I had the strangest experience today - I sang an audition on the stage at New York City Opera. This event, in and of itself is not strange - I've sung auditions all over the world at this point. However, after having sung around 85 performances at NYCO, it felt a little funny to be back to square one as an auditioner. I even ran into a colleague of mine and she asked "What are you doing here? Just hanging out?" It didn't even occur to her that I would be auditioning since if you think of me and my career, you definitely think of City Opera. But with a new regime comes a new beginning for all, and that means everybody, even those that have performed frequently at City Opera, must go back to square one and audition again. So I wandered into the stage door (forgetting to sign in, because I'm used to breezing past them) and made my way up to the stage once again.
I was curious to see what the renovations looked like, so I peeked into some of the dressing rooms. They look basically the same, but with several upgrades like carpeting and better lighting. I ran into my former agent, who I met for the very first time backstage at a City Opera audition, so that was a weird form of deja-vu. Then when I went onstage to sing, looking out at that oh so familiar interior, I felt right at home. Except one thing - the acoustic of the theater is now WAY improved over what it was before. It was quite live and ringing, where before it often felt dead and dampened. Luckily after my first aria (Stephano's aria from Romeo et Juliette) they asked for Una Voce Poco Fa, which I would say is pretty fresh in my brain from having just sung it last week at the Staatsoper. I did my best, and it would certainly be nice if they found something for me to sing there again, because I really miss working from home, and I miss all the behind the scenes crew at NYCO who started to feel like family after 8 seasons.
