Rehearsals finished, leaving for China

We rehearsed much of the last two days, and everyone is a little tired. I fortunately don't have the problem of jet lag, but the way the schedule has worked has meant late dinners, and therefore later bedtimes. Still, I seem to wake up like clockwork at 8h, probably because of the daylight coming in the window, which is imperfectly shaded. We are spoiled by the Velux blinds that completely block out all light in our bedrom at home.

We ate dinner last night at a great little restaurant called the Britzer Mühle. Of course we had schnitzel and spätzle for our last day in the city, and some dark beer. It's not Belgian but it's ok.

Yesterday morning was an early start. Kerry and I made a visit to the Hartwig Antiquariat, run by Robert Hartwig, here pictured with his many signed ohotographs of conductors that he heard and met at opera performances in Berlin over many decades. He is a music fanatic and has a huge store filled with 78 records, LPs, CDs, those little statuette busts of composers and many, many scores.

Kerry was in a bit of hurry so I didn't get a chance to talk with Herr Hartwig as long as I would have liked, but we did discuss lyric baritones that he has heard and enjoyed, and those he did not... One of his favorites apart from people like Hans Hotter who are very well known was someone named Heinrich Schlusnus, who was most active between the first and second world wars. I looked online and found a good recording of his 'di Provenza', which although sung in German, still shows the voice and older style of phrasing. Very, very interesting stuff. Here it is:

I was able to find some nice arrangements of Beethoven folksongs with voice, piano, violin and cello, some Pfitzner lieder, and a book of duets by various composers, including quite a few that will work for baritone and soprano. There is a lost office in both Berlin airports so I think that I will save myself the hassle of schlepping these all the way to China and back again and just mail them to Brussels. (Maagie's idea).

Speaking of Maggie and the kids, I had a brief talk with them this morning, they are tired out from their exertions. Maggie still has some marking to do: for all those people who complain how hard teachers have it I wish they could see how our family used to cluster around the dining room table on the saturday of Easter weekend, marking tests. Malcolm learned how to read a multiple choice answer key by the age of seven! It's not as bad here because instead of highschool it's grade five and six, but the work is far more individualized and so Maggie stays late every day at school doing her marking there. Even so she does have to bring larger projects home on the longer holidays. I hope she doesn't have to take all that stuff to Scotland!

I am hoping that this afternoon or tomorrow they will make it to the place de La Monnaie where a big skating rink has been built, and have a skate....

Next post should be China! Talk to you then...

Eastbound from Köln; firstdays in Berlin

I just made the successful change between trains in Köln, with a pause of perhaps 30 minutes between trains. Just enough to eat a pretzel and buy a can of Früh for the next leg of the trip, and to walk out onto the square outside the station and have another look at the outside of the cathedral.

The last time I was in Cologne was to sing an audition for the central employment agency... it's got to be four or five years ago now. I came here twice to audition for them; once I was met by Kieth Boldt who was living here, prior to his move to Leipzig. The second time I think I came on my own. The inside of the cathedral is beautiful if I remember correctly, and I see there is a special exhibition inside on the drei Könige, but it's not something I can see today. Perhaps on the return trip?

I don't think that I have forgotten anything, but there's always the chance. The nice pair of warm Kodiac boots that I was planning on wearing as I walked around Beijing seem to have stayed in Canada at Bruce's house; I have a pair of chestnut coloured chukka boots but there isn't much tread on them, so I will look around in Berlin. Unlike the forecast for that part of Germany this week - high temperatures of 14 degrees! - Beijing seems to be fluctuating between highs of +7 and lows of -7. I brought along a light hat, some gloves, and two sweaters, and a very warm scarf, so I hope I will be warm enough. It looks as I will get a chance to meet up with the McKees on the 21st or 22nd, which makes me very happy.

The Brussels-Köln train was qute grimy and packed full of people, some of them without seat reservations. It is a special condition of rail travel in Europe that one may buy a ticket for a rail journey, but a seat reservation is an optional charge. For trains thart aren't busy, one has always the chance to save the few euros on the very likely bet that seats will be there to be taken, but on a busy train, one has to sit on their suitcase in the space between carriages, or take up position in the bar car. This train is a little less crowded and is much quieter. I am happy for that as it will take a bit less than five hours to get to Berlin, even at 150 km/h.

The arrival in Berlin was easy. the station there is beautiful with a large Christmas tree reaching almost to the ceiling. From the main concourse you can see the glass dome of the Reichstag just to the south.

Peter's flat is very easy to find' maybe 15 minutes' walk, in a nicely renovated building with lots of windows, overlooking a little park next to an early 20th century hospital.

We immediately left again after dropping off luggage, as the general rehearsal for Die Fledermaus was starting at 19h. It was quite the production; playing on a steeply raked wooden stage must have been a bit of a challenge for the singers. The Komische Oper does many different kinds of musical theatre; in one week they might play five different performances, and the material ranges from West Side Story (sung in English but with German dialogue) to Fledermaus (all in German of course) to Rossini's Barber (sung in German!) to Strauss's Moses und Aron. It's quite the place.

Yesterday I went out exploring and visited a number of vintage clothing shops inthe Mitte district. Unfortunately most of these are very organized, very clean, and curated, so clothes there are really not a deal. Fortunately I found a new place that is a real jumble, so there were things there that looked more promising; however that will have to wait until thenext visit I think.

In the afternoon we worked quite a bit on the Viennese music and also coached the Peter aria from Hänsel und Gretel, which I love. Then Urs, the tour planner picked me up and I came to the hotel in south Berlin to check in.

Last night the conductor and I went out for dinner, and then made it an early night. Today at noon we will go have lunch with the production team and then our rehearsals begin at a concert hall nearby, with one from 15h to 17h30 and another from 18h to 21h. The same thing happens tomorrow, and then we fly out on the 20th at 15h55.

I hope to go do some a little bit of shopping tomorrow in the morning, but it would seem that very few stores open before noon. Perhaps Saturday morning also will present an opportunity, as long as I am not late to the airport!

last concerts before China

Both performances of the Brahms Choral Fantasia went very well, and I had the chance to speak with Laurence Equilbey, and will be auditioning for her in Paris in late January/early February, after I get back from China.  It was an eye-opener - or rather an ear-opener - to hear the orchestra from the stage in Studio Four of Flagey; the sound on the stage was a bit muddy, and loose in an unpleasant way, but I realized afterwards that the sound for the audience was superb.  That's an odd effect to experience, after the transcendent quality of the sound in Liège.

But I don't have any photos yet of that production... I think that Tele2 was there filming it, so perhaps there will be some video forthcoming from the choral conductor.  Instead, pictured above you see the end of this past weekend's project: two performances of the Brahms Ein Deutsches Requiem with Camerata Vocale.  This was of the "London" version for two pianos, but the conductor Philippe deClerk decided to augment them with the addition of a timpanist from the orchestral score.  It actually worked very well!  The choir sang extremely well, and the church - the Eglise Ste. Anne in Auderghem, maybe three kilometers from our home - was packed for both nights.  My friend Rita Matos Alves sang the soprano solo, and it was great to collaborate with her again after our series of performances of Le Nozze di Figaro two years ago.   Philippe was really pleased and has already expressed his interest in further projects with me, so that is the best review that one could get.

I also sang a concert of British and American music with a string quartet at a castle near Antwerp on Sunday morning, so after singing many days in a row I was very tired vocally and needed to rest and save my strength up.  Fortunately there is a lot of work a singer can do without actually singing, like reviewing the scores for future pieces, checking pronunciation, verifying word meanings, memorizing text, listening to recordings, deciding on phrasing, and so on.  Tonight and tomorrow I have the third and fourth performances of Carmina Burana, which will take place at two locations slightly to the west of Antwerp.  We have two conductors sharing this series, and Luc Laurent has completed his, and hands to baton to Luc Martens.  From our earlier discussions I think his tempos will be a little slower than his colleague's were, but we shall see.

Monday will be a general strike across the country, so the boys are going to stay home.  Maggie will be teaching, but it will be nice to have an entire day with the boys prior to my departure for Berlin on Tuesday morning.  I have already ordered a few small things to be sent to Rob and Viki's in Scotland where they will be over Christmas and New Year's Day, so that at least is covered.  And I bought a turkey for us to have on Monday evening.

Earlier this week I went camera shopping with my friend, the professional photographer Stephan Darding.  Photogallerie is a great pro shop here in Brussels, one of the last ones left, and they let me spend well over an hour trying out their gently used cameras, until I found one that I wanted.  I looked at the Sony Nex 6, the Olympus OM-D  E-M5, and the Fuji X-E1.  All are interchangeable lens mirrorless cameras, and all are now a couple of years old.  Here are what they look like:

The Olympus camera has a very similar look and feel to my old Olympus OM-1 film camera, but in truth, the sensor is a micro four-thirds sensor, and so it is rather on the small side.  The model they had was quite expensive nonetheless.  I didn't really get much of a chance to play with it though, concentrating on two cameras with APS-C sensors, which are very large and give excellent images.

This is the Sony NEX6.  It has a great optical viewfinder and when it came to focusing it was amazingly easy to manually find the right focusing length.  It also shoots fantastic HD video.  However the Sony lenses themselves are not so great, and the NEX6 came with a zoom kit lens that I would have had to buy.  I hate zoom lenses, and so that argued against the NEX6.

What I finally decided on was the Fuji X-E1.  This camera feels like a real film camera to me.  Other Fuji X series cameras have an optical rangefinder/viewfinder a bit like old Leicas but that was very disorienting to me as I am used to looking through the lens to compose my pictures.  The optical viewfinder on this camera is really quite good, and has a diopter correction dial to help adjust for individual variations in vision when focusing.  As well one can take pictures and adjust settings on a Fuji camera like this without every having to touch a button and navigate a menu, which is something I would have to do on the Sony.  Want to shoot fully automatic?  Put both the aperture and speed dials to A for automatic, and you are good to go.  Prefer to go aperture priority with a lower F-stop to get good bokeh?  No problem.  Want fast shutter speed to catch a moving object or avoid movement blur?  Again, no problem.  Plus it has a nice little pop-up flash as well.  What blew my mind is the low-light options; you can switch quickly between an ISO as low as 100 and as high as 12,600!  That is nuts.  With a 16 megapixel APS-C sensor pictures are of a quality that works for poster-sized enlargements; even saved as high-quality JPEGs they are smaller than RAW files but still very nice. Used, this camera cost me only 350 EUR, which is half the price of the other two, and I think it's the superior camera.  As well, I was able to delay the purchase of a lens; Stephane has an old 50mm Canadian-made Leica lens that he lent me; with an adapter it comes out to about 75mm, which is a good portrait-length lens.  Manual only, but for now that's just fine with me.  The autofocus Fujinon FX35mm (53mm equivalent) 1:1,4 lens is about 500 EUR new, so I think I will wait a bit; they might come up used, or I have already seen one new on ebay for around 350 EUR.

 Here are a few experimental shots.

 

We went out to dinner with a colleague this week, and on the way home stopped at the Grand'Place for a look at the crêche and the Christmas tree and lightshow.

As you can see here, the main advantage of a large sensor and a good lens is that you can achieve good bokeh.  This is a Japanese word that describes the pleasing aesthetic effect of out-of focus sections of a photograph, as a function of the lens.
 

I don't know if there is a Japanese word for unwilling photographic model.  Maggie doesn't seem too impressed.  Actually as most of my experiments in photography were when she wasn't around this is the only picture I have that she will let me share.

But in any case I am well armed for documenting Berlin and China.  I leave on Tuesday, and will be in Berlin rehearsing until we leave on the 20th, and will take the opportunity to take some photos.  We will have a couple of days in Beijing to acclimatise after our flight, and plan to go visit the Great Wall, and I hope, the Forbidden City, so I will try to take lots of pictures then also.

I am not sure about blogging in China but I am sure I will get another post in before Christmas, but in case I don't... Merry Christmas to all!