On the Street Where I Live

The view out my window

First days always present an interesting mix of psychosis, both mine and others'. I often wonder what "normal" people would think of what we deal with at the beginning of a gig, both real and imagined. Usually, mostly the latter…

Now in Lisbon, Portugal. And I realize I'm quite unprepared for this cultural shift. I do not speak one word of Portugese. I don't even know how to count to three. On the flight in, the airplane captain started speaking over the intercom. I had this moment where I thought I was on a NY City subway, or a comic movie. You know the kind, where every sound that comes out of the speaker is a trombone sound "bwah bwah bwah dee bwah." I sat there smiling, thinking the intercom speaker must have been blown out. But then all the other passengers understood perfectly what was being said, laughing at his jokes. I began to wonder if I might be missing something.

One thing I was missing was a place to land. Thank God for iPhones and the ability to book a hotel on the fly. I had procrastinated lining up an apartment during the last month. Fortunately I got a hotel for the first few days and had a bed to sleep in when I landed on Saturday.


Sunday was spent on Craigs List. And by this morning (Tues) found a place to hang my hat for the next month and a half.

The show is Carmen at the Sao Carlos. I think they pronounce it Sah-oo Carlosh. How do I put this respectfully, my kids say Dutch sounds like drunk German. Well, then Portugese sounds like inebriated Russian. Turns out the airline loudspeaker was working just fine, it's just that the dumas American has no linguistic exposure to this part of the world.

I find the first day or two in a new locale are probably the most important of the duration. Every look and word is weighed. Every commodity measured. "Is the internet decent?" is always the first question to solve in a new hotel. Fortunately, the hotel I had hurredly found was warm and welcoming. The room the size of a shoebox, but never mind. It had internet.

I was tempted to start off my time in a bad mood, however. On the flight here, got told by the attendant that "airplane mode" had no bearing on anything and "get that phone turned off quickly." I was tempted to pout and then say it was only an ipod touch, but realized my blood pressure had already risen and any rebuttal was just gonna ruin my day. I decided to go passive and relax.

The point is, on the approach to a new adventure, I begin to believe we singers all look at the most meaningless, trivial things to portend how the next month will go. The more trivial, probably the more likely it will get stuck under my skin. I then take that aggravation to the theater and then waste too much time trying to get out of a sour mood. We are a superstitious bunch.

The mood didn't last. Monday in first day of rehearsal (I had arrived 2 weeks late) and the relief on their part was matched only with my happiness to be doing a Carmen with Rinat Shaham.) Stephen Medcalf is the director, and being the husband to a singer knew exactly how to make that first moment the right one. Julia Jones conducts. My first time working with this particular team and already I can see, this is gonna be a heckuva good time.

Dinner costs about 8 bucks here. And that includes limitless pitchers of wine.

Gotta find a gym.