It was so good to get back together with my dear friends and colleagues yesterday, for our first rehearsal for the opera. (It was our sole “orchestra only” rehearsal.) Today we will meet up with one of the two casts. Normally everything is now held at the hall, so we are in the pit from the get-go, but yesterday and today we are at the Opera San José rehearsal space instead. I don’t like the place. I don’t like the noise and heating issues. It’s unattractive. And it’s not as close to my house! (Awww, poor me.)

BUT — and this is why I’m SO entirely happy to be there — we actually get to hear and see the singers up close and personal for the first siztprobe. So you’ll get no complaints from me!

Our second sitzprobe will be back in the usual performance space, so we won’t be seeing the other cast the same way. Such is life. I won’t complain then either, though, because I do like getting back into what feels like home. (And no fluorescent lighting, thank you very much! Those lights tend to make my head ache and the notes go a little “buzzy” … as in they seem to wiggle around on the page. Don’t ask me why. They just do.)

And let me end this post with a bit of music from the opera. As you will see, this is from the movie Shawshank Redemption: