Fifty buttfucking minutes
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.
