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

this is what happens when I try to write a cover letter

One has to choose to sing as a career for a reason greater than “I like it” or “I’m good at it”, yet one does not choose to sing because they want to change the world. I choose to sing because it can bring joy to others thereby bringing joy to me. We have doctors and bankers to take care of our personal and financial well-fare and as such we need artists to take care of some part of our aesthetic being. One of the greatest thing about being a human working within a civilization of social beings is that we can enjoy more than the basic needs of life. As such we develop culture. It is interesting to think that perhaps the development of culture is man’s attempt to control all aspects of life. There are some things that are so abstract that it does not seem that they can be bent to the will of man. Time is one of these concepts; it passes us by whether we can recognize its passage or not. Therefore I will contend that music is man’s attempt to control time, through music we recognize the passage of time as we desire it to pass, with meaning.

As such I wish to be a time master, but I don’t wish to do so in a base manner for opera is more than sound, in fact opera is more than “merely” music. Music can be abstract or convey raw emotion, opera does this with what is a concrete story. I want to be a vehicle for what is fantastic gut wrenching music. I want a child to come see an opera and never forget the experience, the lights the costume and most of all the music. This child will not remember the names of the people who sang, and ultimately this is not important, but they will remember if the music and acting made them laugh and cry.

I want to sing opera because there is more than the act of singing involved in being a great singer. Firstly one must understand the poetic subtleties of different languages. I did not think that I would enjoy learning languages, yet it is like discovering a key to unlock the mysteries of another culture. The only way to obtain an understanding of another culture is to explore it from the inside, language gives us this capability. Secondly one must understand the history surrounding different operas. Depending on when and where something was written the piece will be performed differently, and this is not something that is necessarily indicated in the score. It is these subtleties that can make a performance superb. Thirdly one must understand the stage, actions and emotions must not just be apparent to the performer, but to the (hopefully) vast sea of individuals in the audience. Fourthly one must have an acute understanding of human emotion. What a character really means must be more apparent than what they say. Finally one must be able to sing appropriately for each moment. Singing is not merely about making beautiful noise. Sometimes the sound must be beautiful, other times a different sound may be called upon.

I think that it is easy to be drawn into the individual glamour of singing on the stage, yet if the individual glamour is not part of a production or out shines it in an inappropriate fashion, the glamour is no longer desirable. As in society one performer is merely part of a whole, and if one part of the production does not work then the entire whole will fail. I want to sing because I want to be a functioning piece of a fantastic whole.

eventually the problem with modern music

I guess we have all learned from Daniel that Beta blogger is made of evil and is not to be trusted. Unless of course it will bring us closer to perfection once we all have it, some sort of communist utopia of sorts....or not.

We have a brand new crop of first years here that are all asking what classes to take and are beginning an exciting four years. I've been working for the Masters cooking all sorts of foods. We've been increadibly productive and non argumentitive, so I declare it a success!

What I don't declare a success was our trip to the Velvet Lounge. For those of you who know anything about the south side of chicago the Velvet lounge is located four blocks east of the redline stop at Cermak/China town. This is not a terrible neighborhood, but also not one that I would choose to take first years who have never been in an intense urban environment. That said I also object to the students at this institution who never explore the southside and will only go to the northside when going out in the evening, but even for someone who has lived here for now three years I spent my time very aware while walking. My group had no real trouble some people talked to us, but that's just what happen anywhere. However some groups were really harassed by some individuals and apparently the polic told one of the groups that they shouldn't be walking there after dark. Oh the neighborhoods your stopped in because you're white.

Normally we take trips at this time to some sort of Blues club where we dance and play pool and can talk while enjoying really loud blues. I mean Blues is the music of chicago. This was a Jazz Jam session, in a small club where everyone just sat and listened. Here I will have to admit that I am not a jazz person, I get it, and I like some of it, but even Coltrain can be too obtuse for me. And Jamming? bah I just don't like it. Go ahead call me a troglidite if you like...I don't mind, I'm aloud to not like something though.

The problem I have with a lot of modern music (I do not mean the pop scene) is that individuals feel the need to push boundries, do things that no one has done before.
Well certainly, this is the western way, there is no way around this, but we are pushing our way into incomprehesibility. There are certain cases where an inability to understand something ceases to be the fault of the listener and becomes the fault of the musician/composer. Obscurity does not necesarily make one more valid. Being difficult to understand does not increase the importance of your work. You are not a more complex and evocative individual if you write in a context that no one can comprehend.

Of course one cannot emulate past masters though. IT's already been done, it's trite and there is no way that we can rival those who have done so well in the past. Thus we are stuck in some sort of conundrum where we must strive to change and become greater, yet we must stay with in the bounds of what is comprehensible...

Perhaps 100 years from now I will be seen as backwards, and the work of certain composers will be seen as the necessary genius to push us into a new age of music. One can not predict history before it happens.

well anonymous, to inquire upon what color other frequencies of light are is to assume that we can project our ability to perceive a range of about 400 nanometers of wave lengths. The problem is that we would have to figure out a way to receive such frequencies and then perceive them. I think that it might be better that we can only see what we can, other wise our puny minds just might explode. Though it's certainly interesting to think about.

However I'm a musician not a physicist so all my replies to this matter mean little. They are based upon the way I think the world works, which is in no way a reflection of how the world actually functions.

I'm finally back in chicago. Time to start my final year here at this institution. I think that I start every year with a little bit of trepidation for different reasons everytime, last year I was still sick from that evil whatever I had and could barely sing. This year is the first year I'll be here with out Duff and with alot of my friends off campus, and I have to apply for grad school.

Have I mentioned that I have no desire to go through this process, it's just not something I feel inclined to do. But of course I have to.

I think that wooly adelgid and light rays are more fun than applying to grad school.