The Show is On!

What a weekend! With opening night on Friday and the second performance on Sunday afternoon, things have been busy with the opera plus family and friends visiting. How wonderful it all is, though. And the flowers...my sister and brother-in-law arrived on Friday with flowers in hand, my nephew and his family sent flowers to my dressing room on Friday night, and friends from Blowing Rock brought more flowers after the performance yesterday! I don't get to participate in the final bows (for good reason), but these flowers make me feel like a little bit of a diva anyway.

I can't tell you how much fun it is to be on stage with a large audience reacting to the beautiful singing going on all around me! Luckily that audience is pretty much a big blur from the stage. I could tell that most seats downstairs were occupied, but that's about it, so I don't have to worry about someone making a face at me. Now I'm wishing that there could be a DVD done of this production, so I can keep it close by for a "fix" after Tuesday night's final show. Many of the arias simply take your breath away with the beauty of the music combined with its presentation by the exquisite voices of our cast and the fantastic symphony musicians led by Maestro Jamie Allbritten, not to mention outstanding work by the chorus!

Some have asked to see pictures of me in full costume, so reluctantly I comply:

La Zingarella in the flesh...I don't think I'll be dying my hair black any time soon!

And Mother Superior, don't I look pious (it's all an act.) I didn't get a photo of me as a monk, just envision a hooded dark brown, well, monk!

And best of all, the beautiful flowers sent by my nephew Keith, his wife Jan and their children Corinne and Jacob!
One more performance coming up tomorrow (Tuesday) at 7:30, your last chance to see (or re-see!) a great show!! Special thanks to Ken Keuffel of the Winston-Salem Journal for a fine review in Saturday's paper.

See you at the Stevens Center,
La Z