Being Romy: Ich bin so müde...

And just like that, it's all over.  After six weeks of rehearsals and four performances, it's time to say goodbye to Romy Schneider.

The last few weeks have flashed by in a blur.  As we got closer to opening night, I did a lot of last-minute research.  I spent hours with Romy's diaries and a German-English dictionary.  I read about her break-up with Alain Delon, her break-through with the director Luchino Visconti, her tireless filming schedules.  I watched more films, including Orson Wells' The Trial and the four-hour epic Ludwig - in which Romy played a very different kind of Empress Sissi under Visconti's direction.  The closer we got to the first performance, the more desperately I tried to get inside Romy's head and understand her completely.

Romy playing Empress Elisabeth of Austria ("Sissi") in Ludwig, 1972

We worked hard in the run-up to the shows, and we also had a lot of fun.  I was VERY excited about the costumes - maybe it's because I watch too much Mad Men, or I spend too much time browsing vintage stores, but I just loooove this kind of thing.  The day I saw my 60s housewife dress, I literally screamed.  The day the hairstylist arrived with her hairspray and rollers - well, I practically had an embolism.  From the rollers to the petticoats to the liquid eyeliner, I loved getting dressed up as Yellow Romy.  It was basically my idea of fashion heaven.

I mmmmay have started wearing a lot of headbands after this production...

Personally, my favourite part of the show was a strong idea introduced by the director.  Inspired by one of Green Romy's lines in the third act - "Je ne veux plus faire de l'art, je veux faire de la confiture" - the director decided that I would have a bowl of strawberries.  As I was playing the role of the perfect housewife and telling the press how happy I was in my marriage, I would slowly begin to take strawberries and crush them on the table.

There was a lot of discussion about what the strawberries symbolised.  Some people said the strawberries were life.  Others said that they were love.  For me, the strawberries expressed the truth.  Crushing the strawberries gave me a physical outlet for my feelings of anger and frustration: while I smiled and sang about the virtues of domestic life, my hands were telling the real story.

Also, FYI, squishing strawberries is a lot of fun.  Seriously, you should try it sometime.

The strawberries made an enormous mess, and, as the audience remarked, they also had a powerful smell.  Not necessarily unpleasant, just... very fragrant.  I don't think I'll ever be able to see strawberries the same way after this opera.  I squished them in my hands, I smeared them onto people's clothes, I danced on them, and I even fell on top of them.  By the end of the show I was completely covered in pink mush.  Many damp towels were needed.  I did not envy the costume lady, who was in charge of getting rid of the stains in my clothes every night.

So... many... strawberries...

As I mentioned in my last post, by the end of the show I was not only covered in strawberries, but I was also half naked.  At the end of the second act, I had to drink lots of liquor (ice tea, actually) and dance around like crazy while people stripped me - all of this while singing.  I don't have any pictures of myself in my underwear at the end of the show (probably for the best, really).  But I can say that for me it was a powerful moment in the show.  I had begun the performance looking composed, with perfect hair and makeup and a prim and proper-looking dress.  To lose control like this and get stripped down - both literally and emotionally - was an enormous transformation.  Especially for me - I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but I'm a bit of a control freak.

Losing control at the end of Act 2

Now it's all over, and I have never had a worse case of the post-show blues.  I feel exhausted, drained, empty.  There's a dull kind of lingering sadness.  I don't want to do anything.  I struggle to get out of bed.  I can't think straight.  I do stupid things, like scanning a whole load of groceries at the cash register before realising I've left my wallet at home.

If you're not familiar with this phenomenon, I should say that the post-show blues is a pretty common affliction.  It happens to a lot of people, albeit not always to this extent.  I guess it's a combination of exhaustion and grief.  You put all of your adrenaline and stress into one project - and then you crash.  You dedicate yourself to a show completely - and suddenly it's gone.  There's a big empty space where it used to be.

This is pretty much how I've been feeling all week.



Luckily, I have new projects to focus on.  And it's a good thing too.  If I wasn't motivated to learn all this new music, right now I would probably still be in bed eating Nutella with a spoon.

As it is, I'm now trying to get back into a normal sleep schedule (staying up until 2 and sleeping in until 12 is no longer acceptable), and trying to get my energy up again with lots of exercise and healthy food.  And I'm taking it all in.  It's been a week since we finished the show, and it's only now that I'm beginning to see the whole picture.  It's only now that I'm able to take a step back and reflect on everything I've learned.

Tree... tree... tree... Oh wait, it's a forest.

Perhaps the reason I'm taking so long to process this, perhaps the reason I've been feeling so much sadness, is that I'm not only saying goodbye to an opera.  I'm saying goodbye to a person.  A person with whom I've become very intimate in the past two months.  When I first heard that we would be doing an opera about Romy Schneider, I didn't think much about it at all.  I didn't know who she was, and I didn't think it really mattered to me.  After all, as a mezzo I was certain I would only get a minor role in the opera - a reporter, a friend, or maybe the mother if I was lucky.  But from the moment I was cast to play Romy, I resolved to learn as much about her as possible.  I immersed myself in her world, reading her diaries and letters, watching her films and interviews.  I had never been so fully involved in a role before.  It was a life-changing experience.

How can I put into words everything that I have learned from Romy?  In many ways she was like me, in many ways she was completely unlike me.  And in many ways she was everything that I aspire to be.  Romy always lived in the moment - something which, as a chronic worrier and overthinker, I hardly ever manage to do.  This was what made Romy such a powerful actress.  Whatever she was feeling or being in that moment, she would throw herself into it completely.  It's easy to see this from her diaries.  Every time she started a new film she would say "this is the best film I have ever done", or "this is the best character I have ever played", or "this is the best director I have ever worked with".  And for her, in that moment, it was.  There was no past or future for her - there was only the present.

When I watch Romy in her films - especially her later ones - I get the feeling that she is not acting or playing a role.  She is being the role.  Every emotion, every bit of text, is completely genuine.  This, to me, is what true acting should be.

Romy in L'important c'est d'aimer, 1975

Actually, I think my extreme case of post-show blues is a good sign.  It shows that I am mourning the end of something truly significant.  I wouldn't be this exhausted if I hadn't thrown myself into the project so fully and recklessly.  Normally I play it safe.  Normally I hold something back.  I'm too afraid to dive in completely, to go all the way.  But with this role, I stopped protecting myself.  I let go.  I allowed myself to get lost in a character, in a feeling, in a moment.

Channeling Romy's intensity onstage.

This is what I have learned from Romy Schneider - to stop thinking, stop controlling, stop doubting, and just be.   It's an invaluable lesson for an actress, and one which I hope I'll never forget.  Romy had a short life, a life full of mistakes and achievements, successes and failures, joys and tragedies.  She may have died young, but you could never say that she didn't live wholly.  Thirty years after her death, there is still so much to be learned from her passion and commitment in everything she did.

As I say goodbye to this opera and to the actress who inspired it, I am eternally grateful for the opportunity this project gave me to grow as an actress and a singer.  I will never forget the experience of playing Romy Schneider onstage.  And I will never forget what Romy taught me: to give myself - my entire self, and nothing less.

All production photos courtesy of Emilie Lauwers

Being Romy: Schauspieler sind so zerbrechlich

Last week we were performing lunchtime concerts at the opera house and I had an encounter I'll never forget.  A woman from the audience approached me, and with shining eyes she told me that she was going to see her first opera next week.  "It's so powerful, what you opera singers do," she said, "it's so full of emotion."  Having experienced a short concert of arias, she couldn't wait to experience this kind of emotional intensity for the length of a full opera. 

She was going to see Tosca, by the way, so I don't think she'll be disappointed.

This woman's words astounded me.  It was wonderful to see such an enthusiastic newcomer to opera.  But more importantly, her reaction to the music reminded me of what it is I actually do.  As an opera singer, sometimes I get so caught up in the technical details - the text, the stage directions, the high notes - that I forget what this is all about.  Opera is not about singing with impressive ability in foreign languages.  Opera is about the power of emotion - pure, raw, human emotion.

This is something I've always known of course - it's the reason I was drawn to opera in the first place.  And yet so many times I've forgotten it.  As I've studied, practised, and worked on my technique and my languages, I've often lost sight of the powerful emotion and drama behind the music.  I've often become disconnected from the meaning.  I don't know why this has happened.  It's inexcusable really, and embarrassing to admit.

Beethoven would have disapproved.

Playing Romy Schneider is changing all of this for me.  This opera is showing me just how much I can become emotionally involved in a role.  Of course I have cried in operas before - when I was sitting in the audience.  But until last week, when I cried real tears over the death of my fictional son, I had never before cried onstage.

I never thought I could get so upset about an opera while I was playing in it.  But in this scene, knowing the whole story, knowing that it actually happened, I felt overcome with emotion.  Romy lost her son David to a terrible accident when he was only fourteen.  Not long before the accident her first husband, David's father, had committed suicide by hanging himself.  For anyone to experience so much trauma and loss in such a short amount of time must have been unbearable.  But what made it even worse for Romy was that she had to relive every moment of these tragedies as they were reported in the press.  It's not just that her life was sad - it's that her life was never completely hers.

Why does Romy Schneider get to me so much?  Certainly she lived a difficult life, full of tragic events, but there's more to it than that.  I think Romy felt things very deeply.  She was an intense woman full of emotion.  And as we relive her life onstage, I can't help but feel everything with the same kind of intensity that she did.  I am learning a lot from Romy.  Unlike me, she would certainly never forget the emotional content of an opera.

As we continue working on this opera, I feel that I'm getting both closer and farther away from knowing who the real Romy Schneider was.  Our libretto is mostly based on the public Romy - quotes from interviews, lines from her films, rumours and speculation spread by the press. But what about Romy herself?   Can we ever really know who she was?

Celebrity is a strange way to live.  Like most child stars, Romy didn't really have a childhood: she went straight from living at a boarding school run by nuns to becoming a famous actress.  From the time she made her first movie at 15 years old, Romy lived in the public eye.  She could never truly be herself without being aware of how others saw her.  And as she grew older, there wasn't a single aspect of her life she could keep private.  A broken engagement, a divorce, a miscarriage - every event in her life, no matter how personal, was covered in detail by the press.  Even when her son David died, a reporter entered the hospital disguised as a nurse so they could take a picture of his body.

For me one of the saddest moments in this opera is my aria in the third act: "Früher habe ich mich selbst davon überzeugen wollen das ich einen Alltag wie alle andern haben kann.  Heute weiss ich, das ich so einen Alltag nicht leben kann." (I used to want to convince myself that I can have a life like everyone else. Today I know that I can not live a life like that.)  As Yellow Romy, I am the part of Romy that wants to have a traditional, normal life.  The sad truth is that for a famous actress this kind of life was impossible.



Romy and her son's grave in Boissy-sans-Avoir

With the public watching her every move, it must have been impossible for Romy to have any kind of life at all.  And yet I believe she did.  I believe Romy had a true self, one she kept safe from the relentless clutches of the magazines and newspapers.  And I believe we can see glimpses of it in her films.

In her films Romy felt a certain safety, a certain freedom that she didn't have in real life.  Here she could express herself with real intensity without being analysed and criticised personally.  Here she could be herself, her true self, safely hidden behind the mask of a character.  Within the confines of her films, she had the freedom to live authentically.

I recently watched Romy's last film, which she made shortly after her son's death.  In La Passante de Sans-Souci, Romy plays a woman who adopts an orphaned Jewish boy during WWII and escapes to Paris with him.  The boy in this film is the same age as Romy's real son, and it's heartbreaking to watch the way she interacts with him.  In one scene, they are having Christmas dinner after discovering her husband has been sent to a concentration camp, and she asks the boy to play his violin for her.  You can see the real Romy in this moment, crying for her son.

It is in her films - especially her later films - that we can see pieces of the real Romy.  She was a deeply intense and emotional woman.  A woman who felt everything to her very core.  She was strong and vulnerable at the same time.  She endured overwhelming sadness and anger, and she survived.  She was both extraordinary and human.

 

Who was the real Romy Schneider?  Perhaps we will never completely know.  I would like to think that.  I would like to think that although she sold so much of herself in films, in pictures and interviews, there was a part of her that she kept just for herself.  A part that was sacred and real, and not for anyone else to see.

 

We have less than two weeks left before the first show.  We know the words, we know the music, we know the staging.  But there is still something to discover before we perform this opera.  Somewhere in the middle of all this, in the middle of all the quotes and lines and hearsay, in the middle of Romy Schneider and ourselves, there is a truth to be found.  The text and the music and the staging are only a part of it.  At the heart there is this truth, this emotional core.  If we can find just a small part of this truth and express it to the audience, it will stop being words and music and staging, and it will become an opera.

Being Romy: Elle est moi et tu es moi

Do you know who Romy Schneider is?  Until recently, I had no idea who she was.  And yet Romy Schneider is the reason I haven't cut my hair since January.  She's the reason I've been watching French and German movies from the 60s and 70s.  She's the reason I've had my head in a score for the last three weeks.  And she's the reason I found myself walking home on Friday night feeling overwhelmingly sad.

Romy Schneider was a famous Austrian film actress.  I am one of three singers who will be playing her in a newly commissioned opera this June.  Ever since I was cast as one of the three Romys (more on that later), I have been reading all about her and watching her films.

I am really excited to be cast in this role because, to be honest, it's the first time I've been given a real role. Oh sure, I've had opera roles before. But up to this point, I've only been cast in two types of roles. Either I'm a boy - a page/solder/messenger/whatever who sings maybe 5 bars of insignificant music...

"Your majesty, I tremble in your presence whilst wearing this adorable historically accurate uniform to deliver an important message in recitative"

...Or I'm part of an ensemble like the Three Ladies in Magic Flute - three women who are completely anonymous and interchangeable.

Which one are you again?

This is the first time I've been given a character with real complexity and emotional depth. And not just any character, but a real person - a famous real person. This is a unique opportunity in terms of preparing a role.  It's not every day you can see your character in films, books, and television interviews.

Romy Schneider was born in Vienna in 1938.  Like many young actresses, her life was full of glamour and tragedy. There is a lot to say about Romy's life and career, but I'll try to summarise it for you briefly here.  Romy first achieved fame as a teenager by playing Empress Elizabeth of Austria in the popular "Sissi" film trilogy.

If you enjoy period costumes half as much as I do, trust me, you will LOVE these films.

She then outraged her German fans by becoming engaged to French actor/director Alain Delon and moving to Paris.  From the sweet and innocent Sissi, she moved on to more gritty and mature roles in French film.  Alain Delon later broke off their engagement, but they remained lifelong friends afterward.  Romy went on to marry twice and have two children.  Her firstborn, a son named David, died in a tragic accident when he was only 14.  He punctured a femoral artery when climbing a spiked fence.  Romy witnessed the accident herself and she was never the same afterward.  She turned to drinking.  When she was found dead in her Paris apartment at the age of 43, there was some speculation that it was caused by a lethal mix of alcohol and sleeping pills.

Romy Schneider, 23 September 1938 – 29 May 1982

I could spend years researching Romy Schneider.  But I don't have years - I have weeks.  There is less than a month to go before the premiere of the opera, and as we only got the score three weeks ago, I have lots of work to do!  When I'm not in rehearsals, or watching Romy Schneider films, or taking vitamins to help my hair grow out (we'll be getting "vintage" hairstyles in a few weeks and I've been told my hair needs to be longer), you will find me studying my score and listening to the helpful midi file which the composer has sent us.  Between the films, the music, and the staging rehearsals, I am just starting to get an idea of who Romy Schneider was...

Now, I mentioned that there are three of us playing Romy Schneider in the opera.  We have not been triple-cast in the same role.  Nor are we playing Romy at different ages.  We are all playing Romy at the same time.  Romy Schneider was a complicated woman full of contradictions.  And so we are each playing a different side of Romy's personality - Red Romy, Green Romy, and Yellow Romy.



The three Romys

We are a trio of sorts, and we often sing together.  But this is no anonymous ensemble like the Three Ladies.  Within the trio, we are very different personalities with very different fears and desires.  As our librettist explained to us, each colour represents a different aspect of Romy's life, and a different neurosis.  For Red Romy, the neurosis is attention.  Red Romy is obsessed with fame - with her relationship with her critics, the public, and the press.  For Green Romy, the neurosis is perfection.  Green Romy is the driven workaholic who always wants to be the best in her field.

For Yellow Romy - that's me - the neurosis is home and family.  Yellow Romy wants a marriage and children.  She wants a real home, where she can live a "normal" domestic life.  She is convinced that this is the only thing that will make her happy.  And when it doesn't make her happy, she can't face the truth that it isn't enough.

Fortunately - or perhaps, unfortunately? - pop culture is full of examples of women like this.  When I first encountered the idea of Yellow Romy, two TV characters immediately sprang to mind...

Betty Draper from Mad Men

...and Bree Van de Kamp from Desperate Housewives

These characters are something of an archetype.  They represent women who were raised to believe that the perfect domestic life - a husband, a home, and 2.5 children - is the only thing they should want, and that it should fulfill them entirely.  Inevitably, these women find that it isn't enough - maybe the marriage is dysfunctional, or maybe the kids are psychopaths, or maybe even when everything seems to be perfect it just feels empty.  But their real unhappiness is too difficult to bear, and so these women cover the truth with denial, pearl necklaces, and lots of valium.

Before I start launching into feminist theory though, let's get back to Romy Schneider.  As I've dug more into the role of Yellow Romy, I've discovered that she's more than just a desperate housewife.  She's an actress who's desperate for some stability in a very unstable life.  And that is something I can relate to very deeply.

I have been living abroad for almost four years now.  And while I'm glad to be following my passion and pursuing a career in opera, I often feel a bit lost at sea.  My family is in Canada, and even my boyfriend is miles away in Sweden.  My current flat isn't really my home - it's just a box that I'm inhabiting for the time being.  It feels blank and temporary.  I don't even have an oven or a microwave, or a real bed, or a stand-up shower. 

I have one of these.  For the record, it sucks.

I am always on the move, always figuring out what comes next.  It feels unstable, uncentred, insecure.  And while there's a part of me who is super-ambitious and determined to do whatever it takes to be an opera singer, there's another part of me that's very tired of all this upheaval.  A part of me who would love to settle down somewhere and start a family.  A part of me who looks with envy at other people my age who are "real grownups" with houses, husbands, cars, gardens, children - the works.

My boyfriend is lucky enough to live in a house in Gothenburg - a real house!  To him it's normal, but to me it's a huge luxury.  The last time I visited him he was completely mystified by my enthusiasm for staying in, baking bread, and cooking meals.  When he wanted to go out with friends, all I wanted to do was drink tea and watch television.  I know it must sound boring, but for me it was such an amazing novelty.  I don't have a home like that in Ghent, and it's something I miss a lot.

So I completely understand Yellow Romy's desperation to create a family and a home.  And I completely understand the conflict she feels between her ambitions as an actress and her yearnings for stability and domesticity.

Hmmm....

It's an amazing experience, being able to delve into a role and inhabit a character's world.  But it can also be overwhelming.

I have a lot of emotional content to explore as Yellow Romy, from the tense duet I sing with my husband about our dysfunctional marriage, to the ironically triumphant canon I sing about giving birth at the hospital while he stayed at home sleeping.  When I'm not being controlled by my husband or abused by my stepfather (Romy's stepfather allegedly took an "unhealthy interest" in her, and he probably sexually abused her), I'm being micromanaged by a fame-hungry stage mother (Romy's mother managed her career and often appeared in films with her when she was younger).  And as the more maternal of the three Romys, I am often sympathising with the others' suffering.  I absorb Green Romy's anxiety as she's bullied by a power-hungry director.  I absorb Red Romy's grief when Alain Delon leaves her.  It's a lot to take in.

This is why, walking home on Friday night after a run-through of Act 1, I found myself feeling extremely depressed.  I have experienced so many intense emotions this week as Romy Schneider.  It's exhausting.

Is it possible to get too much into character?  Can a role be dangerous for your mental health?  As a friend told me yesterday, the line between yourself and a character can at times be very thin.  But for reasons of self preservation, it's important to remember that the line is there.

And so, as I go into another week of being Romy Schneider, I'm doing my best to continue identifying with her.  But I'm also remembering the line, no matter how thin it is - for safety's sake.