Auditions

This week was my first alone since mid-November, and I needed it to get refocussed on the task of audition hunting. I got some good news yesterday; I've been able to schedule two more auditions here in Brussels, one for the week of January 22nd and another for January 31st. I've got a couple more irons in the fire but no other confirmed auditions yet.

In another bit of good news, we heard today that our Belgian identity cards have been issued and are ready to be picked up. I may have written before about the application process, but to review, you need lots of documentation, including long-form birth certificates (most people who I talked to in Canada didn't even know what that is, but it's a certified photostatic copy of your birth record), long-form marriage certificates, health insurance, etc. etc. as well as three passport photos. You submit these at the maison communale and then they send a police officer around to verify that you do live where you say you do, that your passports and visas are in order, etc.

The police officer who came by is well known to us; he's Erik, who conducts traffic each morning at the boys' school crossing. I was a little surprised at his reaction when he asked me my profession and I replied that I was an opera singer, because he was enthusiastic about opera! Turns out he goes to the opera quite frequently, his wife is an amateur soprano, and we had a long talk about art, the theatre, music, how audiences have changed recently, and the effect funding changes have on the arts. I think that's really cool, that the neighborhood "beat cop" can speak in an informed way about art. I like it.