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.

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.

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!