Gillett’s Gobs Of Advice: 3, The Work

conductors, directors, opera, singers, travel
So how come you have landed this fancy job in a far-off land? Well, as often as not you discover that they really wanted someone else but ended up with you instead. Don’t worry. Get over it. It’s how the world works. You’ll be amazed once you step onto mainland Europe just how many singers there are in the business, most of whom you have never heard of, all singing away and scratching a living.
Don’t let it daunt you. Just be thankful for the job you have and realise that it’s OK to be a small fish (that no-one has heard of) in a very big sea. You’re in good company and you must have done something right or you wouldn’t be here in the first place.

Gillett’s Gobs Of Advice: 2, Logistics

conductors, directors, opera, singers, travel
Whenever I’m heading off on a foreign job, my friend Stan, a writer, asks me if I am being met with a limo at the airport and transported to a five star hotel.
Ha!
Okay, okay, if the job is some concerts with a nice orchestra then there is a good chance you’ll be met and driven to a decent hotel (though, curiously, never in Berlin…) but opera is almost always a different beast and before you arrive in a new and unfamiliar city all most companies will do for you is tell you when and where your first rehearsal takes place. The rest is up to you.…

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Gillett’s Gobs Of Advice: 1, Getting Started Abroad

conductors, directors, opera, singers, travel
I’ve promised to hand out of gobs of knowledge to the young singers who attended British Youth Opera’s career advice day (and also to those who didn’t) so if you’ve come to the blog today hoping to read about, say, barmy tenors, pancakes or train journeys you’ll be bitterly disappointed. You might learn a thing or two though. Some of this is stuff I said at the seminar, some of it is new.

Burned at the steakhouse

food, travel
The penny has dropped. I have spent years and years wondering why American tourists in London flock to Aberdeen Angus Steakhouses and now I think I have it figured out. Because, let’s face it, you’d have to be something of an idiot to take a close look at one and not realise that they’re awful. If, like me, you grew up in the age of the Berni Inn you’ll associate the word Steakhouse with something naff and third-rate, barely a short step up from a Little Chef. In the States a steakhouse is an altogether different beast.…

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