Two Reviews - Near and Far

Two reviews - one for something I saw, one for something I didn't see.

The "near" review is of a performance I saw.

Last night I dragged Husband out to see Westminster Conservatory's Opera Gala. It was in a very pretty and very small theater on Princeton Campus. Westminster's Community Chorus and orchestra performed, and the soloists were all voice teachers - including mine! She told me about it last week and said something about it being the first time she's performing for about 15 or 20 years. I was really so excited and thrilled to see her perform - and she was great! It was all concert staging of course. They did duets and ensembles from a variety of operas, including the opening of Magic Flute, a duet from Cosi, a chorus piece from Aida, that famous Flower Duet from Lakme (is that in a light bulb commercial? Or maybe it's for a car???) and the finale from Die Fledermaus. My voice teacher sang the part of Adele in the Fledermaus scene. She was so cute there on stage! So charming and charismatic! It was such a treat to see her perform. It was a really nice evening.

The "far," as in, far away, review, is this one. Yes, Twitter comes through again. I'll paste the relevant part here, because it hasn't (yet) shown up on this site.

Nathan Gunn confirms his “matinee idol” status as Alec. From his smooth, easeful baritone to his manner and presence, every detail projects the genteel gallantry that draws Laura to Alec. Gunn’s effortlessness and utter sincerity are what make the performance so right. His aria revealing his ambitions as a doctor enhances his heroic aura in Laura’s eyes, but the peak of Gunn’s artistry is his hushed delicacy in the boathouse scene, as he insists that he and Laura have fallen in love and they both know it.

But go to the article to read the most concise synopsis I've seen yet about the opera. There's also a nice photo.

First of Three

I have three things to catch up on:

1. My most recent voice lesson
2. That outdoor concert
3. Sunday's rehearsal

So....in this post I will discuss....


1. My Most Recent Voice Lesson:

Had a make-up lesson Saturday morning in one of the practice rooms at Westminster. Like the space so much better than the 6th grade math classroom the lessons have been in so far! With it's "Black Holes are God's Way of Dividing By Zero" banner across the board... yes it's a Catholic school. Yes I'm Jewish. Yes it's vaguely disconcerting to me to be surrounded by crucifixes and other Catholic symbols but I've gotten used to it. So anyway... wow I digress a lot... so Saturday we were in the practice room. The sound was great! My teacher told me that I did really well at the studio class - I didn't realize that this was my first time seeing her since then. Then we did some vocal exercises - one of my favorites where I sing See-YAAAA Ahh ahhh ahhh all legato... I think it jumps up a fifth (?) from see to yaaa and then down in, what, 3rds? I don't know... but it's so much fun to do. She always tells me to "Let loose, sing like an opera singer" and so I do and it sounds great and then I laugh and have to stop because I can't believe it's me singing like that. Then there's usually a point where I don't let myself slide up to the YAAA note for whatever mental block reason and I have a pause between the two notes. It's like I don't feel like I can control the slide to stop at the right note, although I can just hit the note. I think it's the C. I try not to peek at the piano but sometimes I do. So I KNOW I can hit the note, I just have to trust that I can slide into it from below. Anyone out there have any tips for overcoming that mental thing?

So we moved on from there and started "Ouvre Ton Coeur," which meant first checking the IPA, meaning, I copied it onto my copy of the music, then we went over the words and how to pronounce them, back and forth, a word and then a phrase at a time, then the rhythm, chant chant chant to get the words with the right number of beats, then she played the tune on the piano without us speaking the words at all. I recorded it all and have been listening to each part. I'm forcing myself to be comfortable with each aspect before I seriously try to put it all together. I have problems with the pronunciation once I try singing it. And I took French all through college - you'd think it'd be easy for me.

So I have one more make-up class to do over the summer, probably at my teacher's house.

Voice Evaluation!! EEK!

I realized that with all the Juan Diego excitement I've neglected to write about my voice lessons.

We've put "Una Donna..." on the back burner, because in two weeks (TWO WEEKS!) I have a voice evaluation. I have a suspicion this is to evaluate my teacher too... so anyway I have to sing two songs for I think 3 or 4 people from the Conservatory (That's Westminster, for anyone who's asking) and then they tell me what's wrong OOPS I mean they'll give me suggestions. So my teacher and I discussed it and decided on 'Lasciatemi Morire' and 'Goodnight My Someone.' I think GMS is a sort of goofy song but it's good acting practice - how sincere can I sound?! It's also hard! It's sort of too low, but not really. It's in a range that coincides with a break in my voice so it's challenging. So in that sense it's not goofy at all. I've been practicing specific vocal exercises to help with the transitions, caressing the notes, and it's helping. They like being caressed. For LM, we realized that we never went over the ornamentation in the last two sections, so I've been practicing them. It's all about the timing - the piano accompaniment has some sections that are hard for me to maintain the correct rhythm, and then when the next parts come around I'm not always in sync with the music and I have to either stretch out or cut a note short. One day I'll try to record a video of me singing it. Until then, here's a similar version from about a hundred years ago. I don't sing it quite like this. I think she sounds like she's got a mouthful of marbles or something. We go a bit faster too. But hey, you can see the music, and that's kind of cool.