Past, Present, Future

I really have no excuse for not blogging in so long. I keep having ideas of things I want to blog about, but I never seem to have them when I'm sitting in front of my computer.

So let's first do an update on Things That Have Already Happened.

Remember that contest I begged for votes for? Not the vintage cherry one. This one, to win a Meet & Greet with 30 Seconds to Mars? Well, like the vintage cherry contest, I won this one too, thanks to everyone's loyal daily voting!

Here we are in the room while Jared Leto thanked us blah blah blah.

Then we had the photos. Tomo, the "thumbs-up" guy in the black leather jacket, is the guitarist. As soon as he saw me he shouted, "OPERA SINGER!" So I gave him a big hug. Chatted with them a little, took this BORING photo...

So I asked for another, more creative pose:

This all took place before the concert, so even though we had been in the front of the line, we had no chance of getting on the barrier by the time we got into the theater. Instead we went up to the balcony and joined this row of photographers in the 1st row up there. They left after a few songs so then we had the row to ourselves!!

Next, let's have some singing updates. My last voice lesson was in March. I haven't had one since, and have been to only one coaching. I did perform, though. Here's what I did ... probably the best singing in front of people that I've ever done:



I'm thankful that I did have a chance to show this video to my voice teacher before she died.

There's a memorial for her at the end of the month. It'll be nice, I think. I've had no one really to talk to about her, I've just been mourning sort of on my own, which is very lonely. 

The other thing that's been filling my time and brain is that my son is now going to a special ed school for "smart kids with behavior challenges" ie, autism and adhd. We toured a bunch of schools, it was quite stressful. But we all like where he is now, him included. So things are settling down. I'm still doing a great deal of advocacy on his behalf with the school district over a few things, but things are getting done.

All this and I haven't really had time to sing. I sing a little, here and there, and of course in the car. But I feel like I'm losing my breath control and technique. I need a teacher. I have no idea how to find one, because I want MY teacher back. She didn't require payment up front, she understood that "life happens" and sometimes you have to cancel a lesson. I think I canceled maybe twice in the 4 years I went to her. Funny, my 1st two voice teachers sort of fell into my lap, without me looking for them. So who knows what'll happen next in my explorations.
 
More future stuff is, Met Opera tickets go on sale August 11. I want to see La Cenerentola and Die Fledermaus. It's hard to find someone to go with me though, and I don't have the money to shell out for an extra ticket in the hopes that someone will go. So I have a week to find a companion and convince them to pay now for an opera in April. Otherwise, I'm going alone. Wish me luck. I'll probably be going alone to Joyce DiDonato's recital in Princeton, but that's no big deal... just a 20 minute drive. I can eat pizza for dinner and still make it to the recital. But it's more fun when going to the Met to make it an adventure. So, we'll see!

7th Inning Stretch - Take Me Out to the Opera

When I was a teenager my mother told me that if I hung out with people who did drugs, no matter what my original intentions, eventually I'd start doing drugs with them.

That said, Husband is slowly coming around. He is actually excited to be going to the Met. Excited! He said he'd be willing to listen to Carmen beforehand, to familiarize himself with some of the music. And then yesterday when La Cenerentola was on PBS I pointed out to him that Elina Garanca, who is so adorably cute as Cenerentola, would also be singing the title role in Carmen... Well, that settled it. He has hung around with me long enough, he's finally dipping in and sampling the drug on his own. Ok ok I wouldn't go that far. He's not listening to opera with I'm not around, as far as I know. But while before he went along with me to the local performances, now he's looking forward to going. No doubt some of the prestige surrounding a performance at the Met rather than our local opera company is fueling some of his enthusiasm. I wonder if I'd feel the same about going to see the Yankees in Yankee Stadium after having been to so many games of our local Yankees AA team in the stadium down the road. Thinking about that now... nope. I get bored right around the 4th inning. Hm does this mean he'll get bored by intermission?

Ah so much to think about. Opera. Baseball. Which tickets are more expensive. Are the food and drinks more expensive and/or higher quality in the opera house or at the stadium? If you don't factor fashion into it, I think it's a toss-up.

Cenerentola - Small Glitch, Large Fun!

Cenerentola in HD was so much fun!! What a great production. It's the same production I watched last week during the free Met Player weekend, only, of course, with an entirely different cast. It was kind of cool to see it with all different people because that meant that, in spite of the music, the scenery and the costumes being the same, it was still very different because each singer brings his or her own self to the part.

The small glitch was that the people who worked in the theater didn't seem to know what they were doing. Usually during an HD broadcast, the screen is on about 30 minutes before showtime. The people in the movie theaters can watch the people find their seats at the Met, we can watch the orchestra tune up and they also show little trivia questions and ads for other HD productions. This time... nothing. At about 12:25 the lights went out completely for approximately 30 seconds, then came back up. The sound was on and then.. it began. Blank screen. Brightly lit theater. Then we got the sound. We could hear Thomas Hampson introduce the production and then he introduced the Maestro and then... it started... and still... blank screen, bright room. About 3 people went out (including me because I can move fast compared to the rest of the crowd there) to find out what was going on. There was one youngish girl on a walkie talkie trying to reach a manager... a manager type finally showed up behind the popcorn counter and said, "It's a live feed. We're waiting for it." And we were like, "Uh, it's here. Turn on your projector and shut the lights..." Finally someone got a clue and suddenly in the middle of the overture the screen came alive and the house lights went down. Hooray!

I love watching the orchestra. Usually you don't get such a close-up view of the individual musicians. I love seeing how totally absorbed they get with the music, swaying, making faces as they play and so on. I love seeing all the bowed instruments move together like a dance. This particular overture has plucky parts and it was really cool to see them all pluck at the same time. It sounds silly as I reread it but it was cool to see.

The performance was so much fun. Everyone was fabulous. Elīna Garanča (yeah I pasted her name in from wikipedia because I have no idea how to type those characters over the i and c) was so cute!! She was so pleasant to watch. And she sounded wonderful. The two sisters were HILARIOUS!!! Perfect - great sense of timing, beautiful singing, silly but not too silly - perfect.

The guys were all great too - the stepfather was ridiculous. During the intermission interview he said that he takes the ridiculous characters seriously because the characters take themselves seriously. They don't know they appear ridiculous. He was awesome.

Dandini and then of course the Prince - WOW! The Prince - Lawrence Brownlee - WOW WOW WOW! What a voice! Beautiful, like sweet liquid flowing out of him and into your ears. The moment he first sang I regretting not seeing him live in Philadelphia last fall. I'm sure I'll have other opportunities to see him live though. Gotta save my pennies and sell more earrings. And the fairy-godmother character... he's the Prince's advisor, and also, apparently, an angel come to save C. from her wretched life - that was John Relyea. He was great. We've all seen him before - he was the music teacher in the HD Barbiere with Joyce DD and JDF. Basses fascinate me - how do they sing sooooo looowww??????

I was a little distracted during the performance - see my most recent posts where I discuss feeling blue and so on - but the beautiful sounds did finally draw me out of my funk and into their crazy world. Oh and I almost forgot - things caught on fire!! On purpose, that is. Don't get all freaked out! During the thunderstorm scene the house gets struck by lightning. The rain had been leaking in the roof so C. gave the stepfather an umbrella... and... BOOM! FLASH! Umbrella ablaze! The walls caught too. You could hear the entire audience, both at the Met and in the theater, gasp. Love it! Fire. Very exciting moment. And then silly of course because the characters didn't seem to care.

Then today I had a fantabulous day with Husband and Alex - picnic in a park, hike in the woods, we saw lots of people on horseback, played on a cool playground that had a fence-maze, played in the backyard, I had a nap (hooray!!), we grilled chicken and shrimp and then we roasted marshmallows over the coals and made s'mores with spicy chocolate! YUM!!!

Next event: Vocal evaluation, this Wednesday. So far I feel pretty good about it but ask me again on Wednesday afternoon...

HD Today - La Cenerentola

Don't know if I'd classify this as an adventure, unless battling the senior set for ideal seats in the theater qualifies as one. I'm looking forward to seeing La Cenerentola today. I haven't read the reviews so I don't know if the production is more traditional or if some clever person decided to change the setting.

Husband, of course, didn't want to go, plus we have no childcare, so I'm meeting a friend from work there.

It's supposed to be hot out today. Will the theater be warm or will it be overly air-conditioned and freezing? Layers are in order. And snacks. Time to tuck snacks into my giant purse.

How Much Did You Pay for Yours?

I never understood why airline prices were so wacky. All these people on the same exact flight, and chances are some paid a lot more than others.

Today, HGO's Twitter update:

HouGrandOperaHGO loves twitter! All open seats for Sat night BRIEF ENCOUNTER for $11.25! http://tinyurl.com/pzy34d promo code NEXUS hit go&choose seats

Yeah. Can you imagine... you paid $200 for your orchestra seat. The dude two rows behind you paid... $11.25. That's less than the cheapest glass of champagne at the Balcony bar at the Met.

Speaking of the Met, why doesn't the Met ever do that? Although their $25 pool thingee isn't bad... if you get picked... and I never do...

Cenerentola in HD tomorrow!!

Wow wow wow!

The Met is giving us a free weekend of their Met Player service. So even though they're broadcasting this same opera live tonight, and I'm seeing next week in HD in the movies, I've spent the last hour or so watching La Cenerentola, with Cecilia Bartoli and Ramon Vargas. Love love love it!!! You can expand the window to your entire screen and the quality is fabulous. I wish I had more time to watch - in a perfect world, I'd be home alone the entire weekend, the weather would be horrible and I'd have no alternative but to order in Chinese food and watch opera for 72 hours straight. However, the world is not perfect, so I'll have to make do with the rest of Cenerentola and then choice snippets from the other gems there before the free period ends.

Adventures Are Afoot!

Adventures are upcoming!! Let's get excited!

1. April - Nozze di Figaro in Florida with Elizabeth Caballero as the Countess. Taking my mom. My cousin is joining us. Should be a fun evening.

2. May - La Cenerentola in HD. Once again I have to find someone to join me.

3. June - Rape of Lucretia in Philadelphia with Nathan Gunn and William Burden. And OHMYGOD I just found the most horrifying page when I did a search to link to his name. Someone is handy with photoshop, that's all I'll say. And I'm not searching again, thankyouverymuch. I think I'm traumatized, ha ha. Yet another thing to get over. Where was I? Oh yeah - Ann (Banawoman) is coming out and we're going together. I am excited to finally meet Ann in person. She has been very supportive in the situation referenced above. Dang I'm done with that... something more pleasant please ... oh I know ...I'm looking forward to seeing Nathan Gunn perform again even though I just saw him last week. I'm not so sure I'm looking forward to an opera about how a woman's life is ruined. But either way the whole event/adventure will no doubt be fun.

4. June/July - Hopefully my local opera company will need supers for one of the productions. Adult female supers. Otherwise I'll have to *gasp* pay for my tickets, and that would never do.

Ticketed

The tickets for the live HD transmissions from the Met went on sale today. I bought a pair of tickets for two performances - Lucia with Anna Netrebko in Feb and La Cenerentola in May. That spreads my opera out quite nicely:

Oct 22- Lucia at the Met - Diana Damrau!!!
Feb 2 (I think)- Lucia in the movies - Anna Netrebko!!!
Feb - Die Fledermaus, either as a super or else as a paying customer
March 24 - La Sonnambula at the Met - Juan Diego Florez!!! Natalie Dessay!!!(AAAHHHH!!!!!!! Can't wait!!!)
May 9 - La Cenerentola in the movies - Larry Brownlee - Sorry, I mean, Lawrence. I don't know him so I can't call him Larry. (well not yet, ha ha)

Now... what to do... what to do... The Gunnster is starring in The Rape of Lucretia with the Opera Company of Philadelphia. It's in a tiny theater. Tickets are available now for subscribers. So I could pay $75 to subscribe and then $95 for a ticket... or... I could wait until December when they go on sale for the Rest of Us. The theater is so small that all the seats are probably pretty good, but... 3rd or 4th row sure would be nice. On the other hand, do I want to see an opera that involves a rape and the ensuing emotional breakdown of the victim? And do I want to pay an extra $75 to guarantee that discomfort? Yeap. I think I'll wait until December, when I will then kick myself for not shelling out the extra money to get a ticket now.

Dayum, why is opera so friggin' expensive?

Ok. It's Friday. Cat pic time.


OHMYGOD what happened to the cat????
Ok that is so not a cat. It's my friend's dog Bear!! Bear-Bear, what are you doing in my house????

Let's try again:

Nope. They're not allowed on the table. Right.

Finally, I will end the post by embedding the video to which the comments here refer. Enjoy!

This is What I Saw

I already mentioned that last week Alex and I went to see the final dress rehearsal of La Cenerentola, but I never said anything about the performance itself. It was fabulous!! The costumes - so funny! The stepsisters had these huge flattened hoop skirts that had strings in them that, when pulled, raised the sides of the skirts to show their petticoats underneath. In the opening act they had these really cool red wigs, and for the ball scene the wigs were outrageously over the top! They were white and huge. One had a Marge Simpson-esq column sticking straight up - and there was a balloon in it! At one point in the story it gets popped. The other was huge and wide and had a ship, yes, a ship in it. Someone somewhere is very clever to come up with this stuff.

The music - it's Rossini, how can it be bad? It's so clever and... so fast! How can anyone sing Rossini? It sounds impossible.

Everyone in the cast was awesome - especially the woman who played Cenerentola. Leah Wool - I think that's her name. She was adorably cute and made the impossible coloraturas look easy. She was fabulous. She reminded me of Cecilia Bartoli, only (dare I say) better. Smoother, somehow. Of course I still luv Cecilia, but she has to share her throne.

I admit I couldn't give the performance the full attention it deserved because Alex was fidgeting and being restless. Other things I remember are silly, perfectly timed choreography with the music, um... the stepsisters fainting and being dragged offstage by their feet, and one scene where they're all eating spaghetti in rhythm.

So I know it's a sort of lame review, detail-wise, but my overall impression was that of fun, silliness and musical excellence.

Then today - today was the final dress for Merry Widow. After Alex's restlessness at Cenerentola I wasn't sure if I should bring him, but he said he wanted to go. I decided not to "force" him to sit through the whole thing, so we went a little late. We got there I think at the end of Act 1, when someone (since I just walked in I don't know who was who) was convincing Hannah (Jen Aylmer) to dance, and she said she didn't dance, but then he convinced her? I didn't see enough to figure out what was going on. And then the curtain came down at the end of the act. Intermission, orchestra notes... 40 minutes later... Alex is sitting, oh so quietly. I'm thinking, ok, I should have him walk around now so he can sit still when the performance continues. But he was sort of dozing off. So he sat on my lap for the next act. It was great. Hannah had an aria about... oh man I can't remember... like a wood sprite or something? And then the dancers - they were awesome! I love watching professional dancers. They flow like water. The costumes were cute. Then there was a whole lot of dialogue. Alex got bored and fidgety so we left. There was a tv monitor in the lobby so we watched the guys do a silly song-and-dance thing - Alex was laughing out loud. Suddenly he wanted to go back in - so in we went. We saw the prince (I think? again, it's hard to know since we missed the first act) try to figure out who left a fan with "I love you" written on it, and it was all very silly. But about 10 minutes later Alex wanted to leave so we did. The small bit of singing and acting that I did see seemed perfect to me, but what do I know? The singing was beautiful and not only was it all in English, but I could understand everyone without reading the projected titles. We were at the top of the theater and had no problem hearing or understanding anyone's singing or talking. It was cool to hear the characters talk - usually they're singing, right? Just like their singing voices, their speaking voices on stage are smooth and clear - it's hard to explain. Even though they're not singing, their voices have a timbre to them, not quite musical, but ... something. Very pleasant and almost bell-like. Not the same as everyday normal talking. This is frustrating because I'm sure there must be some term or proper way to describe it.

So my impression: Great comedic acting, great singing, great dancing. I'm sorry I couldn't see the entire thing but that's one of the many things about parenthood - you often don't get to do what you want. Ah well, I'm used to that.

Alex's First Full Opera - And a Lollipop

Just went for a walk around the block with Alex. Well, I walked, he raced on a Big Wheel. Singing, Zitto Zitto Piano Piano. Why? Because this afternoon we went to the final dress rehearsal of Rossini's La Cenerentola. And you know what? He did really well! For the most part. It was hard for him to sit still for three hours. He was great about whispering until the 2nd act. We were in the very top row, off to one side where there are just 2 seats. Toward the end of the very long first act we did get up and wander along the back and side. He was so good that I promised him a lollipop, and he could earn a 2nd if he continued with his good behavior.

During intermission we were invited to join the Kids Opera Camp in the lobby for a snack, and then the singer who plays Clorinda came out in full costume to talk to the kids.

Alex had a hard time keeping quiet during the 2nd act, but he usually kept it to a whisper. Twice I brought him out to explain that he had to be quiet. I told him he lost his lollipops and had to earn them back.

This is making him sound much worse than he was. For the most part he sat paying attention either on my lap, in his seat or on the ledge. In spite of that, after it ended I apologized to a man who was standing nearby. He said Alex was good except there was a point when the conductor looked back, and perhaps he's too young after all. Oversensitive me, I felt like I was punched in the stomach. My child annoyed the conductor? Was he really that loud? I felt guilty and mad at the guy for telling me that at the same time, not only for the comment about the conductor, but also about the comment about my judgement about bringing Alex. Hey, I'm allowed to judge my behavior, and I admit that perhaps I shouldn't have brought him, but this guy doesn't know my kid or how 4 year olds usually act. So on the way down the stairs I asked Alex if he felt he deserved two lollipops and he said he didn't think he deserved any! Oooh I wanted to find that dude and punch him. Momma Bear on the loose! Here's a kid who loves opera, sings on key and on pitch and wants to be an opera singer when he grows up, and how one comment from this dude makes him feel so bad about himself that he doesn't feel he deserves any lollipop! I told him that he definitely deserves one, so we went to get one. But BOY was I mad.

So if anyone who was there reads this blog, I truly apologize if Alex disturbed you during the opera rehearsal.

Why Opera Keeps me Awake

I'll always love this. I feel so lucky to have seen it performed live, just like this, with the same three singers. From La Fille du Regiment:



And then there's this, from La Cenerentola, which, now that I listen to after the Donizetti, doesn't sound that different. Rossini here, Donizetti there... A coworker of mine who Knows These Things told me that they competed in how quickly they could throw an opera together.



Here's a fun one from Barbiere, especially for those of you who like some girl-on-girl action:



Since they play catch with an orange in the above video, here's the orange's "revenge" as she sings Habanera from Carmen. I remember this from my childhood!



Now listen to this craziness. More Cenerentola. Lots of Cecelia Bartoli... her voice doesn't sound real...



This just swirls my brain. I love it! From Matilde di Shabran.



Finally, to calm us down after all that, here's something I sometimes listen to just before shutting down the computer. Yes, I know, I'm Jewish, but that doesn't mean I can't like Ave Maria, especially when Juan Diego is singing it.

SuperTastic

Just exchanged a couple of emails with the opera company super captain to remind him of my existence. He said that it looks like they'll need supers for La Traviata and The Merry Widow. Of course I wanted to be in La Cenerentola... go figure. But I'd be in all three if I could! So anyway there's a good chance that I'll be back on stage, silently, with the opera company this summer!