by In 2015 I celebrated my European debut to sing the role of Tatiana in Tchiakovsky’s Eugene Onegin in Berlin. I had offered the contract relatively at short notice and was assured by the casting director not to worry. My French-Canadian co-star was “a real charm”. I took it with a grain of salt.
On the first day of the rehearsals, Étienne (the charmer) came to a short introduction before turning to a very big role and playing in Verdis Don Carlos Posa.
The next day when I asked how the show went, he turned to me and explained without a trace of irony: “I sang like a god”. He was so serious when he told me about the audience’s delightful answer to his brilliance, which I didn’t know What say. This measure of self -congratulations contradicted my Australian sensitivity, only what I could do was not to laugh.
Related: The moment I knew: We rehearse a difficult dance train – and I caught her head before she hit the floor
That night I wrote to a friend about Étiennes amuses Amour-PropreWhat strangely found even from these first impressions, albeit slightly rude. I was fascinated by his entire mood.
On a rare day of the rehearsals, he agreed to show me in the city. It was a wonderful spring day and when we stroll through the city, our conversation never found an organic conclusion. We went and talked about seven hours. It was very much before sunrise. At the end of the day, something had shifted between us.
Étienne had this entire approach to seduction, which seemed to me almost absurdly. More than once he tried to Seren with a melodeon – what if you have experienced something like that, you will know that it is pretty difficult to take seriously. To his confusion, it was the time when we were sitting on the bottom of his barely furnished apartment, laughing and watching the fleeing of the Conchords that stole my heart.
We kept things as private as possible, but when we continued the rehearsals, our connection was deepened both on and outside the stage. There was such an indictment between us that it sometimes felt like we were playing the action of the opera in real life, and vice versa.
When the curtains fell on our first performance and stood hand in hand, the current was palpable. It was obvious to me that this went far beyond the chemistry stage or a summer swarmer. I knew something serious happened at the time. I fell in love.
When the show packed, we were forced apart for three months. Étienne made a contract in Glyndebourne while I spent a miserable winter in Australia. We spent so much time on the phone that it was ridiculous.
In September I flew to meet him in Marseille. He was deep in the rehearsals, defied his director and ignored countless phone calls that demanded that he returned while he picked me up from the airport. A few weeks later, he flies from the rehearsals in Strasbourg to fly to London 14 hours to see my house celebrating my house as Micaëla in Carmen in the Royal Opera House. And at Christmas he surprised me by terminating three contracts for the new year and booking tickets for a month in Australia.
Related: The moment I knew: We hiked into the wilderness on Friday and appeared on Sunday as a couple
In the early days, many of the romantic gestures of Étien came with my amazed amusement, but the way he prioritized me, and our burgeoning relationship, when we were reunited, was nothing I took. He swept me from my feet once and for all.
Six years ago we bought our first house in Paris, in which we are located with our eight-year-old son and our apricot miniature poodle Lily. We continue to tour extensively and still spend hours on the phone. Nowadays, Étienne knows that his occasional melodeon services giggle. And we both know that it is laughing that we share that our hearts sings.
