He asked me about the performance last night (my friend's opera) and I described in detail: the space (galapagos in brooklyn) has a stage in front of four table-islands surrounded by pools of water, and each pool has its own unique sculpture, including one of a woman's legs sticking gracefully out of the water with her petticoat flipped up to display her graceful legs, like she tripped off the balcony and fell into the pool, and there is a wineglass suspended by a rope over her legs, like she flung it into the air when she fell.
I told him in detail about the performance: an opera about the true story of Isabelle Eberhart, a woman born in the 1890s in Geneva, Switzerland. When she was 20, her brother, father, and mother all died, and she decided the only way to console herself was to move to North Africa. She lived as a nomad as a single woman in the early 1900's and converted to Sufism and frequently traveled as a man. She fell madly in love with an Algerian soldier and when they were separated she would restlessly roam the desert on horseback. (At this point B looked like he might cry, his eyes got wet and shiny looking, but who knows, maybe he was just having an allergy or he was hungover). And she died in a flash flood *in the desert* at the age of 27. B asked, "who told her story?" and I explained that Isabelle kept detailed journals of all her travels. But also that when I was watching the opera, I imagined how strange and unbelievable it would be to truly leave behind everything I had ever known and never have a home again, and that I wondered if there were many more people like her whose journals were never found.
I also described the ensemble and the movie that went with the opera--amazing remixed turn-of-the-century archival old movie footage of a family, waves, flowers blooming backwards and birds flying upside down, the streets of a north african city--not literally telling the story but going with the emotions of the story. It also turns out that B knows the singer who starred in the opera and also the guy who produced the festival that the opera is part of.
He asked me about lyricafest and I told him it was challenging, that my part is hard and I feel really confused because when I did my audition I felt I was truly amazing, but now I feel really insecure, and I don't know if it's just my preparation, or that I don't know how to have a good sound in an ensemble.
