Gingham Gown
May 5th, 2012
After all the careful deliberation over whether to wear the blue velveteen dress or pink ball gown, it turns out I will be singing tonight in purple gingham.
This may not strike you as the ideal dress for Lehar’s Merry Widow to wear to the ball, but there’s a very good reason it won out. I finally saw the costumes that everyone else would be wearing (this is a remount of a show from last summer — my singing sweetheart and I are last minute substitutions) and it turns out that of the four other women in the show, three are in gingham skirts. So this was really the best choice for the overall effect in our ensemble numbers.
The one down side is that the ankle-length skirt of this empire-style frock is rather narrow. Too narrow in fact for me to open my legs to play the cello! It was decided that the best remedy is to wear purple tights and simply hike it up over my knees when I play. Not exactly what you’d call a lady-like solution, but oh well.
If you’d care to know, I came by the dress through inheritance. It was sewn by my Aunt Linny when she was in high school. She inherited the sewing gene too, even minoring in fashion design.