coaching my oratorio arias, and afterwards.... moule frites at last?

I decided to head out to Liège today, to coach with Hilary, a very talented repitateur who lives and works there, whom I met through Bruce. The SNCB (Belgian railways) website has a route planner that allows you to select any two transit stops in Belgium and it will work out your itinerary including the transfers you need to make, how long you should allow for walking from one station (metro) to another (IC/intercity trains) through a councourse, etc. You can save or print your itinerary directly from the website. How incredible!

I had a few hiccoughs though, getting there; the whole trip, from my bus stop to hers, took around three hours, and perhaps 27 Euros. The IC train ticket was 25 Euros, and two bus rides in Liege were another 2.60 or so, plus the two rides on the Brussels system, which works out to maybe another 2.80. One can quickly see that while the transit system is excellent, it does add some time to your journey, as we were able to drive from Brussels to Glons (near Liège) in just under an hour and a half. Still, it was interesting to have a look at the new Liège Guillemins train station. It's been under construction for several years, but is very close to completion, and when it's finished it will really be one of the largest and most beautiful in Europe.

But back to Hilary: she was fantastic to work with; very thorough yet extremely efficient, as we worked through the Brahms Requiem, the Bach recit and aria Mein wandel auf der Welt / Endlich wird mein Joch (Cantata 56) and the Thus saith the Lord / But who may abide / For he is like a refiner's fire from Messiah, all in maybe 1 and a half hours. Admittedly I have worked and indeed performed these pieces before, but even so I had no sense that she was skipping or hurrying over anything. I'll be going back again for sure, to explore my opera audition pieces, and hopefully to sing an audition with the Opèra Royal de Wallonie in Liège.

It was great to actually sing with the right music, played by a talented and knowledgeable repitateur for the first time in at several months; to work with someone like Hilary really recharges my artistic batteries because of the challenge she provides. Practicing by yourself is fine, but you don't really hear your own mistakes, your own little idiosyncracies and shortcuts without an external set of ears, and you need to develop an awareness of these errors, and correct them if you want to really prepare a piece for performance.

Many people are uncomfortable with criticism, but quite honestly that's what you pay for when you go to a coach, not to be coddled and cuddled and told that you're great. There's no point in having an artistic life if you're not prepared to be questioned and challenged, and the great thing about art is that you are never actually done working on anything... it can always be tweaked a little tiny bit to make it better, and it's great when you find people whose artistic opinions you respect who can challenge you to keep developing your interpretation.

My friend JR came by as we were finishing up, and we went out for lunch at a great restaurant called La Vaudrée, which is open 24 hours a day, and has a tremendous beer menu: 620 different beers, 32 on tap. The fruit beers alone cover maybe seven pages! We enjoyed some beer from La Trappe, which was the only Trappist beer I had yet to try (the others being Westvleteren, Westmalle, Orval, Rochefort and Duvel) and the only one brewed outside Belgium (in the Netherlands). It was great, but very strong, as we had the quadruple, which is brewed four times! Yowza!

As well, I was at last able to enjoy my moule frites! They were fantastic, cooked in (what else) a nice blonde beer; JR had the garlic ones and they smelled fantastic. Here's a photo of me digging in.


I've recorded a number of audio clips that are good representations of our experiences here; one is a clip of JR and I discussing the different Trappist beers, and there are others that reflect our daily experiences here in Belgium. I'm still trying to figure out how to upload podcasts or audio files, but I'll get it eventually.

Cheers!