Mary moves again

Mary has moved again, this time to Mannheim, near Heidelberg. She still considers her primary residence the apartment she shares with Rainer in Gelsenkirchen, near Dusseldorf.

Opera pianists have a very eclectic life, as I know I’ve told you before.

She occasionally plays keyboard in the opera, but most of her job is to coach singers their roles as well as the correct pronunciation of the language in which the opera is written. When they have the company on stage to rehearse, she plays the accompaniment for everything - obviously, they can pay her less than it would cost to call in the entire orchestra.

As a well-known pianist connected with the house, she is frequently hired to accompany soloists or ensembles, or to provide background music for a reception. She even has been engaged to accompany musicians when they go for auditions.

This not a 9 to 5 job. She tends to start work late and leave work late, and faces a long, daunting train ride home. So when she worked for the Cologne Opera for about a year, she found a tiny two-room apartment within a short streetcar ride to work, and installed a bunk bed so as to have more room on the floor.

When she worked in Dortmund, she did the same, but it was not long before she discovered that she knew the incoming theater director in Mannheim, and felt he was a better person to work under. She applied, was accepted, and just as the season was opening in September, she moved to Mannheim.

“I work at the National theater,” she writes. “‘National’ is a special category. Most are city, like Dortmund, or state, like Stuttgart. Mannheim is the largest communal theater, with ballet, theater, opera, and children's theater, and expanded recently with a few offerings of operas for children. I don't quite get the distinction, but I guess only places like Munich and Vienna are bigger in terms of the number of branches and people employed.

“The main house is a little bigger than Dortmund, and things are rather shabby inside and out. I'm enjoying myself, although I've mostly gotten to play what I rehearsed at least in part somewhere else. That will change soon, and maybe I'll be less relaxed!”

When we told her we’d come see her this year because we like that part of Germany, she said it isn’t that attractive, but after a few weeks, her description of the area has definitely warmed.

While there are some turn-of-the-century buildings nearby, she says, her house is not that old. (I presume she means the turn of the 19th century.)

The Neckar and the Rhein Rivers converge to form an inland harbor about a block from where she lives, and that area is industrialized. “In the other direction the topography starts getting hillier and prettier around Heidelberg,” she says. “The water is incredibly hard; I've bought a filter and distilled water in order not to have to decalcify every week. Doesn't help my hair, though.

“The Luisenpark is supposed to be very nice, but you have to pay to go in. Otherwise, the biggest Baroque castle is down near the Bahnhof and the Rhein. It houses part of the university, and is being slowly restored. They just started laying a pavement in the huge courtyard, so they can use it for events. Then there is the most prominent landmark in the city, the water tower with rose garden. One cleaned-up Baroque church, and an OK Marktplatz.”

Don’t laugh at the water tower. Mannheim citizens are proud of their stone tower, which looks not a bit like American welded tanks on stilts.

I get dizzy just thinking about all Mary’s comings and goings, but she seems to enjoy her nomadic life. German apartments, you may recall, rarely have a stove or fridge, and you have to put in your own counters and cabinets. She’s pretty capable, but this is a bit much. I can almost hear her exasperation via email:

“Why don't you just send Dad over here? I am paying someone 18 Euros an hour to put up the kitchen, unless a miracle happens and the counter arrives at a time when Rainer can come. I am cooking on one burner and with the microwave, and washing in the bathroom.”

Dave going to Germany by himself? Mary, that would take a miracle, but who knows? Stranger things have happened….