The adventures of Miss Despina

Dido was last night in Manchester Cathedral. I want to remember it forever. It is one of the best experiences I have ever, ever had. I am too tired to write properly, but it was just… Yeah. amazing.

Thank you to everyone who made it so special by being there, particularly S, E, and Auntie P and Uncle P, and anyone else reading this who was there.

Thursday:

• A 3 a.m. coursework special after some rather intense conversation with S and a big cry. Finally, finally…
• Handing in of coursework.
• Brief trip to college.
• A complimentary ticket to en excellent gig, where a good friend was playing in the support band.
• Drinking tea til the wee small hours with one of Scotland’s best new folk bands. (I love the way people from the isle of Uist say my name!)

Friday:

• A visit to the naughtiest, loveliest deli in Manchester, where I impressed myself by speaking some Polish.
• Portraiture class.
• Rehearsal with my repetiteur who has decided he is in love with me and is making it difficult for me to work with him. Especially when he keeps going on and on about my life and wasting my time. This is bearable when he’s doing me a favour, not so bearable when I’m paying him. But he’s a great repetiteur and no-one else I know does it half as well.
• Orgasmic risotto. Nothing nicer than spending an hour in the kitchen and creating something truly beautiful. But someone is getting comfortable…
• Self-indulgence.

• Waking up with a hangover.
• Rushing to a modelling job.
• Someone who’d been drawing me for three hours attempting to get my number - not nice! Definitely knocking that job on the head soon.
• Purchase of many beautiful LPs, including Palestrina Stabat Mater etc, and two Deutsche Grammophon opera box sets - Don Giovanni and Figaro! Wish I had an LP player…
• Coffee and cake.
• Religious debate.
• Randomly bumping into friends around the university.
• The bellini hour.
• Three bellinis and many secrets later, decadent Italian food.
• The train ride home where I saw sights no respectable citizen should ever have to see.

Sunday:

• A peaceful start to the day
• Peace shattered: thanks dad.
• A charade for guests.
• Revision.
• A realisation. A big, scary realisation.

Monday:

• More arguing - what could be more selfish?
• Being used for emotional dumpage one hour before my exam (because he thinks it’s preferable to meeting up and talking properly. Thanks for that.)
• An exam that I know I passed, perhaps it wasn’t a spectacular success but I know I’ve passed it.
• An encounter with a beautiful lady.
• A rehearsal for Don Pasquale - one of the most celebrated Wagner tenors of the last few decades singing "You do something to me" - to me. Surreal…
• A trip to HMV for a copy of Sondheim’s Company. Fantastic recording with the delectable Adrian Lester.
• The cinema to see this. Awful. Just awful. I can only guess at how bad the second hour was! My friend and I got through by eating a lot of Ben and Jerry’s, belly-laughing very loudly, and running away for a Nando’s when it all got too much. Do not go and see this film.
• Fabulous conversations about just everything.
• A promise of a night of Poulenc opera soon! Excited!

Now I have to go and continue the increasingly farcical end of my uni career. Take care and let me know what you’ve been up to.

No time no time no time!

Sorry I am stupidly busy at the moment but everything is going well! Thanks for the good wishes everyone, I wish I had time to fill you in and thank you properly.

Next week I’ll be going to my first chamber choir practice and my first Candide rehearsal, my first Italian lesson of the new year, and maybe my new job (fingers crossed) also the secret lovely thing (and don’t worry Mum, you know what this is!) is getting closer to being reality. (The post I apologised for was just me being stupid and childish!)

We were in the park (the biggest metropolitan park in Europe) all afternoon, taking photos to go on my various adverts - concert programmes, online, posters in churches and bridal shops, etc. There are some stunning head / shoulders shots, but the full length ones would be nicer in a better outfit, my skirt was just a bit too short! I look like a doll on some of the photos though, they will make great "head shots". I was also pleased with the amount of weight I’ve shed since Prague, just by being happier and looking after myself.

Now I’m going to go and quickly read my favourite blogs, then I’m giving my house a very urgent clean! 

I’ve been back almost a week now and I have to say that I’m getting increasingly anxious about enrolling at uni, getting my student loan through, and submitting the volumes of paperwork, reports and receipts needed to get the final part of my Prague grant. I have a lot of extra-curricular stuff to organise, language classes to enrol for (Italian stage 2 and beginners’ Spanish) and somewhere in the middle of this lot I have to find a job so I have enough money to pay my phone bill so I don’t have to perform a sexual favour on someone from 3 mobile, or an employee of my bank. Shudder!

But, on the plus side, I have singing work coming in thick and fast, and this doesn’t even include Christmas! This weekend I’ll be singing high mass in a church in Manchester on Friday night and Mozart’s Coronation Mass (with the lovely Agnus Dei) in a church somewhere in the hills on Saturday, and getting nicely paid for both. Then in October I’m doing chorus in a come and sing the Messiah, as I’ve never done a whole one in chorus so it will be a challenge and a good experience. I’ve also just been asked to sing at a venue where I cancelled two years ago, and thought the organisers had (justifiably) struck me off their books - so that’s good. Then in November, a dinner cabaret followed by a lunchtime recital a week later - in my hometown! Finally this prophet is being recognised in her own town!

Then in December, which I’m really excited about, I’m singing in a concert with an opera company I love. We haven’t had an easy time of it recently, but membership is high with 22 of us at the last rehearsal (an a few regulars missing), including a young bass I recruited myself. When I sing there I am surrounded by singers I love and respect, and who are all so accomplished that there is no jealousy, cattiness or upstaging going on. Everyone is too professional for that! There are some stunning voices there, and everyone contributes solos or small ensemble pieces to the concerts, as well as working together to make a tremendous noise in the choruses. I have some brilliant friends up there, I’m so glad I joined them. What I’m more excited about though, is our Pocket Opera / Come and Sing Day, where we’ll be singing A one act opera plus some of our big chorus numbers and a few solos. The point of this day is to raise money, raise our profile in Manchester, and to recruit new singers and audience. Everyone will be welcome to sing, although our members will be singing the principal parts, of course.

I want to audition for a part, but I already have an important job that day. Anyone who speaks Italian will know that it’s a delightful language. However, some people just have a mental block when it comes to singing in anything except English, and some of the singers there on that day might never have sung Italian before. So I am going to coach Italian pronunciation! I was amazed that my offer was accepted actually, but I’m really excited about it. I just need to put together a fool-proof tutorial, run it past a couple of singing friends and the M.D. of course, then go in there and assert myself and do a good job! I also know that my Italian teacher coaches the singers at the conservatoire next to my uni, so he will be a good source of information.

There are auditions in November I’m considering going to for an opera company I have sung with in the past. The advantages of auditioning for this are obvious - it’s a good opera, and any experience is good. However, the company have treated me really quite crappily in the past, both from committee, unwelcoming singing members, and the horrid  talentless stuck-up tone-deaf woman who was running things last time I looked. Don’t get me wrong, I like a lot of the people up there too, I’ve made some nice friends. But if she were on the panel, I could go in there and sing like Anna Netrebko and I could still forget about a part, despite the fact that I have more class in my left tit than she has in her whole being.

I don’t even care if she reads this, I am just sick to death of small-mindedness like hers. Sometimes I worry about who’s reading this and whether it’s going to damage me professionally, but other times I just think Sod It!

Annnd….. I can’t remember my point. But anyway, I feel very happy about the amount of professional singing I’ll be doing over the next few months. I also have my favourite accompanist for most of the gigs - which makes all the difference.