Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Well, that was fun.

That seems like a sarcastic title, but it really isn't.

I finished out my Van Gogh day with a visit to the Rijksmuseum and then opening night of "Hercules"by Handel. It is a very modern looking production. The stage was covered in sand (how much of it must get into the pit?!) and really cool set that had geometric shapes that moved in the walls and allowed for fascinating lighting effects. Quite a lot of the drama was done purely with the lighting, which was totally cool. The cast was dressed in sort of business casual clothing, with grey skirts and slacks. It was the first instance I've seen of forshadowing with costumes. The worse the situation got, the closer to the tragedy of Hercules being accidently killed by his wife, the more of the cast changed in to all black versions of their costumes. The singing was wonderful (but all of the female leads were Swedish? why?) and the orchestra was "fab,"Peter was right. My only complaint was that the first half was 2.25 hours long. And that is just waaaay too much early music opera without an intermission. I was sitting next to a man who got very squirmy indeed. There were also just a couple of issues with tempo- someone was pushing ahead most of the time, but it alternated between the chorus and the orchestra. It wasn't a bad thing - just a little bit of a tense thing.

By the way: want to find Americans? Go to a hostel in Amsterdam. Dear lord.

After the performance there was a reception for the musicians and invited guests, of which I was one. (The tickets were under "Norton-Middaugh" and that hadn't even occured to me so there was a bit of a panic as I was trying to figure out how to get in to the show. But it all worked out, so phew.) I met a bunch of people- what an international group that orchestra was. Peter brought his orchestra along with him and then hired a bunch of dutch musicians, except that one of the "English" people I met was Hungarian, and a bunch of the "Dutch" people were English, and one American from Alaska who has also worked with Webb Wiggins, so we had fun reminicing about him and then exchanged contact information. She suggested another grant that I should try for for studying in Europe. Then everyone went to a pub and discussed how, what with global warming and all, what you really need to do is put all of Holland on a raft- and then you'd be golden.

Peter and I have had a really good talk over the last couple of days- he aksed me how Peabody had been and I was hemming and hawing, so he told me why he had asked. He remembered what I had been like the first time we ever talked and how incredibly excited I was about everything and since then I haven't volunteered information about my music, I've only responded to direct questions. So he figured that something had been going on with my bass playing that wasn't all good. So he was very reassuring that I could do whatever I wanted and it didn't have to be music necessarily, but that what I learned from music would never disappear because it is part of who I am and all that. It was really nice to hear all of that from a mentor type. I was beginning to think he would blame me or something if it turned out that I didn't become a bass player. Which is a terrible reason to start a career. Anyhow, I still don't know what I'm going to do with my life (Mommy says I don't have to make any decisions until the plane trip home!) but I'm having bunches of fun.

Also, I'm in love with Vermeer.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

lets be clear - you're not ALLOWED to make any decisions until the plane trip home :)

Glad that you and Peter were able to talk. The reception sounds fun as well.

Casitareina said...

secretly I've already made decisions... Sorry!

Anonymous said...

---- and the decision in the envelope is ---------

????????????????????????

Dan G

freshbread said...

recommended listening : "Decisions, Decisions" by Goodie Mob. Word is bond.

you think that was real sand on the stage?? I find that pretty hard to believe..