Merry Christmas!

I think this will be our version of a Christmas Letter, and I'll not only post this to the blog but also to Facebook.

We are enjoying a brief quiet time now after a very busy year.  For the first time in four years I didn't go back to Canada in November/December but was very busy and happily occupied in work close to home.  All of the contracts performed so far this season were from referrals and repeat engagements, so the career momentum here is growing fast.  Several "firsts" this year include my Amsterdam debut, Messiah performances with original instruments, Carmina Burana, a solo Bach cantata in Brussels, and my stage debut in La Grande Duchesse de Gerolstein.  As well there were artistic successes in Canada, like the Schubert tour with Dina, the workshop to prepare a new John Burge chamber opera for June 2012, and so on...

The french say "Il faut profiter du soleil" and so for us as a family, we spent a good portion of our vacation time exploring other parts of Europe, with a New Year's Eve visit with friends in Vilnius, Lithuania, and summer holidays in Croatia, England and Scotland.  Malcolm skied for a week in Nendaz, Switzerland, and he entered secondary school at Jean Absil, with great marks in science, geography, history and math.  Duncan became more independent while he continued his studies with very high marks at La Futaie; both made considerable musical progress, receiving their choir robes at St. Andrews, and continuing their studies at the Academie de Musique in flute and music theory (M) and clarinet, music theory, and dramatic arts (D).

Maggie made a successful transition to middle school, and is now happily teaching social studies to ninety sixth-graders.  This change comes with many challenges but also benefits, such as opportunities to use curriculum design skills she honed while in Toronto at the School Board.  She also heads off this coming month for her own week of skiing in Anzere, Switzerland as a chaperone to these children.  (Jealous!).  She's also been happy to have her second year of clear test results.

We've had a number of visitors over the year: American mezzo Carla Dirlikov spent some time with us in January, and then things were quiet until painter and teacher Darren Degenova stayed with us in July.  Then we had Maggie's parents for a good long visit over the Toussaint holiday in October/November, and then Bruce came for two weeks at the end of December, and it was great to have him attend some rehearsals and even see me perform in a Christmas concert.  We even managed a brief tour of Brussels for friends and colleagues from Toronto who were enroute to Latvia, and who only had a few hours stopover, so if you happen to be passing through, please let us know, we are always keen to be impromptu tour guides in our adopted home city.

We are all looking ahead with anticipation to this summer, when we plan to spend five or six weeks in Canada.  We have found a house exchange partnership with a family in Riverdale, Toronto, and will be trading houses for the month of July, and are looking forward to spending time with friends and family.  I go to Canada myself prior to our holiday, first in February and March for a raft of projects including Müllerin, "Eisenstein" in Die Fledermaus, the Haydn Creation and an opera duet concert with Bruce in Ottawa, before coming back to Belgium for Die Schöpfung, and then returning to Canada for a chamber opera in Campbellford in mid-June... if you are interested in more information about these upcoming events, please check out my performance schedule here.

We look forward to hearing from you over the coming year, and send you all our best wishes for a healthy and prosperous 2012!

Love,
Matthew, Maggie, Malcolm and Duncan

Une bonne conspiration... et collaboration!

 

Talk about a busy and challenging autumn season!  Thursday evening was our final performance of Gerolstein and it was quite an energetic evening.  There was a general strike that day, and since public transit was unavailable the roads were completely packed with vehicles.  Despite leaving very early to drive the 10 km to the theatre, I was a little worried that I might not make it in time.  As it was everything worked out just fine, but it was a little tense getting there.

 

The performances in Brussels were both sold out, and I was lucky to have a few friends and colleagues from Brussels attending.  What luck to make my European stage debut in such a juicy, villainous role as General Boum, and to do so with such a warm, friendly and talented group of colleagues!

 

 

 

The financial company KBC is a generous supporter of this organization, and so they hosted a reception just across the canal from the theatre, with many delicious nibblies, and generous helpings of champagne.  After many days of abstaining from noisy social gatherings, and drinking nothing more than the odd furtive glass of vermouth, it was a great relief to celebrate together, and not have to worry about tomorrow's show.  For most of us the Christmas feeling has only now arrived...

Maggie's classes finished on Wednesday, and Malcolm's exams are now completed.  His best mark was in science, followed by geography, history and math.  Languages lagged a little behind but his teachers aren't too worried.  Duncan didn't have mid-year exams but his classes ended yesterday, and I celebrated the end of the year with two purchases.  The first was a nice Nordmann tree from the GB Carrefour supermarket around the corner.  The second was eighteen bottles of champagne from a small producer, recommended by a friend from the congregation.  I stopped by the Gardner's to pick up our allotment, and stayed for a couple of hours to enjoy a delicious glass of whisky and a cigar and conversation with Andrew.

Then I came home to a big pot of chili that Maggie had prepared, and then we set about decorating the tree.  Personally I like getting the tree as close to Christmas as possible; it really feels different doing these preparatory activities together when our holiday truly begins, rather than stretching it out over many weeks, which thins out the enjoyment, for me at least.  I enjoy watching the lights on the tree, but for other people, I guess they prefer looking at different lights, the LEDs inside their computers and iPod touch screens!  We restrict these devices pretty ruthlessly during the school year, so what the heck, let them recreate as they wish.

Today will involve a few last-minute shopping trips, mostly for the dinner tonight.  Maggie found a good fresh turkey for tomorrow, but I think we're doing seafood this evening.  I think it will be Norwegian smoked salmon on black bread for an amuse bouche, and then maybe some butter-seared lemon-marinated scallops, with a sauterne reduction, and then some mexican garlic shrimps.  For many years we have done lobsters for Christmas Eve but it can be a bit messy, and it's easier to share out these other dishes with the kids.

Wishing everyone a happy and peaceful Christmas,

Matthew and Maggie et les boys

La Grande Duchesse est arrivé

Well, that's a great relief to have the opening of Gerolstein over and done with! Two shows in one day really takes it out of you. I can't even imagine what it must be like to have to do eight shows a week, like music theatre performers...

I managed to grab 15 minutes of twilight sleep on an old leather sofa just off the stairwell to the third balcony yesterday, in between shows, and I'm glad I did, otherwise it would have been scary from an energy point of view for the second representation... As it was I found the second show on the same day to be much looser, in a good way, the way jazz musicians use the term: less deliberate, more improvisational in feeling. One sequence of events that I enjoy as an artist is the progressive letting go of control that happens in the course of preparation; the paring down to a minimum the things that need to occupy your attention while performing. In those moments one truly starts to "play" the piece, and it comes alive for the audience and also for your fellow actors. How marvelous!

We have a little rest now; I don't rehearse Gerolstein again until tuesday evening, prior to out two sold-out Brussels shows on wednesday and thursday. Still I have a big day tomorrow with showing sone Canadian friends around Brussels in the morning and starting coaching the Eisenstein/Fledermaus and the Haydn Schöpfung in the evening.

Others have been busy performing too: the boys as King Herod (Malcolm) and Joseph (Duncan) in the church nativity play this morning, and Maggie as a gospel reader in this evening's carol service. Bruce was also singing up a storm in Victoria, in two performances of Messiah this weekend with Timothy Vernon.

Malcolm has also had performances of another kind this past week, with exams in science, history, geography and latin. This week all that remains for him are mathematics and french, so he's been busily reviewing his course material...

Have a good week... Only three days to winter solstice, and one week to Christmas!

Gerolstein generale

We had our orchestral rehearsal yesterday for Gerolstein and it was pretty successful with no major problems. First day with the general's costume; fortunately no sword to worry about... I was very happy to have today off to rest a bit. Malcolm was home at a surprisingly early 10h, as he had written his sciences exam first thing and had the rest of the day to prepare for history/geography and latin which will be on the next two days.

We are all looking forward to the general tomorrow and the opening performances on Saturday. Meanwhile I started work on my Fledermaus score, and will continue to translate the sung german text prior to starting to coach it. Wow, Eisenstein is on stage quite a bit! Still after all the work spent on memorising french dialogue for Duchesse, I am happy that our spoken dialogue for Fledermaus will be in English. I should knowin the next couple of days when staging rehearsals begin for that, so I can finalize my flight.

Speaking of flights it would seem that Maggie has arranged a house exchange with some colleagues in Toronto for the month of July. Their place is fairly close to our Toronto house, so we are excited about being Toronto residents again and inviting people to come visit us there for a change! More on that as it develops...

P.S. several people close to us have expressed concern for our well being given yesterday's shooting in Liège; we were told of it last night while in rehearsal. Horrible, doubly so because it took place in the midst of a charming Christmas market set up in a square near the opera. We are nowhere near Liège but have friends there, and our sympathies are for the poor people injured, killed and frightened by yesterday's violence.

Too busy to write

 It has been a crazy couple of weeks, and I haven't had a chance to write anything.  I will jot down a few things though, for the sake of keeping up with the news... 

Bruce arrived on the 30th of November, and then we left the next day for Paris.  That same afternoon we went directly to the cemetary of Montrouge, where Pierre Fleta is buried.  We gave the name at reception, and she looked him up in a big book...

 

He is near the entrance in a plot shared with a number of family members.  We spent a few quiet moments there and then headed off to find some dinner.  I saw these initials chalked into the sidewalk in front of a restaurant near the hotel, on the rue Mouffetards...

I would say that it was a sign that we should eat there!

The next day we paid a brief visit to the Louvre to see the Alexander the Great exhibit, which was amazing.  That evening we had dinner with Pierre's widow, his daughter, grandson, and great-grand-daughter.  It was really lovely to see Madame Fleta so recovered from her period of poor health, the last time we visited.

Upon arriving back in Brussels, I leaped immediately into rehearsals, and have pretty much spent all my time in them, for one project or another.  I have a concert of English music coming up this sunday, of Benjamin Britten and other composers, and we have been staging the Duchesse most days, sometimes from 10h30 until 21h30.  That's pretty tiring; the dancing is not something that I'm all that used to, and while the music sounds easy Offenbach is very clever at varying things subtly (and not so subtly) so you really have to be on your toes.  There is no other way though; we open the show next Saturday the 17th december.  On the breaks I've had a chance to look around a bit at the Christmas Markets that are all over the downtown area, and seen a lot of nice things, including these pretty nativity figurines from Provence...

As well, the rehearsals have been in many different locations, so there's another wrinkle to iron out.  Enroute to one rehearsal, I saw this house, originally of the Belgian painter St. Cyr, that was recently restored... talk about an art nouveau dream come true!  Beautiful, but I don't think we can afford it as yet...

 

Well, as of last Saturday evening, I am now a dues-paying member of the Carmina Burana club, finally.  It's a very famous piece, quite challenging, and one that I had waited a long time to do.  It's satisfying to have completed it, and be able to put that score back on the shelf for a while while I concentrate on everything else that's coming up...

Most pressing is of course the Britten Journey of the Magi, Cornelius Three Kings and Warlock Bethlehem Down pieces that I'm singing at the Chapelle Royale on the 11th of December.  Two of these are new to me, and the Britten in particular will take some time to prepare.  It's a setting of quite a compelling and unusual poem by T. S. Eliot, written in 1930.  Here's a link to the text, and a recording of the poem, read by the author.  It speaks to me of great transformation and mystery, I suppose; the death of old ways and the birth of new ones.

While that's happening the staging rehearsals of Duchesse continue, with another one this evening, and I am starting to get ready now for next year's projects... there is some discussion of Die Fledermaus being sung in german, with the interjected dialogue in english, as seems to be the style these days... as well I have to learn the german text to Die Schöpfung for April so I might as well get on both of those now while I have some time with Peter before he goes off to Lyon in mid-January for a couple of months.

 I received the official contract from Ixelles for Die Schöne Müllerin yesterday, and I have secured a projector and screen for the Biedermeier paintings to be shown while the cycle is performed; pictures like this one by Waldmüller:

Likewise the french translator Guy Laffaille has agreed to let me read his translations of each song interspersed between singing them in german, so it's good to have more details settled all the time.

What else?  We have Malcolm's teacher interviews coming up on thursday, and his report card wasn't bad.  His guidance teacher was quite positive, but there are one or two subjects to pay extra attention to, and so we will visit those teachers this time.  I had a good long meeting with Duncan's teacher last week, and she is impressed with his eagerness to learn, and his high level of proficiency in academic subjects.  However his comportment still needs to improve, so we are continuing to work together on keeping him focussed.

Bruce arrives in another week, and we have a brief trip to Paris planned early in his stay, to pay respects to his late teacher's widow and family, and visit Monsieur Fleta's gravesite.  I am looking forward to not only the conversations and the occasional cigar together, but also to some singing lessons, which I must frequently I have to go a long time without.  Bruce will be here for a little less than two weeks so we will try very much to make the most of that time.  However we will have to fit things in around lots of rehearsals.

Ok, time to review my staging and dance steps for tonight...

Ego sum abbas Cucaniensis...

 

The first rehearsal for Carmina was last night, and I'm feeling happy about how it is sitting in my voice.  There are always things to work out with the conductor, tempo changes, making an enchainement so that things run together smoothly without unnecessary delays or beats, getting a sense of the overall work, and so on, so I was happy to have some extra time last night.  There are no duets or trios to rehearse, just some solo interjections with the choir, so I haven't met the tenor or soprano soloist yet, and won't until the general rehearsal with the everyone on Friday evening.

This picture above is Breughel the Elder's painting of the land of Cockaigne, a mythical place where the normal rules of order and propriety are suspended.  One of the baritone solos in Carmina Burana is on this text: "I am the abbot of Cucaniensis, and I make counsel with drunkards, and my pleasure is in the sect of dice-players, and whoever seeks me early in the tavern will leave naked after vespers, and so stripped of his clothes, he will cry: «Wafna, wafna!  What have you done, fate most foul!  You have taken away all the joys of our life!»"

I suppose that this utopia of Cockaigne/Cucaniensis where the normal rules of life don't apply is the "land of milk and honey" mentioned so often in literature, and also referred to in "The Big Rock Candy Mountain" song of O Brother, Where Art Thou fame, that I've heard was a favorite of my great-grandfather Wingle.  It's not a great stretch to go from this description in "The Land of Cockaigne", from 13th century france:

"...the houses were made of barley sugar and cakes, the streets were paved with pastry, and the shops supplied goods for nothing." 

to this, from 1895:

"...Where the handouts grow on bushes / And you sleep out every night / Where the boxcars all are empty / And the sun shines every day / And the birds and the bees / And the cigarette trees / The lemonade springs / Where the bluebird sings / In the Big Rock Candy Mountains."

The music may change but human emotions never do.

The weather here in Brussels is becoming colder again; it was hovering around zero this morning.  The skies are wonderfully clear though, and the vapour people breathe out as I see them walking to work and school each morning finds its parallel in the tracks of airplanes high above...

We've had a fair bit of dust hanging about the house this past few days... we had a man come in and help install some cabinets that I had assembled.  This also required knocking a hole in the back wall of the house and cutting holes through the new cabinets to allow for the passage of the ventilation tube; one of the problems with the house has been that with an open concept kitchen/living/dining area, cooking smells tend to permeate the whole place.

 

Now we are happy to not only have an outside-vented fan over the range, but also to have more possibilities of storing, and even displaying our fine glassware and china, as well as some less-frequently used items.  Houses of this age frequently lack closets, so it's important to find extra places to store things.  Now I need to find a good kitchen step-ladder...

As I was writing this, I heard that I will in fact be performing Eisenstein in a Die Fledermaus staging in Canada next February/March... it dovetails nicely with the Schubert, Haydn, and opera excerpts performances already scheduled for March, so that is great.  I'll send more details about the cast when I hear them, but it's with Opera York and my friend Geoff Butler conducting, with shows February 26th, March 1st and March 4rd, 2012.

November

Lots going on since the last post I wrote, back on the 2nd of November, including a couple of birthday celebrations, a trip to Amsterdam, a visit to Waterloo, lots of nice meals, and plenty of mild weather...


First was my birthday on the 3rd... I received beautiful roses from my parents-in-law who were visiting, a great big Solingen Wüsthof chef's knife from Maggie, a bottle of Maker's Mark from Malcolm and two short Churchill romeo y juliettas from Duncan.  Obviously I've been doing a good job of blatantly advertising my tastes to my family, and they have been paying attention!

After a great birthday celebration meal of truffle and mushroom-filled ravioli, roquette salad and a pumpkin cheesecake that Maggie expertly whipped up (with brown sugar and bourbon whipped cream, no less!) we needed some exercise, so the next day headed off to Waterloo to tour the site of the battle.  The view from the Butte du Leon was quite stunning, and the statue of the Lion that crowns the summit of the hill was itself pretty dramatic; it weighs 28 tonnes and was cast in an iron foundry in Liège in several pieces, then assembled in place.  The whole monument was built at the instruction of the King of the Netherlands, to commemorate the allied victory over Napolen, and the shape mimics that of a tumulus or burial mound of the Belgae, whom Julius Caesar praised as the most fierce of all the tribes he encountered during his campaign in Gaul.

Monday I headed off to Amsterdam at the invitation of a colleague, Piers Maxim, to attend the general rehearsal of Idomeneo at De Nederlandse Opera, for which he is the assistant conductor.  It was really visually brilliant and quite exciting, with great singing all around.  I was happy to finally see Michael Schade in a live performance in the title role, and had a chance to meet him and congratulate him at the intermission.  John Nelson was conducting, and his orchestra brought out lovely textures in the score, which was new to me.  I'm ashamed to say that I had never heard nor seen it before.  There were however many melodies and tonalities that were familiar, ideas that reappear in Mozart's later operas, which is always an interesting thing to hear.

The next day I was up early and out the door, passing over the "Toronto bridge" on my way to the Rijksmuseum.

 

When Maggie and the boys and I visited Amsterdam back in April of last year, we never managed to get to the Rijksmuseum, but spent our time doing other things, including the Van Gogh museum and other activities, but this time I had a few hours before my afternoon train departed.  The museum is still under extensive renovation, but I decided to see the temporary exhibit, which according to a friend, is "all the best bits in two hours".

It was really lovely, with lots and lots of Rembrandts, and many other beautiful paintings.  My favorite of the days wasn't actually the "Night Watch", cool as it is, but one by Aert van der Neer, from 1650, called "River View by Moonlight", which had a wonderful atmospheric quality about it.

Outside the Rijksmuseum they were gardening... no those aren't potatoes in the sack pictured below, but fat tulip bulbs just waiting to get planted... I can imagine there is a lot of that going on at the moment all over northwestern europe, as the mild weather we have recently been enjoying is starting to change to colder, more seasonal temperatures.

Tuesday evening I had a staging rehearsal for Duchesse, which was a lot of fun!  Looks like I will be dancing the large ensemble numbers with Joëlle Charlier, who is playing the Duchesse herself.  I had better practice; she is very elegant, and from what I hear she's also quite a good dancer so I must try to be a fitting partner...

Maggie's mother Sheila has mentioned during this visit that this certainly is the "land of bread", in that it is so good, and so affordable... I was amused by my fellow passenger (pictured above) on the bus ride home, carrying what would most likely be the bread to accompany a later dinner, or perhaps something for tomorrow's sandwiches?   She was very proud of her loaf of bread, and also very disciplined about not snacking on it, which one sees people frequently doing, especially with a fresh baguette, tearing off a little bit of the end, just to sample it on their way home.  My father frequently remarked on how good the bread was here; as he walked home from work, he would frequently buy a small baguette and contemplatively eat it as he made his way back to the apartment my parents shared in Ixelles.

Speaking of Maggie's parents, we have had a really lovely time with them, and they've had a good opportunity to visit with both us and the boys.  Thursday evening the four adults went out to a fine party at the embassy of the UK's permanent representative to Nato,  ambassador Sir Kim Darroch and his wife Vanessa, who is a colleague of Maggie's.  As always they were excellent hosts and we enjoyed a lovely time out, with lots of conversation with many different types of people.

Yesterday was an official holiday here in Belgium, so we all took it easy, having a luxurious breakfast and going shopping for the ingredients for a lamb dinner for Sheila, who was celebrating her birthday with us.  Prior to dinner, I had a rehearsal with Peter of Carmina Burana in the late afternoon, which went quite well - it's a very unusual piece, but I'm really looking forward to it - and noticed that the little chalets are going up in Place St. Catherine in preparation for the Christmas market that opens in another couple of weeks.

Today has been busy; we had an early start, getting ready for the arrival of a worker who came to install of an kitchen fan duct that empties outside, and some additional cabinets.  Maggie and the boys and her parents are off exploring the town of Leuven, and I've been assembling cabinets ahead of the installer, and helping out here and there, trying not to breathe too much dust.

Tonight will be our last chance to enjoy dinner and conversation with Maggie's parents for several months, before taking them out to the airport for their flight home... it's been great to have them here.

Indian Summer - lots of photos

 

This blog is going to be a bit of a catch-up, and I'm sharing some different photos... It's been really quite lovely here the last week or so, with warmer temperatures.  We brought in a number of house plants three weeks ago when it was calling for cooler temperatures, but since then it has warmed up considerably, and that has brought out the colours in the trees in an unusually vibrant way.  Not as vivid as Canada, it's still lovely to see.  The photo above is on our way home from church, and the chapel you see in the background is in fact the Chapelle de Boondael, where Peter and I will be performing our Schubert concert this coming May.  As you can see it will be a very nice place for such a programme, surrounded as it is with lots of trees and parkland.

Maggie's parents arrived this past Saturday, in time to greet Duncan just as he was on his way to his drama class (see above)... it has been a couple of years since their last visit here and we were very glad to greet them with lots of enthusiasm.

 

Duncan was very proud to show off his first major purchase, an ipod touch that he bought online (with a little technical, but not financial help from me), and that we had delivered to his grandparents in Canada to bring along with them.  He's enjoying taking pictures and movies with it, and has already sent an email or two to both sets of grandparents.

I received some photos from the Duchesse concert from the weekend before last, and thought I'd share them here.  First is the entire cast, with the general director (above) and below we see the three conspirators plotting something devious.  As I said before it's a really very nice group to work with and I'm sure it will be a fun production.

On Maggie's birthday a couple weeks ago, I visited my favorite florist around noon, but was astonished to discover that they had not yet received their shipment of roses, and that I'd have to come back later.  Busy as I was with cooking her a nice birthday dinner, buying her present, and baking a cake, I didn't get back that day.  There were bouquets from the concerts I sang that weekend, so she wasn't deprived from floral decoration, but on friday last I noticed that the bouquets were getting a little tired and so decided to choose an assortment of flowers for her this weekend... she was suitably impressed and they're still going strong...

Monday was Hallowe'en, and we were pretty well prepared.  Malcolm thought he'd go as a devil this year, and it was fairly simple to get him ready for action.  Duncan's costume was a bit more work but quite worth the effort for the effect it created...

 

Both were very successful, but Duncan's in particular was a huge hit, especially with some spooky looking guys who happened to be passing by, and they paused for a photo op with the neighborhood star...

The yield in candy was more modest this year, despite the nice weather.  The Belgians aren't quite on the same page as we North Americans,  vis-a-vis Hallowe'en, but the two previous years they were far more generous with the candy handouts... maybe this is another effect of the crise financère?

Yesterday was one of the more relaxing days I've had in a long time.  We made a convoy with Julia, Bethany and Karalyn Gardner and drove with Hugh, Sheila and the boys to Spa, east of Liège, in the Ardennes.  We spent a luxurious three hours in the thermal baths before heading down the funiculaire to the town, and enjoyed some delicious Bobeline, the beer of Spa, as well as a nice meal in the Taverne des Thermes.  Various choices made by our large party included boulettes liègoises, vol-au-vent, soupe a l'oignon gratinée, the ubiquitous spaghetti bolognese for Duncan, and I had the civet de biche.  No, this wasn't civet cat as you might think, but a delicious stew of wild deer (biche) seasoned with red wine, mushrooms and onions, with a baked apple stuffed with airelles, and croquettes.  Yummy!  We were well-warmed by our dinner as we walked back to the cars, and I am positive that everyone slept extremely well after their rejuvenating spa visit.  We'll just have to go every day, that's all there is to it.

Today is a solitary music day for me, as Maggie, the boys and Hugh and Sheila have left for a day at Oostende, at the coast.  I've already been doing some online financial housekeeping, but think it's time to warm up and have a crack at Carmina Burana...

Happy Hallowe'en!

Some time to relax

The past couple of weeks involved - as expected - quite a lot of singing, and after a very busy time I'm happy to have had some "down time" this week; too much vocalizing without rest is hard on the voice.  I don't have any photos from the Gerolstein yet, nor from the Bach concert, if indeed there were any taken.  However I did receive some snaps from the Messiah performances on the 15th/16th...

 

The Gerolstein performance in concert went very well... the artistic director was very pleased.  I think it was ideal to have the opportunity to do a concert version of the operetta a month or so before starting staging.  I feel that almost all of the music is memorized already, which means that we should have plenty of time to get it staged and rehearsed in advance of our performances in mid-December.  I am positive that there will be hi-jinks aplenty for the three conspirators, and it's great to play something comic for a change.

Then it was a quick gear-shift stylistically and tessitura-wise to the Bach Kreuzstab the next morning.  The concert was extremely well-received, with a standing-room-only audience for the 10:30 am performance of my cantata, and Gott soll allein mein Herze haben, sung by the German mezzo Regula Boeninger, with a virtuosic organ piece in between.  The Minimes group decided to record this performance, but I haven't heard it yet, although I did place my own portable recorder discreetly in the hall before the concert, and what I heard sounds promising.

Afterwards we visited Bryan and Kiana at their place in near Wavre... after a fantastic lunch outdoors (as you can see it was a gorgeous afternoon) they all went for a walk, and I'm not at all embarassed to say that I stayed in front of the fire, listening to its hiss and crackle, sipping a glass of red wine and watching the sun light up the trees across the valley.  I may have even fallen asleep, but was certainly feeling very relaxed.  What a lovely place they have, and such good hospitality: pumpkin risotto, prosciutto, parmigiano, fresh bread and grilled zucchini... yum!  Afterwards we had a great conversation and Bryan and I had a cigar while we all continued to watch the fire... as usual we felt like the afternoon had flown by, but hit the road in time for the kids to get to sleep at a reasonable hour.  It was a school night after all...

Monday for me involved a lot of financial housekeeping, and other administrative things.  Tuesday I went to the commune to do some  paperwork, and then had a visit with our friend and minister Andrew Gardner, involving a jamaican sweet potato soup, a truffle and mushroom ravioli, a nice pinot grigio, four episodes of classic Doctor Who (Terror of the Autons with third Doctor, John Pertwee).  The afternoon was capped off a very small whisky tasting, comparing the regular Dalwhinnie, with the 1990 Distillers Reserve that Maggie and I bought at the distillery, on the road between Fort William and Pitlochrie.

 

It was too wet outside to smoke however, so that will have to wait for another time.  When as busy as I have recently been, there is little opportunity to have a cigar, and I stay away from whisky when I have to sing the next day, which because of my schedule has essentially meant that I've been abstaining from it for most of the last month.  I'm not particularly cautious about what I eat or drink the day before a performance but find I sing better when I get a good night's sleep, and at this stage of my career I don't take unnecessary risks.  Likewise, on the day of a show I try to stay away from any social settings, and prefer to hole up somewhere where I don't have to see or speak to anyone.  It really does make a big difference in the amount of energy I can give to a piece and to the audience, but it gets a little isolating... so for all of those reasons it has been nice to enjoy these little creature comforts a bit in this interval of safety before things get busy again.

Tonight Peter Tomek and I are going to see baritone Christian Gerhaher and pianist Gerold Huber perform Brahms' Die Schöne Magelone at La Monnaie; Bruce and Dina have done it before and will be presenting it this coming March at Queen's, so I'd like to have a listen tonight to prepare me a bit for when I see their performance.  It's always good to go see as many live performances as you can; not only do I love live music, but you get a feel for the lay of the land, current performance style, etc.  I must take a translation; while Bruce and Dina are reading the interspersed extracts of the story in English, I'm sure that Gerhaher will do so in German...

I've also taken up the Carmina Burana score again this week, and have some steady singing to get to fix that well in my voice.  Maggie's parents arrive on Saturday morning for a visit, and the boys are off school, so we will have a houseful for the next couple of weeks; it seems likely that I will get very little done musically unless I schedule it ruthlessly.  Certainly I want everything to go well for my first Carmina, what a fantastic piece!

This morning I submitted the formal written request to Ixelles for our Schubert Die schöne Müllerin to be performed May 12th, and I ordered the music for Benjamin Britten's setting of the T.S. Eliot poem Journey of the Magi, which I've been asked to do at the Chapelle Royale in Brussels Dec. 11th, as well as the Schirmer Creation score.  For Creation there are lots of different versions of the english words, so I want to make sure that the soprano soloist, choir and I are literally on the same page for Kingston.  Oh yes, and speaking of Haydn, another contract is confirmed: the Haydn Schöpfung performance in Antwerp is a "go".  I did some research and it looks to my like the choir, orchestra and other soloists are really fine, so that's going to be very exciting.

But enough about me.  Maggie is working very hard to get all of her marking done and returned prior to the school break.  She also had a stressful time recently; "meet the parents" night happened in two parts this year, with one half of the parents visiting during the morning of the next day, so she's glad that's finished.  Malcolm is working hard; his marks have taken a little bit of a hit since entering secondiare but that's to be expected with all of the changes he's dealing with.  I'm sure that he's going to welcome a little time off and a grandparent visit.  Duncan's fine too, and had some interesting news: his drama class is presenting a review show based on La Mélodie de Bonheur (aka The Sound of Music) at the end of the school year, and it would appear that he's been cast as Captain Von Trapp.  He seems excited, and we're happy that he's enjoying himself.

Ok, now I must head out to run some errands, more paperwork...  c'est la Belgique.  In advance, have a good weekend!