Earthquake!

On my trip to Palmerston North, NZ (that I mentioned a couple of posts ago, playing in an orchestra accompanying an opera) something truly out of the ordinary happened. 

The first performance on Saturday night was good, some minor little opening-night rough patches noticeable to the performers, but nothing too unexpected. But on Sunday afternoon...
It was the finale of Act III, the last number in the whole opera, and the music was just rising for the final climax (musicians flipping to their last page), with all the solo singers and full chorus joining in, full-strength when it started. The theatre started shaking, and quite violently. Sitting in the pit, it wasn't immediately apparent what was happening, most of us so focused on our music that we started to play on. But as the shaking continued it became obvious that something was wrong, the singers stopped singing and the conductor stopped, and after a moment of stunned silence, told us all to head out of the pit. I have no idea what the audience was doing, presumably the ushers were instigating an earthquake evacuation plan to get them out of the building. We could see the chandeliers minutes afterwards, still swinging from the force of the shaking. 

One is always reminded about these plans and what to do when natural disaster strikes, but when it actually does occur it becomes surprisingly hard to think of the best thing to do in the given situation you are in. I would have played on, quite undisturbed by the interruption if everyone else had just kept going too! As it was, there were only about two minutes left in the show, and the ending had been made pretty clear, so we didn't go back to finish it for the audience. Wellington also experienced the earthquake, at a magnitude of 6.5 (lasting around 45 seconds), with a few smaller aftershocks following. There had been one earlier on Friday morning (5.8) that I experienced at home, lying in bed. And I had experienced a few aftershocks in Christchurch before, so this wasn't my first experience with earthquakes. It's pretty impossible to expect them though, to be prepared for the shaking of the earth like that - it's simply awesome, as in, "awe-inspiring/daunting, inspiring great admiration, apprehension, or fear." Our planet Earth is definitely an awesome place, with countless wonders...(and things to wonder about!) 

It's strange to see your city broadcasted on world news, or to read about the earthquakes here in New Zealand, so far away, in American news articles. It's also really nice, and a reminder that the world is so global these days, that there are people from different countries living all over the world who are interested in reading about their homeland, or the home of their families or friends. (Or in my case, my homeland writing about the country where I currently live). 

The earthquake for us was literally a show-stopper, an earth-shaking, somewhat frightening and unexpected finale to a good performance. Luckily, no deaths or major injuries have been reported so far - here's hoping that things don't get worse down here in this seismically active country.