Prior to my last blog I had just come down from what can only be described as the highest and busiest peak of my professional career: BIG roles, BIG travels, BIG debuts. It was awesome.
And then a couple months later.........crickets.
That's how it goes, folks. A freelance opera singer (who has not reached mega-super star status) must learn to deal with the peaks and valleys of their career. Downtime forces you to look for alternative ways to keep your career moving forward even when you don't have gigs. Teaching private voice lessons has always been my side-hustle and fortunately a new student or two pops up just when I have the free time.
In other news, for this entire year Chef Paul and I have been in the process of buying a new condo and selling our previous one. Real Estate is so intriguing to us: perhaps one day I'll get my real estate license so I can get my own HGTV show: The Singing Realtor! After many MANY months of waiting we finally moved at the end of the summer to our gut-renovated 2 bedroom / 2 bathroom apartment. It's only a 200 square feet larger than our old condo, but it feels palatial in comparison! Now we have an extra room for my voice studio, for guests and for when we have a...........I know you know how this statement ends, but let's just do one thing at a time, okay????!!!!
Shortly after we had settled into our new digs, I went to my hometown to sing the trouser role of Cupid in Orpheus in the Underworld with New Orleans Opera. For those who need a refresher: a trouser role is a young, male character that is sung by a female. Those roles are super fun for me and I like to joke that I've sung almost as many male characters as I have female characters -- the costumes are more comfortable! Here is a picture of me backstage as Cupid.
And here's a picture of me and some of my cast mates onstage!
It's always great to be home, but as usual the trip is never long enough to see everyone and do everything (and eat everything) I like in New Orleans. Shortly after I got back to NYC, we hosted an all day Friendsgiving for friends coming and going throughout the day.
If you can't be with your family for the holiday it's great to be with friends!