Parigi o Cara

I arrived by train today in Paris, just in time to jump in a cab and run to rehearsal.  Emmanuelle's back after a day's hiatus.   Her daughter (not even 3 yet) was still in the hospital with pneumonia, but she's now home and doing better.   Poor thing has been through the wringer.  Luckily, Paul Agnew jumped in for a day of orchestra rehearsals, and helped Emmanuelle out!   He's at the Garnier, singing the title role in Platée, but managed to conduct the rehearsal because it was his day off before the premiere.  Kudos to Paul!  Thank you!   My rehearsal went well, and we JUST finished all my music by 6pm.   Then a lovely dinner with Matthew White and John Tessier (see?  I wrote both your names so you'd know I was talking about you!!) followed at Terminus du Nord, one of my favorite brasseries for seafood platters here in Paris.  It's right across the street from the Gare du Nord.  I tried in vain to find Malinda and Jonathan, but they're not answering their French cellphone!!  I keep missing them when we're both in Paris.  Drat!  My consolation in one word: homard.  Well, maybe two:  homard and huitres:  lobster and oysters.  My sister is laughing right now as she reads this.  I was the brat who would order lobster whenever we went to a fish restaurant.  When I was eight!  In land-locked Texas. Some things never change.  Delicious!   Every now and then, you have to treat yourself.

I enjoyed my 5 hour train ride, and vowed to take more trains (even long ones) to get to my destinations this coming year.  So maybe I won't take a train to Houston, but European targets would be feasible.  I just end up feeling so much better when I step off the train, and I get so much good work done.  I think I may do the Copland songs by memory.   I must now be delirious...  Anyhow, I think planes aren't too good on my body.   Trains it will be!  

Tomorrow I'll work with Antoine Palloc on my LA program and then take the TRAIN to Lille.  Yahoo.  We have a rehearsal there at 2:30.   I think Paul Agnew will conduct again.   That should be fun, too!  

More Messiah madness soon...