You might have been wondering why there was no blog activity these past few days. Actually, I'm off for most of this and a bit of next week taking a little break, just interrupted by two crazily busy days in the office yesterday and today. Now, I'm just on my way to the Faculty of Music at U of T for my annual audition with the students of the Opera School (which, of course, is run by the wonderful Sandra Horst, COC Chorus Master in her second life). Last week, I went to see their production of Don Giovanni. There were quite a few interesting voices and I look forward to hearing these young artists again.

When I return to my March break tomorrow I hope the weather will return to the gorgeous promise of spring we had at the beginning of the week.

Next week, we will already start rehearsals for La Cenerentola, the first opera of our spring season. And I'll be busy travelling again.

I'm just about to return to Toronto after two days in Seattle. The major reason for me to come here was to see Seattle Opera's new production of Massenet's Don Quichotte (as you know, a piece that we will present in a future season) with John Relyea, but also to hear the talented members of the Young Artists Program (which one of our current Ensemble Studio members will join next season) and, finally, meet with my wonderful colleague Speight Jenkins who treated me to a fabulous Speerhead lunch (Speerhead is a fish, something between a trout and a salmon, not unlike our Arctic Char, delicious).

As always when I go west, it was raining almost all the time, but I'm sure one day I'll see the mountains.

This afternoon, I'll be back in Toronto, just in time to attend Tapestry's Oksana G in the Distillery District.

While I'm writing this our last performance of The Nightingale and Other Short Fables at BAM has just started. We've had a truly wonderful time here. Four sold-out performances, an enthusiastic audience, incredible reviews and last but not least the warm welcome we received from everybody here at BAM. Let's just hope it won't be another 18 years before we come back.

Yesterday evening I went to the Met to hear Susan Graham in Iphigénie en Tauride. She truly owns the title role like nobody else ever has. I can't wait to see and hear her perform the role on our stage next season.