Vacay debrief

I'm back at home after a largely lovely vacation in Abruzzo. Lorenzo and I are still working on finding a way to travel -- a "holiday formula," if you will -- that will give us (and our dogs) a reliably satisfying vacation. I would say that our attempt this year, while far from perfect, was our most successful yet. I'd just like to remind my readers that we've been married 10 years. It takes the time it takes!

As I mentioned in my last post, traveling with dogs is inherently limiting. Unless one has a private plane, traveling with two dogs (one medium-sized and one large) usually means that wherever you go, you have to get there by car.

Have you seen my dogs yet? No??

Here they are, in the car on our way down to Abruzzo:

The larger one on the left giving me side-eye is Greg. The trip to Abruzzo was 7 hours and this photo was taken at about the 4-hour mark. Disapproval noted, Greg. The one on the right is Viola. She looks demure here, but she can be quite domineering. We often refer to her as "la strega," which means "the witch." I am beginning to think we need to stop that, though, because it's insulting to witches. Greg's nickname is "Booh-bah," which means nothing but says everything about his personality. Lorenzo also calls Greg "il patatone," which literally means "the big potato." So, you get the idea. Now you know my dogs.

Greg and Viola were both strays in Sardegna before they came to us, so the first chapters of their life stories are most probably pretty sad. They don't like to talk about it much. 😉 Greg has been with us 5 years, but we think he's at least 10. Viola has been with us 2 years, and we guesstimate her age at around 5. At the very least, we know that Greg is in the grey-hair-arthritis-and-frequent-peeing stage of life, while Viola is still sleeping through the night, chasing lizards in the yard and flirting shamelessly with the neighbor dog, Achille. So, finding a vacation rental that makes them both feel at home, comfortable, and entertained is a challenge.

The apartment in the farmstead we found in Abruzzo had a yard. With lizards for Viola. With shade to nap in for Greg. With farm cats for both of them to bark at! We hit the motherlode, in other words.

The apartment itself was not tiny. It had a big, comfortable double bed (we Americans would call it a Queen) PLUS a single bed for the dogs to sleep on, a sitting area with two chairs, a kitchen with a dining table that fit 4, and a bathroom. 

There was also a vegetable garden down the hill from our apartment, where we could pick fresh veggies and herbs at will. On the way down to the vegetable patch was a cute little pool, and chaise lounges for sunbathing. We spent most of our time at the beach, but it was nice to have the pool option when we wanted a quick dip.

The place sounds pretty good, right? Now, for the downsides.

There were no creature comforts. No dishwasher. No washing machine. The shower curtain was about 10 inches too short, so water sprayed all over the bathroom when we showered. The furniture was a mishmash of grandma's leftovers, and thrift store finds. We did not have a change of linens, and there was no cleaning service (see above: no washing machine).

There was also no air conditioning. I imagined this would be a much bigger problem than it really was, thankfully. The hill-top position of the farm plus the sea breeze kept the place very comfortable. But the other large appliances were sorely missed. It may be shallow of me to say it, but the thing I missed the most was a washing machine...and a vacuum cleaner. And if I want to be REALLY honest...I missed a housekeeping service to use said washing machine and said vacuum cleaner. I "cleaned" several times during our vacation, and we did laundry by hand pretty much every night. There was a fair amount of muttering through gritted teeth going on. I hope my descant of "this is not a vacation, this is camping with plumbing" was drowned out by the sounds of my scrubbing and sweeping. I wasn't always the sunniest of vacationers while I was in the apartment, but the fresh (cheap!) fish, the gorgeous sunsets on the beach, and the late night strolls with gelato in hand always cheered me up quickly.

So, I guess the bottom line is that I love Abruzzo, but the apartment I found worked best for the furriest among us. I would like to find a place that has a similar set-up for them, but is less rustic and more conveniently furnished. At the very least, I will know to bring more things with me if we ever go back to that particular place. A second set of sheets, and towels, for example. And maybe a vacuum cleaner! 

The search for the perfect vacation continues...maybe we'll have it all figured out before our 20th wedding anniversary!

Vacating

Vacations have been hard for me for all of my adult life. Hard to plan. Hard to enjoy. Hard to justify. 

First of all, let's be honest: I spend my life making music and dressing up in costumes and pretty dresses. Yes, it's challenging and stimulating and stressful, but I am grounded enough to realize that my work stress is, well...negligible and insignificant, relatively speaking. As an ex-agent of mine succinctly put it: "nobody dies if we do our job badly." And that, my friends, is a relief.

Then, there's the undeniable fact that if a job comes up at the last minute, I'm doing it. I can make all the plans in the world. I can reserve the nicest suite in the loveliest hotel. When the crunch comes, none of that matters. I will drop everything for a good singing job. That's just the way I was made. I have canceled Christmas. I have missed weddings. I have quit school (three times). The costs are often non-refundable, both personally and financially, but the pull to perform is irresistible.

On the off chance that I do actually book a vacation and no last-minute singing work crops up to foil my relaxation plans, I have been known to then spend my time off stressing about why my career is slow enough that I can actually take time off! As I lie on the beach, I ponder: Will I ever sing again? Is this the end? What will I do with the rest of my life???

I'm now a singer with considerable experience, and a mature woman. I've been at this for 20 years, speaking conservatively. When I was in my 30's, perhaps it was forgivable that I worried about the longevity of my career and prioritized singing over all else. But now, at 47, do I really still have to be ready to sacrifice everything for the sake of my career?  No! I want to prioritize my inner adult and tell my singer-self to shut up while I order another spritz and read my book.

Enter the second strata of complication: marriage.

I have managed to find a man to love who is even worse at vacationing than I am. Lorenzo has never taken a proper vacation in his life. Before we met, his idea of a vacation was to sleep in a friend's guest room in another part of Italy for a few days. It was life as usual plus a duffel bag, shared with people he loved, in a different place (with a smaller, less comfortable bed and a shared bathroom).

Don't get me wrong; visiting friends and family is fun, and a totally worthy way to spend a holiday, but it is not a VACATION. To me, a vacation is where you go someplace and have fewer responsibilities and tasks than in your normal life. A vacation is about doing less work in a more beautiful and luxurious place than you normally inhabit. It is spending money to be pampered. When we were trying to decide what to do this summer, I said to my husband "I don't want to travel to be less comfortable than I am at home." And, I think that pretty much says it all.

Oh, and one more pesky issue: now that we have two dogs -- one of them geriatric-- my husband also wants to take them with us everywhere we go because, well...how can he possibly have fun if they are all alone, panting miserably in some boarder's cage? Sigh. Lorenzo has a point, but traveling with dogs is limiting, to put it mildly.

I ask you now to imagine me, trying to organize a vacation that will 1) satisfy us both, 2) include our dogs, and 3) not break the bank. Has your head exploded yet?

This year, I have hung my hopes on an agriturismo called Case Vacanze Pozzitello in Abruzzo. It is a sprawling hillside property, with lots of land and beautiful surroundings. They provide small self-contained apartments with private gardens. They allow dogs of any size! They are minutes both from the beach and from our closest friends in Milan who also happen to have a summer place in the same town.

Is it luxurious? Probably not. But it will be a beautiful, restful place that the whole family (even the furriest among us) can enjoy. We will have our own space, but I will be close enough to my friend Lucia that every once in a while we can escape to the spa or a girls' aperitivo date at the beach. It is a compromise, and if it works, it could become a regular solution. Here's hoping.

I have been talking to my brain and I hope it is ready to vacate its normal stressful premises and inhabit a calmer, slower existence in Abruzzo.

I will keep you posted from the road...but in the meantime, no news is good news!

I never thought I would have thoughts on ERWARTUNG -- but I do!

I want to share something I worked on in April and May, ahead of my debut of ERWARTUNG with Peter Sellars and Essa-Pekka Salonen in San Francisco. I wrote an essay on my process around understanding the role of THE WOMAN in Schoenberg's ERWARTUNG. 

Preparing Erwartung: Interpretive Notes and Translation

This piece is special to me, because in writing it, I realized how much thought and research I put into each role I sing...even the ones I have sung many times (a post on AIDA is coming soon)! 

I'm fascinated with yin-yangness of it all: The pull of the music and the push of the words; The black and white of the notes and words on the page and the rich colors of the emotions behind them; The echo of past voices singing through (but hopefully not drowning out) mine. I like the confrontation. I need the contrast. It turns out, there is contrast even within me: the words I write are the counterbalance to those that I sing...and it's time that my words had their time on stage.

Reclaiming my space

I love writing, and I always have. But something about modern technology, and the ease of publication, cheapened the process for me. A little voice inside my head said "Why add your voice to the noise? Why create more linguistic litter?"

For many years, the little voice won--which is why this blog went silent. I still wrote, but I never shared. I've decided to reclaim this little corner of the internet to keep an archive. The fact is, I have lots of thoughts, and some of them are worth sharing; maybe If I take the time to write them down, I'll sleep better! It's worth a try. 

So, here I am again. Thanks for reading.

--ME