Singing for my supper

I'll be back. I promise. Really. In the meantime:

How I Spent My Day

1. Very important open letter regarding the future of New York City Opera over at Musical America, and a statement from Maestro Julius Rudel at the New York Times 2. Cf previous post .... anybody know any good recipes for mulberry wine?

Some more photos from "The Daily Coop" (as my buddy over at The Next 100 Pounds has dubbed my tendency to post pictures of the little guy on Facebook): I promise that he isn't really a stuffed toy even if he looks like one! Baby Beardies are unspeakably cute - puppies for this breed (which of course look nothing AT ALL like their adult selves) are hard to ignore. This is, in fact, one of the reasons the breed society is so outspoken about the demands and challenges of this breed once they reach adulthood, so that people aren't seduced by The Adorableness and wind up with an adult Beardie who they can't handle. While they are indeed wonderful family dogs and beyond friendly, they do not stay fuzzy little fluffballs for long and grow into big, high-energy, long-coated dogs who need a lot of time and energy to be happy! Since this is our third Beardie, we knew exactly what we were getting into, even though it's been a while and it's only now I'm rememb

He's no dummy! (Lest my photographer friends think I'm colour-blind: there was about an hour between the small and the large shots during which the light had changed, hence the difference in colour temps!!)

This packed (intensely hard-work, but ultimately very successful) semester is over and, although I have a new role to prepare for next month and there will no doubt be theatrical musings once I get into rehearsals, life for the next couple of weeks is entirely focused on the newest member of the family:

The article about NYCO I linked in this post has run a correction on what is a pretty glaring error: " The New York City Opera has suspended plans to announce its fall season. The headline of a previous version of this article incorrectly said it has suspended its season." Glad to hear that it sounds like merely a delay in finalizing plans rather than scrapping them altogether, but shame on you for that kind of misake, Wall Street Journal!

Ok, so a day late - although I don't think a dollar short, and no less heartfelt. Those endless hours at the typewriter in Los Angeles! You were determined that there were never going to be any real financial concerns to scare a kid into wondering if everything was going to be ok. To make sure that I really could keep up with the horses and the horseshows. That I could go back to the UK to study, first to reconnect with those important childhood years spent in England, and subsequently to complete my performance training at one of the most prestigious conservatories in the world without having to work 5 jobs just to pay the rent. Strangely, one of the things I remember most of our LA years was the Sunday night family steak dinners at The Mainsail in Marina Del Rey (or was it Venice?). The dark-paneled, underlit gloom which they billed as "New York Steakhouse", somewhat California-ized by funky murals on the walls and typically Los Angeles servers who almost certainl

This has been so much fun - the entries are really a hoot. Funny if you're only passingly familiar with the stories, and even funnier when you know them well (or have sung them!). Great stuff. The prize list is growing all the time, so I encourage everybody to have a look and a try, if only for a giggle! For those not familiar with twitter, to find the summaries go to www.twitter.com search the hashtag #operaplot (include the # symbol in your search). Here are some of the ones I submitted - I'll leave you to figure out which operas they are (comments welcome!): Druid love triangle goes up in flames while secret squeeze runs off with the kids. (this one was actually quoted in an LA Times article yesterday , which was kind of fun!) SWM seeks doll, sick singer, adventurous lady & bi-curious violinist for raving and poetry. No medics, please. Wedding bells for single-mother acquitted in baby-drowning scandal. Breaking News: mom pimps teen to get a head. Authority figures &

Click here for rules Short version: summarize an operaplot on Twitter in a status update of 140 characters or less. Tweet must include the hashtag #operaplot. Even if you're not an opera fan, it's worth tootling over to Twitter and searching the hashtag #operaplot to check these out - anybody who thinks opera, opera singers and opera fans are boring fuddy-duddies is in for a surprise!

I generally avoid discussing politics in public, having taken to heart sage advice given to me as a student that the three things you should never talk about on the job are politics, religion and vocal technique. Well, I've never managed to keep my mouth entirely shut about the latter, and apparently I'm now going for a two-out-of-three failure rate, but so much is going on that I'm finding it impossible to keep stumm. Even as the US government was threatening shutdown of its own, there was news again this past week of more opera companies suspending seasons, and symphonies filing for bankruptcy; in the UK, eyebrows were being raised over the recent Arts Council of England cuts . All of which has resulted in a great deal of activity in the press and blogosphere which needs to be shared and rather than paraphrase, I'm taking the liberty of linking to some of these articles and interviews. Much food for thought. From the Guardian Stage blog: Why do some theatre cr

The Cardinal's Nest I don't think it's just us mezzos who regularly face this, but a recent blog post I stumbled over has sure hit the nail on the head, almost word-for-word echoing my own experience and understanding! I won't even add comment here, since the author has said everything I would have myself. Enjoy!

5 auditions, three photoshoots (that I took, rather than was in!), two headcolds, and a full production of Figar o. Talk about "feast or famine" (and that's before we include my husband's concert commitments, as well as our daughter's school play and charity dance performances.) It's been insane! It's also been fantastic. Figaro , as always, was such a joy to work on (Mozart's music never seems to pall, even after 11 productions!) - and it was rewarding that it was so warmly received by the full houses we garnered. With my lovely Figaro colleagues Olivia Vote, Zulimar Lopez-Hernandez, and Troy Cook at the closing party I love my job(s), but all that said after another audition and 350 miles of driving today, I can't deny that I'm very glad for a day off tomorrow without any set commitments!

It seems that last year's "Catching up on missed TV" festival chez nous has rolled right on into the new year without missing a beat, and we've kicked off 2011 by finally watching the modern series' of Dr Who. We've wanted to give it a look for a while - like many, harboring fond memories of the show from our own childhoods, and wanting to see how they resurrected it - but when we discovered that David Tennant grew up in the same neighbourhood as our Glasgow family, it was just the push to ensure that we dug in and caught up. It would be a huge understatement to say that we have most definitely not been disappointed, and are having a BLAST with the adventures of the Tenth Doctor. It's a far cry from Jon Pertwee ("my" Doctor as a child - whoops, I'm dating myself!) and the wobbly-sets and toilet-plunger aliens which used to define the series; the high production values of the new episodes are almost cinematic at times, even if they do (tha

We didn't go far out of town, but one of the beauties of Scotland is that from the major cities you can be away from the city and into rural countryside in a matter of minutes. Callander/Killin used to be one of my favorite "get away from it all" spots when I was working in Scotland and living with the family in Glasgow, and - thanks to the glorious weather (we're still marvelling at the 50+-degree temperatures and true sunshine that we had for 95% of our visit!) and a cousin with a car, we had a magical day out on this trip, including not only a quick stop by my former haunts, but also getting to see a couple of the minor lochs, a very castle-y castle and a celebrity Highland Cow - all within an hour's drive of central Glasgow. Bliss. Loch Earn Even in the depths of midwinter, the countryside is staggeringly beautiful. FWIW, this was about 3pm - may have been warm, but the sun still goes down early in the frozen north.... Doune Castle Edinburgh Castl

(PSA: this post probably ought to come with a tilt-shift alert!! The camera I was using recreates the effect of these adjustable focal-plane lenses digitally and since I love it I may have... uh... indulged a little..... :) Duddingston Village (from Arthur's Seat) Towards the Lothian Coast (from Arthur's Seat) Duddingston Loch (from Arthur's Seat) Edinburgh from the Castle same view without the TS effect You can always find a muckle coo if you look... The Forth Railway Bridge

The University Yup, blue sky. In January. Kelvingrove Art Gallery (organ recitals - in the art gallery - most lunchtimes) The Burell Collection, in the idyllic grounds of Pollok Park Pollok House (The tilt-shift feature of my Canon s95 saw a lot of use this trip...!) One of the themes of the entire visit: Muckle Coos (aka Highland Cattle). The prizewinning herd at Pollok House are known around the world

Nearly thirteen years. Since I left the UK I've had a baby, established a career, and watched my life morph from what was more-or-less still a student lifestyle to that of boring (but stable!) suburbia. I've been re-assimilated into my birth country and had the luxury of living near my parents and getting re-acquainted adult-to-adult. I've learned to accept and enjoy the higher standard of American living, embracing the 24hr supermarket with open arms, and have grown to consider firehose-strength water pressure a constitutional right. I've even started thinking of Chipotle as our "local". Still, within minutes of landing in Glasgow, it felt like being back home. Now, granted, I never lived in Scotland (although I did work there and spend extended time there), so perhaps the changes of 13 years weren't as obvious to me as they would have been in London or Manchester, but even with that in mind, there was that sense of coming home and, frankly, of never ha

A well-timed nudge expressing pleasure that I'd "finally posted again" (!) reminded me I hadn't yet posted my annual roundup for the year. Somehow while working on that I was also moved to experiment with a "new year, new look" for the blog so apologies for any glitches - work in progress! So, without further ado: In 2010 ..... I finally caught up on about 5 years of British television I'd managed to miss; this project started out merely as entertainment, but quickly became something much more artistically important and, in a way, prompted the theme of dramatic exploration that drove my performing year. We started the year with North & South and were bowled over by this amazing production - it would be hard to overstate what a tremendous artistic "reboot" it prompted (it even warranted its own blog entry ). Impressed as we were, we decided to give some of Richard Armitage's other productions a try which led us first back to S