Back to the routine

It's been a busy week and a half since I got back. Right now I have a little break from a lot of performing in January and February, and so am catching up on some reharsal and planning. The St. John Passion is already in pretty good shape for two of the arias (Betrachte, meine Seele and Mein teurer Heiland) but the third one (Eilt: Ihr Angefochtnen Seelen) is a real monster to learn, and quite challenging to sing, so that's the one to focus on. There is new music for BL!NDMAN, but those concerts aren't until later April and May so that can wait.

Meanwhile I'm trying to get the very challenging patter-ish Mab, la Reine des mensonges aria from Gounod's Roméo et Juliet into my brain, as I am heading to Paris on Thursday to coach it with Janine Reiss, with Marc Di Ruggiero on the piano. Madame Reiss is a celebrated répétiteur who has worked with many famous opera singers, and it will be great to meet her but also to be coached by her and Marc. No pressure, since it is a coaching not an audition, but I don't wish to waste her time, and need to have the aria memorized correctly before I go there. We're also going to work on Zurga's L'orage s'est calmé from Bizet's Les pêcheurs de perles, which I also have worked with Pierre Fleta and with Bruce, and Peter, and auditioned with before, so that one I know well.

I had hoped to already have made some headway in learning some German to help me in my audition in Cologne later in the month, but hope to alternate between my memorization and the German. Of course this opera stuff is easy, there's nothing to it, right? You just open your mouth and it effortlessly comes out...

So this week is a steady working one, but saturday I'm taking a break for some much needed Belgian culture. The Calcant concert group based in Antwerp has organized a tour of the Ardennes, and we will be visiting three or four different churches to hear some organ concerts, but while all this is going on we are also going to have tours of the Abbeys of Leffe, Maredsous, and then the Trappist Monastery of Rochefort for tasting! Is this a great country or what? My friend Bryan and I have been trying to get a tour of a Trappist Monastery for years and it's very difficult to arrange, so with the help of our Flemish colleagues and 30 Euros each we get to see one Trappist brewery, visit two others, see some concerts, and have lunch. You can't beat that with a stick.

As I explained in an earlier post, I enjoyed a huge cheering section at the Mississauga concert, which was absolutely fantastic. Thank you so much to everyone who attended for their support. Here's a photo taken afterwards:


Here's hoping you are enjoying your month of March so far. While the snowdrop and crocuses are already out here, the temperature dropped suddenly a week ago, and today it is actually snowing! I hope it's warmer in Canada, and springtime arrives soon...