Rehearsing in Berlin

Yesterday morning I got up early and with Maggie's help made it to the airport in time to catch an EasyJet flight to Berlin. I am here for a few days to work on different repertoire with Peter Tomek, to visit the city a little bit and to meet my friend Dietmar, who is in town singing Monostatos in Die Zauberfloette at the Staatsoper. The performance is tonight, and unlike our usual post-performance ritual of Belgian trippels and cigars, in this case neither are on the list. First we can't get any Belgian beer here, I don't think, and secondly he has to go to Paris tomorrow to sing the Tanzmeister in Ariadne at the Bastille, so best behaviour.

But that's probably for the best. I avoided the flu that struck Maggie and Malcolm down so horrible all last week, but Duncan and I still have some sinus congestion and a nagging persistent cough. I have a lot of singing to do and so probably smoking and drinking and loud bar conversation is a bad idea.

The plane was simple to board; I was close to the rear exit and so was on and off quickly; the flight was a little more than an hour and uneventful; I slept most of it.

The one disadvantage of EasyJet is that there is a lot of walking and climbing stairs. This ordinarily wouldn't be a problem for me, especially since I like climbing stairs (I did the 1776 steps of the CN tower in under 20 minutes) but on Wednesday morning my friend Bryan Hammer met me at the door in his running gear and he took me for a preliminary jog of maybe 3 km. It wasn't strenuous or anything, and I didn't really breathe terribly hard, but after the little jog, I also ended up doing quite a few errands on foot, since it was a nice day. At the end of the day I had logged about 13 km on foot...

Let's just say my dogs were barking yesterday.... my hip flexors are sore, but my right knee which I injured at maybe fifteen started to ache and pop a bit, and my left hip which hasn't hurt for several years started to ache. I remember now why I don't run! But we'll give it a week to recover and try again next wednesday.

Maggie did a ton of physiotherapy over the last couple of years, before and after her knee surgery, so she's in much better shape for running that I am. I think the last time I ran I was still a teenager. My sport is swimming.

So that's what I did today. There is a fabulous swimming pool called the Schwimmbad Mitte that is only 600 metres from this flat. It opened at noon and I went for a try out. It costs 3,50 but it is a beautiful airy building, very clean and not too crowded. I only managed to do maybe 750 metres but that was a good start: I haven't been swimming for more than a year now, so it makes sense to start slowly.

I did a fair bit of exploring on foot yesterday, but also did some resting before my coaching with Peter. We started with the St. Matthew Passion, which I last did with Bart Van Reyn and then with Paul Dinneweth, in Flanders in 2013. It's been in cold storage for two years but amazingly a lot of it is still there, particularly the really difficult parts of the arias. In these you have to pound them in so mercilessly, and the notes fly by so fast that you don't have time to think, that they somehow are REALLY learned in your muscle memory. It's actually the little recit parts that you have to find your note and interject that offer the most trouble.

After the coaching I had to try to find some restaurant that was open and not too crowded, and settled on some sushi. But then on my way home, I came across the Oscar Wilde pub and had to stop in. A double Jameson's was only 4,50 so how could I resist? But that was it and I went to bed early.

Today I will meet Peter again and do my opera audition repertoire, and then tomorrow I think we will work on the Johannespassion Christus, which is not so much material, but it is new, and I know that I can learn things so quickly with Peter and get them right the first time, so it makes sense to work it with him. I really enjoy coming back to these big Bach pieces, and they are performed so often that I want to be singing them for the next thirty years or so if I can, so it makes sense to really get them right the first time.

I mean to write the second part of my China blog, which includes information about perambulations in Shanghai, but that will have to wait until I get back home, as all of my photos are on the computer there.

Other news of interest: one of the reasons that I am working so hard on audition repertoire is that I have some auditions lined up. These will take me to a number of places; I was to audition in Cardiff, Wales, but that has to be rescheduled. I am going up to Leeds to sing for Opera North in a couple of weeks. And I am waiting for my Paris audition for Laurence Equilbey to get finalized. I plan to return to Berlin soon to sing for TACT artist management here, or perhaps to go instead to Amsterdam where they have an office. A British agent will be in Brussels on Wednesday next, so I hope to sing for him then, and there is a famous Japanese conductor from Lyon who is in town conducting the La Monnaie Orchestra whom I have written a letter to; I hope that he will hear me too. And I have put out a ton of feelers in France; I think I have emailed perhaps twenty different houses and then called some of them back; I have to do that first thing next week.

Ok, off to coaching!