a little sightseeing

Hey All! After a few weeks of bouncing around, we're both back in Frankfurt - at least for the next couple of weeks. I'm on spring break at the moment, which would feel more like a break if I didn't have so many papers to write. I'm very grateful, however, that I get to write them while being in the same town as Brenda. Speaking of which, she had her second performance of Così fan tutte on Sunday. Since Brenda wrote the blog entry last week, I didn't get the opportunity to tell you how wonderful her first performance was. Individually, each member of the cast was excellent, but what made the performance even more impressive was how well they all blended together. It was a great night at the opera. If you'd like to see a few pictures of the production you can do so here. 

As you know from last week's post, Brenda was with me in London last week. On Wednesday, our friend Andreas also came to London for a visit. If you've memorized all of our blog entries, which I'm sure you have, you'll no doubt remember that Andreas appeared in the blog in June when Brenda sang at the Schubertiade Festival in Schwarzenberg, Austria and also when Brenda visited him in his home town of Biedenkopf. Anyway, he's a good friend of ours and it was great hanging out with him in London for a few days.

 Brenda, Andreas, and me in London.

 On Friday, the three of us went to the Royal Opera House to see Die Frau ohne Schatten. None of us had been there before, and I think it's safe to say that we all enjoyed the experience thoroughly. (Don't worry, this wasn't our opera attire. We were just picking up our tickets.)

 Yep, we were in the cheap seats. To tell you the truth, they weren't cheap.

 Andreas led us to parts of London we had never been to before, including the London Eye. In case you don't know, it's a giant ferris wheel in the middle of London.

 As you might have guessed, we got some great views of London including Big Ben and the Palace of Westminster, which you can see in this picture.

We also met up with a new friend. Brenda's twin, Drew, has a friend that moved to London in September. Her name is Bree and she and I have plenty to talk about because she is a lawyer. The four of us had a great time having dinner at one of London's fine vegetarian establishments.

Brenda is hard at work studying her role in Don Giovanni, which begins rehearsals on Monday. She seems to be quite pleased that she has less music to learn for this role than she did for the last one (although she's quick to point out it's still a lot of music). Well, I should call it a night. I hope you all have a wonderful week, and we'll talk to you next Tuesday!