Sir Thomas Allen

Yesterday afternoon, instead of a master class within the program, we all had tickets to a master class that was being conducted by Sir Thomas Allen. This master class was the first for the season as part of the Salzburg Festival. Sir Thomas Allen is from England, on the border of Scotland.

The majority of the master class was given in German (with a scottish accent), but he did also speak in English as well as a little Italian and French. It depended a little upon the singer and the language the piece was in. Yvonne, my voice teacher, was sitting in front of us, so she turned around and translated a little for us. I think my favorite quote from the entire master class Sir Allen actually said in English "Sopranos spend a lot of time on their knees." At the time, the soprano singing was doing Zerlina's two arias from Mozart's Don Giovanni. In the first aria she's pleading with Masetto (her husband) to forgive her. In the second aria, Masetto has been beaten up and she's comforting him... the majority of these two arias are being sung on her knees... however Sir Allen knew exactly what everyone would think with the comment.

The last singer was a Bass.. who had all of us with his first spoken word. It was one of those deep voices that just sends shivers down your spine. As soon as he started singing we were all fanning ourselves. Jackie fell in love right away. We had the chance to speak to some of the singers and Sir Allen after the master class. Most of us were all too nervous to go talk to the bass. Jackie finally did, but was like a star stuck school girl. We also had to ask Sir Allen if he'd be willing to come give a master class with us. Unfortunately he was flying back to London today, otherwise he said he would have loved to.

Once we all left, we headed back to the college, and grabbed our things. Then Jackie, Brendan and I went for a drink at the Irish Pub a couple doors down from the college. There is no German spoken in that pub. We talked about the master class, our own experiences performing at events such as weddings and musicals in hs (Brendan and I both did "Oklahoma" played Curly and I played Laurey).

Once I got home, I had dinner with the family then just relaxed up in my room. I enjoyed shutting the blinds so that it was pitch black in the room and then sleeping in this morning.

Once I got up and had breakfast, I played with the girls for a while. Then we all had lunch together, and I came into town to practice and meet up with Jackie. We have to get our train tickets for Munich tomorrow and tonight at 7 a couple of our professors are giving a Schumann recital at the American church across the river.

It's raining again... I should go buy an umbrella today.
Ciao!