Die lustige Witwe, Elektra, reading...

Hi there. This week I keep working on Die lustige Witwe, I had rehearsals with the conductor and the other soloists, next week we will start with the staging of this Operetta. It is nice to make music again with colleagues after the summer holidays.

Today, Sunday 8th of October, we (Akiho and I) attended to the premiere of Elektra, here at Mainfranken Theater Wuerzburg. It was a very strong performance from the main roles and the staging was good. I must say however, the orchestra was incredibly loud, and you can imagine it is Strauss so, it is already very challenging, and specially at our current Blaue Halle. I feel sorry for the colleagues who could not be heard, and I am very impressed how the main roles survive and specially the Elektra managed to sing the whole opera with such stamina and vocal strength, I must say if, she sounds here very good here, I am sure in a proper theater she is amazing. It is just my humble opinion. I have been singing on this stage for the last few seasons and believe me it must be one of the most challenging theaters to sing in Germany and so every time I see something or I am on the stage I have deep respect for our singers and colleagues, under the current conditions. Bravi Tutti.

I keep working vocally as well and also reading Robert Greene and Ryan Holiday. I am however waiting to get my hands in a book I recently ordered on Amazon. The book is called "how to make the best coffee at home" by James Hoffmann. As you may know from my previous blogs, I am so into the coffee scenary, and this will be my second book from him. I do my hand brew coffee every day, sometime I use my Bialetti Moka, Aeropress or V60, mostly V60 and I experiment with different methods and I play with different temperatures and coffee beans. Right now I have still some Mexican Coffee from Puebla, a Kenya and an Honduras from Bongen Coffee (Tokyo, Ginza). I enjoy it very much plus it remeinds me of the great holidays I just recently had and I am already looking forward to go back to Mexico and Japan to travel around and of course to get more coffee beans.

I hope you are well and please take care. See you next week.