Lustige Witwe, Don Giovanni, studying...

Hi there! this week Akiho is here and we are enjoying the time we have togehter. Besides rehearsals here at the theater of Lustige Witwe, I have been working a lot on the top of my voice and on the best sound I can produce reducing the effort to produce it. It is so important to have a pair of ears, in this case Akiho, to listen to you, because we cannot hear truly ourselves how we sound to others. Sometimes our ear is missleading us, so it has been really important to me that Aki hears me and points the places were my voice goes off the best resonance I can produce. It is difficult to explain in words but I try, we exchange a lot of ideas on how to make the right sound. We do not always agree but I make my misison to try to understand her and to try exchanging ideas while remaining flexible and open to change but without loosing my own ideas. As you know it is about balance and so is life.

I keep revising my notes on singing that I have in several notebooks and try to remember and rethink concepts and ideas. It is always refreshing reading again what I believe is crucial for change and improvement. More on reading, I keep on track with Ryan Holiday's Daily Stoic and I started a book this week by Grace Lordan "Think big". So far a very enjoyable reading and an interesting one.

I also started studying properly "Don Giovanni" as it is our next production here at the theater. I covered already this role back in 2011 in Stuttgart Opera as a part of the Opernstudio, and since then I have not really looked at the music. I am looking forward to keep growing my Mozart repertoire and keep learning. I am also looking forward because last season I sang Tito and Tamino and now I will Don Ottavio, I think it is a nice combo. And definitely the three roles are very different from each other beyond the difference of character, but somehow also the way is written for the voice seems different, which is very entertaining for me.

I hope you are well and take care, see you next week.