Season eatings

Funny how well adjusted we've become in no time at all. We spent an extremely homey holiday (making it home away from home,as usual), cooking a delicious tray of roasted vegetables and meats.
we opened up the futon in the living room, we brought the pillows and comforters over,and we basically stayed in the entire day watching nice kiddie movies on TV and eating (included in the feast was a disgustingly yummy chocolate pudding desert from a can you heat up in the microwave!; a childhood favorite of my husband...).
The past few days and a few more coming up are all one big vacation in the middle of rehearsals (since many in the cast are foreigners and flew back home) but I am lucky and Peter is here with me for that entire vacation, and so we've been celebrating until my 'have-to-prove-myself' anxiety almost disappeared , drowned by wine and holiday foods, and plenty good old London friends! (meals, pubs, walks around town, dinner parties, what not).
Happy holidays!

London time

After I made a decision to go ahead and spend the money and live across from the opera house,(which seems to be the recommended thing to be doing here) the "flat" I found was so awful (it is at "pre-furbished" condition);Well, I couldn't breathe for 3 nights; It was filthy, damp, and God it was depressing.
So I had to make an even more hard-core financialy painful decision and move to a nicer apartment, just around the corner,an idea which practically solved my allergies and asthma all together. So now I can actually sing again!
re-encountering Cherubino once more; the 14 year old boy I am playing in this opera, is a sweet and sour reunion. After all, I am older now, and I have been playing lately all feminine, very feminine heroines...
So it can feel a bit challenging during rehearsal to get myself back into this character (which I used to love so much).
But working with such a superb director/conductor team, and a truly fantastic cast, I can only hope to get all the fine-tuning I need before I land on the main stage, for opening night. (hold my hand will ya!)

Tata

Going to London. I just got into sitting on our new (well; used) couch we put temporarily in the living room, and I already have to get up and fly away. Such is my life.
I feel a little bit nervous, although I know London extremely well, I know most of the cast, and I know the roll like the palm of my hand (I think I sang "Nozze" at least a dozen different productions by now).
But I am already sensing the pressure of the level expected of anyone singing at such a famous house. And my head is still within our 4 new walls, enjoying the cozy blanket and the warm cup of coffee and being in my pajamas, here , home.

We found home.

We never want to leave this place
This home: on the top of a hill between two wild woods, birds are singing at 7 am outside our light kitchen window. We are seated at the wooden table on a built -in wooden bench, feeling very French I must say, drinking coffee from our new coffee cups, and eating a buttered -to -perfection toast.
We are like two three year olds; the space in this place to us, seems like vast distances, we can get lost if we want to or we can enter a closet and find other lands right behind it!
We roll up the shades in the bedroom and we are almost blinded by the light absorbing us from all directions, the trees outside covered with last night's snow, somebody's walking their dog, and a Saturday quietness.
Walk down the big hallway and there's so much more, rooms and windows and great feeling of love everywhere.
We never want to leave this place, we are sure. I arranged all my perfumes and make up in my little furry bathroom, where Peter will enter only when he misses me, he decided.(or to pee in the morning...) and Peter arranged all his stuff in the big wooden room and I will visit him when he'll forget to say hello, being busy at his solid wooden desk.
And in the big room where we are going to have good friends sipping on good wine and telling jokes, we shined the old piano and planted our tree. it's their home too.

We are moving tomorrow. We are being polite to each other in order to not bite our better half's head off; We are SO stressed out!
PS New York before the holidays is like a crazy-ass zoo, thousands of people roaming free with zillion shopping bags and huge puffy coats and annoying children with annoying balloons and obnoxious performing artists making their noise down the subway platform.
On the bright side: I am PROUD of my fellow New Yorkers for scoring number ONE on my list of : "BEST NON-BUMPING-INTO-EACHOTHER MASSES OF PEOPLE in the world". After us there are the Tokyoites, after them, forget about it.

Lights and stuff

We both know that this is a fragile time; We are living in boxes, half here half there, huge mess, too many things to do and to organize. Peter woke up this morning and started talking about what kind of a ceiling light we need to put up in the hallway.
He wants a lot of light, and I didn't think one needs a lot of it where it's only a pass way and not a functioning room.
Right now there is a big tacky chandelier hung there, with like 12 bulbs.
Now, if we were crafty,( like Martha Stewart for example), we could take that same chandelier, paint in with some funky color, replace some stuff on it, paint the walls around it with some other funky color, and there you go: a funky, ultra sheeeeeeeeky place... But unfortunately we seem to be able to RECOGNIZE beautiful interior designs, but we find it much more difficult to envision and CREATE them...