Work starts here.

Before I tell you all about my second week living in Stuttgart may I thank you who read my first post. There has been a wave of good feeling towards what I wrote and I have been quite overwhelmed by it, so THANK YOU.

At this precise moment I have just finished a call with IKEA (after waiting 45 mins on IKEA Delivery help line). A few new things turned up yesterday, a big mirror, some drawers and a new bed + mattress and bedding …… minus the wooden slats which prevent the mattress falling to the floor.  It turns out that in Germany these slats are bought separately. Oops

A kingdom for a comfy bed

This Ikea episode is a good place to start. When I arrived in Stuttgart I got to my WG (Flat share) and was underwhelmed by the room I had agreed to rent. It is a large room, there is a kitchen in the flat, a roof terrace etc. It’s all fine, a bit tired and dirty, but ok. My room had a cupboard, some chairs, a bookcase and a small bed. If I was coming here to University I would have been delighted probably, but I am not. I am coming here to work and live in what will be an intense 11 months. I have moved from a cosy flat with my wife, a home we have made together, to a foreign country where I only speak a small amount of the language. It is very important for me to make as homely a place as possible.

To create this nice space I ordered the items from IKEA, somehow working my way through the German website, being slightly confused that they didn’t want payment online, and organising a delivery slot for yesterday (Thursday) from 2 to 9. More on the delivery time later….

IKEA wasn’t the first place I looked. Initially I tried the shops in Stuttgart. If you know Stuttgart at all you will know that there are lots of shops. From the HauptBahnhof (Main station) leading south for what seems like miles (or kilometers as we Europeans say), Konigstrasse is the retail heart of the city. So I walked down Konigstrasse and happened upon Galeria Kaufhof, which has a similar feel to House of Fraser. Downstairs I went, to the home department, beds and all. I started looking amongst the duvets and sheets and decided, since I am keen to improve my German, to ask the shop assistant for a hand. And oh how helpful she was. ‘Here is a Duvet, some pillows, some sheets, Oh you want one of these too, and this.’ (all in German) My initial enthusiasm to speak German rapidly receded and I found the Englishman in me nodding along, politely. In a flash this helpful old lady had taken almost 500 EURO of bedding to the till for me and sent me on my way. What a good salesperson, I had come in to have a look, maybe buy one or two things, but she had managed to get 500 EURO of goods to the till for this stupid Englishman to buy. What she didn’t know was that, whilst nodding along politely, and rather than just telling her I didn’t want to buy all of this, I was looking for the best route to make a quick getaway. As soon as the moment arrived, as she turned her back content that I was waiting in line for my goods, I made my exit. Phone out of pocket, lifted to my ear, time for that fake phone call usually reserved for chuggers (charity muggers). Then that searching look of ‘where is my friend…. Oh they must be outside the shop’, a jog up the escalator and out I went. Success! I didn’t buy all those things I didn’t want, I was out of the woods…….. but I had no bedding and I will now spend 11 months in Stuttgart never being able to visit the home section of Galeria Karlhof.

Hence my order from IKEA.

1300 everyday

I finally started work at Oper Stuttgart on Monday. A day I had been waiting excitedly for for months. I definitely had those first day nerves, like starting a new school. As ever, I turned up for my first call early, I am used to waiting the 15 minutes extra I have allowed. This habit has allowed me to wander the streets of many a Choral Society town. Unfortunately for me on this occasion, though, the lady I was meeting for my 10 O’clock call forgot I was waiting. 1015 went, as did 1030, and 1045. Yet again, the polite Englishman in me struck gold and I didn’t knock on her door despite knowing full well that she was in there having a chat with colleagues she hadn’t seen all summer. Finally at 1050 she came out of her room and looked at me with horror… ‘ Oh, Thomas… I forgot, I am so sorry’.  Months of waiting for my first day and the first meeting ends up being postponed.  Typical.

Later on that day, and having met each other briefly, the Opera Studio members and I had our photos taken both individually and as a group. It’s a really lovely bunch of singers this year, from all across Europe. I am by far the worst German speaker which, in previous years when the language used for the studio was primarily English, would have been ok yet this year everyone apart from me speaks German fluently and we are in Germany. Extra incentive for me to improve my German.

At 1300 on Monday I received my Tagesplan (daily schedule) by email. Yes, for those of you reading from England who complain about getting a weekly schedule late on a Friday night for the following week, here I only find my daily schedule at 1 o’clock the day before.  Little time to plan anything around work and little time to plan an IKEA delivery a week in advance!!  Thankfully, in my postponed meeting, I was told all about the KBB. The administrative heart of the Staatstheater. With the theatre complex employing almost 1500 people and there being at least 5/6 shows rehearsed at any one time, the KBB are vitally important. Luckily for me the 2 to 9 time slot IKEA had given me was accommodated for by the KBB so I didn’t have to worry.

My Tagesplan for Tuesday was quite sparse. A ten o’clock welcome from Jossi, the big boss man, and a coaching at 7. The meeting was interesting. All the new people were introduced and welcomed, each person standing up to wave to a almost full theatre. I stood, as briefly and awkwardly as possible. Jossi spoke about an award they had won last year, how excited he was about the new season and how great a theatre and ensemble we have in Stuttgart. I think that is what he said, it was all in German. I then went to the Kantine (canteen) with an Opera Studio colleague. This was a great decision. As night follows day, as singers like to sit around having a chat in the canteen. Within ten minutes I had been greeted by a selection of exceptionally welcoming singers including Catriona Smith, a lovely Scottish Soprano with a beautiful soft accent and the ‘Mother’ of the Ensemble who happens to have Six Nations viewing parties at her house (result!), Ashley Prewett, a Texan baritone who has just finished on the Studio and is now on a proper contract with the ensemble, and Ronan Collett, an English baritone who I had been in touch with via social media prior to my moving over.

Ronan is someone I have known of for about 8 years. In 2006/7 I attended a recital at the Wigmore hall with Angelika Kirchshlager and three young artists (Lucy Crowe, Allan Clayton and Ronan, not a bad bunch!). At that point I didn’t want to be a soloist, I wanted to sing in choirs, but I remember thinking that all three young singers were amazing. Ronan was a member of the Opera Studio here in Stuttgart a few years ago and has been on contract in the Ensemble since then. A fellow Royal Academy of Music Alumnus (Alumna!?Alumni…?) and having since had a few lessons with Gary Coward, we have quite a few mutual friends/coaches and it was Audrey Hyland who suggested I got in touch with him about Stuttgart. Ronan’s advice was good and honest, telling me more about being in a studio than anyone in England seemed able to. He was very positive about the set up and about moving to Germany as a young singer and his words strengthened my believe that it was the right thing for me to do.

Find your own way

When I say it is the right thing for me to do I mean it like that. This move to Germany feels like the right next step for me in my quest, and it is a quest, for a career. This won’t be the case for everyone of course. Be it the Jette Parker at ROH or the Harewood scheme at ENO, there are schemes in which a young UK based singer can have relatively secure employment and feel nurtured. There are numerous Young artist schemes attached to the summer opera companies, like at Glyndebourne, Garsington, Holland Park. So there ARE the opportunities in the UK if you can get them. But, as with anywhere in Opera, there is significant competition.

For the ROH Jette Parker auditions they receive hundreds of applications and only hear 70 (only!!) at live round 1. They take 5 each year. Here in Stuttgart they heard 100 + sopranos this year. In the end none of them got a place as two girls from last years Studio have stayed on. Of the Tenors who got past the screening stage, they heard 30+ for my place.

Not only is there a lot of competition, but you also can’t be sure what people want. All those sopranos who sang to Stuttgart would have been good, but in the end there wasn’t a space. That doesn’t make those who auditioned bad singers. Of the tenors who auditioned on my day, I was only too aware that they all sounded amazing. One guy kept on singing High C’s as if he had borrowed Juan Diego Florez’s voice for the day, one guy was singing romantic repertoire that I dream to sing in 5/10 years. The point is that I was lucky to get through the door, my face fitted and that’s great for me and a great shame for the others. In finding your own way you have to deal with the knocks sideways, the closed doors and the lack of obvious opportunities. There IS more work in Germany for Opera singers, but there are more singers, there is more competition and it is not necessarily the land of golden opportunity that a young singer might hope it is.

Anyway, back to Tuesday. I met a lovely bunch of singers, walked home, had some lunch, laid down on my not so nice bed aware that I needed to be up and getting ready in a few hours for my 7pm coaching. I awoke from a nap at around 430, looked at the schedule to see where my coaching was and….. oh….. my coaching is at 1700 not 7. Schoolboy error. Misreading the 24 hour clock. So I rushed to the opera house, which only takes me 8 minutes if I use the U-Bahn, warmed up, photocopied some music and then had one of nicest coachings I have ever had with a lovely american man called Stephen Hess who has been in Stuttgart since the late 1970’s. We are lucky that, despite retiring, Stephen took a contract extension with Stuttgart just to work with the Opera studio.

Since then I have had a few coachings, some language coachings, some good Kantine chatting time and generally I feel well settled and extremely lucky.

Friends and family

Away from the Opera I am finding not being with my wife a challenge. We talk a lot and that is great but it is not a substitute for actually seeing each other. We have discussed Germany and if I were to get a longer contract somewhere we might end up living here together which would be great.

I was extremely grateful to Collegium Vocale Ghent for having a concert here on Sunday in which my best mate (and best man) Thomas Hobbs and another old friend Samuel Boden were performing as Tenor soloists. It was wonderful to see them, have a beer, relax a bit, have some English banter and humour.

This weekend I go to IKEA to get the final parts of my bed and attend VFB Stuttgart vs Hoffenheim, because its cheap and I love football.

The week has been a relaxed introduction into working in Germany, rumour has it the next week won’t be so relaxing.

Until then! Tschuss!

Ps: Super happy the Scots are still part of the Union. Good work.