"Confessions" Shoot #1: And the Opera Saga Begins...!

As you may or may not know, I was recently selected to host Seattle Opera's new documentary, "Confessions of A First-Time Operagoer." I'm so excited to have been chosen, and I am so grateful for all of the help and support I received during the week of the voting!

If you voted for me... or made anyone else vote for me... I owe you a favor!

Each week I'll be posting a blog about what opera-y things I did that week. So, without further adieu, here's the update so far:

     We started shooting “Confessions of A First-Time Operagoer” this week! It was a lot of fun. I felt like I was on my own reality show!

     The Reel Grrls crew told me they wanted to see what I do in life, how I interact with my friends, etc. So I told them about how on a lot of Mondays, some of my friends and I go to Varlamos, an Italian restaurant in my neighborhood. Monday is “Calzone Night,” so the calzones are cheaper (for a college student with little income – like me – cheaper, is always better).

    

So the crew followed me to Varlamos. I had to warn my friends before we went that there’d be a camera crew there – my friends aren’t as big of fans of being on camera as I am! When my friends and I got there, we had a table already set up for us (usually we have to wait for a while – it gets crowded!) with lights and cameras and everything! The crew sat one table over and got calzones for themselves (they’re hard to resist!).

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The crew filmed my friends and I eating (there’s probably some really attractive shots of me shoving food in my mouth…!), reminiscing about life, and they even interviewed some of my friends, testing their opera knowledge and seeing if they thought I could make it through this project! Hopefully my friends didn’t say anything too embarrassing about me…! And hopefully they don’t hate me too much for making them go on camera! I told them this “Confessions” project can be like “Laguna Beach” and one of them can have their own spin-off afterwards…

     I’m getting really excited for next week’s shoot. I’ll be diving head first into the excitement of the Ring cycle! Wish me luck!

photos courtesy of Ilona Rossman Ho