So, sooo many times I packed really quick, never caring if I forgot something. A great friend told me once: “it will be an opportunity to get…. new pants, a toothbrush, socks, band-aids” you get my point. But packing now, COVID times which means little production support, (oh how we can feel their absence now) a week after the blizzard in Texas required concentration: forgetting something might become a problem. Don’t get me wrong I’m so excited to work again.

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If you can’t guess how day 1 starts, you skipped 2020. Yes, we all did. Most of it, anyway. And it is still crawling into this year, while the brave keep moving forward. The arts have been abandoned by the times, and there are new words that need to come out and bring some light again. I feel blurfed. Yes, I just made up the word.

It took one second! Let me share the good news, because I’m breathing again: rehearsing!!! We who love what we do will recover in seconds. Just give us the opportunity!

We prepare for months in advance. I researched all the way back to Isabel la Católica. Got reconnected with Antonio Machado and Miguel Hernandez. Discover the drastic differences between Spain’s regions and why they fight so much to keep their identity and language.

Gone are the days when we saw the performance space on day one. Safety first, and it requires careful planning for safety, as zones are controlled for tracing, and teams are tremendously reduced. On my fourth day, I am finally allowed to see the Cullen Theatre, the home of HGO Digital– Sarah and Ernest Butler Performance Series .

Only the crocodile remains….

It is so easy to forget that it’s hard. Almost impossible. We see their face; we see them smile and enjoy and we hear their voices. And it looks, oh- so easy. But behind that singer there are thousands of hours of preparation and no microphone to amplified them. That is the mark of an opera singer.

No mistake. I skipped days 7 and 8. We rehearsed and advanced a lot. If and when you see our final product, you will see it. Nine days of rehearsals, and we will “run” our show tomorrow. Our digital audience will get a final product that will be registered more like a movie, less like an opera.

Translations. How do we say what we want to say with the languages we have at hand? Music will talk to us without words. My ears hear fear and mystery in early music; joy and lightness of being in baroque, and the wonders of the world in classical music.

15 pieces made the final cut, 14 of them and an epilogue. In number 13, the torero won’t make it. Number 12 will surprise you. 11 days of rehearsals. 10 am was always the time to begin. 9 solo pieces for Ana María. Number 8 was number 6 and number 6 was number 9- the changes that happen while we keep tweaking the final order.

Unlearning takes time. Yet in a couple of hours, I had trained myself to look at the enormous screen that blocked my view to the stage. I caught myself many times standing and looking around it, still searching for the full proscenium picture and cleaning it that way.

Everything comes to an end. Time to close the blog and move on. Because live starts to move at a normal speed again. An inspiring process, surrounded by the amazing team HGO leads, and an extremely resilient group of artists, even if there were only eight on stage.