¡Its your favorite Tercera Dama! Sorry, I was unable to get this blog out sooner....we had NO cell or wifi reception. ANYWAYS!!!! Its another travel week, and the POGO team is MORE than well oiled machine. At this point...I have NO idea how many shows we've done, and how many are left. We travel to a new school....assess our load in situation and performance space, then get to work. Every member of POGO is strong, smart, and important. If someone has an idea or suggestion, we listen *for the most part ;)* If someone asks for help...we help. In our own way...POGO has become a family.

We all are completely invested in educating the children and the surrounding community on the importance of music, especially Opera. We love performing for the kids and especially love when they interacte with us during . #makingoperaaccessible I have total respect for my cast mates. If one of us is sick...we band together to help. Because when we are on the road...we are all we got.  Example: Lovely lady Dru (Papagena/ 2nd Lady/Queen of the night cover) got sick from some crazy virus.......and ¡¡¡LOST HER VOICE!!!

*side note*( this is REALLY scary for singers....like a sprained ankle for a runner.)
 

Hello Portland Opera Blog World!

Ksenia here….Your resident Queen of the Night/First Lady. We POGO-ers are extremely sorry about the lack of updates on our adventures, but I promise we are hard at work! I’m going to take you back to the last week of January, into the time machine we go……. (bzzzzz, meeep meep, DING!)

This week has really warmed our little POGO hearts. We have many a show, in many a place, but one of our favorites this week was most definitely visiting St. Mary’s Home for Boys. After presenting our show to the boys, we got to dine together. Each POGO-er sat at a table with 3-5 boys and talked about various aspects of our show, opera, and life in general. The gentlemen at my table ranged from 10 to 14 years old and had many questions….So many that I was asked sometimes 3 different questions at once and tried my best to keep up. There was much curiosity about where we visit, how I came to opera, where I was from (Seattle, woohoo!) and whether I preferred the Beavers or Ducks (this one left me

Much of our travel time is spent like this...

a little puzzled until one of the other boys clued me in on the fact that these are local sports teams). 

We left the school with both our bellies and our hearts very full.

POGO

The singers for the outreach arm of our company, Portland Opera To Go, have been in the building for the last couple of weeks, working hard in rehearsals. This year's touring production is an English-language version of The Magic Flute, cut down to about 50 minutes. The production, last used in 2005, features a giant 'pop-up book' as the main set piece, with all the things any self-respecting pop-up book should feature: things that slide out, open up, and unfold from its 'pages' -- including the dragon in the opening scene. As always with our outreach tour, the small cast of singers are responsible for everything on the road: packing up the set, loading it into the truck, driving the truck (and our passenger van) to whatever school or alternative venue they're visiting, unpacking the set, building the set on site, and so forth. They are a really special group of people, who are not only talented singers but also excellent educators and poised ambassadors for their craft (and this company). Some of them are local; the rest come from cities throughout the U.S. and Canada.