Pre-Hijack 6 Month Update

I seriously haven’t posted since JANUARY????? Yikes.

So I guess I’ll squash 6 months worth of opera and Mars activity into one post before hijacking my own blog to participate in an education chat over the summer.

One topic at a time:

First… The WING is no longer. I’m not sure what happened. So … I’m back on the main stage, as they call it. I’ve performed in two concerts. One was “April in Paris” and it was so much fun!

It was held at a historic mill – basically this large barn-like structure with some antique milling equipment still there. The stage is about 2 steps up from the floor. The floor was set with little round tables, cabaret style. There was a table of food at the back. And as the name suggests, it was all in French. Now, to back up… I had been working on Voi che sapete, then I learned of the theme about a week and a half before the show. French! Hmmm… back when I first began studying voice, I did learn a few songs in French. The easiest one for me to relearn in time to perform was The Tipsy Waltz. There were two Opera Project rehearsals and I had just one voice lesson before the concert.  It’s such a short song that

I sang it through twice. See if you can tell when I spilled the wine all over my dress.

The next month we had another cabaret-style concert at the mill. This time I sang Voi che sapete. The person who recorded this for me probably didn’t realize he was recording it sideways! Here we go:

I still need to work on standing still! Also, breath control. Remember to breathe! But I’m doing so much better with keeping my voice on top of the air.

Now I’m learning this silly aria from Barber of Seville. The maid sings it – it’s about how crazy the house is with everyone being in love with all different people, love is this terrible thing and OH NO SHE FEELS IT TOO. No video yet of ME singing it. Here’s a silly one I like. It doesn’t include the recit, which is a about 30 seconds long.

Then the other day I found a CD I made of accompaniments for songs I was learning with my voice teacher. I sang through them for my current voice teacher and we decided to work on Gretchen am Spinnrade and Vedrai carino. And I’m going into it all with the attitude of DON’T FEAR THE HIGH NOTES!!

So that’s the voice lesson summary. Now, onto the performances I’ve attended.

JOYCE DIDONATO in Princeton! Yes indeed. She is amazing. Had front row balcony in a tiny tiny venue.

Then I saw her AGAIN in May at the Met. La Cenerentola. Went alone. Went to the matinee. Took myself out for lunch at Bar Boloud beforehand. Food and service were fab fab fab. I had the prix-fix 3 course lunch. There was pate with these tiny pickles, quiche and a pear tart.

It was more food than I could eat. Then I went across the street to the Met and made my way to my seat in the orchestra rear. I was about 3 rows from the very back. View from my seat:

The opera itself was FABULOUS. But of course it was. How can any opera with Juan Diego Florez and Joyce DiDonato be anything but? She'll be there again next year. And so will I of course!

Next season I plan to see The Merry Widow and of course La Donna Del Lago. Nathan Gunn, Renee Fleming, Juan Diego Florez, Joyce DiDonato and John Osborn!!! Whoop whoop. Will convince the Huz to come with me to at least one of those.

Finally, in Mars news... not much. Saw Artifact in NYC. Ticket included Q&A and photo with Jared. He saw me and said, "Hey! The opera singer! We have an opera singer here!" And I swooped in for the hug. 

Future Mars news: 2 shows in August, but they're sharing the billing with another band so I have a feeling the crowd won't be the same. We'll see!

And now, the next several posts over the summer will be related to a virtual camp I'm participating in, about school involvement in the community. And maybe opera stuff, if anything happens in the middle of the summer.

From YouTube to You Tomb

I'm out of town but had to make this quickie post to let you all know that YOUTUBE SHUT DOWN MY PAGE!!!! Apparently EMI records doesn't like people posting live concert footage of 30 Seconds To Mars, in spite of the fact that it in no way hurts record sales. So they've been filing copyright claims on youtube for live videos - I'm not the only one affected by this. After 3 claims, YouTube automatically shuts down the page. Nice!!! So there go all the Nathan Gunn vids, my singing vids, the John Osborn videos, I think I had a Christian Van Horn vid... all gone, along with all the comments. Camelot? Bye bye. Magic Flute? Gone, gone, gone. And what's even sadder about all this is, I think I trashed the Romeo, Camelot and Magic Flute vids from my hard drive a few months ago when it was too full. So when I return to home base I'll see if I can file a response or whatever to get my page reinstated, and if that fails, I'll make a new one. Meanwhile, the 4 people a year who access the "My Favorite Baritone" page are going to see a whole lot of "video not found" messages. Sorry, Nathan fans! I'll try to fix it as soon as I can. Meaning, at some point in 2012. Now, my next challenge is to figure out how to send this blog posting from an iPad. Wish me luck...OH! I see a publish button. That was easy! ps anyone know how to add tags?

Magic Flute & Armida - Two Operas in 24 Hours!

Two adventures to write about - the short version: Both operas were FABULOUS!!

And now to the nitty-gritty details.



Thursday evening was Magic Flute!!! Wow wow and WOW! Ann and I made our way to Lincoln Center and got the requisite photos in front of the fountain and the poster.


Fountain:


Posing with a larger-than-life Papageno:


You can't really tell from the photo but I had my hair in a bun, of all things. I had forgotten my sparkly barrette and it was hot, so I temporarily twisted it up, then decided to leave it. It came out later but I had it up for most of the evening.

The weather was so nice, we canceled our reservation at the Fancy Restaurant and grabbed a take-out dinner from a nearby deli. We had a picnic supper on a low wall with a view of both the front of the Met and the fountain. So here is the photo of my dinner - pesto pasta with chicken. It was quite yummy.



And the front of the Met with the Armida advertisement:




Eventually we made our way in to the Grand Tier Rear. View from the seats:



The music... ahhhh it's just beautiful. To hear it at the Met is like a dream come true. The sound in the Grand Tier is great. Matthew Polenzani was Tamino. His voice is like silk. Just gorgeous. Pamina's voice was so beautiful - beyond words. I fell in love with her as soon as she sang. And Nathan Gunn as Papageno. WOW. He is truly the Best Papageno Ever. He gets the comedy, the music, the timing, all of it. I've seen him in several different roles now and this was by far the best performance of his I've ever seen. The fact that I love the character of Papageno (who doesn't?) doesn't hurt. But he was WOW and there was no problem hearing him (as prior critics have complained) and he was just fab. And oh-so-adorable, especially when his hat was off. The duet he sang with Pamina - yes, I know I seem to cry easily at operas, but that duet did bring tears to my eyes - the beauty of the music, the singing and the words. I just can't help it. I am my mother's daughter. Luckily I was wearing waterproof mascara.

Queen of the Night, Sarastro and everyone - everyone blended together so beautifully. It was a package and it was great. The scenery - holy cow!!! Seeing Julie Taymor's production live, the entire stage, was amazing. It added so much magic to the Magic Flute. The puppetry - WOW!!! The scenery - amazing!! There was one scene with these giant puppet statue people with flaming heads. I mean, giant, like, 30 feet tall. They flanked the door to the temple I think before Tamino and Pamina entered for their trials. Their arms moved and did I mention that their heads were flame? I think it was done with orange cloth and a fan. It looked like real fire!!

What a difference to see the entire stage at once rather than the sections they show in the English TV version. The staging is meant to be seen all at once.

Everyone walked out of there smiling.

Very few tattles to tell:

A couple times there were these crashing sounds from the stage as if things were falling over... oops! Didn't see anything out of place.

Queen of the Night's sails clicked at one point as they were coming down during the aria. If that makes no sense, look here and here. (same production but in English) The costuming was a bit different, just a little. I could swear she was in bright red the whole time instead of the blue. And then audience applauded in the MIDDLE of her 2nd aria, after the first set of amazingly perfect runs up to that high f.

Also, after they unlocked Papageno's mouth, his tumblings caused the pipes to get tangled in the bamboo. Yeah I see that makes no sense either when you read it. Scroll up to the photo or look here. That English version has a section cut ... and the whole time they were singing that cut section, he was trying to untangle the string of the pipes from the piece that pokes up from his left shoulder. All without breaking character and while continuing to sing.

When Papageno ran up the circles (look in about the middle here) he fell and crashed HARD. It looked OUCH painful. His hat flew off. He didn't miss a beat but I bet he's sporting some new bruises.

The woman one seat over from me was worrying a cellophane wrapper during the entire first scene. I'm sure she didn't realize it - Finally I asked her to stop and she did.

And the best part - my own tattle - that morning I had checked the Met website and saw that a section of the front row in front of us in the Grand Tier was unsold. The seats were indeed empty so we moved down during intermission. Great view from the front row of the Grand Tier! Plus you get this little shelf to put your program down, put your feet up (!!!) or whatever.

After the performance Ann and I went back to our hotel and polished off a pint of Ben and Jerry's. I think it's a pattern - we go together to see NG and then eat ice cream in the hotel room. Didn't we do that last year after Rape of Lucretia? And speaking of Lucretia, Tamara Mumford, who was Lucretia, was one of the Three Ladies.

The next day, less than 24 hours later, I jammed myself into an over-packed Path train and went back into the city. I had 40 minutes to make my way to the Met for Armida. Decisions... figure out what subway to take, or hop in a cab? I decided that since my time was short, I was hot and uncomfortable from the crowded train AND I was schlepping my backpack with my overnight stuff that I should treat myself to the cab ride. I'm so glad I did! I opened the window, sat back and relaxed. It was exactly what I needed to relax and enjoy the day. I even thanked the cab driver for the relaxing ride. He said I was the third person that shift to thank him. I think it made his day!

I wove in and out of the various groups of schoolchildren and picked up my ticket at the box office. Look!!




Do you see? Orchestra Row E!! Like, right smack in the middle of the fifth row!! HOLY COW! I sat with John's talented and beautiful wife and adorable daughter. And then during intermission before Act 3, when John's wife and daughter were away from the seats, this other woman joined the row and immediately asked, "Are you friends with Renee? We're all friends with Renee. This entire section." Um... ok. "No, I'm friends with John Osborn." She replied, "Who's that?" I told her he was one of the tenors - the guy in the first act. She brushed that off with, "Oh, I got here late. Better late than never!" and she laughed. Um... ok. She was tall and expensive looking - long, gorgeous hair, designer head-to-toe, your typical NYC upper east side wife who was late probably because she was either out planning for a charity, having a private pilates session or possibly both. I complimented her earrings and she said that the woman in charge of the children's chorus made them. Turns out her that her teenage daughter, who was there for the entire performance, is in the children's chorus. She was very nice but also amusingly stereotypical. But enough about her.

I was next to a herd of photographers.



The constant clicking didn't bother me at all - I found it interesting - whenever the action changed, whenever the characters moved or interacted, there'd be a flurry of shutter clicks. Combined they must have taken over a thousand photos. I, personally, took about 10. Here's one looking straight up at the ceiling:



And a view of the curtain from my seat:


And the performance itself:

I had never heard of this opera before so I was going in fresh. So what I could figure out from the sort of mushy plot was, Armida is a sorceress out to prevent the army from their goal of capturing Zion. She's a soprano and there are 6 tenors!! The performance opened with a dancer suspended from a ribbon and spinning down to the stage. It was beautiful. She looked about 10 but I learned later that she's actually 25. She was Armida's niece and she represented love. Armida also had a sprite or spirit who represented vengeance. Onto the plot - the army is burying their guy-in-charge when Armida shows up and pretends to be a princess in distress. She begs the general (John Osborn) to give her ten soldiers to help her regain her kingdom. She charms the army and everyone falls for it except for the general himself, but he goes against his instinct and agrees to help her because everyone else wants to. The men then promote Rinaldo (Lawrence Brownlee) as their new captain. Of course Rinaldo and Armida have met before when she saved him, they fell in love and then he had to leave. Somehow her uncle holds some sort of grudge against him. The mean spirit or sprite "infects" the soldiers and then this other guy who thought that he himself should have been chosen to lead gets all huffy and acts like a big bad loser. He's busy badmouthing Rinaldo, who overhears and fights the dude for his own honor. Of course he kills him, then the general comes back and is all mad, and then I'm not quite sure what happens except that Rinaldo is charmed by Armida and they run off.

Act two is a reenactment of the story in ballet, presented to Rinaldo and Armida as entertainment. These demons come out and create a beautiful palace and garden, then these nymphs come out and in the ballet they all seduce the dancer Rinaldo. I have never been so close to professional ballet dancers. These men jump 5 feet into the air and land silently. They are all muscle. It was amazing. The women were great too. The demons and the nymphs included the chorus as well as dancers. The demons were in these wacky costumes with horns and tails. I took one blurry photo of them during the curtain call, using one hand and no flash, so it's hard to see, but you get the idea:




That guy to the left wearing what looks like knee pads had a very form-fitting costume. As in, I think everyone in the room was looking at his ... manliness. It was outlined in great detail. Had to avert my eyes to keep from staring. I'm sure I wasn't the only one. He was I think the main demon or devil from the underworld. The dancers interacted with him a lot - they carried him around, and he climbed on them to sing, so his outlined bits were displayed prominently. Not like me to go on and on about some guy's privates but there they were, pretty much in everyone's face!!

So anyway during the dance there's a part where they tempt Rinaldo with fruit, and then the nymph dancers are teasing the dancer Rinaldo and playing a sort of monkey-in-the-middle with him, throwing the fruit back and forth over him while he tries in vain to catch it. At some point the dancer is replaced with the real Rinaldo. There is a gorgeous love-duet in there somewhere. You see the little girl in red in that blurry photo? That's the 25 year old dancer. Anyway back to the opera...

Scene three, two of the soldiers (and the final two tenors) find their way into the enchanted forest and find Rinaldo. They help him realize that he has been charmed by magic and lead him back to battle, bravery, courage and so on. Armida tries in vain to keep him there with her. Then the demon/vengeance spirit and the love spirit battle (via ballet of course) around her and the bad spirit wins. Armida vows that she will seek vengeance and the curtain drops.

The music was full of Rossini's coloratura runs and vocal gymnastics. It was really really pretty.

John Osborn was absolutely awesome. Rossini coloratura is his friend. It seems to come effortlessly for him. The singing, the acting, etc - he was the character and the music flowed out of him.

Lawrence Brownlee has the most unbelievable voice. Except of course I was there so I do believe it. Like John, the coloratura just flows out. It was like beauty flowing out over the audience.

One of the other tenors stood out for me too, it was one of the two soldiers who saved Rinaldo in Act 3, but I don't remember who it was. It was hard to keep track of who was who.

Renee Fleming was Armida. She is so beautiful. She didn't really sing out in the first two acts. Her voice was very pretty but I was like, what's the big deal? Until the third act, when she SANG. And then I was like, Oh, I get it now. At first I was star-struck that I was seeing her, but she was such a good actor that I got totally into it and forgot it was her. If that makes sense. I guess that's the point!

After the performance I wanted to hang out but even more I wanted to get back to my boys - over 24 hours away from them and my arms ached to hug Alex! All the moms out there will understand what I mean!! So I trekked down to Penn Station (remind me NEVER to do that in my little boots again, ever!!) and hopped on the express train to get home to my boys.

Today I listened to the Saturday Afternoon Broadcast of Magic Flute. It was great to hear it all again so soon after seeing it. At one point I put on the English version video and tried to match it up for Alex to see and hear. It worked pretty well for some parts, like when the three ladies find Tamino, but then I had to pause the video for the cut parts and was too much trouble and he got bored with it so I turned off the video.

Now my little spot on the shelf where I keep all my tickets is empty. It looks so sad, all empty. But I'm sure it won't be empty for long.

Grapes, Chocolate, Laughter and Rain

Had THE MOST FABULOUS adventure yesterday!!!

My friend Anna and I stepped out of our "mom" shoes and cleaned ourselves up for a night out. We caught a late afternoon train and arrived at Penn Station at about 4pm. It wasn't really raining, just spritzing a little, so we decided to walk up to the restaurant, a mere 24 short blocks up 7th Ave. Of course along the way it started to pour. We were leaping over puddles and trying to avoid other people's umbrellas. It was a short walk and we found ourselves at the restaurant rather early, but since it was pouring we had no choice really but to go in. We hung around and when eventually we sat down, along came Johnny O to join us. He's in NYC rehearsing for Armida and I had invited him along. We all had a blast! The food was good but we were having such a silly time I actually forgot to take photos of it. But then... the desserts. Oh.My.God.

I had the panettonne , a tall cake with raisins and hazelnuts that was served with vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce. It was so huge I couldn't finish it. I'm still thinking about that cake and drooling.



John ordered the chocolate mousse. They came to the table with two metal buckets and started scooping mousse and whipped cream out onto his plate until he told them to stop. Scoop, scoop, scoop...



I was so eager to get started on my chocolate thing that I forgot to take a photo of Anna's limoncello creme brulee. I didn't forget to taste it though. It was to die for. Death by desserts. Still drooling as I type this.

While I had the camera out we took some more photos:

Anna and John:



Me and John:




And the other photos are on John's camera so I'm waiting... waiting... waiting for him to email them or post them to Facebook.

When Anna was in the ladies' room she overheard two women talking in excited hushed tones, "Did you see??? John Osborn is here! In the restaurant!"
Isn't that cool, that they recognized him?

He wasn't going to GoW so after taking pics of us under the marquee we parted ways. Once I get those photos, if they're decent, I'll post them.

Inside was crowded!! People everywhere going every which way. It was hard to get around. We did make it to our seat and I snapped a couple photos of my view from row D... which was indeed the 4th row.



The Chorale sat behind the orchestra. I could barely see them if I peeked through the orchestra. Then in front of the orchestra, as you can see, were the music stands for the singers. Jane Fonda, the narrator, sat off to one side. On the other side of the stage were some chairs for the cast members who weren't in the particular scene. It was semi-staged, so they wore costumes and moved about a little, but there were no props and they sang with books.

The music was so much better than I expected! I guess I was thinking, modern opera = modern, atonal music, but that was not the case at all. It was very accessible yet original. The story followed the book very closely. Some parts of the book were left out, understandably, but nothing different was added.

Jane Fonda was so very thin!! She was very glamorous in a long black skirt. She perched on a stool and read some parts aloud - much seemed to be directly from the book. I wonder how much she rehearsed because some lines she seemed to stop before the end of the sentence, and then pick up the next line as if it were a new sentence when it was actually part of the sentence before. It sounded a little awkward. She did that only a few times. Otherwise hear reading really added to the effect. A couple times she began reading as soon as the singers stopped, and she was cut off by applause. It was no big deal.

The singing was FABULOUS!!! Nathan Gunn, of course, was awesome. So what else is new. His daughter Madelyn was very good! While I believe that she would not have gotten the part if he wasn't in it, she was fine in the role. She has a clear, sweet voice and her acting was good. If she hadn't played the part I imagine that one of those childhood career performance kids would have gotten it. You know the kind, with the stage mother in the background pushing, pushing, pushing. But she was fine, she held her own and did a great job. There was a little boy in the production and he was just fabulous. Elizabeth Futral had a little too much vibrato for my taste, the type of vibrato that takes over the notes, but she was amazing. The entire cast was amazing. And it was so moving. You have to read the book. The events the family endures are simply heartbreaking, but the hope and goodwill shines through. The composer did an excellent job of showing how, although all this tragic stuff is happening, they still have hope, they can still smile about things... and the ending... well... I know when I read the book the ending was a huge surprise for me, and got me wondering how often that happened, because it must have... and it was in the opera too. I was expecting it but that didn't stop me from bawling. I could write the details here but it would sound very weird ... but basically, Rosasharn, who was pregnant, gives birth to a stillborn baby. Later when they're escaping to higher ground she and Ma come across a young boy and his dying father. R's milk has come in but she has no baby to nurse. The man is starving and needs food. The book and the music alike convey the seriousness as Ma and Rosasharn stare into eachother's eyes and Rosasharn agrees to nurse this man to save his life. As a mother who nursed a child, and Anna, who is still nursing her youngest, this draws out these deep feelings of nurturing mixed with the oddness and the question, would I have done that? And while I know I would have nursed any baby that was hungry, I honestly don't know how I would have acted in the same horrible situation. But that's just one of the many tragic (loss of baby) and hopeful (giving sustenance to a starving person) juxtapositions in the story. They caught it wonderfully in the music.

I also cried when Noah, the oldest, in order to obey Ma and "help the family" drowns himself in the creek, meanwhile Ma is calling, calling, calling for him. And then when the baby died and they put it in flowing flood waters as a message to people downstream... and earlier, in another tragic/hopeful moment she sang that if it were a boy she would name it Moses... luckily Anna had brought a handkerchief and we were passing it back and forth to dry our eyes.

Intermission was insanely crowded. The same as when we first got there, people were milling about in every direction. Anna and I made our way toward the restrooms and actually got separated by the crowd. I ducked around the line for the mens' restroom to call Husband. While there I ran into someone I knew from several years ago - a chorus member back from when I supered in Romeo. It was so chaotic and crowded, all we could really do was shout hellos to each other before getting pushed apart by the crowd.

Afterward, it was raining lightly so we decided to walk to Penn Station. It's a 20 minute walk and we had 35 minutes until our train. Well, half way there it began to POUR, and I do mean POUR. We ended up dashing along 7th Ave, leaping over puddles, getting soaking wet and laughing like teenagers. We made the train with time to spare where we learned that the ink on the back of the program runs when it gets wet. Anna had this huge purse and had put my gray pumps in when I changed to my hiking shoes. The program left blobs of black all over the shoes, and forget about the handkerchief. The shoes I managed to wash with a damp clean corner of the hankie, and then after doing our own Rorschach tests on it, we tossed it into the trash. We were soaking wet and having a blast. I laughed so much and so hard yesterday (except during the performance, of course) that I think I woke up with a laughter hangover today. Is that even possible? We didn't drink anything but overpriced sparkling mineral water so what else could it be? Can't wait to do it all again!

A Much Nicer Post - La Juive, Live from Amsterdam

This is a much nicer post than the post I didn't post.

THIS post is to direct you to a copy of live broadcast of La Juive from last night in Amsterdam, starring an I'd Rather Be Sleeping favorite who sometimes reads and comments, John Osborn!! I'm listening right now. *sigh* It's beautiful. I've never heard of this opera and it's so so pretty. Bravo Johnny!!!!

You Know What It Is?

It's my birthday, that's what. That means that a year ago I was standing in that sketchy hallway waiting for Mr. Florez to exit the Met so I could give him a squeeze. And he was so nice, checking the photo to see how it looked and all that. Ah well. That didn't help - the pictures were still terrible. That's ok. The whole experience was fun.

So once you're done reminiscing with me, take a look at these videos of John Osborn in a recent performance of Lucia in Belgium. Keep your ears open for his high E flat near the end!!!



Here's another E flat from Johnny O:



And some footage from I think a rehearsal:



Bravo, Johnny!!! It's not too late to skype me and sing happy birthday. Wait it probably is in Belgium. Oh well, maybe next year.

Commentally Speaking

Been getting a lot of nice comments on YouTube lately, both on the channel and on specific videos. Here are some from the past few months. I did not correct spelling or grammar...

Channel comments:

I enjoy your videos sooo much! Nathan Gunn wooh! Your son is just a dream!!! Yay opera! Keep it coming!

I don't know how you do it. It's like you've picked all the operatic music I am most likely to enjoy, and posted it. It's taken me a long time to moderately enjoy opera; I hardly ever listen to it, mostly singing it in my voice lessons. But first Camelot drew me to your page, then the Magic Flute clips made me buy the dvd, and now I've listened to the Pearl Fishers songs... and I'm hooked. I don't know if I've ever heard anything so beautiful- I jerked my head up from what I was working on, stunned, to pause and marvel at the beauty.

Random video comments, linked to the video they're on:

What a lucky child to have you as a parent..

Ooh... I hadn't had a chance to check this out until now, and that was BEAUTIFUL. What a gorgeous voice... *sigh* Poor Zurga. Nathan does angsty very well.

This is one fo the most beautiful baritone arias. I just went back to the University of Illinois for my audition and I ran into Nathan's wife Julie, and Nathan himself, again. They are two of the nicest most talented people. Thanks so much for posting this fantastic piece of music!

You, are funny Mom ..best , greatest, coolest and creative minded.
So much fan to watch your videos ... :):) Thanks !

Your son is really cute with his constant smile :):) His preparation for music blended togehter with perfect coreorgaphy.Bravo Alex !!!!

O-M-G!! I love these CD songs - very educational! - and I love your video interpretations even more! This is such a great interpretation of the famous "Die Forelle" quartet! :P


I don't know why everyone always complains about Nathan Gunn's voice not being interesting enough, or whatever they're talking about. So he's not ridiculously rumbly; I find his smooth sound and passionate delivery quite pleasing.


nathan gunn as papageno is perfect, no matter which language he's speaking or singing. love his hat! (not sure why people are so down on translated works. many feel the same way about anime translations too, for goodness sake! they don't even take the quality of the translations or lip-flap matching into account. such high-falutin' snobbery, haha!) a very refreshing and entertaining production, thank you very much for your postings!! (your children are lucky, too!)

omg!! I love nathan gunn as papageno , his amazing!!

He is just the perfect Lancelot. I didn't like the casting for this show, Marin Mazzie is good but just didn't fit. Fran Drescher? Oh please! The only one is was cast well was Nathan. He is just Lancelot. And Christopher Lloyd as Pellinore was great

Thank you very much for posting this. This has proven to be invaluable in researching this charachter. His performance is spectacular.


Nathan Gunn is just pure amazing and always has been!!!

thanks so much for your wonderful postings of Nathan Gunn ... WHAT an incredible voice singing songs from Camelot - a show I never did care for but now am listening to all day long thanks to his smoldering voice.

Bravisimo Osborn....tiene una voz maravillosa y una tecnica y linea de canto...impresionantes.

Excellent! A truly effortless rendition.
Thanks for your Osborn clips, Luindriel!

BRAVISIMO, Osborn.

Excellent! It is so nice to hear this aria sung by a tenor with a rich low register! The coloratura is remarkable and the timbre masculine. I must admit that I am really impressed!

Thanks, everyone, for your kind words!

Don't be shy- comment here on the blog too!

Beethoven's Wig and Other Video Video

You know, I suddenly wondered today if I've violated any copyright laws by posting our three homemade Beethoven's Wig videos to YouTube. We make the videos because we're such big fans of the group, and it's not like they're, I don't know, pirated recordings of a live concert or anything like that. But however innocent my intentions, I suppose there's always a chance that the videos could make someone involved with Beethoven's Wig uncomfortable. The last thing I want to do is break any laws or cause any discomfort to someone of whom I'm a fan. So with that in mind, I sent a message to their press agent with links to the videos and a very nice note asking about the laws and potential discomfort. So now I'm asking for some support from my readers - if you have time, go to YouTube to watch, rate and comment on the videos. Perhaps even a comment that the videos have inspired you to run out and buy all the CDs ...? And if the press agent replies that it'd be better if I took them down, at least you'll have gotten a chance to see them.

While you're at YouTube, you might as well take a look at all the Gunn videos I've posted, since you never know when I could be asked by his press agent to remove any of those. That would be interesting, seeing as how he mentions them on the press portion of his web page.

I'm pretty confident that there's no problem with the John Osborn or CVH vids seeing as how they both gave me the go-ahead to create and post them.

3/18/09 Edited to add links to all vids:

Beethoven's Wig - Rate, comment and enjoy!


Magic Flute

Camelot

John Osborn

Christian Van Horn

Other Gunn Vids

Moving On, Moving Back, Working It, What to Wear?

At least it's snowing. And schools are closed tomorrow. I guess I am sort of glad I'm not out driving in this.

But moving on...

Next adventure: March 11. La Sonnambula at the Met. What to wear????? I'll have to try a few things on and post pictures.

Thanks to Facebook, the site with which I have a love-hate relationship, but in this case it's love, I've hooked up with an old friend from the 80s who lived and still lives in NYC, and she graciously offered her couch to me for the night of the 11th! So we'll get to catch up and since she's home with a little one, we'll have all day to hang out and reminisce about the good old days when we walked barefoot through the snow to school, uphill both ways... ok, no. But we did do lots of fun stuff... we went to see INXS in the front row at the Beacon in NYC, and another time we saw them at some small bar in New Jersey when we were 18 and the drinking age was 21. Since we couldn't get in the bar, the guys in the band brought us in the stage door with them and into the bar from there. Another time we saw Siouxsie and the Banshees with free standing room tickets, then went to, was it the Peppermint Lounge to see I think it was The Fleshtones, yeah, so we saw someone somewhere... anyway a fight broke out and the crowd surged and I got stepped on, down the side of my leg, totally tearing my tights and scraping a layer of skin off. Shh don't tell my mother! One year on New Year's Eve we hung out with The Eurogliders, like, in their hotel (no, nothing like that, but don't tell my mom) before they went off to play the MTV New Year's Eve Ball and we went home to watch it on TV. We had many more adventures but you get the idea. Getting backstage is not a new hobby of mine. Ha! That sounds so... I don't know... rude. I don't mean for it to be. It's just fun.

Which ends my aside and leads me to the next evening - Firebrand of Florence. Alice Tully Hall. Nathan Gunn. Backstage? Possibly. You know, just to say hi, get a new picture of course. So anyway, re: the backstage thing, I'm putting my people on it. Love how that sounds. My people. As if. I don't have "people." But I do have friends who have, shall we say connections. And I am, shall we say, working on it, because we all know by know that I know how to work it. Or at least I pretend, which is just as good. So anything think he'll remember me from last year? Nah. Well, maybe. I guess if I do make it backstage I'll find out. Still have to figure out what to wear.

And the post referenced in that particular link up there reminds me -and now I'm not pretending - how freakin' crazy is this - John Osborn is currently performing in Barbiere in Dresden while at the same time rehearsing Lucia in Brussels. Like, every other day, almost. The man must have a TON of frequent flier miles and no blank pages in his passport. So if I had any doubt before, this confirms it: Opera singers are NUTS! Oh and of course he's wowing them everywhere he goes. You go Johnny O!

Opera Futures

I'm busy saving my pennies - the Met's 2009-2010 season has been announced!!

So of course I'm going to see Carmen with Liz Caballero as Frasquita. Don't know yet which performances she'll be in, but I should have that info by the time tickets go on sale in August.

Next of course of course of course I absolutely must for sure go to see oh wait who was it OH YEAH Nathan Gunn as Papageno!!!! Die Zauberflote!!

Thursday, April 1, 2010, 8:00 pm
Fischer; Kleiter, Shagimuratova, Polenzani, Gunn, Pittsinger, König

Tuesday, April 6, 2010, 8:00 pm
Fischer; Kleiter, Shagimuratova, Polenzani, Gunn, Pittsinger, König

Thursday, April 8, 2010, 8:00 pm
Fischer; Kleiter, Shagimuratova, Polenzani, Gunn, Pittsinger, König

Saturday, April 10, 2010, 1:00 pm
Fischer; Kleiter, Shagimuratova, Polenzani, Gunn, Pittsinger, König

That's like, over a year from now. Wow. Well, it's good to plan ahead. Now I know to turn down all invitations I get for next April until I know which performance I'll be attending.

Then of course there's Nozze, Traviata, La Fille, Barbiere, Boheme... but let's be reasonable. Let's keep it to the performances that Juan Diego Florez will be in... um... just La Fille I think. BUT Diana Damrau is in that too. But she's also in Barbiere. But I've seen both operas. But so what. But but but...

And of course I'm also going to see John Osborn in Les Huguenots at NYCO in November. At least I think that's the what and where. It's definitely the who. Somewhere in New York. Singing something. And I'll go.

Man how am I going to afford all this? Oh well I'll figure it out.

Just a Quick (high) Note

I Puritani opened tonight in Amsterdam. Rumor from the Opera House has it that the amiable Mr. Osborn was a huuuuge success and easily hit - wait for it - a high F. Bravo Johnny! Wish I could've been there for so many reasons, not the least of which is, if I were in Amsterdam, I'd be on vacation.

Bravo Johnny... Johnny Bravo... stream of consciousness follows... Cartoon? Or, that Brady Bunch episode where the hipster record producers want to turn Greg into a rock star because he "fits the suit..." ?

It's Clarific!

Remember last year when John Osborn turned up in gold lame in Clari? Cecilia Bartoli was in it too. So anyway I was googling for info about John's upcoming run in Lucia in Brussels and up popped a video for... Clari! I clicked over to YouTube and found that these past few days someone (not me!!) got a bunch of videos of the production up. Naturalment I threw them into a playlist. No doubt they're out of order. If anyone knows the correct order, please post a comment or send me a message on YouTube and I'll fix it. Until then, in no particular order, here it all is:

Obvious Side-Effects

I usually (ok, always) check my email with my morning coffee. Today I had a subscription update from YouTube, and in the abbreviated blurb that comes with each video in the email, I saw "Osborn" and "Tapia." Interesting, I thought. Then I went to work, where YouTube is blocked. (there are ways around that but that's for another post.) Then I forgot!!! Bad me. Then I was thinking about John Osborn for some reason and I suddenly remembered. The "Tapia" listed there actually isn't his wife - it's a guy! It's obviously an audience recording, but in spite of that the quality is pretty good. The person who uploaded it is obviously a Dessay fan, hence the title of this post. So anyway, here it is:

Bellini
LA SONNAMBULA

Amina...........Natalie Dessay
Elvino..........John Osborn
Rodolfo.........Eric Owens
Teresa..........Claire Larcher
Lisa............Marie Devellereau
Alessio.........Alberto Tapia
Un notario......Giulano Bernardi

Hans Graf, conductor

Opéra National de Bordeaux

July 1999

Cool, huh? I can't wait to see this in March!

Catchy-Uppy

Catch-up time.

Thursday - Voice lesson. Worked on the low stuff again, including Shall I Come, and also some great vocal exercises to help smooth out the cracks. Cracks-be-gone! We figured out that for the same notes, I crack on certain vowels only. I'm fine with the eeeee as in "be," but tend to crack on the more open sounds like "long," so we came up with some exercises for that. Chanted out the rhythm and started the melody for the Tipsy Waltz. And now, no lesson for three weeks!!!! My poor brain.

Ok. Fun stuff time, also known as Other People's Blogs.

I know in the past I have made fun of Mr. Gunn for his spelling and grammar. That's ok, we none of us lurve (yes, lurve) our favorite opera singers for their writing skills. But the past week or so his journal entries have vastly improved, pretty much when he started writing about singing at the Kennedy Center Honors shindig. It's pretty interesting because he tells about all the pomp and security surrounding any event that includes the president. I, of course, want more details about the food and the clothes, because I'm shallow like that. I have been all over the internet trying to find any of the photos he says they had to keep posing for, but the press have stuck to the uber-famous in their internet photo slide-shows.

Next on the agenda, John Osborn has launched a cool new website. Check it out - I especially like the photo pages. The pics are nice and the text is really entertaining - sort of a mini-journal. I think he should jump on the bandwagon and start blogging about his Adventures in Opera Land.

Cat pic Friday: You can see Diego roll over in the Rover Roll Over video I posted on Friday night. I have decided that that brief appearance counts for cat-pic Friday.

Husband today: Oh great, now I've got opera on the brain, thanks to you, as he whistled some Papageno bit.

Pause.

Me: Well, that's not a BAD thing, is it?

It's all part of my devious plan, muwaaa haa haa!

Reports on the Boys

I feel like it's been a while since I reported on what Our Favorite Opera Singers are up to.

John Osborn, as we know, just put out those great CDs. He's currently singing I Puritani in Amsterdam. Can only imagine the number of frequent flier miles the man has.

Christian Van Horn, the Tall Man with the Deep Voice, is currently in Munich getting ready to do Boheme. His blog is pretty interesting as he recounts the unusual rehearsal process. Apparently the theater does the same version of the opera every time, so a singer who has done it before doesn't need to show up for rehearsals until the very last minute. CVH is one of the newbies so he has been there all alone for private rehearsals, imagining his colleagues are there as he does his thing.

Nathan Gunn... I'm sorry what? I got distracted. Oh that's right... I, um, since he's not my friend on facebook I don't know! (I learn all I need to know from status updates, very handy, that.) He's not even ON facebook. (I hope my computer doesn't explode from that link...) And I thought EVERYONE was on facebook! Anyway, he just did a recital in New Hampshire followed by a master class the next day. Of course I know people who went because I'm like that. And of course it was, in their estimation, gloriously wonderful. My next Gunnster performance is in March, unless airfare to Ohio suddenly drops to $75 round trip between now and Valentines Day. The price of fuel is going down but I don't think it'll go down quite that far.

Before my March Gunn Encounter (because I will do my best to say hello in person, because I'm like that) I will be seeing Juan Diego and Natalie at the Met! And by before, I mean, the day before. I wonder if there's a prop bed somewhere in the Met, or anywhere in Lincoln Center for that matter, where I can spend the night? Like how the kids in that book slept in the beds at the museum? Jeez both Juan Diego and Nathan are probably sleeping in the city that night. Maybe I can crash on the couch in one of their apartments or hotel rooms. I don't take up much space, I don't snore and I promise I wouldn't blog about it! Just push two chairs together for me and I'm good to go. Yeah, I didn't think so.

This is All You're Getting

I listened to the Tapia/Osborn CD again and picked two pieces for YouTube. That's it, it's all you're getting. Go buy it if you want to hear the rest.


Soprano Lynette Tapia and tenor John Osborn sing a duet from Donizetti's Don Pasquale, Tornami a dir che m'ami.





Soprano Lynette Tapia and tenor John Osborn sing the duet, Varrano a te sull'aure, from Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor.



That Lucia clip is just part of one of the tracks. The entire thing was too long for YouTube. And someone already made a very nice comment, look:

(9 hours ago)
one of the best portions of any opera, this bit can bring up the head one one determined to jump off the Golden gate bridge- good post for the post-thanksgiving blahs blues etc.- Thnx-

Ok, so that's a bit dramatic, but appropriate considering that the clip is from Lucia. So click over to YouTube to rate, comment, favorite, give the thumbs up and enjoy.

Just a Couple of High Voices

I love getting packages! Who doesn't, right? Today I got one from CD Baby, my order of one of John Osborn's new CDs. Actually it's Johnny and his gorgeous wife, Lynette Tapia, and their gorgeous voices! Oh. My. God. The CD is called La coppia degli acuti (The couple of the high notes). And wow. They can hit them. Click on the link to hear tracks. I'll probably get one or two onto YouTube just cuz I can, and because everyone needs to hear them sing.

Here's a peek at the insert:







And here's Alex, (who recently told me that he no longer wishes to be an opera singer when he grows up) conducting and pretending to sing along.



There a few pieces from Lucia on the CD. When Alex heard the first one he recognized it! I was shocked. Not the particular song but the opera itself. He said, "Oh, this is the one with the ghost, when the ghost talks to her at the fountain." That aria isn't on it (I don't think... I honestly don't remember what everything is called!) but he wasn't referring to it. He was referring to (part of) the story of the opera. He truly amazes me.

So go to CD baby and buy this CD.

I imagine that eventually I'll get their other one. One at a time.

Hey John linked to some of my YouTube videos from his webpage. Heehee. I like that. Thanks John. Now change those colors - my eyes are wigging out!

One more thing before I sign off... I try and try to get the pictures to line up nicely, two to a line, and it looks great in the preview, but when I publish it... all hell breaks loose and they're all over the page. I tried to make it look nice, I swear!

Johnny's Discs

Several (several) posts ago I mentioned that tenor John Osborn was putting out a CD (or two!) with his beautiful-like-she-could-be-a-model and very talented wife, Lynette Tapia. Well said CDs are finally available for public consumption. Consumerism. Purchase. Whatever. You can buy them now.

One is called L'amour Consacree. Click the link and listen to the 30 second sound bytes. Nice, huh? I've never heard her sing before. She sounds to me, at the same time, bubbly yet fluid. Really a sweet sound. Of course it's hard to tell from these tiny blips of song. But some of my favorites are on there, and the bits I heard that I don't know sound wonderful too.

For the other CD, it looks like they put a filler name in while they thought up something else, but then, a la "Hey Jude," decided to go with the filler: La coppia degli acuti (The couple of the high notes). Well I must say, from listening to the 30 second clips, the CD is aptly named. And WOW! I can't wait to hear the entire thing.

Ok everyone, go out and BUY the CDs! Chrismakah is coming! Get your shopping done early! Put some spare change in the pockets of these (starving) artists!

Will Post Videos to YouTube in Exchange for Girl Drinks

Ok everyone, watch it here, but then go to YouTube and comment, rate and favorite this. Thanks.



In Chicago I had this yummy pomegranate "martini" with a slice of candied lime in it. YUM! I want another.


.

Stuck in an Expensive Rut?

I love surprises. I guess that's why I love the "all songs - random shuffle" feature of the iPod. However since some of the songs I have on there are entire acts (or more) of operas, it can be kind of dare I say, annoying, when, say, the next song is Acts 3&4 of Romeo et Juliette. On the other hand, it sort of forces you (unless you advance to the next track) to listen to something you might not ordinarily just listen to part of. Like for me, Romeo is such an emotional roller-coaster that I can't always just jump right into the middle. But today, no doubt due to my hormonal makeup, I immediately fell into the bittersweet tragic mood appropriate for the piece. Then later I watched some of the HD/PBS broadcast. Amazing how the music and the singing is so evocative.

On a related note, Johnny O, also known as John Osborn, recently sang Romeo at the Salzburg Festival in Austria and got rave reviews. I'd link to the review but I don't subscribe to the Opera Critic website. However, someone else does so I can paste the review here:

"On this evening, Roméo was sung by the American tenor John Osborn (Rolando Villazon otherwise scheduled for the remaining eight performances). Not only did the newcomer seem completely at ease with the production, but gave a performance which spontaneously brought him ovations from all parts of the house, including the orchestra. Osborn's background in Mozart and the bel canto repertoire form an ideal foundation for his undertaking in roles such as Roméo. His tone is full and appealing, his phrasing generous, and his attack immaculate - with a style and technique most reminiscent of Nicolai Gedda. Latin looks and a good stage presence complete the picture." The Opera critic, Aug 19, 2008

Yay Johnny, way to go!

Rumor has it that Mr. Osborn is back in Europe somewhere recording Clari for a DVD. Rumor also has it that he has not one but two CDs coming out very soon. I will, of course, post more rumors as they wend their way to me.

So to get back to Romeo, am I stuck in a rut of listening to the same operas over and over? Romeo, Barber, Marriage, Cosi, Carmen, Magic Flute, Traviata... I need to expand my opera horizons.

This season I'm going to two I've never seen before. Can't decide if I should read up and learn as much as I can about them beforehand or go in cold. Any thoughts or advice, Dear Readers?

Another thought was that I'd go see The Italian Girl in Algiers at Opera Philly. But tickets are so darn expensive. On the other hand, Lawrence Brownlee is in it and I'd love to see him perform live. But I'd also like to go with Husband which means doubling the price of the ticket since they probably wouldn't look favorably on me sitting on his lap. Plus a babysitter, and the prices have gone way up since I had my regular babysitting gigs in the early 80s.

I guess I just have to face it: I cannot afford to be an opera lover.

Hmm, maybe I can go alone to a matinee. Oh Husband...