back in Basel.

The time changed in the night.  Therefore it is fine for me to still be in bed right now.  I was expecting a Sunday of relaxation anyway, after my crazy week and a half, so I feel absolutely free to enjoy every lazy bit of this morning.

The rest of the week in Darmstadt was fine.  The music part was good, except for all the standing, but that's normal (it's my life).  The rest, though!  The drive up, of course.  Then on Thursday I had to get back to Basel for a Friday morning presentation at Druckwerk for my Notation class (How Music Was Printed).  Fortunately my rehearsal on Thursday night ended early.  Oh, wait, did I say early?  I meant late.  As in, quarter to twelve.  As in, nearly midnight.  My new theorbo-playing friend and I hopped in the car I rented for the trip and made it back to Basel by 2:30, which seemed pretty good.  People drive really fast on the autobahn.  There aren't any speed limits, you know.  It's pretty impressive.  We were driving as fast as seemed safe in the sad little rental car, which was only about 130 - 140 kph (about 85 mph).  He was going home to see his wife for a night, and helping me out with the manual transmission at the same time.  Thanks, man. 
By noon the next day we were headed for 4 hours through traffic back to Darmstadt, and the one performance of the opera.  Here are some pictures I took at the dress rehearsal; the opera was done with traditional Baroque gestures, there was a choreographer helping the singers with their hands and expressions. 

The woman in the bottom picture was definitely the best of the vocal group; great voice, good presence, elegant, fit the part.  But, funny, I noticed during the recitatives -- the part where the singers move the action along, have dialog, etc, and are accompanied only by the continuo group (harpsichord, cello, theorbo) -- she would just say whatever she wanted, and sometimes only vaguely stick to what was written.  Mostly her notes were right, but more importantly, I guess, she Seemed right. 
One really nice part about the production was the background "sets"; the stage set had been constructed with a screen in the back, and throughout the opera they projected old images (prints, duh) of palaces, gardens, etc from the time.  You can see an example of this in the top picture.  And from the audience, the effect was quite convincing.  Well done, creative group.
All in all, for the trouble of getting up there, getting around in Darmstadt, and finally coming back to Basel, I'm not sure it was worth it.  I know that it wasn't my problem that they hadn't secured a bass player for the opera, but somehow I made it my problem.  Lesson learned?  Probably not.

taking pictures during the recitatives.

Here are some sights from the drive back up to Darmstadt from Basel on Friday (a perfect, beautiful day, too bad we were in a car). 

fall colors

awesome 18-wheeler

A few pictures from the time in Munich, too:

rainy day

felt store

All of a sudden, I found myself a little jealous of any friend of mine who has A Job and gets to play in a hall like this all the time.  What a pleasure.  I didn't get a great picture of the Gasteig (the hall), but here's one that somebody else took and put up on Wikipedia:

 

It's maybe a little hard to tell from the picture but looking into the hall from the stage almost gave me a sense of vertigo; all the angles, and the seats swooping toward you.  Nice.