Thursday is always a critical day up at Caramoor. The free-wheeling exploration period is just about to end and everyone feels the pressure. It’s not quite as innocent to forget lyrics or smudge a passage on the piano. After all, tomorrow we’re doing a part of the concert for some donors, Saturday is dress rehearsal, Sunday is a performance in Katonah, and Tuesday is the Big Apple. Every singer and pianist knows the feeling: time to get your act together.

We had a visit from our guest teacher today: baritone William Sharp, one of my closest colleagues and someone I’ve performed and recorded with for over thirty years. Bill is also very close to Michael Barrett, and it was like a reunion of dogs who’d grown up in the same kennel. Bill and I were finishing each other’s sentences. I would be thinking, “This song needs…” just as Bill was saying exactly what was in my mind. It’s always delicate to rehearse in front of an “outsider,” but Bill is not that. He was just an insider who was having his first (and only) day with us. He was so positive with everyone, unfailingly helpful—and, like his name, sharp. He is not afraid to say, “I loved it. Let’s fix the one spot that bothered me.” A perfect Thursday visitor.

Highlights: Eugene got on the hot core of his beautiful voice and rode it through Fauré’s “Les roses d’Ispahan”; Meredith coaxed and caressed her Poulenc song into submission; Kristin morphed into a haughty but vulnerable Chinese wife in her Roussel piece; Brent found both the charm and the cojones of his Roussel song. I gave a little lecture about not making what I call “Phony Faces of Motivation”—those little moues I see at auditions where singers pretend to show they’ve “just” thought of the next line of their aria by looking at a spot just to the left of their shoes (or the corner of the rehearsal room) and pensively pursing their lips before they sing again. Bad Opera Acting 101, and I’ve seen it on the rise recently. When I caught a tiny moment of “P. F. of M.” today I decided to nip it in the bud. I was rewarded with a short, hilarious demonstration, by Eugene, of his pantheon of Execrable Opera Stage Behavior.

…then back to work