march 2006...

March 2006

Well, I am not going to bore you too much with the count-down of what I've done last year, nor give you a blow-by-blow of this coming year... You can read that in old issues of backstage chatter or newsletters, and stay tuned to this year's updates! I've been too busy, as usual, and this time have decided that I have to plan in more free time for my brain and creative juices, and LIFE! So, that is a priority for 2006. I'm writing you from business class on a United flight back to Belgium from Dallas, where I spent a scant 5 days over the holidays visiting my family. I bought myself a Mac for Christmas, and I'm hoping to streamline my life and, especially, my computer habits. I've been spending too many hours trying to get my old PC (Dell) to do what I want it to do, and missing out too much on the good things in life. I've gotten so busy with stupid things, I haven't even been able to take pictures for fun! Excuse my lack of graphics in this issue of Backstage Chatter.

What I will tell you about are the past few months. While in Pittsburgh, I worked night and day (well, it seemed like it) with the fabulous coach Susanna Lemberskaya on my recital program for Santiago de Compostela, Spain. We started out working on my upcoming Philine in Mignon, but the recital quickly took over all preparation time. Even lovely pianist Marc Trawka (another Merola alumn, now the director of Pittsburgh Opera's young artist program) took on the task of preparing the music with me, and ended up playing with me for my "tryout" of the recital for the young artists. Pittsburgh was great, but I was glad to get home to Belgium, albeit briefly.

After only a week at home, I ran off again to Spain to give my recital with Roger Vignoles. I stayed in the center of town in a sweet little hotel right around the corner from the main attraction - the Cathedral. It reminded me of the Vatican - lots of gold, lots of gory depictions of Christ and saints, but only as the Spanish can do. Roger and I had two days to put together the program again after so much time apart. We had met up in London in August or so to go through the program, so luckily I had been able to work on it so much with my friends in Pittsburgh. The Spanish recital went beautifully, offering lots of pieces I am sure they had never heard there, and I thankfully didn't forget any of my words on this new program. It was my first time to sing the Brentano lieder off book, and everything save the last set of three songs was new to me. Click here to see the program. Roger, as usual, was brilliant. I even managed to bring a little local ham and wine home with me.

Next, after barely gasping at home for a few days, I went on to Toulouse to debut the role of Philine in Mignon. The cast was great - Sophie Koch is a wonderful singer, and everyone else in the cast was not only nice but fun. The weather was unseasonably warm and beautiful. The theater is in the central square of downtown, and beautifully situated. Side note: I have never seen such great shopping for clothes. But, darn it, I was in rehearsals all the time, so I only had time to look a couple of times. I also felt like I was playing catch-up all this fall, trying to make sure I knew my new music. This has been compouded by being under the weather. One evening shortly after I arrived, I got the grand idea of eating healthy... So I got fresh sardines. I fried them up along with some vegetables, and had a lovely dinner. The fish was especially peppery tasting, a fact I only commented on afterwards. About thirty minutes later, my landlady came by to change some lightbulbs, and said "Oh, you must've gotten some sun today - you're so sunburned!" When I looked in the mirror, I saw that my neck, chest and parts of my upper torso were beet red. And I had not been in the sun. After they left, I had a bit of an upset stomach (I blessedly won't go into details here, but nothing too horrible or extreme) but meanwhile, the red had migrated down my entire arms and also onto my stomach. At this point, I called SOS Medecins (SOS Doctors) to talk to them about it. I didn't know if it was just an allergic reaction or what. Well, they sent the ambulance to come get me and CARRY ME OUT IN A WHEELCHAIR, as moving around actually aggravated this type of HISTAMINE POISONING! It turns out, the sardines must've been unrefrigerated at some point in transit to the store and in this time bacteria die in the skin of the fish and convert histamide to histamine. So eating the fish was like putting a syringe of histamine into my bloodstream. I spent a few hours in the hospital, but of course after they got me there and gave me antihistamine, by the time I saw the doctor I was fine - no symptoms at all. I felt like a huge faker. Oh well, a bit of excitement.

Shows were great - but I found the character unsympathetic to audiences, as she's not really mean enough to be a true villain that audiences love to hate, and not nice enough to sympathize with, either. They didn't know what to make of me, so I was a bit disappointed to pop out high F's night after night only to get a "good" applause. Maybe it's not my role, or maybe it's because I'm not French. Also causing excitement while I was in town was THE RIOTING. In case you were living under a rock in November, there was a lot of rioting in France that month. Kids in the ghettos, basically, of African and North-African descent vented their frustrations and anger on their neighbors' cars. It doesn't make much sense, but then again, most boys from 15-25 don't make sense either. Add racism, classism, lack of opportunity, and snotty French people in the mix, and you can see why an insensitive politician's remarks and perceived police brutality can ignite a crescendo of fire.

Just about when the weather turned cold (the last week of shows), I flew off to Belgium in between shows to rehearse a few days of Handel's Semele in Antwerp. My first rehearsal with my tenor, Marlin Miller, was a bed scene where the director said, "Well, Laura, you're going to be in a nightie and at this point you two will be snogging." (snogging means "making out" for all y'all Americans out there.) Marlin had instructions to keep his hand on my backside a lot of the time, as that was going to keep my very short nightie from going too high and me mooning the audience. And actually, at the end of Act I, I do the aforementioned "nude scene" - at the end of my aria, with the entire men's chorus behind me, I drop my sheet and walk offstage. It's only about 3 or 4 seconds, but it's the longest hour of my life!! By the time the audience has realized that, yes, that glowing white thing onstage is really me in the buff, I'm gone. Needless to say, the Robert Carsen production is a little racy, but always in a tasteful way. Very fun. And luckily my "partner in crime" is a lovely guy and always made me feel at ease. However, all the travel probably contributed to my catching a cold as soon as I got back to Belgium after Mignon, and putting me behind in getting Semele into my head and throat. I only feel like I know the role fully now - the shows have now opened and closed. I got great reviews, and the shows were sold out. Life is good.

Christmas consisted of an unexpected quick trip to see my family in Dallas, and not enough time to even spit, so please don't be mad at me if I didn't come visit you while I was in town.

Update in March

Next up was New York for three days to see Oswaldo Golijov's Ainadamar at Lincoln Center. It was exciting to see the progress the piece has made since I first saw it in Los Angeles last year. And it was great to see the whole Peter Sellars team and Dawn Upshaw again - she is so gracious and always supportive, and they feel like family. I was supposed to sing for the Met finally, while I was there, but scheduling it fell apart when the new director Peter Gelb decided he wanted to hear me, as well. So I am GLAD to put off the audition until he can be there, too! It's exciting that he has taken an interest in me. Hopefully he realizes I'm someone who actually wants to do more than just the standard repertoire onstage! He seems to want to shake things up at the Met, and thank goodness! I haven't sung for the Met until now - except as a finalist in 1993 (or was it '94?) at the National Council Auditions. I daresay I've grown up a lot since then! Hopefully Sally Billinghurst, who was such a support in San Francisco when I was the youngest Adler Fellow in the Young Artist Program, will also put in a good word for me! Hopefully she has heard me as I've matured, and doesn't think I'm still 20 years old!

Next, I headed off to Paris for Rigoletto at the Bastille. (pictured on left with Andrjei Dobber in what looks like we're dancing - what's that?) I had already done this production in 1998, but love the role so much, and have such a success with it everywhere that I couldn't resist. Despite everyone in Europe having a cold in February (me included, AGAIN!), the shows have gone beautifully. The Paris audience love the show and greet me with a roar of bravos when I come out for my bows; I have had some very moving compliments from audience members after the show. Despite a creaky old production, and some annoyances during the rehearsal process, I still managed to move people. This is why I sing! Only problem is that I am going to become spoiled and think that any audience that is less exhuberant than Paris doesn't like me!

The maestro, Renato Palumbo, has taught me many new things about this score - he is wonderful. Small things like getting back into tempo with the pickup at the end of a dotted phrase work wonders to keep Gilda's youth all through the opera. Who'd a thunk it? Maestro Palumbo... Even the "in" of "Lassù in ciel" at the end has this characteristic short note - a tiny thing like that has made a huge difference in my interpretation of Gilda this time around. Most Gildas (me included in the past) have slurped and rubato'ed that short little note to death, making Gilda schlumpy (my word) and droopy. Yes, she's dying, but she's running out of breath, so little hiccup sounds actually work. I am hoping I will have the chance to work with him again soon! He's the new music director at the Deutsch Oper Berlin, so I have a feeling something will happen there. There have already been a few whispers... I've only ever performed at the Staatsoper there (I jumped in as Konstanze in Entfuehrung) and in the Concerthall with Norrington (Teresa in Benvenuto Cellini), so it would be nice to return to Berlin and get to know the other opera house! It wouldn't bother me either, to hang out some in Berlin, seeing that one of my best friends, Mary Mills, lives in Berlin, as well!! I never get to see her enough!

One funny thing about our production: the Duke of Mantua is a Turk named Bülent Kulecki, a lovely guy who speaks very little of every language... But, oh serendipity: Maestro Palumbo used to be the music director at Istanbul Opera, so he actually speaks Turkish! How many maestros do you know who speak Turkish? And the management at the Bastille didn't even know that when they put these two people together. I might add that Bülent has learned a ton of French, English and German since he got here: it has been a regular old salad of languages! At least we had fun with the Maestro, who would tell us the translations of phrases of operas (ours included) they had done at Istanbul Opera in Turkish, and tell really, really dirty jokes in Italian. You have to love that! My favorite translation into Turkish was "la mia cuffietta" (from Boheme), which becomes something like "benimberembum" (at least that's what it sounded like to me), which sounds hilarious sung. Palumbo told the story of how each time he heard this one phrase, he just thought it was awful... So the second cast Mimì came to him and said, "Maestro, I just think this benimberembum is horrible; it just doesn't sound right, and I've found a better, more antique, poetic word to replace it in my shows!" ... "benimbeSHLUMbum." We were about to wet our pants.

Added plus: One of my best friends, Malinda Haslett, also was in town after her successes in France and Belgium as Violetta in La Traviata to do auditions, so it was a rare treat to get to hang out with someone dear to me while on the road. I've also gotten to meet up with many Parisian friends, and met a new, very special friend, the new daughter of my dear friend and colleague Emmanuelle Haim! Exciting! I will be back in Paris in some new productions as a result of my successes, so stay tuned to my newsletter for the scoops!

At the end of this month, I will travel to Moscow to sing a gargantuan concert of arias. It looks like my conductor is the enfant-terrible (in a good way) of the Russian music scene; he's supposed to be wonderful. I can't wait. I am excited that we will also be recording the concert for tv and radio. It may be released as a cd and dvd in the future - I'll keep you informed! Meantime, here's the program for the concert.

After the extreme disasters in the world this past year, I hope we all recognize how fabulously lucky we are to be sitting in front of a computer, looking at the internet. I'm not only lucky to be living in the vibrant capitol of Europe, but also able to travel the world, do what I love, get paid for it, and even APPLAUDED for my work! Please remind me of this the next time I start complaining. Maturing means figuring out that life's meaning is not in what you accomplish but the connections with people you've made. I will try to keep up with my end of correspondence with all my friends this year! I hope that this year of the Dog will be brighter and even more full of love and good things for you and yours! Make the most of it!

^{last updated March 15, 2006}