The adventures of Miss Despina

6, 683 words done!

S, I love you forever and ever until I die for formatting my project for me.

It’s an absolute pile of wank.

But at least it’s finished.

Jubilations all around!  

Oh dear.

• 6,000 words due in for Friday

• 2,000 words done

• (54 days left until I go to Italy!)

• 37 hours left until hand-in

• 25 litres of coffee drunk

• (Two fantastic opera rehearsals - ssshh!)

• One exam left

• One tired Despina

• One Thursday spent tied to computer chair

• No blogging or msn-ing.

A friend and I broke into a church today. Or rather, they hadn’t changed the code for the sacristy door since he used to go there. We entered furtively, and slipped unnoticed into a secluded room, where we closed the door, hurriedly moved some furniture, ripped off our coats and proceeded to make a lot of noise… He had just happened to have a copy of Schumann Frauenlieben und Leben in his bag, the church just happened to have a piano, and I just needed to sing. What did you think I meant?

I’ll see you on the other side.

Pray for me! 

The studio is bathed in morning light. The air is warm and humid - we open the windows and the mixed sounds of birdsong and a jazz quintet enter the room. The director’s eyes are wide with enthusiasm as he guides us through the scene. The first scene we are blocking, the confrontation between Dido and Aeneas. We sing through the first few lines. Aeneas has been summoned away from Carthage, by a spirit disguised as a messenger of the gods. He wonders how to break the news to Dido.

Him: What shall lost Aeneas do? How, Royal fair, shall I impart the Gods’ decree and tell you we must part?

Her: Thus on the fatal banks of Nile weeps the deceitful crocodile. Thus hypocrites that murder act make Heaven and Gods the authors of the fact. 

"So Aeneas comes on and sings - what shall lost Aeneas do? He’s basically saying, I’ve tried everything, what more do you want from me? You sit and stare straight ahead, don’t move, just ignore him. When you say the word hypocrite, just give him a really venemous look, then turn back to the audience."

Aeneas comes towards Dido, fire in his eyes.

By all that’s good -

She jumps up in anger, startling him, and confronts him full in the face: 

By all that’s good? No more! All that’s good you have foreswore. To your promis’d empire fly, and let forsaken Dido die.

She walks away from him, but he takes her hand. As he sings, she is torn between her feelings of love for him, and her insecurities about being with him, and whether it is for the right reasons. She knows that she loves him so much that if he were to leave her, she would surely die. She is terrified of loving. Yet a union with him would secure the future for herself and her empire…

In spite of Jove’s command I’ll stay, offend the gods and love obey.

The director is laughing with his recognition of Dido, but his sense of frustration is palpable. "He wants to love her, to defy the gods for her but she just won’t let him. So self-destructive! So just shake off his hand and cross the stage away from him."

No, faithless man, thy course pursue, I’m now resolved as well as you. No repentance shall reclaim the injur’d Dido’s slighted flame, for ’tis enough whate’r you now decree, that you had once a thought of leaving me.

"He sits with his head in his hands, still trying to get through to her. Just the thought of leaving her is a crime that makes him unworthy of her - she is so terrified of him leaving that she is doing her best to drive him away!"

Him: Let Jove say what he will, I’ll stay!

Her: Away, away!

He tries to convince her that he will stay and love her, but she cannot bear to listen, and, all her former poise and composture gone, she darts around her chambers like a caged animal, covering her ears, screaming no, no! away, away! as he tells her that he will stay and obey love rather than the gods. Finally she collapses in her throne singing to death I’ll fly if longer you delay - away, away!

We played with this scene for about an hour, until finally, we ran it, and decided just for kicks to run into the next scene. The director played for us and was watching over the piano. We ran the scene until the part where the terrified and exhaused Dido collapses into her throne. Aeneas rounded on me and pinned me to the back of the throne, and I looked into his beautiful face, and screamed: Away, away! I turned my face sharply away from him, and felt his gesture of resignation as he left. He had tried everything to love Dido, but she had rejected him and destroyed herself in the process. I stared after him, at the empty space where he had been, and felt all the energy leave my body as I tried to support myself on my throne. I fixed my eyes on the middle-distance and sang very quietly and darkly:

But death, alas, I cannot shun. Death must come when he is gone.

The director seemed happy with our instincts.

"Oh D, you have to do it just like that in the performance!"

I hope you all voted today - shame on you if you didn’t!

Happy Ascension Day - what a blessed day this has been!!!

Has anyone else been blessed? 

 

This is just a quick update.

My dissertation and revision are going well.

I’ve started going to Mass. 

I’ve had to turn down the chance to do Mimi and Liu for a professional company in a Puccini gala, as it’s the weekend that Don Pasquale goes into production. I’ve had to accept Santuzza in Cav, however, three days before Dido. Rehearsals are going amazingly for all three operas, just wish they weren’t all taking place within three weeks, but such is the life of a singer at times!

This weekend I have a Dido rehearsal followed by lunch with S, about which we are both inordinately excited (I know it doesn’t make sense, but I’m happy to accept this one without questioning the whys and wherefores). And then to watch a friend’s production of HMS Pinafore, including a world premiere of a piece he has written to accompany it, and to go to a party (to which I have been given instructions that I must wear stockings - like I need an excuse)!

I go to Torino in seven weeks, so am spending lots of time in my garden, eating antipasti and reading Italian books in preparation.

I apologise now, because I’m going to start talking about relationship shit. I’ve deleted the last oeuvre mainly because it is maudlin crap that no-one should have to read.

You may remember that I began April with a resolve to make some changes regarding certain aspects of my lifestyle. Well, I think it’s fair to say that that was a complete disaster, and here I am coming out of the end of April, even more tired, confused and fucked-up than before.

I was in a sort of relationship with a boy, M, only it wasn’t what I would call a relationship since he was trying to date someone else at the time we got together, and so didn’t tell his friends or anyone that he and I were spending time together. It’s fair to say that M’s friends for the most part hate me. It’s also fair to say that the feelings are for the most part mutual.

M said he’d give me the space I needed to sort out what I want from life, and that we would talk after my return from Italy and Prague, in August. Then he decided that he’d fallen in love with me and started putting pressure on me to make a big commitment to him - one he knew from the start that I couldn’t make. I was still reeling from breaking up with Jez, and from S being a complete twat, rejecting me to go after something that it turned out he didn’t even want in the end (his words, not mine). I need some time to work out who I am, and what I want, and to find the strength to be alone. I’ve been in long term relationships almost constantly for nearly four years. But I feel like people are trying to take this time away from me, to trap me again.

M and I started dating when I was in a very vulnerable place, and S’s treatment of me had broken my heart and destroyed my self-esteem. Here was M keeping me a secret, telling me verbatim the unkind and downright untrue things he allowed his friends to say about me, without once stepping in to defend me, lest someone should think that he cared for me. Confirming my belief that I am not good enough to be considered for a relationship, that I am just someone to pass the time with until someone really special comes along. I have made mistakes - most of them recently and in the full view of a group of people who have ostracised me. But how dare anyone judge me for this? I am angry with M, and angry with myself for not seeing sooner, for allowing him to objectify me for so long.

I just can’t do this anymore, this treadmill, I have to get off. It is draining me and it is not worth it.

So, I am going.

Turning and walking proudly away from you, my back straight, tears in my eyes that you won’t see, because there will be no last look over my shoulder. I will hide my vulnerability. I will ignore your cries, because when I listen to them, they fall like weights upon me. I will simply keep walking, and grow smaller and smaller in the distance, until you will forget I was ever part of your life.