Replaced

I went to visit my family in Israel but ended up having a pretty full- blown spiritual week, since I was hanging out with healers and psychics and Kabala master minds. I didn't really intend to but that's how it happened and I also got some pretty amazing results I will tell you all about maybe later.
I also felt the far -away existence of my reality and how detached my life can be, traveling here and there and not REALLY ever surrounding my self with the kind of unconditional acceptance I so need.
I have been thinking about the replacement factor of my life; How I am constantly being replaced ; As we speak, I can give you three examples of current productions that simply replaced me. I sang there before. now it's back; same costumes, same director/ conductor, even some of the original cast, but not me. Normal people with normal jobs, might get replaced once or twice at their job, in their entire life time, only if they were dreadful. But performers, with their gentle, already hurt soul, get exchanged and replaced on a monthly basis.
How do I feel about it? as much as I understand it; Still shitty.
I can only hope that my dear ones don't replace me, and that my friends won't rush to the next special, fun girl, (or whatever, which exists anyway, just like good Mezzo Sopranos, a dime a dozen), and forget I ever was there before... and if they do, I might throw some auditions and find out maybe there is a girl out there who can play me better.

Refresh thyself

I kind of volunteered to sprinkle my summer with a few musical occasions for the sake of music making and also for my own sanity (I am really not very good at managing free time), so doing a little concert here and a little concert there was a good solution for my soul.
Usually my main criteria for taking a job would (optimally) be made of these four little gratifications: artistic ,financial, and then prestige, and location, all combined; (so say... a fabulous production led by the best director and conductor in the world, with a fantastic cast, huge budget that pays me more than enough, somewhere in Hawaii, would be my ideal job, you know...), however , I usually have to compromise on one or two things of that list (in opera, unfortunately it would be the artistic part usually, and too often also the money).
My summer concerts most definitely lack the budget, but it's the music and humanity that make up for it.
And places where my talent is being celebrated, not judged, are high on my preference list, especially now, being beat up and slightly negative.
So my first concerts in my "off season" were by invitation of my dear friend the most wonderful pianist Lars Vogt .
We first met at the Berlin phil, doing Les Noces together. After that, we "befriended" each other on MySpace, and kept in further touch via Skype and Facebook (you see? if there IS any reason for these Internet social spaces, this friendship would be exactly it!).
At any rate, I arrived at Heimbach
a bit grumpy, and came out refreshed and fulfilled like I haven't been in a long time.
In Heimbach, I was surrounded by beautiful nature, a group of unbelievably talented musicians, and an audience so loving and enthusiastic, *I* should pay *them* to follow me wherever I go to sing.
Two concerts with Schumann, Ravel, Brahms and *Gershwin, (*in which , by the way, I so "let my hair down", all I remember is doing a little dance on stage (!) while improvising with the multi-talented classical- slash-Jazz (!) pianist Kirill Gerstein ) and I am back to my old positive self again, ready to carry on in this tiring and challenging career.