Susannah in motion

Das Video hat 2 Teile, da es für eines zu lang war!

Teil 1:


Teil 2: (schließt direkt an - leider hat die ganze Revival-Szene nicht in 1 Video gepasst)

Susannah!

Susannah!

and the art of where to draw the line(s)

Susannah is over - what a pity! Here the pictures. Video will also come, but later, as usual :)

For those, who I haven't told already... this was one of the best known American Operas by Charlisle Floyd, based on the story of Susannah an the Elders from the book of Daniel (Bible, Apocryphs)

our 2 Susannahs, Betsy and Elizabeth, rehearsing. Betsy (in the front) was Miss Indiana 2005
She is the one in the Videos

In the opera the story is set in the 1950s in a small very poor conservative village in the mountains of Tennessee. (New Hope Valley) My character (the director assigned different characters to each chorus singer - great!) was Grace Adams, a 75 year old widow.
The main story is, that Susannah, a beautiful 19 year old woman who lives with her brother because their parents had died already, is bathing naked in a creek. A preacher comes to the town and the Elders look for a creek for baptizing. Accidently they see Susannah bathing and consider it to be a "blasphemic outrage". The whole village is shocked and they force Susannah to make a public confession. A big revival meeting takes place where the preacher encourages everbody to confess their sins (I am one of the confessers there :), but Susannah can't see a sin in her behavier and runs away. The preacher follows her and tries to make her repent. She is desperate and breaks down. The preacher wants to comfort her but suddenlty his sexual desire awakens and he sleeps with her.
When Susannah's brother learns about that, he shoots the preacher while he is baptizing in the creek. Every body is furious and wants to chase Susannah out of the valley. But she just stands there with a gun, laughing and acting totally madly, not caring any more, what people think about her. End.

1st perfprmance, make-up done by our make-up woman:

2nd performance, make-up done by myself: (we had a stage make-up masterclass inbetween)

after the last performance... I was invited to a Halloween party (my 1st!) and just stayed like that :

This wig is made of real hair and is worth 900$! (Now I know why we pay so much for tuition here)

More about this great opera in the video excerpt. Actually any kind of recordings are forbidden in the Opera Theatre, but Valeska still did me the favour and filmed parts of the final dress rehersal... So also I had the chance to see how we look like from far away...and I was shocked :)
I'll upload it soon...

Oktober

Es ist nicht mehr zu übersehen, dass es Herbst ist....

Die berühmte Blätterverfärbung am Campus:

Seltsame Plakate im Supermarkt mit eigentartigen Vorstellungen von Deuschland oder dortigen Bräuchen...

Chicago!

New: Now Video online



Weekend trip to Chicago

Last weekend (13/14. 10.) I joined Valeska, Emily and Hannah (all of them harp students) on their spontaneous trip to Chicago. (finally a chance to see more of America than just Bloomington!!!)

The tour started with me sleeping in and waking up by Valeska knocking at my window for at least 5 minutes. (thank God, that my room in the basement) I woke up quite shocked because the 2 other girls were already waiting outside in the car. Even though I managed somehow to sit in the car within some minutes, I kept feeling confused and dizzy the whole day.

After driving through the completely flat fields of Indiana for over 3 hours, we entered Illinois (yeah, another state, and another time zone!) and arrived in Chicago after a 4 hours drive and exactly 233miles/374 kilometres.
We went for lunch in a very American Italien restaurant, then we visited Navy Pier,a kind of Vergnügungspark on a huge pier with view out of Lake Michigan. Then we walked around a bit between the skyscrapers and visited the art museum:

I was suprised, how many famous paintings were hanging around there! Picassos, Monets, Manets, Renoirs, van Goghs,...
Here is a self portrait beween some older sky scrapers (yes, some of them really looked like from the turn of the century - very nice):


In the evening we visited a harp concert of course, with a great wine and cheese reception aferwards. The whole "harp-high society" has seemed to meet there and the 3 girls were very excited, whereas I enjoyed trying all those delicious cheeses, fruits and sweets from the buffet instead.
Then we drove to Emily's aunt's place in a suburb of Chicago where we could spend the night.

Of course I filmed also this time, I will add an excerpt here as soon as posisble- like the last time. So till soon! :)

2. Radtour - Lake Lemon

Das Video zur Lake-Lemon tour ist da:

Nachdem wir ja schon am Samstag zur goldenen Hochzeit geradelt waren (ich berichtete), folgte am Sonntag gleich die nächste Radtour, die unfreiwillig eher eine Odyssee wurde - zum Lake Lemon.
We had planned to attend the "Bloomington Worldwide Friendship - Picknick" there, but then we didn't manage to read the map properly... So we missed a turn and kept wondering why after hours of cycling we still haden't found the lake.
Zum Glück sind wir dann irgendwann auf die Idee gekommen, Leute zu fragen, die uns lachend erklärten, jaja, dazu müssten wir erst wieder mal 4-5 miles zurückfahren um auf die richtige Straße zu kommen.
Mit 1 1/2 Std. Verspätung kamen wir dann schließlich doch noch an, wo wir schon sehr besorgt erwartet und mit reichlich Essen empfangen wurden. All das hab ich auf einem Video festgehalten, dass ich so bald wie möglich hier einfügen werde, also... später wieder mal vorbeischauen!
Inzwischen ein kleiner Vorgeschmack in Bildern:

Jaja, das alles war wirklich am So, den 7. Oktober! (Irene Omas 85. Geburtstag wäre das gewesen)
Es war sogar für hier völlig ungewöhnlich heiß! 90°F! Das sind 31°C... und wir sind insgesamt 31 miles geradelt (hat Valeska ausgerechnet), dass sind ca. 50 km!

(upgedatet am 11.10.2007)

KlaKo

Hier nur ein paar Impressionen unserer 2. KlaKo. Das letzte habe ich fähigerweise vertikal gedreht. hihi
Liebe Grüße.

Bike - weekend

50th Wedding anniversary and cycling tours

This weekend was full of activity... As there is much to wwrite about, I'll split this up and write just about Saturday now.

Valeska's "Bloomington-Worldwode-Friendship" - host family invited her to their 50th wedding anniversary in the "Life and family Worship Center", located at a romantic place directly nixt to the highway to Indianapolis. As Valeska didn't want to go there alone, she asked me to join her and finally she could convince me with the idea of combining this with a cycling tour. Se we cancelled the transportation, that was offered to us and went there per bike. Quite an adventure - not on the highway though, but on the Old State Road (the highway before the new highway was built - what was more a rollercoaster than a street because of the many "rolling hills") But it was such a beautiful ride....through large fields, over creeks and between farms....the air was smelling like in the Austrian Alps - cows, freshly moaned grass - very nice.
But as soon as we arrived at the Worship Center, it became very American again. The "bride and groom", Louise and Paul Bonney (you see them in the next picture; - they're by the way not related to Barbara Bonney, I asked) had rented a whole gymnasium that was decorated over and over in gold and silver with a huge wedding cake in the center:

There were round tables around that where the over 100 guests could sit down and eat the delicious but very American food from the buffet:


That's just the fruit section (Yes, this is really a very illuminated pinapple - as I said - American :) There were also meatballs with pinapple and cherry sauce, mashed potatoes (of course) mixed with cheese and cornflakes, green beans (also as always), then a variety of cheeses and raw vegetables, these fruits and then another dessert table, where you could grab brownies, cookies, or a kind of sparkling lemonade with melting ice cream in it.
While we were eating, a band was playing love songs non stop, like "Love me tender" or "You are my special angel" and the 2 sons gave speeches. (both named Paul, because their mother, the bride, loves her husband, also called Paul, so much, that she calls everything, even her animals, after him.)
Then there was the wedding cake - cutting ceremony, the elderly couple were feeding each other with pieces of the cake (just using their fingers) - then everybody was allowed to eat it. It was a bisquit dough with lots of sugar around and most people ate it together with salty peanuts. Crazy...

After this accumulation of calories I was happy to have the 2nd part of the cycling tour - here's Valeska on our way back - behind her the "Wahlplakate" for the city council election.

Madison und Rigoletto

Rückblick auf letztes Wochenende

Ausflug nach Madison, kleiner historischer Ort in Süd-Indiana, am Ohio-River, der die Grenze zu Kentucky ist. Valeska hat mich hier sehr malerisch fotographiert:

Und hier ein Querschnitt aus Rigoletto, der 1. Uni-Opernproduktion der heurigen season. In der 2., "Susannah", werd ich selbst im Chor mitsingen und wir proben gerade...