Woke up after a good night's sleep but feeling a little scratchy in the throat. Singers can immediately tell if anything isn't quite right with their bodies, as the voice is the whole body and many times Doctors will be surprised at how quickly singers know something is wrong with them. However, luckily, it turned out to be nothing more than a little allergy or something, but I thought it best to cancel the afternoon's rehearsal just to be on the safe side. I drank lots of water and took a nap and felt better. As singers do not get paid for rehearsals, which can sometimes last 4-6 week, they are very nervous of getting sick for performances and ending up with no money. I don't believe in wrapping yourself in cotton wool...sometimes you will get sick, but certainly do the sensible things to stay healthy like eating well and taking vitamins and getting plenty of sleep. I did manage to do a little work in the afternoon which I was pleased about. My time here in Pittsburgh is the start of a 2 and half month trip for my husband and I and from here we go to Barcelona, the UK and then the Czech Republic, and I have to work on the music I will be singing in some of those concerts, as well as the next opera I sing, 'Die Fledermaus' which starts rehearsing 2 days after we get home. Working on new music on the road is never easy but has to be done. I am learning some arias in Russian for the first time too, and luckily my husband is a Russian speaker so he is teaching me, which is great. The rehearsal this evening was the first run through of both parts of the opera, the prologue and the opera. For a first run through it went very well with very few mistakes. All the complicated parts seemd to fit together well, though with a few more rehearsals it will get tighter as everyone get more aware of where other people are around them on stage. It was almost a week since we had done the second half of the show, the opera part, and we all felt like it had been even longer, but most of it came back to us and all in all everyone was happy. The second half, which is the opera given at the wealthy patron's party, is attended by his guests and so we had supers sitting at the tables on stage, some of whom had not seen the show before, so it was fun to see them enjoying themselve while still being part of the opera. I understand that people can sponser seats on the stage for performances, so if you'd like to be part of this exciting show, contact Pittsburgh Opera. After the rehearsal my husband and I walked back to the apartments with Michael Hendrink, the tenor, and Lyubov Petrova, the soprano singing Zerbinetta. They are both great singers and collegues and fun to talk to on the walk home. As my husband and I hadn't eaten dinner, we stopped for a bite to eat before coming back and watching a little TV and bed.