Magic Flute & Armida - Two Operas in 24 Hours!

Two adventures to write about - the short version: Both operas were FABULOUS!!

And now to the nitty-gritty details.



Thursday evening was Magic Flute!!! Wow wow and WOW! Ann and I made our way to Lincoln Center and got the requisite photos in front of the fountain and the poster.


Fountain:


Posing with a larger-than-life Papageno:


You can't really tell from the photo but I had my hair in a bun, of all things. I had forgotten my sparkly barrette and it was hot, so I temporarily twisted it up, then decided to leave it. It came out later but I had it up for most of the evening.

The weather was so nice, we canceled our reservation at the Fancy Restaurant and grabbed a take-out dinner from a nearby deli. We had a picnic supper on a low wall with a view of both the front of the Met and the fountain. So here is the photo of my dinner - pesto pasta with chicken. It was quite yummy.



And the front of the Met with the Armida advertisement:




Eventually we made our way in to the Grand Tier Rear. View from the seats:



The music... ahhhh it's just beautiful. To hear it at the Met is like a dream come true. The sound in the Grand Tier is great. Matthew Polenzani was Tamino. His voice is like silk. Just gorgeous. Pamina's voice was so beautiful - beyond words. I fell in love with her as soon as she sang. And Nathan Gunn as Papageno. WOW. He is truly the Best Papageno Ever. He gets the comedy, the music, the timing, all of it. I've seen him in several different roles now and this was by far the best performance of his I've ever seen. The fact that I love the character of Papageno (who doesn't?) doesn't hurt. But he was WOW and there was no problem hearing him (as prior critics have complained) and he was just fab. And oh-so-adorable, especially when his hat was off. The duet he sang with Pamina - yes, I know I seem to cry easily at operas, but that duet did bring tears to my eyes - the beauty of the music, the singing and the words. I just can't help it. I am my mother's daughter. Luckily I was wearing waterproof mascara.

Queen of the Night, Sarastro and everyone - everyone blended together so beautifully. It was a package and it was great. The scenery - holy cow!!! Seeing Julie Taymor's production live, the entire stage, was amazing. It added so much magic to the Magic Flute. The puppetry - WOW!!! The scenery - amazing!! There was one scene with these giant puppet statue people with flaming heads. I mean, giant, like, 30 feet tall. They flanked the door to the temple I think before Tamino and Pamina entered for their trials. Their arms moved and did I mention that their heads were flame? I think it was done with orange cloth and a fan. It looked like real fire!!

What a difference to see the entire stage at once rather than the sections they show in the English TV version. The staging is meant to be seen all at once.

Everyone walked out of there smiling.

Very few tattles to tell:

A couple times there were these crashing sounds from the stage as if things were falling over... oops! Didn't see anything out of place.

Queen of the Night's sails clicked at one point as they were coming down during the aria. If that makes no sense, look here and here. (same production but in English) The costuming was a bit different, just a little. I could swear she was in bright red the whole time instead of the blue. And then audience applauded in the MIDDLE of her 2nd aria, after the first set of amazingly perfect runs up to that high f.

Also, after they unlocked Papageno's mouth, his tumblings caused the pipes to get tangled in the bamboo. Yeah I see that makes no sense either when you read it. Scroll up to the photo or look here. That English version has a section cut ... and the whole time they were singing that cut section, he was trying to untangle the string of the pipes from the piece that pokes up from his left shoulder. All without breaking character and while continuing to sing.

When Papageno ran up the circles (look in about the middle here) he fell and crashed HARD. It looked OUCH painful. His hat flew off. He didn't miss a beat but I bet he's sporting some new bruises.

The woman one seat over from me was worrying a cellophane wrapper during the entire first scene. I'm sure she didn't realize it - Finally I asked her to stop and she did.

And the best part - my own tattle - that morning I had checked the Met website and saw that a section of the front row in front of us in the Grand Tier was unsold. The seats were indeed empty so we moved down during intermission. Great view from the front row of the Grand Tier! Plus you get this little shelf to put your program down, put your feet up (!!!) or whatever.

After the performance Ann and I went back to our hotel and polished off a pint of Ben and Jerry's. I think it's a pattern - we go together to see NG and then eat ice cream in the hotel room. Didn't we do that last year after Rape of Lucretia? And speaking of Lucretia, Tamara Mumford, who was Lucretia, was one of the Three Ladies.

The next day, less than 24 hours later, I jammed myself into an over-packed Path train and went back into the city. I had 40 minutes to make my way to the Met for Armida. Decisions... figure out what subway to take, or hop in a cab? I decided that since my time was short, I was hot and uncomfortable from the crowded train AND I was schlepping my backpack with my overnight stuff that I should treat myself to the cab ride. I'm so glad I did! I opened the window, sat back and relaxed. It was exactly what I needed to relax and enjoy the day. I even thanked the cab driver for the relaxing ride. He said I was the third person that shift to thank him. I think it made his day!

I wove in and out of the various groups of schoolchildren and picked up my ticket at the box office. Look!!




Do you see? Orchestra Row E!! Like, right smack in the middle of the fifth row!! HOLY COW! I sat with John's talented and beautiful wife and adorable daughter. And then during intermission before Act 3, when John's wife and daughter were away from the seats, this other woman joined the row and immediately asked, "Are you friends with Renee? We're all friends with Renee. This entire section." Um... ok. "No, I'm friends with John Osborn." She replied, "Who's that?" I told her he was one of the tenors - the guy in the first act. She brushed that off with, "Oh, I got here late. Better late than never!" and she laughed. Um... ok. She was tall and expensive looking - long, gorgeous hair, designer head-to-toe, your typical NYC upper east side wife who was late probably because she was either out planning for a charity, having a private pilates session or possibly both. I complimented her earrings and she said that the woman in charge of the children's chorus made them. Turns out her that her teenage daughter, who was there for the entire performance, is in the children's chorus. She was very nice but also amusingly stereotypical. But enough about her.

I was next to a herd of photographers.



The constant clicking didn't bother me at all - I found it interesting - whenever the action changed, whenever the characters moved or interacted, there'd be a flurry of shutter clicks. Combined they must have taken over a thousand photos. I, personally, took about 10. Here's one looking straight up at the ceiling:



And a view of the curtain from my seat:


And the performance itself:

I had never heard of this opera before so I was going in fresh. So what I could figure out from the sort of mushy plot was, Armida is a sorceress out to prevent the army from their goal of capturing Zion. She's a soprano and there are 6 tenors!! The performance opened with a dancer suspended from a ribbon and spinning down to the stage. It was beautiful. She looked about 10 but I learned later that she's actually 25. She was Armida's niece and she represented love. Armida also had a sprite or spirit who represented vengeance. Onto the plot - the army is burying their guy-in-charge when Armida shows up and pretends to be a princess in distress. She begs the general (John Osborn) to give her ten soldiers to help her regain her kingdom. She charms the army and everyone falls for it except for the general himself, but he goes against his instinct and agrees to help her because everyone else wants to. The men then promote Rinaldo (Lawrence Brownlee) as their new captain. Of course Rinaldo and Armida have met before when she saved him, they fell in love and then he had to leave. Somehow her uncle holds some sort of grudge against him. The mean spirit or sprite "infects" the soldiers and then this other guy who thought that he himself should have been chosen to lead gets all huffy and acts like a big bad loser. He's busy badmouthing Rinaldo, who overhears and fights the dude for his own honor. Of course he kills him, then the general comes back and is all mad, and then I'm not quite sure what happens except that Rinaldo is charmed by Armida and they run off.

Act two is a reenactment of the story in ballet, presented to Rinaldo and Armida as entertainment. These demons come out and create a beautiful palace and garden, then these nymphs come out and in the ballet they all seduce the dancer Rinaldo. I have never been so close to professional ballet dancers. These men jump 5 feet into the air and land silently. They are all muscle. It was amazing. The women were great too. The demons and the nymphs included the chorus as well as dancers. The demons were in these wacky costumes with horns and tails. I took one blurry photo of them during the curtain call, using one hand and no flash, so it's hard to see, but you get the idea:




That guy to the left wearing what looks like knee pads had a very form-fitting costume. As in, I think everyone in the room was looking at his ... manliness. It was outlined in great detail. Had to avert my eyes to keep from staring. I'm sure I wasn't the only one. He was I think the main demon or devil from the underworld. The dancers interacted with him a lot - they carried him around, and he climbed on them to sing, so his outlined bits were displayed prominently. Not like me to go on and on about some guy's privates but there they were, pretty much in everyone's face!!

So anyway during the dance there's a part where they tempt Rinaldo with fruit, and then the nymph dancers are teasing the dancer Rinaldo and playing a sort of monkey-in-the-middle with him, throwing the fruit back and forth over him while he tries in vain to catch it. At some point the dancer is replaced with the real Rinaldo. There is a gorgeous love-duet in there somewhere. You see the little girl in red in that blurry photo? That's the 25 year old dancer. Anyway back to the opera...

Scene three, two of the soldiers (and the final two tenors) find their way into the enchanted forest and find Rinaldo. They help him realize that he has been charmed by magic and lead him back to battle, bravery, courage and so on. Armida tries in vain to keep him there with her. Then the demon/vengeance spirit and the love spirit battle (via ballet of course) around her and the bad spirit wins. Armida vows that she will seek vengeance and the curtain drops.

The music was full of Rossini's coloratura runs and vocal gymnastics. It was really really pretty.

John Osborn was absolutely awesome. Rossini coloratura is his friend. It seems to come effortlessly for him. The singing, the acting, etc - he was the character and the music flowed out of him.

Lawrence Brownlee has the most unbelievable voice. Except of course I was there so I do believe it. Like John, the coloratura just flows out. It was like beauty flowing out over the audience.

One of the other tenors stood out for me too, it was one of the two soldiers who saved Rinaldo in Act 3, but I don't remember who it was. It was hard to keep track of who was who.

Renee Fleming was Armida. She is so beautiful. She didn't really sing out in the first two acts. Her voice was very pretty but I was like, what's the big deal? Until the third act, when she SANG. And then I was like, Oh, I get it now. At first I was star-struck that I was seeing her, but she was such a good actor that I got totally into it and forgot it was her. If that makes sense. I guess that's the point!

After the performance I wanted to hang out but even more I wanted to get back to my boys - over 24 hours away from them and my arms ached to hug Alex! All the moms out there will understand what I mean!! So I trekked down to Penn Station (remind me NEVER to do that in my little boots again, ever!!) and hopped on the express train to get home to my boys.

Today I listened to the Saturday Afternoon Broadcast of Magic Flute. It was great to hear it all again so soon after seeing it. At one point I put on the English version video and tried to match it up for Alex to see and hear. It worked pretty well for some parts, like when the three ladies find Tamino, but then I had to pause the video for the cut parts and was too much trouble and he got bored with it so I turned off the video.

Now my little spot on the shelf where I keep all my tickets is empty. It looks so sad, all empty. But I'm sure it won't be empty for long.

This Week

Another adventurous week coming up!

Will be spending some time in NYC this week - I was lucky enough to be offered a ticket for the final dress rehearsal of Armida at the Met. If I can figure out how to actually obtain the ticket (that part was unclear, but I'll figure it out...) I'll go. Also seeing Die Zauberflote one day this week. Banawoman will be out East for that. I anticipate lots of laughter, yummy food and beautiful Mozart.

Now I will use the rest of this blank window to brag about my kid.

Alex has a weekly private music lesson with a very good teacher at Westminster. She uses these music note cards to teach rhythm, pitch and so on. She plays games with the cards and also teaches him patterns with each hand on the piano while singing along. She always tells me he's coming along very well.

Because of behavioral and social issues associated with PDD-NOS, he has a paraprofessional assigned just to him at school. One day before school started they were in the music room and he was showing his para what he can do on the piano. She was surprised, and then while he was doing this the school music teacher entered the room. Well, she was REALLY surprised! She was very, very impressed and amazed at what he was able to do. He was playing piano with both hands and singing along. I think that was the point that he was unofficially excused from the kindergarten music class. It's more a music experience than a music lesson, very chaotic and noisy - not an ideal situation for him anyway. The music teacher has asked to see his piano book but in my opinion it's the games and exercises with the cards that allowed him to learn the songs he plays on the piano. Well, it's all of it, but the cards make a huge difference. They're in spring break now, but I'll contact her next week to see if she and I can meet. The school also has a gifted and talented program for music, so I'll find out more about that. I'd have to apply by the end of April. How cool and brag-worthy would that be? I'll answer that question myself. Very cool. And very VERY bragworthy!

"You Know What to Do"

So said my voice teacher when she called to give the sad news: She didn't have enough enrollment for summer for the school to give her a room. I could go to her but she lives too far away - something like 45 minutes. I could also go to another teacher over the summer. She said that she's not worried about me taking the summer off from lessons because she knows I practice... "You know what to do..." is what she said.

But now, since she's not teaching Thursday evenings, she'll come with me to the final dress of Mikado next week.

What to wear, what to wear... always a dilemma with my ever-expanding waistline. (from eating too much, not from pregnancy. I'm not pregnant.)

July is Coming

Voice lessons start up again this week! I'm so happy. I wonder where, though? I mean, I know where, generally, but have no idea what room. I guess I should find out before I get in the car on Thursday.

Other July Things:

• A cast member was generous and nice enough to offer me free final dress rehearsal tickets (or just one ticket? I should find out... how does one ask? Oh I know, one waits for that person to read this entry...) for The Mikado on July 9. I wonder if I should see if said cast member has any other as-yet unspoken for final dress tickets for the other performance she was almost in until they realized how overworked she was and let her off the chorus hook. There are only so many costumes a person can sweat in in the course of a week.

• NYC July 17th? Free concert in Central Park. Depends on the weather and my motivation. I'm spoiled by my up-close-and-personal seats for the past few performances - 14th row, 3rd row, 4th row, 2nd row - yeah ok and upper balcony very near family circle before that- and this could be even farther than those balcony seats. And crowded. And hot. With no where to pee. Since it's free, I'll wait and see. Funny, in March I was all annoyed that snow kept me away. Now I'm like, oh, it might be too hot, better not plan on going. You can probably tell that Florida is not on my list of retirement destinations.

• That other opportunity I've mentioned might take place in July. Not sure the etiquette about when to call back, but I feel that right now it's too soon. Maybe next month if I haven't heard anything. The person with whom I spoke was distracted about something unrelated to our conversation. I'm thinking it might be best to wait for that situation to pass before attempting further contact.

And that's July.

It's Fun to Have Fun!

The Cat in the Hat says, "It's fun to have fun BUT you have to know how."

So rather than sit here all mopey because I know that the Summer season at my local opera company is starting next week and I won't be a part of it... ok well in addition to sitting here all mopey... I'm suddenly getting very excited about my June adventures!

First - Studio recital - me and the teenagers! I love it! I never know if I should hang out with them since we're all students, or with their moms since we're the same age. Ok, yes, I end up with the moms, mostly because I don't know any of the pop-culture references so important to my fellow students. Actually the adventure starts the day before the recital. The day before the recital is Alex's 5th birthday and of course we're having a party. It'll be small. A few people are coming from about 90 minutes away so I'll drag a friend and possibly my sis-in-law to the run-through which happens to be smack dab in the middle of the birthday afternoon. My teacher is letting me go first for the run-through so I can arrive, sing and then run home to catch up with the gin-and-tonic crowd in my backyard. It's really mainly an opportunity to practice with the accompanist. So she handed out a permission slip (ha!) that said that only parents are allowed to attend the run-through. Since my parents live in Florida and I can sign my own permission slip, thankyouverymuch, I'll have my girlfriends be my substitute parents. Then the recital is the next evening. I think my teacher said I'm near the end. Of course I'll get Husband to record it. Heck I'll get my surrogate parent (who happens to be younger than me!!) to record the run-through the day before. If it's halfway decent I'll post it!

Then the following week I'm meeting regular reader and commenter, Banawoman, in the flesh!!!! I am so excited! Now what's totally cool about that is, not only are we meeting, but we are going to Rape of Lucretia together. Banawoman and I "met" when she joined Nathan Gunn's Yahoo fan page. I'm one of the moderators there so the membership approval emails come to me. (And just to clarify, my blog is in no way, shape or form affiliated with that group. Totally... Separate...Entity.) So she made some silly comment in her approval request and I replied with an email directly to her, which is odd because most of the time I just approve the memberships without emailing the person, or maybe I'll email a short, "You're approved" note. But I sent her a real reply, and she replied, and suddenly we were emailing and chatting every day. After she went to see Pearl Fishers we started talking on the phone regularly. No, we don't discuss Mr. Gunn. I mean, occasionally, but he is not the main topic of our conversations. Anymore. He was the catalyst and then BOOM it all took off without him. She and I are great friends - we talk about everything. We support each other through annoyances, tough times, joys, happy times and so on, and trust me, both our lives have been full of all of that in the past several months. So I'm super-excited to finally meet her in person, and then to go with her to see the guy who, if it weren't for him, we never would have become friends. I have a few friends thanks to him, actually. So maybe, just maybe, if Banawoman and I do hang out at the stage door afterwards ... unless by some freak of circumstance we get onto the backstage list! That's June 12, in case anyone with the Power to do that checks in... Just leave me an anon comment and I won't approve it, or email me luindriel@gmail.com! Yes, this is me NOT asking to get backstage. Right. So where was I? Yeah so if we do hang out at the stage door, I suppose we could thank the man for "introducing" us. And don't worry, Dear Readers, I won't disappoint you - no doubt I'll say/do something stupid and embarrassing for you all to laugh over and be thankful that it wasn't you. And if asked, I will pose for a photo. Maybe it'll have all of everyone's heads. Wouldn't that be novel?

So let's see... I haven't really looked beyond the Philadelphia Opera Nathan Gunn thing, since that would mean thinking about how I'm not supering and wondering how the rehearsals are going. However, a very talented, nice, considerate opera singer/blogger/all-around-wild-and-crazy-gal whose life should one day be portrayed as a comedy series on HBO (but who ever would play her???) and who I think I now owe about 36 drinks has graciously and generously offered me a comp (that means FREE!))) ticket to the final dress of one of the summer's operas because she's IN IT!!! So of course I'll go.

Hmm maybe I can get comps for the other final dresses. I mean, seriously, I was ready and willing to volunteer my time and sweat again this summer. Ok that's totally unrelated to me getting free dress rehearsal tickets but it sounds so dramatic, doesn't it? Anyway, I do know at least one of the supers who DID get in, as well as a few of the singers. I'd gladly donate money to the opera co if I had it. However, I don't have it, so I'm limited to volunteering...even if they don't need me... and of course I'd gladly accept free tickets to the other two final dress rehearsals. Ohh wait a sec can I go to the dress for the production I didn't get into? Hmm... Have to think about that one.

Ah once again opera and it's accouterments are keeping me awake.

This is What I Saw

I already mentioned that last week Alex and I went to see the final dress rehearsal of La Cenerentola, but I never said anything about the performance itself. It was fabulous!! The costumes - so funny! The stepsisters had these huge flattened hoop skirts that had strings in them that, when pulled, raised the sides of the skirts to show their petticoats underneath. In the opening act they had these really cool red wigs, and for the ball scene the wigs were outrageously over the top! They were white and huge. One had a Marge Simpson-esq column sticking straight up - and there was a balloon in it! At one point in the story it gets popped. The other was huge and wide and had a ship, yes, a ship in it. Someone somewhere is very clever to come up with this stuff.

The music - it's Rossini, how can it be bad? It's so clever and... so fast! How can anyone sing Rossini? It sounds impossible.

Everyone in the cast was awesome - especially the woman who played Cenerentola. Leah Wool - I think that's her name. She was adorably cute and made the impossible coloraturas look easy. She was fabulous. She reminded me of Cecilia Bartoli, only (dare I say) better. Smoother, somehow. Of course I still luv Cecilia, but she has to share her throne.

I admit I couldn't give the performance the full attention it deserved because Alex was fidgeting and being restless. Other things I remember are silly, perfectly timed choreography with the music, um... the stepsisters fainting and being dragged offstage by their feet, and one scene where they're all eating spaghetti in rhythm.

So I know it's a sort of lame review, detail-wise, but my overall impression was that of fun, silliness and musical excellence.

Then today - today was the final dress for Merry Widow. After Alex's restlessness at Cenerentola I wasn't sure if I should bring him, but he said he wanted to go. I decided not to "force" him to sit through the whole thing, so we went a little late. We got there I think at the end of Act 1, when someone (since I just walked in I don't know who was who) was convincing Hannah (Jen Aylmer) to dance, and she said she didn't dance, but then he convinced her? I didn't see enough to figure out what was going on. And then the curtain came down at the end of the act. Intermission, orchestra notes... 40 minutes later... Alex is sitting, oh so quietly. I'm thinking, ok, I should have him walk around now so he can sit still when the performance continues. But he was sort of dozing off. So he sat on my lap for the next act. It was great. Hannah had an aria about... oh man I can't remember... like a wood sprite or something? And then the dancers - they were awesome! I love watching professional dancers. They flow like water. The costumes were cute. Then there was a whole lot of dialogue. Alex got bored and fidgety so we left. There was a tv monitor in the lobby so we watched the guys do a silly song-and-dance thing - Alex was laughing out loud. Suddenly he wanted to go back in - so in we went. We saw the prince (I think? again, it's hard to know since we missed the first act) try to figure out who left a fan with "I love you" written on it, and it was all very silly. But about 10 minutes later Alex wanted to leave so we did. The small bit of singing and acting that I did see seemed perfect to me, but what do I know? The singing was beautiful and not only was it all in English, but I could understand everyone without reading the projected titles. We were at the top of the theater and had no problem hearing or understanding anyone's singing or talking. It was cool to hear the characters talk - usually they're singing, right? Just like their singing voices, their speaking voices on stage are smooth and clear - it's hard to explain. Even though they're not singing, their voices have a timbre to them, not quite musical, but ... something. Very pleasant and almost bell-like. Not the same as everyday normal talking. This is frustrating because I'm sure there must be some term or proper way to describe it.

So my impression: Great comedic acting, great singing, great dancing. I'm sorry I couldn't see the entire thing but that's one of the many things about parenthood - you often don't get to do what you want. Ah well, I'm used to that.

Final Dress Tonight!

Tonight's the final dress for Traviata. My voice teacher is coming, which is ironic, since I'm not singing. My goals are to make my cues and not spill or drop anything.