Friday 20 March 2015

Cars and Cadenzas

On Wednesday evening this week I found myself singing arias and duets amongst a selection of cars, old and new, from a 1922 Model T Ford, the original high production automobile, to the brand new Jaguar F Type sports car.




Ever since I was a young boy I have been ‘into’ cars. Cliché it may be, but cars and football were my things really, and classical music just to throw a left field pass into the mix. Each year I would attend the London Car Show at Earls Court with my father and from about the age of 7 I had a subscription to a weekly car magazine. Then, in my early teens, I decided that the career I wanted was as an Automotive Engineer, I would learn German and go and work for a big car company over here, probably in Stuttgart in fact. It’s a coincidence, therefore, to have found myself in a mixture of the two worlds, cars and opera, this last week.

The occasion was the Opera Studio’s concert for our sponsors, Schwabengarage, the Stuttgart arm of a national car dealership who have been the main sponsor of the Studio for the whole of its existence. The boss happens to be a big Opera fan and agreed to sponsor the creation of the Opera Studio, 6 years ago, so that his towns Opera could be like Zurich and Munich who both already had studios in place.

It was an enjoyable evening, a mixture of Mozart, Verdi, Donizetti, Rossini and Strauss and included some quite interesting costumes for a mini-scene from Cosi Fan Tutte (no pictures I’m afraid). The evening was introduced by Eva Kleinitz, the Director of Opera, who sat on the front row next to both the boss of Schwabengarage and Jossi Wieler, the Intendant here in Stuttgart. It felt a bit like an audition panel, with an additional 200 people and some cars added in for fun.


Interview

The most nerve wracking moment of the evening came when Frau Kleinitz interviewed me, in German. Fortunately I had been warned that we would all be interviewed over the course of the evening and to be prepared to answer a couple of questions, but that didn’t ease my worries and much of the day was spent trying to come up with an intelligent yet easy to remember few sentences about why I had come to Germany for an Opera studio and what I like about Stuttgart.

I think people understood what I said, they laughed at the moments I hoped they would:

‘Ich liebe Bier und Adidas und mein lieblings-tenor ist Fritz Wunderlich’

So I got them on myside before hitting them with the serious sentence, which basically said Germany is hugely important for the operatic world and it is great experience to be in a German Opera studio.


Bye bye Nabucco

It is a great experience, and if you have read all 27 posts I have written so far, you will know that I have been pretty busy for the last 6 months. Saturday, though, was my last performance on the stage here until mid May and the final Nabucco of the season.

I have been suffering a bit with some sort of cough/sore throat that has been going round the whole of Germany apparently, and I wasn’t totally sure I would be able to sing on Saturday night. So unsure was I that I cancelled attending the Six Nations viewing party at a colleagues house in order to conserve some energy.

The show was fine, I didn’t sing in the big ensembles in order to protect my few solo lines. Frustratingly the bug has stuck around and I cancelled my rehearsal on Monday, just about got through singing in the concert on Wednesday night and considered cancelling todays audition.


ZAV

In the end, I figured it would be ok to audition, the sore throat is almost gone and I am confident enough with my technique these days that things will work when I am not 100% (when is one ever 100%).

The audition in question was for ZAV, the state agency here in Germany. A sort of job centre for singers, who I sang for initially in Munich a few weeks ago. Todays audition was in front of representatives from all of the ZAV offices around Germany who deal with Opera and, if they liked me enough, may lead to me singing in a showcase concert in Berlin in May. Either way, I am now on there books and my details may be passed on to one or many of the Opera houses here in Germany.
The audition took place in Cologne, a city I had never previously visited and one where a friend of mine, Aoife Miskelly, is in the Opera House ensemble. Aoife and I did the Magic Flute together both at the Royal Academy of Music (Pamina to my Tamino) and in the Bath Festival (Pamina to my yankee Monostotos), and she has been in Cologne for three years now, through Opera studio to Fest contract. She very kindly let me stay on her sofa bed, even though she left for Ireland a few hours after I got there, and it was nice to meet her flatmate, a German/Brazilian Doctor who speaks English with a soft Irish/German accent and whose boyfriend, I discovered, works in logistics for Adidas and might be able to give me a tour of the Adidas centre near Nuremburg!!!!

The other Pamina to my Tamino in the Royal Academy of Music’s Magic Flute was Sonia Grane (as pictured with me below), a portugese Soprano now in Opera Studio in Berlin. Coincidentally she was also auditioning in Cologne today and we grabbed lunch before going our separate ways.



Audition wise, they rushed me in when I got there, an hour before my allotted time with no time for me to warm up, which was a shame. I sang the aria they had suggested in the Munich audition, Questa O Quella from Rigoletto, first (the pianist not quite understanding what I had told him about the cadenza at the end), then Nemorino’s aria from L’elisir D’amore and a beautiful Gluck aria from Iphigenie et Tauride. It was fine, my voice felt like I had had a cough for the past week, not surprisingly, but all the notes came out which is a start. We shall see what happens…..


Next year

For once I didn’t feel a lot of pressure for the audition, in part because I knew I had been unwell, but mostly because I have, in the last week, been offered 7 months worth of Opera contract for next season as a guest in an Opera house. I won’t say anymore at the moment, nothing has been signed and we are just discussing a few details, but I am delighted to be able to look forward to some work next season.

The offer lightens the pressure of other auditions I have, and also gives me a strong hand for when I am talking to people who are considering representing me as my Artist Manger/Agent. The offer also allows me to spend more time in the UK with my wife, family and friends. Something I feel this year will have lacked!!
So its all good!!


What next

Happily I have a free weekend, one in which I can finally get rid of this bug hopefully. Then next week the Opera Studio has a Masterclass for three days and on Friday I fly back to the UK for a concert on Saturday in Burford.

Someone suggested that ’50 Shades of Grey’ could be a title for a tourist guide to Stuttgart, given the general colour of the architecture here. This is changing though, as the weather improves and it has been lovely this week, ideal for some running in the parks, which I must do soon.


Thank you for reading. Until next time!!



Read about me: www.thomaselwin.com

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