And suddenly, again, it's almost a month since I posted anything here. The pattern shouldn't surprise me any more at this point, I suppose. I'm sure it doesn't surprise you; or at least, those of you still checking in. I know from my nifty blog stat counter that the traffic here has taken a significant dive, and rightly so. There's not much to see here these days, is there?
It's been pretty obvious for the last six months or so that I'm blogging significantly less, and I daresay many of you – certainly those of you who are my Facebook friends or follow my Twitter feed – have probably figured out why. The non-bloggish bits of my life have been changing quite drastically (for the better) and for various reasons – practical, personal and geographical – this blog has tended to fall by the wayside. Apart from anything else, I've been away from Australia quite a lot, which, added to the fact that OA's been in Melbourne since November anyway, has made it hard to maintain a flow of Sydney-based operatic content.
That's only going to get harder, too. Two days after Christmas, I hit the road with my new partner-in-crime and to all intents and purposes, I no longer live in Sydney. After four years there, it's still home – or at least one of my homes – but I've forsaken my 9 to 5 job (not to mention, sigh, the joy of living in the same city as my favouritest soprano in the world ever) in favour of the travelling operatic lifestyle. So there's still going to be a whole lot of opera in my life. It just won't be in Australia. And I won't be functioning as a critic now, although I do still intend to write about it. And, well, quite a lot of it will be Wagner.
Right now I'm in London, and I'll be here till mid-March. Then it's New York, Zurich, Santa Fe and a few German cities, with trips back to various homelands interspersed between those big blocks of travel. Insane as ever, I plan to maintain my devotion to above-mentioned favouritest soprano as far as possible: I'll see Cheryl later this month in the LSO's concert of Elgar's The Kingdom and then, if all goes to plan, in both the Sydney season of Capriccio and Opera Queensland's Tosca. And with a bit of precision timing, I might even manage one of Peter CW's Macbeths.
I know. It's a hard life. I'm pretty thrilled about it, in all sorts of ways, though there are definitely adjustments to be made. What it all means for this blog, however – whether in terms of style, content, frequency, or anything else – I'm still not entirely certain. The intermittence of the last six months may continue, or I might find that the sudden abundance of amazing performances within reach sets me blogging more furiously than ever. Or maybe there's a happy medium. Or maybe I'm heading for reinvention; the thought of a whole new blog, with an adjusted (though still primarily operatic) slant has been on my mind quite a bit lately.
We shall see. In the meantime, apologies for my slackness in recent month and thanks for still checking in. I hope I'll settle into a new (or the old) blogging rhythm before too long, and if you care to stick around to see that happen, that would be brilliant.
These are repertory companies. Go see some of the other non-Wagner stuff. They do really nice stuff in Zurich.
Posted by: Barbara | Thursday, January 06, 2011 at 04:55 AM
Just want to thank you Sarah for all your beautifully written postings, your humour and most of all your PASSION - which is nothing short of infectious. Travel safely and don't you go forgetting about all those people whose lives you have enriched down here at the "a#*e end of the world". Look forward to your next posting and buona fortuna cara!
Posted by: twitter.com/yoperadarling | Thursday, January 06, 2011 at 07:16 AM
Buona Fortuna indeed,( I love this song by Ivan Graciani).. just happen to browse on your blog and found that you were posting something that made me read more and actually finished it till the last words, of which I had never done mostly on many blogs. Your blogs are great! I agree that your passion is something you must be proud of. It was there on all of your blogs and we cannot find it on most blogs nowadays.. You need to be back for more..
Posted by: Brad Fallon | Monday, January 17, 2011 at 11:15 PM