I'm doing all of nothing to celebrate the day here...not that I'm not thankful, intensely, for so many things right now, but without family to gather around a table, the holiday loses some of its magic. I will be seeing my family that lives in France this weekend, so that will make up for not doing much in the way of festivities today.
Yesterday was a productive day of cleaning the apartment- amazing how dusty such a small space can get. Of course not having screens on the windows helps; as does the fact that apparently a former tenant had a cat, and whoever cleans this place normally obviously doesn't do that detailed of a job. The intake for the heater and the baseboards were coated in cat hair. Mmm. Not that exciting perhaps, but it's so much better to sing and breath in a space that's a little less dirty.
I walked around part of the 5th arrondissment, seeing the lovely St. Etienne du Mont, which to my mind is more lovely architecturally than the Notre Dame. Past the impressive Sorbonne and the many other schools that are lumped in this neighborhood, all in a pretty steady rain.
My coaching today focused on Dorabella from Cosi fan tutte. I have a lot of work to do on the recitatives and some of the ensembles, but we made great headway on the duets and trio, and continued to explore Mozartean style. I love the music and it feels so good to be doing right!
Speaking of music done right, I saw a concert performed by members of the Opera Bastille's young artist program and the opera orchestra. It was a program of Berio, and Berio-arranged works by Weill and the Beatles. There had been a last minute cancellation by one of the singers, so two others took her place, and there were a few glitches because of this. But overall a very lovely concert, and always good to hear some new music. For percussionists, a question: would you rather be the one playing the vibraphone, kickdrum, glockenspiel, and 4 gongs, OR the one playing marimba, timpani, chimes, 3 gongs, and cowbells? (And I've only listed about a quarter of the instruments they actually play during the piece Circles). One of the percussionists got so into it at one point, he hit one of the little chimes off of his glockenspiel. Now that's commitment.
The street leading to my coach's home is lined with pretty creepy children's clothing shops (of the sort that are filled with cardboard boxes and have fluorescent lighting). Several of them have creepy mannequins, but these are the creepiest of all. Hard to tell from the photos, but the have yellow eyes, and obviously the girl lost an arm along the way. Is this really how you want to advertise your merchandise? Thankful this is not my street!
