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. The level of trust and camaraderie made the process enjoyable.

split in 4...

How we balance things, and how we feel them. I finish my last rehearsal knowing that it’s not in my hands any more. But we have a great product: a wide selection of pieces that show the many aspects of the peninsula.

Words and good stories need to be savor as a gourmet dish. With wonder, curiosity, and very slow. We choose the wine that accompanies our meal, and so should we choose our readings and translations. Speed reading has become an art, and I for myself am a really slow reader because I want to taste the flavors.

It’s been unusually exhausting. Not because the work is harder than usual: it is not. Maybe because we keep exploring the unknown, with half the usual support. There is a constant feeling of wide exposure, and we are very aware of our fragility. A year indoors has changed our stamina.

Working again with them is a gift. Hard to describe what we can feel when they sing. So, we stay silent and in awe.

A good day to rest and read.

Four cameras, the closest one to stage and the performers on a mechanical rail. Support on stage will be behind new plastic walls during tech, but only performers when we finally tape. I will not be looking at the stage, but at a huge screen with all the camara shots.

I revisited my education on Spaniard conquest, understood how Spain is really a “casual” mix of races, religions and geography. School books lie, and history is told by those in power. It has become fashionable to push away the “invaders”, but the color of my skin tells me that I am the result of those mixes. My best discovery: zarzuela came of the people, by the people and for the people, and so, it should not perish. It got kidnapped and sanitized.

It took one second! Let me share the good news, because I’m breathing again: rehearsing!!!

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. I can say it, and it feels what I feel: it has energy on a dark vowel, and it hits percussively at the end while it jumps forward.

Things I never packed before: hand sanitizer, alcohol spray, a collection of masks: disposable, comfortable to work with, elegant, informal, visors, thermometer, paracetamol. Dry cleaning and washing might be an issue, so pack enough clothes for 15 days. We are in "Zoom" times, so gadgets feast: computer, chargers, batteries, headset, iPad, iPad pencil, USBs and all the cables that match everything.