Sunday, June 20, 2010
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
WOW!!!!
It's been several days since I have posted so get comfy. This may be a long one as there is much to catch up on.
Our last concert day in the Czech republic was also my birthday! It was the big 4-0! A milestone! I had tried not to make a big deal about it. In fact, I got up early that morning and went down town to do some last minute shopping. When I returned Christian had gone to a local bakery we all frequent and brought home some pasteries to celebrate my birthday. Everyone had signed a card and they gave me a little mini cookbook full of traditional Czech recipes. It was so nice of them and totally unexpected.
SO, the last concert went well. We climbed into the Mystery Machine and drove down to the town of Tabor about an hour and a half south of Prague. It is the birth place of Oskar Nedbal, the composer of our operetta, and the theater where we performed is named after him.
Speaking of, the Divaldo Oskar Nedbal is a lovely little 19th century theater that holds maybe 300 if they are lucky. It has two wrap around balconies complete with individual boxes, an orchestra pit and a lovely chandelier hanging from the dome. Again, as in the other theaters we have played, there is relatively little wing space and in this case the stage is relatively shallow. There is a newer, larger "Mid Soviet Modern" theater next door, the stage and auditorium of which sit at a right angle to the older theater. The back wall of its stage is shared by the stage right wall of the stage of the older theater except that this wall has been removed so that the two stages are open to one another. It is a very odd configuration given that this wall doesn't exist. Of course, it gives sorely needed storage space for both stages but it also means that both theater's can't be used at the same time. We were told it is the only theater in Europe configured this way. A fact they seemed to be very proud of.
The performance went extremely well. We have gotten so at ease with the show that we can now play with it and add lib here and there, incorporate little bits of comic business, etc. The audience LOVED the performance and called us back for four or five curtain calls. I am continually intrigued by the audiences we've had. They are very, very quiet and pay very close attention. They never laugh and sometimes may not even clap at the end of a song. A time or two we'd end a number with a big "ta da!" moment and we'd be met with silence. BUT, they always show their appreciation at the end and I'm glad they enjoyed the show. That's all that matters at the end of the day.
We packed up our things and walked up to the town square to find a restaurant for dinner. Tabor, like all the other towns has a very clean, beautiful town square. All the buildings are well cared for and there is, as always, a monument/fountain in the center and a large, beautiful Catholic church. We tried to get seated in a couple of restaurants but they were either full or, believe it or not, unwilling to wait on us! Eva, who had met us the first day at the airport, was once again with us and she was told by a waiter about a restaurant just off the square that might be able to seat us. We walked past the entrance to the church and down a lovely, curvy street to a restaurant called, in english, the Two Cats.
It was a typical Czech restaurant that served Czech beer, wine and a menu of typical Czech food which includes sausages of all kinds, schnitzel and potatoes. It was the perfect place for us! We were all able to sit around one table and had a lovely waitress who was able to put up with us loud americans and keep a smile on her face!
The next day was a free day even though we were done with all our performances. I did some last minute sight seeing and bought a couple of gifts for folks. We had all planned to meet that evening to go out for one last dinner together but Lynn told us that Jill, the wife of the director of the festival, had decided the cocktail party was no longer going to be a party for the Plenblut cast, but a private cocktail party that only Lynn and Brian were invited to. Lynn was really worried about how we'd all take it but we were only puzzled because Jill had said earlier in the week that she'd throw a party specifically for us. Uninvite = Rude but what can you do? We decided that Lynn and Brian would make an appearance and then meet us later for the dinner we had already planned.
We were to meet Lynn and Brian in a certain park by a certain metro station at 7 that evening but they didn't show up until almost an hour later. Of course, it was much more difficult to get away from the party than they'd anticipated. William Bolcom and his wife Joan Morris were there. They were giving concerts as part of the festival and apparently Ms. Morris was expecting us to be there and had been looking forward to meeting us all. After comparing notes, both she and Lynn realized that it was Jill who had decided to uninvite us. Instead she had invited some people from the French Embassy because William Bolcom had lived and studied in Paris as a young man and wouldn't it be fun for him to be able to speak french them them? An upside to this odd situation was that Lynn and Ms. Morris hit it off and Lynn is going to try to get them to come to UNT for at least a concert if not more.
Anyway, after Lynn and Brian joined us, we found a lovely outdoor restuarant right on the river and had a lovely evening with good food and fun conversation.
BUT the next two days were stressful to say the least. This was our day to travel back to the U.S. Up to this point we'd been picked up by an employee of the festival, driven to all our concerts and even been met and walked to rehearsals in Prague just to make sure that we got to where we needed to be without getting lost. Suddenly, we were expected to get ourselve and our luggage to the airport without any assistance from the festival. This didn't seem like such a huge deal. We figured out that we could take the Metro to the end of the line then take a bus to the airport. No big deal.
We got up on the morning we were to return, packed up our things and made our way to the airport. It was sunday and the trains were running more infrequently than during the week. What should have taken 45 minutes to an hour took closer to two hours. Jennifer was flying to Italy that morning but Barbara and I were returning to the U.S. We arrived at the Delta counter to be told by a very sour and apparently annoyed woman that we were too late, the counter was closed and she wasn't going to let us check in for the flight. We told her we had to return that day because of our jobs etc but it didn't matter. She directed us to Delta's customer service office where we were told we'd have to return on a flight the following day to the tune of 300 bucks each. I looked at Barbara and I could see that she was about to burst into tears. "I dont' think I have that much money in my checking account. All I have is what the festival paid me and that's not enough." I told her it would be ok and that I'd pay for it. As we were waiting fo the changes to be made and my credit card to be charged, I told Barbara that if the festival had arranged for our transpertation to the airport to begin with we would probably not be dealing with this issue right now. It seemed right that they should reemburse me for this unexpected expense.
After we were through at the airport we had to figure out where we were going to stay that night. We could either lug our bags back through Prague to the hostel or stay at the airport Marriott just across from the terminal. We decided that since there was no guarantee we'd be able to stay at the hostel, we decided to check in at the Marriott. That way we'd already be at the airport and not have to worry about missing our flight again. We checked in to a "modern" hotel room with comfortable beds and a bathroom actually connected to our room and decided to go back into town and try to take advantage of our extra day. We had lunch at a wonderful vegitarian restaurant, I bought some hand blown glass tumblers and we explored the "Little Town" on the far side of the Charles IV bridge. The next morning we took advantage of the included breakfast and boarded our flight back to the U.S. Thankfully, that all went without a hitch. I emailed Lynn and asked about being reembursed and she totally agreed. The festival dropped the ball so I'm hoping they'll be willing to put things right. Apparently, the director is meeting this week with officials from the U.S. Embassy to talk about bringing us all back to do Polenblut again next summer which would be wonderful. Despite the snaffu at the end of the trip, I'd be thrilled to do it all again. It's a beautiful country and everyone was very nice. Why not?
We finished up with the
It's been several days since I have posted so get comfy. This may be a long one as there is much to catch up on.
Our last concert day in the Czech republic was also my birthday! It was the big 4-0! A milestone! I had tried not to make a big deal about it. In fact, I got up early that morning and went down town to do some last minute shopping. When I returned Christian had gone to a local bakery we all frequent and brought home some pasteries to celebrate my birthday. Everyone had signed a card and they gave me a little mini cookbook full of traditional Czech recipes. It was so nice of them and totally unexpected.
SO, the last concert went well. We climbed into the Mystery Machine and drove down to the town of Tabor about an hour and a half south of Prague. It is the birth place of Oskar Nedbal, the composer of our operetta, and the theater where we performed is named after him.
Speaking of, the Divaldo Oskar Nedbal is a lovely little 19th century theater that holds maybe 300 if they are lucky. It has two wrap around balconies complete with individual boxes, an orchestra pit and a lovely chandelier hanging from the dome. Again, as in the other theaters we have played, there is relatively little wing space and in this case the stage is relatively shallow. There is a newer, larger "Mid Soviet Modern" theater next door, the stage and auditorium of which sit at a right angle to the older theater. The back wall of its stage is shared by the stage right wall of the stage of the older theater except that this wall has been removed so that the two stages are open to one another. It is a very odd configuration given that this wall doesn't exist. Of course, it gives sorely needed storage space for both stages but it also means that both theater's can't be used at the same time. We were told it is the only theater in Europe configured this way. A fact they seemed to be very proud of.
The performance went extremely well. We have gotten so at ease with the show that we can now play with it and add lib here and there, incorporate little bits of comic business, etc. The audience LOVED the performance and called us back for four or five curtain calls. I am continually intrigued by the audiences we've had. They are very, very quiet and pay very close attention. They never laugh and sometimes may not even clap at the end of a song. A time or two we'd end a number with a big "ta da!" moment and we'd be met with silence. BUT, they always show their appreciation at the end and I'm glad they enjoyed the show. That's all that matters at the end of the day.
We packed up our things and walked up to the town square to find a restaurant for dinner. Tabor, like all the other towns has a very clean, beautiful town square. All the buildings are well cared for and there is, as always, a monument/fountain in the center and a large, beautiful Catholic church. We tried to get seated in a couple of restaurants but they were either full or, believe it or not, unwilling to wait on us! Eva, who had met us the first day at the airport, was once again with us and she was told by a waiter about a restaurant just off the square that might be able to seat us. We walked past the entrance to the church and down a lovely, curvy street to a restaurant called, in english, the Two Cats.
It was a typical Czech restaurant that served Czech beer, wine and a menu of typical Czech food which includes sausages of all kinds, schnitzel and potatoes. It was the perfect place for us! We were all able to sit around one table and had a lovely waitress who was able to put up with us loud americans and keep a smile on her face!
The next day was a free day even though we were done with all our performances. I did some last minute sight seeing and bought a couple of gifts for folks. We had all planned to meet that evening to go out for one last dinner together but Lynn told us that Jill, the wife of the director of the festival, had decided the cocktail party was no longer going to be a party for the Plenblut cast, but a private cocktail party that only Lynn and Brian were invited to. Lynn was really worried about how we'd all take it but we were only puzzled because Jill had said earlier in the week that she'd throw a party specifically for us. Uninvite = Rude but what can you do? We decided that Lynn and Brian would make an appearance and then meet us later for the dinner we had already planned.
We were to meet Lynn and Brian in a certain park by a certain metro station at 7 that evening but they didn't show up until almost an hour later. Of course, it was much more difficult to get away from the party than they'd anticipated. William Bolcom and his wife Joan Morris were there. They were giving concerts as part of the festival and apparently Ms. Morris was expecting us to be there and had been looking forward to meeting us all. After comparing notes, both she and Lynn realized that it was Jill who had decided to uninvite us. Instead she had invited some people from the French Embassy because William Bolcom had lived and studied in Paris as a young man and wouldn't it be fun for him to be able to speak french them them? An upside to this odd situation was that Lynn and Ms. Morris hit it off and Lynn is going to try to get them to come to UNT for at least a concert if not more.
Anyway, after Lynn and Brian joined us, we found a lovely outdoor restuarant right on the river and had a lovely evening with good food and fun conversation.
BUT the next two days were stressful to say the least. This was our day to travel back to the U.S. Up to this point we'd been picked up by an employee of the festival, driven to all our concerts and even been met and walked to rehearsals in Prague just to make sure that we got to where we needed to be without getting lost. Suddenly, we were expected to get ourselve and our luggage to the airport without any assistance from the festival. This didn't seem like such a huge deal. We figured out that we could take the Metro to the end of the line then take a bus to the airport. No big deal.
We got up on the morning we were to return, packed up our things and made our way to the airport. It was sunday and the trains were running more infrequently than during the week. What should have taken 45 minutes to an hour took closer to two hours. Jennifer was flying to Italy that morning but Barbara and I were returning to the U.S. We arrived at the Delta counter to be told by a very sour and apparently annoyed woman that we were too late, the counter was closed and she wasn't going to let us check in for the flight. We told her we had to return that day because of our jobs etc but it didn't matter. She directed us to Delta's customer service office where we were told we'd have to return on a flight the following day to the tune of 300 bucks each. I looked at Barbara and I could see that she was about to burst into tears. "I dont' think I have that much money in my checking account. All I have is what the festival paid me and that's not enough." I told her it would be ok and that I'd pay for it. As we were waiting fo the changes to be made and my credit card to be charged, I told Barbara that if the festival had arranged for our transpertation to the airport to begin with we would probably not be dealing with this issue right now. It seemed right that they should reemburse me for this unexpected expense.
After we were through at the airport we had to figure out where we were going to stay that night. We could either lug our bags back through Prague to the hostel or stay at the airport Marriott just across from the terminal. We decided that since there was no guarantee we'd be able to stay at the hostel, we decided to check in at the Marriott. That way we'd already be at the airport and not have to worry about missing our flight again. We checked in to a "modern" hotel room with comfortable beds and a bathroom actually connected to our room and decided to go back into town and try to take advantage of our extra day. We had lunch at a wonderful vegitarian restaurant, I bought some hand blown glass tumblers and we explored the "Little Town" on the far side of the Charles IV bridge. The next morning we took advantage of the included breakfast and boarded our flight back to the U.S. Thankfully, that all went without a hitch. I emailed Lynn and asked about being reembursed and she totally agreed. The festival dropped the ball so I'm hoping they'll be willing to put things right. Apparently, the director is meeting this week with officials from the U.S. Embassy to talk about bringing us all back to do Polenblut again next summer which would be wonderful. Despite the snaffu at the end of the trip, I'd be thrilled to do it all again. It's a beautiful country and everyone was very nice. Why not?
We finished up with the
Friday, June 4, 2010
I'm singin' Broadway and I love it!!!!!!
I'm back in Prague! Yesterday was my and Jennifer's day to give our recital in Ivancice, Moravia.
You know, there are times when you feel as though it's still in a communist country. Old habits die hard. I REALLY felt it in the hotel, to be honest. In the daylight it looked even more like an official "Tourist Hotel" than it did in the dark. By that I mean it must be what the hotels looked like for westerners during the Soviet years. It was nice but in a Days Inn kind of way. Like they were trying to make an effort but it wasn't really something they wanted to commit to.
Anyway, we gathered up our things and went with our accompanist, Alice, to the train station for the short train ride to Ivancice. We were met by a lovely woman at the station in Ivancice. She was maybe in her late forties with red hair but one side was longer than the other. possibly a holdover from her college years? She spoke enough english to communicate with us and was very sweet and all smiles. The town is charming and has a very picturesque square. There is a town hall, a Catholic church and many stores. There are some stalls where they have a market on saturdays. There was a man set up selling Czech sweets. He had a sort of fudge made from chocolate and coconut that was very good and a middle eastern confection made from eggs, honey and nuts. It was very chewy, almost like gum, and very good. He also had smoked cheese! It was formed into little loaves and looked more like bread than cheese. It was excellent. I should have bought some to take home for James. All the more reason to come back! Ivancice is also the birth place of Alfons Mucha. They have a museum on the town square in the house in which he was born. It houses some large studies he did for his Slav Epic as well as studies for other works and tons of photographs of his studio, his family, his models and his travels. They were accompanied by explainations that told us much about the artists life. It is interesting. Often the english versions afe full of typos and faulty sentence structure. I find it charming and admirable that they are working so hard to make things accessible for foreign tourists.
The recital went very, VERY well. It was a program of musical theater classics which was right up my ally although Jennifer wasn't as familiar with them but rose the occasion beautifully. It started at six thirty in the evening mostly because we had to catch a bus back to Prague. More about that later. The venue was a very small, intimate room with a low, raised stage. There were mirrors along one wall with a ballet bar and windows along the opposite wall. We had a small audience. Ten people, eleven if you count the man with the tv camera who stayed for five minutes and then left. Our host was very upset about this. Apparently, our concert was held in a small music conservatory. Back in may, they had a long series of concerts at the end of the spring term and the general consensus was that they town must be concerted out at the moment. She was truly upset because she thought we'd done a wonderful job and kept appologizing. We told her it didn't really matter. The people who showed up loved it and that's what matters. As the old saying goes, "When two more more are gathered..."
Afterward, we were treated to the same open faced sandwiches they'd given us in Pisek (Not the SAME sandwiches. They hadn't saved them and pulled them back out for us a week later. These were new but with the same toppings. Clearly a very Czech way of eating finger food.) After we had packed up and eaten we were told we'd be driven back to Brno to catch the bus. We walked outside and met a very nice young man who was standing next to a very old, very beat up four door hatchback! Again, old habits die hard. He threw our things into the back. We said goodbye to our appologetic hostess and climbed into the car.
Off we shot through the countryside!!! Our drive was not affraid to put the peddle to the metal mostly because we had a bus to catch. The country side was beautiful. Again, rolling farmland and small hamlets with red tiled roofs. (I want those tiles! No! There! Those tiles THERE!") We arrived in Brno thirty minutes later just a block or two from where we'd given Plenblut the night before. Alice had our tickets for the bus so we climbed aboard.
It was a sort of double decker affair as touring buses are with the lower level for luggage and the upper level for passengers. We had to climb up a very steep flight of stairs to the passenger level and discovered a pair of seats right there facing the stairway, bulkhead seats, as it were. We grabbed them and got comfortable. Greyhound needs to take this bus line as it's example. After we got on the road two male "flight attendants" came around to make sure we all had our seatbelts fastened, then passed out earphone to whomever might want to watch the "in flight" movie! They had video screens and showed an american film dubbed in Czech. After we'd been on the road for about thirty minutes one of "flight attendants" disappeared down the steep stairway and didn't come back. A couple of minutes later the OTHER "flight attendant" disappeared down the steps and didn't come back! We kept hearing the sound of a machine buzzing and could even feel the floor beneath our feet buzzing in time to the sound. After a few more minutes, one of the "flight attendants" reappeared with a little tray on which were four small cups of espresso which he carried to various passengers! LOLOL!!!! I also noticed you could ask for bottled water. I was happy with my bottle of Fanta orange soda so I declined.
We got back into Prague at 1115pm and took the metro back to the hostel. Barbara and Christian were thrilled see us. They said they'd missed us even though they'd had a nice day off and done some sight seeing. They said it was very chilly and windy yesterday. The weather has been unseasonably cold and wet while we've been here. I'm not complaining. It will be very hot when we get home so I'm soaking it all in.
By they way, did I mention that it's my birthday today? It's a big one. 40! Can you imagine?! I can't! I keep asking myself, "how the hell did this happen!?" I don't feel 40. I'm not sure what it is supposed to feel like but I don't feel it. I haven't really told my colleagues yet. I don't know why I'm withholding information. I guess I didn't want to spend the actual day this way. Oh, well. I am excited about turning 40 but at the same time I'm asking myself, "What do I do now?" It seems to me that there is a certain adulthood and maturity that comes along with flipping over that first number. I would say this has been a year of re-evaluation and deciding what is important to me in my personal life, my professional life and my artistic life. I think rolling over into this new decade of my life means it's time to get on with all the things I keep saying I'm GOING to do. A new start. That's what it means.
That's about it for now. I'm on the verge of being ready to go home. I'm starting to miss folks and places and things. Also, I'm looking forward to directing [Title of Show] at Oh, Look! New music to learn and that pesky theater company to get started.
More to come!
You know, there are times when you feel as though it's still in a communist country. Old habits die hard. I REALLY felt it in the hotel, to be honest. In the daylight it looked even more like an official "Tourist Hotel" than it did in the dark. By that I mean it must be what the hotels looked like for westerners during the Soviet years. It was nice but in a Days Inn kind of way. Like they were trying to make an effort but it wasn't really something they wanted to commit to.
Anyway, we gathered up our things and went with our accompanist, Alice, to the train station for the short train ride to Ivancice. We were met by a lovely woman at the station in Ivancice. She was maybe in her late forties with red hair but one side was longer than the other. possibly a holdover from her college years? She spoke enough english to communicate with us and was very sweet and all smiles. The town is charming and has a very picturesque square. There is a town hall, a Catholic church and many stores. There are some stalls where they have a market on saturdays. There was a man set up selling Czech sweets. He had a sort of fudge made from chocolate and coconut that was very good and a middle eastern confection made from eggs, honey and nuts. It was very chewy, almost like gum, and very good. He also had smoked cheese! It was formed into little loaves and looked more like bread than cheese. It was excellent. I should have bought some to take home for James. All the more reason to come back! Ivancice is also the birth place of Alfons Mucha. They have a museum on the town square in the house in which he was born. It houses some large studies he did for his Slav Epic as well as studies for other works and tons of photographs of his studio, his family, his models and his travels. They were accompanied by explainations that told us much about the artists life. It is interesting. Often the english versions afe full of typos and faulty sentence structure. I find it charming and admirable that they are working so hard to make things accessible for foreign tourists.
The recital went very, VERY well. It was a program of musical theater classics which was right up my ally although Jennifer wasn't as familiar with them but rose the occasion beautifully. It started at six thirty in the evening mostly because we had to catch a bus back to Prague. More about that later. The venue was a very small, intimate room with a low, raised stage. There were mirrors along one wall with a ballet bar and windows along the opposite wall. We had a small audience. Ten people, eleven if you count the man with the tv camera who stayed for five minutes and then left. Our host was very upset about this. Apparently, our concert was held in a small music conservatory. Back in may, they had a long series of concerts at the end of the spring term and the general consensus was that they town must be concerted out at the moment. She was truly upset because she thought we'd done a wonderful job and kept appologizing. We told her it didn't really matter. The people who showed up loved it and that's what matters. As the old saying goes, "When two more more are gathered..."
Afterward, we were treated to the same open faced sandwiches they'd given us in Pisek (Not the SAME sandwiches. They hadn't saved them and pulled them back out for us a week later. These were new but with the same toppings. Clearly a very Czech way of eating finger food.) After we had packed up and eaten we were told we'd be driven back to Brno to catch the bus. We walked outside and met a very nice young man who was standing next to a very old, very beat up four door hatchback! Again, old habits die hard. He threw our things into the back. We said goodbye to our appologetic hostess and climbed into the car.
Off we shot through the countryside!!! Our drive was not affraid to put the peddle to the metal mostly because we had a bus to catch. The country side was beautiful. Again, rolling farmland and small hamlets with red tiled roofs. (I want those tiles! No! There! Those tiles THERE!") We arrived in Brno thirty minutes later just a block or two from where we'd given Plenblut the night before. Alice had our tickets for the bus so we climbed aboard.
It was a sort of double decker affair as touring buses are with the lower level for luggage and the upper level for passengers. We had to climb up a very steep flight of stairs to the passenger level and discovered a pair of seats right there facing the stairway, bulkhead seats, as it were. We grabbed them and got comfortable. Greyhound needs to take this bus line as it's example. After we got on the road two male "flight attendants" came around to make sure we all had our seatbelts fastened, then passed out earphone to whomever might want to watch the "in flight" movie! They had video screens and showed an american film dubbed in Czech. After we'd been on the road for about thirty minutes one of "flight attendants" disappeared down the steep stairway and didn't come back. A couple of minutes later the OTHER "flight attendant" disappeared down the steps and didn't come back! We kept hearing the sound of a machine buzzing and could even feel the floor beneath our feet buzzing in time to the sound. After a few more minutes, one of the "flight attendants" reappeared with a little tray on which were four small cups of espresso which he carried to various passengers! LOLOL!!!! I also noticed you could ask for bottled water. I was happy with my bottle of Fanta orange soda so I declined.
We got back into Prague at 1115pm and took the metro back to the hostel. Barbara and Christian were thrilled see us. They said they'd missed us even though they'd had a nice day off and done some sight seeing. They said it was very chilly and windy yesterday. The weather has been unseasonably cold and wet while we've been here. I'm not complaining. It will be very hot when we get home so I'm soaking it all in.
By they way, did I mention that it's my birthday today? It's a big one. 40! Can you imagine?! I can't! I keep asking myself, "how the hell did this happen!?" I don't feel 40. I'm not sure what it is supposed to feel like but I don't feel it. I haven't really told my colleagues yet. I don't know why I'm withholding information. I guess I didn't want to spend the actual day this way. Oh, well. I am excited about turning 40 but at the same time I'm asking myself, "What do I do now?" It seems to me that there is a certain adulthood and maturity that comes along with flipping over that first number. I would say this has been a year of re-evaluation and deciding what is important to me in my personal life, my professional life and my artistic life. I think rolling over into this new decade of my life means it's time to get on with all the things I keep saying I'm GOING to do. A new start. That's what it means.
That's about it for now. I'm on the verge of being ready to go home. I'm starting to miss folks and places and things. Also, I'm looking forward to directing [Title of Show] at Oh, Look! New music to learn and that pesky theater company to get started.
More to come!
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Greetings from Brno and a Cyech kezboard1
Hello, All1 I am spending the night in what is supposed to be a Fancz Hotel in the citz of Brno. In case zou§ve alreadz noticed some odd characters and misspellings in mz tzping, it is because I am tzping on a Cyech kezboard. A couple of the letters are different, punctuation is in different places and there are lots of extra kezs for all their accents. I decided to just tzpe the waz I know how and let zou all see how it looks so please bear with me.
We drove southwest from Prague through the pouring down rain to Brno todaz about three or fours. The countrzside so far has been rolling hills, fields and groves of trees. Todaz as we drove we saw bigger hills, I hayyard to guess thez maz be foothills leading to mountains, all the waz here. Brno itself is verz hillz but verz picturesque. Thez have a tram szstem and it§s a pleasant place to walk. It is the second largest citz in the Cyech Republic.
The theater is fantastic1 It is an eighteenth centurz building but it has been totallz renovated and is verz modern. The lobbz is capped with a huge sunroof and is used as an art gallerz. There is a small, state of the art theater with a balconz and elevators that lead to a scene shop below. This is where plazs and opera are given. I§m told there is a larger theater for the ballet companz. We performed on a portable stage in the Sal Moyart. It is a HUGE room with giant windows looking out on the square. White ceiling, white wood trim and bright red walls. STUNNING. we had an audience of well over one hundred. The performance went VERZ well1 It was the first time we all felt relaxed and we all were able to give our absolute best. We got a verz long ovation at the end and were called back to the stage four times. Afterward, we had a piyya in a verz nice restaurant and then came to the hotel. I would write more but thez§ve turned out he lights in the lobbz so I will log off now. It seems odd but it is a different culture, after all.
Look for another posting soon1
We drove southwest from Prague through the pouring down rain to Brno todaz about three or fours. The countrzside so far has been rolling hills, fields and groves of trees. Todaz as we drove we saw bigger hills, I hayyard to guess thez maz be foothills leading to mountains, all the waz here. Brno itself is verz hillz but verz picturesque. Thez have a tram szstem and it§s a pleasant place to walk. It is the second largest citz in the Cyech Republic.
The theater is fantastic1 It is an eighteenth centurz building but it has been totallz renovated and is verz modern. The lobbz is capped with a huge sunroof and is used as an art gallerz. There is a small, state of the art theater with a balconz and elevators that lead to a scene shop below. This is where plazs and opera are given. I§m told there is a larger theater for the ballet companz. We performed on a portable stage in the Sal Moyart. It is a HUGE room with giant windows looking out on the square. White ceiling, white wood trim and bright red walls. STUNNING. we had an audience of well over one hundred. The performance went VERZ well1 It was the first time we all felt relaxed and we all were able to give our absolute best. We got a verz long ovation at the end and were called back to the stage four times. Afterward, we had a piyya in a verz nice restaurant and then came to the hotel. I would write more but thez§ve turned out he lights in the lobbz so I will log off now. It seems odd but it is a different culture, after all.
Look for another posting soon1
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Polenblut No. 2, Communism and Alfons Mucha
It's been a busy two days since my last post so I shall jump right in.
Yesterday, we all piled into our van, I have christened it The Mystery Machine, and we drove two hours to the town of Pisek for our second performance of Polenblut. The town is lovely! A river runs through it and it is obvious the city has worked very hard to create a beautiful waterfront of new buildings with shops and restaurants.
The theater is new with beautiful dressing rooms and a nice stage although there isn't really a fly space and, like the last theater, NO backstage space at all. The auditorium is a large, square room that seats about 250 or 300 people. The back half of the seats were raked but were on portable risers. Clearly all of the seats could be removed from the space to make room for large events of all kinds. There was a small orchestra pit but for whatever reason the elevator had been raised to floor level. The orchestra was on the stage with us and the pit wasn't used. Interestingly enough, for a square room the accoustics were very good. Weather by accident or not, the sound actually went out into the room. We couldn't always hear each other well but we could hear our voices resonating out in the hall so we knew we could be heard. It was an odd sensation but once you got used to it it was heavenly!
Before the concert our hosts were nice enough to bring us some trays of open faced sandwiches. On a very good slice of white bread, sort of a french bread, was spread either a cheese spread or a seasoned mayonaise, then a piece of prociutto and then some pickles and raw onion. They were sort of gloppy but tasty. The only draw back was that the onions smelled to high heaven! UGH! It was really gross after a while.
The performance went well. Much smoother than two days with fewer memory slips. Our small but well formed audience gave us a long ovation. Afterward, our intrepid driver, Petr, lead us through a beautiful park to a very traditional Czech restaurant where I have a fantastic wild boar steak and potato wedges! It was like pork but darker and a little gamey-er. It was GOOD, mkay? Afterward, we piled back into the Mystery Machine and headed back to Prague. I listened to a podcast of a very interesting interview with Linda Lavine of t.v. sitcom "Alice" fame. VERY interesting. She's very much a theater actress and the t.v. show was a 9 year hiatus from that. Now she is in a play on The Broadway and she and her husband own a very small community theater in North Carolina where they act in, direct and produce plays. Isn't that cool!?
Today is a day off for me although two of my colleagues hopped a train to go do a recital in another city. I get to do this with Jennifer Ciobanu on June 3rd in Brno at the Sal Alfons Mocha. More about him later.
By the way, the weather here has been overcast and chilly for the most part. I managed to leave my jacket on a park bench my first day here (It was actually Jamie's so now I owe him a jacket.) so today I went looking to buy another jacket but had no luck. I went to a Tesco department store. Oddly enough, they just mix in the mens and womens clothes and you have to go search throughout an entire floor to find the mens and, more specifically, a wind breaker as they are not all kept inone spot. I wonder if this has anything to do with their history with Communism and the lack of consumer goods during that time. More about that later. Anyway, it seems XL and XXL sizes are made for munchkins here. I could find nothing that would even begin to fit (Am I one of those Fat Americans I hear tell about?) so I gave up. I remain slightly chilly as I make my way through the seats of Prague but I'm not complaining. I'm told it's been in the 90's back home so I'm enjoying it while I can.
ANYWAY, I have become intrigued by the Soviet Era and it's impact on the Czech people so I paid a visit to The Museum of Communism.
It is located just off of Wenceslas Square in the middle of a very busy and fashionable shopping district. It is housed in an old Art Neuveau building called the Casino Palais. BIG staircases, BIG moldings, threadbare carpets and dingy walls. You can see where sometime in the past they installed some very ugly wood venier panels. They don't match the rest of the building. VERY utilitarian and, I suspect, VERY Soviet.
The museum is on the second floor at the top of a large, wide staircase. It is AMAZING! It follows the development of Communism in great detail beginning with the writings of Karl Marx and moving through Lenin and on to the present day concentrating, of course, on Czekoslovakia. The exhibits talked about Marx's emphasis on building a base in industry and how everyone should work in factories and be productive for the state and not for personal gains. The exhibit shows the push towards technology, especially in the arms race and space travel, and the way schools were reformed to educate children in ideals of Communism.
I learned about how the government fixed prices to make it seem as though the economy was fine but there were constant shortages of consumer goods and lots of empty shelves in shops. Foreign luxury goods could be acquired but they had to be bought in special shops using special currency which was available "underground" through brokers.
The city fell into horrible disrepair as government money was going to fund factories and build large, ugly monuments to Communist leaders and "The Workers". Then,in the late 1960's came the "Prague Spring": a period of liberalism in which there was more freedom in the press and in the arts. This was quickly crushed by Moscow when Soviet troops came to occupy the city and the country's Premier was replaced. The most moving part of the museum is the 30 minute video that is shown about the "Velvet Revolution". This,as we all remember, was a series of relatively peaceful protests in Wenceslas Square in November of 1989. They happened as a result of Glastnos and lead to the end of communism in Czecoslovakia. I sat there watching footage of the square FILLED with protestors, young and old, as police, both in and out of uniform, tried to apprehend them. Many were being beaten by the police or hoses were being turned on them. It was upsetting to see the looks of frustration on the faces of the protestors. I sat there and cried.
The last part of the museum discusses the fall of the Berlin Wall and the election of the first president of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Havel, who was one of the leaders of the protests in 1989.
I left the museum and walked out into Wenceslas Square where these protests actually happened only 20 years ago! I was 19 years old! I remember it! I looked up the beautiful, tree lined boulevard that leads up to the impressive facade of the National Museum and tried to imagine what it all must have looked like only 20 short years ago. Now there are fashionable shops with names lik Escada, Benetton, Chanel, and lots of out door cafes. People shop, eat, drink and have fun. You'd never know that such earth shaking events had happened there only 20 years ago!
After what is probably going to be the highlight of my time in Prague, I walked around the block to the Mucha Museum. Mucha was a pioneer of the Art Nouveax style in the late 19th century. He was a born in a small town in the western Slovakia and came to prominence in Paris when he was commissioned by Sarah Bernhardt to design a poster for her production of Gismonda. For the next six years he designed posters, cosutmes and sets for her theater company and spent many years with his family in New York City. After the turn the century, he returned to his homeland in Slovakia where he continued to design posters but also began work on is Slav Epic, a series of 20 HUGE canvases depicting the history of the Slavic people. It was complete in 1913 and is currently housed in the castle of Morovsky Crumlov. There is the intent to move the series to Prague but it has yet to happen.
EVERYONE has seen his work. It is the embodiment of the Art Nouveux style. Beautiful women with flowing hair, sometimes bare chested, reclining on pillows. His posters for Sarah Bernhardt are particularly famous, especially the dection of Ms. Bernhardt as Hamlet. GORGEOUS is the word du jour! I bought some beautiful posters with the official seal of the museum on them and a carboard poster tube to put them in. The will be a welcome addition to my collection!
I think that's about it. Tomorrow night performance three of Polenblut and the next night my recital with Jennifer. More postings to come!
Yesterday, we all piled into our van, I have christened it The Mystery Machine, and we drove two hours to the town of Pisek for our second performance of Polenblut. The town is lovely! A river runs through it and it is obvious the city has worked very hard to create a beautiful waterfront of new buildings with shops and restaurants.
The theater is new with beautiful dressing rooms and a nice stage although there isn't really a fly space and, like the last theater, NO backstage space at all. The auditorium is a large, square room that seats about 250 or 300 people. The back half of the seats were raked but were on portable risers. Clearly all of the seats could be removed from the space to make room for large events of all kinds. There was a small orchestra pit but for whatever reason the elevator had been raised to floor level. The orchestra was on the stage with us and the pit wasn't used. Interestingly enough, for a square room the accoustics were very good. Weather by accident or not, the sound actually went out into the room. We couldn't always hear each other well but we could hear our voices resonating out in the hall so we knew we could be heard. It was an odd sensation but once you got used to it it was heavenly!
Before the concert our hosts were nice enough to bring us some trays of open faced sandwiches. On a very good slice of white bread, sort of a french bread, was spread either a cheese spread or a seasoned mayonaise, then a piece of prociutto and then some pickles and raw onion. They were sort of gloppy but tasty. The only draw back was that the onions smelled to high heaven! UGH! It was really gross after a while.
The performance went well. Much smoother than two days with fewer memory slips. Our small but well formed audience gave us a long ovation. Afterward, our intrepid driver, Petr, lead us through a beautiful park to a very traditional Czech restaurant where I have a fantastic wild boar steak and potato wedges! It was like pork but darker and a little gamey-er. It was GOOD, mkay? Afterward, we piled back into the Mystery Machine and headed back to Prague. I listened to a podcast of a very interesting interview with Linda Lavine of t.v. sitcom "Alice" fame. VERY interesting. She's very much a theater actress and the t.v. show was a 9 year hiatus from that. Now she is in a play on The Broadway and she and her husband own a very small community theater in North Carolina where they act in, direct and produce plays. Isn't that cool!?
Today is a day off for me although two of my colleagues hopped a train to go do a recital in another city. I get to do this with Jennifer Ciobanu on June 3rd in Brno at the Sal Alfons Mocha. More about him later.
By the way, the weather here has been overcast and chilly for the most part. I managed to leave my jacket on a park bench my first day here (It was actually Jamie's so now I owe him a jacket.) so today I went looking to buy another jacket but had no luck. I went to a Tesco department store. Oddly enough, they just mix in the mens and womens clothes and you have to go search throughout an entire floor to find the mens and, more specifically, a wind breaker as they are not all kept inone spot. I wonder if this has anything to do with their history with Communism and the lack of consumer goods during that time. More about that later. Anyway, it seems XL and XXL sizes are made for munchkins here. I could find nothing that would even begin to fit (Am I one of those Fat Americans I hear tell about?) so I gave up. I remain slightly chilly as I make my way through the seats of Prague but I'm not complaining. I'm told it's been in the 90's back home so I'm enjoying it while I can.
ANYWAY, I have become intrigued by the Soviet Era and it's impact on the Czech people so I paid a visit to The Museum of Communism.
It is located just off of Wenceslas Square in the middle of a very busy and fashionable shopping district. It is housed in an old Art Neuveau building called the Casino Palais. BIG staircases, BIG moldings, threadbare carpets and dingy walls. You can see where sometime in the past they installed some very ugly wood venier panels. They don't match the rest of the building. VERY utilitarian and, I suspect, VERY Soviet.
The museum is on the second floor at the top of a large, wide staircase. It is AMAZING! It follows the development of Communism in great detail beginning with the writings of Karl Marx and moving through Lenin and on to the present day concentrating, of course, on Czekoslovakia. The exhibits talked about Marx's emphasis on building a base in industry and how everyone should work in factories and be productive for the state and not for personal gains. The exhibit shows the push towards technology, especially in the arms race and space travel, and the way schools were reformed to educate children in ideals of Communism.
I learned about how the government fixed prices to make it seem as though the economy was fine but there were constant shortages of consumer goods and lots of empty shelves in shops. Foreign luxury goods could be acquired but they had to be bought in special shops using special currency which was available "underground" through brokers.
The city fell into horrible disrepair as government money was going to fund factories and build large, ugly monuments to Communist leaders and "The Workers". Then,in the late 1960's came the "Prague Spring": a period of liberalism in which there was more freedom in the press and in the arts. This was quickly crushed by Moscow when Soviet troops came to occupy the city and the country's Premier was replaced. The most moving part of the museum is the 30 minute video that is shown about the "Velvet Revolution". This,as we all remember, was a series of relatively peaceful protests in Wenceslas Square in November of 1989. They happened as a result of Glastnos and lead to the end of communism in Czecoslovakia. I sat there watching footage of the square FILLED with protestors, young and old, as police, both in and out of uniform, tried to apprehend them. Many were being beaten by the police or hoses were being turned on them. It was upsetting to see the looks of frustration on the faces of the protestors. I sat there and cried.
The last part of the museum discusses the fall of the Berlin Wall and the election of the first president of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Havel, who was one of the leaders of the protests in 1989.
I left the museum and walked out into Wenceslas Square where these protests actually happened only 20 years ago! I was 19 years old! I remember it! I looked up the beautiful, tree lined boulevard that leads up to the impressive facade of the National Museum and tried to imagine what it all must have looked like only 20 short years ago. Now there are fashionable shops with names lik Escada, Benetton, Chanel, and lots of out door cafes. People shop, eat, drink and have fun. You'd never know that such earth shaking events had happened there only 20 years ago!
After what is probably going to be the highlight of my time in Prague, I walked around the block to the Mucha Museum. Mucha was a pioneer of the Art Nouveax style in the late 19th century. He was a born in a small town in the western Slovakia and came to prominence in Paris when he was commissioned by Sarah Bernhardt to design a poster for her production of Gismonda. For the next six years he designed posters, cosutmes and sets for her theater company and spent many years with his family in New York City. After the turn the century, he returned to his homeland in Slovakia where he continued to design posters but also began work on is Slav Epic, a series of 20 HUGE canvases depicting the history of the Slavic people. It was complete in 1913 and is currently housed in the castle of Morovsky Crumlov. There is the intent to move the series to Prague but it has yet to happen.
EVERYONE has seen his work. It is the embodiment of the Art Nouveux style. Beautiful women with flowing hair, sometimes bare chested, reclining on pillows. His posters for Sarah Bernhardt are particularly famous, especially the dection of Ms. Bernhardt as Hamlet. GORGEOUS is the word du jour! I bought some beautiful posters with the official seal of the museum on them and a carboard poster tube to put them in. The will be a welcome addition to my collection!
I think that's about it. Tomorrow night performance three of Polenblut and the next night my recital with Jennifer. More postings to come!
Sunday, May 30, 2010
uart
So, much to say, so little time!
We have been very busy here in Prague. Jennifer and I had our first rehearsal for our due recital with our accompanist which went well. All musical theater so, of course, I'm going to have a blast. That day and the next were officially days off so I tried to fit in as many sights as I could see through the haze of jet lag. I've never been one to get over jet lag easily so I just suffer through until I can sleep through the night and feel rested.
I visited the Jewish Quarter just north of the Old Town. VERY interesting. The Jewish Museum is actually a series of six sites all visitable on the same entrance fee. Four synagogs and two aditional buildings. The Jewish quarter was, of course, wehre the Czech jews settled and eventually became a walled in Ghetto. When the Nazi's occupied the city it was where the jews were imprisoned. Hitler allowed the Jews to collect Jewish artwork and documents with a plan of creating a Museum of the Extinct Jewish Race once the war was over. Eventually, these scholars were killed along with 90 percent of the Jewish population of Czecholslovakia but the work they did lives on today and is there for everyone to see. It goes without saying that the exhibits are fascinating and very moving.
I visited Praque Castle which contains St. Vitus Cathedral with in it's walls. Both are very impressive. The cathedral is famous for it's Hapsburg tombs and the famous Mucha Window. Mucha was one of the pioneers of the Art Nuveau movement. His work is very famous and we've all seen it without realizing it is him. Think Maxfield Parrish and you'll get an idea of what his work looks like. His themes are VERY nationalistic and dramatic. There is a museum in Prague dedicated to his work which I'm hoping to visit soon.
I discovered a fantastic vegitarian restaurant in the Old Town. YUM!
The Little Town which is at the bottom of the hill on which the castle sits is a beautiful neighborhood with lots of wonderful shops and picturesque architecture. It has been fun just to walk around and look at the streets and buildings and the people. Everything is clean and the streets are well kept. I wonder what it all must have been like before the fall of Communism. From what I've read, it was a very different place and I would be having a very different expereince if I were here before 1989. Tomorrow I am going to the Museum of Communism which should be interesting and will shed more light on what Prague was like at that time.
I have been obssessively studying my Polenblut score. Really we all have. We're all trying to get our words into our tiny Singer Brains and trying to remember the running order of the show and all our spoken dialogue. On friday, one of our Minders, Petr, (Very nice pianist who has been very patient with us crazy singers.) drove us to the venue in a 9 seater van in the town of Ceske Budejovice. Lovely, clean streets and beautiful, large town square.
The theater was an experience! The entire building smelled of cigarettes and body odor which made me feel queezy when we first walked through the stage door. The auditorium was TINY. It maybe sat 300 with one balcony and some very odd side balconies. The stage was very narrow but as deep, if not deeper than the auditorium itself. There was NO backstage space at all although, there was a large scene storage room off stage right. It was clearly a Soviet Era building. Utilitarian, ugly, and nothing artistically pleasing about it. We have an orchestra of eight FANTASTIC musicians (They are all very stocky, very Slavic looking gents who look like they'd be more at home driving a cab than playing in an orchestra. I would love to hear them play some Bohemian or Slavic folk music! I bet it would be fantastic!) including our Czech conductor who conducts from the piano and is a rock. He is the calm in the storm which is exactly what any good conductor must be. We were really struggling with words and staging throughout our orchestra run through but thank god we had time to study before the beformance the next day. The town is a three hour drive from Prague so it was there and back on friday and there and back on saturday for the performance.
The performace, by the way went well baring a few memory slips more in the spoken dialogue than in the music. You just have to see the humor in such mishaps and laugh about it. By our last performance, we are giving four in various cities, we should be AMAZING. We had a small audience and they seemed to like it. We are told that the audiences might be small, they might be huge, you just never know.
This particular theater seems to be very fond of contemporary foreign plays in Czech translations. In our dressing room I found a script for a play by Neil LaBute, probably one of his cycle of three Beauty Plays. I saw from the posters back stage that they have done works by Christopher Hampton, Martin McDonough and are currently diong a production of God of Carnage that is, apparently, a huge hit.
We had dinner after the concert, I had a fabulous lamb with mashed potatoes (very typically Czech.) and toasted our opening night with a VERY strong plum vodka. It really knocked our heads off! I can home and started having an allergy attack, the first real attack I've had since I got here, and took two Zyrtek and went to bed. They knocked my out and woke up at 115 this afternoon feeling better and more rested than I have since I got here! We had another rehearsal for our duo recital and I sang my best since we arrived so lets hear it for sleep!
We're all having dinner together tonight and then it's off to our next venue in Pisek with the orchestra for Polenblut tomorrow. Say a prayer for me and all my lengthy speeches! AAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!!
Jay in Prague
P.S. More to come about the quirky hostel where we're staying.
We have been very busy here in Prague. Jennifer and I had our first rehearsal for our due recital with our accompanist which went well. All musical theater so, of course, I'm going to have a blast. That day and the next were officially days off so I tried to fit in as many sights as I could see through the haze of jet lag. I've never been one to get over jet lag easily so I just suffer through until I can sleep through the night and feel rested.
I visited the Jewish Quarter just north of the Old Town. VERY interesting. The Jewish Museum is actually a series of six sites all visitable on the same entrance fee. Four synagogs and two aditional buildings. The Jewish quarter was, of course, wehre the Czech jews settled and eventually became a walled in Ghetto. When the Nazi's occupied the city it was where the jews were imprisoned. Hitler allowed the Jews to collect Jewish artwork and documents with a plan of creating a Museum of the Extinct Jewish Race once the war was over. Eventually, these scholars were killed along with 90 percent of the Jewish population of Czecholslovakia but the work they did lives on today and is there for everyone to see. It goes without saying that the exhibits are fascinating and very moving.
I visited Praque Castle which contains St. Vitus Cathedral with in it's walls. Both are very impressive. The cathedral is famous for it's Hapsburg tombs and the famous Mucha Window. Mucha was one of the pioneers of the Art Nuveau movement. His work is very famous and we've all seen it without realizing it is him. Think Maxfield Parrish and you'll get an idea of what his work looks like. His themes are VERY nationalistic and dramatic. There is a museum in Prague dedicated to his work which I'm hoping to visit soon.
I discovered a fantastic vegitarian restaurant in the Old Town. YUM!
The Little Town which is at the bottom of the hill on which the castle sits is a beautiful neighborhood with lots of wonderful shops and picturesque architecture. It has been fun just to walk around and look at the streets and buildings and the people. Everything is clean and the streets are well kept. I wonder what it all must have been like before the fall of Communism. From what I've read, it was a very different place and I would be having a very different expereince if I were here before 1989. Tomorrow I am going to the Museum of Communism which should be interesting and will shed more light on what Prague was like at that time.
I have been obssessively studying my Polenblut score. Really we all have. We're all trying to get our words into our tiny Singer Brains and trying to remember the running order of the show and all our spoken dialogue. On friday, one of our Minders, Petr, (Very nice pianist who has been very patient with us crazy singers.) drove us to the venue in a 9 seater van in the town of Ceske Budejovice. Lovely, clean streets and beautiful, large town square.
The theater was an experience! The entire building smelled of cigarettes and body odor which made me feel queezy when we first walked through the stage door. The auditorium was TINY. It maybe sat 300 with one balcony and some very odd side balconies. The stage was very narrow but as deep, if not deeper than the auditorium itself. There was NO backstage space at all although, there was a large scene storage room off stage right. It was clearly a Soviet Era building. Utilitarian, ugly, and nothing artistically pleasing about it. We have an orchestra of eight FANTASTIC musicians (They are all very stocky, very Slavic looking gents who look like they'd be more at home driving a cab than playing in an orchestra. I would love to hear them play some Bohemian or Slavic folk music! I bet it would be fantastic!) including our Czech conductor who conducts from the piano and is a rock. He is the calm in the storm which is exactly what any good conductor must be. We were really struggling with words and staging throughout our orchestra run through but thank god we had time to study before the beformance the next day. The town is a three hour drive from Prague so it was there and back on friday and there and back on saturday for the performance.
The performace, by the way went well baring a few memory slips more in the spoken dialogue than in the music. You just have to see the humor in such mishaps and laugh about it. By our last performance, we are giving four in various cities, we should be AMAZING. We had a small audience and they seemed to like it. We are told that the audiences might be small, they might be huge, you just never know.
This particular theater seems to be very fond of contemporary foreign plays in Czech translations. In our dressing room I found a script for a play by Neil LaBute, probably one of his cycle of three Beauty Plays. I saw from the posters back stage that they have done works by Christopher Hampton, Martin McDonough and are currently diong a production of God of Carnage that is, apparently, a huge hit.
We had dinner after the concert, I had a fabulous lamb with mashed potatoes (very typically Czech.) and toasted our opening night with a VERY strong plum vodka. It really knocked our heads off! I can home and started having an allergy attack, the first real attack I've had since I got here, and took two Zyrtek and went to bed. They knocked my out and woke up at 115 this afternoon feeling better and more rested than I have since I got here! We had another rehearsal for our duo recital and I sang my best since we arrived so lets hear it for sleep!
We're all having dinner together tonight and then it's off to our next venue in Pisek with the orchestra for Polenblut tomorrow. Say a prayer for me and all my lengthy speeches! AAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!!
Jay in Prague
P.S. More to come about the quirky hostel where we're staying.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
They told me I could buy a car with a pair of Levi's jeans but no one's selling!
For those of you in my small but loyal group of fans who may not know, I am currently in Praque, Czech Republic at the American Yaro Music Festival. Arrived with six vocalists from Texas on May 24th and we'll be here until June 6th performing a cpncert version of an obscure Viennese operetta called Polenblut and giving a duo recital of Classic American Theater Songs. The operetta performances will be in various cities around the Czech Republic and we are based in Prague. We were met at the airport on monday by one of the Festival's accompanists. She took us by taxi to the church hostel where we're staying. It's very spartan with simple furniture and very, hard, army-cot-like beds. The day we arrived the hot water stopped flowing but that was fixed within 24 hours and all is well now. We have full kitchen privledges and there is a very nice grocery store nearby which happens to be in the same building as the metro stop.
The hostel doesn't have internet service but we were told by our Fearful Leader that "there are internet cafes on every corner.
HA! SHE LIED!!!!
Yesterday my colleague and I wandered around the Old Town look for these seeminly ubiquitous (sp?) internet cafes. There were none to be found! ANYWHERE! We searched high! we searched low! Finally, we spied one across the street from the Estates Theater where Don Giovanni was premiered in 1787. The front half is, indeed, a cafe but the decore is about two or three decades old and clearly hasn't been refurbished since. The computers are housed in a harshly lit back room. It is "no frills" written all over it and the faint smell of B.O. makes my eyes water but what can you do? I'm convinced this place is one of the last vestiges of communist Czechoslovakia. I'm sure it's riddled with hidden microphones and cameras! If I say or do the wrong thing I'll be whisked away and never seen again!
By the looks of things western capitolism is alive and well as represented by MacDonalds, KFC and Starbucks. The buildings and streets are beautiful in spite of western popular culture. Prague wasn't bombed during World War II so all the art nouveax buildings survived, but just barely. I have read that pre-1989, large beams were wedged between the buildings to keep them from falling in on one another. The buildings were black with soot and the general mood was very dark and depressing. Not so today! Everything has been cleaned up and repaired and the tourist industry appears to be booming.
There are a few buildings that give an idea of what things looked like before the Velvet Revolution. The National Museum is still rather black and you can see where the plaster has crumbled away and the National Theater is also black with soot. I hazzard to guess that it is also very run down inside. It presents Operas, ballet and plays and has the largest state subsidy of all the Nationally supported arts organizations. (Interesting side note: I noticed that Tracy Letts' play August: Osage County is playing right now...in Czech!)
In my wanderings I happened across the Czech State Opera House so I bought a ticket for about 35 dollars for Tosca tonight night. The exchange rate is amazing. About 19 or 20 crowns for every dollar so a 700 crown ticket is about 35 dollars for a really good seat. (I assume since it's the National Opera the singers will be Czech and I wouldn't be surprised if the opera is sung in Czech.) The exchange rate also makes food very inexpensive. a 200 crown bill is, what, 10 dollars? Not bad!
Yesterday, we had our first rehearsal with the conductor in a church in central Prague. I can't figure out what kind of church it is. Something about the Sacred Brethren? from what I can gather the Catholic faith has had a hard time here so it may be protestant. The sanctuary is square with a wrap around balcony and an organ on the second level. it is painted in shades of yellow and white and is equipped with very old wooden pews that are all scratched up and even have initials carved in them. The rehearsal went well. The conductor played the piano for the rehearsal and knows the Viennese operetta style very well. It's hard to explain what he was doing. Basically he was swinging the waltz beat, shortening the first beat of the measure and adding time to the second. We would probably refer to it as a jazz rhythm but I'm sure it's typical to the Viennese operetta style. this method gave the music a lilt and an elegance they don't even begin to teach us about in the States. I suspect our Flerdermaus's and Merry Widows are pretty sub-standard.
Today we rehearsed for our duo recital. Our accompanist met us at the hostel, she is a very attractive brunette who speaks very good english, and she took us to the appartment of a pianist friend of hers. It was located in a typical modern neighborhood off of a main street with a street car line. We went up a very dark, very institutional-looking stairway to the second floor and I'm not lying when I say I wondered if we'd been lead astray and were about ot be sold into white slavery! We were shown into what seemed to be a two room flat with a central vestibule. I wasn't sure where the kitchen was but it seemed the vestibule might also be the kitchen although I didn't see a refridgerator or a stove. There were shelves on two walls that heald dishes, a tea service dish towels. The piano was a very old Steinway that hadn't been tuned in donkey's years. In general the decor was VERY spartan and the whole place smelled very musty and old.
After the rehearsal I had intended to go tour Prague Castel but owing to my lingering jet lag and a blistering headache I got on the wrong tram! It was some time before I realized I was going AWAY from the castle and not TOWARD it. I finally change trams and came back down into old town but at that point I was EXTRA tired and my feet hurt so I found a starbucks and drank a latte. Sidebar: the barista give me a hard time because I gave her a thousand crown note which was all I had after my visit to the bankomat. Cashiers are famous here for giving you a hard time about almost everything. I just smiled great big and said, "SORRY!" I got a dirty look.
I'm going to try for the castle again tomorrow and also the Jewish Quarter which is on the north side of the Old Town. That's a saga unto itself so I'm sure I'll have lots to write about.
Talk to you, my small but loyal followers, soon!
P.S. I'm posting this without editing it. My appologies for typos and odd sentence structure.
The hostel doesn't have internet service but we were told by our Fearful Leader that "there are internet cafes on every corner.
HA! SHE LIED!!!!
Yesterday my colleague and I wandered around the Old Town look for these seeminly ubiquitous (sp?) internet cafes. There were none to be found! ANYWHERE! We searched high! we searched low! Finally, we spied one across the street from the Estates Theater where Don Giovanni was premiered in 1787. The front half is, indeed, a cafe but the decore is about two or three decades old and clearly hasn't been refurbished since. The computers are housed in a harshly lit back room. It is "no frills" written all over it and the faint smell of B.O. makes my eyes water but what can you do? I'm convinced this place is one of the last vestiges of communist Czechoslovakia. I'm sure it's riddled with hidden microphones and cameras! If I say or do the wrong thing I'll be whisked away and never seen again!
By the looks of things western capitolism is alive and well as represented by MacDonalds, KFC and Starbucks. The buildings and streets are beautiful in spite of western popular culture. Prague wasn't bombed during World War II so all the art nouveax buildings survived, but just barely. I have read that pre-1989, large beams were wedged between the buildings to keep them from falling in on one another. The buildings were black with soot and the general mood was very dark and depressing. Not so today! Everything has been cleaned up and repaired and the tourist industry appears to be booming.
There are a few buildings that give an idea of what things looked like before the Velvet Revolution. The National Museum is still rather black and you can see where the plaster has crumbled away and the National Theater is also black with soot. I hazzard to guess that it is also very run down inside. It presents Operas, ballet and plays and has the largest state subsidy of all the Nationally supported arts organizations. (Interesting side note: I noticed that Tracy Letts' play August: Osage County is playing right now...in Czech!)
In my wanderings I happened across the Czech State Opera House so I bought a ticket for about 35 dollars for Tosca tonight night. The exchange rate is amazing. About 19 or 20 crowns for every dollar so a 700 crown ticket is about 35 dollars for a really good seat. (I assume since it's the National Opera the singers will be Czech and I wouldn't be surprised if the opera is sung in Czech.) The exchange rate also makes food very inexpensive. a 200 crown bill is, what, 10 dollars? Not bad!
Yesterday, we had our first rehearsal with the conductor in a church in central Prague. I can't figure out what kind of church it is. Something about the Sacred Brethren? from what I can gather the Catholic faith has had a hard time here so it may be protestant. The sanctuary is square with a wrap around balcony and an organ on the second level. it is painted in shades of yellow and white and is equipped with very old wooden pews that are all scratched up and even have initials carved in them. The rehearsal went well. The conductor played the piano for the rehearsal and knows the Viennese operetta style very well. It's hard to explain what he was doing. Basically he was swinging the waltz beat, shortening the first beat of the measure and adding time to the second. We would probably refer to it as a jazz rhythm but I'm sure it's typical to the Viennese operetta style. this method gave the music a lilt and an elegance they don't even begin to teach us about in the States. I suspect our Flerdermaus's and Merry Widows are pretty sub-standard.
Today we rehearsed for our duo recital. Our accompanist met us at the hostel, she is a very attractive brunette who speaks very good english, and she took us to the appartment of a pianist friend of hers. It was located in a typical modern neighborhood off of a main street with a street car line. We went up a very dark, very institutional-looking stairway to the second floor and I'm not lying when I say I wondered if we'd been lead astray and were about ot be sold into white slavery! We were shown into what seemed to be a two room flat with a central vestibule. I wasn't sure where the kitchen was but it seemed the vestibule might also be the kitchen although I didn't see a refridgerator or a stove. There were shelves on two walls that heald dishes, a tea service dish towels. The piano was a very old Steinway that hadn't been tuned in donkey's years. In general the decor was VERY spartan and the whole place smelled very musty and old.
After the rehearsal I had intended to go tour Prague Castel but owing to my lingering jet lag and a blistering headache I got on the wrong tram! It was some time before I realized I was going AWAY from the castle and not TOWARD it. I finally change trams and came back down into old town but at that point I was EXTRA tired and my feet hurt so I found a starbucks and drank a latte. Sidebar: the barista give me a hard time because I gave her a thousand crown note which was all I had after my visit to the bankomat. Cashiers are famous here for giving you a hard time about almost everything. I just smiled great big and said, "SORRY!" I got a dirty look.
I'm going to try for the castle again tomorrow and also the Jewish Quarter which is on the north side of the Old Town. That's a saga unto itself so I'm sure I'll have lots to write about.
Talk to you, my small but loyal followers, soon!
P.S. I'm posting this without editing it. My appologies for typos and odd sentence structure.
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