I'm done. Cultured-out. Ready for a trashy novel or six. Over the last nine days I have attended a Met HD transmission of Lucia di Lammermoor, seen The Turn of The Screw four times, been to Opera Theater Oregon's production of Camille/Traviata twice, attended the Oregon Symphony at the Schnitz and recorded and edited a reading of an entire Henry James novella onto disc.

I am not complaining, mind you. OTO's silent movie of Camille run with live music from La Traviata was as much fun as I have come to expect from this company and, I am happy to say, sold very well. I am told that the Valentine's night performance at the Clinton Street Theater sold 200 tickets and was received with great enthusiasm. I have accepted an invitation to be on the board of that organization and so can no longer purport to be a disinterested admirer of what they do. As regular readers will know I have been a fan of OTO ever since seeing their production of Carmen. I think they do very good, professional and entertaining work and I am delighted to have an opportunity to help their progress if I can. The picture above is of Valentino and Alla Nazimovain a still from this 1921 movie.

Wednesday, February 4th, 2009    

Part 1
We started the day dark and early in Baker City.  Most of us woke up somewhere around 5:30am or so in order to meet at 6:15 to depart for Pine Eagle Elementary/Junior High/High School in Halfway, Oregon.  The hills and mountains were covered in snow, but the roads were clear.  Opera singers really don't like getting up anywhere near this early, and I would say most of us weren't exactly bright-eyed or bushy-tailed as the saying goes.  But we were treated to a spectacular sunrise in the mountains as we drove along the Hell's Canyon Scenic By-way. The sun cast a reddish orange glow over the peaks while the mountains and valleys were a colored in the deep purple filter of early dawn's shadow.

We couldn't afford to spend too much time admiring the view though as most of us were putting the finishing touches on learning some new music for 3 upcoming concert performances or catching a few more moments of sleep or making sure that the van didn't drive over the edge of the twisting roads.

We arrived at the school without incident and were met with enthusiasm, if not necessarily the most sure directions on where to unload the set from the truck.  Having been told that it would work best for us if we drove the Penske truck around the building, our fearless and intrepid tour manager proceeded to drive around the back of the building. 

However, we were then told that we would be better off if we had stayed in the front of the building.  In the course of moving the truck back to the front of the building, the moving truck got stuck in the snowy "trail" that was behind the school.  At this point we were getting closer and closer to show time, and we hadn't unloaded one piece of the set.