This is my first time being on tour and I mean really on tour, out of town for a week at a time on tour. I wasn’t sure I knew how to be on tour. After spending some time with many different Kindergarten classes before the performances I began to realize that all I needed to know about being on tour I had learned in Kindergarten.
Rule number one, share everything. This rule was easy! After week one we had all passed around a cold of some form. Once we hit the road Sarah and Wendy learned how to share their costumes. I shared all my tissue, gum, tic-tacs, and ibuprophen. Oh, and we all had to share hotel rooms.
#2 Don’t hit people. I must have missed this day in Kindergarten. During the fight over the hat I almost hit Wendy in the eye. I scratched Wendy’s arm during one show. Sarah hit me in the face once when I was trying to get past her to the prince. Stacey loves to hit whoever is playing Tisbe with a pillow. Maybe we all missed this lesson.
#3 Clean up your own mess. I use to try to pick up all the feathers my boa would leave on gym floors, but after a while I just gave up and picked up everyone’s empty water bottles.
#4 Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody. I can’t count the number of times “I’m sorry” gets whispered back stage during the show because someone has ignored the “don’t hit people” rule.
#5 Wash your hands before you eat. We have all learned to wash our hands or use hand sanitizer after giving high fives and shaking kids’ hands. I think we have finally gotten rid of the sickness that we have been sharing!
#6 Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you. We never turn down baked goods. We had a teacher in Grass Valley make us yummy banana bread. Sarah is always making or buying us cookies. For the triple birthday celebration I made everyone carrot cake cupcakes. When you are on the road sweets seem to make it all better.
#7 Take a nap every afternoon. The guys have this one covered; one of them is always taking a nap on the set bed before the show or in between shows.
#8 When you go out in the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together. Travelling in a group of nine we have learned this lesson well. We tend to stick together for meals and never seem too sick of one another that we wouldn’t be up for a game of Apples to Apples once the work day is over.
Goes to show everything you DO need to know you learned in Kindergarten!
By Jessica Vit Anderson
....what I was saying here just a couple of weeks ago about opera stars canceling or being replaced for other reasons close to the scheduled performance? Well, there was big news on Thursday apropos that very topic. A press release from the Met announced the replacement of two artists on account of, individually, laryngitis and a knee injury. La Cieca who while not always spot on the money seems to have excellent sources at the Met (yes, gentle reader, even better than Operaman's!) says: "Apparently sometimes opera companies choose to use terminology like “laryngitis” and “knee injury” in order to avoid having to say “exhibited bizarre behavior at rehearsals” or “arrived obviously unprepared.”
I am about to do something I told myself (and told Portland Opera) I would never do when I began this blog and that is to talk about or review a current production of Portland Opera. There are many and obvious reasons why I would make that decision but in the present case there are what I consider to be two very good reasons for telling you about it and one perfectly reasonable rationale for doing so. My rationale is that all four performances of this show are entirely sold out and so it cannot be suggested I am shilling for my masters in order to boost ticket sales. So. Why do I want to write about this show? Firstly, because I am still so excited about what I saw on opening night that I can hardly stop talking about it and I am hoping that those of you reading this who were also at the show will be saying to yourselves "Yes! That's just what I thought!" as you read along. It's always nice to share a fond memory, is it not? And then there was so much that was right with this production that can translate to almost any other production that I believe it was an object lesson in how these things should be done.
It can't be easy being the General Manager of an opera company (right, Chris?). There are so many people and factions to keep happy: your Board of Directors to whom you look for support and cash, singers who by and large are not noted for being the world's most stable of beings, directors who are given to thoughts such as "Wouldn't it be great to stage 
A few evenings ago I sat with an old friend John sampling a little Bombay Sapphire accompanied by just enough Schweppes quinine water to keep malaria at bay when our conversation turned to opera. This is notable because John, who is a man of about my own age is more given to discussing the relative merits of The Clash