Headliner: Young woman becomes famous getting stuck in a storm in a cemetery

Umbrellas don't do very much good when it is pouring sheets of rain at an angle towards you. I was smart enough to check the weather despite the deceiving sunny weather this morning, and I brought my umbrella. The only purpose it served was keeping my head dry. As for the rest of me, I was soaked.

I had a coaching this morning, so afterwards, I trekked to the Zentral Friedhof (Central Cemetery) by myself with a map in hand. Zentral Friedhof is the biggest cemetery in all of Europe and is the last resting place of Brahms, Beethoven, Schubert, Johann Strauss and Arnold Schönberg. I got off at the wrong entrance of the cemetery, and decided to take a walk down the seemingly never ending pathway to see if I could find the main entrance. It was beautiful outside, except for the looming cloud to my right. I thought they called for "light showers" today.

Well, I was wrong. I finally found the main entrance and a map of the cemetery just as it started to drizzle. I found the musicians' graves, luckily all in one place, and got some pictures as the rain started to become more persistant. How nice that someone thought they they should all be buried together! I bet they're are having some good music conversations under that ground that I walked over! I heard some thunder and I was surprisingly calm. I actually thought it was kind of cool to feel the energy and power of the storm in this beautiful, peaceful cemetery. I started to walk back and the rain disagreed. The rain started coming at me at an angle and soaked my green capris completely within about 15 seconds as I felt my flip flops get soggy and gritty. I had to find shelter. Ahead of me was a bus that travelled around the cemetary, and a bus stop with a small overhang. Two choices ahead of me. I stood under the overhang which was against a building at the bottom of a slight hill in the pavement. Bad choice. The water creeped toward me threatening to create a puddle around me. I saw a sign for the WC (bathrooms), so I ran.

I found the tiny cement bathroom entrance labeled WC. In the little hallway leading to the bathroom stalls, stood about 20 Asian people. Some of them looked nicely dressed, and most of them had cameras, so I couldn't tell right away whether it was a funeral party or a tourist group.
They happily welcomed me as I scooted by them to use the bathroom and dry my feet with a paper towel. When I came out of the bathroom and back to the little cement hallway around the corner, my ears were graced with the sound of a beautiful baritone voice singing an aria particularly familiar to me: Figaro's Act one aria, "Non piu andrai." I came out to see a fairly young Japanese(I later found out) man basically performing on the steps down in the bathroom for his group in order to wait out the rain. When he saw me come into the hallway with what was probably a huge goofy smile on my face, he motioned that I could walk past him to get out. I smiled and took out my camera, and told the nice lady next to me that I just wanted to listen. All of them were taking photos, so it wasn't weird for me to do the same. I stayed right where I was.

He gave quite a performance! As I clapped, the nice lady next to me says, "He is studying opera here in Vienna!" Naturally, I reply with something like, "Oh yeah? Oh, me too, I'm here studying music too!" She got so incredibly excited that she stopped everyone's applause and said something in her language probably like, "this girl here is from America and she sings. Now he has a partner!!" Immediately, all of these cute middle-aged Asian people turn to me and look extremely excited, and some even just start taking pictures of me. Kind of in disbelief, I laughed awkwardly and the singer comes from the stairs down the hallway towards me. I shake his hand and approve of his performance. As he and I have a little conversation about who I am, the paparazzi is behind us taking photos. He asked me what duets I know... Um. He asked me if I could sing a folk song, and he could sing the bass line....Um. So he told me I have to sing something. "Okay," I thought, "this isn't weird at all!" So I gathered all courage and some strange sense of calmness I had in the moment and asked him if he knew the song, "Wien, Wien, nur du allein." Of course he did. Hesistantly, I offered to sing some of it.

And so there I was, in a dark hallway with the pouring rain behind me and 20 Asian people with their cameras in front of me. The singer led me to the stairs where he sang, and told me it was my stage. He introduced me and translated my song title and all the people were like "oh oooo ooo oh!!" They were so intent and excited. It fell silent and all eyes on me. No pitch. I just started singing the chorus of "Wien, Wien..." 16 bars all done, and quite nice acoustics in that ugly, dark bathroom hallway! I took a bow and they clapped wildly. Yep, I'm famous.

Not over yet! The rain had let up by that time, and the people started to walk towards their tour bus. The singer man asked me if I had a Facebook and took out his iphone. I tried to find myself, but I guess I put my profile on private. Oops! Darnit music education! I asked him to instead write down his name for me so I could find him, but he pulled out a business card from his backpack. Yasunori Okumura, Baritone, conductor.

I looked him up on facebook and tried to read some of his bios online in German. I believe he has conducted some chamber orchestras here in Vienna, and maybe even worked with some famous opera singers! He lived here in Vienna and was supporting this group of people from his home country in Japan, probably showing them around the city. The last thing he said as we parted ways was, "Let's keep in touch, your singing was lovely!"

How do things in life pop up like this at the times when we are least expecting something happy and exciting to happen? On a dreary rainy day in a cemetery, I was just made into one of the happiest people alive. I couldn't stop laughing to myself as I walked back to the Strassenbahn stop at how everything happened. How I thought it was a horrible decision for me to wait under that flooding bus stop, or how I just happened to time my visit exactly when an opera performance was happening in a WC hallway.

Blog worthy for sure, and a moment I will surely remember forever.

I love Vienna. Do I really have to leave in 3 days??