Logistics

Today I had to have a meeting with my logistics manager (that’s me) about the next few weeks, and then with my travel agent (also me) and my accommodation liaison (that’s me too).

At one stage this week I had to put all these different hats on, and more, with there being a very real possibility that I was going to leave Stuttgart immediately and ‘jump in’ in a production somewhere else.

As I mentally prepared for the eventuality, I had to consider all that was to be done. Notifying Bank, health insurance, finance office, o2 Deutschland, landlord, local government office and the Tuesday night pizza delivery man of my change of address. Change flight home from 19^th July to as soon as possible. Pack room (pay for excess baggage). Donate various items from room to whoever will want them.  Book flight from London to destination of the ‘Jump in’ for some point within 24 hours of arriving in London. Find accommodation in new work place. Re-arrange auditions booked for next few weeks. Rapidly fill out an A1 form.

And that is without ANY consideration for learning the music, memorising the part and being prepared to slide effortlessly into the third week of production rehearsals in a company who would be as surprised to see me as I them.

Logistics

I have yet to hear either way whether I am jumping in so all the above may still happen in some flurry of activity that I would no doubt tell you all about. Not every change of location need be so hectic of course, in fact this occasion is not aided by the fact that I am moving back to England on July 19^th anyway, but without the Jump in I would have 23 days to get all that done – much less pressured.

We are very lucky to live in the era of the google travel agent. Websites like rome2rio are a great source of travel help, transferwise is amazing for saving money sending money between countries and I have also been very lucky with advice and help from various colleagues with what forms I should have filled in, and should fill in for the future, regarding tax in Germany, health insurance and the like.

Despite the help, it is a shame that I missed the ‘logistics for a career in Opera’ course when I was studying. If there isn’t one, there should be.

As I look to the next twelve months the logistical side of things starts to get much more complicated. My December alone is starting to look like the start of a Bourne film (London – Winchester – Stuttgart – Tel Aviv – London – Granada….. sleep). Instead of being based solely in Stuttgart I will instead be based at home in England, needing  to find temporary accommodation for the rehearsal periods here in Stuttgart and also for the show nights. As soon as possible I have to work out when I will be staying and where I will be staying, which flights I need to book and where to. As other work comes in these things are complicated further. I won’t even start on potential cash flow issues….

And yet again, all this working out of coming and going is done without any consideration for when I can learn the music, have singing lessons, work on my voice (or pay for the lessons…. Unless one of you kind readers would like to help out?!?) I must make sure there is time for these vocal things or I won’t have any career to have to arrange anyway.

Lone ranger

This week rehearsals finished for Rigoletto, with the opening night on Sunday 28^th June. As the sole understudy for the show, that’s not to say I am understudying ever role but that there are no other understudies, I have been sitting diligently at the back of the auditorium watching the rehearsals develop. I also finally got a chance to work on the role myself, with a musical rehearsal with the conductor and then, on Wednesday morning, a two hour staging rehearsal for all of Borsa’s scenes.

As with the Cosi, where I had to imagine five other singers, the set and the orchestra, I was once again the only performer present.  Fortunately we had the set in place, but Borsa mostly spends time interacting with the chorus and imagining 25 people on stage with you for two hours can make one think that they are going crazy.

Preparation

With production rehearsals now finished for the season, and having three weeks left in Stuttgart, I can turn my attention to preparing for some auditions and also doing some good fitness work.

The first audition is in Salzburg this Wednesday, my first visit to Mozart’s birthplace and suitably I will be auditioning for a Mozart opera. I have another audition for the same opera later in the summer, also in Austria. It would be too convenient to succeed in both auditions, I will do my best!!

In terms fitness, I am a lot fitter than I was earlier in the season – I tend to be a bit precious about exercising too much before singing and I am a sucker for comfort food. Having three clear weeks when I can practise well in the morning, eat well and exercise well will be great.

Looking forward

I am also preparing mentally for what I need to do when I get back to London. See friends and family I haven’t seen in an age, have some singing lessons, celebrate my birthday but also get onto the next stage.

Firstly, I have decided to learn four core Mozart tenor roles before my next contract starts in 

November. So relearn Tamino from the Magic Flute (with my now voice), keep Ferrando (Cosi Fan Tutte) going and learn Don Ottavio (Don Giovanni) and Belmonte (Die Entfuhrung). I’m sure this work won’t be wasted and if I succeed in the auditions coming up I will be singing at least one of these four anyway.

Planning for three recital CD’s will continue, new publicity photos will be taken, new tracks recorded for my website and a redesign of website.   

Finally I will get back to writing to, and meeting with, current supporters, and writing funding letters to as many potential sponsors as I can find. It is fair to say that being in an Opera studio is not hugely beneficial to ones bank balance!! (if any of you are keen to sponsor a young opera singer….. thomaselwin@hotmail.co.uk )

Summer time

In the meantime, the weather gods have delivered a stonking last few weeks here. 30 degrees Celsius for the next week. So I am going to go and enjoy that!

Until next time.

Have a great week.

Tom 

email me: thomaselwin@hotmail.co.uk

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Just keep swimming

I have benefited a lot from being a Young Artist in Stuttgart. I would recommend it to anyone who is even considering the German Opera studio route. Forty weeks into the season though, and currently being involved in my 8^th production here, I have a mild yearning for the freelance life I have experienced a bit before. The fact that this run of 8 different Operas has been almost non-stop since September 15^th 2014 doesn’t help matters and, having been used to being in different cities and countries week on week in my life as a freelance Choral singer, this one house dwelling is starting to feel a tiny bit claustrophobic.

Of course, if I was freelancing at the moment I would possibly be complaining about having to move around every few weeks and a yearning for a more fixed place of work. Some people are never content!! (at least I am aware of this….)

Away from home

One aspect of this young artist experience that is quite specific to me is my personal situation. The decision to come to Stuttgart was a decision also to spend the best part of 45 weeks on the trot living away from my wife, a hugely talented and dedicated Music teacher in a school in Hertfordshire.  It was never an option for me to pull her away from that job just for a year in Stuttgart. This means that there is an even stronger sense that I am only in Stuttgart for the job and that yet again I am delaying the rest of my life just for the singing.

I guess that only being from England, just a short hop away, made me think that the distance wouldn’t be an issue. I’ve done trips away before and I spent 11 years at boarding school. Maybe if Mrs E and I were from the USA then I wouldn’t have made the choice to come here, though of course that throws up a load of other questions about Europe and specifically central Europe being the hub of the Operatic working world.

Of course we didn’t make the decision lightly, but it is fair to say that I am now very much bored of not being at home with Mrs Elwin. I won’t see her for another five weeks…. These can’t go quickly enough.

Plugging away

The work here hasn’t changed hugely in the last few weeks. I continue to attend and watch rehearsals of Rigoletto. Borsa, the role I am covering, is not the biggest but I will sing 6/7 performances in the run next season so even if I don’t get on this season the work will not feel wasted.

I continue to have coachings on Cosi Fan Tutte. Tonight I will be running through as much of the piece as possible up in the Probenzentrum, our huge rehearsal venue about twenty minutes from the Opera house, with just me, one of the assistant directors and a pianist. I will have to imagine the other five singers, the chorus, the set, the costumes, the orchestra, the audience…. And the nerves of course, but it will be a very useful exercise should I end up going on in any of the last three performances.

Aside from these rehearsals I continue my daily routine of practise and voice work. I see it very much like an athlete doing their daily training schedule. Daily exercises to keep myself in shape but also improve my singing. My voice has changed a huge amount in the last five years, from choral ‘English’ Tenor with potential to develop as a soloist to a hopefully promising young Lyric Tenor. At times my psyche doesn’t believe that I am what I have become and will throw doubts into the path in front of me. These are inevitable and working on having a true confidence in what I am doing is another area ‘in progress’.

More inspiration

I’ve been listening to a remarkable young Brazilian Tenor here in Stuttgart all week. Atalla Ayan is singing the Duke in Rigoletto and his is a voice that just makes you smile. It is brilliant, ringing, classically Italianate, beautiful and so on. He is a hugely committed singer too and someone I am inspired by.

More inspiration has been on show in the Cardiff Singer of the World competition as put on by the great BBC. It’s been good to see some Tenors who are at the Mozart end of the spectrum (I would say that) doing well and also to hear some quite fantastic singing. One singer who has caught much of my twitter feeds imagination is the Mongolian Baritone Amartuvshin Enkhbat. The BBC analyst, Mary King, was quite emotional after his performance and spoke of the visceral reaction in the hall to the unamplified voice.

I will always champion Opera as an art form and I think it is important for us to remember such reactions to a single voice who, in this context, is ‘just’ standing still in the middle of a concert stage. No special lighting or costumes or actions. Just the plain voice. The public goes mad for a voice that touches them, we all do, and for me this reaction to a voice is what I am looking for when I go to the Opera. I’m not going to attack Regie Theater or Directors but I think this most appealing aspect of Opera, the voice that people will travel miles to hear, is sometimes forgotten.

It is also important to note that Mr Mongolia is no model, he isn’t David Gandy with a voice, and he isn’t buff like a swimmer. Did that stop the audience reacting with a massive ovation? No.

What next

Opportunities on the back of my audition for ZAV, the state agency, continue to trickle in. A couple of auditions in Germany and one in Austria to look forward to. I would obviously be delighted if I got all three of them, for the time being though it is just great to be considered for audition.

Now…. Back to watching Rigoletto in the 2^nd stage and orchestra rehearsal.

Hope you all have a good week.

Tom 

Well made plans

Not long after I left you with my last post I arrived at Stuttgart Airport in plenty of time to make my Easyjet flight to London Gatwick. This flight would arrive at 1015, leaving me 3 ¾ hours to get through security, pick up a hire car and drive the 45 minutes from the airport to the venue of the wedding I was singing at.

This was planned well in advance, the mother of the bride specifically wanted me to sing, she knew I would have to fly on the morning of the wedding and this was the first flight I could get.

Of course, due to Mr Murphy and his law, the flight was delayed. Initially by an hour, then 90 mins, then 2 hours and then once flying we had to circle the south east of England about 10 times before landing at exactly 13:02. This gave me 58 mins to get out of the plane, through the airport, through passport control, find the car hire, cue for car hire, get car, drive 45 minute journey to church and then sing Ave Maria and Panis Angelicus to a Church full of people.

It was like a scene from a film as I ran through an empty Gatwick in my grey pin stripe suit, my wheelie suitcase struggling to find grip behind me, innocent bystanders giving me looks of bemusement. Of course I had to wait at passport control, and of course there was a ten minute wait at the Car Hire place. ‘I am in rush’ I told the man, ‘no I don’t want any extras, I have 35 mins to get to a church 45 minutes away’. He smiled, told me not to drive too fast, of course not, and sent me on my way.  

I had emailed the Vicar of the wedding from Stuttgart and also tried to contact the mother of the bride, just to let them know I would get there to sing, but may be a tiny bit later than I had planned. I didn’t want them to worry, they had many more important things to worry about than the singer. The message had got through but by 2pm, the wedding start time, I wasn’t there and received a panicked 

call:

‘Hi, it’s the brides sister, we are waiting outside the church, are you nearly here?’

I wasn’t.

                ‘Yes, I am just a few minutes away…..’

I lied.

                ‘Great, we’ll wait.’

My lie had back fired. I was ten minutes away, stuck behind an old man who insisted that the 40 mph speed limit should in fact be 25. I overtook him and eventually made it to Petworth and within 500 feet of the church only to be stuck behind traffic. My phone rings:

                ‘Hi, we are waiting outside the church, are you….’

Before he could finish I power-slid around the corner in front of the church, parked where I could, apologised profusely for keeping the Vicar, the Bride, the whole wedding party and a church full of guests waiting and rushed inside.

The singing went fine. They were very happy with the job I did. There was nothing I oculd have done to get there any quicker and sometimes even the best made plans don’t come off.

Career planning

For anyone who likes to know what the future holds in their career, who likes to know how much money they will have coming in at the end of each month, to be able to plan next years holiday etc. Opera singing is not the career for you.

Of course I can have an idea of where I want to be in 5 years time, how much money I will try and be earning, what point of the year I will try and take off to spend with family but this can and will all change.

I am the CEO of my own company, Thomas Elwin the Tenor, and as with any company I rely on the market forces around me and how I react to these. These forces are changing all the time.

Take next season: by early April 2015 I had nothing offered in terms of work for the 2015/16 season. I was looking blankly at the future, hopeful but realistic. I had had cancelled auditions, opportunities passing me by. I knew I had auditions in the pipeline, but one can never rely on future auditions meaning guaranteed work. I had put myself in a shop window by coming to Stuttgart to be in the Opera studio, but nothing quite yet.  

Then Stuttgart offer me work, three roles as a Guest next season and covering in one opera. Fantastic! Work! Also, work that means I will be able to home with my wife for a much more of the year than this year.  I hold off signing the contract for a few weeks just in case something else amazing turns up….. I sign the contract at the end of April.

At the end of May I audition for ZAV, the state agency, and a room of casting agents and Intendant. A room of opportunity and potential work. As a result, five opera houses express interest, two of them serious interest in hiring me. Typical, why be interested now. Of course now I am not free for the whole of 15/16, I am signed up for Stuttgart, now I am not in the position to tell these interested parties that I am instantly employable.  In my career game of poker I stuck, in April, when I could have twisted in May/June.

In truth I am still waiting on these potential opportunities to come back to me with or without concrete offers. But if they do come in suddenly there are other questions.

Do I want to be in Germany almost non-stop from September to July again? Do I want to get throw away some quality time at home?  Is this role good for me in this house?  What should I be looking to do in terms of season 2016/17 and beyond? Will these smaller roles at Stuttgart mean they might take a chance with me in bigger roles soon?

And many many more questions.

Next stage planning will have to wait a bit longer….

The now

Whilst I wait for the future to become clearer it is important not to lose sight of the now.  I am still here in Stuttgart, still in the studio, still sitting politely at the back of the theatre watching Rigoletto rehearsals (it is going to be a great show I think).

Now 11 days into June there is a definite sense of the end season at the House. The announcement of the next seasons programme earlier in the week has many looking to September and beyond and coachings have started appearing on the daily schedule for next years shows.

Given that two of the roles I perform next season are ones I have done this season (one performed, one covered) I wasn’t expecting any ‘next season’ coachings. I was wrong, I have a language coaching for the third role, Nathanael in Contes D’Hoffman, this afternoon. The opening night of Hoffman is March 19^th 2016…. No I haven’t started learning Nathanael yet.

Other rehearsals this week have included a few more individual sessions on Cosi, just in case, a coaching on Rigoletto, just in case and a lovely coaching yesterday in which I sang through 7 arias (Mozart x 4, Gluck, Bellini and Verdi) partly in preparation for an audition here on Sunday (yes, Sunday morning!!) and partly just for the fun of it.

Away from the music

After the wedding on Friday, it was great to be able to spend a weekend at home with Mrs Elwin. We will not see each other again before the 27^th of July.

The weather in Stuttgart has been odd, I returned on Monday morning to almost arctic conditions but we have ended the week with clear skies and sunshine. Ideal weather for a BBQ, which some of us had last night in the park.

The Mercedes Cup, a tennis tournament, is in town including Rafa Nadal, so I am considering heading along to that this afternoon as well as possibly going to see the new Jurassic Park film (I was a massive fan as a child).

Beyond that, its five weeks left in Stuttgart, just the four more Fridays on which to write about life in the Opera studio and as a hopeful Opera singer. Thanks for sticking with me,

Until next time.

Tom 

Not quite

Well that’s it then. Last night was my final performance this season. Time to go home!

Well... sort of.

I am indeed flying back to London today to sing at a wedding relatively near Gatwick, thank you Easyjet, and then spend a couple of days with my wife, but I am not finished. Far from it in fact.

When I return to Stuttgart next week I will have some more rehearsals for Cosi, just to make sure I know it really well in case I go on as a cover, and I am also now back in my familiar ‘cover-watching’ auditorium seat (row 15, 10 seats in from the left since you asked) for the stage rehearsals of Rigoletto, in which I am covering the role of Borsa.

Cosi

Last Sunday was the premiere of our Cosi Fan Tutte, an experience I found far from relaxing. Having sat through 6 weeks of rehearsals, and done a few myself, I was so keen for it to go well and to be received well. The gentleman sitting next to me, who turned out to be a good friend of our casting director, even commented on my nervousness afterwards.

The show was received well, thankfully, and I stayed for a brief drink afterwards to congratulate my colleagues. At that point I was definitely back to feeling like a ‘cover’, a sort of awkward dinner party guest that no one really knows what to say to, so I disappeared quite quickly!

Rigoletto

There isn’t a huge amount to say about the process of me covering in Rigoletto, apart from I have missed the first few weeks of rehearsals because of Cosi, so any hint that I will get on stage would, currently, terrify me. I’m sure that will change over the next few weeks and by the Premiere which is at the end of the month.

Stuttgart

Stuttgart has gone crazy this week, it is now quite hot (up to 32 Celsius today) and, being in a valley, the heat doesn’t escape and it becomes very humid.

There are also an extra 200’000 people in the centre of town for a thing called ‘Kirchentag’, a Christian arts and music festival which happens annually but in a different city in Germany.  This time it is Stuttgart’s turn and its crazy. Every public space in the centre is completely full of people, everywhere you turn there are stages with choirs/bands on performing and thousands of people joining in.

I’m not overly fond of spending time in large crowds of people, particularly not in 32 degree heat, and so this weekend hop over to the UK has come at a good time.

Speaking of which, I must rush to the airport…..

Hope you all have a good week.

Tom  

ps Next week I hope to have more to say about future plans....