I've kind of broken the first rule of blogging in the past couple of months. Well, there isn't a universally-agreed "first rule of blogging" - try googling that phrase! - but the one that I think of as the first rule is "blog regularly, if you expect people to keep reading". And I feel a bit guilty that I haven't done that. I'm having trouble adjusting to the time demands of my new job (mainly having to leave home at 7 a.m.!) This week has been half term, so you'd think I'd have managed to post on Wednesday night after choir, but I seem to have spent the whole week either asleep or about to fall asleep. I have managed to get some other stuff done too, but nowhere near enough! Still, 2 days left...
Sadly those 2 days aren't free, because I foolishly volunteered for the Question Time Opera project. I keep vowing to myself that I won't commit myself to any more extra things... and then something new and exciting-sounding turns up, and I find myself signing up for it without checking how much time I'm committing to! Oh well. The opera is fun - first session was tonight (see picture above), and I'm glad I signed up.
(For those who don't know, the BBC has commissioned 5 half-hour comic operas from Richard Thomas, who wrote Jerry Springer: The Opera. They are mostly based on TV shows: The Apprentice; Wife Swap; a Monty Pythonesque one; Panorama; and Question Time. The Panorama one is called "Drinking in Nottingham" and ends with a "flood of vomit" and everyone turning into zombies. The Question Time one stars Jon Culshaw as David Dimbleby.)
Tonight we recorded half of the choir bits; the other half will be done tomorrow afternoon, and on Sunday we spend the whole day filming (miming, rather than singing). (The call is for 6.45 a.m.!) There are quite a few Hallé singers involved - no men, because of course tonight clashed with their Schoenberg gig, but tonight we had Tessa, Fliss, Wendy and I representing the altos, and Jackie, Sheena, Zoe, Gen and of course Fanny (who got us all involved in the first place) among the sops. There was a lovely young man called Jeremy running the session - he looks really familiar, but I can't think where I know him from (and I didn't catch his surname). He did a couple of amusing tongue-twister warmups - "Yellow baby buggy bumpers" and "This wrist watch is a Swiss wrist watch" were more than my tongue could cope with!
Anyway, more (no doubt) on the opera after the next sessions, but I just want to report here that my favourite line so far is: "... but this anti-poverty bill will not work, because it is not OUR anti-poverty bill." "What would be different about YOUR anti-poverty bill?" "It would be written in a different font, and would have more words underlined." Although, a close second would be: "We are clapping a bear made out of felt, and a man whose lips are moving slightly."
(Don't expect to see this on TV any time soon, btw - they're not recording the orchestra till January.)
Hmm, just realised I haven't said anything about this week's Hallé rehearsal. I seem to have not written down any Jamieisms, although I do recall being amused a lot of the time. While looking, though, I found what I wrote down last week, which was that Jamie was told off for tutting at the age of 10, and he says this was the most traumatic event of his entire life! Bless! Anyway, we did bits of Messiah, and a couple of carols (The Wassail Song and Sir Christemas - I love that one!). We spent quite a bit of time, again, practising the Messiah runs - Gill and I were thrilled to be able to actually sing most of them in one breath. Jamie's method makes them all seem much easier - clever, that :-)
Most exciting news from Wednesday, though, which I still can't quite believe, is that I got a text from Dr Liz (who was at home being poorly) asking if I could take her place to sing alto solo in a scratch performance of Mozart's Requiem next month! She has had to drop out because it's too close to her exams. I'm very, very excited about this. And scared!
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