Premier Onegin…
This week was an intensive one and last night we had the premier of our production of Onegin, but let me start with today. This morning I woke up at around 7 am, and I decided to go for a jog, but first I got an espresso in a nearby bakery from my place, then I started jogging. The last few times I went for a jog I listened to a jogging playlist on Spotify. But today was different, I wanted to listen to some Palestrina (God knows why), and it was really nice and comforting, but I never thought such religious music would get along with my jogging, to my suprise it really worked out for me.
Now back to this week, we had the last rehearsals on stage with orchestra for our production of Onegin. It was an interesting process. Working on stage with the orchestra differs a lot from playing only with piano. There are many things involved, among them, the balance between singers and orchestra, also the staging plays a big part on defining sometimes the tempi, also tempi from the conductor which changes slightly rehearsal to rehearsal, sometimes, though, more than slight changes are made by the conductor. All the while we (singers) must keep a very open mind and try to be flexible, because we rehearse in some way for 5 weeks and suddenly tempi are altered once the orchestra comes. It is part of the process but sometimes that puts unnecessary pressure on us.
Yesterday we had our premier of Onegin, it went really well. Akiho and our friend Eriko were there to support me. I am forever grateful to have two beautiful souls during this time. Onegin was well received by our audience and they were really warm to all the soloists, including the small roles, which makes me happy cause no matter how big or small the rol is, we all give our best on stage and to feel the warm of the audience in their applause and "bravos" is always really nice. I really like singing Lensky, and yesterday I could enjoy singing it very much. I was nervous and excited at the same time. I can not really explain the feeling accurately, but everytime there is a premier there are always many thoughts simultaneously going on in my brain and also a lot of emotions at the same time. The feeling I get in premieres is always very strong and sometimes it is hard to put in order such thoughts and emotions. It is only through the years that I have managed to calm down and focus my energy at the interpretation of the character and to trust the work I have put during the rehearsal period. To trust that the performance will go well. Yesterday I managed to silence all the fears and doubts that come exactly to me before the show starts, sometimes though is really hard, but yesterday I was able to focus on the present moment.
I finally finished the letters from Seneca. I highly recommend them. As I mentioned in a previews blog, they are really interesting and they are full of wisdom and great stories, not only about himself, but of other stoics and philosophers from the greek time BC.
Plans for the summer are still not so clear. There are 2 options, the first one is going to Mexico and the other is going to Japan for the summer. In an ideal world I would love to visit both countries but I can not afford both. I have not decided because we are waiting to hear news from Japan if they will open their border by August. It is now clear they will open now in June for tourisst that go with group tours but not yet to everyone going separately. I really hope they open though, so that I can finally be back after more than two years.
Tomorrow we have our last performance of the season of our production of Magic flute and I am really looking forward to it. I wish you all well and have a great Sunday. Until next time.
Roberto
