New Photos, Update, Etc

Hi all!

Below are some pictures from the last few weeks. Notable events are a couple of dinners at Katja & Gregorio's place, the arrival of our books, Melanie's birthday, a visit from Shawn & Sarah (Our first house-guests!), a few operas [Dead Man Walking (Excellent!), Othello (Great!), Manon Lescaut (Sucked!! Staatsoper Win-Lose-Draw score is 3-2-1, since Dead Man Walking was at the Theater an der Wien) (Theater an der Wien has a score 1-0-0 for now, and its looking like a really good season, so stay tuned for which operahouse wins this year).

This weekend we (4) went to Schönbrunn, walked up to the Gloriette there, and went to the Haus der Musik, a funky neato interactive sound museum. For Melanie's birthday we went to Mörwald, a very very posh restaurant that seeks to be on the cutting edge of Viennese cuisine, and split their 8-course tasting menu, which was, well, very very posh, and very very cutting edge of Viennese cuisine. My mushrooms were indeed the most pickled mushrooms I have ever encountered. They actually sent my facial muscles into spasm. This was painful. Much fun was had.

In other news, there's still lots of school, we're doing 5.5 opera scenes each in January (on average), we're preparing probably about 30-40 minutes of Lieder/Oratorio/Chamber Music, and learning our roles of Fiordilielmo (on average) for next May's Così performance. We're having some lameness with our landlord and loud noises from the heating system at night, but will know more on Monday, and as soon as it's all fixed, I may put the (very exciting, indeed) story up here.

I'm coming back to Los Angeles next Friday to visit the fam for a week, and pick up 150 lbs of luggage or so. Halfway through the trip I become an elite frequent flier on United for the first time, and get ***special elite priviledges***. Yay.

I think that's all. Post comments, email us, phone us (818) 935 5039, send us letters!

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Wiener Staatsoper 2-1-1

The score is now 2-1-1, with Tosca being counted as a draw. The
tenor kind of wasn't doing too hot, the soprano was really good, and
the only thing we agree on regarding the baritone playing Scarpia is
that he was really, ridiculously, impressively loud - louder than a
huge chorus and string (and horn maybe?) section playing HIS melody
in UNISON. Nuts. He also looked like a silly man in a red cape if
you ask me.

We're prettymuch in the full swing of things here, which is to say
insanely busy. Here's next week:
Monday
10-11 Opera coaching
12-13 Opera coaching 2
17-19 Lieder class

Tuesday:
12:30-14 Opera history
14-18 Opera class

Wednesday:
10:30-12 Dance
12-1 German diction coaching
2-3 Lied coaching

Thursday:
11-12 Voice Lesson
14-18 Opera class

Friday:
11-12 Lied coaching x2

Saturday (yes, saturday :P)
10-13 Opera class

See? Busy.