Showtime

This is a sort of long-overdued post. At the time of writing, showtime had been over a week. Nevertheless...

After having slept late 3 nights in a row due to rehearsals, I dragged myself out of bed 6 in the morning to make it in time for a 3-hour class starting at 8. It suffices to say that by that evening, I was exhausted beyond reasons. It would my first time performing on stage with a full orchestra; in a real, proper concert hall; with a real, paying audience; and I started the evening by ramming the car door into my face. It happened so fast - I swung it open and it whacked me just above my eye socket, somewhere at the middle of my right eyebrow. Thank goodness the bruising was in a spot I can nicely cover with make-up, and thank goodness it wasn't too serious, though it rattled my brain and gave me a good headache for the rest of the evening.

Did I mention it was my first time having a full, 75-person orchestra in accompaniment? And to say it was exciting would almost be an understatement. Strangely though, I was not the slightest bit nervous - not when, sitting there on stage, I saw the audience filling up the venue; not when the orchestra played the first piece; not even when we sung the first note of our first piece. The only thing I found hard to keep up was the required constant smiling. Pardon my saying this, but some songs simply weren't smiling-songs, and it would be extremely silly to have a smile carved onto your face throughout singing them.

Anyhow...

This is the ruins of a colonial building on the way to the concert venue, which I saw and admired every time I drove past it. I was told photographing it is not allowed...

The orchestra rehearsing, with the (according to our lovely host) dashing, charming, sexy conductor, in the still empty concert hall.

The brightly coloured seats. Some of the choir members say they look like jelly-beans.

This is where they served us (awful) dinner. Actually, no one served anyone anything. All the packed food were unceremoniously stacked in a corner, and everyone just helped themselves.

The scary steps leading to our first-floor dressing room.

The dressing room! No, I didn't manage to snap photos of people in the process of dressing / undressing.

Backstage. Yes, it was that dark, all the time. I was terrified to walk in that extreme lack of light, and kept worrying about tripping and landing on my nose.

The stage during performance. I obviously couldn't had had possibly taken this shot - it is a screen capture from a recorded clip.

And that's all. I would write more, but I'm simply too tired right now...