That whooshing sound you hear is a long sigh of relief escaping my well-worked lungs. It's been a long and exciting season, and now it's time once again to play catch-up! Also, my darling husband/webmaster has fixed up my blog so that I can now make entries myself (previously, we had a cumbersome system in which he had to do it for me). I hope to be able to keep up much better now!

My last entry brought us up to September 2008, when I was performing the role of Hecate in Austin Shakespeare's production of MacBeth. I hadn't done the Scottish play since high school, and this was especially fun. Hecate and the witches all sang, and the "aria" was written especially for me, in the style of Britten. The show was a great success and I really enjoyed being a part of "straight theater" (that's what opera singers call plays without music).It was a very different performing dynamic than what I'm used to.  For one thing, all the actors were called at the very beginning of the show and did a physical and vocal warmup together; we never do this in opera!  There were a lot of battle scenes, which required the guys to rehearse them before every show. This was especially fun when I let slip during warm-ups that it was International Talk Like a Pirate Day, and they ran around rehearsing their battle sequences yelling, "Yaaaaarrrr!"

In opera, you usually have your own dressing room, but here the stars were lumped in with us peons. The actors were all so wonderful, and they were really receptive and generous about having a "foreigner" in the cast. They were really respectful and kind about my art form, and I was in awe of their work! I hope to have the chance to work with Austin Shakespeare again, and they don't even have to let me sing. ;)

Between September and November, I made lots of audition trips to New York. Fall is the big audition season, so those of us who don't live in the Big Apple tend to make lots of runs back and forth.

NOVEMBER 2008

With my "son" Andrea Bocelli --- keep in mind that I am wearing 3 inch heels and still only come up to his shoulder!

In November, there was a very special event. I got to revisit a role I really enjoy, Mama Lucia in Cavalleria Rusticana. And this was a special version: a semi-staged concert with San Antonio Opera, starring the beautiful Chilean soprano Veronica Villareol as Santuzza, and Andrea Bocelli as Turiddu. The rest of the cast was also stellar: Dana Beth Miller in a piece of real luxury casting as Lola, and Marcello Guzzo as her cuckolded husband Alfio.

With Veronica Villareol and Dana Beth Miller

We were all treated like stars! I stayed in the gorgeous old Fairmount Hotel, steps from the Riverwalk, and was driven around in a limo by a lovely fellow named Rocky, who quickly became a pal. Rocky has done some security and it showed ... of course, no one knew who I was, but it was fun seeing people think I was "somebody" because I was being squired about in a limo with a gentleman who clearly looked like a bodyguard!

The cast was great. Since it was a concert, the rehearsal period was fairly short, and Andrea didn't come in for the first couple of days since he was in Washington doing another concert there.  He was very low-key and kind to everyone. When we were introduced, the first thing he said to me was, "You're too young to be my mother!" Shucks, Andrea, I bet you say that to all the girls. ;)

Needless to say, I was the envy of his hordes and hordes of female fans because, in my role as his mom, I got to hug and kiss on him. This must have been a spectacle, because Andrea is quite tall and I am not at all! He really had to bend over for "un altro bacio, Mamma!". And I'm afraid I left some bright red lipstick on his stubbly little cheek.

We had two performances, both of which were sold out and very well-received. You can see a video of the curtain call, posted by a fan.

It's quite blurry, but I'm on the end, next to Andrea. At this performance, there was a male fan running along the foot of the stage, lobbing handfuls of red rose petals. They were very pretty, but throwing stuff at a blind guy maybe isn't the best way to pay tribute. He kept hitting Andrea with fistfuls of them, and they also made the stage very slippery. Eventually security managed to curb his enthusiasm.

After the concert, as usual, I was too wound up to go right to bed, so my husband and I went down to the bar in the Fairmount. Sadly, the kitchen was closed, but we were able to get drinks. There was a large party behind us, and after we'd been there a short time, a woman and her teenaged daughter approached me and said, "Pardon me for interrupting your evening, but are you by any chance 'Mama'?" She and her daughter had been at the show, and were thrilled to meet one of the singers in person, right there in their very same hotel. They asked me to sign their program. Then I got mobbed, because the table behind us was filled with happy, tipsy concertgoers (many of whom were fellow Longhorns --- Hook'em!), and once they learned I was in the concert, nothing would do but I autograph their programs as well and sing a little bit for them. I tossed off a little of some Italian ditty, which earned me wild applause, comped drinks from the bartender, and a promise from the manager to hold the kitchen open for me the following night! You see, all of a sudden I had become "somebody". And I'm not too proud to admit that Mama got huge kicks out of this. ;)

After the second night, however, we had to pack up and rush home. Thanksgiving was the very next day, and we had lots of cooking to do. No rest for the wicked, as you shall soon see ... because next I had to get ready to become a Pigeon and a Snail.

But more on that in my next update.

Let's play catch-up. Well, long time no see! I haven’t fallen off the face of the earth, nor the blogosphere … most of my blogging has been taking place over at www.thenext100pounds.com. Take a look, if you want to see what I’ve been up to since New Orleans.

A reader in London (hi Tracey!) sent me a nice note asking when I was going to start blogging here again, so here I am.

So, let’s hit a few highlights of the past year:

JANUARY I started the aforementioned blog, which chronicles my (currently up to 118 pound!) weight loss, or as I like to call it, my “fat relocation project” (I’m relocating it OFF my behind!). As you might imagine, it’s been a major focus of the year for me. It’s too soon to know how it may or may not affect my career, but I’m really enjoying the change.

FEBRUARY

I sang a fun concert of opera highlights for a concert series, in which I appear annually with some friends. It’s a chance to get dolled up and sing all types of naughty repertoire (by which I mean stuff I don’t normally get to sing much) for a very appreciative audience.

MARCH

I sang Il trittico in El Paso on the same set we used in New Orleans. Two Tritticos in a row! I loved El Paso and we had a lot of fun, especially visiting Old Mesilla, NM and a ranch out in the desert where they do a lot of filming.



A beautiful door in Old Mesilla



A house in Mesilla



Gianni Schicchi: Ladro! Ladro! As Zita (center) in Gianni Schicchi. I loved this costume with the crazy hat and the Carol Burnett wig!



With the Trittico principals outside the restaurant at Cattleman’s Ranch. Left to right: baritone Bojan Knezevic , me, soprano Oksana Krovytska, and tenor Stephen Mark Brown.

APRIL

I traveled to Sarasota, Florida, where I took part in a memorial concert for my dear friend, the tenor Gary Rideout, who passed away in September 2007. This was a very meaningful event for me, because it was in honor of my beloved friend, and helped to raise money for the Gary Rideout Memorial Scholarship which will help young singers. And, as befitted everything that ever happened involving Gary, it was a great adventure.

It was, quite literally, a dark and stormy night. The lights went out in the middle of the concert and we had to continue by candlelight! Luckily, our talented singers and marvelous, lovely pianist were up to the task. Highlights included the marvelous mezzo-soprano Suzanna Guzman (http://www.newcentury.nu/guzman.html) singing the most beautiful and moving “Over the Rainbow”; soprano Kristin Clayton(http://www.newcentury.nu/clayton.html) performing a very funny Sondheim piece; and tenor Hugh Smith (http://www.newcentury.nu/smith.html) belting out one of Gary’s signature pieces, a gorgeous “Recondita armonia”, unintimidated by the loud thunder and lightning. My own selections were very personal. I love Mahler, and as soon as Gary’s agent, Scott George of New Century Artists, asked me to participate, I knew I wanted to sing “Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen”. In the candlelight, I spoke the English translation for the audience, and then sang; it was a piece I felt suited Gary’s philosophy very well, and that I love to sing; but it was a miracle I could get through it. (Actually, each time I sang, I immediately went off in a corner and cried). For the final number, I sang an old but very beautiful and, I think, appropriate chestnut: “When I Have Sung My Songs For You”. It’s a simple piece, but sung simply and without excess sentimentality it is quite beautiful and moving. I pictured my Gary and sang it to him.

The best part of the evening was meeting Gary’s family --- he had told us about each other for years, but we had never met; yet I would have known them anywhere. The resemblance was strong! Thank goodness Scott warned me that Gary’s brother could have been his twin, or I might have thought I was seeing a ghost. I feel enormously privileged to have been able to know and love this wonderful, talented, amazing man, and to have been able to offer my voice in comfort to his friends and especially his family.

In March, I also started working out with a personal trainer!



In my hosts’ beautiful home in Sarasota, after the concert.

MAY

Time for a trip to Youngstown, OH, where I sang my first Beethoven 9th with the Symphony, at the gorgeous De Yors Performing Arts Center. The other soloists and I got the royal treatment; among other things, we were handsomely squired around town in a variety of increasingly tricked out limos and party vans. We felt like rock stars.



With tenor Kip Wilborn and baritone Kris Irmiter in our stylin’ limo.



After the concert, with Kip, me, soprano Kishna Davis, and Kris. Not only did we ride in style, we were wined and dined magnificently post-concert at Overture, the on-site restaurant with a menu rivaling any chic New York establishment’s. Everything about this experience was simply flawless.

May’s other significant event occurred as I was riding my new bike to my fitness class in the park. I came around a corner, hit a patch of gravel, and went down hard on the sidewalk, badly fracturing my wrist. Long, painful story short --- I had to have surgery and now sport a titanium plate and a bunch of screws in my wrist, as well as a scar that frankly looks like I tried to off myself. My little brother now refers to me as “Bionica”. My husband calls me “Puff Puff”, because it was badly swollen for some time and I complained about that quite a lot. It’s fine, now. Mobility is slightly impaired but I’m doing physical therapy and it should mostly come back.

JUNE

June was a big month, largely dedicated to recovering from my accident and subsequent surgery. I celebrated both my birthday and my 100 pound weight loss. A film crew from the New York Times came out to do a little feature on me, which you can see here:

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/17/an-opera-singers-fat-relocation-project

This was a lot of fun. Not only was the photojournalist, David Frank, a great guy, but I felt like I had my own reality TV show for a while there! Friends and family really rallied around, and I was grateful for their support. Originally, I had planned to commemorate both the birthday and the 100 pounds at a state park with an eight-mile hike we like to refer to as “The Death March”. Sadly, the broken wrist prevented such debauchery, but we did take a brisk turn on the tamer Hike and Bike Trail and eat a lot of good barbecue. The Death March has been rescheduled for October!

JULY

When I’m not singing, I work with young singers. I traveled to Princeton, NJ to give one of my Business of Singing workshops to young singers at the CoOPERAtive program. For the second year, I also administered and stage directed a three-week training program of my own, Spotlight on Opera. I love directing, partly because I’m just a bossy chick who enjoys telling other people what to do, partly for the po-WAH, and partly because … well, I just think I have something to say. I also enjoy working with young singers.



With the Spotlight on Opera faculty and cast.

The other big event in July was an interview with the health/fitness reporter for my local paper, the Austin American Statesman. I really enjoyed meeting the reporter, Pamela LeBlanc, who, as it turned out, is an opera fan and had heard me perform at Austin Lyric Opera. You can check out the article here.

Article in Statesman

AUGUST

In August, I finally made it back to New York for some voice lessons and coachings! This is a very good thing because I have a big spring coming up … lots of new music to learn. And I was finally cleared by my doctor to start working out with my trainer again.

SEPTEMBER

That brings us up to today, September 2008. I am currently appearing in a production of the play (as opposed to the opera) MacBeth. I play Hecate, the queen of the witches, and original music in the style of Britten has been composed for my speech. It’s a very cool production and I am excited to be part of such a unique project!



As Hecate in Austin Shakespeare’s MacBeth. Photo by Jennifer Mead.

Looking ahead, I will be appearing with Andrea Bocelli in San Antonio Opera’s production of Cavalleria Rusticana in November. I am currently preparing the roles of Madame de Croissy and Mere Jeanne for Austin Lyric Opera’s production of Dialogues of the Carmelites in April; I’ll be covering the wonderful Sheila Nadler who is coming in at rather the last minute due to some European engagements, and singing the smaller role in the same production. Also in the works are a New Year’s Eve concert of opera love/hate duets with tenor Scott Blackshire, and my debut with Indianapolis Opera as Erda in Das Rheingold in May. And, I just got a phone call this week asking me to play the roles of the Pigeon and the Snail in Jonathan Dove’s The Adventures of Pinocchio at Minnesota Opera in March! This is a particularly exciting project.

I hope to have lots of wonderful stories to share, so stay tuned!

Saturday was a very long day of Schicchi rehearsal. Any day you rehearse Schicchi is long, because this little gem of an opera is incredibly complicated to stage. You have nine principals, and most of them are on stage for the entire opera. Every movement has to be choreographed nine times. With that many people onstage, great care must be taken to delineate the various characters and family groups. Our director has a clever idea for dealing with this: he’s updated it to the late fifties and each of us is reminiscent of a very recognizable 50’s icon or stereotype. We have the Ward and June Cleaver couple, we have the fresh-faced Sandra Dee type, we have the Rebel Without a Cause, we even have Norma Desmond (that would be me). Plus, it’s all set in New Orleans. Very cute.

One of the great complications of staging a Trittico, and probably why it isn’t done more often regionally, is the scheduling nightmare. The cast is huge. Some singers can be reused from act to act but not all. You have to have a complete women’s chorus/principal contingent, only four or five of whom have possible roles in any other opera, for Suor Angelica. (there are a few lines for chorus men, but only offstage; same for Tabarro). Figuring out who to call when so that no one cast goes too long without rehearsing their show (and forgets everything they’ve done so far) or how to avoid scheduling people cast in more than one opera without exhausting them or asking them to be two places at once is nothing short of a miracle.

And we are doing this all, from beginning to end, in three weeks, including performances. That’s one to two weeks short, depending on the company. Whew!

It’s a good thing we have great people involved.

Yesterday was one of the most beautiful fall Sunday afternoons with which God has ever graced the earth, and we spent it at Swamp Fest. There is always some party or other going on in New Orleans, and usually they aren’t too hard to find. Swamp Fest is a music festival held at the zoo in New Orleans’ beautiful Audoubon Park. There was zydeco, there was fais-do-do, there was Cajun music of every description on a variety of stages throughout the zoo. And there was dancing.

I’m not much of a dancer. I wish I were, but it’s just not my talent. But what I adored about this event was that EVERYONE was out there on the floor dancing to this happy music. Young couples, old marrieds, little kids, grandparents. The whole family gets in the act. You saw daddies dancing with their little girls, little brothers and sisters two-stepping together, older couples who’ve been doing this all their lives and are su-huh-huh-lick. People, like us, who did not get on the dance floor but couldn’t help but shimmy as they walked along. It was fantastic.

There were booths set up by local restaurants, selling Cajun food as fast as they could wrap it up. Frederick Burchinal and I opted for the alligator artichoke crab meat wrap. It was okay, nothing I’d order again. We all shared some bites of very thin fried eggplant (melt in your mouth!) with a crawfish tail sauce, and a spicy crabcake in remoulade. Mmmm! The lines were just too long to go back for bread pudding or sweet potato pie, but it was just as well for our waistlines!

There are many reasons to adore our rehearsal pianist, Dottie Randall, and one of them is that she is a nonstop font of one-liners. I was admiring her sparklies, and she said, “I call these my summer diamonds. Some are diamonds, and some are not!”

When we passed through the aquarium, she decided to educate Frederick Burchinal and me. “Do you know what the difference between a Southern and a Northern zoo is?” she drawled. “Southern zoos provide recipes.”

And they did. Right there on the wall next to the exhibit. Here’s proof:



Seems just a little tasteless to me.

Dottie is also a big cat whisperer. She claims to have learned this from director Linda Brovsky, who learned it from the tiger trainer on an Aida production. And I have to say, it kinda works. You basically chirrup at the cat, like a happy housecat does. It’s that cute, high-pitched little purr that they do. Dottie tried it first on the cougar, who sat up and hissed loudly at her. Clearly she had the wrong dialect. Next she tried it on the bobcats. One of them came right up to the front of the cage. Even the sleepy jaguar raised his head and looked at her.

We enjoyed an afternoon wandering through this beautiful zoo, which is very well done, and filled with animals that look healthy and happy. One of the smartest things I’ve ever seen is that they have stations in various places where kids can just play and let off some steam.



There’s a wonderful grotto with little waterfalls and pools of water that the kids can splash in. There’s a “tree house” they can climb on. For the older kids, there’s a climbing wall. And these are scattered throughout the zoo, so you walk a little bit and look at the animals, and then the little ones can run and play. And then there’s something fabulous and intriguing right around the corner.



This charming fountain is at the zoo entrance.



This bird took a real liking to Frederick!

My favorite thing at the zoo was an area where you could see and touch baby animals!



This tiny snapping turtle’s shell was still a little soft.

I didn’t take a pic of the very friendly rat snake who wanted to crawl down my blouse. (She probably just wanted to get away from all the attention). Her handler said she loved to get in people’s pockets! I did snap and pet these cute baby nutria.



See the webbed toes? These are aquatic rodents from South America. We have them loose in the river in Austin, too; here they have invaded the swamps, and are destroying them by eating the vegetation. Here are the adults:



My other favorite thing was the white alligator.



They are not albino; they have a condition related to albinism (lucism, I think?) but they are not completely lacking in pigment; they have blue eyes instead of pink and have some patches of color here and there. They are found only in Louisiana and are quite rare; the babies don’t typically survive long in the wild, since it’s hard for them to hide. The white alligator is the zoo’s biggest attraction. I felt sorry for it being in this relatively small tank instead of in the big swamp exhibit with the rest of the gators; but maybe it wouldn’t get along with them.

After our lovely day at Swamp Fest, we headed back to the hotel and enjoyed a potluck dinner and many glasses of fine wine in the courtyard. It’s always great when you have a convivial group of colleagues!

The hotel I am staying in, despite promising free wireless and broadband access (in big neon letter on the side of the building, no less), has thus far proven unequal to the task of living up to its promise. That is, these amenities are available if you happen to be staying in a room close enough to the office to pick up the wireless signal; or if you happen to be staying in a room where the broadband actually works. I happen to be staying in a room where neither is true. My repeated patient and honeyed complaints have met with some confused efforts by the staff, to whom the Internetz in all its glory remains one of life’s great mysteries.

Thus it is that I frequently find myself sitting, of an evening, on a wobbly iron table in the courtyard close to the office, which after much trial and error proves to be the ONLY spot where access is sometimes ---not all the time, but sometimes --- possible.



A few days ago, having attempted on more than one occasion throughout the day to get a connection, I went out a little after 11 p.m. and at last struck gold. I huddled in my sweatshirt and tapped tapped tapped away, downloading 84 emails, several of which pertained solely to work. Then the office door opened, and a desk clerk I had not previously seen emerged. She is a little old lady whose wrinkled face is heavily spackled with makeup in bright shades, sporting an improbably red bouffant ‘do. She said, quite politely, “Ma’am, I don’t know if anyone told you, but no one is allowed in the courtyard after 11 p.m.”

You can imagine the displeasure that coursed through my veins upon hearing this utterance.

I gently explained to her that, while I would like nothing better than to be snug in my room which is supposed to be equipped with not one, but two –two!--- sources of Internet access, alas! This was not possible. This was the only place in the entire hotel I had had any luck at all accessing the Net, and now that I had it, I was not about to move lest this tenuous thread be forever rendered asunder.

She said, “If I let you do it, everyone will want to do it.”

What is this, kindergarten? This rule is posted nowhere, not on the walls, not in any hotel literature I had seen. I had been here over a week and no one had said a word. There was no one else around. I wasn’t making noise. I needed to download my emails, for heaven’s sake, and since her hotel was not in fact providing this advertised service to me in my room, I was going to take it where I could get it.

She repeated her theory that my presence there would lead every other hotel resident into temptation and sin, with unspeakable results. She offered to let me into the exercise room, which as previously noted features very little space and certainly no table or chair. Not to mention that moving might jeopardize my access.

I reiterated that I required access for work, and that it had not been available all day, and now that it was, I did not intend to move until this work was completed, and that would be about half an hour. “Half an hour?” she repeated dubiously. “Well, all right. If you’re only going to be half an hour. Half an hour, right?”

At last she retreated to the office, where she spent the half hour peering through the blinds every five minutes, prompting me to nickname her Gladys Kravitz (after Samantha and Darren’s nosy neighbor in Bewitched. You know the one. “AAAAbbb-ner!”)



The next morning, I went into the office and spoke to the manager, who sighed, rolled his eyes, and said, “I’ll leave her a note to let her know it’s ok for you to be out there.”

The next day was a day off for me. Could I have gone down early in the evening? Why, certainly. But that would have deprived me of my petty revenge. I went down at 11:05. Gladys was distressed. She flitted anxiously around the blinds, but clearly she’d gotten the note. At last she ventured --- not right up to me in the courtyard, but to the covered passageway surrounding, several feet away. “Ma’am,” she called, “What is your room number?”

I told her with utmost cordiality. The only reason I can think that she wanted my room number was that she was hoping against hope that I MIGHT NOT BE THE AUTHORIZED PERSON and she could kick me out with impunity. No such luck, Gladys. I took my sweet time, then left as quietly as I had come.

Last night, in broad and exuberant defiance of Gladys Kravitz, I made her worst nightmare come true: I sat out in the courtyard with THREE OTHER PEOPLE and drank a glass of wine. And we talked quietly until 12:30 a.m. She kept peeking through the blinds but dared not say anything, because for at least half an hour Dee, the desk clerk with the shift before hers, hung around and chatted with us, too. After 11 p.m. !!! The horror!!! Sorry, Gladys, you are outclassed. See you at 11:05 p.m!

Well, Halloween was quite a good time here in Nawlins!

We had rehearsal from 11-2, which was annoying because it really makes it impossible to eat lunch at a decent hour, and sure enough, I got a bit of a headache from waiting too long and it stayed with me the rest of the day, threatening to become a migraine, despite popping two of my precious Imitrex. Those are the only things that work for my headaches, and they cost a small fortune. Happily, it did not go into migraine. Next time I’ll take my lunch and eat it on a break if I have to!

The rehearsal itself was great. Talk about luxury casting! The smaller roles are being taken by REAL voices, and they are not character voices. Tinca/Gherardo is being sung by David Sadlier (a cousin, no doubt!) who is on faculty at Baylor, and is a very fine tenor who probably could be singing the leads. He’s tall and handsome as well. The bass who is singing Talpa/Simone introduced himself to me by saying, “In all the years I’ve been singing, I’ve never once had a stage wife!” We both laughed over that; I think I’ve only had a stage husband once or twice. Contraltos and basses never get to hook up! His name is Luis-Ottavio Faria, a Brazilian who sings all over Europe. And what a voice! Rich, resonant, rumbly, everything you want a bass voice to be. We should be doing Simon Boccanegra for him.

Our other principals are quite impressive as well. I haven’t yet heard Frederick Burchinal (Michele/Schicchi) sing much, but he has a long list of credits which include many performances at the Met. Brian Hymel (Luigi/Rinuccio) has a big, impressive voice in a handsome package; he’s also very friendly and sweet. He sings Luigi’s sad aria so gorgeously.

Then of course, there’s our leading lady, Mardi Byers, with whom I’ve hit it off (more about that later). I have rarely seen such a passionate and natural actress and singer combined. Her Suor Angelica is just heart-wrenching. Her Georgetta sparkles. It’s a true spinto soprano; dark, rich, but brilliant in the top. And she’s a load of fun.

So, yesterday we got all my Tabarro scenes staged, including the aria, which is going to be a blast. Since we’ve only done Suor Angelica so far, nobody had really heard me sing yet, and I think they were a little surprised. The assistant conductor/chorus master, who has been running the rehearsals, certainly was caught off guard by how long I held my one and only high note! I told her, “This is the only high note I get all night, you have to let me have it!” She laughed and next time she waited for me.

Frugola is a ragpicker, and in this version, she scours the French Quarter for goodies. Among the items I pull out of my bag to show Georgetta are a Mardi Gras mask, beads, and a voodoo doll (which our ASM, Bryn, whipped up very creatively out of newspaper and tape; he even had a little bow tie). So last night, when Mardi and I braved the Quarter, I had no scruples about snatching up handfuls of fallen beads! Authentic Mardi Gras beads, authentically ragpicked from the authentic French Quarter! There, I’ve done my character research. We didn’t really have costumes, but we decided we were going as tourists. We each had our mask and our scavenged beads.

Our first stop of the evening was Arnoud’s, a lovely old New Orleans restaurant. We had a reservation for the main dining room but their AC was out, so they offered us seating in the adjoining jazz bistro. This turned out to be the best thing we could have done.

No sooner had we been seated and begun to peruse the mouthwatering menu, than the trio arrived: banjo, trumpet, and string bass. They were fabulous, and went table to table. They also sang. Best of all, it wasn’t too loud. They didn’t come to our table, though; so when they passed by us on their first break Mardi (not a shy girl) demanded charmingly that they come play for us. Sure enough, on their return from their break, they came to us first. Mardi told them that we wanted to sing with them! Now, they get this kind of request all the time, with results you can just imagine. They asked us what we wanted to sing, and we settled on “Can’t Help Lovin’ That Man”. Well, as soon as we started in, you could see that they were pleasantly surprised, as were the patrons at surrounding tables. After that we sang “Summertime”. People wanted to buy us drinks. We told everyone we were from the opera and invited them to come.

At the next break, the string bass player came and sat with us, and told us in his soft New Orleans drawl that we were “nightingales” and we “blew him away”. And then he told us all about his grandkids, and how the four-year-old was enamoured of the musical Cats, which he had seen many times on video; so they took him to New York to see the Broadway show and this very active kid was so entranced that he didn’t move for hours, and couldn’t speak after the show. He wants to bring them to the opera, so I wrote down all the information for him. He told us that there’s no music in the Louisiana schools now, and how after Katrina when his family fled to Houston, he was overwhelmed by the music program they had there. Finally his colleagues had to drag him back to the set! We sat through two more sets, and when we finally paid the bill, we found our drinks and desserts had been paid for. I don’t think I’ve ever had so much fun in my life.

It’d be hard to top that experience, but we decided to wander down Bourbon Street. The party down there was rowdy but friendly; crowded but not sardine-crowded. People were happy and having a good time. Music poured out of every doorway, mostly live, warring with sound system from the bars across the street or next door. Costumed people milled around, having their pictures taken. Mardi and I took a lot! Of course, the best costumes are the homemade ones, and probably the best we saw all night were a trio from Queen of the Damned, the Anne Rice vampire novel and movie.

We wandered around for about an hour and a half, and then it was really time to get home … rehearsal on the morrow, you know! I hope you all had a happy and fun Halloween. But I bet I had more fun than you did, nyah nyah nyah.;)



The young lady dressed as the Vampire Queen was remarkably soft spoken and modest for someone with such a hot body wearing such a hot outfit! She was getting a lot of attention … small wonder!



The Chauvenist Pig was another one of my favorites. Simple, but spot on. Notice the cell phone glued to his ear. Every time we passed this guy, he was in the same position. Come to think of it, he may have been with one of the bars --- they had people outside trying to lure customers in.



Satan and his minions were in full attendance. This guy was REALLY into character, and like many of the bead throwers, insisted on seeing nekkid flesh before he’d toss out the bounty. We did see a few women (and several men) comply.



Mardi had to have her picture taken with Death (or whoever he was).



The Bishop was drunk as a skunk, but he wanted to offer me communion with his giant bottle of beer. In his other hand is a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup Mardi gave him. Mardi was handing out treats.

There was lots more to see. I’ll leave you with view, and the sad knowledge that wherever you were, whatever you did on Halloween, I probably had a better time than you. Nyah, nyah, nyah!