Double Cross-Dressing

Once again I find myself apologizing for the huge gap in posting. Last month was a little hectic, but things have finally calmed down enough for me to catch up. And guess what? I sang in a concert and I’m actually not disgusted with my performance! I mean, yeah, of course I hear all the mistakes, but I’m pretty pleased for the most part. Here, decide for yourself.



And yes, as you see, this is my “alternate” youtube account, because once again EMI has made copyright claims on the 30 Seconds to Mars videos I posted. I filed the same response as I did last time. If/when my Luindriel account is reinstated, I’ll quickly change the descriptions on all the Mars videos.

But back to the concert. I played Cherubino in drag in another scene, dressed as a girl from the village bringing flowers to the Countess. That was fun because I got to act, hiding behind other girls while they shoved me to the front, and then they spun me down the line to end the song with me presenting the flowers to the Countess on the last beat of the music.

I also sang in the chorus for scenes from Die Fledermaus, Madame Butterfly, Dido & Aeneas and The Mikado. If videos of any of those scenes show up anywhere, I’ll post links.

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?

Love These Reminders

The YouTube comments ebb and flow. Some make no sense. Some are in French, Italian and so on. Today, though, someone posted the following comment on the Papageno video: (sorry, can't link at the mo' b/c I'm at work and YouTube is blocked. Obviously Blogger isn't!)

I cannot thank you enough for posting these incredible videos of Nathan Gunn. He truly is one of THE GREATEST operatic baritones of our generation. He'll certainly become a legend! I think his Papageno is by far the best! I love your channel so much I just subscribed to it! A million thanks!

I've said it a gagillion times before, give or take a few million: This is what it's about. Sharing the music. Sometimes even I need that reminder.

Spreading It

Spreading what? The joy, of course.

Remember the person who went out and bought Magic Flute after seeing the clips I posted to YouTube? Well she finally had a chance to get together with her friends and watch it. She sent me a great note which, with her permission, I am sharing with you.

The tale actually starts yesterday morning in my italian language lab. We were playing a game where the TA types your favorite song or artist into youtube's search function, and then the class guesses who picked that song or person.

Normally I have halfway-decent control over my actions, but when Francesca typed in "Nathan Gunn," I lost it completely. I couldn't help grinning and correcting everybody, "no, e una opera". . . "il flauto magico". . . "don't stop the clip!" And besides the fact that my behavior was ridiculous, everybody already knew that I liked opera, and a few remembered that I had mentioned (well, shouted) his name in class a couple of times before, so no one had ANY trouble figuring out that he was my favorite singer. Whether they managed to say so with correct italian grammar is another matter entirely.

Then that evening was Glee Club's first Friday Night Fun, where we were supposed to meet to watch "The Magic Flute." Unfortunately, only four people showed up, including myself. But we all enjoyed it thoroughly, and once again I displayed my geekdom to an unbelievable degree, gushing over the singers' diction, resonance, vibrato, and perfect cutoffs. And since my friends are also voice-studying choir geeks themselves, they agreed with me heartily. Oh, and we were suitably amazed by the puppets, costumes, and set. Holy God. Normally I don't notice those things very much, but I was blown away.

After we watched, of course, I asked everyone if they were now Nathan Gunn fans, and while their responses were not quite as enthusiastic as I had hoped, they were all impressed and agreed that he sounded beautiful and was probably quite good-looking without the feathers, strange makeup, and bird hat.

In other spreading-the-fandom-of-Nathan-Gunn news, I sent two clips to my new
opera-loving friend (C'est Moi and Au Fond du Temple Saint), and she is definitely now a fan, although probably not quite as rabid as others I might mention. And there will be many more group viewings of "The Magic Flute," because I have talked it up to everyone I know, and most expressed interest. Personally, I would like to watch it again tonight, but I had a rehearsal and concert that took up all day, plus two papers to write and another rehearsal tomorrow, so I will have to postpone it. But I am sure that I will watch it at least a couple dozen more times this year.

*********************

Just laughing because suddenly I feel like some bizarre cult leader. People come to me for gunninfo (and I don't have it!!nor do I want it) and also to jump and squeal with excitement when they "discover" him. I can relate - I've been there - but I'm well beyond the jumping and squealing stage (plus jumping would be dangerous these days without the right kind of sports top...) so I just smile and nod until they calm down.

Funny too, this evening I was thinking that I wanted to write in the blog but really had nothing to say. Then *poof* three minutes later Amanda's message arrived. I wonder if I can work that (magic flute) magic with anything else?

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!

It Happened Again

The YouTube person who alerted me to the Vanishing Video of the previous post just moments ago left this comment on my profile there:

Thank you sooooo much for posting the Magic Flute playlist! I was so enchanted that I bought the dvd from Amazon immediately. Nathan Gunn (whom your videos introduced me to) fans of the world unite!

Edited to add: Got another comment from the same person:

Oh, by the way, I have shared the fact that I bought the dvd with my school's opera club and glee club, so there will be a lot more NG fans soon!

Not sure why I'm sharing this. But there it is. Go see all the videos before they all vanish!

Triplets, Quadruplets, Vanishings and More

Voice lesson tonight. Guess what? Those sets of notes I was calling triplets, and loving, well... ha they're not! Duh. I'm not loving triplets. I'm loving two 16th notes and an 8th note, apparently. Attached. With a bar. And a little curve. Well, whatever you call them, I'm still loving them. Worked on not sneaking that "h" sound in, on caressing the notes, on what (meaning, who) to think about while singing. Choices, choices, so many choices! Hahahaha. Anyway... I wonder how many other errors I'll make in postings about this song?

Next week I'll be in Florida and the week after that is Spring Break for the music school, so no lesson until mid-April!! And we're going to start a Schubert song. Don't ask me which one. It's on page 76 of the book so go look yourself. Heh.

On to the Vanishing - One of the Magic Flute videos!! Vanished!! From YouTube!! With no explanation!! Look!!



What a shame. I liked that one a lot. If I find the clip on my computer I'll alter it a little and try to repost. Otherwise I won't be able to get to it until after I return from Florida. But that green frame is nice, no?

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

Trolling About

Feeling a little bored this evening so I'm poking about YouTube on the Nathan Gunn videos that other people have posted to see if there are any new comments since the last time I looked. I do this every 6-8 weeks or so. Sometimes I direct people to my channel or blog. Sometimes after seeing a video too many times I notice things that I never noticed before, like Nathan removing a stray hair or something from his mouth at about 3:26 in this. Actually Banawoman had pointed that out to me but my memory being what it is, I forgot.

Not quite sure why this video of mine comes up when I do the "sort by date added" on the Nathan Gunn search on YouTube. Any ideas on that? Anyone?

Now, if you go to YouTube and do a search on Nathan Gunn, you do need to weed through some of the non-Gunnster Gunn videos. For example, there is a Nathan Gunn out there who is some sort of religious leader. He goes on missions around the world. He posts videos. Those videos interfere with my searches for the REAL Nathan Gunn videos. Next you'll get Slither. Do you want Slither? I don't think so. But there's a Nathan Fillion and a James Gunn and they're always listed together so Slither always comes up. I have learned to put "-slither" on any google searches I do. Sometimes those guys still come up in the results, possibly because they've worked on other, non-slither projects together. And for the record, I have no idea what slither is, and I don't care. Then there are other random Gunn videos out there, but they're not OUR Gunnster.

One video that won't come up is this one. He's not in the tags or description. In fact, I came across this totally randomly when I was searching for different Despinas doing Una Donna. It came up in the related section and, ardent fan that I am, I recognized him from the tiny thumbnail picture for the video. Kind of makes you wonder how many other untagged videos there are of our favorites out there. He wasn't tagged in this one at first, but someone mentioned it in the comments of another video (don't ask me which because that I don't remember) and I put a comment suggesting that the video owner put him in the tags. If you do click that link, you have to get through the bariatric surgery scenes, but hang in there, it's worth it, I promise. And if you like interviews, you can also look here. You'll get a fair share of performance in that too.

That's all for now. Stay tuned for updates after tomorrow's voice lesson and Friday's solo operatic adventure to Die Fledermaus.

Off I Go

I'm going to Florida tomorrow and won't be back until Monday. Here's some stuff to hold you over until then. This is all part of my "sing like no one is listening" attempt.

Yet another video of this. I never give up.



And this:



There's one more... if only I could get it to upload. But if you click through those to YouTube (and you should, so you can rate and comment... PLEASE comment with suggestions!!!) you'll see the other. If it ever uploads. Otherwise, you can see it here:
Still Singing Like No One Is Listening - Vedrai Carino



Finally, something professional. I love love love this:

What day is it? It's Friday, right?

Having two weeks in a row with all these days off has totally mixed me up, day-wise. But I do believe that it's Friday. Did I say Happy New Year yet? If so, here it is again. Happy New Year! Vocally, this year I resolve to sing like no one is listening. I want to really practice on putting out that full sound that I know I can produce. I can do it sporadically but I want to do it consistently at all ranges. Is that too much to ask?

The last couple of days I've been tossing slide-show videos together in iMovie. Here are the results:



and



Of course you should click through to see the full descriptions, rate, add to favorites and comment.

And just so this comes up in people's Google searches: Nathan Gunn. YouTube. You Tube. There. That should stop people from always ending up here when they google that.

Cat pic time. I promised Viola this week, if I recall. Too bad. I have this silly one to post instead and it features Diego.

Yeah, Whatever. Butter.

Yeah, ok. So I posted the video from the Kennedy Center thing. I'm not into this musical theater hokeyness, but his voice is like butter. Or chocolate. Butter and chocolate melting together? Anyway, I'm not going to embed it so click on the link if you want to see it.
YouTube
MySpace

Happy New Year!

Christmas Eve Traditions

Last year on Christmas Eve Alex asked to hear Just Before Sunrise. My brother-in-law broke out the scotch and we had a tasting. Who knew that JBS was perfect background music for scotch?

This year we're not seeing my BIL until tomorrow, so we had to do our own Nathan Gunn tasting at home. Wait that didn't come out right... ahem... what I meant was, well, you know what I mean. Instead of scotch this year, we had bourbon. It seems so hard core! Bourbon! Like my voice should suddenly go all scratchy or something.



So we started with select scenes from Camelot:



And moved on to Romeo:

Nathan Gunn as Mercutio in Romeo et Juliette: Mab


and then Pearl Fishers:
(and what's with the the Lyric taking the video down and just leaving us with the slide show???)



And finally Magic Flute:



I think I like Christmas Eve. And I just want to add that I have the best husband in the world! He sits and watches all these NG videos with me. I mean, come on. How many husbands would do that? He's a Good Man.

Not such a lull...

All that talk of inappropriate talk and then I come across this. Well someone pointed it out (thanks, facebook) but I won't say who. Um, might not want to watch this one at work, in front of the kids or, well, you get the idea. Pretty funny, don't ya think?

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.

New Link

I've mentioned before that if you like All Things Goofy, visit Christian Van Horn's website, listen to the audio, read the blog and request a postcard. However, until now you had to hunt through the blog to find out how. Looks like Mr. VH finally got it together, created himself a gmail account and made it even easier for people to give him an excuse to get out the exacto-knife and scotch tape. Just do it!

I made the link into it's own click over there on the right ----->
And no, no matter how many people click-n-request, I will not contribute to his postage fund. You asked for it, Mr. VH! HAHAHAHA!

Actually this reminds me of something else I've been thinking about. I mentioned in a prior post that I'd be willing to throw a slide show together of him for YouTube. Then I got to thinking, why? Why would I do this for someone who I don't know and have only heard sing in the tracks on his web page?

That thought simmered in my brain on a back burner.

Later that same day I was thinking about college. I was very much involved in my college radio station. I was a DJ one year, but mostly I was behind the scenes. I started in the Production Department, helping to write and record Public Service Announcements and advertisements for the different radio programs. Then I became Promotions Department Manager, which meant I organized the benefit concerts with the local bands, promoted the station with t-shirts, buttons and other paraphernalia and tried to recruit new members. That local band scene was tons of fun. Everyone at the station promoted the local musicians. We did what we could - we went to countless shows in all sorts of questionable locations (Meaning, the Court Tavern in New Brunswick), we played them on the radio and hired them for concerts whenever we could. I was musing about that and vaguely reminiscing when I realized that my enthusiasm for making these videos of Nathan Gunn, John Osborn and now Mr. VH is not that different than what I did in college. Well, except for the music, the fashion and the price of admission...

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.


.

All The Numbers

So now I have a vague idea of how many people read La Cieca. Here are the YouTube stats on that video:

Clicks URL

390 http://parterre.com/

109 http://parterre.com/?p=1287

2 http://parterre.com/?tag=youtube

Let's see, that's uh... 501? Just from his page, just in one day. Even if everyone watched it twice (which I doubt) that's still over 250. The video itself has 645 views.

Thanks, La Cieca!

Hmm that means that hundreds of people have seen my messy living room. Ok so... that's a New York Yankees blanket on the floor. I put it there because I was attempting to do pilates (that didn't last) and figured it'd be more pleasant to lie on a fleecy surface. So pleasant that I almost fell asleep... The big cardboard box in the middle of the floor I brought home from work last week so we could make it into a car. We never did put the paper-plate wheels on but it had a radio and a cup-holder. There are big plastic bins around where we attempt to contain things but unless he's asleep or not home the containment fields are continuously breached. Umm... couldn't find Mr Potato Head's nose (even though we have 2) so that upper mouth is actually a nose. A mouth nose. He doesn't have two mouths - that would be silly. Oh and that looks like a giant "husband" pillow hanging off the couch, and the futon is practically sliding off the frame because a certain someone in the house likes to jump on it even though it's against the rules. So his love of opera does not prevent him from dumping his toys all over the room and jumping on the couch. Just like the rest of us opera-lovers, right?

So now would be a good time to report Alex's latest musical comment. We were listening to Barbiere in the car - La Calumnia. It's a bass part. Alex said, "This music is far down inside him." I asked him to clarify - did he mean, far down, like, a low note, or far down in his body?
"I mean in his pipes, where they connect. They must connect far down in his body."
Meaning, his throat. I thought that was interesting. Then we played "find the coloratura" and identified when the singers were singing "jumpy" coloratura and when it was regular operatic singing. Easy peasy. Then we got to Target, where I ran in to get 1 thing and spent $98. There's a reason we call it the hundred dollar store...

Today Alex started singing this. The reason I mention it is because about 2 weeks ago he asked to see that video about 20 times in a row, no kidding. Then that was it... until today when he started singing it. All afternoon. And now it's stuck in my head. A catchy little ditty but still...

And speaking of still -

I'm still debating on the Lucretia tickets. I just went here and typed in,

Should I pay the extra $75 and get the opera ticket now?

And the answer: My sources say no.

Humph. What do its sources know anyway.

Round Round Get Around

Parsifal alerted me to La Cieca's latest blog entry. Look who it is! He's like, an icon for the future of opera.

Now I'll just keep checking back obsessively to see the comments.

Ok, gotta run and see if there are more than 6, where the comment count was the last time I checked.

Sparking a Memory

I do still love YouTube, even if some of my videos ended up in the YouTomb.

The following set of videos are set to not allow embedding, so here are the links. Aren't they nice?

To clarify and to avoid confusion, the videos listed are NOT from the production I was in. They just remind me of it, more than any of the others on YouTube, and trust me, there are tons.

Ok, so, first watch this one.
Then follow with this one.
Finally, number 3.

I'm glad to see the beginning part of #3 because when I was in it this summer, I always missed it as I traveled down through the tunnels and passageways from the stage to the green room. By the time I got there, Violetta was just about where the video is at 2 1/2 minutes. I wish I could have seen it from the house instead of on the tiny tv monitor. Maybe some more videos of this summer's production will make their way onto the internet. (Yes, that's a hint to anyone who has them, reads this and is holding out!)