Watching her go was really something. It was September 26, 2001, two weeks and a day after the attack, and she was leaving home, husband and cat to do what she’d spent two years planning: a three-month audition tour of Germany.
When we moved to New York three years ago from Los Angeles, it was so that Kathleen could take a serious shot at being a famous mezzo. Almost immediately, her fach changed to dramatic soprano, which everyone suspected all along might be the case.
So now she sings Strauss and Wagner. Small houses in the US don’t do a lot of Strauss and Wagner. But small houses in Germany do, so her voice teacher said she should go there.
For the last year, Kathleen’s been a whirlwind. Learning an entire new repertoire, taking German classes, working overtime at her day job so she could save for the trip, arranging for a German cell phone and mailing address, making about a thousand lists, crossing things off them, making new ones, and occasionally—only occasionally—needing just the slightest reassurance that I thought this crazy thing really was the right thing for her to do.
In February, with seven months to go, she took a deep breath and bought an airline ticket to Austria. She’d decided to spend the first two weeks of her trip at an intensive language school in Vienna to cap off her year of German lessons. Then she’d travel from there to Germany, where she’d do as many auditions with agents and opera houses as she could line up.
“I’m really going,” she said, when the ticket was officially purchased.
“You’re really going,” I said.
There was never any serious entertainment of the thought that I could go with her. She’s an opera singer and I’m a novelist, so neither of us is married to money. My job would be to hold down the fort for several months while she was gone. Hers would be to knock ’em dead in Germany.
Over the next seven months, money didn’t stop her. The attack on the World Trade Center ruined her demo tape recording plans (and made international air travel from New York frightening), but that didn’t stop her, either. The 300 expensive résumés and headshots that never arrived at their destinations in Germany made us feel sick, but that didn’t stop her. We dealt with it. The odds that everyone knows about didn’t stop her. The fundamental upheaval of leaving job, family and home didn’t stop her. I’ve spent my entire life among musicians, writers and artists, and I’ve never seen dedication to rival Kathleen’s. She doesn’t think she’s doing anything special, but she’s my hero.
On September 26, I watched her go down the boarding passage and disappear.
Date: Monday, October 1, 2001 9:32am
Subject: Grüss Gott from Wien
Hi everyone! If you are receiving this, you must have asked for updates from Europe, or else I just assumed you would want one. This is my very chatty, non-music orientated letter. The next one should have a little more info about auditions, as I have one next Monday.
Okay, the news:
I arrived in Frankfurt Thursday morning at 9 am, and then spent a couple of hours negotiating the subway with my bags. I thought about taking a cab, but the nice German lady said, “No, you don’t want to do that, it costs 50DM!” (That’s 25 dollars.) So I thought, okay, when in Rome… and hauled my bags onto the subway. Then in town, I was supposed to take a tram or something to the youth hostel, but I’d had enough by then, and it was cheap from there. So I settled in to wait 2 hours for the hostel to let me check in. This after no sleep on the plane.
Finally I got into my room… eventually we had several people sharing it. One was a doctor, and we went to breakfast together the next morning. Very nice lady, who gave me her card and invited me to call her if I go to Freiburg. Everyone here wants to know what it was like in NYC the past couple of weeks. They all seem to know that the news is not really conveying what it’s like.
So apparently if you are female and alone in a hostel, men try to pick you up. The first night it was the French guy. He didn’t speak much English or German, so we had a nice conversation in French for an hour or so. Then he wanted to paint the town, but I went back to the hostel. We had a date for breakfast, which I slept through. I didn’t feel guilty though. I think it would have been a lot harder to get away from this guy if I hadn’t said yes to breakfast. My new doctor friend tells me that all the French men are like that (how’s that for stereotyping??).
The second day, I tried to cash in some old DM (that’s deutschmarks) that I received from a friend. (The clerks in the hostel had never seen them before!! I had an artefact from their country’s past.) So I made my way to the central bank, only to find it closed since 1pm. Oh well, I will try again when I go to Berlin in a couple of weeks.
The second night, I had a nice long conversation with an Iranian guy who was chronicling his conversion to Christianity. He was severely disappointed when I left to go practice. Maybe if you talk to them, they think it means something? Who knows?? Who cares?? I’m not used to this, but I also never hang out in places where stuff like this goes on. So any single women who are looking, just come to Frankfurt and hang out at the hostel. You will meet more guys than you can stand. Unfortunately, they don’t seem to understand the concept of a wedding ring. My singer friend Susi, who is in Munich, says they see the ring, but they don’t care.
A word about hostels: I’m not sure that they are really intended for sleeping. The kids in Germany were whooping it up (they went back to school this week), and all us adults had a hard time sleeping. We had two girls in our room who came in at 3am the first night, and went to bed. Then the second night they came in at 3am and took all their stuff and left. And they were NOT QUIET! But I guess that is typical.
On Saturday, I took the train to Vienna, an all-day affair. It was nice and relaxing though. I have figured out a strategy for getting around here. Just ask the well-dressed men around 30-40 years old for directions. Or men with kids. They always give you good directions, and will also help you put your bags on the train. Then they go away and leave you alone. Pretty good deal for me! Someone told me that their chivalry covers a patriarchal attitude, but I haven’t seen that. So far, I have been given a lot of help in a very friendly way.
I am now in my school apartment in Vienna, and I will be here for two weeks. It’s a nice city, very pretty. The buildings look a lot like the buildings in Paris, although if I knew something about architecture, I might not think so. The weather is warmish here. No jacket required.
SO I will spend this week studying and working on my arias. My apartment is nice, and I have a piano in my room. Isn’t that lucky?? And my roomies don’t mind me practising. On Saturday there is an excursion to Budapest through the school (only 3 hours away) and I would like to go, but probably won’t. Have to watch every schilling!
Off I go to buy an Austrian/German hairdryer before the stores close. Everything closes early here.
Ciao!
Kathleen
Around this time, Kathleen had a few more audition offers from her résumé packages. One is in Norway—where her father’s side of the family comes from, so she’s especially excited about meeting some of them next February—and another was in Milan in October.
A week after her first email, she was still in Vienna, preparing to leave the language school and begin auditioning in Germany. Before she left, she had one Austrian audition.
Date: Tuesday, October 9, 2001 9:26am
Subject: 2nd week in Wien, post-audition report
Hello everyone! Lots of gossip to report, and some actual news as well.
Let’s start with the important stuff. I went to my first audition yesterday, and before I went I had a gut feeling that this was going to be a throw-away audition… in other words, it wasn’t a real opportunity. I don’t know how I knew this, but I think I was right. I’m sure this agent does send people out to house auditions, but there were an awful lot of Americans there, and the audition cost 350 schillings, which is about 23 dollars. That’s a lot of money here. You can eat at a decent restaurant for about $10 total. So if he listens to five people per hour all day, he’s making a nice little profit after paying the accompanist and for the room.
The first bad sign was that he arrived exactly at noon and told us that the accompanist would not be there until 12:20. There was a roomful of people there by that time, and as we were among the first, we had started a sign-up list so we wouldn’t have to wait all day. Smart, huh?
Then his wife, who was handling the registration, handed out a sheet of paper, which was an invitation to take a seminar with the agent on how to present yourself well at auditions. For a mere $175. This is a whole lot of money here, as my Viennese conversation teacher thinks that paying $300 rent is an expensive apartment. So this guy is running a bit of a scam. If you do his seminar, then you might get sent out to houses… see how this works?? Unfortunately, there are a lot of people who will probably take the bait. My friends from Munich and I just looked at each other and said quietly, “No way”. So I sang, and I think it went pretty well, in spite of a lousy room. It was a big room, but it was meant for piano recitals, and it was completely lined with wood, which made the sound coming back to you very strange. My tenor friend said he thought it magnified the high harmonics, so it seemed hard to keep the warmer part of your voice going. But we all did very well, and I’m glad to get the first one behind me. The agent said he would get back to us all within a couple of weeks. I fully expect that to be, “Dear Kathleen, If you will only pay me money, maybe you will get some work…”
My next audition is in Berlin next Tuesday, for the state-run agency there. This agency is supposed to be the important one. However, I have heard that the state agencies don’t like you if you are not fluent in German, so who knows how that will go??
GOSSIP
So this is the gossipy part of my email.
After a week of being sick and also studying, I went out Saturday to do a bit of sightseeing. Probably the extent of what I will get to do in Vienna while here. I walked through Stephansplatz… the church is amazing. I also walked past all the palaces and on to the museums. Huge gorgeous buildings. I really wanted to see a photography exhibit they had in the museum, but unfortunately it was getting late and I had to get home and do some practising.
I had a great time with Coke and Susi, who were here Sunday-Monday for the same audition as me. Susi stayed on my couch in my apartment, and Coke got a hotel room. We all went to have schnitzel at the supposed ‘best place in town’. It was pretty good, although it’s kind of bizarre, because it is a HUGE flattened piece of pork, I guess, which is breaded and then, I think, fried. And then they give you lemon wedges to squeeze over it. Not bad.
The salad, however, was even better, with some kind of lemony dressing. Yum! We took my young roomie with us, Liz, and she was forced to listen to singer talk, which she bore quite patiently, considering that she isn’t even a musician.
Did you know that the Germans think that the Austrians are stupid? And did you know that the Austrians think the Germans are too uptight? These are some of the things I have learned this week.
Strangely enough, although I had always heard that the Austrians are extremely friendly and nice, that has not been the case here. If people hear you speaking English, they turn around and give you a hostile stare. Also, I have been refused service in restaurants because I could not converse with the waitresses. They speak German very fast, and ask me questions I don’t understand, then throw up their hands when I tell them so. This has happened a few times. I have had to resort to eating at McDonald’s a few times, just because no one else would feed me. Sad, huh? However, I made some nice little friends there by giving my McD’s Monopoly game pieces to the boys there, who are apparently obsessed with the game. It’s just too funny to see game pieces marked “Rathausplatz!”
However, my teachers at the German school are extremely nice, so maybe it has something to do with knowing people. I think maybe people aren’t particularly nice on the streets, but maybe when they know you it’s different. My other singer friends have had the same experience, and say that in Munich the people are extremely friendly to them.
Speaking of friendly versus non-friendly… my landlord is a bit too friendly. There are three of us staying in this apartment that we rented through the language school, and we are all Americans. Our landlord feels that since he owns the apartment, he can walk in any time, and not only that, but he walks into our rooms without knocking or saying anything. Last week I had a bad cold, and I was lying down on my bed after school, partially undressed, trying to nap a little, when I heard someone come into the apt. I thought my roomies were home. Then my bedroom door opened, and in walked my landlord. No knock, he didn’t call me, nothing. I was so startled, I sat up, and he just said (auf Deutsch), “Here is your passport”. I took it, but I was in shock. Then he left.
Apparently, the landlord also feels that whatever is in your room is his to do with as he will. I came home from my audition yesterday to find that he had cleaned the apartment, including my room, and had gone through all my things, putting them away, folding my clothes, putting things into cabinets. I still am not quite sure where everything is. So today my room mate and I reported him to the school, where I was assured that this is NOT normal, and that he is not allowed to touch our things, and that yes, Austrian women also object to strange men walking into their bedrooms unannounced. So they will speak to him, and hopefully not make him angry so I can get my deposit back. I plan to take pictures of my room as I leave it on Friday, just in case.
Speaking of leaving, I leave Saturday for Munich, where I will spend one night with my friends, then on the next morning to Berlin, where I will be for at least two nights if not more. I am going to try calling some other agents in the area and see if I can line up some more auditions and stay there for the week. Then I am off to Munich again for a Monday audition, then I go to London Tuesday (also my birthday!), and then to Dusseldorf for an audition on Wednesday. A little hectic, but that’s okay. So that’s all the news from here. I am looking forward to getting to Berlin, which I have heard is a wonderful place.
I will write to you all again next Tuesday after my Berlin audition!
Tchüss!
Kathleen
Want to know how this story ends? So do we! As of this writing, Kathleen is still in Germany. In the meantime, tune in for next month’s episode: “Lust and Skullduggery in Milan!”
