On Tuesday I went to the extravagant home of Fritz, the pianist. He has a two-story apartment in Lara, steps from a park overlooking the water. He's been here eight years, and has all the comforts of home including a grand piano. We drank coffee and chat for a while before getting to the music. I'd brought my audition aria book, but thought it might be nice to warm up on a song. There were many in his library, but all in high key. He showed me a book of standards, and I figured that might be fun. So we read through "All the things you are" in a truly horrific arrangement that had the piano doubling the vocal line. It was a bit awkward. So I showed Fritz my aria book but he balked, saying he couldn't possibly play any of those without practicing ahead of time. Really? To be fair, Fritz never claimed to be an accompanist, even though he has done concerts with Elif, a mezzo I met at the Symphony concert. His background is as a solo pianist and teacher, and I guess sight-reading isn't a required skill for either of those pursuits. Still, it reminded me how lucky I've been to work with some of the best vocal accompanists in the business. (You know who you are!)
After returning to the standards for a stab at "Misty" we took another coffee break. Fritz had been invited by Elif to attend the Trovatore dress rehearsal tonight and invited me to go with him. So we headed out (in Fritz's giant van) to the opera house, which unfortunately is in the middle of nowhere adjacent to a shopping mall. There was much strife in getting the thing built at all; the Minister of Culture objected to spending money on "the art of the infidels" but he was overruled, with a compromise that part of the building would be used as a school.
The theater is actually quite nice, with an excellent acoustic. But the rehearsal was called for 6 and didn't start until 7. This put me in a rather foul mood, especially since I hadn't had dinner. Once it started though, it seemed promising. The bass singing Fernando was quite good. Unfortunately, the Russian mezzo they'd brought in for the opening was not singing this rehearsal, and the light lyric soprano (yeah, I said it) essaying Azucena caused me much pain. And it wasn't as if you could focus on anything else. Although the costumes were nice, the scenery was non-existent and the "staging" was limited to placing the singers on the stage. It was old-fashioned, Eastern European stand-and-sing; more a series of tableaux than anything resembling direction. At the end of act 2 I'd seen enough, and said I needed to get something to eat. Elif was done at that point, and Fritz joined us at the food court of the shopping mall.
The opera here has a structure I've never seen anywhere else: All singers sing in the chorus, from which most soloists are chosen. The girl who sang Azucena tonight is Elif's rival and (according to Elif) keeps getting cast because she's good at sucking up. Well, something funny is going on, because even from the bit she sang in the car I could tell Elif would have been a better Azucena than her rival was. For one thing, she has access to her chest register. Also, she sings vowels.
So, do I want to try to get an audition for this company? Undecided.