Met Debuts

It's so cool to see and hear about singers I met in NJ make their Met debut. Elizabeth Caballero, of course, is in Carmen. I'm going next week, HOORAY!!!! ...and therefore I will not be reading or posting any of the reviews until after I've been to see it.

This week Michael Fabiano, who starred in Traviata alongside Elizabeth two years ago while I tried not to spill drinks on stage in my ugly maid outfit, had his Met debut in Stiffelio, and they've published an interview with him on their site. How cool is that?

I'm thrilled and excited for both Michael and Elizabeth - they are so talented, driven and hard-working, they deserve all the success they are achieving, and more!

If you're on Facebook, you can see and join Elizabeth's fan page here. I don't think Michael has one... yet.

Petty Teenage Behavior

After two years of Thursday evening voice lessons, it's weird for it to be Thursday but I didn't have my lesson. Saturday mornings this time around... but I still feel like I should report. I have nothing to report. I've been practicing what we did last Saturday. Does that count as a report? I didn't think so.

Let's see... I was going to post a link to a radio interview about a recital, but I decided not to. I was going to do a mini-mini-mini-rant about the "About the Artist" blurb here, regarding I'm not gonna say who but if you follow the link you'll figure it out and see for yourself how outdated the info is. Banawoman pointed it out to me, saying that it was inexcusable for the info to be so outdated. I suggested she call either the opera company or the press agent to complain. After all, just finding or defining a problem isn't enough - once you know about it, you should do something to correct it. I mean, she should. I personally don't care what it says where. So anyway, I was going to post something about that, but decided not to.

Truth be told, I'm this close to ... telling ... about something... but... I won't. Instead I'll just keep on keeping on in this confused and stupid life I lead. Unless, of course, anyone else drops me from their facebook friend list and cuts off all contact a week or so after their boss joins facebook. Oops did I just type that out loud? Hm better not put ANY names in the tags.

So anyway have I ever mentioned how much I love the "block" feature on facebook? If you're reading this and you can't find me there, I've blocked you! Isn't that exciting?

I'm so confused. I'm a screwed up 42 year old teenager. I think I need to go find a daisy so I can pick the petals, "I like him, he pisses me off, I like him, he's a CENSORED, I like him, oh who the hell cares."

Ok, back to Valley Girl AND the chocolate crumb cake that my in-laws brought over tonight. I love that cake almost as much as I love the block feature on facebook.

Blast from the Past

My high school chorus teacher just popped up in the "People you may know" list on Facebook. Of course I added her - will she remember me, the soprano she stuck in the alto section? We shall see...

Thanks But No Thanks? Nice.

Had an interesting interaction with someone today. This person emailed me a link to a Batti Batti video to check out how the singer incorporates acting into the performance. I replied with a thank you and included a link to a version that I particularly enjoy. The person's response:

I have seen so many productions of this I really do not need another video thanks.

Is it just me, or is that strange? Why not just say thanks, or not say anything? Just curious.

It came right after another strange (ok, sarcastic) comment, for which the person later apologized. And a few weeks ago this person did something very similar regarding my blog entry about Lucretia. We were both commenting on a mutual friend's link to a review because we both saw the performance. She then sent me a friend request on Facebook. I mentioned the blog and she said something like, I'll pass, thanks. That's strange too, right? It's almost as if she's saying, "Listen to what I have to say but I'm not interested in what you have to say."

On the other hand, she was very nice to give me advice and recommend a video, so who knows. Focus on the niceness. Focusing... focusing...

Ah well. People are weird. I'm sure there are people out there who think I'm socially inept or whatever. Actually I know there are people out there who think I'm "whatever." Ahhhh there is so much I want to put here in the blog about ... something... but I won't. Niceness... focusing... on... the niceness... because, after all, it's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice. That's not weird... is it?

Facebook Fan Pages - Elizabeth Caballero

Ok, how many of you are on Facebook? Almost all, I bet.

Go here. Watch and listen to the videos. Become a fan. See her perform if you ever get a chance.

My next chance will be next season at the Met. Can't wait!

It's Skypulous!

I have a distant cousin who is a talented pianist, arranger, teacher and general all-around supporter of the arts. His name is Jeffrey Biegel. He is always looking for new ways to share his enthusiasm, and he turns to the internet for inspiration. Or the internet turns to him! Last month he was called in last-minute to replace a pianist in Bogota, Colombia, all because someone knew someone who was friends with him on Facebook. The organizer sent him a message and the next thing he knew he was on a flight south. But he also takes the initiative - in this case, with Skype. Skype is a messaging system that has real-time audio and video, and after successfully giving piano lessons to a student in Singapore, he has set himself up to give lessons via Skype. How cool is that? So innovative! It opens up such wonderful opportunities, for example, for people who for whatever reason are unable to travel. Or it could be used for a regular student who is traveling and either doesn't want to miss a lesson, or wants a refresher before a performance or audition. Bravo, Jeffrey, for implementing this fabulous idea!

Sneaky Peeky at Lucia in HD!

Of course yesterday before the HD transmission and during the intermissions I was updating my facebook status and communicating via facebook with Carlos.

And then someone wholly unrelated to opera commented on my status update about Lucia:

Oh - the song that's used in the Fifth Element.

So of course today I googled it and sure enough, Il Dolce Suono is in the movie. Totally weird. I've only seen bits of the movie but from what I remember, that fits right in. Can't tell if it's the glass harmonica though. I think it's the flute.

I decided to give the commenter a link to the same piece with the glass harmonica. I searched YouTube, sorted by date added and look what I found! Someone somewhere captured a bit of yesterday's transmission on film. Film on film. How meta. But look! And listen! It's that scene with those beautiful caressed notes I mentioned yesterday.



I didn't give my facebook commenter the link to that because I wanted him to hear the same part as the part in the movie, so I sent him this instead.

Now I can't wait for this to be on PBS so I can watch it over and over and over.

Lull.

Sure, there are things I could write about, but they'd bore you all to tears. I think that by now everyone gets it that people in Champaign/Urbana are googling the whole people mag sexy man guy and getting here. Um... I've posted about getting tickets.... Um... that same dude is singing at the Kennedy Center Honors this weekend and it'll be on television at the end of the month. I'll probably bat my eyelashes at my coworker who can burn dvds from his TIVO and will get the relevant portions up on YouTube and/or MySpace in early January. Really I just do it for the free drinks. Wait a sec - he's not one of the drink-buyers! Damn, everyone knows I put all the videos up in an effort to "earn" enough drinks to become a girl-drink drunk! <--- watch that, it's funny. Someone let him know, ok? Hahaha I'm just kidding. Sort of. It's just that ever since I had that pomegranate martini with the candied lime in Chicago I can't stop thinking about girltinis. Wow that sounds so inappropriate! I love it! Hey at least I entertain myself. Wait that sounds inappropriate too! Wow. I better stop before I get myself into even more imaginary trouble than I can handle. OH NO! Even THAT sounds inappropriate!! Help me!

Ok ok... new topic.

Didn't have a voice lesson last week due to Thanksgiving... Oh I know, that reminds me.

Elizabeth Caballero has been putting up many more videos at YouTube. So click on that YouTube link to check them out, ok?

Um... what else... on Facebook there's a silly status game thing going on where you pick up the nearest book, open to a certain page and count a certain number of sentences in, then post that as your status. My nearest book was "Bringing Opera to Life," by Boris Goldovsky, published in 1968. It's next to the computer because I was checking to see if it was worth selling on half.com. So my status sentence is:

Whenever a performer is singing while in direct rapport with his partners, he must move to upstage (right or left) of them.

That's it for now. Voice lesson tomorrow.

In Other Related Stories...

The iPhone update server is down. Husband tried to update his and it's now locked.

Facebook is down. I can still get into Scrabulous, but the rest...

This means I might have to leave my computer. Wow maybe I'll burn a calorie or two by actually moving.

Future Coloratura-er? Oh And I AM Going To See It Again

Scary stuff! Today we were listening to the recent Barbiere on our way to Alex's swimming class and he asked to hear Cessa again. I have to post something on John's wall on Facebook - he's a hit with the 3-4 year old set! Then in the locker room he was making these funny almost laughing sounds - like coloratura. It was awesome. On the way home we listened to the opening of Act 2 and Alex was giggling and laughing at how silly the music teacher sounded and how "the other guy" was getting annoyed. He still goes on about how he wants to be an opera singer, he sings bits of Papageno and Figaro... maybe he's expanding into tenor roles, ha ha. Might as well prepare for it all since there's no way of telling how his voice will change.

Oh well this post just proves that I'm a mother before anything else. Duh. I should also post that John mailed me the CD insert with Nathan's autograph. I got it today. Here's a picture:




















I sent John an email asking when his CD is coming out so I could post the info.

You know, listening to him sing Cessa, I think it's ridiculous that everyone says that JDF is the only one who can do it. That's so not true, and so not fair. I actually brought that up when we were out last week. Wow that was an entire week ago! And one other thing I want to say about that is, we tasted each other's drinks. Did I taste his? I don't remember... I must have. Peer pressure, you know, heh heh.

I have to say again what an awesome time I had in Chicago, not just the opera and after, but the whole time. It was wonderful to be on my own, to do what I wanted, when I wanted, to take an uninterrupted shower! And of course the opera... and of course meeting Nathan for 5 minutes... and of course hanging out with John and friend afterwards... I realized I haven't hung out with guys without my husband there since before we were married. It was refreshing!

This Isn't Happening...

My friend who studies voice with Nathan left this wall post on my Facebook page today:

... just to let you know, nathan WAS very sick! he actually canceled some performances this last week, hopefully he'll be fine when you come ;) ...

No. Oh no.

What To Make of This...

A few weeks ago, after much deliberation, I posted onto YouTube a few of my personal favorites from the videos I took of R&J rehearsals. They're each 30 seconds long and I think I posted 5. So today at my YouTube account I had the following message in my inbox:

It is Manon Strauss Evrard. Thank you for putting up some videos.They are very interesting but I would rather not have them on the internet. I am not a hundred per cent satisfied by the performance. I would really appreciate if they could be taken off youtube.

Sincerely,
Manon.

So I went in and made them private, and sent a reply that of course I'd remove them and that I'm sorry if they bothered her, blah blah blah. But the whole time I was thinking, I took the videos and they're mine to post as I want. She'd probably never be satisfied with the performance because people always see what they perceive as wrong. On the other hand, she did ask very nicely, which is why I changed them to private. That's as good as taking them down since I have to specifically allow people to view them. I also went and removed the video I posted to the Summerfest page on Facebook. I'm not removing the videos from Photobucket since, although they're public, there are no tags and I don't think people cruise around Photobucket looking for videos. I'm pretty sure she doesn't know it was me because she didn't use my name in the message. Not that it matters.