spero che...

Do you ever feel the intense need to help someone but know that really you should let things alone? This happens to me alot after observing behavior of people, I arrogently assume I understand things so therefore I can fix them.
Actually I don't try to fix them, the only wisdom I have is that I can sometimes leave well enough alone.
I feel this way about big things usually...except it's more that I merely wish to help not that I actually try to go about doing anything. It's the big things that make you feel the most useless. I've talked about some of this before...Israeli settelers being torn from their homes and hurting for them while thinking that they were wrong to move there in the first place and it's about bloody time they got out.
Or special education and questioning who it is actually benifiting.



the Iphiginie review will not be happening...let it stand that it was fantastic. Chalk and black box, really well excecuted, possibly one of the best productions I've seen at the Lyric...really captured the inner struggle that is the story.

Currently I'm listening to the final rondo from la cenerentola in as many forms as possible. I"m studying Rossini's ornimentation and what others do with it.
In sad news one of the cadenzas I do in Una voce poco fa is completely out of stylistic character. Coloratura sops do it all the time but it is pretty much not ok according to scholarly research. So the question is should I do it? It's fairly standard in performance, but still wrong.
I'll look up other options, the warning bell was when my teacher said " I like it it's like Lakme's bell song." Crap. that is not the time period and style to be aimed for.

I think thatI might actually be able to get into grad school, I'm feeling pretty calm about it currently.

anyhow it's time for bed as I've been up since 5:30 this morning...poo on that


Edit: whoa whoa whoa...did mr Campbell Vertesi suggest that Academics are not the sacred blood on which we live? because...well...I mean...it's just....this institution is the ivory tower. sweet sweet blissful seperation from all things practical and erudite expedition into the theoretical. I mean where else could I write "Therefore I contend that music is man's attempt to control time, through music we recognize the passage of time as we wish it to pass: with meaning....as such I wish to be a time master...." I mean is this something that we can apply to social theory? I think yes!



I'm restraining myself from applying Foucault and Durkheim...gah!!!!!!!panopti....collecti...efferv...
ok

yes...it is time for me to go to conservatory...I expect it will be super sweet!

vulnerable?

I just came back from a voice lesson in which I couldn't sing, everytime I opened my mouth I just started crying, which for those of you who have tried singing does not happen when you are crying, so I'm going back tomorrow to try again.

The thing is that on the superficial level it should not have happened; myu teacher had just chastised me for not being prepared for an audition that he had been the adjudicator for the evening before. It was for the soprano solo in the Brahms German requim. In my defense it's not right for my voice, and I've been super busy with grad school prep and these things called classes, none-the-less he was completely right and I should have simply not auditioned rather than walk in only moderately prepared. The problem is that I have become really lax about these things because no-matter my preperation, I will get solos here because I have more training and commitment to singing than most people at this institution.

Anyhow, what was something that I could normally have just dealt with (because he was right and I knew it) just made it impossible for me to do anything. Why?

Well, my grandfather died about a year ago and that has been on my mind alot. I was lucky enough to have a really great relationship with him, he was such a kind and wise person...though not outdoor savy (he once told us to not bother trimming the lower branches of a tree because they would just grow up with the tree and not be as close to the ground in time) HOwever I'm not sure if this is it.

This is a very emotionally taxing institution to attend, there are no peaks and troughs in work load or intensity, you essentially have 10 weeks of grind. Perhaps I'm feeling the strain of not haveing my best friend here this year (though for all practical purposes it has not been an issue). It makes a difference if you don't have the person who you rely upon for the most immediat support not be there.

Also I think I've gotten to a place where I am just not emotionally invested in academia in the same way. I had such an amazing vocal coaching earlier this week, I'm working so much in choirs and practicing, that I'm just ready for this to be my life, but I have the more immediate pressures of classes.

Anyhow a reveiw of the Lyric Opera's Iphigenie en Tauride is forth coming.

awake?

So the question is how/why am I awake? it's 1:30 in the morning...I don't stay up this late...it's prbably because I ate margot's cupcake batter and then made it into pancakes....did you know you could do that, use cake batter as pancake batter? well evidently you can but you have to be careful because the higher sugar content causes it to burn more rapidly...pretty ok.

ok Turandot...I'm sure if I am sufficiently awake to make any sort of coherent comments about it, but I have to soon because my next opera is next week and then I will be unforgivibly behind.

ok; so I think that Nitzche might have liked this opera...I say this because Nitchze's favorite opera was Carmen. There are some of you who might find this surprising perhaps, but it is because it portrayed love in an un-romanticized and an unforgiving fashion. he was into that.

anywho short overveiw...Act I: Turandot is a princess who does not want to be married because she is afraid of the subjegation that is marriage for a woman, as such there is a law that all her suitors have to answer three riddles. If they answer them correctly then she will marry them, if they fail she has their heads chopped off. Prince whitnesses be-heading, sees princess falls in love. Liu (slave in love with prince) begs him not to do it, he does it anyway. He answers her riddles correctly...she can't handle it, so he tells her that if she can find out his name then she can kill him anyway.
Act II: Prince sings super famous Nessun' Dorma, because princess has ordered that no one may sleep that night hence the name of the song. Princesses wise men types (ping pang and pong) find prince's old man father and slave liu...they torture liu but she won't tell princes name...princess asks what makes you so strong...she answers her love for the prince in an aria that makes you cry...she then kills herself...princess is minimally moved...Prince kisses princess and tells her his name...she instantly falls in love and assumibly (according to the fairy tale) they live happily ever after.

Anyhow: Patricia RAcette as Liu...super fantastic! man I have not been moved to tears at opera before...I also saw her as Michaela last year...very good then too. Andera GRuber as Turondot. I thought that her performance was alittle flat, though I can't decide if it is my dislike for the character of the princess or her as a singer. In her defense the part is wickidly difficult, but once she got out of her super high register I wished that she had alittle more depth to her sound.

Vladimir GAlouzine as Calaf (the prince) I didn't really have a strong opinion, my fellow opera goers liked his sound quite a bit...he emphatically ended his phrases in a glotal kind of way...but that's mostly just a stylistic choice the way he was doing it.

ok the story...man does love ever lose out in this story. I mean Calaf (the prince) sees Turadot and immediatly lusts afer her.
Liu, genuinely loves calaf and kills her self to save him...the true love and tragety in the story
Turondot falls in love when she is kissed...I beleive they say something about her ice melting...this is again desire or lust.

So my interpretation poorly articulated because it is almost 2 in the morning (what is my problem get off the stupid computer) Is that she has given up. remember she has seen like 20 some odd suitors killed because of her, there has to be a time that she just gives up. She hates the idea of marriage because of the story of this woman killed by a man and she vows to never to be placed in such a position of weakness. but she compromises this ideal and ends up with the prince...he doesn't prove to her that men can be loving and nurtureing...he seduces her. She is not converted by the increadible love of Liu, she secumbs to latent desires and an exhaustion.

so moral of opera? love looses...lust wins

more when I have slept.

stuff soon to come

I swear. I have two interesting posts coming, one is a reveiw of the Lyric Opera's Turondot, of which I have some to say not just about the production, but about the story as well (I had never seen heard or read this one before).

I also will respond to djdm MOM because greek chorus and opera actually have alot of links beleive it or not...actually it's not a huge deal, but it's kinda fun bit of history to talk about.

For now however I need to do the necessaries to maintain being a student and apply to grad school.

Fun note, my brother came out for the weekend, it was super plus fun, we walked all around Chicago hither and yon, went out to eat yummy places, hung out with my friends and saw Thankyou For Smoking. A really funny film.

ok writing letter to get a recommendation letter...dear sir I am awsome, would you like to write a letter affirming this to various institution of higher learning? thanks. Love Embly