That Mushy Time Between Xmas & New Year's Eve

Oh dear. I believe this may be the longest I've gone without blogging. I apologize to my readers and to myself. And I blame Twitter. And Netflix. So many Dr.Who episodes, so little time!!!

My voice is improving little by little. I listen to my voice lessons and I practice, practice, practice. Mostly in the car, since that's really the only time I'm guaranteed to have to myself. I know it's not the most ideal situation but I have to make do. My next voice lesson is this coming Friday. Next Opera Project recital is… ? The upcoming performance is a composer's concert, featuring music of local composers. Then I think the next one after that will be in March. Hopefully I'll be chosen to sing in it. Oh and remember a few posts back I wrote about the possibility of a small part in an opera? Well, that fell through. Not sure if the part is being sung by someone else or if they removed it from the production. But it was nice to have people thinking of me as a possibility!

In professional performance news, someone I know (who happens to be a reader, you know who you are!) has these amazing photos from the performance of Billy Budd in Bilbao. I'm not sure where she got them from - they look like screen caps from a video. With her permission I'll post them here and/or to the Nathan Gunn Yahoo group. Here's a video from the production.

Speaking of Nathan Gunn, two (more) things.

Thing one: My brother and his family went to the family production of Magic Flute at the Met. They LOVED it. Even my brother, who was prepared not to like it, thought it was good. My sis-in-law said that Nathan was great. I kind of wish I had gone with them, even though I saw his Papageno back in April.

Thing two: Even though I'm not "into" Broadway, I still went and got tickets for this. Ann is coming out to join me and we'll be yukking it up in a hotel in NYC that night. Late night, post-performance Ben & Jerry's straight from the container, here we come! Maybe we'll even have spoons this time. I'll try to remember to pack a spork, just in case.

McGoofy McBoof

Had a chance to listen to the entire Phineas McBoof CD. It's definitely for kids. Which means, of course, that I love it. It's a bunch of songs tied together in a story of how the band got together. The songs are all different styles and are all catchy and silly. Which means, of course, that I love it. And while there's stuff in there that's fun for parents, I don't think it'd be fun for a someone who didn't have (ever) a little kid. Go to this link and listen to number 10. Alex does wake up at three to pee and he announces it, loudly. Yeah, I need a nap.

Mr. Gunn is on the first couple of tracks as the character Placido Flamingo. There's this sort of orchestral and vocal warmup and you can hear him say something like, "No green M&Ms in my bowl!" (who was that, Van Halen, that had all these weird requests for the backstage hospitality?) You can hear it here, track 1. Anyway I've learned that Placido Flamingo has a much larger presence in the 2nd CD, that Mr. Gunn has already recorded his parts and that they're "hilarious." But we'll all have to wait until next year to hear it, for that's when it'll be released.