History, Artistry… and a Moat!

The city of Gouda (g-ow-duh, not g-oo-dah! And the g is guttural like Hebrew or an ach-laut in German) is so old they don’t have newfangled things like stained glass windows in the church. Instead, they’re burned glass. The St. Janskerk church–where the windows are–was built early in the middle ages. The house I am sitting in currently was built 800 years ago. So was the moat. The eels and the herons that feed on the eels have been in the moat and canals for generations. This neighborhood only got a sewer system within the past 8 years. Gouda charms me.  

If opera repertoire were a candy store, this would be Belgian chocolate laced with speed in a spotlight with a theme song and superhero tights

Friday, July 11th

Bayerisches Staatsoper

Muenchner Sommer Opernfestspiel

Edita Gruberova

Yes, she’s singing IT…

In Gouda Waits My Guru

This just in… the voice teacher I wanted to study with in the Netherlands agreed to teach me this summer! Yahooooooooo!

Jetzt gehe ich nach Holland.

Details: Every two weeks I’ll take a ten hour overnight train ride to Holland, where I will spend two days in Gouda eating cheese and throwing red wax around like confetti. Oh to dream! Want to join me?

This teacher is intense, and I’m going to get some serious teaching. Here’s what I mean…

She doesn’t give one hour lessons. Instead, she spends a HALF DAY on one lesson, working technique, working repertoire, working Alexander Technique, and then working the voice some more. There are lots of breaks, but I gather that it’s all very body/singing oriented. Then, she wrote that she believes she can (Huzzah!) help me with my middle voice, as long as I don’t try to avoid it anymore.

First item on the agenda… Una Voce Poco Fa. Gulp. And then Oscar, Tytania and the Schumann set.

So. No making nice and no fear of the middle voice. 

I’m told Persephone hails from the Edith Bers and James McDonald school of singing.

You ask, what exactly do they teach?

Balls. To. The. Wall. Singing.  

I’m in for a trip.

Foiled!

Plan A:  Attend famous German music festivals.

No such luck. They are ALL sold out, in some cases years in advance. Fortunately, Salzberg Festival broadcasts on TV, and I might have a snowball’s chance at going to the Aldeburgh Festival to see a recital of Britten’s Quatre Chansons Francaises. All the other festivals?? Nein! No Mahler in the German sunset. No relaxing with a beer after the Four Last Songs. No pantomimes to live performances of Heldenleben. I’m seriously crushed…  ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen! (heh)

Bayreuth’s box office amuses me the most. Hopeful attendees must send a written, formal request in German to their offices no later than September of the prior year. Further digging suggests that requests should be submitted TWO years in advance, assuming they have tickets on which lifetime attendees didn’t already call dibs. Then, and only then, will they give you a ticket… maybe. Agh. Evidently, I am not a lucky enough lil’ snowflake to get a ticket.

Plan B: You give me tickets? I give you kidney.

Plan C: Visit the festivals anyways, attempt to get tickets from a street hawker, scower the city for less famous concerts, and/or stake out a spot on a fence where I can (almost) hear the outdoor concerts. I just hate to see resonance go to waste.

Plan D: Screw Bayreuth. I’m going to Milan. If that doesn’t work, I’m going to Paris. If that doesn’t work, I’m going to pout, succumb to retail therapy, buy opera DVDs on Amazon, eat copious amounts of pasta and host a Ring cycle sing-a-long.

Plan E: Practice. Bis. Ewigkeit. I won’t need to submit ticket requests for ten, err… twenty years down the road if I’m on stage. Take that!

Plan F: Start my own festival. Yeah. At my festival everyone in the best seats would have one kidney, and it would never be sold out. There would also be a competition to write a piece for soprano and 8 track cartridge.

Plan G: All the above.