kid time, family time, adult time

Hallo, bonjour, hola and hello! It's the Chendowan member with the longest hair writing to you all today. (If you're still confused, it's Brenda. Rowan is growing like a weed, but I've still got him beat on the follicle front.) Sorry we're a day late with the blog! We've just been having too good of a time with my parents to keep up with the blog duties. After Drew left on Wednesday, my parents arrived on Friday, and other than a day of sickness for my mom, they are healthy and chipper, and are champion Rowan entertainers! My performing schedule has been pretty light, so it's been nice relaxing with them. They'll come to see Rigoletto tomorrow, and then will babysit on Sunday so Chad can finally see the show! The fact that he can't easily come to shows now has been one of the biggest adjustments in our parenting life. Chad was always a big presence when I'd open shows, even coming to final rehearsals and giving me feedback, since he knows the opera field so well! I miss him, but am glad Rowan gets to have his loving dad around!

Chad and I have Santa Fe on the brain today, since we just found out where we'll be living this summer while I'm performing Lucia di Lammermoor there. One of the great parts of working at the Santa Fe Opera is that they provide a house for us (most companies these days make you pay for and find your own housing) and it looks like we're going to have a gorgeous place to stay! We have lots of friends and family coming to visit, so we're excited to share our very Santa Fe style house! It'll also be fantastic to introduce Rowan to the magic of Santa Fe. Maybe he'll be as enchanted as we are by the dramatic sunsets!

Well, I'm going to take advantage of "adult time" now that Rowan is asleep (my dad actually managed to put him to bed tonight, after lots of crying! Persistence!) which ironically usually involves us playing video games and watching cartoons. We're resisting growing up I suppose. :-) Have a wonderful week!

birthday boy

Good morning! It's about 8:30 in the morning, and I've been awake for almost three hours. Oh how our lives have changed in the last year. Our spring baby had his first birthday earlier this week, and we enjoyed celebrating with Uncle Drew and honorary Aunt and Uncle Barb and Michael. Rowan got to open presents, eat cake, and play with his party guests. He had a lot of fun.

Brenda made little "healthy" cakes for the party, and Rowan got one 

of his very own to destroy. She put a little sugar in them just so he could

have his first taste. Surprisingly he didn't go crazy!

I'm struck by how much Rowan has changed over the past year, especially when compared to how little I have. Since his birth he's tripled in weight and is half again as long, he learned how to make eye contact, sit up, eat solid foods, crawl, blow raspberries, and has even taken a few tentative steps in the last few days. In contrast, we've been living in Germany for eight and a half years and I still don't know the German word for toaster. (Wait, let me look it up. Oh good. It's "der Toaster.") I'm in awe watching this beautiful little boy grow, and I'm so thankful that even with the vagabond nature of Brenda's work we all still get to be together.

Uncle Drew flew back home yesterday after a fun (and chocolate) filled week. We're so glad he was here for Rowan's birthday and also for Brenda's first performance of Rigoletto on Sunday. We're looking forward to more visitors tomorrow. Brenda's parents arrive early tomorrow morning, and I'm sure they're excited to see Rowan take another step or two.

I hope you all have a great week, and we'll talk to you next time!

a welcome visitor

Hey all! Rowan's asleep and Brenda's at work so I've got a little free time to write to you. Instead of blogging last night as I should have, I went to the opera house and heard a beautiful recital by star tenor Piotr Beczala. I've heard him sing once before in Vienna in the summer of 2012 opposite my wonderful wife. It was great hearing him again. Brenda was kind enough to look after Rowan while I went to the recital.

Verdi's Rigoletto opens at Oper Frankfurt on Sunday, and I have a feeling it's going to be great. It's a pity they aren't making a recording because the cast can't be beat. It looks like I'll be on baby duty on Sunday, but I'm hoping to catch a performance soon.

We're all very excited for Brenda's brother, Drew, to get here tomorrow. He's going to be in town for about a week, and it just so happens he'll be here for Rowan's first birthday. He can help us plan Rowan's party, which will probably just be the four of us eating cake. Rowan hasn't had cake before, or any sugar for that matter, but he will eat some on his birthday. I think he's going to like it. Experts say parents are supposed to wait until a child is 35-years-old before giving them sugar, but we just can't wait that long.

So that's what we're up to. I hope all is well with you, and we'll talk to you next week!

dream job

Hey all! Things have been moving along as usual this week. Rowan and I visited the Rigoletto cast and crew last Thursday, and having a baby around backstage seemed to brighten everyone's moods. We tried to figure out a way to put him in the show (after all his visa actually says he's allowed to work), but since performances are mostly at night that could really mess with his bedtime. And you don't want to see him when he's overtired.

On Sunday Brenda, Rowan, and I went to our friend Monika's 65th birthday party. She invited thirty or so friends and family to a lovely brunch at a restaurant in Biedenkopf. It was a wonderful day, and we're so happy we could be a part of it.

This Friday is Brenda's and my tenth wedding anniversary, and after almost ten years I must confess I'm a little perplexed about something. People say that marriage takes a lot of work, but if this is work, then being married to Brenda must be my dream job because not one second has felt like work to me. Or maybe the work starts after the first decade together. I guess I'll find out on Saturday.

There are some Brussels sprouts that need cleaning so I'd better get going. I hope you all have a great week, and we'll talk to you next time!

going solo

Hey all! There's a sleeping baby in the next room so I'm going to type quietly. Rowan's been having some difficulty staying asleep after we put him to bed at night, which is really interrupting our adult time (AKA Netflix time). He cut his fifth tooth yesterday so we're guessing that teething is the culprit. Before we had a baby I thought teething was a brief, unpleasant phase. Two weeks tops. Now I realize that babies start teething the moment they enter the world and, as far as I can tell, never stop. How many teeth do babies get? Is it six? I'm hoping for six. One to go!

Brenda has successfully made the leap from Rossini to Verdi and is rehearsing Rigoletto at this very moment. How she manages to move from one opera to another so quickly is beyond me. The first performance is just two and a half weeks away.

Have I mentioned that Brenda is going freelance this summer? After nine seasons in the Oper Frankfurt ensemble, Brenda has decided to go out on her own. She's already had numerous freelance engagements over the past several years, but those have all been in addition to her full-time gig in Frankfurt. Working only as a freelancer frees us up to move back to the U.S., which we would like to do in the not-too-distant future, but there are several important considerations. Health insurance and giving up our permanent residence visas in Germany being two of them. Did you know that around 85% of Germany's population is part of their public health care system (the rest have private health insurance)? And the cost for that system is capped. I did a quick search on Minnesota's healthcare exchange website and discovered that the cheapest health care plan we could get in Minnesota is still $3000 more than the maximum we would have to pay for public health care in Germany. That is all to say that we have some things to sort out before Brenda goes freelance this summer.

Brenda is back from rehearsal and Rowan is still sleeping. Time to watch some telly. I hope you all have a great week, and we'll talk to you next time!

flying solo (almost)

And just like that we're back in Germany. It's amazing how quickly things go once Brenda's shows open, at least when the performances are as close together as they were in Philadelphia and London. Thank you to everyone who came to see Brenda's opera. It's always wonderful to have family and friends in the audience. I was able to see the show last Wednesday and I absolutely loved it. 

Our flight back to Germany was quite short (just over seven hours) and almost empty. I've never been on a plane with so few people. It worked out great for us since it gave us plenty of room to take care of Rowan. Flying with him is getting a little harder as he gets older because he wants to crawl all over the plane, but he's still a good traveler. This was his twelfth flight. Not bad for an eleven-month-old.

All the passengers were on board when I took this picture.

After we got back to Germany yesterday we took a nice long nap and then Brenda went to rehearsal. Her next role is Gilda in Verdi's Rigoletto, which is a new part for her. Just like her roles in Tancredi, Lulu, and The Magic Flute were new parts for her. And much of her Carnegie Hall recital music was new too. So Brenda's been a music learning machine lately, and I think she'll be relieved when she can return to a role she already knows. That will happen in Santa Fe this summer when she sings Lucia di Lammermoor.

We recently made a new website for Brenda. Feel free to check it out, and if you have any suggestions about how we can improve it just let me know. You can send me an email (chadcgraham@gmail.com) or just comment on this post.

I hope you all have a great week, and we'll talk to you next Tuesday!

welcome visitors

Greetings for the last time this year from Philadelphia! Tancredi opened last Friday at Opera Philadelphia, and by all accounts it was a great night of opera. (A very excited opera goer even recognized Brenda at the Gap a few days later.) I get to see the show tonight thanks to some babysitters we shipped in from a few states over (it's tricky getting a ship from Iowa to Pennsylvania). My parents arrived a few days ago, and they looked after Rowan last night while Brenda and I went to dinner. They'll look after him again tonight so I can go to the opera. I'm quite excited to see it. If you'd care to see a few production photos from the show, you can do so here (just scroll down a bit). 

Brenda, mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe, Opera Philadelphia General Director David Devan, and tenor Michele Angelini

The Academy of Music

(Photos courtesy of Brenda's dad)

We had a wonderful time with Brenda's parents who flew back home yesterday. Unfortunately, I don't think they were able to enjoy themselves as much as they would have liked because they were both under the weather. In spite of that, we still got to enjoy a lot of time with them. Rowan loved his playdates with grandma and grandpa.

This time next week we'll be back in Frankfurt. Brenda begins rehearsals for her next opera, Rigoletto, about five minutes after we step off the plane. We'll be spending over three months in Frankfurt, which will be the longest we've been in one place since mid-July. We're looking forward to it.

I hope you're all having a great week, and we'll talk to you next Tuesday!