New York: Done, done and done

Approximately 43 hours of singing, including some Bernstein and Strauss at NYCO.  A fabulous week of auditions, with some outstanding singing, both from folks who are contenders for this year’s roster and from others that we’ve flagged to watch for next year.

We just fought our way down 8^th Avenue with our irritatingly large amount of luggage and gear, had an impromptu meeting with RT in front of Madison Square Garden, tapped some travel karma to hop on an earlier train, and are rolling toward Philadelphia.

Here, in complete random order of importance and with no regard to categorization, are reflections on these 6 days in New York, the kick-off to this year’s tour:

• Rock star audition monitors keep us running on time(ish…), soothe nerves in the hallway, and return all of our pens at the end of the day.
• It’s nice to have guest pianists introduced to us.
• Collating resumes and rep sheets into 3 sets keeps singers from having to fumble with the papers in the room.
• It’s sad when performers are less interesting when they sing than they are when they chitchat with us.
• Roller skates in opera are just plain fun. (I haven’t done an opera with roller skates in it since 1986, and I’d say it’s about time.)
• Only one person remarked on the (somewhat unusual) composition of our audition panel. “All women!?!?”  Yes, sir.  :)
• It’s totally fine to offer just an A section of a da capo aria if the entire aria would take 7-8 minutes to sing.
• A visit from a baby on the lunch hour is what every audition day needs.
• Pierrot’s Tanzlied works really well in audition when the few sung lines preceding the aria are included.
• Miss Hedgehog’s Aria from The Fantastic Mr. Fox is a fun soprano English aria option.
• A little Steve Perry, Bell Biv Devoe and Billy Joel help the end-of-day data backup and paperwork go down just a little more smoothly.
• Pedigrees aren’t everything, and surprising things come out of folks without big name institutions on their resumes.
• I’m really tired of 42^nd Street.
• We need an Opera Sherpa. A Sherpera.