Last night after we were kicked out of the library, 5 of us went for a little walk down the famous shopping street Getreidegasse. There we got some ice. I chose to get two scoops, one of nutella and one of cappuccino. The mix was very good. We continued to walk down the street which and passed by the house where Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born. Shortly there after we all went our separate ways and caught busses home.
Once home Martina and I looked at the schedule for the coming week trying to decide when to have dinner together and such. She and I then drank a glass of Stiegl beer which is brewed right here in town.
I am picking up a little German with the help of some of the others who have taken German before as well as Martina. She is also good at helping me with the difference in “proper German” or high German and their dialect which is considered low German. She even has a game she bought for Laura to help learn English that she pulled out for me to learn some German words. She is very impressed with my ability to see a word and pronounce it correctly. So now when she say’s something and I’m not quite hearing it correctly, she writes it down for me and then I can usually say it.
Martina says she can understand my English very well. Her first two exchange students were from Texas and she had the hardest time understanding them. I can only imagine how tough that must have been.
I woke up at 6 this morning to shower, get ready, and eat breakfast before having to catch the bus at 7:35. The Geistburgers didn’t start moving about until 7. They were quite impressed that I was up so early.
German class was a lot of fun. Our teacher is Jasmin, a graduate student in Salzburg for German and French Education. Today we introduced ourselves (in English) and learned basic greetings. We learned the formal, informal, and some Austrian dialect/slang. She also told us about some cultural things we may not have known about.
After Class I had 30 min to warm up and then had my first of 4 coachings. This one was with Prof Enman. It was wonderful. He was a lot of fun to work with. When we first started talking about my repertoire, he was quite surprised. After my audition yesterday, he thought for sure I had a lovely, milky lyric sound. Then he and I started to go through “Dearest Mama” from The Ballad of Baby Doe ad he quickly changed his mind, or that I could do both lyric soprano and coloratura (very marketable). We worked on this piece for a while and I learned a few interesting things about it and my voice. Then we moved on to “Poor Wand’ring One” from The Pirates of Penzance.” I sang through it once and he had absolutely nothing to say or add to it. He loved my cadenza at the end as well as my high E-flat (reminding me not to psych myself out on the high note as it sounded wonderful).
The last piece we worked on was Faure’s “Apres un Reve.” He could tell I loved the piece and that I enjoy singing in French. There were a couple diction things he corrected; the difference between singing and speaking French. Had I been speaking it would’ve been perfect. One woman coming in, in a week or two to do a master class is Mary Dibbern. Enman said I would really enjoy working with her. She is one of the fore-most coaches in regards to French chanson/diction. Maybe with his recommendation and that of my teacher’s, I may be able to sing in her master class.
After my coaching, I went to a short walk down to the river with one of the girls to go to the bridge and take a couple of pictures. Now I am just handing out in the entrance hall with a bunch of the others waiting to go to lunch at 13:15. I’m slowly getting used to the 24-hour clock… or at least attempting to use it.
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