Moving = Stress

Hey all! We're moving. In case you don't believe me, I've included a picture.

We've spent the last week watching the World Cup and getting ready for the move. (Too bad about the US but at least Germany is still in it!) In addition to moving out tomorrow, Brenda is flying to London for an audition and will be coming back on Thursday. We fly to Rome on Sunday - where Brenda will be taking a weeks worth of Italian language classes - and then on to Des Moines on July 10th. We are both ready to be stateside.

I hope you are all having a great week and enjoying your air conditioning. Oh, how I miss air conditioning. Talk to you next week!

Packing time

Hey All! I slept, I ate breakfast and I have a cup of coffee in front of me - I am ready to blog.

One week from now we will be homeless. We will be mere vagabonds trying to survive in Europe until we can make our way back to the US for summer vacation. The last week in our apartment will be spent discovering how much stuff we've accumulated in our first two years in Germany. One good thing is that we won't be taking any of our furniture with us since we sold it to our landlord. I think, however, that we may have picked up a few other things along the way that won't fit into the 6 suitcases we had with us when we first arrived in Germany.

Brenda finished performing La Giuditta on Monday. They had 6 shows in 9 days which, for opera, is a lot. Below I've included a review of the show. It will give you a chance to work on your German.

The show I'm in, Palestrina, opened on Sunday. I've got one of those roles that is over so fast that you don't really even know the scene has started until you're walking off stage. I always enjoy performing, though, regardless of how much stage time I get.

Well, the apartment isn't packing itself so I had better get going. I hope you are all having a great week and I'll talk to you soon!

Yum, Indian food

Hey All! We just got back from eating some Indian food with the McCowns. We had a blast with them, as usual, but because of that it is a little too late for me to write the blog you deserve. I'll write more tomorrow as I enjoy my morning coffee. Until then, have a great night!

Fußball

Hey All! I just got back from rehearsal and let me tell you, it is gorgeous outside. The temperature is in the mid 60s, there is a mild breeze and there isn't a cloud in the sky. This is my kind of weather.

My rehearsal was fun. We were on stage for the first time tonight, which I really enjoyed. It's great to sing in a big hall and it always helps to move around on the real set. The show opens Sunday so I'll be sure to tell you how it goes next week.

La Giuditta, the opera Brenda is currently singing, opened on Saturday. There are only 4 singers in the cast of La Giuditta and, therefore, each singer gets a lot of opportunity to sing. Brenda has 6 arias of her very own which, I might add, were all beautifully sung on Saturday night. The audience loved the show and, as far as we can tell, the critics did too. If you would like to check out some of the photos from the production you can do so here.

In other news, Brenda and I watched a whole soccer (or "football" to the rest of the world) game the other night. Apparently, there is this thing called the World Cup going on in South Africa. Who knew? We watched the Germans destroy the Australians and it was quite enjoyable. We were, of course, rooting for Germany. And speaking of things Germany has won recently, you should check out the winner of the Eurovision Song Contest.

Well, that's pretty much all I've got for this week. Brenda and I are moving out of our apartment at the end of the month and we're pretty excited about it. Not that our apartment is bad or anything, it will just be nice to have a change of pace.

Oh, one more thing. I'm sure you've noticed that I've gotten into the habit of posting pictures each week. Well, we didn't take any pictures this week but I've included one anyway. Have a great week!

The leaning tower of Pisa.

Time to work on my tan

Hey All! Another week has come and gone and that means it is time to give you an update on the goings-on in Germany. You may not know this but I scan through the previous week's post before I write the new one and am usually shocked at how much has changed in such a short time. For this week, however, I could probably have copied and pasted last week's post and that would have sufficed. Dan and Whitney are still here, Brenda is still in rehearsals and we're still looking forward to summer vacation.

A few things have changed, though. I had my first rehearsal for my four-line role in Palestrina today. I'm happy to report that rehearsal went well. In other news, Brenda opens her opera on Saturday. Dan, Whitney and I sat in on an hour or so of Brenda's rehearsal today and it all sounded great to us. I'll fill you in on how the performance goes next week.

Dan and Whitney head back to America tomorrow. We've really enjoyed having them here and have done our best to convince them to move to Germany. Come to think of it, YOU should really think about moving to Germany. The schnitzel is amazing.

I've included a few pictures below. The first two were taken in the beautiful Rüdesheim/Assmannshausen area. The third was taken at the botanical garden in Frankfurt. People can rent row boats and paddle around for a while and that's just what we did. As you can tell we've been having terrible weather.

That's all I've got for this evening. I hope you are all doing well and I'll talk to you next week!

A few words from Broy

Hey All! You'll be happy to hear that Dan and Whitney made it to Frankfurt in one piece (well, two pieces if you want to be picky about it). We've already done a bit of traveling and have certainly exposed them to a lot of our favorite German cuisine. I've posted a couple of pictures below. The first is self explanatory and the second was taken in the picturesque town of Marburg. That's all I've got for this week but I'm happy to pass the blog baton on to Brenda for the rest of this post. I hope you're well and I'll talk to you next week!

Oh boy! The blog has suddenly changed voices! Now it's much higher, and doesn't make as much sense (I do tend to play crazy people you know...). :-) As Chad stated above, our friends Dan and Whitney are visiting. It's been super fun! The sad part is that I've been having about six hours of rehearsal per day for an opera called La Giuditta, so I haven't been able to give them the love and devotion they deserve. We open the opera on June 12th (yikes! that's coming up fast!) and it's been an interesting process. The opera was written in 1726, and the director has us switching between modern movements and more baroque movements. Now, the singers involved in this show are not baroque movement specialists, but thankfully we've had a choreographer to help us along! It's been a completely different process than the other shows I've been involved in at Frankfurt, and that definitely keeps me on my toes! I'm very excited for the premiere. I sure do love my life as an opera singer. :-)

That said, I'm already looking forward to my summer vacation! Chad and I haven't made any definitive plans, but we are hoping to spend some time in Italy before we come back to the States. I'd like to revamp my Italian language skills, since it's been 7 years since I spent a summer in Italy studying the language! One other cool thing about the rehearsal process for Giuditta has been the abundance of different native languages. Our director speaks French, Italian and English, and rehearsals are conducted in English, since that's the most common second language for people. However, the choreographer is German, but he speaks French as well, so the director speaks in French to him, but the choreographer speaks in German to me. Our conductor is Italian, so there's also some Italian flying around! I still love hearing four different languages every day, and it makes me want to focus on really strengthening my languages!

Well, I think I'll end it there, and spend some more time with our guests! I'm hoping to post a blog entry on my website when my schedule dies down a bit. Of course the website needs to be updated as well... Ahh, I'll think about that later! Hope you're all well! Much love!

Italia

Hey All! I am writing you from beautiful, sunny Frankfurt. Well, it's not sunny right now seeing as it's almost 1 am but, trust me, it was really sunny today. Actually, the past few days have been gorgeous. It started getting nice right after my parents left and it is supposed to get cold and rainy again as soon as Dan and Whitney get here. Hmm, strange. I think I am starting to notice a pattern. When we have guests, the weather stinks. That settles it, no more guests. We need the sun.

I need to get you up to speed on a few things. First, and I think I touched on this a little before, Brenda was amazing as Lucia in Lucia di Lammermoor. My parents and I got to see her first and last performances and she was absolutely incredible. Of course, you might think I'm biased since we're married and all. Well, the throngs of people screaming "Bravo!" during and after the performance as well as the group of people that waited to get her signature were not biased and they definitely shared my opinion of her performance. After the first performance, some members of the audience stayed longer than I've ever seen before at Oper Frankfurt. The curtain had already been shut for the night and the audience was still clapping so Brenda and the tenor were forced to squeeze out on to the lip of the stage for one final bow. The last performance received a full standing ovation, another thing I have never seen at Oper Frankfurt. A few fans told Brenda that they enjoyed her so much that they came to all 5 performances.

I'm telling you all of this not only to brag about my wife but to also give you an idea of how important this particular opera and this particular role were for Brenda. It is far and away the most recognition she has gotten in Frankfurt in the almost two seasons she's been here. I am so proud of her and am happy that I was here to see it.

Next on the list of things to talk at you about: Italy. Our trip to Italy all started with a trip to the airport to get our rental car. We had reserved a car shortly after my parents arrived in Frankfurt and picked it up almost a week later. As we made the reservation, I showed off for my parents by only speaking German with the car rental lady. She spoke amazing English, of course, but I wanted to prove to my parents that I had actually learned something over the past two years and not just written blogs and eaten pretzels. Well, when we went to pick up the car everything was great except for one small thing, the car had a manual transmission. I don't recall the rental car lady asking about manual or automatic but, then again, she was speaking German and I was busy nodding and trying to act bilingual so that important bit of information could have flown right by me. In any case, I can't drive a stick and my parents hadn't done it since I was -10 years old. Dad, however, stepped up to the plate and, in spite of that elusive 3rd gear, he led us safely to Munich, Florence, 7 (or so) picturesque Italian towns and back again. I was impressed to say the least.

While in Italy, we stayed in a villa at a picturesque vineyard outside of a town we referred to as Collie. We used the villa as our home base. During the day we would travel to beautiful towns in the area (e.g. Volterra, Lucca, Montepulciano, Sienna) and at night we came back to the house, made dinner and drank some wine we had found during the day. We took tons of pictures, of course, and I have included a few below.

Having lunch in beautiful Montepulciano. For all of you New Moon fans, this is where they filmed the scenes that took place in Italy. We didn't see any vampires but that's probably because we were there during the day.

These barrels belong to a wine producing family that has been in business for over 1000 years.

The famous opera composer, Giacomo Puccini, was born in Lucca in the building in the middle of this picture. That is a statue of him in the foreground.

A view of olive trees and vines from the vineyard where we stayed.

It was a great trip and it would have only been better had Brenda been able to join us. And speaking of trips, we are already eagerly anticipating our trip back to the US this summer. It is a little over a month away which seems unbelievably close. Before that, though, we have a couple of operas to perform and some friends to show around Frankfurt so I will surely have some news to share in the coming weeks. For now, I should turn in. Until next time, have a great week!