Falling Into Place

First of all, I am going to use this entry to say that this is the first day of my getting in shape for my concert, which is now scheduled for October 1.  We have the date, the venue, and the accompanist.  Repertoire is still not confirmed.  Doing the extended scene from La Gioconda is good.  It's lovely,  romantic (not that my teacher is a romantic figure, the way Mentor was!), and very singable.  I think of all the roles written, Laura suits me best, and I feel blessed that I got to sing it onstage, even in a situation so filled with discord as you can read in this entry Adding the Trovatore scene to that suddenly seems like a lot.  I count As and B flats the way a skater counts jumps and the Gioconda scene has one B flat and three As and in fact, that's the role total.  The Trovatore scene has one B flat and 5 As - two I didn't recall, but they're at the end of the duet.  In fact I can't quite figure out how the duet ends.  What's in the score is not what's on the recording.  I will ask my teacher tomorrow.  He has sung Manrico often enough that he would remember.  So maybe we can rethink this?  Particularly if I want to do something with the soprano (he is getting in touch with her to see if she's available).

Maybe I should learn the Carmen scene after all?  It's a strange scene.  Don Jose does most of the singing.  I think of it as being more something to perform onstage than something to sing although my teacher said he used to sing it in concerts with his wife.  Or we could always to the extended scene from Act 2 of Samson et Dalila. 

What I really want to start doing, is refining and honing a group of roles that I really really want to sing and know that I can.

When the pianist who plays at the concert venue got back to me he said he was starting a "repertoire group" that would do singthroughs of operas and asked me which operas I was interested in so I listed:

Carmen
Samson et Dalila
Werther (Charlotte)
Aida (Amneris)
Il Trovatore (Azucena)
La Gioconda (Laura)
and
Adriana Lecouvreur (Principessa)

Except for the Triumphal Scene in Aida (which my teacher assures me I can cheat in) there's nothing there that's beyond me. 

Of course I would have to pay to go to one of those singthroughs, but based on what this person's hourly rate is, if five or six people divide it up it would not come to very much.  And he invited me after having heard me (he played for a couple of the Saturday group coachings I went to).

So now there's the problem of my partner.  Things have been so pleasant (sigh).  We both have summer birthdays and have been making plans how to celebrate them.  She hates  the whole idea of my singing this concert.  I haven't told her the date yet.  I was thinking of waiting until after my birthday but that's passive aggressive and silly.  I will tell her tomorrow when I come back from my lesson.  And will wait to see if I get invited to one of these singthroughs before I mention that to her.