Last night I decided I was just going to double check the Belvedere site to make sure that I had all my ducks in a row, when I stumbled upon a piece of information in the FAQ that was at once calming and annoying.
What do I have to prepare for the qualification round?
In the qualifying round you are asked to sing one or two arias of your own choice. These arias can be taken
from the arias you have selected as obligatory arias or chosen arias.
Unless I’m reading this incorrectly, it seems to me that any notion of having to bring FIVE arias to the prelim round was in fact wrong. Which means, all this time I had spent on cramming said Handel aria could have been spent on polishing the two arias (which will not include said Handel aria) that I now plan on singing for the preliminary round. Ugh. Sometimes I really aggravate myself. [palm of hand repeatedly bouncing off forehead]
Of course, in the end this is good news. I no longer have to be preoccupied with wondering whether or not I actually knew this aria; plus if I do move on to the next round, I will have had a head start on my preparation.
I fly today to Philadelphia; will take train to New York tomorrow morning; audition is at 11:30am at List Hall at the Met; then meeting a few friends for lunch and dinner; then back to Philly; then fly back to St. Louis Wednesday morning; rehearsal in St. Louis Wednesday afternoon. I hope that the audition goes alright. My St. Louis allergies landed with a bang yesterday-used an entire box of tissues in a matter of hours-and of course, my voice is feeling it a bit. I’m going to take it easy today, and try to load up on water in order to compensate for the vocal dehydration I’m now experiencing as a result of Zyrtec overdosage.
Fingers crossed that all goes well.
