This is just a ‘life of Eric’ post. I promise I will wrap up the Tale of the Jury Trial soon, but I have a case of the I-dohn-wanna’s about it, which I’ll just have to push through, probably on Sunday.
Good things happening! For instance, I am going to Disney World! Next weekend! I threw some criteria at my buddy Scott, who is both a tenor and a travel agent, and he put together a package for me that involves staying at the Port Orleans and two days of parks. Current plan is to go to the Magic Kingdom on Saturday, probably taking a break in the middle to go back to the hotel and swim, then return for the evening. I have a dinner reservation at Be Our Guest, and will get to see the fireworks and the night parade, I guess. Then on Sunday, I will probably go to Epcot until early afternoon, take another midday break, and go to Hollywood Studios for afternoon/evening. I have a dinner reservation at the Brown Derby. I’m gonna buy a Lightning Lane pass and do it right.
I am refusing to stress myself out by saying, “oh I have to do this or that or the other”. This is purely for amusement and inspiration and recharging. I think it will be a lot of fun!
And the big news is that my buddies who did the Dido and Aeneas last month are moving forward with more plans, and invited me to get on board… and so I will be music-directing a double-bill of Mozart’s Bastien und Bastienne and Offenbach’s Le 66 in June! They are both teeny little one-acts, three characters each, no chorus. We are currently soliciting online auditions, so if you are local and a soprano, tenor or bass/baritone and would like to participate, here’s the form.
They are both fluffy little pieces and both take place in bucolic outdoor settings. B&B was written when Mozart was just twelve! We’ll be using an eight-person orchestra, and I do not have to play keyboards for performances, which is best for everyone. However, the scores are easy enough that I can accompany rehearsals, and I will.
I’m excited! This is a logical expansion of what I already do, but will also get me out of my comfort zone in interesting ways. Both operas are in not-English: B&B in German and Le 66 in French. (both shows have dialogue, I’m guessing that the director will have them deliver that in English, but that’s not my call. There will be projected translations for the French and German.) I was very honest – I’m not the person to help the singers with their correct pronunciation in either language, although I will do my best and deal with all other musical/singing issues just fine.
But it’s new repertoire and a new project and a new direction and exactly what I should be doing! So, come see it!
It was a nice week, too. We had a another snowstorm – a big one, bigger than the one a few weeks ago – but I had no need to leave my house and it all got cleaned up pretty quickly.
My job gives us 7 hours a year (two half-days) to use for volunteering, and also comes up with group volunteer projects for us to participate in (we can also do our own thing). On Wednesday, we did an afternoon at the Housing Works bookstore. I hadn’t been there in a long time, not since I used to work at Houston and Varick and spent some time getting rid of a bazillion old LPs. We had what turned out to be a really fun project. They have a basement storage facility and sell books online – but periodically, they flag books that have been hanging around for over a year, pull them, box them up and ship them to some organization that pays X amount per box of random books.
So they handed out clipboards of lists of books, sorted by the bookcases/shelves they were on, and (other than three of us who were the ‘box team’, assembling boxes and taping up full one), we spread out, found our shelves and started pulling and boxing. For some reason, almost all of my books were kids books.
It was the perfect dumb task for me – very easy, looking at lots of books, I didn’t really have to work with anyone (a plus!), but there was still good cheer to be had with my co-workers. We also were given a discount for anything we wanted to buy on the way out the door, so I bought a mug.
The very next day, our company film club hosted a screening of Hamnet after work in the board room. I think I’ve mentioned that we have a lot of little social groups, and I’m in the creating writing group and the knitting group, but hadn’t done any of the film club events before. There was pizza and popcorn and soda and wine, and enough levity that the movie wasn’t a complete downer, although it is a very heavy movie. There was also a box of Kleenex, which got slid across the table to whoever needed it at the time. It got used a lot.
I loved the movie. It is very simple and sad and just beautiful, and terrifically acted. I hear that Jessie Buckley may take the Oscar, and she certainly deserves it. (I haven’t seen many of the Oscar movies, need to get on that. I’m still working my way through the Olympics, ferchrissakes.)
Anyway, it was a one-two punch of “I work with a lot of really nice people” and “see, getting yourself out of the house and doing social things is actually a good thing”. As the Fairy Queen says, “in moderation”.
Enjoy the weekend! I’m going to an opera, and doing housey stuff, and I hear we’re getting more snow, although not much.
The Toast Point Page 