I realized this week that the dream I have been pursuing since I took my first audition in 2014 is finally becoming my actual life. It’s pretty crazy.

I got to play a small part on piccolo for the offstage banda in The Dallas Opera’s production of Rigoletto. Then, I was also asked to sub for a rehearsal of Hansel and Gretel (also piccolo).

What a cool experience, and fantastic orchestra! I think I have fallen in love with opera. It’s so dramatic. Such great melodies and colorful scoring. I also love the whole staging, costumes, etc. It reminds me of my ballet productions when I was growing up.

The banda only plays for the first 10 minutes or so of Rigoletto– a small wind band playing in the wings. I learned the first 10 minutes or so of the opera REALLY well before the rehearsal.

We had a different conductor than the pit orchestra, who led us by watching and listening to monitors from the pit.

The day following the last show of Rigoletto, I subbed for a rehearsal of Hansel and Gretel. The fun/stressful thing about this was that the piccolo part has several unspecified tacet sections. So unless you have a sense of what is happening in between, you will have no idea how long to wait. If you’re lucky, you might have a really good buddy in the 2nd flute player.

I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect. I didn’t know if singers would be there, or if I could rely on cues from the 2nd flutist. I did know I did not want to be lost for 6 hours of my first professional rehearsal, though!

So, I did the thing that made the most sense for me,which was to learn the entire opera. I listened through it twice, then went through it three times with the score. Once to get my bearings and mark in cues, twice to make sure my cues worked (which some of them didn’t), and thrice to make sure my updated cues worked (they did).

Fortunately, for an opera it is relatively short- under 2 hours. Still, that was well over 12 hours of listening and study. The part itself was manageable for me with a few play throughs. I was glad I had been working on my piccolo chops leading up to it!