I just returned from nearly three weeks in Germany with my sister and now that I am marinating in the soup-like air of Tel Aviv, I thought I'd get back to my blog. I had two concerts last month and in the second one especially, I could really feel how I had improved since my concert last December and I enjoyed myself. My sister Adriana arrived the day after my concert and we began an intense week of rehearsals and lessons with my teacher. We flew to Berlin on a Monday, took the train to Zwickau and stocked up on groceries.
The first round of the competition didn't start until Friday, so we had a few days to settle and practice more. Our performance of the first round was on Sunday, but we had to wait until Tuesday morning to find out whether or not we had advanced to the second round. Come Tuesday morning, we found that instead of advancing 50% of the first round as is the usual practice, the judges advanced less than a third - so out of 90 singers in the first round, only 24 continued to the second round!
So, as far as the competition itself is concerned, I was disappointed by the lack of organization - to admit 90 singers without any sort of pre-screening and then only advance a fraction of them is unheard of and cruel.
However, I learned a lot from this experience, let alone a lot of music which I will be able to sing in many concerts. I am really proud that I sang well, in front of a hall of strangers and a row of frankly pretty surly looking judges. The last of my set was an operetta aria and I really let go and moved and used gestures, and really enjoyed myself. As we were leaving the hall, we were surprised by a friend of Adriana's who happened to be accompanying another singer at the competition and had seen our names in the program. They had not seen each other for nearly 10 years! As we were sitting and visiting, an older gentleman came up and asked me for my autograph. The competition printed programs of all of the participants' bios and their repertoire, so his will surely be a collector's item one day.
We still had a few days before we could head back to Berlin, so we did what we could in Zwickau. We made friends with the owners of one of the two Asian restaurants in the town and ate there nearly every day - the only place with gluten-free and fleisch-free options. We visited the Robert Schumann House, which is a museum documenting his and Clara's lives. They have historical instruments (some of them had belonged to the Schumanns) that we were allowed to play on. There was a funny pedal piano which is a combination of a piano and an organ. It was invented to allow organists to practice at home, but the pedals underneath attach to strings and hammers like a piano, not to pipes, like an organ. Adriana and I played an improvised duet on the theme of "Alouette," with me manning (or rather, feeting) the pedals below and she playing the piano above. We enjoyed ourselves immensely...the others on our tour weren't sure what to do with their faces. The museum also has a piano which Clara Schumann's father had purchased for her debut at the age of 11. It was really interesting to hear the different sound quality from these instruments - they have all been restored, of course, but they are much quieter and don't sustain tones for as long as modern pianos, so it really changes how music would have been performed and heard by the audience.
We left for Berlin a few days early and stayed with our newly-re-found friend for a few days. She took us to a really cool concert of a group called Projekt Guzu. I won't try to describe their music, only tell you that the singer sings in German, English, and Farsi gibberish. This is one of my favorite songs from the night, although we didn't have so many hilarious dancers during our concert.
Berlin was a breath of (mostly) fresh air after the stiffness of eastern Germany. We first stayed with our friend in Friedrichshain, which reminded me a bit of Tel Aviv. The atmosphere was really cozy albeit a bit grungy, and the food options were sooo much more diverse than the two lonely Asian restaurants amidst a sea of butcher shops in Zwickau. We had Indian-esque or Asian-esque food every day; I was in heaven. We also managed to get some Grinberg sessions in, which I really needed after all of the stress and then disappointment of the competition and so much traveling. My Grinberg practitioner called the competition judges "vultures," which I think is a fairly accurate description.
Aside from exploring and spending all of our money on clothes and pastries, we met with friends, visited the well-stocked Dali museum, attended a concert of Brahms' and Poulenc's violin sonatas, and mastered the U-Bahn routes. We also visited the East Side Gallery, which is a remaining chunk of the Berlin Wall that has now been covered with commissioned and non-commissioned (aka graffiti) artworks. We heard so many languages being spoken there, which gave me hope that more people are thinking about this important piece of history.
I was sad to leave Berlin, but I have a feeling that I will be back again sooner rather than later. Now I am preparing for some choir concerts that I am singing in - Beethoven's Fidelio and Mahler's 3rd Symphony.
I hope that you are having wonderful summers (or, possibly, winters) and enjoy the weekend.
Much love and peace,
Daniella
