Not yet a month!

Well I almost let a month go by without updating, but it isn't in fact Nov 19th yet, so I totally win. Ha.

So! What's been going on since the last update...

Well I spent a week trying to get my student visa papers submitted before I left to visit LA.

I failed.

I got a whole set of weights and a chin-up bar and a big yellow ball, with which I can now do a real home workout routine! This is more exciting than perhaps it should be, but I'm very much looking forward to not having to drive 45 mins to a gym (and not resorting to silly, makeshift workouts at home, either).

I visited home (in Los Angeles)

I ate a lot of sushi

Melanie ate a lot of cookies at Katja's house

Melanie counted my €66 of change (oops)

I made plans to abduct a certain kitty as soon as I can afford to have a kitty (here's hoping that's in the 5-year plan :P )
I packed ~160 lbs of luggage from the storage room at home

I came back with the United elite status level of Premier Member, which gave me my very own empty check-in terminal, my very own empty security line, my very own bulkhead-3-feet-of-legroom-aisle-seat, and the feeling that I am definitely, totally better than everyone else who is not as elite as I am.

We found an ad for a used E-Piano the day we were planning on going out and buying one retail, saw it and bought it from a really nice australian girl. ("Na, spricht ihr auch Englisch?" "Ja, wir sind Amerikaner" "Oh, I'm Australian. Why are we speaking German?")

We sang a concert (Me - "See the Raging Flames Arise", Mel - "To This We've Come") where all the new opera students sing and are judged by their peers and teachers. We kicked ass. I recorded Melanie's Papers aria.

We babysat little Sofia for Katja and hung out, downing a bottle of Sturm (New wine, which tastes much like hard apple cider, except with grapes. Awesome) after Sofia went to sleep. Sofia is cute.

With the help of our new E-Piano, we're practicing up a storm, which (amazingly) helps us both improve and learn our music. Neat!

The wind blew and blew and blew and completely disrobed our nice yellow tree.

We spent a day of frivolity at Nick Martin's wishes and on his dime. It was frivolous indeed.

It snowed! And then I took pictures! And then it rained. Its still kind of raining

I failed AGAIN at getting a student visa.

The construction company operating outside our window realized that snow makes construction hard, and doubled the size of the workforce (and added a huge crane-mounted light that makes it possible to start working earlier and finish later [in weird, eerie light, as in some sort of sci-fi movie]). Dear God, I hope they're rushing to be done for the winter, because that would make the fact that I was awake at 7 today worthwhile. So far the ranking of construction operations, from irritating to horribly shitty goes: Sawing, messing around with metal rebar, Jackhammering, whatever else they do that's irritating, **CONCRETE + CONCRETE PUMP TRUCK**, ***HAMMERING BY HAND ON METAL***, ****DROPPING ROCKS AND DIRT AND GOD KNOWS WHAT ELSE INTO A HUGE METAL BIN BUT MAKING SURE TO HONK THE HORN FIRST SO YOU KNOW ITS COMING THANKS****. That last one is thankfully over, but there are 2 more that are enough to get me out of bed, and today is concrete day.

Shows we've seen since last time...Arabella (mostly good! I would have put it in the draw category, but Melanie liked it sufficiently to tip it into the win category, ummmmm.... Melanie saw Electra (good! crazy!)...I guess that's it. We've been kind of busy. Staatsoper is up to 5-3-1.

Today is that most-important holiday, Heiliger Leopold, when Leopold III (1073-1136) was all..saintified and stuff. The nice thing about obscure catholic holidays is that you totally don't need to be in church for them.



So, upcoming stuff:

If we're really good opera students we're gonna go to Un Ballo in Maschera tonight and to Pique Dame on Saturday. I'm taking a 3-day intro Chi Kong (Qigong) class these next, well, 3 days. I'm not really going to be dressed for going out to the opera tonight, but we'll see.

Meredith is going to be visiting in a few weeks. Yay!

We're gonna be figuring out how to do thanksgiving away from home, without the day off. :P

I'm gonna update my website with performance dates and maybe a german translation, for those of you who don't speak english.

That's all I got. Pictures:

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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.