#14daysofopera

[42daysofopera]

Day 5

I woke up after a long sleep to the sound of some of my roommates in the hostel leaving. I have actually be pleasantly surprised how easy it was being in hostels. I am not the most tolerate person when it comes to my personal space, and sure, the cramped shower only came up to my nose, and we were sleeping six to a room, but everyone I talked to while there was very nice, fun to chat with, and the place was clean, and had a lot of character.  After I grabbed my stuff, I went downstairs and studied my score. 

Courtney and I had breakfast, and then headed up to the airport (our meeting point for the beginning of the program). There we met Brent and Ian, later Matt showed up, then Chelsi. At 3 Peter, Liz, Bella, Charlotte, Nicole, and Spencer showed up, and we almost had the whole group. We sat and talked in the airport for an hour until Krzysztof joined us with our van, and we drove to Teplice. During the drive we caught up with Krzysztof, and talked about the next 20 days. 

I include this picture only because when I told him to smile he responded with the line “I don’t smile for pictures”. His own line made him smile at the exact time I snapped the photo. 

We arrived at the hotel, which is a sports lodging for teams that play in Teplice. We unpacked, and then walked down into town for dinner. 

Just across from the restaurant was the theatre where we will be performing. Outside is the poster for our performances here. 

We sat down, drank, and ate (in total this cost me only $8 CND) and talked. We told stories about our travels so far, and chatted about class next year. 

If I thought the language barrier was bad in the Germany, it’s worse here. The population speaks less english, and I definitely speak less Czech. But, you make do. Mime, translators, and broken english gets the point across. For everything else we have Krzysztof and Norbert. 

Any photo you see here that I’ve taken is one I’ve taken with my phone. I still don’t have photoshop back on my laptop, so they are even unedited. Because of this I’m taking way more photos then I ever intend to actually show. Most of them are blury, some are smudged from the phone being in my hand, and some are of my pocket.

I took a lot of photos today. When I got back to the hotel I went through them and marked 14 photos to possibly post. For the last five days usually as I go through the photos, I have a sense of what I want to talk about. Today I really wanted to talk about the clash of styles in Teplice, but as I went through the photos I realized that I didn’t have much to show that clash. So, I figured I would could find some pictures on google. Yet, when you google Teplice, all you can find are images of an idyllic spy town. It seems I wasn’t the only one only taking one kind of photo. 

Well, I know what I can take photos of tomorrow.

Tomorrow we have costume fittings, music rehearsals, and our first staging rehearsals.

[42daysofopera]

Day 4

"Sleep will not come because sleep does not will it” More than just jet lag I'm afraid, I’m suffering from bad sleep. It seems I couldn’t escape my bad sleeping habits from Vancouver. I was up early this morning with my mind racing, and trying my best to get my brain in check... and failing. Meditation will continue to be a long-term goal, but right now I am settling for anything that will block out the world.  After my rather early wakeup, I sat in bed and studied my score. With only one day until we start rehearsals it is officially crunch time, which is to say, I'll be studying it on the bus tomorrow.  After Courtney woke up the two of us went and had breakfast. Overall food is well priced, and easy to access, especially in our bohemian-esque neighbourhood.  After Frühstück we walked to the old town and checked out the Oper where we would later see Turandot. 

As many of you should know Dresden was badly bombed during WWII and as a result most buildings in the old town are in fact reconstructions. 

The old (new) opera house is beautiful on the outside, but even more stunning on the inside. 

After looking around the outside of the Oper, we walked over to the Zwinger.  The Zwinger is a former palace turned museum, and we spent most of the afternoon walking around the museum and the grounds.

It's amazing to me anyone manages to get work done in this city. I would spend the whole time staring at the buildings.  After our museums we went to the box-office of the opera and picked up the tickets. We walked back to the hostel with the plans of food and sleep.  The city is fantastic to walk in. Large sidewalks, and easy pedestrian access make it perfect for walking everywhere.  

After some food (and this time because I know Courtney is reading this, I really am proud of your german today) and a nap, we set back out for the opera.There we met up with Spencer, Nicole, and Ian.

The opera house is beautiful. We were on the utmost balcony, but the view was still good. Once again we've found the locals very nice. It turned out that without planning it Nicole and spencer, and I, had seats near each other. Locals near us offered to exchange seats so we could sit together, and were even giving us a history of the building.

The production itself was very modern, the set made up mostly of a large question mark. The singers were great, but it was the chorus that blew me away. Their presence and sound took up the stage (easy to do when there are a hundred or so choristers). I was very glad I got tickets. 

And as I walked away from the opera house I figured that’s all I would have to say about the day, except once again "Musik ist vereinheitlichung". As we were walking back to the neustad a woman went by us on her bike, and asked Courtney where she got her dress. We answered in english, and the woman remarked on  finding Americans in Dresden. We told her we were Canadian. She asked what we were up to, and we told her we had just come from Turandot. Of all of the random chance, it turned out that she is a chorister for Semperoper, and we chatted opera careers as we walked through the town.

Tomorrow is my last day in Dresden, and in the afternoon 12 of the 14 singers meet at the airport, and then take a bus to Teplice, Czech Republic.