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Getting *everything* ready for the premiere of Nozze… ;-)
The Uruguay jersey is currently rehearsing and concentrating with me, looking forward to the opening night of Le Nozze di Figaro in Salzburg. It will be its second appearance on stage, as it debuted in London some time ago, also during a Nozze run, at the ROH.
Mozart is always a good luck charm!!. ;-)
¡¡URUGUAY CAMPEON COPA AMERICA 2011!!
Il più ricco castaldo del villaggio throws a party!!. :-D
Nemorino has inherited lots of $$$ £££ €€€ ¥¥¥, and to celebrate the event there’s a foam party in the village… and Doctor Dulcamara takes pics to prove that his “elisir” actually works!!. ;-)
It was Iara’s 13th birthday today… and here’s how we spent it!! :-D
Yesterday we celebrated at Marrol’s Hotel (in Bratislava), which is really nice, people there are lovely. I recommend their typical Slovak cuisine, it is fantabulous!
Then we drove back to Vienna, so that we could celebrate her birthday on the very day and with Tiago, too.
Happy birthday, Princess Iara!! ♥
The adventures of Princess Iara at the Opernball! :-)
Memories of Gran Canaria…
A knight on the rim is grim
I’ve been playing chess ever since I was a kid: my father, who is an excellent chess player, taught me and I played chess at high school, too.
One of the strangest memories I have from when I was young is of the day I defeated my dad at chess. It was so strange, for a split second it felt like I was Kasparov! Yet somehow at the same time it also seemed so wrong — me, defeating MY DAD! That couldn’t be! Shurely, Shir, there musht be shome mishtake! — that I felt pretty bad afterwards. It was too soon, it was too easy, it was like growing up all of a sudden. I’ve never really got my head around that episode, all I know that’s been the first and eventually the last time I managed to defeat my father at chess, and he must’ve been practicing a lot after that day, because he’s never let me win another game ever again! :-)
And now I’m facing yet another “first time” (hopefully not the last, though!): I’m debuting the role of Conte Almaviva tonight, at Wiener Staatsoper, and I’m very excited about this production. I can spot quite a few similitudes between that time I won at chess against my dad and every time I debut a new role: you feel the excitement, yet you’re worried too; you savour the moment you’ll finally succeed, yet when you do the moment is too short you almost don’t even realise it’s there, and when you eventually realise that… it’s already in the past. And that’s where you start thinking about all you’ve done to get there, and realise it’s not the moment itself that’s worth living, but the path you go through to get there, as every little step you take to get there is worth, too. This is the point where you realise that even if you’ve reached that goal, it is not “the” goal, it is not the only goal in your life, but just “a” goal, because there are a million other things you can still do, improving every day one step at a time.
I was happy when Jean-Louis Martinoty came up with the idea of playing chess on stage here in Vienna. In the video you can see Peter explaining to us what to do: during the recitative in the third act of Le nozze di Figaro, the Count is playing with Basilio — “un uom che salta dal balcone in giardino”, and the black knight moves forward, then “un altro appresso che dice esser quel desso”, so the white knight moves and… I’m not going to tell you! :-)
Come un colpo di cannooooooooooneeeeeeeeeeeee!!!
In St. Petersburg, I went to fire a gunshot on Rabbit Island:
The Peter and Paul Fortress (Petropavlovskaya Krepost) in the Port of St. Petersburg is located on Rabbit Island where Peter the Great made his base while the city was being built. The Peter and Paul Cathedral on the island holds the tombs of the Russian tsars from Peter I to the last tsar, Nicholas II, and his family. Peter the Great built the fort to protect the new Port of St. Petersburg from the Swedish Navy. The fortress was founded on May 27, 1703, the official anniversary date of the Port of St. Petersburg. The fortress housed some of the city’s garrison as well as acting as a high-security jail for political prisoners, including Peter’s son Alexei. Other famous prisoners included Dostoyevsky, Trotsky, Gorkiy, and Lenin’s older brother Alexander. In addition to the Cathedral, the fortress contains one of the two places in Russia that mints medals and coins, the Mint, and the City History Museum.
At Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, getting ready to sing Dulcamara in L’elisir d’amore. :-)
Maestro Domingo’s birthday pics!!!
It’s been an honour and a pleasure for me to sing for Plácido Domingo at his birthday gala in Madrid on 21st January — and I got tears in my eyes when I hugged the Maestro.
Mrs Marta Domingo, Plácido’s wife, is a wonderful person, and I’ll be grateful to her forever, as she’s been the one who made my audition with Plácido happen many years ago. Maestro Domingo was very busy, still she managed to persuade him to listen to me singing an aria. Two months after that audition, I was in Washington singing Dulcamara, at 23. Marta told me she had so much fun at the gala, and I’m very happy she enjoyed it.
There were a lot of great artists, some of which I’ve already worked with, some others I haven’t yet but I really hope I’ll be able to sing with in the future — you could actually assemble an entire Don Giovanni cast with all the singers who were there that night! And the wonderful, wonderful Teresa Berganza, she’s a volcano!!.
Also, some very special opera fans were there to celebrate Plácido’s birthday — Trudy, Lucien and Sussy. These ladies were first of all Mario Del Monaco fans, then when Plácido came along they became his fans as well… and now it’s my turn, they’re MY fans, too!!!. :-)
More pics from the Philharmonkerball with Anna: these are by Andreas Tischler.
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