Singing Opera as a Cat

A while back I got an e-mail from my stake rs pres saying she heard that I had a singing group and would we sing for the stake ladies night coming up. Well, I told her that I didn't have a group (I have no idea how she got that idea) but I could possibly put together something if she wanted. She said yes. Since that activity was being advertised with "Can't laugh too hard, too much, or too often,. . .but let's try" attached to it, I knew what would be the PURRfect number to do: "Duet for Two Cats" by Rossini.

I had performed this twice before, once at BYU in 1988 with my roommate Marilyn Fisher, and once in Rock Creek Ward for a talent show with Ellen Henstrom. So I dug out the music- found it but it was an old faded xerox copy. I searched online and found it. I found that I could buy 6 copies of the chorus version cheaper than 3 copies of the duet version. It turned out that the choir version was the same as I had sung before so got that one.

I asked my dear friend Claudia Martin to sing with me- she is a hoot and I knew together we could pull it off together. Anyway, in preparation and practice we watched lots of versions of it on YouTube - there are so many ways we could perform it. I thought it would be fun to dress as crazy opera singers. We thought of different story lines we could do- like singing to babies wrapped in blankets, to reveal them as stuffed cats, or of dressing in formals and singing about the flowers we were given (one of us receiving a small bouquet and moaning about it, as the other gloated over her big overflowing one). Since we had no formals or opera outfits to wear (or rather, we didn't have time to get it together), we decided that the cat route was the way to go.

I dug out costume stuff- Claudia wore parts of a rabbit costume I had made- the arm hair and feet. I used extra fur to add to Rachel's cat tail, and made some ears to match. I took the fur the kids used as sheep skin and made the tummy fur. For me I dug out the old ears and tails that I had used before- I actually made them from an old coat I found in the attic of the house I lived in at BYU for my first performance! I used them again when I sang with Ellen. I put the ears on Rachel's fur hat. I found a leopard print house dress and sweater with a fur collar at Goodwill and transformed them into my outfit. I made yellow fur cuffs out of some scraps I had left over from some Art Lit project, and sewed foam claws onto some gloves (I couldn't find a matched pair so went with one black and one brown). I think we looked pretty good with our faces made up.

We had a hard time arranging times to get together to practice, and I was getting pretty nervous when I realized that the performance date was only a week away. We did practice on our own and finally got together Wed and Thurs (stage tech rehersal) before we performed on Friday night February 6th. Thank goodness the lyrics were very easy to learn: MEOW. We had so much fun practicing. Being operatic can be very liberating! Joni Burk, or pianist, was a great cheerleader and was very encouraging to us as she sat at the piano and laughed- that helped us go all out.

On the night of the performance while waiting for our turn to go on we met up with April Martel and she took pictures for us. It is amazing how you can let loose when you are dressed up! Something funny- when we were warming up outside the kitchen door, a cat was in the parking lot and came right up to us - our meowing must have been pretty convincing! For some strange reason there was a hamster in a small carrier in the hall. It looked pretty tasty!

Anyway, we performed and were well received. My tail fell off unexpectedly when I was swinging it around as part of our choreography, but it only added to the performance. The compliments are still rolling in. Brian and Rachel came to watch and videoed it. However Brian can't find the tape he did it on. Unfortunately he thinks he taped over it the next day at Kevin and Jessica's Winter Percussion performance. I'm glad we got the pictures. A big thank you to April for them! Enjoy.

Some pretty serious opera cats. Rossini would have been proud.

Who can hold the note the prettiest and the longest?

If I hadn't given her a swat it could have gone on forever!Always trying to out do each other. . .But in perfect harmony.

A little tailing wagging. . .

This is where I lost my tail!

It fit into what we were singing at the time "ow,ow, ow, ow!"Three movements of Meows.

Did I mention that Claudia coughed up a hair ball after our last note? It was a doozy and flew into the audience. A perfect touch!