Lydia’s Blog

Well, we got the pictures back from the photo run of Le Grand Macabre…the one I had to do in full costume and makeup for a sick singer.

And there I saw it, your own sweet narrator, molested and debased in full technicolor. That’s the new photo. Enjoy. There are more. Perhaps when I’m feeling braver…

One of the very first questions I heard asked here in Graz, both publically and in hushed, furtive tones in the context of private conversations is this: How is the public going to take this show?

Well, nobody knows. The operas I’ve seen here have been packed with people in their fifties, I’d say, on average. A dirndl (St. Pauli girl dress) is somehow recognized as appropriate eveningwear in this part of Austria, so there are always a few of those, too.

They seem to dig on traditional staging, as well. The Traviata and moldy Csardasfürstin (they love operetta) always sell really well. The unspeakably shitty concept productions of both Zauberflöte and Idomeneo go over with that strange mixture of confused exasperation and polite stoicism.

They are also as I said, just not good.

Le Grand Macabre is an extremely well-made production of a wildly strange modern opera. You could call it a modern production, but I mean, this version of the opera is only about ten years old, so there really isn’t much room for Biedermeier furniture or muttonchops on stage here.

And it’s controversial. Just two hours of shit-dripping, semen-spitting, cock-sucking (on it’s own or paired with simultaneous butt-fucking), corpse-raping, puke-spewing, testes-shocking (yup), dildo-waving, amputee-baiting fun.

Still, none of it is randomly used. As I said, it is a very well-made production, and the world that’s been created on stage lends itself to this degree of perversion.

Last night, I brought my laptop to the bar in the Guesthouse where I’m staying. Some members of our chorus came through, and I showed them some photos.

I’ve discovered a chorus to be a strange beast. If you win them over, they can be a joy like no other. If you don’t end up on their good side (a decision made in seconds at the first rehearsal), your life for the remainder of the production will be a living hell.

With this bunch, I got lucky. They devoured not only the pictures of themselves and their colleagues dressed as whores and trannies, but also those of the soloists. As I watched them happily scroll through photos from non-choral acts, I realized: They fucking love it.  Love. It.

Then came the question, when the photo reel was spent. How will they take it?

Well, the dirndl-mamas will hate it.

Yes.

I’ve met a cool guy here in Graz, named Sasha. He works at the internet cafe where I work and the brunch place I go on Sundays (as I found out today). He is very cool, with dyed dark hair and piercings throughout his face. He’ll be one of my guests for the premiere.

I just wish I could crank out some copies of him and fill the house that way. An entire young professional-artistic class exists, that nobody’s even tried to engage as an opera public. Even here in little Graz. Even back in big Berlin.

For shame.

A few things that were said unto yours truly last night, while I was girdled and wigged playing one character for the photo call, and ordering around the action backstage…often at the same time.

“Lydia, rolling into the grave this way is really dangerous for my penis.”-from naked corpse no. 1, First Tableaux

“Well Lydia, you tell him the semen literally needs to explode from his mouth. That just looks like spit.”-Barrie, the director

“Lydia, tell him that the light fibers need to descend at the same tempo as slowly dripping semen.”-Barrie again

“I’m sorry Lydia, but the bag of vomit exploded in my pants.” Andrew, countertenor

“Please don’t grab my tongue in this scene, or I’ll vomit.” Martin, king of the dead

“I was late because I couldn’t find his nipple.” Martin again

“The shit kind of looks funny, Lydia, what would you think about raisins…or peanuts or corn.” Isabel, design assistant

“Don’t you dare talk to me again about the blowjob. One can only take so much. And forget the semen.” Jurai, tenor

Le Grand Macabre, everyone….Premiere is on May 7th!

This is a post in progress. Check back tomorrow for the details of a very strange true story. I have to fuck off now to review a role I’ll have to play tonight, as one of our singers is ill. They say you always remember the first time you get a rim-job on stage. Like a rite of passage, or something. Fun.

This is a two-parter, listed as two separate posts. The following post is [another] existential rant. You can skip it if you’d like. But for the appetizer, something light.

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When Barrie showed up to vet my remount, his highest praise was for my casting of the “First Corpse”, who will appear naked. The extra I chose is a magnificent specimen. Barrie, Andrew (my new main homo) and I are huge fans.

There are fifteen male extras in Le Grand Macabre. There’s also about five substitutes, so I generally work with about twenty people, in this context.

It’s a mixed bag. A Turk. Two Africans. A smattering of Balkans. A few Hungarians, Slovaks, Czechs, etc. And then the Austrians. All between 20 and 34.

Extras are a strange thing. They are paid terribly, and are often students, or at least theater enthusiasts with day jobs. They know that they’ll inevitably end up moving furniture or hauling props around on stage, so they tend not to be divas.

Our crew is especially sweet, and not just because I get to see them in various states of undress on a regular basis. They’re just nice kids. And because of their diverse ethnic makeup, my crap Deutsch is more forgiven that usual.

Except for today. At the beginning of the fourth tableaux of Barrie’s Le Grand Macabre, fifteen dying male mermaids writhe onto the stage from left and right. Today we decided to try it with the original mermaid tails. Some, it turned out, were too big for the extras.

It looked terrible. Just sloppy, ungainly shite.

I stopped them once they’d all come onto stage and taken their final positions on the revolve. Addressing both design staff and extras alike, I called over the microphone:

“Okay, dass sah furchtbar aus. Guck mal…ich weiss dass manche Schwaenze sind zu gross, aber es ist doch moeglich fuer jeder eine passende zu finden!”

Everyone…all fifteen on stage and the technicians and rehearsal staff in the wings and hall began shrieking with laughter.

What? I asked…WHAT?

Fuck. I’d forgotten. The colloquial term for penis in German (like cock, sort of) is the same word for tail. In this context, I’d said:

“Okay, that looked terrible. Listen, I know that some cocks are just too big, but it’s got to be possible for everyone to find one that fits.”

Oh, another triumph. Ugh.

I basically forced myself to sit through the first half of a god-awful production of the Magic Flute at the Graz Oper tonight. The Magic Flute is my least favorite Mozart Opera anyway. Give me anything Finta, throw in some Mitridate or Apollo and Hyacynthius but Jesus spare me the Flute. But this production…ugh. No charm, too much stupid, unnecessary business, uninteresting singing. Just nothing.

Anyway, after leaving, I decided to go up to my office (sorry, AN office to which I have a key) to check my email and theoretically do some work. I got an email from Stuttgart announcing a mandatory meeting in Hannover for roughly a week-and-a-half after next month’s skull operation.

Oh Stuttgart. I regard going to Stuttgart with a strange blend of euphoria (yay! Someone wants me other than those geezers in Berlin who originally took me on as a coffee girl and would probably never see me as much else) and dread (another two years of house assisting…ANOTHER TWO YEARS!?!) Then throw in all the shit about moving from Berlin to a lame city, adding another year to my separation from my fiancé, watching any career I might have had in the U.S. slip ever-further away, etc.

So it started. One of my favorite self-destructive activities (that delightful blend of futile, autoagressive and compulsive): E-obsessing.

It started with something innocuous. I searched for off-scene groups in Stuttgart with whom I might be able to get a little side action. That led me to the Tom Cruise-Katie Holmes baby (just don’t ask). That led to the Times, where I found and article called “The Bank of Mom and Dad”, which basically could have been written about me. Then it quickly dissolved into googling names of old summer camp buddies, high school friends, acquaintances and rivals within opera. I even signed up for a free trial of Times Select (a.k.a. the spawn of Satan) in order to more effectively stalk former wedding announcements.

Of course, the base, or core, or root (or whatever the fuck you want to call it) of this insidious business is the practice of torturing myself over the electronically quantified achievements of others. I have never been mentioned in the New York Times. My fiancé’s brother, Will, has nine articles. A high school pal/detestee turned fledgling opera singer (oh taste the irony, Lyd) of mine also has a good stack. The mother of a former sleep-away camp crush of mine has two whole NYTimes Select pages of articles. My aunt who dresses up like fucking Mark Twain’s wife even has a healthy bunch.

Then there’s OperaBase. Two less, shall we say, visionary (and much more diplomatically adept) American contemporaries of mine have received listings as producers of opera. More entries are surely to come. Und ich? Nichts.

And on and on. And on.

You know what? I’m afraid. I’m fucking afraid. What I’m doing right now isn’t making me happy. I’m doing it because I think that maybe continuing down this path might eventually avail me to opportunities that will make me happy. But I figure, until then, at least what I’m doing could make me better known…or at least able to pay my bills.

But it isn’t. And it doesn’t. I detest assisting. What I like, is the period after assisting is over, when I inherit the opera and am able to plug holes in the production that the director didn’t catch…because they’re impossible for a director to catch, because it’s all simply to close to the chest, by that point. Like this Le Grand Macabre. When Barrie showed up, he was ecstatic with the state of the show…and now regularly states the strengths of this remount against his original Berlin production. He almost certainly attributes it to happenstance and luck. I know better. Still, it’s his genius that built the entire framework for our current success.

A remount can be a strange and beautiful thing. When I remounted Calixto’s Entfuehrung earlier this season, a scandal gone dusty and tame regained its original glint. People booed and screamed and stormed out just like in the premiere (and not seen since).

When the curtain falls and the applause dies down, a gaping hole becomes evident, in any pride or satisfaction I have with my work: It wasn’t mine.

And “mine” doesn’t seem to be a concept that’s developing with any certainty or expediency.

I won’t bore you with any further details of my professional stagnancy, but when does “mine” come into it? MY mark on things, MY healthy financial outlook, MY sense of home, MY marriage, MY future.

God. Who even cares about MY New York Times article at this point.

And Stuttgart. Am I ready for this? Is this the next step…or am I just stapling myself into an unhappy pattern established by the old step?

Am I slowly, inexorably precipitating the actuality of “mine” or am I just postponing, precluding, or even preventing it?

So, the moral of my story is this: turn off the computer, stop romanticizing who you’re not, grab a decent bottle of vino collapso and whatever you do…

Don’t ask questions.

Hey guys. This is a little out of sequence. Pardonnez moi.

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So now I now what a nineteen-euro hotel room looks like.

In twelve hours I’ll be halfway through a flight to Spain. It occurred to me that, even though I found a “reasonable” flight from Vienna to Spain, the cost of getting myself to and from Vienna from Graz, in addition to one night’s hotel stay in the Austrian capitol might push the cost of my Easter jaunt to the level of that fabled New York trip.

Oh horror.

I begged everyone I knew in Graz for offers for a ride to or place to stay in Vienna. No dice. Shit shit shit.

So I bought the tickets to and from Vienna. Sixty euros. Once I got to Vienna’s south station, I did what I do best: high-tailed it to the station’s bar and ordered up a quarter liter of white wine (white wine…never drank it until I got to Graz. Sweet Jesus, the time I’ve wasted…). I had to ponder my options. Carefully.

I’d gotten a hotel guide to Vienna from the Information desk at the station. The pickings were slim. And fucking exorbitant. Then I saw a tiny ad for a hotel called Kolbeck.

I called. They had one budget single left. Twenty-three Euro. They were only receiving guests for the next fifteen minutes.

Well, I chugged the last of that wine and sprinted eighteen minutes through the cutting rain until I found the place. Would I like breakfast? No. Well then. It’d only be nineteen euros.

It is impossible to explain to you the sense of triumph I felt as I slapped down my two tens and waited for change.

The room is the size of a modest walk-in closet…with a sink, a bed and a stool for suitcases. No toilet or shower, but hey…what do you want…they’re in the hall. The sheets look clean enough. The walls are marked by severe water damage…and are warping and cracking in many places.

It smells like the previous guest decided to rub himself down with raw eggs just prior to spending several hours fucking the shit out of an aged Great Dane. That’s not so nice. You know though, hey, I opened the windows, and my eyes have stopped tearing up from the stench now, for the most part.

And hey, there’s cable—and a 14” TV. And an ashtray. That’s about all I need for the next nine hours of bliss.

This Easter vaycay is looking up, tell you what.

Well, another day of absolutely unremitting drunkenness comes to a close. Or sort of. It´s 4:10 in the morning here in sunny Barcelona. My cab comes in 50 minutes to whisk to the airport, where a plane will be waiting to whisk me back to Vienna, where a bus will whisk me to the station from the airport, and a train will whisk me from Vienna to Graz, and a streetcar will whisk me from the Hauptbahnhof in Graz to the opera house for the huge mama fuck-off technical rehearsal, etc.

Lots of whisking. You get it. 4:14.

After today´s first sound round of drinking (a hot catalan dive. Lyddie might not hate shrimp after all, y´all…), Alfons (the good natured man who´s let me crash at his place for the last three days) got a call from Calixto (possibly Europe´s most controversial director), saying he´d be at Alfons´ place in half-an-hour with Per, artistic director of the Bergen Festival in Norway.

Well, Rebecca (the good friend and fabulous designer I´m visiting) and I had to slap ourselves sober, and transform ourselves from sloppy slags to eyelid-batting operatic ingenues in a matter of seconds (well, minutes).

Calixto, as per usual, was a dear. Per was slick, suave, polite and unnervingly pore-less as ever. He asked me what I was up to, and I….well I felt I had to tell him.

Okay, background: Per was head of casting at the Komische Oper until this season. Now he´s hanging around the opera for auditions and premieres…as oracle general or something. Anyway. He´s still around.

I told him I was leaving the Komische Oper for Stuttgart. He looked incredulous…which didn´t help my own wierd tenuousness as pertains to my decision. Anyway. I am so there and yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

After the initial awkwardness of that admission, the evening went swimmingly (yes, I just used that word, it´s 4:22 in the morning). Per is a passionate producer and performing arts advocate. It was great to finally sit down and chat with him…over some fucking dead hot Tapas (god bless you, Alfons).

At about 1, Per hopped into a cab…but not after embracing me warmly and calling me a bastard (in a funny ironic way or something) for leaving the Komische Oper.

Well, I guess I´d rather hear it said affectionately from a drunken half-colleague (and superior, to be sure) in Barcelona than from my utterly unamused bosses back in Berlin.

It´s certainly no surprise to hear that word. It´s just that it actually IS a surprise. If you get me. No? Well, it´s 4:28 am, give the girl a break.

Bastard. Hm. I prefer it to words like unorganic, the criticism I constantly absorbed from all sides in the weeks prior to being unceremoniously fired from a certain summer program that rhymes with Klimmerglass. I actually don´t mind bastard at all, to be honest.

4:32. Jesus. Whoa. Just reread the post. Now it´s 4:35.

Okay. I just bought 4:38 by staring at the screen for three minutes. I´m gonna go put my boots on and wait for the cab. This is just silly.

Adios.

Greetings from sunny Spain.

It´s the end of day two of my design lock-in here in Barcelona (well, to be fair, a suburb). Recently, I spent some time vanity searching on the internet.

Let it be said, that I managed to nail down my first IMDB entry before getting a spot on Operabase.

Doesn´t that just figure.

Now, back to the Cava.

It’s now officially Easter weekend. The next four days for me (five for the singers) are officially free. The last three normal two-and-a-half day weekends I spent here, in Graz—mostly by myself with a few exceptions. Blowing big wads of cash on shit I can’t for the life of me remember now, poodling around on the Internet for five-hour blocks, walking around until both knees ache and I get dizzy, etc.

No, I thought. This weekend—this LONG weekend of all weekends, I have to go away. Get out of Dodge, so to speak. Berlin, I thought, would be the natural choice. The tickets were, unfortunately, absurdly expensive from Graz…as well as from Vienna, Klagenfurt and Budapest. Fuck it, I thought. Get me out of this hellhole, I’ll do it. Then I (wisely) called Tommy to ask where he’d be over Easter. England, he said.

Then it dawned of me. Why the fuck would I go back to Berlin were it not to see the few people whose company I can stand for more than ten minutes? Tommy in England. Toby in the sticks with his family. Though I stopped calling…I imagined the list went on and on.

So no Berlin. I thought, Amsterdam…but then it turned out that Matthew would be in Düsseldorf over the holiday. Paris? Marc didn’t email me back. Rome? Jack is quite ill, waiting for an operation…and without the use of his (or an) apartment, the trip would have broken me. London? No, Beth and James are in Australia. Maybe a southeastern tour…Budapest, Bucharest, Sofia…?

Oh, why. Why, why why why why why why why. Why fucking bother.

Because, as I now in my drunken stupor can now officially articulate, the meaning of life is this: avoiding that thick, constitutional fear of the fact we’ll all die alone. The avoidance, whether temporary and cheap (via such strategies as gorging on drink, people, drugs, work, oneself, etc.) or long-lasting and idealistic (strategies like marriage, psychiatry, religion, family) of loneliness is the absolute kernel of the human existence.

Where did I really want to go over Easter? New York. I wanted to wake up in Abe’s apartment in Brooklyn, in Abe’s bed, with Abe himself snoring happily beside me. I miss my bakery on Montague St. I miss the stupid bitch of a door lady who works in the mornings. I miss the cockroaches that scatter in the bathroom at night when I turn on the lights. To me, right now, that sounds like the opposite of loneliness. Maybe you could even call it happiness.

It was too expensive. With both my American and German accounts frozen (from either lack of funds or some other reason, I’m not sure), I’m living off of the American Express card that my unfathomably patient parents still pay off and cash advances on my pathetic, pathetic fee from the Grazer Oper. It was simply too much.

So. No one was home in the cities I could afford, and $1000 seemed like too much to spend for three nights in the one place I feel human. What then?

Barcelona.

Again.

My personal favorite strategy for avoiding that thick, constitutional human aloneness is work. I mean, for fuck’s sake, what else am I doing here in Germany…that is, other than proving to those talentless, unimaginative assholes I had the misfortune of growing up with that my glamorous, creative, jet-setting European lifestyle trumps the tap-dancing shit out of their bleak futures filled with SUVs, PTO meetings, middle-management jobs, Pottery Barn furniture and once-a-month, missionary-position sex.

I’m not really sure when it happened, the work thing. I was a profoundly lazy kid. I literally slept through high school. My first year of college remains an amphetamine-drenched haze. It must have happened after that. I’m not really even that ambitious—just proud. I had to show the fuckers from West Hartford that I could become a great singer. I had to show the assholes in the Opera Department at Oberlin that I could stomp all over their narcissistically regimented program by chain-smoking and becoming a fucking hot director. I had to show American directors how provincial and lame they are by fucking off to Europe and forcing my way under the wings of the world’s most controversial, radical stage artists.

And so here I am. Way to go, Lyd. When I’m working, I’m occupied to distraction by the music, the people, the lifestyle, the illusion of it all. It’s so fantastic; I just want to drown myself in it, sometimes.

Then, there are those moments when this distraction is sucked away, like the last few quarts of bathwater in a tub. It’s only in these moments, like this moment, that I realize the thinness of the illusion.

Then I’m just another over-entitled suburban fool, typing nonsense into an expensive laptop late at night (for lack of anything better to do), already beyond drunk on cheap white wine. The only thing I have on any jackass in Connecticut, is a shitty German TV movie about two randy widows at a spa playing in the background.

But I digress. Severely.

I’m going to Barcelona. A designer friend of mine is working there currently. We’re both Calixto babies. We’ll spend three days in that Mediterranean paradise debating the details of our application to a prestigious European competition for emerging directors and designers. We’ll hole ourselves up indoors laying out storyboards and arguing over plot points and color schemes.

It’ll be brilliant. Wonderful. Yet another perfect distraction. Three full days of delaying that dreadful, gnawing knowledge of what I really am.

Happy Easter.

I’m sitting at an internet cafe. A minute ago, I had to use the restroom

On the door to the boys’ room, there is a picture of the ubiquitous white, stick-man boy. On the girl’s door, there’s a picture of…two white stick-man girls.

I chuckled to myself. What, a bathroom just for lesbians?

In the lesbian bathroom, however, there are literally two toilets right next to each other, in a small undivided room. Two paper towel dispensers. One sink.

And now I’m confused.