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 3^rd Lady and I, devised a plan for delicious eats at Portland’s famous Pok Pok! Vietnamese spicy chicken wings – mm mm good!