Twenty Hours to Toulon

Hello readers, followers, friends, family all scattered across the globe.

I am currently writing this from the wonderfully understated harbour city of Toulon, tucked away on France's Mediterranean coast in Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur. Being here was both entirely planned and completely unplanned at the same time.

The short version is that I was hired, an accidental double-casting situation arose, Zachary moved on from his Rossiniana preparation and less than twenty hours before they were due to rehearse my carefully organised July had disappeared. Lessons with my teacher were cancelled, a particularly excellent home-cooked dinner with friends was reluctantly abandoned, my sleeper cabin on the Nightjet to Linz travelled on without me, and after about four hours of sleep I found myself on an early morning flight from Treviso to Marseille before heading straight into an orchestral rehearsal.

There is something uniquely surreal about sitting on a plane desperately trying to convince yourself that Rossini coloratura can, in fact, be rapidly downloaded into your brain by sheer force of optimism. The following evening was the concert, so I was also quietly hoping my vocal cords would agree with the plan.

So far, they have.

Toulon in summer is a wonderfully lively little city. It is home to the French Navy's principal Mediterranean base and has a long naval history. It was here, during the Siege of Toulon in 1793, that a young Napoleon Bonaparte first made the military breakthrough that launched his extraordinary career. Today, thankfully, the atmosphere is considerably more relaxed.

The city is full of friendly, curious people, bustling markets overflowing with beautiful local produce, restaurants celebrating fresh seafood and Provençal cooking, and that warm, slightly humid Mediterranean air that somehow persuades you that life could be permanently slower. Every time I visit this part of France, I end up thinking, "Yes... I could live here."

Perhaps I'll add that to the list for the day this career becomes ever so slightly more predictable.

These days my version of sightseeing is less about museums and landmarks and more about pretending I'm a local. I like finding one café and returning every morning until people stop assuming I'm a tourist. This week that has meant leaving the Hôtel Dauphiné each morning and wandering through the tiled streets to a tiny tea shop called Léonie. (Incidentally, if anyone knows someone looking to stock New Zealand tea in France, apparently there's an opportunity waiting.) From there I'll meander around the harbour, browse little shops, attempt increasingly ambitious French conversations, and generally convince myself that ordering lunch without switching to English counts as cultural integration.

But enough of my leisurely Riviera lifestyle.

The more interesting part of this trip is the reason I am here in the first place: jumping in.

For those outside the opera world, a "jump-in" is exactly what it sounds like. Someone suddenly becomes unavailable, the phone rings, and before you've quite finished processing what's happening, you're packing a suitcase and wondering whether your passport is where you think it is.

This is only the second time I've done it, and on both occasions the role wasn't something I had fully prepared when the call arrived.

The process is remarkably consistent.

1. Receive the phone call.

2. Experience an immediate and dramatic increase in heart rate.

3. Hear the tiny voice in your head confidently declare, "Absolutely impossible."

4. Take a deep breath.

5. Assess the situation as objectively as possible. How much music? How much needs to be memorised? Is there staging? How many rehearsals? When is the performance? Does the fee justify the disruption? Will you actually come out ahead financially after cancelling everything else?

6. Say yes or no.

7. If the answer is yes, book the flight, cancel your plans, switch into complete focus mode, and study as though time has suddenly become negotiable.

For young singers especially, it's easy to imagine that these opportunities arrive only after someone feels completely ready. They don't.

More often, they arrive because someone believes you could be ready.

That is a very different thing.

The biggest obstacle isn't usually the notes. It's stress.

Stress is part of everyday life for everyone: trains, finances, deadlines, uncertainty, existential dread, political uncertainty, global warming, the extinction of bees... oh wait... off topic.

As performers, though, we often experience extraordinary swings between complete elation and complete panic. One week you're wondering whether the phone will ever ring again; the next you're standing in a rehearsal room trying to absorb an entire production in a language that isn't your own while convincing yourself you belong there.

I've spoken to countless colleagues about this, and almost everyone describes the same emotional rollercoaster.

Recently I was reminded of an interview with the wonderful New Zealand actor Sir Sam Neill. Speaking about advice from his parents, he summarised it in wonderfully uncomplicated terms: pull yourself together and do it.

It's certainly a philosophy of an older generation, and perhaps a little blunt for modern tastes, but there is something valuable hidden inside it. Once the decision has been made, continuing to panic serves very little purpose. Sometimes you choose the opportunity; sometimes the opportunity chooses you. Either way, eventually you stop thinking, step into the rehearsal room, meet a room full of strangers, and start making music.

There is a skill in arriving somewhere completely unfamiliar, setting aside the guilt of cancelled plans and interrupted routines, and opening yourself up to create something with people you've only just met. From the outside, that flexibility can sometimes look selfish or impulsive. In reality, it's simply part of the profession.

Tomorrow I'll return to the July I had originally planned.

I'll be taking a short break from social media, preparing for upcoming competitions, rehearsing Britten's The Rape of Lucretia in London, spending a little time in Austria with friends, and then finally making my way back to Paris via Amsterdam.

The biggest change of all comes at the end of that journey. After two and a half years of living out of suitcases, borrowed rooms, hotels, and temporary apartments, I'll finally be moving into a place of my own in Paris.

For the first time in a very long while, I'll have somewhere to come home to. Surreal, strange, but good!

As always, I love hearing from you all, so feel free to reply to the email if so desired! Also, I am looking to expland my studio starting in Septemebr, so if you or anyone wants lessons from then, spread the word and let me know!

Till then!

Z