In Lyon

I didn't have internet access until a few minutes ago, so I wrote down some words on the train, and will append them here.


blog entry wed 13 may 13:12, Marne la Vallee - Chessy, France

We have already passed the Charles de Gaulle stop and are on our way southward towards Perpignan. I get off the train in perhaps two hours, in Lyon. It is truly amazing to me how high speed rail has made Europe much smaller than it was before; for close to the cost of a train ticket between Toronto to Kingston, I can go from Brussels to Paris in as much time, and continue that distance again into the heart of France. 726 Km from Brussels to Lyon, and it takes four hours.

There are also promotions that crop up occasionally, offers to take the TGV return from Brussels to Paris or London for the day for some crazy amount, like 20 Euros. It's funny though, I was talking with Aart, a singer who I performed with on the weekend, and he said that many Belgians take for granted the fact that Paris is less than two hours away by train, so they never bother going. Kind of like living your whole life in Toronto and never climbing the CN tower, or never visiting Niagara Falls or Algonquin Park. I mean, those attractions aren't going anywhere, are they? What's the hurry? That old expression is true: familiarity breeds contempt. We even feel it: we've been here almost two years now and I've yet to get to Paris, not since my preliminary trip with Bruce in February 2007, and never yet with Maggie... we'll have to remedy that somehow.

On the music front, things are really starting to gain some momentum, which is exciting. I loved having the opportunity to sing again in the Mendelssohn this past weekend, even if it was a modest couple of solos, and the contacts that have come out of that are waiting to be followed up on. That excitement of being on the stage performing reminded me why we're here, why I'm doing what I'm doing.

A couple of new successes: my audition in Easter with Mervin Fick was successful, and he's offered me a "Best of Broadway" style concert with the Mississauga Choral Society in February 2010. So this means that my list of upcoming performances now looks like this:

2009:

• May-June: Queen’s University Convocation Ceremonies, Kingston, CA
• November: Brahms Ein Deutsches Requiem, Kingston Symphony, CA
• December: Bach Weinachtsoratorium, Cornelius Three Kings, Pax Christi Chorale, Toronto, CA
• December: Handel Messiah tour (with Kerry Stratton), Ontario, CA
  

2010

• January: Artists Mass (my choice of material, probably Bach) St. Carolus Borromeus Church, Antwerp, BE
• February: “Best of Broadway”, Mississauga Choral Society, CA
• date TBD but probably March/April: duo recital (organ - voice), Calcant concert series, Flanders, BE
  

... plus I'm still thinking about trying to arrange a concert of Schubert's Die Schöne Müllerin, which I last performed in 2006 with that sublime pianist Dina Namer, and would love to do again on both sides of the Atlantic. Also there are many auditions, coachings, lessons and so on that I can be doing while in Canada, while arranging things in here Europe. The next important step is to find a French agent, so I need to organize a trip to Paris in later June to try to find one who can represent me in France and Belgium. If what my friends teasingly refer to as my "food blogs" have been rarer these days, it is because, as you can see, I do actually have quite a bit to do!

Being a singer promoting yourself is tricky, and it's kind of like being a salesman: if you aren't making sales this week, you aren't having a slow week now; you had a slow week six months ago, or whatever your clients' planning cycle length may be, and you didn't make as many calls as you could have back then. It's necessary to keep thinking ahead, planning and making those calls for the future in order to increase the chances that you'll be successful.


15:49, Hotel de Bretagne, Lyon
Ok, this has got to be the tiniest, skankiest hotel room I've ever seen... it's kind of perversely amusing actually, kind of a caricature of a grotty one-star hotel. No evidence of vermin of any type, so that's something to be thankful for. I tried opening a window but I'm not sure that the atmosphere trickling in from the ventilation shaft is really going to make much difference to the musty smell. Oh well, it's still fairly early, and this room is not the kind of place I feel like staying in, to be honest, so I might just head out myself and have a cup of coffee somewhere, maybe at a cafe that has wireless access?

17:00 Café Leffe, next to the Maison de Ville, Lyon
Success! The Café Leffe not only has Leffe beer on draft, but it also has free internet. Yee-haw! I'm limited by two things in my enjoyment of both: the first is a finite battery life, and the second is the necessity to be cautious about the amount of alcohol I enjoy tonight. Train travel dries you out the same way flying does, with the canned, filtered stuff that passes for air on board, and it's windy and humid today, so I need to be careful.

Alsas, my single glass is almost gone so it's time to go find something to do for the next two hours until the restaurants open at 19:00. There's a museum right across the street, so that might do. There's nothing on at the Opera tonight, so that's no good. I guess that means letter and journal writing, and reading my book for the next little while, or I might find a grocery, although the prospect of preparing a meal and eating in that room has a negative effect on my appetite. (It's funny, I paid much less money for the hotel Vertigo in Marseille, and had no issues at all; in fact I'd recommend it wholeheartedly.) Once again, the reality of being a startup opera singer in a new country is much less than glamourous, but then offstage glamour isn't why I'm doing it, is it?

17:28
Well, it looks like I'm going no place at the moment. Right now the dryest place in Lyon is under the big beige parasols here at the Café Leffe. My umbrella is quite sensibly keeping the inside of my suitcase dry, back at the hotel, and as it was quite hot when I set out an hour ago, I neglected to bring a jacket on my little walk, just a sweater. Hopefully this rain will subside shortly and I can make my break for the hotel until dinner time. At least I have a cover for the computer, so it won't get wet.

Perhaps I'll write more tomorrow in Lyon, or it might have to wait until I'm back home in Brussels tomorrow night. A bientot!