Audition
Took morning off work today to do a last minute audition. (European Chamber Opera - not as impressive as that sounds.) I think there must be a website somewhere of scabby but functional audition spaces for cash-strapped classical music groups in and around London - would be quite curious to see it if so. The last one I went to was a miniature Victorian church hall stuck down a side street in Addington: at first I was almost certain it was derelict as the windows I could see were all boarded up and there was loads of litter about. This one was a surprisingly large back room in Stoke Newington Library, reached via several store rooms and echoing passages with lots of peeling paintwork. It even had a stage (though the stairs looked a bit treacherous so I didn't bother), and an acoustic like a swimming pool, which was a bit off-putting.
Auditions were for Rigoletto, Don Pasquale and Carmen, so I sang "Caro nome", as Alison (my teacher) happened to have worked on it with me in my last lesson. My performance was moderate to bad, I think - it's a bugger for breathing, to use a technical term, and my nerves made things worse. (Plus the accompanist was playing a bit slowly, but that's pretty much a given.) I don't really like the aria that much anyway - at the risk of sounding queeny, I can't get a grip on the character, she just seems to be effusing in a rather anonymous teenaged fashion. My back up aria was "So anch'io la virtu magica d'un guardo a tempo e loco" from Don Pasquale: I hardly know the opera at all, yet I have a much better idea of what I would do with Norina's character than Gilda's. (She's a flirtatious Italian woman, strong-willed; fond of a joke; bit of a temper; easily bored.) I did get asked for my "repertoire list", whatever that means.
On the way back I heard a violinist on the Tube playing his own adaptation of one of the Bach partitas for solo violin, so I stopped to listen. Old man with a long white beard, dancing about on the spot and playing like a maniac. Such a great piece (don't know the number but it's the one with the long Chaconne at the end). For those Patrick O'Brien fans among you, I thought Jack's description of it was both accurate and in character - something about hunting on a fine horse in splendid weather and then, mid-jump, suddenly realising you weren't riding a horse at all but some other creature entirely.
Auditions were for Rigoletto, Don Pasquale and Carmen, so I sang "Caro nome", as Alison (my teacher) happened to have worked on it with me in my last lesson. My performance was moderate to bad, I think - it's a bugger for breathing, to use a technical term, and my nerves made things worse. (Plus the accompanist was playing a bit slowly, but that's pretty much a given.) I don't really like the aria that much anyway - at the risk of sounding queeny, I can't get a grip on the character, she just seems to be effusing in a rather anonymous teenaged fashion. My back up aria was "So anch'io la virtu magica d'un guardo a tempo e loco" from Don Pasquale: I hardly know the opera at all, yet I have a much better idea of what I would do with Norina's character than Gilda's. (She's a flirtatious Italian woman, strong-willed; fond of a joke; bit of a temper; easily bored.) I did get asked for my "repertoire list", whatever that means.
On the way back I heard a violinist on the Tube playing his own adaptation of one of the Bach partitas for solo violin, so I stopped to listen. Old man with a long white beard, dancing about on the spot and playing like a maniac. Such a great piece (don't know the number but it's the one with the long Chaconne at the end). For those Patrick O'Brien fans among you, I thought Jack's description of it was both accurate and in character - something about hunting on a fine horse in splendid weather and then, mid-jump, suddenly realising you weren't riding a horse at all but some other creature entirely.