses to get them into the right energy, but by the time they ran roaring to the stage they all had me grinning.

It's always nice to end a program and feel satisfied with its outcome. This was a pilot workshop and I think all of us teaching were infinitely happy. There were only a few bitty down moments and frustrations with students, but I think they are impossible to avoid when you are working with such young, fragile egos.

The next morning was a debriefing and day of relaxation with all of us meeting at one house (the only one with a pool), eating bagels, drinking mimosas, and ultimately jumping into the pool and letting all of that stress and nerves melt off into the warm water. The weather had cooled down considerably and we stayed for hours, ultimately grilling burgers and laughing into the afternoon. It's such an amazing luxury to like who you work with (and enjoy the company of everyone's significant other and children as well). The pic is a radial blur of all of us relaxing together - what fun.

In another weight-lifting moment, I finished my fourteen minute duet today, just in the nick of time as one of my dancers is leaving for eight days on a wedding-planning excursion to the Midwest. As soon as the piece was finished, we ran it and I felt my dancers take a huge leap forward in their performance. Sometimes it just takes the satisfaction of knowing that a piece is complete and whole to really dive into it as a performer. I loved watching them finally "get it" as their onstage relationship developed and their speed, efficiency and sharpness went up several notches.

Now I just need to get these other projects off the ground and I will be golden. It's good to feel like I'm accomplishing things.