Home : Blogs : Portland Opera To Go's Blog

List of Bloggers

Monthly blog archive

more

About Portland Opera To Go

Name

Portland Opera To Go

Bio

Each year Portland Opera To Go takes an opera on the road, sharing the power of opera, music, and theater with schools and communities throughout Oregon and SW Washington. It’s not necessarily the easiest thing in the world, as you might imagine. But it’s one of the most rewarding . . . for us and for the thousands upon thousands of students who get to experience live opera, many for the first time.


And this blog will give you a first-hand view from the performers themselves of what it’s like when Opera hits the road!

 

Here’s a link to more information on the tour and the program.

Syndicate content

Portland Opera To Go's Blog

Week 8: Banding Together

Submitted by Portland Opera To Go on Thu, 03/07/2013 - 10:48

¡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.)
 

Filed under:

Flashback to Week 1

Submitted by Portland Opera To Go on Thu, 02/28/2013 - 11:23

Hello there residents of cyber space! Sarastro, ‘aka’ Kevin Bertin here to sign off on our first week out of the gate, the week of January 14 – 18.


After two weeks of intense rehearsal making sure that our 45-minute take on Mozart’s ever-so popular singspiel was primped, primed, and ready to go, we were super excited to see how our young audience would receive it.


Our first stop was at Lauren Middle School, a school not too far from Portland proper. Right out of the gate we were faced with small obstacles that warranted us not using all of our set due to lack of space. This venue required us to be on a stage which sat very low, therefore the 12 small boxes which provide the foundation for our beautiful storybook were left in the Penske (a small detail that made no difference to our eager middle school audience.) Regardless of this tiny conundrum, it was a smash hit! A smash I say, due to the thunderous rounds of “bravi tutti” uttered again and again by our pre-pubescent audience.


Tuesday corresponded with a hectic day at two different schools about 45 miles apart, followed by a gracious 11:00am call time for our St. Thomas More School performance on Wednesday afternoon. The space was beautiful and provided a rather “wet” acoustic, which was a saving grace since I was not feeling astonishingly resonant that day (hehe). After another great performance we loaded up, and headed back to the opera center. En route, hungry struck and Tamino, Papagena, the 3rd Lady and I, devised a plan for delicious eats at Portland’s famous Pok Pok! Vietnamese spicy chicken wings – mm mm good!

Filed under:

Week 7: The Challenges of Crazy Tour Fitness

Submitted by Portland Opera To Go on Tue, 02/19/2013 - 12:52

In the later part of 2011, when Alexis Hamilton approached me about managing the tour for Portland Opera To Go, I was not in particularly fantastic shape. I had been running for pleasure, but had no structure to my fitness. 3 months before the project started last year, I was challenged to a vegan diet regime by my best friend and his wife, who were planning on cutting all animal products from their diet. Now, this worked fine while operating out of Portland... about a month into the tour, I had fallen off the the proverbial "meatless wagon," and welcomed cheese and meat back with open arms (and satiated tummy).


Fast forward to the summer of 2012:


From August until late September, I found myself working on a completely different tour. I was hired by a publishing company out of New York, working as a distributer. The tour's main function was to set up poster fairs at college campuses, with the intent of providing freshmen with art to hang on the walls of their dorm rooms. With POGO, we are lucky to get to return back to Portland throughout the tour. No so with this poster tour. For 6 weeks I was living in hotels from NY to Chicago. Now, there's nothing wrong with hotel fitness centers, but the drive to go to the gym after a 12 hour day at a poster sale is another matter. Also, the company provided us with a meal per diem that had to be spent or returned. There was much consumption of steak and lobster, creamy soups, fantastic desserts, coffee and pastries... 


I gained a few pounds.


Spending time on college campuses, you meet a lot of college athletes. We would hire many of them to unload our truck, paying them in posters. One of these fellows introduced me to Crossfit.

Filed under: