A very dear friend of mine recently asked me for information about practical opera matters which are the things that might only interest singers (or not) and anyway, I wanted to provide the answers that I'd be typing to her in an email also to all of you, so that everyone could benefit from what I'd be typing anyway :) (and also because I'm a stickler for not doing 'double-duty' when it comes to everything, lol). Therefore, I will try to pose the answers to these questions in a series of posts- because when I considered what my answers to her questions would be- I realized they'd be WAY too long for just one post. So, the first of these posts will be this one, and it will deal with: WHAT TO DO BEFORE YOU GO TO GERMANY (OR EUROPE) FOR AN AUDITION: First off, I have to explain that I do have a boyfriend in Germany and extended family there, so I never had to really worry about finding a long-term housing situation (which will probably be something that...