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...