Ch-ch-ch-changes

So much has happened since I last posted. A dress rehearsal, two performances, two scenes concerts... where to begin.

I'll begin with the sad news that my dear aunt, "Auntie Cyd," passed away on Friday, the 21st at the age of 96. She had been so supportive of both Alex's and my musical aspirations. I'll miss her dearly.

Back to the opera.

I decided to make a true effort to "get over it" and be social. Well well well. It worked. Mostly. There are still one or two women in the chorus who I think are just unhappy people, but otherwise everyone has responded, even if hesitantly at first. Of course, the fact that I brought cookies, a big crossword book and the latest Opera News helped! Another thing that helped is that one of the guys told me about a group on Facebook for the summerfest program. I joined Facebook and joined the group. It's a cool site, much nicer to work with and look at than MySpace. So I've shared my photobucket link and I've sent links to Romeo reviews to one of the members who's been posting them.

Ok so... let's move on to the dress rehearsal. My robe was so long, I was tripping over it as I walked. I don't know how I got out there without dropping Erika (our dead Juliette) to the floor. Somehow I managed. Then when it was time to leave the guys got to her head and started lifting before Rachel and I got to her feet. We scrambled to get our end, meanwhile the shroud slid off in front of me so I tried to catch it, now only holding on with one hand, while also trying not to trip. So I might have stepped on the dress of the woman at the end of the line... sorry about that!

Two days later, on opening night, I found that the costume shop had hemmed the robe. Too much. Now it was above my ankles! Better that than tripping I guess. So after the prologue I went to the costume shop to have it lengthened. Of course no one was there b/c they were all backstage checking everyone as they went on. But eventually I did get it lengthened before my next 5 second appearance to remove the basket.

Sunday the 22nd was the next performance. It was at 2, and Auntie Cyd's funeral was at 2:15, so I was thinking of her as I went on stage.

I brought chocolate chip cookies so after the prologue I put them out in the green room, along with the NY Times crossword book, a cool ball and the latest Opera News. It was actually a lot of fun hanging out with people there. Plus as a bonus this cute 29 year old guy flirted shamelessly with me. Well he flirts with everyone but hey, who cares? He's probably already made his way through the female chorus so he moved on to the supers! Plus he sang a bit of Ecco Ridente... Aye aye aye. He's the one who told me about the Facebook site. If I were, oh, 10 years younger, and single... let's not go there.

Hair, hair, hair. They sewed these loops into the monk hoods and we have to make pin curls in our hair to clip to the loops. Pin curls, I learned, are made by taking a small section of hair, twirling it up and clipping it to the top of the head like Princess Leah (sp?) or something. We're supposed to have the hair people do it but they're always busy doing wigs and makeup for the singers so we're sort of on our own until the last minute, and I do mean last minute. As in, Jenny is giving the "places" call and they're busy redoing our pin curls! So Sunday I did Cathy's hair. In addition to the pin curls we have to have buns. So we sit around twirling and pinning each other's hair. Then, about 5 minutes before the curtain call we were told that we could have our hoods off, so we had this frantic minute of undoing and fluffing out our hair so it looked presentable on stage! It was fun. Rachel ended up keeping hers in a ponytail, and Sharron decided not to go out. Cathy and I had our hair loose. I wonder if the audience was surprised to see three women there as the monks?

We got comp tickets for both scenes concerts. Last week I brought Denise. It was great fun except that she spoke between every performer, usually to ask, "Is HE in Romeo?" "Is SHE in Romeo?" in spite of the fact that I told her that everyone is in all three operas. The performance was great!

Then yesterday I got three tickets so I gave them to Jean and she brought her son along. The show was fabulous. I wrote up my impressions and emailed them to Patricia for the njot blog. I'll post them here too. After the show I was walking out with Jean and Nick and then told her that I wanted to see if anyone I knew was hanging around, so they left. I peeked in near the stage door but didn't see anyone so I went downstairs to leave and who was there but my flirty 29 year old friend. I don't think I need to put his name here. If by any chance anyone from the operafest ends up reading this post they'll surely know to whom I'm referring and I'm sure they'll get a kick out of it. Anyway, he was primed for high-level flirting. Downright suggestive. I gave it right back to him, ingeniously including the fact that I'm married whenever possible. We said goodbye, I left and went to the car, and then there he was walking by so I offered him a ride. He accepted. Turns out he was going two blocks away. Duh!

Friday afternoon there's an ice-cream party and I got the ok to bring Alex. Then Saturday afternoon Jim and I go to Magic Flute, and then the final Romeo is that night. I'm sad that it's ending. I wish we had more than three peformances.