God bless Marco and Mattea of Bar Astra and their computer that recognizes my camera, and the fact that they have the lowest priced internet in Lucca (€1/15 minutes).

On that note, I will be (slowly) uploading pictures onto my photobucket account, which is linked in the sidebar. You can see Lucca right now. I will try to get my Florence pictures up soon.

*ciao*

Florence is GORGEOUS, if completely overrun by tourists.

Sunday morning, Chrystal and I got up and caught a 10am train to Florence, which got us there around 11:20, which was not too bad. We were planning on meeting up with Lauren Dusek once there, but complications arose and that plan wound up being abandoned.

We came in and immediately headed for il Duomo, which is FABULOUS. Huge, huge, huge and no pictures can possibly do that building justice. It was awe-inspiring to say the least.

We basically just walked around the city...since we only had the day, and all the lines are unbelievably long, we decided it was silly to try to get into see David or anything like that--I was more interested in wandering around the city, after all. And I think we all know that I will be back...preferably in the fall. Without the gobs and gobs of tourists. Honestly, I heard more English in Florence than I heard Italian.

After we wandered around and gaped at il Duomo, we headed over towards the Arno and the Ponte Vecchio--I mean, I am a soprano, after all. I think it was essential. So we stood on the Ponte Vecchio and I made fun of myself singing the song (quietly and about an octave downl, since my voice was still acid-refluxy), and all was well with the world.

That was pretty much our day in Florence--that city will get more of my time in the future. As I am usually on these trips, I am more interested in getting a feel for the city than I am in cramming every important sight into the shortest amount of time possible. Because that just makes me cranky. And no one likes a cranky soprano.

This coming Saturday, Bevin and I are going to Cinque Terra...oh joy. I am really excited for this...apparently it's beautiful. I just wish I could figure out how to upload my freaking pictures so I could make some room on my camera for more pictures. I AM SUCH A PICTURE WHORE. Argh.

In voice-related developments, I feel like I am getting my entire vocal world turned around. It's crazy cool.

Alright, that's all for now. God willing I will figure out this picture thing before Saturday.

*ciao*

Wow, an update is definitely in order. I am so busy here all the time, finding enough time to get to the computer can prove rather tricky.

This was a good week...our trio from Il matrimonio segreto is most definitely going to kick some serious ass. The other girls in the scene are Chrystal, a sophomore from Carnegie Mellon, who sings Fidalma, and Lizzy, a resident mezzo young artist with the Orlando Opera (or something like that...it's an opera company in Orlando, that much I know for sure), who sings Elisetta. Our voices sound very cool together, even though Lizzy laments the tessitura of her part...but she sounds hot, so whatever.

So, voice lessons are kind of blowing my mind. Apparently, I have no clue how to support my voice--in fact, when I support it right, there is a whole hell of a lot more sound there than I am used to. I am so freaking excited about this...I feel like this might be a huge piece of the missing element of my voice. And I want to practice technique, all the time.

Let me say that one more time.

I WANT TO PRACTICE TECHNIQUE. I have NEVER wanted to practice technique, ever.

Crazy. But I am fairly frustrated right now, because my voice is deciding to be wonky...I think I have some acid reflux going on (Dr. Hartmann said he suspected there might be some when I saw him in April, and it's an absurdly common problem among singers), which is aggravated by the fact that about half of the food I eat is tomato-based (mmmmmm bruscetta....), and in general, I am not getting enough sleep. But we are going to institute quiet hours from 11pm to 7am, as well as lights off at 11pm, in our room. So freshman dorm, I know, right? But, when you have 8 chatty singers living together in one room, sometimes drastic measures must be taken. But I know I will be ok.

Today about half the program is on their way to Verona to see an opera, and I am SO glad I decided not to go. I need this day to get my voice happy again (and I got so much blissful sleep last night), and to work on memorization and Italian and the like. And tomorrow I am going to Florence alone, but I am meeting up with Lauren Dusek for lunch. I have a lunch date in Florence. How exciting.

So, I think I discovered what makes Italian men Italian. It is the fervent belief that every woman in the world wants to sleep with them. It's pretty wild. I am definitely not used to this culture...but that is what I keep reminding myself. It's just a different culture. And it's much nicer to hear 'ciao bella!' and 'ahh, mi amore!' rather than 'ho', 'bitch', or 'slut'.

Yet another random tangent!

I was talking to Claudia Catania, who runs the studio program, telling her about Into the Woods and how James Lapine came to see the show, and she laughed and asked me to write down the school name, because she's good friends with him, and she wants to tell him she worked with me.

That doesn't seem like it could be a bad thing.

Ok, so much for this tangential post. I will try to be better about updating this coming week...but man, they keep us busy busy busy here. It's FABULOUS, of course.

*ciao*

So I have had my first official weekend in Italy.

Friday evening we had rehearsal for the final gala, in which we (we being the Studio singers) are performing (with others) the second act from Puccini's opera La rodine, and that was quite the sight-reading adventure, let me tell you. We were all like....burrrr? But at least we were all befuddled together.

Afterwards, a group of us went out to pizza and shared some (...) wine, and after dinner, Bevin and I decided we wanted to go out. So we bicycled back to the hostel and got pretty, and then went out to find something to do. We ran into some other Lucca programmers, and decided to join them in a trek to a Scottish pub (in Italy, right...), wherein we (as in Bevin and myself) proceded to make very good friends with the manager and bar tender, and only had to pay for our first drink. We had a few more, but were both able to pedal back home (and don't worry, Dad, we weren't alone), where Bevin proceded to give a wonderful performance replete with lots of high pitched Italian and lolling about on the floor--I was exceedingly amused, I'm not gonna lie. Good first night out.

Saturday morning, we got up and took the train to Viareggio, i.e. the beach. It was GORGEOUS. There Bevin and I discovered the key to the beauty of Italian women--confidence. You strut that beach like you own it, and there you go. It was a great day...we rented a paddle boat, but aborted our plans to jump off it and go swimming when we saw hundreds and hundreds of jellyfish chilling around our boat. That seemed like a bad idea. But we ALSO saw a giant sea turtle, and that was really freaking cool. We got back to Lucca around 6 (it's a 20 minute, €2,10 ride to the beach. Good stuff) and crashed hard.

Sunday was fairly productive, as far as post-beach-day Sundays go...I got up and took a walk with Emily on the wall around Lucca, then I went and practiced on the wall (and serenaded unsuspecting Italians who happened by), went shopping with Bevin (and my non-existent money), and had a FANTASTIC dinner of pasta with peppers and sausage at the Drogheria, which has some of the best food in Lucca. Mmmmmmm.

The weather shifted yesterday and it's now fairly humid (still got nothing on St. Louis though, for reals), and my throat is bothering me as a result. Booooo-urns, as Sebbo would say. But I plan to figure out how to say 'My throat hurts' and go to a farmacia.

Now I have to head out to my first coaching for my Matrimonio scene. WOOT!

*ciao*

We got opera scenes assignments today, and I get to sing Carolina in a trio from Il matrimono segreto, which OTSL did last summer, and I LOVE. SO EXCITED.

I also get to sing a solo in the cabaret--there's a plot (something about people travelling on a train, who get stuck in a bar during an oh-so-common Italian train strike, and what happens when all these random people collide) and the songs are Italian number 1,2, and 3 hits from the 20s, 30s, and 40s...very Gershwin-esque, apparently. SO EXCITED for that as well. Apparently, it's the most popular event with the Lucchese (people of Lucca, for future reference). WOOT.

Today I sat on the wall outside the city with Bevin and we worked on our Italian cabaret songs. Tell me THAT'S not fabulous.

Tonight I have a coaching, and tomorrow I have a voice lesson--I'm studying with a woman named Beth Roberts who teaches at Mannes, and according to Bevin has a very similar technique to the two voice professors I've met with in my grad school search. Which means it should be a nice continuation from Chris A--and everyone who's worked with her here already loves her. Good stuff, good stuff.

Alright, I have 30 seconds left on the time meter, so it is time to say farewell!

*ciao*

Alright, this needs to be stated for the record: I love Lucca.

This town is too beautiful for words. Today I went bicycling on medieval walls, with views of the interior of the city to one side and panoramic views of the seven hills of Lucca on the other. GORGEOUS. Yesterday and this morning it rained rained rained, but this afternoon has been sunny and beautiful.

I am living in a youth hostel, but this is no ordinary youth hostel. It is a giant old palazzo-type place, with a giant courtyard in the back and rooms on the first and second floors with enormously high ceilings...it's just gorgeous. I share a room with seven (yes, seven) other girls: Gretchen (mezzo, from Chicago College of the Performing Arts at Roosevelt University), Vanessa (soprano, from Youngstown University in Ohio), Emily (soprano, from University of Chicago), and four girls from Carnegie Mellon: Michelle (mezzo), Crystal (...mezzo, I think), Olivia (mezzo), and Bevin (soprano). We are all in the Studio Program together. There are possibly more mezzos doing this program than sopranos. I swear to god.

I have yet to encounter any raging bitches or soprano divas, as I was worried about, which is wonderful. Yesterday we had 'auditions', which were a chance for us to be placed with voice teachers and for the directors of the Studio to figure out what we're going to do. We also had Italian placement exams (which consisted of me saying 'Umm, yeah, I don't speak Italian. Sorry.' I say that a lot, really.

Today we had our first Italian class (which I think will be wonderful for me--the way they teach the language is conducive to me already understanding the basics of grammar from the ol' days of studying Spanish. And let's face it..Italian grammar can hold no candle to German grammar), followed by Studio. SO EXCITED FOR STUDIO. When I first got here, I was kind of concerned because it seemed like all the older singers were doing the I Solisti program (all the CMU girls are rising sophomores)...so I was like, wow, do I just suck? But then I met a lot of older people doing Studio, and today I remembered that I didn't audition for the Solisti program because I don't want to do it--I want to act, and that's what Studio is about. I will talk more about what we do when we start doing it...but I think it's gonna be a ball. And the woman who runs it Claudia, sang at the Met AND on Broadway. How bout them apples.

This weekend we (as in me, Emily, and Bevin...yet to run it by anyone else) are talking about going to Cinque Terra, which is supposed to be gorgeous (BEACH!) and is only about a 30 minute train ride from here. And as Emily, Miss Fluent in Italian Because I've Been Living Here for Three Months and Studying it for Years Blahbity Blah Blah (love her), will be quite an asset to this crazy train system.

I AM SO LUCKY!

*ciao*

Ok. I am here, alive, sane, and with all my luggage.

The first part, the being here part, is a small miracle.

First, I completely missed my flight from Montreal to London, and all that AirCanada would tell me and the other 3 girls who were on that flight was that we had been placed on a later flight...but there was no help as to whether or not we had to go through customs or what. The four of us were running around the Montreal Airport trying to figure out where to go with very little luck...finally we found an Air Canada representative who gave us new boarding passes and told us, no, we do not have to go through Canadian customs, and we should proceed to our flight.

So.

This flight wound up getting into London at 11am London time. My next flight had a 12pm boarding time. I had originally been told that I had to go through customs in London--clearly, this was not going to work. So I asked an agent and he said, no, if my baggage was checked all the way through to Fiumicino, I would be fine. So I walked down the stairs to the runway (because for the first time in my life I got to walk down stairs to the runway, which, I'm not gonna lie, was very exciting) and ran like hell through security and got to my gate with five minutes to spare. Thank god.

Then I got to Rome, and that went amazingly easily. Passport control took all of 5 minutes, and customs were non-existent. Then began the real adventure.

So, I bought train tickets to Lucca. Except I failed to realize that the stop I was supposed to get off was on my SECOND ticket (of three), not my first, and so I was waiting for a train station that did not actually exist. So I missed the stop I was supposed to get off at. Umm...ok. I went to the client help center at the next station (as some kind Italians on the train station instructed me to do...I think...) and was able to get my tickets switched around--now I was to go back two stations, get off at the one I missed originally, and catch a train to Pisa and then to Lucca.

Ok.

Except I missed the train to Pisa--it literally chugged off as I came up the stairs, hefting my suitcase behind me. So, I did what any self-respecting, sleep-deprived drama queen would and started crying. But I pulled myself together and went down the ticket office, and was able to buy tickets first to the Roma Termini station, and then to Florence, and then to Lucca. Ok.

Except the train to Roma Termini wasn't on the track it was supposed to be on, and there was no information regarding where it was. And I HAD to make this train--if I didn't, I was not going to get to Lucca. So, I looked desperately for a train station worker, and THANK GOD, I found one. I started crying, and he told me to calm down, he'd find out where the train was--which he did, and then proceded to take me to the track, carry my suitcase up the stairs, put me on the train, and tell me to call him when I got to Lucca to tell him I was ok. Which reminds me, I should do that. God bless Fabio.

So I get to Roma Termini, and then got on the wrong train. Fortunately, I realized this just before the train left, and then ran off to my train. They don't use train numbers. Very confusing. Then then then, the train was delayed for an hour while they waited on another train from Naples...so I naturally missed the last train to Lucca. I asked the conductor what I could do, and he told me, 'Bus.' Ummm...ok. Then he pointed to another man and said, 'He go Lucca too, follow him.' Ok.

So Giovanni took me to the bus. (Which I never would have found.) He then let me use his cell phone to try to call the program (sadly I had the wrong number). He then took me to the Hotel that the program's main office is in. He should be sainted. I never never never would have gotten out of Florence last night were it not for him. Must email and thank him as well. People should be sainted for things like that.

So...I finally got to the hostel last night around 1am Italy time. And so far all the people I've met are unbelievably nice--and I have a bicycle now. With a basket. And a bell.

And I think that's all. I'm tired, friends. Tonight is a tour of Lucca. Tomorrow the program starts.

*ciao*