Happy New Year

Well, we are fast approaching the final performance of La Traviata this evening.  While she has already seen the video feed, Maggie will finally have a chance to see on stage the show that has been occupying so much of my time since mid-October.  For those of you who haven't see the online broadcast, the Arteliveweb video is here.  I understand that La Monnaie will release their edited multi-camera broadcast on their own website in mid-January.

After the performance there will be a gala on the top floor of the opera, to celebrate the new year and to close out the production; Maggie and I will both attend.  Fortunately, not everyone from the team will be new to her; we had a group of singers over for pizza in November, and yesterday we all went out to lunch at a very cool restaurant that I had never heard of before, called La Fleur en Papier Doré.

This very cosy bar was the unofficial headquarters of the Belgian surrealists in the 1920s, during the heyday of René Magritte, but in later years also attracted comic artist Hergé, Pierre Alechinsky, Louis Scutenaire and Jacques Brel.  Today, the café is still a favourite among the artistic and literary crowd.  We managed to fit nineteen people into the back room, and enjoyed the ambiance as well as traditional Belgian dishes like stoemp saucisse.


We have been getting in quite a bit of visiting with different friends, to celebrate Christmas and the new year.  Yesterday we had a lovely dinner with the Gardners and Julia's parents, who were visiting.  We had a really great time, with much delicious food and lots and lots of laughter, mostly around several rounds of "Wherewolf", which is a really fantastic game to play if you have at least eight people.  It works best with around 16, but we managed very well with ten players.

I have been suffering under a really terrible cold for the last week or so.  I have managed to get the voice moving enough to sing the parts that I have in La Traviata without any difficulty, but it was a challenge to get things opened up for The People that Walked in Darkness from Messiah so early in the morning for yesterday's service.  Fortunately it is the lowest piece in the work and the fact that my voice is a third lower than usual actually helped!  I really do have to get better soon though, as we have quite a bit of exposed singing coming up for our Epiphany concert in Great Malvern Priory, Worchestershire, England.  There will be minimal rehearsal of the ensemble so I need to spend some time myself getting things ready.

Tomorrow by this time we should be in Amsterdam getting ready to get on the ferry to Newcastle.  It is an overnight run, and it will exciting for all of us to have a cabin to ourselves, and to sleep on the boat!  We arrive in Newcastle in the morning of the 2nd and should be at Garvald by noon.  I have the cameras charged up, and will be taking lots of pictures.

Right now the boys have been taking it easy, doing some origami, and reading books and watching tv.  Maggie has had a chance to finally finish a quilt that she stopped working on three years ago.  It is one that she inherited in pieces from Walter Unverricht, with a photograph of an inspiration quilt that Walter's wife Eleonore had seen, and set about reconstructing.  Eleonore had become unable to finish it before she died of a debilitating illness, and Walter (also now passed on) gave it to Maggie when we visited him in Ebstorf during the Easter vacation of 2008.  We already have two or three table runners that Eleonore made and gave us as wedding presents, but this quilt will be nice on one of the boys' single beds, or as something to curl up with on the sofa.

So here is to endings and beginnings... a Happy New Year in advance to all of you, and many wishes for success in 2013...

Merry Christmas

Monday December 24th, morning.
We have received a number of lovely Christmas cards and newsletters from friends and family, and haven't sent any out ourselves.  It has been a super busy period for us, so I hope this post will serve as a Christmas letter of sorts.

The opera is almost over; we had our second matinee and ninth show yesterday, and are into the home stretch.  Everyone is happy to have a few days off now, to relax; many people from the cast have already left, on their way to their home cities for Christmas.  Here in Brussels there are a great many get-togethers planned, and we hope to get together via Video conference with loved ones over the next few days.  Since we have British tv via internet we will be sure to watch the Queen's Christmas message, and of course the Doctor Who Christmas Special.

We picked up our Christmas tree on Saturday, and put it up that evening, with some help from a colleague of Maggie's and his daughter who were over for dinner.  There are a number of presents sent by family members already occupying space under the tree, and some new ornaments already hanging upon it.  We will be going out this morning to browse the Christmas market downtown, and pick up some things for each person's stockings.  The boys have already received some big presents at the feast of St. Nicolas, so with the things sent by family, there is no need for us to give them anything big.  Still we try to follow the "something to wear, something to eat, something to read, something to do" guidelines for Christmas gifts.

Really, what do any of us really lack for?  We are tremendously lucky.  We are all healthy and seeing development in our careers, and in the case of the boys, in their school life and hobbies.  We live in a bounteous country, in a nice home, filled with many beautiful and useful things.  here's a little bit of that bounty: last night's roast leg of venison with a red wine / sirop de Liege reduction, smoothed out with a little cream.  Yummy.

Malcolm has been growing in social confidence in his school, likes his teachers for the most part, and has improved his Maths results enormously in the last couple of months.  He also has finished with his braces, received a new pair of glasses, and played the part of Herod to great acclaim at the St. Andrew's Christmas Pageant.  He has moved to the alto section of the choir as his voice is slowly deepening, but so far it hasn't broken so he still likes to sing.  True, he has had the disappointment of breaking his wrist, which has made it impossible for him to play the flute, and has also hindered his ability to practice his latest enthusiasms of slight-of-hand, card tricks and juggling, but he is not completely disabled by the cast, and should be free of it in another couple of weeks and can then resume the pursuit of these dextrous arts.  He has discovered that being a musician is actually kind of cool, and for an activity day at school, chose choral and percussion workshops, and was complimented by the prof on his sense of rhythm.

Duncan is having a great time with Karate; he likes the serious and disciplined approach of his sensei, and the physicality of this martial art appeals to him.  He also loves his theatre class, which plans to present Peter Pan this spring (with him in the role of Captain Hook) and he enjoys dance class as well; there is one other boy, so he's not alone there.  His marks are exceptionally good in school, so much so that it almost would be good for him to move up a grade, but then they don't seem to do that in Belgian schools, and he would miss his social circle.  While he and his friends compete very fiercely with each other and the alliances shift frequently, he values them very much.

Maggie has been enjoying a second year in Middle School at St. John's International School teaching Social Studies and new this year, a Foods & Textiles class to 11 year old students--a return to Family Studies which is her first teaching love.  As well she is continuing her French classes on Wednesdays and Yoga on Mondays.  She's been given another clean bill of health and we are commemorating three years since her breast cancer diagnosis; she is healthy and is feeling well.

For me, I've already written lots about the many artistic successes this past year in previous blog posts.  2013 promises to be a continuation of that upward trend, so I am very thankful.  On the plate for the next 12 months are works by Bach, Duruflé, Brahms, Prokofiev, Mozart, Puccini, Britten... I feel very lucky, and thank friends, family, and especially my mentor Bruce Kelly for their continuing support of my artistic life and of our family's European adventures...

Merry Christmas to everyone, and we wish you many successes in the New Year!

New developments

Okay.  Four performances down and eight more to go.  The critical reaction in the press has been largely positive, and audiences have mostly been reacting with a lot of enthusiasm, especially at the final curtain calls.  There was substantial booing during the second performances, with some cat-calling from the audience, especially during the act 2 "Bunga bunga" party scene at Flora's... I must say that while it is a little jarring, I guess it does mean that people were at least paying attention!  The director is off working on other projects but I think she will be back just before Christmas to see the show again.

Maggie won't get a chance to see it until the very last performance, but she will be coming to the New Year's Eve party that follows, and will have a chance to dress up and look elegant in the Salon of La Monnaie.  Speaking of dresssing up, we took advantage of a night off last Saturday and went to the St. John's Christmas party... it was a lovely occasion and a lot of fun...

Now that the opera has opened I was expecting to have a little bit of time to go to the Christmas Markets and do some trinket shopping, but I have been busy with other things, and have only walked through the market on my way to the performances...

 

But Duncan has been more organized, and was good enough to supply his wish list...

... and I must say with the exception of the iPod, it is a rather restrained set of choices.  But then he seems suitably impressed with the new bike that Saint Nicolas brought him on the 6th...

... and so perhaps he realized that he has much to be thankful for already.  Malcolm received a first edition of Julian May's The Many-Coloured Land, published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in 1981 so he was very pleased.  He also had a late St. Nicolas present: new glasses, which he is super excited about.  They have made his schoolwork much easier to see, although he had the misfortune late last week to break his right wrist in gym class.  He is able to hold a pen and write, so his exams - which started this morning - should be okay, but I don't know that he can play the flute.  His temporary cast will be changed to a resin one next Monday, so at that point we will see if the surgeon can give him a cast that allows for enough movement that he can still practice and perform.  As well, he had his braces taken off this week, and luckily has a semi-permanent wire behind the bottom teeth, and an upper retainer that he only has to wear at night.  So many changes in his appearance in such a very short time!  It's a little disorienting.

Last night's opera performance was our second corporate gala, for BNP Partibas; the first was sponsored by Electrabel, the utility company.  In both cases we enjoyed some excellent cuisine after the performance.  Given the space constraints at La Monnaie, there were tents and trailers with generators set up outside the opera prior to the performances, so that the caterers could prepare everything prior to the show, and there were many chefs running around outside in the freezing cold.  After the performances we all appreciated a glass of wine and some hot food; my personal favorite was the penne with black truffles, olives and sun dried tomatoes that they served hot into the cavity carved into the centre of a big wheel of parmigiano, where they let its heat warm and melt the cheese a bit before scraping it back out... yummmmmm.

I've received some nice Saint Nicolas presents too... I got a call last week from Kerry Stratton, and we will be performing a Viennese concert or two together in the Spring of 2014 in Canada, with excerpts from The Merry Widow and Die Fledermaus, along with some other pieces in keeping with the theme of Viennese operetta.

Today I also got an email from my colleague Bart Van Reyn, to do Masetto and the Commendatore in Don Giovanni with him in a semi-staged touring production here in Belgium next October, with perhaps half a dozen performances, with one at least in the BOZAR.  Bart was the first conductor in Belgium to hire me, and we will do the St. Matthew Passion and the Brahms Requiem this spring, but this will be the first bit of opera that we do together and I'm very excited.

Don Giovanni will be played by Werner Van Mechelen, who is one of the most successful Belgian baritones of the day, so it will be an exciting project for sure.

I will be happy to look at Masetto soon, but for the moment I am practicing the aria and duet of the Don himself, as well as music of Figaro and the Count from Nozze di Figaro, and Papageno from Zauberflöte, so that these will be ready for the house concert that I perform with soprano Rita Matos Alves and Peter Tomek on Monday evening.  Our friend Pauline Camacho will present this concert in her magnificent maison de maître in Brussels, in aid of the Charity Mothers at Risk, and it looks as if it will be sold out... good news!

Opening

 

We had our opening night last night, and everyone was suitably energetic.  As we suspected there was a contingent who booed the mis-en-scene, but it would seem that they were ready for it, and it didn't seem to fuss them at all during the curtain call.  For the most part it seemed as if the audience was open and engaged with the concept of the show.

What I can say is that Sebastien Gueze really sang his best Alfredo so far, and Scott Hendricks was powerful and gentle as Germont, and Simona was... well, lovely.  I am convinced that I will look back and say "I was there for her first Violetta".  Really we are all looking forward to Friday night when we have performance number 2, and then ahead for the rest of the run...

This week has involved a lot of firsts...  I sang the first performance of this Traviata on the stage of the Monnaie (a first for me in a major European house); this afternoon I had my first audition with directors Peter de Caluwe and Christophe Bezzone, and I sang "Wie Todesahnung / O du mein holder Abendstern" for the first time; that was my second piece; the Count's aria was the first...

So you see that Christmas is really coming early for me!  Now it is a day off, and a chance to get things in order family-wise.  Today I took Malcolm to the optomtrist; he needs glasses, very clearly, and I let him choose some nice frames; I need to pay the optometrist tomorrow morning.  As well, it is St. Nicolas tomorrow, and the boys' shoes are conspicuously laid out, imploringly, so we must do our parental duty....

Opening night

Well that moment that I have been awaiting for many years is now about to arrive.  This evening I will step out onto the boards of one of the finest opera houses in the world - indeed, the theatre that Opernwelt magazine voted the opera house of the year in 2011 - Le Théâtre Royal de La Monnaie.  It doesn't really matter to me one bit that my sung role is a minor one; I feel very fortunate to be treading the boards in character with so many wonderful colleagues, and playing on this historic stage, with the beautiful music of Verdi's La Traviata.

Bruce has sung in this house many times during his Liège-based career, and his mentor Pierre Fleta sang many roles here, including Hoffmann, Rodolpho in Bohème, and many others.

I have been being very responsible and have thus far resisted the urge to recklessly sample the pleasures that abound in Brussels this time of year, like the arrival of the Beaujolais...

... but I have also had little time to tour the Christmas Markets that have sprung up around the Centre-ville.

I did manage to take a short trip through the Grand'Place to see the "tree" that Electrabel has erected there in lieu of a real one.  It has sparked real outrage, and I can see why.  To me it looks as if scattered bits of the scaffolding that cloaks so many of the perpetually-under-restoration buildings in Brussels were seized and spun about by an errant cyclone, then left in a pile in the middle of Grand'Place.  Les Bruxellois seem to enjoy contemporary stagings of grand opera very much, but Christmas trees are and entirely different matter... I think the expression is that "they stayed away in droves"...
 

I leave you with some beautiful singing by our three principals: Simona Šaturová, as Violetta, Sébastien Guèze as Alfredo, and Scott Hendricks as Germont, courtesy of Télébrussels.

First preview with audience today

It has been a busy time for all of us recently, but things are now starting to slow down a bit now that the show is about to open.  Today we had the pre-general rehearsal with audience, really an additional dress rehearsal, as every aspect musically, dramatically, technically was in motion as it would be in a real performance.  The audience reaction was very positive, and there were photographs taken, so when they become available I will share them.  The cast and crew are really superb and I am very lucky to make my debut in such a high-profile production.

For me at least, the costumes require no more changes... I quite like what Moidele Bickel has designed for me to wear... sort of an updated 1920s look, double-breasted waistcoat and jacket, and even a double-breasted overcoat and a black fedora for the finale of act III.  I need it to stay dry, as there is lots of rain on the stage, which looks fantastic but is quite cold for the singers. 

I'm not sure if this look is more Oscar Wilde, or more Sky Masterson... or maybe there's a dash of Bugsy Malone in there as well?  Either way, a lot of good work has been done by the costume atelier here, and I very much appreciate how nice they make us all look.

I've also been kept busy with preparations for a Mozart duet concert that will happen on December 17th, and have been reviewing and in some cases re-learning selections from Don Giovanni, Die Zauberflöte and of course Le Nozze di Figaro.  Fortunately almost all of it is already in my repertoire, but I have to learn the Figaro parts for a couple of duets, so that requires some time.  That can wait for now, however, as I just got word that I have a proper audition with the Intendant here next week, so my focus is on preparing for that.

In between I managed to get to both Duncan's and Malcolm's schools for interviews with their teachers; in Malcolm's case this involved five interviews spaced over four hours...  The news is uniformly pretty good, with both getting good marks in their respective courses.  Malcolm in particular has really found his footing in secondary school, and his Latin, French and Geography teachers each said that he was growing in confidence and ease socially, and was a welcome addition to their classes, to which he gives participation, energy, good questions and so on.  Duncan achieved quite high marks academically, with his teacher suggesting that he not rush through things, but read them over to make sure.  I think both understand things quickly but fail to take the time to fully digest what they have read, and so they both end up making unnecessary mistakes.

Both are also continuing with their activities at the académie; Malcolm in his third year of flute, and Duncan in drama (I believe he will be playing "Hook" in Peter Pan) and this year, in dance.  He tempers this with karate on Wednesdays, the study of magic tricks on tuesdays and ping-pong on thursdays.  They are also singing in the junior choir at church, and have been cast in the Christmas pageant, with Malcolm as Herod and Duncan as one of his bodyguards.  Thankfully they can get to all of these activities themselves by public transit... no "parent taxi service" for us, at least not yet.

Malcolm has one more orthodontist appointment coming up, and he should be free of braces as an early Christmas present.  He also is complaining of blurry vision, so a visit to the opthalmologist is already scheduled, and he might just have to trade braces for glasses.  Oh well, we'll see...

Maggie is doing well with her classes, and has interviewed for some committees at St. John's that will give her additional work responsibilities.  She also is taking a weekly french course, which is going well, but I know is hard to do after a full day at work.  She is out at a concert tonight, and we are looking ahead into December at a Christmas party or two, and planning our New Year trip to Scotland to see Rob and Viki and their kids, and then to Malvern, England, to see Piers and Gilly and their children, and for me to sing with Piers at the Epiphany services.  Lots to plan between now and then!

I need my sleep and am not waiting up for her any longer... bon soir et bon weekend a tous!

First run of Traviata in the house...

We had our first complete run of La Traviata over the weekend, and things went well.  Then we had a day off, which was very nice.  Today is beautiful weather, about 10 degrees and sunny, but I will spend most of it inside.  We will be fixing little traffic problems today and tomorrow, doing piano rehearsals in the theatre this week, and preparing for the orchestra sitzprobe on Friday, followed by more orchestra rehearsals next week...

Heading to the stage

 

 
We are getting closer to being on the stage... yesterday and today we ran acts 1 and 2 for the first time complete, and in the case of act 1, for the first time since we staged it three weeks ago!  It was a bit nerve-wracking but remarkably all of our stage business was still there.  Today we repeated act 1 again, and the first half of act 2.  Everyone is singing very well and there are many spine-tingling moments, especially in the music of Violetta, sung in our production by Simona Šaturová, pictured above.  All three leads are very affecting, with Sébastien Guèze as Alfredo...

... and Scott Hendricks as Germont.

Now we are off until Friday, and will resume rehearsals with our first walking of the stage, and a technical test of the rain effects for the prologue scene and finale, followed by more repetition of Acts 1 and 2.  For the moment everyone is glad for a day off and all are appreciating the beautiful weather.

I had some other great news yesterday; the Netherlands Opera in Amsterdam is doing Prokofiev's "The Gambler" in December of 2013, and I have been offered a contract to sing the role of Baron Wurmerhelm, and perhaps take part in the Casino scene in Act III; we shall see.  This is great news for me!  Interestingly the opera is sung in Russian, which will be a new thing for me, although from what I can see the Baron is German, and so sings his lines in German.  Another funny thing, it would seem that while Prokofiev wrote this opera for the Mariinsky Theatre, the 1917 Russian Revolution delayed the world premiere, and it wasn't staged and performed until 1929, here in Brussels at La Monnaie.

 

I've always liked Prokofiev's music, since playing the trombone part along with Mike Pyscklewec and Budd Toner (Tuba) in the Lieutenant Kije suite with my high school concert band.  Here's a little link to a recording of that music, for those who are interested.

Figaro tomorrow

It's Friday and the boys and Maggie have had their full week of school after vacations.  Everyone is quite tired out.

Our Traviata cast is also feeling it, as we have been rehearsing now since mid-October.  The staging is pretty much complete now, and today and yesterday we were able to run some long scenes without stopping.  My involvement has grown somewhat; in the original staging I was to be simply a messenger who delivers some bad news to Alfredo in act II, but now my responsibilities are expanded quite a bit...

I explained before that this is a 20th-century Traviata, with Violetta and her fellow courtesans being portrayed here as women from eastern europe, brought in on container ships to serve as prostitutes in decadent parties for powerful men in the west.  The director has placed the chorus in the pit, and myself and two other singers who have small comprimario parts must take part in the action on stage.

What this means for me is that, in addition to "Le Commissionario" in Act II, I play a "party guest" and additional ensemble singer in the opening scene of Act I; the same in Flora's party scene in Act II, and the same rich gentleman returns in the finale/death scene of Act III.  Indeed I actually sing a few lines (usually sung by the Doctor, who is offstage at this point in this production) in ensemble with Violetta, Alfredo, Germont and Annina, just before Violetta's death.  Lastly I am also in the "prologue"/overture as a figurant of (I think) a pimp, so you see I won't be twiddling my thumbs in the dressing room all night waiting for my solo lines to come up.  It also means that I have lots of "playing" on the stage, but I don't mind this at all.

The cast is extremely nice, without exception, and very supportive and collegial.  One cast member had his wife and children in town this past week and so invited a bunch of us over for lasagne together, so the boys and I went and had a great time.  Today at lunch two of the lead singers complimented me, saying that it was a shame that there wasn't more for me to sing in the show, as they liked my voice very much; this respect and support from such talented colleagues feels very good to receive.

Tomorrow we have more rehearsing until 14h, then I am off to Lommel immediately to do our next Nozze di Figaro there in the evening, and then drive home... It will be a long day tomorrow!

Joyeuses Fêtes Anniversaires

There has been a lot of birthday partying recently.  It would seem that there are scorpions everywhere, but the zodiacal, not the literal kind (I hope!)...

Maggie's mother Sheila and I had a shared birthday party on Saturday night; her big shindig is coming up later on this month, on her actual birthday, but since we can't be in Canada at that time we had an advance celebration.  There was cake, and good food, and lots of presents.  Sheila deserves to be fêted, given that she has been an absolute saint on this trip, playing numerous board games with the boys, including a marathon Monopoly session of renaissance dimensions that took up most of the day on Saturday.

In our Traviata there have also been some parties, both on the stage and off; Nicole the stage manager had her birthday earlier last week, and then Andrea, our staging director, had hers on the 31st of October.  In both cases there were cakes and in the case of Andrea, lots of champagne, which brought the rehearsal that afternoon to an early close.  This got us all warmed up for the big party which was held at the Comic Book Museum, which is housed in the former Waucquez Warehouse, a lovely old Art Nouveau building designed by Victor Horta and now open to the public.

I had no idea that La Monnaie had so many employees; they completely filled the place.  It was nice to see a number of my colleagues from Figaro and other projects who are also employed at La Monnaie, and it was also good to spend time with the Traviata people in a social setting.  Here is a picture of Carole Wilson (Annina) and Peter de Caluwe, the Intendant of La Monnaie.

Yesterday was a goodbye/hello day, as Maggie drove her parents off to the airport early in the morning, and I got ready for the first Figaro rehearsal since our performances in September.  It was great to see everyone again, although it was a challenging day.  Our original staging was designed for a thrust stage in the Academiezaal, and now we are moving the production to more traditional proscenium stages, so everything must be adjusted.  As well, Peter is off to Paris for Medée, and so the Quebecois pianist Marie-Claude Roy will be music director for this peformance.  Yesterday was a lot of repetition but we have another musical rehearsal this afternoon, so we have some time to get things on the same wavelength.  We even had cake and celebrations together, as Marta (the Cherubino) and I share the 3rd November as our birthday...

In other news...I am happy to report that my ongoing collaboration with the Bach specialists at La Chapelle des Minimes will continue this upcoming season; the most significant new addition is the cantata BWV 88, Siehe, ich will viel Fischer aussenden, which has among its charms two quite virtuosic arias for basso.  That makes me happy; it's just the latest in a lot of good presents that have come my way recently...

In reading over this blog I realize that I got in pictures of just about everybody, but didn't include a photo of Hugh, so that is remedied here.  Thanks for the visit, Rose grandparents!

Happy Hallowe'en

It's Hallowe'en tonight and it seems as if the boys will miss the candy extortion this year. There is an annual cortège that involves the streets around our house, but the 31st October always coincides with a week of school vacation, so frequently people are away for the actual day.

Maggie, her parents and the boys are off on their trip... Apart from some text messages yesterday I haven't heard what they are up to or when they will return. I think they are visiting Dieppe at the moment; if so they are fortunate to have nice weather, sunshine and temperatures in the low double digits.

The staging is proceeding; I would inagine that by the end of day today we will have finished the group scenes, and after that I suppose we will simply run the opera. As I may have mentioned, this staging of Traviata is an updated one, so Violetta and her fellow sex workers are brought in from Eastern Europe on container ships, and instead of 19th-century Parisian salon parties we have Dominique Strauss-Kahn and Silvio Berlusconi "Bunga Bunga"-type activites. It's definitely an adult themed Traviata, so I think the boys will stay home for this one.

Tonight the opera is holding their annual staff party at the comic book museum, so as I am flying solo I think I will go and have a drink and a bite.

The audition in Liège went reasonably well on monday past. I have a good idea now about what worked best, having rearranged my audition arias recently, and feel in good shape for the next auditions.

We resume our Nozze di Figaro rehearsals on Sunday, in preparation for the performance in Lommel on the 10th, so I will have a little break from Traviata.

Happy Hallowe'en!

Traviata rehearsals

Things continue to move ahead for Traviata. We have all had time to do music rehearsals with Laszlo, the assistant conductor, and I was able to work a bit on my own with répétiteur Jean-Luc and Marco the Italian diction coach, so the chorus bits I must sing are coming along well.

Hugh and Sheila had a great time in the Moselle valley; they found it very beautiful, and highly recommend it as a
travel destination. Apparently it has been a popular spot for some time, as my friend Gill in Kingston wrote me to mention that she and her husband toured the region in 1957; at that time, she explained, it must have looked very different, as the post-war rebuilding was not yet complete. Despite our historical researches I think it's impossible for us living and travelling in Europe today to realize how shattered it was by the second World War, and how much work has gone into its reconstruction.

Maggie and the boys are off school now for the week and planning some trips to France: Bayeux, Normandie, Mont St. Michel and so forth. I am staying home, because of the Traviata rehearsals. So far we have not been called every day but it's never predictable; one has to see how far we progress each day before knowing for sure how the schedule will be for the next.

Canadian soprano Barbara Hannigan is here in Brussels for performances of Berg's "Lulu"; I will see the closing night on Tuesday. She's been getting some incredible rave reviews. I sang in the choir and had a tiny little solo phrase in an opera she did years ago for Toronto's Opera in Concert, and we have corresponded a little bit since I moved to Belgium. She also moved her family to Holland a few years ago and knows the challenges involved, and had encouraging words for me; it will be nice to finally meet her again in person.

Some other good news; those Brahms Requiems in May for Bart are confirmed, and also I have been asked to do another St. Matthew Passion for him, in the week before my other two performances of the same. Fantastic! I remember he was the first person I auditioned for, and I was impressed then with his choir and their quality, so that's a lucky surprise. March is going to busy with two shows of Puccini Messa di Gloria, three Matthew Passions and who knows how many Nozze di Figaros...

Happy Sunday!

"Happy Birthday, Universe..."

 

... that's what you would say if you were a follower of Irish Bishop James Ussher, who in the 17th century did the math - well, the sacred arithmetic - and announced that he had determined from careful analysis of the Bible that God created the universe on October 23, 4004 BC, in the night preceeding that first dawn, and not, as British author Douglas Adams would have you believe, just before afternoon tea... unless of course, the dawn in question was GMT, and the observer was drinking that tea in Tokyo Japan... According to Ussher's calculations, as of this morning, the earth's only got about 6005 years on the clock thus far...

There's lots of creation with a small "c" going on around here.  This weekend we had the Fauré Requiem, and Malcolm sang in the alto section while I did the baritone solos; that was very cool.  Then on Sunday morning the children did readings as part of the harvest service, and there was lots of good music for both Junior and Senior choirs.  As well I haven't been called to every rehearsal so have had a couple of days off, and have been preparing for the Liege audition and arranging others, and taking a closer look at the parts I have to learn from La Traviata.  My audition repertoire is changing a bit as I continue to develop as a singer, so there's more work to get even familiar pieces ready.  I'm excited about the newest piece in my set, the aria to Venus, the evening star that Wagner gives the bard Wolfram in Tannhäuser, "O! du mein holder Abendstern..."

Hugh and Sheila left this morning on an itinerary that we devised together, and will take them through Namur, Dinant, and Luxembourg; then Trier, Cochem, and Koblenz, and finally to Köln and then to Brussels; it should keep them on the road until Friday.

Hugh and Sheila arrive

 

This morning Maggie's parents arrived from Canada, and I drove out to the airport to meet them and drop them off at home, only to roar off again for the second day of rehearsals for Traviata.  It's been slow and intense work, but things are moving well; I think we are going to have a good time together.  The technical staff are marvelously organized; my acting colleagues are very good singers, and we are getting along well.

After the rehearsal I went straight to St. Andrew's for the generale for the Fauré Requiem, which was lovely to sing again after a long time... it really is moving music, and the choir that fills the entire nave of the church makes a mighty sound indeed... the instrumentalists are good too; congratulations to Penni Clarke, our conductor.  She is from Newfoundland, and in the midst of her very cultivated and delicately phrased instructions to the choir, I smiled tonight at one point, when I heard her clearly tell the tenor section to "just give 'er".  And they did!

But in any case, I just got the good news that I am not called tomorrow, so I get a chance to get my hands of a Traviata score, and have a look at the parts I don't yet know...  my copy is still in Canada, but the house sent me an electronic copy, and perhaps I'll print it off, or buy another.  The Fauré is also tomorrow, so it is a nice bonus not to have to have six hours of staging on the same day as a performance.

Then on Monday it is my day off; that is when I will work my audition arias with Peter, to get ready for Liège on the 29th.  In other news I just got a call about the Puccini Messa di Gloria, also in March, but well before Le Nozze di Figaro and the Matthäuspassion, so it will probably work.  What good luck to have so many things to sing...

La Traviata

Some happy news; yesterday I had a last-minute audition for the comprimario rôle of Il Commissionario in La Traviata, a new production at La Monnaie. They offered me the job and I am enroute to the first rehearsal today.

The director is Andrea Breth, who is resident director at the Burgtheatre in Vienna, and she recently staged Wozzeck to great acclaim for the Staatsoper in Berlin. This production will have the chorus in the pit, but the comprimario players will be on stage for most of the opera, even in scenes in which they don't necessarily sing, taking part in the action. Fine with me!

It was nice to neet Andrea Breth, but it was very satisfying for me to sing a little in front of Peter de Caluwe, the intendant, because it's something I have been trying to do for years, since the fall of 2007 in fact. It has never worked out, but when Peter welcomed me to the company yesterday he assured me that they would be setting up a real audition very shortly, so that he can hear what I can do when I prepare some arias, instead of the few lines for these smaller parts... That will be good timing because it will likely be around the same time as my Liège audition, and the next performance of Le Nozze di Figaro.

So it would seem that I'll have lots to keep me busy in December, as there are twelve performances... Yahoo!

The heat is on...

...By that I mean that we finally broke down and turned on the furnace, as the temperatures started to fall last week, and the early mornings started to get uncomfortably cool.  Oatmeal for breakfast, and soups and stews for dinner only warm you so far.  It would seem that we need to take some time this weekend to bring in some of the cold-sensitive plants from the balcony and terrace if we want them to survive the year.

Here are a couple of photographs to follow up previous blog entries.  One is from the Nozze di Figaro, where the gardener comes in to confront the Count with his fistful of flowers, damaged when Cherubino jumped down from the balcony, to avoid getting caught in the chamber of the Countess.

And here's one from the Brahms Requiem last weekend where you can see how the performance looked from the audience:

 
Malcolm got some photos back from school too recently, here's one of them:

No new photos yet for Duncan; his class photo is on its way but the individual portraits are done in the spring.  Here's Maggie's class photo.

I have had some good news on the audition front and am gearing up for some this month; more on those later.  As well we have received news that I'll be reprising the Britten "Journey of the Magi" piece from last January at the Eglise Protestante Chapelle Royale here in Brussels.  This Epiphany we'll be performing at the Great Malvern Priory Church, Worcestershire, where Piers Maxim, formerly of Brussels, is the new organist and choir director.  It will be nice to perform this piece again, and I look forward to singing for the first time in England.

The priory dates from just after the Normal Conquest of 1066, and the Malvern hills were the home of Sir Edward Elgar for over 50 years.  The timing could be better, since we will be in Scotland and London around Christmastime, and then back here for New Years' Eve, only to turn around and return to Malvern for the 6th of January.  I have to talk with the tenor, Leonard Hawkes; perhaps he and I can share the drive...