A certain

pianist/singing coach near and dear to our hearts sends

news: She will be joining the Cologne Opera in August.

The queen

of networking, Mary keeps in touch with colleagues like

Alan Nathan, a friend from her days at Indiana

University. He was promoted recently to head coach at

Cologne, and suggested Mary audition for his old

position.

She got it.

"I'm

excited," she wrote. "It's a good house, an `A'

house, I would say in the top 10 of German opera houses,

with a rather famous orchestra (Guerzenich).

"I'll

be doing what I've been doing - coaching singers,

playing for scenic rehearsals, and in the orchestra as

necessary. They also have a tiny theater built into the

foyer where they do a lot of performances (mostly real

operas) for kids. He asked me if I want to conduct any of

these. The musicians are from the orchestra but it's an

audience of 6-year-olds."

Although

Cologne is less than an hour by train from where Mary

lives now, she went looking for a studio-apartment there

because of the odd hours her work entails. Getting an

apartment in a big German city is like winning a prize,

she said. After a solid week of looking at what she

called "nothing very exciting for what I'm willing

to spend," she wrote to an address north of the

"main city ring," and was surprised to get an

invitation to see it.

"I'd

better get a lot of extra gigs because my raise is more

than gone!

It's two

rooms, 38 square meters and newly tiled, and above [the

landlord's] bakery, which he took me through on the way

out. Huge bowls with oversized mixers! They have two

stores, one there and one nearby.

"I'm

one minute from the main street and the metro, five

minutes to the Bahnhof [train station], and eight minutes

[by train] to the theater - but probably 45 minutes

on foot.

"Koln

is a real mix. Some beautiful churches (Romanesque) and

towers, the Rhine promenade, old market/Rathaus [city

hall] plaza, and lots of forgettable in-between (90

percent destroyed in the war.)"

Naturally I

fretted about Rainer, Mary's significant other, but she

said he's happy for her. His hobby is train photography

and he's looking to explore a new locale.

When he has

time. He's second oboist in the orchestra, and just

learned that the first oboist is ill and taking early

retirement. Consistent with Gelsenkirchen's economic

cutbacks, the position will not be filled; the plan is to

divide the work among the remaining five

instrumentalists.

Mary had

also been teaching at the music school in Berlin every

few weeks. She found Berlin interesting, a whirlwind of

construction going on, and loved seeing opera there

- a bus-man's holiday - but said she's glad to

give it up. It was a five-hour trip on the fast train,

and cost her more to travel and spend the night than she

made.

"I

thought I should keep my finger in, in case they ever

have a full position," she explained. "I may do

some special projects where I'm there for a few days

several times a year.

"Things

have never run smoothly; either my boss forgets I'm

coming, or the students don't come, or I have a day with

a break of three hours in the middle. But it was a good

excuse to get out of here and see some opera (I'm going

to `Twilight of the Gods' on Sunday; saw `Tristan und

Isolde' a few weeks ago - five and a half hours!)

"The

train time to Berlin just dropped to four hours on the

ICE [InterCity Express]. And a Frauenhotel [for women

only] opened near the Hochschule, the same price as my

favorite pension, but with a shower included and no

breakfast. Too bad they weren't open earlier.

"Also

not far from Potsdamer Platz, they've opened a mall,

Arkaden; although three stories high, somehow it's still

hidden behind all the construction projects, with little

fake waterways and streets that look like Disneyland.

Plus a huge cinema, an IMAC center, some high-rises and

half-built apartment buildings going up over the U-Bahn

[subway], meaning they're essentially on stilts that go

down a hundred meters; you can imagine the expense."

She and

Rainer are off to Italy for a few weeks vacation now. In

a letter accompanying a birthday gift to her Dad, mailed

mid-June, she said:

"We're

getting cool and rainy weather again. Thursday we hope to

make it through the Alps and maybe stop in Como. Then a

few days in Genoa and the Ligurian Coast, and then to

Livorno (which for some reason is called Leghorn in

English).

"We'll

spend the night in a cabin on the ferry, and then leave

for Bastia, Corsica, at 8 the next morning. Back a week

later, then maybe some tourist stuff. The leaning tower

of Pisa is open again, Sienna, Tivoli Gardens near Rome,

Spoleto, Urbino, on the other coast, Venice, Verona.

Would like to see the newly restored Last Supper in Milan

and an opera at La Scala...."

More opera.

Maybe I'll go move in with her and see a few myself, now

that I have a choice of two cities. March is looking

good: "Carmen," "Marriage of Figaro,"

"Tales of Hoffmann," and "Macbeth" at

Cologne, and I think Gelsenkirchen will be doing

"Magic Flute."

Yeah. I

like the sound of that.

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