Welcome to Warsaw

I was kind of waiting to talk about this on my blog until I had signed the contract, but I noticed today that I'm already on the Teatr Wielki website, so I'm thinking it's okay. I got a call last week asking if I was free to go to Warsaw to sing Orsini in Lucrezia Borgia in April and May, and I was, so I'm going. The mezzo who was supposed to sing Orsini had to cancel, and the conductor, Will Crutchfield, suggested me for a replacement. Of course, it means I have to leave very soon and I have never sung the role, but I am more than up for the challenge. And I LOVE the music of Lucrezia Borgia - especially the tenor/mezzo duet which I first heard a million years ago when I was a student at Music Academy of the West, and the tenor was fellow student Juan Diego Florez. I still hear his voice when I hear that duet. But I digress. I'm going to Warsaw in two and a half weeks!!

Besides being really excited about singing a fantastic pants role in a new theater with a conductor I really like and admire, the arrival of this job solved one of my problems: I really wanted to go to Europe to sing some auditions, but I wasn't 100% sure how I was going to finance such a trip with the wacky economy and paying my taxes and paying off my credit cards etc. But this gig gets me over to europe (only a few hours by train to Berlin), and I still have 17 days after the last performance before I have to come back to the States for my best friend's wedding. I'm thinking it was meant to be. :) Now I just have to learn the role, get it into my voice, do my taxes, find a subletter, perform those Crazy Varese pieces, learn a couple of new audition arias, figure out how to pack as light as possible for a 7 week trip, and maybe learn a few words of Polish. Before March 29th. Oh, and my piano is broken (two broken strings, and most of the keys are 1/2 step flat, and piano tuner said it's unsalvageable) so I'm learning all this music on my 32 key mini casio keyboard. Wish me luck!