temper tantrum

Greetings once again from Munich! Brenda's show opened as planned last Thursday, and I'm happy to report that the performance was fantastic. I didn't see the second performance on Sunday but rumor has it that the show was great then, too. It's too bad all of you can't see it. But wait, you can! A few years ago the Bavarian State Opera started streaming some of its productions online, and this year one of the chosen pieces is Brenda's opera, Die schweigsame Frau. The opera will be streamed live and for FREE this Sunday (October 5th) at 6 PM Germany time (11 AM US Central Time). If you're interested, you can get more information here.

 Just to warn you, Brenda loses her temper during the performance.

 I took a picture of the cast during the curtain call. Brenda is second from the right.

Unfortunately, we haven't had a chance to go to Oktoberfest yet, but we are planning on going tomorrow or Friday. We have to go soon because Sunday is the last day. Whenever we ventured downtown this past week we encountered throngs of people roaming around town. It'll be nice when things quiet down next week.

 Even though we haven't been to Oktoberfest yet, we did find a nice place in the English Gardens to drink a beer and eat a giant pretzel.

Brenda flew to London yesterday for a CD release party. The recording, which I mentioned in a recent blog entry, is of Offenbach's Fantasio. Brenda was just in London for one night and is actually on a flight back to Munich as I write this.

Brenda rehearsing for the release party earlier today.

So that's what we've been up to. Brenda has two more performances this week and, other than that, she'll be preparing for her next roles. She continues to be quite busy! I hope you all have a wonderful week, and we'll talk to you next Tuesday!

Oktoberfest has begun

Hey all! Brenda had her last rehearsal for Die schweigsame Frau yesterday, and I was lucky enough to see it. The show was great (especially Brenda, of course), and I particularly enjoyed that the opera has the same plot as one of the operas that Brenda sang in Santa Fe this summer (Don Pasquale). The musical styles of the two pieces, however, are quite different.  Anyway, the cast has off until the show on Thursday, which I know Brenda is enjoying. For example, it gave us the chance to go for a jog through the nearby park today and to make a delicious dinner together.

A poster advertising Die schweigsame Frau outside the Bavarian State Opera.

Brenda in her costume for act one. She always looks good in a helmet. And I think the blonde wigs are making her seriously consider changing her hair color.

Oktoberfest started on Saturday and runs for about two weeks. Since then we've seen a lot of people in dirndls and lederhosen around town but, to my surprise, Munich hasn't been completely overrun by drunken tourists. We don't live near the Oktoberfest grounds, however, so things may be quite different over there. We have tentative plans to go to a beer tent on Friday and, if we do, I'll fill you in on that experience next week.

The entrance to the Oktoberfest grounds a couple days before it began.

On Saturday, the first day of Oktoberfest, Brenda saw people assembling for a parade while she was on her way to rehearsal.

I'll fill you in on Brenda's first and second performances next week as well as (hopefully) our trip to an Oktoberfest beer tent. Until next time, have a great week!

singing for her, no wait, their supper

Hey all! Brenda and I are enjoying a sunny afternoon together before she goes back to work this evening. The Bavarian State Opera hosts a dinner every year to celebrate the start of the season, and this year Brenda, along with baritone Thomas Hampson, will be providing the dinner entertainment. The dinner is tonight, and originally Brenda was only supposed to sing one aria, but another soprano couldn't make it due to an airline strike, so Brenda will perform a couple extra pieces. This means that Brenda and her castmates have the day off from Die schweigsame Frau rehearsals, but they'll be back at it again tomorrow.

Last week I discovered a great park just a couple of blocks away from our apartment, which I've since visited several times. The weather lately has been very cloudy and fall-like, although my last two trips to the park have been sunny.

 I went to the park late in the day yesterday when the sun was low in the sky. These people still managed to find some sunshine where they could workout. Actually, there were quite a few people (the after-work crowd presumably) in the park exercising, playing volleyball, and doing yoga.

 There's a big hill that allows for some good views of the city (and makes jogging more challenging). A nearby sign indicated that this is a ski hill in the winter.

 Like Frankfurt, Munich does a great job with its parks and other green spaces throughout the city.

We were somewhat surprised when we left the US in early September that stores were already decorating for Halloween, but we were even more surprised yesterday when we saw this pharmacy's decorations. Halloween isn't really celebrated in Germany, but maybe it's catching on.

Brenda has been busy with rehearsals so we haven't had much of a chance yet to venture out into Munich, but I'm sure we will once her show is up and running next week. Oktoberfest begins this Saturday, and one of Brenda's German colleagues wants to take us. We need to get serious about buying a dirndl and some lederhosen!

Before I sign off I wanted to let you know that one of Brenda's recordings that is coming out this month is actually available for purchase and immediate download now even though the actual CDs won't be released for a couple of weeks. If you're interested, you can find more information here. I hope you all have a wonderful week, and we'll talk to you next Tuesday!

settling in

Hey all! After a prolonged journey that included planes, trains and automobiles (although not in that order), we arrived at our home for the next five weeks. Our journey was complicated by a combination of bad weather and a rebooking mistake, which forced us to spend the night in Chicago. When we ultimately arrived in Frankfurt we only had a few hours to repack our bags before getting on the train to Munich, but from that point on everything went off without a hitch and we've been spending the last couple of days getting settled in our new apartment. Brenda also had her first rehearsal yesterday which, she tells me, went very well. 

One of the benefits of the opera world being so small is that Brenda often knows at least one person in the cast before rehearsals began. On the rare occasion that she doesn't know anyone, she will definitely have friends in common with her castmates so they can usually bond over their mutual acquaintances. Brenda already knew a few people in this production from her previous engagements in Munich, and she has known the leading tenor for several years (he was in the ensemble at Oper Frankfurt), so she felt quite comfortable in rehearsal. The cast is also bonding over the difficulty of the music. The opera, Die schweigsame Frau (The Silent Woman), was composed in the 1930s, which makes it relatively modern as far as operas go. And since modern operas tend to be quite difficult musically, it's quite impressive that the cast is only rehearsing for two and a half weeks before the first performance. 

While Brenda was in rehearsal, I ventured out into the city so our cupboards wouldn't be quite so bare. Our apartment is close to a subway stop, which allows us quick access to the center of Munich. Below are a few pics I snapped while wandering around the Karlsplatz area.

 A store dedicated to Dirndls and Lederhosen. Brenda and I may need to do a little shopping so we can fit in with the natives.

Before I sign off, I thought you might be interested to know that Brenda will be adding two recordings to her discography this month. The first is Milhaud's The Oresteia of Aeschylus, which was released on Amazon today, and the second, Offenbach's Fantasio, comes out at the end of the month. Brenda will also appear on yet another recording, Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos, that should be released sometime this fall. I'll keep you posted on that one.

I'd better get going so I can beat the after-work crowd to the store. My jet lag is making me wake up very late, although the up side is that I've been enjoying some quiet reading time in the middle of the night. I hope you're having a great week, and we'll talk to you next Tuesday!

goodbye midwest, hello Munich

Hey all! Sorry for the delayed post (again). I plan on getting back on the right blog schedule once we get back to Germany (i.e. I'll post the entry late Tuesday night each week). Brenda and I have been busy visiting friends and family before we head back to Germany tomorrow. It's been great to see everyone, which makes it even harder that we're not going to see most of them again until 2015. That's a downside to this career, although there are upsides, too. Did I mention that we're going to spend the next five weeks in Munich while Oktoberfest is going on? Actually, I'm not sure if being there during Oktoberfest is an upside or not, but Munich is such a great town that I'm sure we'll have fun no matter what.

Brenda and I found time to go for a bike ride yesterday.

So we'll fly to Frankfurt tomorrow, spend a night in our apartment and then hop on a train to Munich on Sunday. Brenda's first rehearsal is Monday afternoon, which will mark the start of the 2014/15 season for her. Seems like her 2013/14 season ended just a few weeks ago. Oh wait, it did. Even though she didn't get to relax as thoroughly as she may have liked, I get the impression that Brenda is excited to start rehearsing again. Well, we're going to head out and do some last minute shopping. Have a great weekend and we'll talk to you next week!

back in the midwest

Hey all! We're back on the mainland, and Brenda is back to work. Not that she stopped working while we were in Hawaii, she's just putting in more time now that she can use a real piano instead of the piano app on her iPad. In case you're wondering, the rest of our time on Kauai was great. We hiked, swam, snorkeled, laid on the beach, mini-golfed, and ate. We also took a four-hour boat ride along the northern and western coasts of the island, which I quickly discovered I didn't have the stomach for but Brenda loved. Now that we're back on the continent we're spending the rest of our time in the U.S. visiting friends and family before heading back to Germany next week.

 We went on an eight-mile hike (roundtrip) along the western coast of the island. All that hiking in Santa Fe made it much easier.

Can you find Brenda? She got a lot closer to the waterfall than I wanted to. 

 There was also a secluded beach two miles into the trail.

 We played a round of golf at a botanical mini-golf course that had native Hawaiian plants on display.

 The day we left we got on a boat before getting on a plane. We enjoyed some gorgeous views of the island as we cruised around the Na Pali Coast, although I could have done without the four hours of nausea. 

 We filled our brief time in Minneapolis with a lot of activity, including a trip to the Minnesota State Fair. The goal was to have the broadest culinary experience possible (i.e. we wanted to eat a lot of fried stuff). Pictured above (from right to left) are Brenda, Drew, Dan and Whitney enjoying some cheese curds.

No trip to Minneapolis is complete without some quality time with Drew's dog, Amadeus. He's a handsome fella.

I said I would make dinner tonight so I had better get to it. I hope you're all doing well, and we'll talk to you next week!

Aloha!

Hey All! It's been a busy week. During our last several days in Santa Fe Brenda was running from one thing to the next, usually singing along the way. She had her last two performances for the summer and also sang at a small wedding. The person who officiated the wedding is a huge opera fan and saw both of Brenda's operas last week. She also happens to be on the Supreme Court.

Justice Ginsburg was kind enough to pose for a picture with us.

 We wanted to go on a hike before we left town, so on Thursday Drew, Brenda, and I hiked up to Nambe Lake. We had a great time, although we got a little wet on the hike back to the car.

 Even though we left Santa Fe just a few days ago, we miss it already, although we're comforted by the fact that we have plans to return in the not-too-distant future.

We remembered from last year that leaving Santa Fe isn't easy, so we decided to lessen the blow by taking a trip to Hawaii. Brenda has been wanting a beach vacation for quite a while now, so I suggested Hawaii based on a wonderful trip my family took almost half my life ago. We arrived in Kauai Saturday night, and we've had a great time so far. We spent Sunday and Monday lying on the beach, playing in the ocean, and relaxing in the hotel pools. Maybe I shouldn't be telling you this. You may start to hate us. But keep in mind that Brenda hasn't had a break from singing and/or learning music for about a year and a half, and she's still learning music while we're in Hawaii. The beach may not be the best place to learn music, but it's certainly one of the most beautiful.

We loved the view from our room.

The view from the beach wasn't too bad either.

Today we checked out of the hotel we were staying in on the south side of the island and checked into a bed and breakfast on the north side. Before making the trek around the island we stopped off at Waimea Canyon to take in some of the island's beautiful landscape.

The rental car company offered us an inexpensive upgrade to a convertible, which I quickly agreed to because I'd never driven one before. We've since discovered that half the rental cars on the island are the exact same car. I guess I'm not the only tourist who wanted the upgrade.

Brenda enjoying the view of Waimea Canyon.

Another lookout point gave us a view of the ocean on the western side of the island.

So that's what we're up to. A week from today we should be back in the midwest enjoying some time with our family. We'll fill you in on the rest of our trip then. Until next time, have a great week!