An Interlude to my Interlude

Lots going on here! YouTube reinstated my page, hooray! And I'm doing scenes and an aria at an upcoming Opera Project Wing concert. But more on all that later. I'm breaking my (unintentional) posting interlude with something I haven't done in a very long time... A Gunn Interlude.

Here Nathan talks about his top 5 shirtless roles. He seems to be smeared with mud and blood alot.



Note his reversal of barihunk into hunkatone. Somehow "hunkatone" has a slightly different meaning to me than "barihunk," and it actually does seem to more accurately describe him.

And here's another topic on which Mr. Gunn and I agree: His view on Opera vs "Popera." I have had, while not quite arguments, let's call them... heated discussions, with people, on why Andrea Bocelli is not really an opera singer, nor are any of those contestants on the many singing reality shows out there who choose to squawk out an aria when it's their turn to compete. It's not that these people don't have talent. They do! But they couldn't get on stage and sing an opera, without a mic.

So yeah, speaking of getting on stage and singing, I'll be singing Voi che sapete and also doing the Cherubino cross-dressing scene in the upcoming Opera Project "Artist Development Wing" concert. Basically it's me and 15 teenagers. The youngest is I believe 13. We are all singing in the chorus for scenes from Die Fledermaus, The Mikado, Dido & Aeneas and Madam Butterfly. We have actual staging and everything. I'll report more on that... eventually.

Hormones

Not mine!! I mean, not this time.

Warning: Do not listen to this while swallowing any type of liquid, unless you want it to come out your nose when you laugh uncontrollably.

All I Need is a Baritone

And then I could sing all the duets I want. Like this one.



As usual, click through to YouTube to see the entire frame. If you want. And yes, I know that it's a different singer as Pamina, but it was the only photo of Papageno and Pamina from that production that I could find.

Speaking of YouTube, they changed. Has anyone noticed this? I must be getting old. I was very comfy with the previous version. Now I have to learn where to click all over again. Whine, whine, whine.

Rehearsal Peek and the Voice/Personality Connection

In the rehearsal room, the chorus does their thing:



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During tech rehearsal hell, *YAWN* there's the crew on the stage doing I don't know what. Their thing. And the rest of us doing... nothing. No thing:



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In making these little clips, I made sure not to record the principals. And it's obvious that no matter how great they sound in rehearsal, they're holding it back until the performance.

So all this big deal is made about sopranos being divas. Yeah, maybe the nobody sopranos in the chorus last year... but as far as the principals go, the sopranos so far have been sweet and normal. The tenors, on the other hand, seem to sort of act like little girls.

Baritones, of course, flirt like crazy, even when they're not interested in women. Mezzos are super-friendly (no pun intended but go ahead and think I did it on purpose if you want) because they're tired of always pretending to be boys. Supers are shy and keep to themselves but I'm breaking the stereotype! I am superluminous, watch me glow!

Hmm. That about sums it up.

Convergence

I bought this in the Met gift shop on Saturday. What a wonderful combination of three of my favorite things: Coffee, Opera and Scrabble!

Look, it' says "baritone," and there's one right there! Not the cat, silly, look on the other side of the mug.

If I haven't mentioned it before, I'm such a dork. I love it!

Placido Domingo Sings a Duet... With Himself

This is cute.