An interesting discovery

This past weekend quickly came and went and with it went my penultimate Caligula and Brenda's final Un Ballo in Maschera. We are both ready to move onto something new which is good because we start staging rehearsals for Il Trittico on Wednesday. (Warning: The rest of this paragraph is filled with opera talk.) Il Trittico isn't actually an opera itself but rather the title of a set of 3 one-act opera's by Giacomo Puccini. They are Il Tabarro, Suor Angelica and Gianni Schicchi. Brenda and I play husband and wife in Gianni Schicchi and Brenda is a nun in Suor Angelica. Oddly this won't be the first time she's played a nun in an opera.

We've been in Frankfurt coming up on 7 months now and I've noticed lately how much more comfortable we've become in our new city. We've got places where we do our shopping, favorite restaurants, a gym and most importantly some great new friends. We're even more confident in our interactions with German speaking people. No doubt our German has gotten better since we arrived in August but more than that I think we've just become more courageous. When it comes to speaking German we get an A for effort. Let's not discuss our German grammar grade...

At the very least we know that we'll get to practice our German once every two weeks. As it turns out a pound of coffee wont last longer than two weeks in our apartment and so a trip to the wonderful Wacker's Kaffee is regularly required. This past week after a beautiful early-evening walk to Wacker's we decided to go to Saturn, the closest thing Frankfurt has to a Best Buy. As we wandered around the store we came across their amazing classical music section. A recording sitting at the end of one of the rows caught my eye. The name of the opera was Lear. Upon further inspection of the CD I realized that it was Frankfurt Opera's recording of Lear in which I sang a part. I flipped the case over and looked at the cast list and sure enough there was my name. Now I knew they were making a recording of Lear. I had a mic strapped to my body for 4 or 5 of the performances. I also signed something saying that I'd do the recording for the fee of 3 copies of said recording. What I didn't know is when the recording would be finished and where they'd be available.

It was a surreal experience. I have scoured classical music sections for about 10 years now and to actually pick up a CD in a store that had my name on it was definitely a first. I reminded myself that it wasn't a big deal because I only sang one line and it isn't exactly a famous opera but still, it was a pretty great find.

Things here have been moving more and more in the direction of Spring. I am really looking forward to the day that I can take a nice long walk without my coat. Brenda is chomping at the bit to test out her new bike. She may even take it to work tomorrow. I hope things are looking more Spring-like in your neck of the woods, too. Have a great week!