And Then I Was Awake

It's a holiday week.  Not a weekend...Independence Day falls on a Wednesday this year, so the entire week becomes some sort of strange wash.  This is not to say that I will spend much time worrying about the holiday as I continue to move my things slowly into our new apartment and pore desperately over my list of things to do as the date of my flight to Chile looms ever closer.

I would love to be the girl in orange below...any of those people actually.  Beating the heat by joining it sounds like a much better plan than braving the sweaty, humid apartment as I move my things out one-by-one.

My lengthy list is what has me wide awake at 2:30 in the morning.  I guess the good thing about this time of night is that it's the coolest that it will get during the day.  The oppressive heat makes the idea of working on anything that involves thought a complete nightmare...hence the lengthy list and ever-present insomnia.  I spend many minutes a day staring at my to-do list, trying to figure out what important thing I should tackle first.

Should I....

•Pack up my dishes and books?

•Make chorus staging templates for Moby-Dick so that I can send my scores on to San Francisco?

•Make up a scene breakdown for Madama Butterfly so that I can send a supernumerary request to Santa Barbara?

•Email Chile to make sure that someone is picking me up from the airport?

•Find a parking garage that will take my car for six weeks for the least amount of money?

•Put together a staging scheme for Figaro?

It's so hard to decide that I often just want to throw everything aside and watch old movies in front of my air conditioner, but this is simply not an option.

The list is overwhelming, the heat is oppressive.  Summer in the city...

At the beach at Coney Island in Late June

New

This is not a return to blogging.

Or perhaps it is.  Goals are sandy these days.

A year ago this week, I made a gigantic change and moved across the country to New York City.  Brooklyn to be exact.  The exact opposite of my ten-year, Southern California existence.

It's strange to feel unsettled for as long as I've felt unsettled.  Somehow it becomes normal and your brain starts to only concentrate on what will get you through the day.  The future is shifty and so you don't deal with it until it's upon you.

I moved to New York City, put my belongings in a dusty sublet, and went on the road for 8 months.

Unsettled.

It's taken a full year for this giant change to turn completely in the lock.  Having your hand on the door knob means you're only partway there, and so I've stood with hand poised all this time.  Now is the moment that I want to fully step through the door.

A few truths:

• I'm moving into an apartment tomorrow that will have my name on the lease.  This implies, if not full ownership, then the opportunity to feel that my possessions have a home in which I am fully in charge.
• I am leaving for another 6 weeks in 15 days.  In a sad admission, this is one of my shorter trips this year.
• I'm leaving a partner and a pet in my new apartment.  Roots.  I'm leaving roots.  Small, somewhat shallow, relatively unformed roots, but they are solidly in the soil.  I would have to yank swiftly and forcefully to pull them up.
• This is the first year that I can truthfully call myself an opera director.  I have three directing gigs  in the next five months.
• I miss dancing in a way that I never thought possible.  This morning, after my breakfast, I stood up in my dusty sublet and danced my way through some music and felt so alive and strong...and then so weak and scared.  Part of my full transformation must include coming back to where I started.
• This blog post is a maintenance post.  It is a test for myself to see if writing can be part of my experience once more.  I stopped writing a while ago and my creativity drained away as well.

More is coming.

Hiatus?

So I'm not sure if I'm taking an official hiatus or not. Obviously writing has been the last thing on my mind lately since it's been nearly a month since I've gone to my blog and each of the posts immediately before that were few and far between. My idea was always to force myself to write regularly but as my job gets more involved, I have less inclination to take up time to write.

I'm just not going to force things right now. So, for my few regular readers out there, it may be a while. Or not...I may suddenly have the urge to record again. I just have to wait and see.

As it were, I'm sitting at my little desk in the production offices of San Diego Opera on my third week of prep before we start a jam-packed season. We jump in with both feet right off the bat with a new production of Wagner's "Tannhauser," then move directly into four more operas with absolutely zero breathing time. Everyone I've talked to who's done this season says it's a crazy maelstrom every time. We'll see how I fare in terms of time for outside projects. I'm not hopeful right now.

As far as after that all ends, my summer is up in the air. I'm thinking of taking a trip to Italy to do a language immersion program, or going to Upstate New York to study up on Edna St. Vincent Millay a little more, or perhaps going to England/Scotland just for the hell of it. We'll see what pans out. I feel strongly that if I take the summer off from working on a show or at a festival then I need to be improving my skills that will help me be the best director I can be. Maybe a summer of me is really what I need.

I just got off of an airplane taking me back to San Diego from visiting my parents in Missouri for the holidays. It's the last time I'll have to fly until next May/June-ish. I'm hoping that my nerves will right themselves as I remove the travel-factor from my life for a while.

I feel out of order still and am hoping for some repairs. I'll keep you posted.

Someday...

Rainy Travel

Writing has not been my strong point while working at the Dallas Opera. This particular show kicked me in the butt harder than I've been kicked in quite some time. I came here thinking that this show would be a bit of a breeze and I would get all sorts of stuff done in the meantime. Truly not so...I've been playing catch-up since we opened and now I'm sitting at DFW, waiting for a delayed flight (no explanation...just delayed), and thinking about the fact that I have to go into work tomorrow to a brand new job and I feel totally and utterly unprepared (I'm sure that's not the case...but I'm a preplanner. I get sick if I'm not 15 minutes early and if the check's not in the mail a week before the due date).

The good thing is that I'm going home and if this plane isn't delayed further I'll actually be home early enough today to get my ducks in a row before making my first entrance at San Diego Opera tomorrow. We start prep for a stint of five operas in a row. I need to feel confident with all five scores before the first rehearsal because once we start it's like a downhill soapbox race: there's no stopping us until we hit the hay bales at the bottom.

Despite any stresses I've experienced in Dallas, we had a very good closing last night. Quite a few pranks and loose ad-libbing, but my director seemed pleased as punch that the cast was relaxed enough with each other to dive into the unknown in such a way on stage. I never watch final performances because I know what happensk when there's no recourse. I was a performer for years and did my share of onstage pranks...was also the butt of many jokes as well. I've been part and parcel to many a "let's see if we can make so-and-so bust up in the middle of this really serious scene" schemes and I've added a little something-something to quite a few closing nights. One of my favorites was my Junior year of high school. I was a dancer in "Hello Dolly" and our little group of dancing waitresses chose to wear racy garter belts underneath our circle skirts. We gave all of the geeky band boys in the pit quite a show.

Of course I wrestle with how much to frown upon now that I'm in a position of authority. I try to keep a straight face and discourage bad behavior, but the performer inside knows how hard it is to keep enthusiasm and wish I could be out there too, yucking it up.

Boarding soon. Maybe someday I'll get back to regular writing.

Yet Another Tech Week Survived

I'm at the end of two days off. I needed the time so badly. I go through a tech week about every two months and they still rear up in front of me and knock me on my ass. Generally speaking, once we start the lighting sessions, I have about two or three days in there where I come into work before 9am and leave just before Midnight. By the third day, coffee does . . . well . . . pretty much nothing.

The other thing that always amazes me about Tech week is, no matter how much of a mess a production is on the first piano staging, it always seems to come together as a show by the time final dress rolls around. I left final dress on Wednesday night with weightless shoulders. There were a couple of off moments: props getting stuck in pockets, hats rolling down stairs, a drop off it's in-spike....silly things - easy fixes. But the show itself was there. People were laughing, the dancers were beautiful, the dialogue was on. It was a huge relief for me and I KNOW it was a huge relief for my director.

So yesterday, instead of stressing about notes, thinking about whether or not people would go on, wondering how something was going to come together, I did nothing that had to do with work. I went shopping. I bought a dress for the opening and had lunch at Neiman's with my stage manager. It was all very chic, ladies-who-lunch, holiday cheer etc, etc, and it felt great to be weightless.

My health is starting to return. I still feel my heart rate speeding up at night when my thoughts go wild, but I'm waking up feeling rested and looking ahead to home and Christmas with the fam, and all of the important things in life on the other side of my work...

Holidays Away...

Holidays away from home are tough on many levels. Part of it's the obvious missing of family members. Part of it, for a foodie like me, is the inability to cook holiday foods with the meager kitchen utensils and amenities I have in my little corporate suite.

There are also smaller problems. The reason I didn't go home for Thanksgiving this year (besides the poor factor) is that I have rehearsals on both sides of the holiday. There's a guilt that washes over me when I take a full day off while rehearsing a show. I worked all day yesterday so that I could take today - a holiday - off, but I still woke up feeling like I should work. Holiday breaks in the middle of a deadline-based gig are horrifying for the workaholic.

There's also an anti-social aspect that sometimes comes sneaking in. There's always a part of me when waking up on a holiday that wants to spend the day in my pajamas watching Christmas movies and eating takeout. I know myself enough, however, to know that if I don't go to my holiday plans I'll regret the lost connections and I'll never truly be able to relax and blow off steam.

A member of our production staff had access to an incredible home this holiday season and so he invited us all over for Thanksgiving dinner. Ten of us showed up. The table was set with real china and crystal, we toasted with champagne, we went around the table (just like my own family's tradition) and told everyone what we were thankful for, and we feasted. My, how we feasted! All of the trappings of a traditional turkey dinner plus a few little extras here and there. I brought pineapple timbale, an old family recipe that dates back to when my ancestors were whalers... It was my own contribution to the family atmosphere.

Afterwards we laughed hysterically while cleaning the kitchen, then collapsed in front of a roaring fire and talked for several hours - until the tall candles on the coffee table burned down to nubs. I sat there and looked around at everyone smiling, red-cheeked, clutching pillows, and thought about this idea of connections that I keep coming back to as I slowly try to figure out this business. We get close so fast in these little 6-week gigs. Everyone I work with is like a member of some sort of strange, dysfunctional family. We keep coming together and falling apart, but if I find these people in another city we'll be right back where we left off.

It's a comfort to know we're all in this together and I'm thankful to have so many people who share in this traveling existance wherever I go.

What else am I thankful for? I'm thankful to have a husband who is so unbeliveably supportive in this crazy career I'm carving out. I'm thankful for a family who loves me no matter how different my world is from theirs. I'm thankful that my career is still growing; that what I'm doing thus far seems to be working.

I'm thankful for life experiences and evenings like this.

Detour

So here I am in Dallas, putting up an operetta that has proved to be a scheduling nightmare. We're done with the show (in a week mind you). Everything is blocked, the dancers are here and fitting themselves in beautifully. They actually flew in from Los Angeles the other night, walked in the door straight from the airport, suited up in their off-the-shoulder sweatshirts, legwarmers and flexible dance sneakers, and ran through this show they hadn't done in months with nary a flaw in their unison. Muscle memory is an amazing thing.

Our singers are all thinkers. They are analyzing their dialogue, asking for changes where things don't make sense, discussing character and audience comprehensibility. Our chorus has learned all of their movements, reactions and moments in three rehearsals. For all intents and purposes, this whirlwind rehearsal period has been pretty successful.

But for me in this moment, it all comes back to making this schedule every day, which has pitfalls and snafus in it that literally make me want to bang my head against the desk. I'm having flashbacks to when I first tried to learn long division. Ask my mother about that joyous experience. I'm not the only one feeling this pressure but it's getting to me all the same. It must be getting to me. I've visited the E.R. three times in the past week with heart palpatations, massively high blood pressure and dizziness/numbness/shortness-of-breath. The doctors at the E.R. (who I've gotten to know well mind you) all think it's major anxiety. I think they're probably right but it's hard for me to accept because I've always seen myself as someone who handles stress well. I've always been the unflappable one; the one who takes everything in stride and then gets things done as needed.

The more I think about it though, the more I realize that my way of working has allowed all of this stress to fill my coffer until it's truly overflowing. My job is to listen to and absorb other people's stress and problems and I think I've finally hit my limit. I've spent the last few rehearsals fighting with an irregular heart beat and an inability to get a deep breath and I think, "geez! What the hell is going on," but if I look back at every confidence I take, every problem I solve, every argument and disagreement I'm privy to, well....I guess it makes sense that my body would finally tell me to stop listening. This is my 7th show in a row and none of them in my home.

So enough about that. I'm going to see a doctor tomorrow with an actual appointment and hopefully I can figure out how to manage this in the few weeks I have left of traveling, living in a hotel room by myself, working on a show at my makeshift desk/kitchen table while watching bad television and eating take-out.

This life. This life gives me amazing experiences. Amazing. But I think there's only so much a psyche can take before it needs to regroup, refuel, rejuvenate.

Already?

I have two days off! I've worked two days and now I have two days to catch up on work...

I'd better take advantage because this surely won't last. Rehearsals begin on Monday and I foresee craziness, long days and much, much homework.

I'm going to work out, make breakfast, get a hair cut, see a movie, browse a bookstore, get all of my paperwork in order, explore my neighborhood, shop...

Or maybe I'll just sleep. I have a feeling I'm going to need to store it up.

Death By Scheduling

Death by Diva? ...Not yet...

Singers haven't arrived yet, but that's the season t-shirt for Dallas Opera. Seems an appropriate way to start my work here. I spent 10 hours at my new opera home today. A small portion was spent taking a tour of the large facilities; a small portion was spent eating lunch with the production team of which I am now a member; a small portion was spent tabbing out my score and matching page numbers to my scene breakdown.

An abnormally large part of my day was spent hunched over the schedule with my stage manager trying to reconcile what our director wants with singer releases with hour restrictions with conflicts that singers have who are singing in more than one show this season...it doesn't stop. Scheduling is difficult in any opera company. Time restrictions make it hard to get everything in and well-worked by the time we move to stage, and in a show this size with this many people to organize it becomes a literal headache of the highest order.

I stumbled from the rehearsal hall today with my eyes bugging out and my head spinning. All I wanted to do was come home and eat some frozen yogurt, put on my fleece pajamas and watch something ridiculous on television.

Every time I start a new job I get hit with new challenges that threaten to topple me. I think so many times the biggest issues happen before the rehearsals even start. And every time I knock myself out fixing problems and figuring things out only to emerge on the other side realizing I've survived and I'm capable.

John always jokes about my job, calling me "A.D. Girl." (as in..."I'm A.D. Girl, come to save the show!" Arms akimbo, post-it cape blowing behind me, armed with a highlighter and a mag lite...). But you know what, I am good at what I do. Days like this make me have confidence in my abilities to problem solve and get a show up and running. I'm up for any bomb you can drop and yes, that's a challenge.

Do. Your. Worst.

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.

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).

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 : (

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.

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.

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...

Nothing's Gonna Change My World...

Day off today. I usually look forward to days off but John left this morning after five lovely days together in the city.

I spent the morning doing laundry and then had to get out of the house. The loneliness is strongest immediately after one of us has left.

Saw "Across the Universe" at Lincoln Square. Seemed like a good diversion. I had a really bad taste in my mouth about this movie when I first started seeing the trailers, but I have to say that I enjoyed the experience. My biggest issue with Julie Taymor - and I feel this way about her movies and operas (see myreview of "Grendel" at LA Opera) - is that she has a flawless design sense but she consistently falls short on story. If she never set up a narrative to begin with, I wouldn't care so much when these left-field moments show up half way through the film.

The film is beautiful with some great imagery. I tried to let it wash over me with no expectation and on that level it made for a great afternoon. When I started trying to follow the story too hard I started to get frustrated. The character of Prudence kept appearing and dissappearing, there was an obligatory puppet moment mid-stream that was apropos of nothing, and Bono showed up for a ridiculous moment of psychadelia. But, as I said, there were some moments of pure visual genius.

I'm three weeks away from this opera opening. The hard part of directing this piece is thinking about it before I walk into rehearsals. I've truly enjoyed the rehearsal process. I think perhaps the harder part will be scooting over into the assistant's chair in two days. I'm a very good assistant, but I've started this momentum and I'm worried that my inertia as we make the turn may knock me pretty hard against the wall.

The positive in all of this is that, not only do I love, love, love this opera, but I know that I can stand up and do this. I feel ready to do my own thing.

Boy isn't it all about confidence.

Not Dead Just Working

I've been in New York City for 7 days. That's why I haven't written in what seems like an eternity.

I'm in charge on this production until the 27th. I've put up half the opera in 5 days and am looking forward to slapping the rest of it up before next Thursday. This business works at such a rapid rate.

I'm in love with this opera, so that helps push aside any stress I feel from being the go-to-guy throughout the bulk of the rehearsal process. "Agrippina" is deliciously funny and evil with some of the most gorgeous music Handel ever wrote. We have a lively cast, full of laughter and ideas in rehearsals and ready to jump into any ocean I present to them. That's a lucky fact....and not always normal.

The pic is of me after my first day at City Opera. No rehearsals that day, only a big presentation about the opera, but it felt amazing to kick it all off on the right foot. Now it's just details.

A WHOLE LOT of details.

But still. My director comes in next Thursday and I hand the whole kit and kaboodle over to her. I'll have more time to write then. If I could handle getting the whole thing off the ground myself, I can easily handle being the copilot on the landing.

4 by 4 in 48

These last two weeks have been totally overwhelming with planning for "Agrippina" which is coming so fast and furious I sometimes feel like Indiana Jones running like a madmen in front of that giant stone ball...

Part of the problem is my intense lack of concentration that stems from the first week being so incredibly hot that I couldn't do anything but sit on my couch in front of a fan wearing a t-shirt I'd just removed from the freezer, and the fact that I only get to see my husband for fourteen days and I'm trying to soak up all the home I can before I head to the airport yet again.

To add to all of this, I agreed to perform in a little series that Sushi puts on every second Tuesday of the month called 4x4.

The performance takes place at 8pm at Bluefoot Bar in North Park (corner of Upas and 30th if anyone's interested) this coming Tuesday. A 4'x4' stage is set up in the middle of the bar and ten performers get up in succession and do their thing. We have ten minutes a piece to do whatever we want. Some people talk, some people dance. I'm doing a little of both in a piece I literally threw together called "36,000 Feet." It's about traveling for work. Big surprise.

They say you should always write about what you know...

The cool thing about this performance is that the stage is so small. I have no problem rehearsing in my dining room as the photograph proves. The bad thing is that I decided to do it last minute when I was so blasted busy, but maybe that's good because I won't overthink the piece. We'll see what comes out when I'm finally there and in front of all of those sweaty, intoxicated people.

Otherwise, not much to report. I'm just plugging along, trying not to get run over by stone balls and hoping that everything at City Opera is copacetic. My mantra right now is "October 15th, October 15th, October 15th..."

More Opera Sadness...

Just read that Pavarotti passed away at the age of 71. Yet another giant in the industry to cross to the other side this year. 2007 has most definitely been tough. It seems that much of my blog this season has been dedicated to memorializing those we've lost.

Pavarotti was another superstar who put opera into Everyman's household. He'd been suffering from pancreatic cancer for quite some time.

More, happier, news soon.

Summer's End

In twenty minutes I will load my bags into a volunteer's car, lock up this cool, empty house, and head to Albany to fly home to San Diego for two weeks.

Last night was no roommate and no cat - they left right after our closing matinee. The quiet in the house was good closure. Any semblance of sadness I felt about leaving this place was cut by the empty, swept-up air in our once lively household. I sat on the wide porch after dark and it felt like I was sitting in my past.

It's time to move on, go home, reconnect and get ready for the next adventure.

Words on this blog cannot begin to express my joy at finding my home once again.

But leaving these temporary mini-homes always holds a modicum of bittersweet.