Almost Forgot!! Jawas in Don Giovanni!

How could I forget to post this most important thing about Don Giovanni???

At several points during the performance, a monk-like figure would silently walk across the balcony at the back of the stage. Then there were monks at the end too. Monks... in exactly the same outfits I wore as a monk when I supered in Romeo.



Of course my exact robe probably wasn't on stage, since I'm just 5 feet tall and I think these were all guys, but it was from the same set. And now I see that yes, we did look like Jawas. And so did they.

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...

Deleted!

Argh! All the Magic Flute and Romeo videos have been removed from my YouTube account. The opera house finally caught up with me. Here's hoping YouTube doesn't delete my account all together...

Hmm. Nathan Gunn refers to the Magic Flute videos on his website. Maybe I should let him know... Hmm... Love and Other Demons opens tonight... not the best timing...

*thinking, thinking*

The Birth of a Picture

Well, it took 9 months, but I finally got a copy of that picture that was taken in December at the Met after seeing Romeo. The person whose camera it was on cropped the pic to just show me. Not sure why.... But here I am, glowing with the post-opera happiness. Of course this was before I got car sick in the limo on the way home... good thing I shopped, that bag came in handy...



That picture looks disturbingly like this one of me from last Halloween, minus the blackened nose and whiskers...




And that very nicely leads us to ... CAT PIC FRIDAY!

Here are Viola and Dear Departed Sebastian, when they were kittens. Viola has the white paws and her eyes are open.



And here's Diego when HE was a kitten:

I knew them when...

Here are some of the people who participated in the local opera company's Summer Season last year. Of course I'm only mentioning the singers who didn't ignore the supers, ha ha.

Zulimar Lopez on YouTube: Remember? She stole the show here. She came in 2nd in the Met Council Auditions for her region, but she should have won first place.



and




Jenni Bank's professional page. She's the curly-haired person mentioned here. Oh and you can see her here:



and here:


Glorivy Arroyo is very involved with Opera Boston Underground.

Oh look here's Manon Strauss Evrard singing Juliette in Romeo last year. I wonder who put this up. And I wonder why she doesn't have a professional web page. None that I can find, anyway, and isn't that the point?



and


There are others very much worth mentioning, but that's all for now.

Another Take on Romeo

How beautiful is this???!!!



Thanks to the person who alerted me to this video!

Johnny Do You Copy? ....over....

This is a test of the friendly blogger system. Testing to see if John O is reading the blog. So instead of sending a message through the regular channel, I'll post it here... Johnnnnn.... question for you....

Do you know if this summer's R&J will be broadcast on any airwaves? One with you, not that other guy. A couple people have asked... why they ask me, I don't know... (read my prior post on not knowing...) So do you happen to know?

So here's the test part: Post a comment but put something in it so I'll know it's you... like... ok I know... That night we hung out, what article of clothing did I find on my way out of the opera house, what color was it, and how did it travel from the opera house to the bar? I don't think I blogged about it, and I think Husband was the only one I told. And we all know he doesn't read the blog...

If you don't read the blog, well, then forget it.

Over and out.

Eyes and Shoes

Had an eye doc appointment yesterday. The doc asked if I've noticed any changes in my vision, and I mentioned that I was at the opera in February and had a hard time reading the supratitles.While we were waiting for my pupils to dilate we chatted a little. Turns out he saw Romeo last summer. Called it the the Florsheim Opera. Sadly, I knew exactly what he was talking about. The costumes were beautiful, but the guys all wore modern shoes. I guess the audience noticed! Told him to look for me in La Traviata this summer - I'll be the silent one.

Check out the pupils! (yes, I can take a picture of myself with my iPhone while practically blind...)

Video, take, oh... whatever

Finally obtained the technology to cut clips from DVDs. More to follow, but here's what I've done so far:



and




So I deleted the short, poor-quality clips... sorry to anyone who tried to watch them a few posts back...

So go to YouTube, rate and comment!

What's all the Fuss About? Oh Yeah I Remember!

I can finally share a bit of my Romeo experience at the Met. Sort of. In a low-quality, fuzzy buzzy kind of way.

A coworker burned a DVD of Romeo for me. Of course my computer at work, which has the video snag program that lets me cut bits out, won't read the dvd. My computer at home won't even run the "grab" program while the DVD player is running! So... back to old fashioned aiming the hand-held at the screen for 30 second shots here and there.

Like here:



And here:



and here:



And here:

Ah Leve-toi, soleil

The Met's Romeo was (actually, is, but I'm recording it) on Great Performances on PBS today. I watched the first half. Decided to save the floating bed and so on until tomorrow. I got weepy during Ah leve-toi, soleil of all things. Why? It's opera, that's why. Sometimes the music just triggers something and the next thing I know everything is blurry because there are tears in my eyes. Roberto Alanga is a great Romeo. He is Romeo. Don't know how he's able to convince me that he's a 13 or 14 year old boy, but somehow he pulls it off.

I posted a message to my moms' group that everyone should watch. One person replied and made fun of me. I know she's just teasing, but most of them think my love of opera is just strange.

They have no idea what they're missing.

Romeo Still Makes Me Cry

Here I am alone on New Year's Eve... well, not exactly. True, Jim is out overnight at a party that I'd rather not be at... but Alex is here after all... with a fever... and a cold... and what appears to be pinkeye. This leads to opera, I promise...

So he hasn't napped for over a year, but today he took a 90 minute nap, then he asked to go to bed early. He woke up about an hour later and was pretty wide awake, so I sat him on my lap in front of the computer while I played Scrabble on Facebook (it's my other addiction!) and we listened to the Met's live broadcast of Romeo. Alex finally went to bed and I listened to the rest on headphones.

So I've heard this opera dozens of times... yet I still cry at the end.

Tonight Matthew Polenzani was Romeo. I've heard him dozens of times since he's Tamino on that ever-famous English Magic Flute Alex used to watch every day. He was fabulous tonight. What a beautiful voice, like flowing water.

I listed through the curtain call. Most of the cast was gone by then- only 4 or 5 came out for curtain calls. That's odd - I thought they all always did. I guess I was wrong.

I didn't get to hear Nathan Gunn's first aria because the laptop wasn't cooperating... grrr.... Even though I have three different recordings of it, it's just different when you know it's live. It's like watching gymnastics in the Olympics - there's that tension that anything can happen.

My online friend who likes Anna Netrebko flew to NYC from Barcelona to see the performance tonight. I'm sure he had a great time. I'm envious!

If only I had unlimited funds, I'd go to the opera all the time.

Happy New Year to all. It's 11:15 and I'm going to bed.

Romeo AGAIN!

Off to the movies today to see the encore of yesterday's live HD transmission from the Met! Listened to most of it at Mark and Kara's house yesterday.

Quick story - Kara hired Ella's Music Together teacher to do a sample class during the party yesterday. It was nothing compared to Alex's class at Westminster Conservatory. Alex left after 10 minutes and went upstairs. I followed and was listening to the broadcast while Jim took Alex to the bathroom... then he told Jim that he doesn't want to go back downstairs, he wants to stay upstairs and listen to the opera. That's my boy!

Ok, where was I? Men in tights... more

So let's talk about the costumes. The Capulets were all in red, the Montagues in some version of blue. Romeo, as I mentioned before, was in these skin-tight aqua pants with matching boots. Mercutio was in turquoise tights with some kind of skirty jacket thing. Juliet wore beautiful gowns of course.

More about Nathan's performance... if I didn't already write this before... He was totally into it, like he BECAME a teenager out for a rumble. With his flouncy shirt and his hair flopping in his face... well the word rakish comes to mind. The fight scene was awesome. Interestingly, all the other men came out for that scene with their shirts buttoned up, but his was halfway open and opened even more during the scene. Then after Mercutio was stabbed, it crossed my mind that I was in the same room as Nathan Gunn, and he was laying sweaty on the floor with his shirt half off. It was a very big room... but lest I digress into more behavior more fitting for a 16 year old than a 40 year old...

One more point before I go to bed.

During some of the interludes they projected an image onto the curtain with some Latin words on it. Well, Denise majored in Latin at Princeton (wow) and Stan has studied it. With his binoculars he was able to read it. The top part was something used as filler for when they want to use up space - sort of a nonsense phrase. The part around the bottom said something silly, which of course I don't recall right now because they were talking about it in the limo ride home and I was concentrating on not getting car sick (I failed). But it was obviously some sort of inside joke by whoever made the image. I'll find out what it said and will post it eventually.

Ok now off to bed. More to come in dribs and drabs.

More on those Men in Tights...

Here we are at Part 2 of ? of my ramblings about last night.

Let's talk about the stage.

Did I mention the celestial theme? Ok so the stage had this raised circular dais and THAT had a circular inset that rotated and ramped in any direction. It was cool b/c at some points it would slowly rotate, or else it would ramp up, and they changed it for different scenes. Ok so on this they'd sometimes project a circular map of the stars, I'm sure it has a name, and it would slowly rotate. They also had that against the back wall at some points. Above the stage they had an orrery, which is a model that shows the planets in the solar system in their relative positions as they move. I couldn't really see it except when part of it dipped below the curtain swag thing, but you could see the shadows on the stage as the planets moved. The shadows included not just the planets but the bars attaching them to the device. They also had clockworks, I think near the end, in one corner, also in a circular piece.

Agh must go to bed... will continue... tomorrow.

Enchanted Evening, Men in Tights

*Sigh.* What a fabulous time I had yesterday! Where to begin, where to begin... I know anyone who's reading (and at least one person does b/c he or she posted a comment asking how it was) will want to know about the opera itself, but patience, reader(s), patience.

I took the train from Hamilton at 3:11. Denise, Stan and Kevin got on at New Brunswick at about 3:30 and I wandered through the cars looking for them. Not too fond of going in between the cars while the train is moving! But I found them and it was fun to all sit together for the ride. At Penn Station, Kevin and I decided to walk while Denise and Stan were going to take a cab. It was cold but I'm so glad I walked! I experienced sensory overload within 10 minutes. So many people, so many lights, constant noise, it was amazing! It'd been a long time since I'd been to NYC but it doesn't seem to have changed much!

When we got to Lincoln Center we found Denise et al in the Met Lobby. They got there about 10 minutes before we did. We went to the shop and fiddled about until dinner.

Dinner was at the Grand Tier, the restaurant at the Met. Very fu-fu (or is that, fru-fru?) and very yummy. And, of course, very expensive, but well worth it. I had the duck breast with some kind of fancy delicious sauce, parsnip gratin, huckleberrys and mashed butternut squash. Denise and I shared a dessert of a mixed cookie plate - simply divine.

Our seats were in the balcony and I had to do a mad dash up two flights of stairs after using the bathroom on the grand tier level, where the 5 minute warning bell went off while I was still on line! But I made it...

Ok, ok, on to the opera itself!

It. Was. Fabulous.

The music, the costumes, the stage, oh and did I mention the singing?

Anna Netrebko was absolutely stunning. When she first began to sing it brought tears to my eyes and I realized what it must have been like for my grandfather back in Kiev over 100 years ago when he snuck into the opera house there. She was perfect. At times I thought I was listening to a recording, then I had to remind myself that no, she's right there, doing this right now, live. She was the perfect Juliette, one I believe will be used as an example for anyone else who plays the role. Roberto Alagna was Romeo. I thought he'd be too old but he must be a good actor - he convinced me that he was a teenager in love! They were great together.

Nathan Gunn was great, as usual, although sometimes a bit too quiet. In my opinion the audience did not cheer enough after Mercutio's aria, but I think they were saving all their energies for Alagna and Netrebko. The fight scene was awesome! I couldn't decide if I should use the binoculars or watch the whole thing. I went with the binocs and had a great view of all the perfectly choreographed moves. I was hoping for fake blood but I guess that would be too messy.

After the intermission, which I spent on line for the ladies room, the scene opened to the famous floating bed. There was much more of Alagna than I ever wanted to see, and believe me I had already seen enough with those sea-green skin-tight disco pants he wore - they left nothing to the imagination, and I didn't want to imagine in the first place... but here we are in the bedroom, they're crawling all over each other half-dressed on this elevated bed and singing at the same time! It was amazing. It felt vaguely peeping-tomish to use the binoculars!

I still need to talk about the stage, the costumes, the lighting, the rest of the opera, the curtain call... all in due time.

Romeo Tomorrow!

Well it seemed like it would never get here, and now, tomorrow is Romeo at the Met. I have my outfit figured out (except for the earrings, go figure) and the travel and dinner arrangements are made. The ticket is in my wallet and my purse is planned and put together with what I'll need. So now, ironically, given the name of my blog, I'm wondering how I'm going to manage to stay awake! I'm too tired to be excited. Hopefully tomorrow the opposite will be true.

Less than a week...

...until Romeo at the Met! I will, of course, post my impressions of the evening, no doubt starting with the train ride into the city! We have reservations at the swank restaurant at the Met, The Grand Tier, at 6, and the opera starts at 8. Denise hired a limo to take us all directly to our homes afterwards. It's going to be an expensive night but well worth it! There are 6 or 7 of us total. I only know 2 of them so it should be interesting!

Voice lessons are going along swimmingly. I'm working on mastering the ornamentation in Star Vicino. I can actually listen to the recordings of the lessons without cringing! Still waiting for the vestiges of this sore throat to go away before I make another embarrassing web cam recording to post here. Just listened to the one I put in my previous post... Argh how screechy. But I'm leaving it there because as far as I know, pretty much no one reads this but me, and if anyone does see it, well, who cares?

I was listening to the podcasts on Nathan Gunn's website the other day. It's him talking about Just Before Sunrise and also about his own history with music. He mentioned something that one of his teachers told him - you just gotta let go and sing and not worry about what anyone else is thinking. I do that with so many other aspects of my life, so I'm going to try to apply that to singing. I already do that when I sing alone in the car... don't we all?

Oh no!

Today I found out that Nathan Gunn has pulled out of Romeo for the first 5 peformances due to illness. I've got certain connections on the investigation for me to find out what's going on, if he's ok, etc. Laryngitis most likely but who knows? He probably already had an inkling when he replied to my email last week about his website. Poor guy - really - besides breaking a contract and losing out on the salary, he's probably incredibly disappointed, as are his fans. I can't imagine how I'd feel in that situation - guilty, disappointed, sad, angry... Plus his website is a mess right now...

Luckily as of now he's still scheduled to be in it on the day I'm going. The Romeo lead also pulled out for a different illness.

I know it's selfish but I sure hope I don't fly all the way to Chicago to see him and JDF only to have one or both be sick. That would stink. (I'd use stronger language but I'm trying to keep it professional, heh heh.)

Bedtime once again.

Just In Time!

Met tickets went on sale yesterday. Denise was planning on going to the box office to get some but didn't get around to it. This morning I checked and the Dec 12 R&J was almost sold out! The section we wanted was and the best available was the balcony. So she called. The woman on the phone at first told her that they didn't have 5 seats together. Denise asked her in the most desperate way if there was any way at all to get 5 together, and the woman suddenly found some! We're in the center section but all the way off to one side, three seats in row F and 2 in row E. Or is that three in E and two in F? They're right behind each other which is better than 5 in a row. I'm looking forward to it! Just have to figure out what to wear!! It'll be interesting to compare the Met's production with this summer's.

On another note, I heard back from Manon after I removed the R&J videos from YouTube:

Don't worry, I am not upset at all. I appreciated the initiative. It is very nice of you to understand my situation.
merci beaucoup,
manon.

And now before opera keeps me awake again, I'm off to bed, early for a change.