London was next for me, to sing Teresa in concert with the London Symphony Orchestra and Sir Colin Davis. The concert went off swimmingly well, despite our Cellini cancelling at the last minute. No worries - we had a stellar replacement, Greg Kunde, with whom I hadn't sung since 1995. He sang on my European debut in 1994 in Geneva and again in the same show in Paris the year afterwards. I still have the Swatch he gave me as an opening night's present. (Forgot to tell him that!)
I was joined on the concert by two colleaugues from The Rake's Progress Andrew Kennedy, and Jeffery Darren, who ended up singing my father, as another colleague was ill, as well! Peter Coleman-Write sang a fantastic Fieramosca and John Relyea was a sonorous Pope...
The concert was also recorded for a cd on LSO's LSO Live label on SACD. Buy it on Amazon.com
Here is a picture of Isabelle Cals (Ascanio) and me with Sir Colin Davis after the concerts:
We got rave reviews, many of which singled me out for praise! Yay! We like that!!
With Robert Lepage, we created a beautiful Rake's Progress at Theatre de la Monnaie. Kazushi Ono conducted, and a grand time was had by all. The production will travel all over the world, as it was co-produced by many theaters. I did it again in Lyon. They also made a dvd (blue-ray, I think) of the production, and I must say, it's not too bad!! Here's a clip of my aria from Youtube:
During this period, Serge Kakudji came to Brussels and stayed with us while he studied and sang for some people. Our hope was to get him into some conservatory for the fall, but strangely Belgian and French schools do their auditions way late in the summer (if that) or right before the academic year begins. So you can't really prepare for the school until it's pretty much starting the next week. WEIRD. In any case, Serge, sat in on all the rehearsals of the Rake's Progress, sang for many of our friends (including Fabrizio Cassol, Bernard Foccroulle and Philippe Boesmans) and took voice and music theory lessons. He ate it all up.
He then went to do some more performances of Dinosord, and came to visit me in Lyon, when we were reprising the Rake. It is so neat to see everything anew through his fresh eyes - - reminds me of ME at his age! Here he is, eating his first - and hopefully not last - ile flottante! YUM!
We're hoping to get him into a school for this fall, so he can start his studies in earnest. He's very talented and works like a dog. I'm very hopeful for this young man.
Also during this trip to Lyon, my friend Tullio came to visit from Turin (not far from Lyon), Kent and Roger from Indianapolis, and Thomas from Geneva. Here are Thomas and me before the show. Note that my hair's straightened for the show - weird, but I like it!
Thomas' trip coincided with my parents and sister's trip to see me. My parents had met up with Lisa in Spain where she had some clients, and made the trek to Lyon to visit. We enjoyed a beautiful few days here, then went to PARIS together! Jan joined us, and we went en masse to visit all my favorite Paris haunts with my family, Eiffel Tower, Quai Branly Museum, etc... We had a great time, and then I sang the Messiah with John Nelson at the Festival de St. Denis. So they also got to see the tombs of the Kings of France!
