Audition, Tito, Hoffmann...
This week, I had a performance of Hoffmann on Wednesday, Thursday an audition, and on Friday I got a cold... So now I am writing this with a runny nose, but just a little less compared with yesterday. On Friday I was supposed to go to the north of Germany for another audition, I managed after my audition on Thursday to go all the way up to Berlin ( it was a bit difficult to get there, the trains were cancelled and I had a much longer journey than expected), arriving there in the late evening. At this point I was already feeling really sick, but I still waited until Friday morning to see how I felt but I could not sleep on that night cause of the pain on my throat, so I had to cancel the audition. I am glad I cancelled cause on Friday as the day was happening I got worse and worse. I spent the morning in Berlin, I tried to make the most out of the situation, so I went for a walk and bought some coffee, then went for breakfast, and I bought some single origin coffee beans from Ethiopia ( very, very good), from a very nice coffee shop called Ben Rahim in Hackesher Markt.
During the week, I keep learning recits from La Clemenza di Tito ( Mozart) for our upcoming production, here in Wuerzburg. Tito has a lot of text, so I am spending some time just reading through it and translating some italian words that I am not familiar with. Tito I find is very Stoic. It is a coincidence that I have, in the last year or so, been reading lots about it ( Seneca, Epictitus, Marcus Aurelius, Ryan Holiday, etc...). I am looking forward to see how the production and approach to this opera will be.
After having a lesson with Mr. Fundling two weeks ago, I have been working on the tips he gave me and applied them more or less succesfully on the audition I had on Thursday. I did my best and that is all I can do. I recorded the audition and I find few places where I am not happy how I sang but I know how to correct them so I will. When I recover from this cold, first thing I am doing is, to get into a practise room and go through the passages I was not happy in the audition with, and sing them and record them again, trying to improve them, until I get the version I like the most. Next week I have another audition, so I hope I can recover in the next two or three days so I still have some days to practise and get the voice back into shape before the audition.
Take care and see you here next week.
