I'm just about ready to head to the theatre for the closing performance of Cosi. Closing day always makes me a bit melancholy...all the work we put into the show, the costumes and props that have become like old friends, the music that's been in your head incessantly for the past 5 weeks...all coming to an end.
Also, having done operas for 12 years now, I know that realistically I won't see some of these great supers again - my friends - for possibly a couple of years. I'll be in shows, they'll be in shows, but all of us being together doesn't happen very frequently. Heck, the last time I worked with Alan was 1999. It's pretty sad.
Still, that's show biz for you.
Last night we came off stage and I was standing in the wings giggling over something that had happened onstage to one of the other supers (because of course, if it had happened to me, I wouldn't be giggling about it!) and one of the principals smiled at me and said, "These are the times that create the stories."
How true that is. In my mind, I have a storage chest of Happy Thoughts. I think that started when I saw a production of "Peter Pan" as a child. Ever since then, when something very wonderful or very funny has happened, I've said to myself, "This will be one of my Happy Thoughts." I suppose when I was little I was storing them up to use just in case Peter Pan ever tried to fly me to Neverland! But as an adult, sometimes you just need to open the storage chest and pull out one or two Happy Thoughts. And a lot of them have happened in operas. These are the times that create the stories; these are the times that create the Happy Thoughts.
How sentimental I'm being! Time to put that aside and focus on the last performance.
And, by the way, Bill was right...we DO have it down just about perfectly now, the last night!