Merry Merry!

It's Christmas Eve and here I am blogging. Why? Because I'm Jewish, that's why! Well, really because I'm finally not too tired or busy to sit at the computer and attempt to string two words together.

Last week my voice lesson was canceled due to SNOW!!!! Big piles of fun fluffy snow. I spoke with my teacher and she said we'll have enough time to get Batti Batti into shape before the recital at the end of January. And I have been practicing! I have been singing it without consonants. I have been singing it while consciously dropping my jaw down, down, down. I have been forcing my shoulders down. I sang it in the yoga tree pose. I've sung it while bent over and hanging down to touch my toes. I have been employing the Julia Child technique to keep the resonance. I want to be ready, I want to nail it.

I've also been trying to teach myself La ci darem la mano. The duet starts about 3 min into that video. You can also see it here, although they need to work on their diction. Ahem.

If only I knew a baritone to sing it with... For now I sing along with whatever recording I have handy - one in the car, one in the house, etc. Perhaps I can slowly teach myself all of Zerlina, wouldn't that be interesting. Hm. I have no idea how to learn or perform recits. I never even thought about it, really. I once had a friend who was a teaching assistant for a Mozart Recit class in a University in the Midwest, that's the closest I've come to it. An entire semester on just recits. So is that something I can teach myself? I doubt it... But I'm not ready for that yet anyway. This recit thing is just a train of thought here.

Work chorus thing happened. It was the same as last year. They asked me to get in front of the microphone. It didn't always work out that way. It didn't matter. We all had fun and even got a free lunch at a swanky restaurant out of it.

My final thought of the evening: I've been offered a free ticket to see Don Pasquale at the Dallas Opera on Feb 24. A free ticket to see Nathan Gunn sing some pretty music. This ticket possibly comes with a post-performance trip backstage. But either way... I have enough frequent flyer miles to do it. I've found a reasonably-priced hotel within a mile of the opera house. The problem is, I'm going to see La Fille at the Met on Feb 22. Husband teaches on the evening of Feb 23 so we'd run into the same old childcare issue. So if I went, it'd have to be the day of. We all know how snow can interfere with travel plans. I'd much rather get a flight for the day before. Plus it'd be exhausting to run to NYC and then fly to TX the next day. I've pretty much told the kind and generous person/friend that I don't think I can swing it. But wow I wish I could! I can't leave him hanging, though, if he wants to offer the ticket to someone else. Ah well. I guess I'll have to resign myself to seeing Mr. Baritone in March and in April.

Damn I'm spoiled. And I like it that way.