At the Opera

Last night, I dreamed that I attended an open-casting call for an opera. Having never sung in an opera before, I was quite nervous.

I got there, and there was a small group of people present. There was a woman and a man who seemed to be in charge, because they were doing all the talking, so I just sat and listened to them. They soon started passing out scripts. I opened it, and it was an opera that I had never seen before (no big surprise there). I tried to figure out the part in my head, but it was all hand-written and there were four flats. It would take me a few minutes to figure out the key, and from then, I had to figure out the rest of it.

Now, I know that there are some of you reading this who will know automatically what key four flats is in. I can usually figure it out (A-flat?), but I don't know it off the top of my head...

In any event, the opera had an interesting plot to it. As I remember, it was divided up into five scenes, but I don't remember for sure about all of them. The main part of the opera was that it was about a woman who was very close to her sixties. Her eldest was a son about close to forty years old, and her youngest was a son who was about twenty-five. The name of the youngest was Marius -- sound familiar?

The woman missed having kids around. Most of her children were married, so she had grandchildren, but she wanted another of her own. The opera was based on her struggle between being content with what she had (a number of well-brought-up sons and daughters and their grandchildren), or attempting to get another child of her own, whether through natural means or adoption. I never actually figured out her motives, whether she feels that the number she provided to the world was insignificant or insufficient, or whether she was lonely without little kids around, but in any case, that was the opera.

I got the role of Marius. Marius was one of the bigger characters in the opera, not as big as his mother, but considering that he had older brothers and sisters, and the father was also involved. In it, Marius was doing his best to convince his mother that she was blessed to have so many children and grandchildren, and that she needed to take care of herself and her husband, and not try to get more children. The rest of the family was surprised at her desire, as well, and expressed similar concerns.

I was a bit weirded out by the content of the opera, as you can imagine, but at the same time, I was really fascinated that an opera was being performed that was saying good things about having big families, instead of promoting the one-and-a-half children families as being ideal.

At the same time, the director was making the poor mother be portrayed as being a bit on the crazy side. Why? I have no idea...

Anyway...

After spending a few minutes flipping through the opera, I wasn't too scared of the role, so I asked them what I needed to do. They asked me if I had my tuxedo. Sure enough, I did. I ran into a back room, changed into it, and came out. They gave me a once-over, and said that I looked all right. By this point, everyone else had changed into their tuxedos and evening gowns, respectively. Almost everyone else had tuxes with tails and white gloves, so I was a bit ... underdressed. Then I remembered I had white gloves, so I whipped them out. In any event, I passed inspection, and we sat down again.

They started giving instructions: "When the crowds get here, they'll want to see a good show, so act the way you learned to, ..." etc. I raised my hand.

"Excuse me, um, crowds?"

"Yes. We're performing this tonight," said the lady.

My eyes bugged out.

"PERFORMING? Um, wait, wait, wait... I'm here for an audition, not for a performance."

"Yeah, I figured as much. That's the same reason I came, too," she replied rather nonchalantly.

My thoughts jumped ahead to the performance. Based on what they were describing, it would be a full house. We would have the sheet music in front of us, so that was a good thing. The performance would be done with those in the scene standing in a row, more like a singing concert than an opera. Everyone else had an operatically trained voice. Not me. I had no vocal training at all, so I would be the odd man out.

I pointed this fact out to the lady, and she just shrugged. I asked about practice, because I'd never seen the music before. She didn't pay attention. I took the music to the back and began to figure it out. After a few minutes, I was switching keys like nobody's business, and, since I do not have perfect pitch, I was rather stuck with trying to figure out the key and praying that I was close...

It suddenly hit me that I had to use the restroom...

And that's how I woke up...

I tried to finish the dream, but I couldn't, so I just got up instead...

Workin' in D.C.

Last night, I dreamed that I had gone to work in D.C. I don't remember what my job was, or where it was, but I was going to it. As I recall, I was leaving work for the day, and who should I see but Paul P. As usual, he was dressed to impress with his feathered hat, his tweed suit, and his overcoat. I went up to him and asked him where he worked. He told me, and I realized that where he worked wasn't too far away from where I worked. I offered to share a ride with him in, because he was driving his truck in every day from Front Royal, and I was driving the Acura. He agreed, and we parted ways.

There was something else cool about this dream, but I really don't remember...

Bits and pieces of a funpark dream

I had this very odd dream. I don't remember all of it, but it went something along these lines...

I was a Russian intern living in a well-furnished attic of someone's house. This someone had a daughter who I thought was pretty, and was kind of interested in. The one scene that I distinctly remember from that part of the dream is that we were both upstairs watching television -- a sitcom, if I recall, but not a regular sitcom: this one had an announcer.

As a Russian intern, I was watching me (the real me, not a Russian intern) on TV.

I switches roles. I became the "real me" that was on television. I remember going to a theme park, like King's Dominion or Six Flags. After having this dream, I remember dreaming about this place before.

The last time I dreamed about it, I was the only guest left in the amusement park. The employees were trying to shut everything down, but they were trying to cater to me as well. The ride that pops into my head is the swinging pirate ship. The employees were cleaning the deck and getting it all locked up when I suddenly walked up, just to see what they were doing. They asked me if I wanted to ride it. I saw they were cleaning it and shutting it down, so I said, "No, that's ok." But they began powering it back up and unlocking everything, insisting that I ride it: "Please, ride it! You'll love it!" I said, "I know. I've ridden it before. Besides, you guys are shutting down for the evening. I only came over here to see what was going on." They continued getting everything powered up, and continued pressuring me, "You gotta ride it. Please! You'll love it!" I declined again and turned to leave, and right then, I woke up.

In this dream, Alex S. and I were on our way to the park. Alex, being the sensible one, looked at his watch.

"Geez, Anthony! They'll close in an hour! We probably shouldn't go."

I insisted that I was going to go, whether he did or not. He thought twice about it, and said that he wasn't going. He's want to ride a lot of the rides, and one hour wasn't enough time. It made sense, but I still wanted to go. I dropped him off at his home (which oddly looked like the attic), and continued on to the park.

David H. and Goeff T. were in line to get into the park. I joined the line, and then noticed that I was in the wrong line...

I got out of line, and went to a different line, the one marked entrance. The entrance line crossed over the other line that I had been a part of, forming a cross intersection. The entrance line had one other person in it, David. Geoff had already gone through the entrance and was in the park. (David had been in the park most of the day, but he had left for a while and had just come back.) David turned to me and said that the entrance to the park was his favorite part. I looked at him funny, and understandably so. He explained that the entrance to the park was the qualifying round. If you could make it through the entrance "test", you were admitted into the park. Those who didn't make it through the test had to stand in the other line.

I looked at the lines. On the other side of the entrance gates was a series of slides. Most of them were relatively steep. In order to make it in, you had to climb up the slides. This would put you a good 100 feet above where the entrance level was.

Dying of curiosity, I looked at the other line. The other line also had a series of slides, but these slides went down. Why wouldn't you want to take these slides? It would be easier! The problem was that these slides took you away from the park, and spilled you onto the highway. You can imagine what that was like. There were a lot of people in that line...

I went into the entrance, wondering if I should even bother or just turn around and leave. I looked at the series of slides, and I saw Geoff scrambling up one of them like there was nothing easier in the world. David, also, had run away and was going up a different slide. As I looked closely, these slides were very polished, and very slick. If you slipped, you'd go all the way down to the bottom...

The thought, "GIVE UP!" kept running though my head...

The sitcom voices droned on, and I got a third-person view of me as the Russian intern watching me faced with this small dilemma. The intern turned to the girl he was sitting with, and asked her what she thought would happen. She looked a him, and said that there was only one way to find out. They both turned back to the television...

But in that second of distraction, they missed it. I was already in the park. Geoff and David had run far ahead and were in their respective rides. As I passed by the pirate ship again, the same guys were there, still asking me to ride it.

Outside the television, once again I assumed the role of the Russian intern, and I got up to leave. Alex suddenly poked his head into the room and asked if there was anything anyone needed, because he was going to the store. No wonder the attic looked familiar...

I remember this dream continuing for a while, but I don't remember what else was said or done. All I really remember was that the girl and I got into a discussion over a current event or something...