Auch kleine Dinge

The title of this post means "Also small things". It is a song by Hugo Wolf that a friend sang on her senior recital tonight. The poem basically talks about how small things can also delight us and be wonderful -- pearls, olives, and roses all fit the bill.

So did the recital, which was chock full of small, exquisite things, from K's dress (a chocolate brown with an asymmetric strap), to the little notes her accompanist rippled on the piano in the ending Gershwin set, to the expressiveness of K's eyes as she sang, to the creamy richness of her voice, to the lovely little German pieces on the program, to the coloratura she tripped through so perfectly in the Rossini "Laudamus te", to the warmth and excited applause of the small audience. (We were few in number because the program started at 9 pm, a casualty of a late lottery pick, I think. The performance halls here are so scarce that they hold a lottery for the students to choose their recital dates. Some people get lucky with a weekend afternoon or early evening time. Others, like K, end up with 9 pm on a Monday night in November.)

It was a wonderful evening.

And then I came home and finished some other small yet wonderful things:

Love those pomegranate seeds! (I do admit to cheating and using a picture from last week's pomegranate adventure. But that's probably more exciting anyway since it's the first fresh one I'd ever eaten.)

~Hope

Right-side Up Again

For various reasons, three weeks ago the world turned upside-down. Happily, nothing was lasting, and all is mostly back to the standard classes-practice rooms-rehearsals world of before.

Little happy highlights:

• I ate my first fresh pomegranate this week. (Pictures forthcoming. It is a remarkably beautiful fruit.)
• Opera casting for the spring was posted. I get to play a nymph named Naiad in the first bit of Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos. (We're only doing a scenes program instead of a full opera this spring.)
• My apartment is finally (relatively) clean. Laundry is now (almost) manageable again.
• Two teachers accepted my proposal to do a Shakespeare outreach program for their classes. I get to talk about Strauss's Drei Lieder der Ophelia with high school kids on December 7th, and then I get to play with Debussy's La Romance d'Ariel with 7th graders on the 14th.
• I'm learning the Pie Jesu from the Faure Requiem for an audition on December 2nd.
• The weather here has been absolutely gorgeous. It's often cold, but the sky has been oh-so-blue, and the leaves are just glorious colors against that sunny backdrop. I love the way the sunlight glints off them, especially in the midday period when everything is bright. About 3:30 pm is pretty neat, too, because fall always links with (younger) school in my mind, and that's the time I'd be going home from grade school or high school.
• A very pesky technical problem involving .mod files and conversion to a tv-playable DVD got resolved! Many hours of turmoil - solved! (The secret: get one of those hard disk camcorders yourself, install the software on your PC, and convert all the files on your own computer rather than struggling with doing it on a Mac.)

Tomorrow: my digital portfolio class with some video editing in the morning, followed by Italian conversation at noon, a meeting with one of the professors I'm serving through my grad assistantship, the full "memorized sing-through" of the Impresario, and then a voice recital at night to attend. It should be a fun day!

~Hope

Dalcroze

Today was a rather odd day. I rose late and treated myself to a mocha. I have caffeine so seldom that any splash of it affects me very strongly. All of a sudden, my pulse picks up and I get the urge to be Extremely Productive. It's quite fun.

So today, despite sleeping in, I ended up accomplishing a lot. This included vacuuming my dusty apartment, which is now very grateful to be clean.

Late in the afternoon, I took a break from my typing and pondering and headed off to my Dalcroze class. I've blogged about this before, I believe, but here's a quick recap. Dalcroze is a form of music theory and teaching that uses movement to help musicians internalize things like rhythm, tone, and tempo. Today, we did everything from walking the "character" of the beats (larger steps for the anacrusis, or the last beat in a measure -- the one that leads to the crusis, or downbeat) to clapping two while walking three and then switching back and forth. We stepped back rhythmic patterns at various speeds and then notated them on the board in a form of rhythmic dictation (i.e. just the note values, not the pitches.) We conducted using large arm movements and swinging our bodies in time.

The class is taught by a dynamic guy who graduated last year from the DMA program here. He's in the midst of applying for teaching positions, which is tough in the current market. Luckily for us, he's decided to continue teaching Dalcroze here while waiting to hear about a full-time option.

I always end up feeling like I'm in a combination of kindergarten, ballet class, and a sophisticated music theory class. It's a lot of fun, and it actually does make a difference in performance. I'm better able to figure out rhythms quickly and keep regular tempi. Cross-rhythms (that two vs. three thing) are also easier, which is great because I have several pieces in which my pianist plays in three while I sing in two or vice versa. (In case you're confused, what this means is that my pianist is going 1-2-3 1-2-3 while I'm going 1-2 1-2 where 1-2-3 and 1-2 are each on a "beat." Think of a triplet vs. two eighth notes.)

When I graduate, I know one of the things I'll miss is my Sunday afternoon class of cavorting. For me, it's rather like meditation. It's pretty hard to think of anything else while you're trying to maintain two different contrasting rhythms in your feet and hands -- and then switching between them. Try it sometime. It's like the musician's version of patting your head while rubbing your tummy.

~Hope

Tidbits

It's been a really interesting - and busy - week. Here are a few tidbits.

The instrument you see above is called the Guzheng. It's a Chinese harp. On Wednesday, my harp teacher taught us some of its techniques, and we played a few simple phrases. To pluck it, you tape finger picks on the pads of your fingers - the opposite side from your nails. These picks are hard plastic, and the thumb one is actually a bit curved so that it points vertically downward, parallel to the other picks, when you curve your hand above the strings. You pluck on the right side of the instrument. The left side, on the other side of the bridges, is where you bend the strings to create slides and other pitches. The strings are tuned in a pentatonic scale, which means they contain only five pitches instead of the seven we're used to hearing in a major scale. This particular pentatonic scale is D E F# A and B. (Then it restarts at the next D.) The green strings are the D's. To get the "in between pitches" like C, you bend the string on the left side before you pluck it.

The whole instrument has a very Eastern sound, and it has some fantastic music. My harp teacher actually took lessons from a Chinese master on the instrument during her undergrad education. She had to work through a translator since the woman only spoke Mandarin. The Guzheng player taught normally in Beijing, but an American professor here with a great interest in melding Eastern and Western styles brought her over for a year to teach in the US. Lacey, my teacher, learned from her here and then traveled to Beijing to spend an extra week intensively studying the instrument. The techniques are a bit different than the traditional Western concert harp, so it can be a challenge to switch between the instruments. (One difference is that, on the Western concert harp, you pluck by closing your fingers in parallel to your palm. On the Guzheng, you pluck with more of a clawing movement, closing at the mid-knuckle.)

That was Wednesday. On Thursday, I had class where I got staging for "Chacun le sait", an audition aria on which I'm working. That night, however, was the next "big event". There's a conference of Robin Hood scholars here, and Thursday night was an opening concert for which six singers performed. I was one of them. The challenge in the whole affair was that I learned the music in five days. It was given to us on Friday the 9th, but I couldn't pick it up until Monday the 12th because I was ill. While I could plunk through it on the piano, I still couldn't sing until last weekend. I had three duets, a small chorus section, and two solo pieces to learn. Both the solo pieces were a bit challenging. The second one in particular required some sophisticated high coloratura work. Called "Forest Song No. 13" and written by Reginald de Koven, it was evidently often cut from the original performances of the whole operetta. I learned today that it was actually hard to find singers capable of performing it adequately, so it wasn't often used. This would be one of the reasons I wasn't blogging over the past week :)

The Thursday night performance wasn't staged - it was a "concert version", which means we all just stood and sang. We performed in the university's chapel, a rather odd acoustical environment - great for the audience but one that tends to suck sound away from the singers "stage" area. As you sing, you feel like your voice isn't carrying or is thinner than usual. The truth is that all the sound waves just end up getting spread around the hall, away from you. Fortunately, we had a dress rehearsal Wednesday night to get used to the acoustics. And Thursday night was well-received, with perhaps 100-150 people in the audience.

Friday was my makeup audition for the spring opera work. My piece required a very different technique from Thursday night's work. I sang Franco Faccio's "Sortita d'Ofelia", which sounds like Puccini. It demands a more lyric sound, a fuller and warmer voice. The Robin Hood material, on the other hand, asks for a "twitter bird" coloratura -- placing the voice right in the "mask" - the cheekbones area. You can't have too much weight or you won't be able to move as fast or as high as you need to go. So I had to switch a bit around on Friday morning. Happily, I felt great about the audition. I really felt like I sang my best and connected with the piece on an expressive level, which completely delighted me.

This morning, I was up early again for another Robin Hood performance. One of my professors gave a paper comparing some medieval chant with the more modern setting of the same chant by a Curtis professor in the late 1920s. A tenor and I sang several examples for his paper's presentation, and the professor and our fabulous accompanist joined in at the end to sing the finale. It's really a hilarious comparison. The Curtis guy, Bec, proclaims in the preface to his work that he will remain faithful to the original 13th century material. He then goes on to use nineteenth and twentieth century harmonies and chromaticism. He re-sets the original old French text in modern French and alters some of the rhythms. He also transposes some of the excerpts up a whole step or so. If you just heard Bec's piece, you would be hard-pressed to identify it as a "13th century-inspired" work.

The audiences for all the Robin Hood stuff were very warm, and it was great fun to be involved with this! I love having the chance to perform frequently, and having three days back to back has been a blast! Now it's time to dive into learning my repertoire for classes and my recital.

I hope your weekend is just as fun!

~Hope

Back in business

Whew. I'm finally on the other side of that tonsilitis thing (knock on wood). My voice is slowly coming back -- today I was able to sing for 45 minutes. It's still a far cry from what I'll need for this week, but I'm hoping that I can ease my muscles and vocal cords back into what they're supposed to be doing.

In the meantime, I got to see a few extraordinary events this weekend. Yesterday, one of the voice department professors gave a recital with her sister. She's a mezzo, and her sister is a soprano. Their voices have some timbral similarities, of course, so they blend beautifully. The encore was a delightful piece by Brahms about sisters - how they sleep in the same bed, share clothes, and everything - but when they fall in love with the same man, that's it! No more sharing! These two performers hammed it up and had so much fun that we all did, too.

Then, this morning, I saw a master class by that same professor. It's always interesting to see a true professional teach. She worked on interesting technical problems with two young singers - one a high school senior (tenor) and the other a college sophmore (mezzo/soprano). In both cases, she talked about using your tongue more than your jaw and about proper posture and breath support. With the older singer, she was a little more specific about resonance placement and diction. In both instances, she retained a very focused approach, firing new things at them at a slow enough pace that they could absorb them but a fast enough pace to distract them from the audience or being nervous. The other important trick for a master class? Always end on a positive note. In both cases, she allowed them to sing the last bit of their piece to great acclaim by her and the audience.

This afternoon, I saw another voice teacher's recital. This was a baritone's performance, and it was tremendous. He sang a multifaceted, difficult set that included music in German, French, and English with some contemporary composers -- John Musto, John Duke, and Charles Ives. It was a challenging program, both for the singer and pianist and for the audience. We loved it, though, especially because it was not only beautifully sung but also beautifully acted. He created such a space around him for each song. And his gestures -- well, I find myself studying gestures in professionals when they do recital work. What do you do with those pesky appendages called arms and the things at the end - hands? In opera, you're given other people and props with which to interact. You often have a physical task to accomplish while you sing. But in art song? It's just you and the piano. You can't "mime" the actions - that's too false - but your gestures can't be exactly like they are in speech because each phrase takes longer to sing than it would to say. Somehow, you have to tune into the rhythm of the composer's conception of the character (rather than your own, as it would be with just spoken acting.) And you have to move your arms, elbows, shoulders, hands, fingers, palms, wrists, thumbs, and all in such a way that it "fits". My professor tonight did just that. And his expression - his body changed palpably from when his was playing an old man (stiff, a halting gait) to when he played a little boy talking about his idol - his dad (youthful countenance, wide eyes, quick movements).

It was a great, great weekend for performances.

~Hope

Phrase of the Day

I've been battling something since last Thursday. Started off like the flu and morphed into this strange fever-plus-tonsil-the-size-of-Jupiter thing. So that explains my blogging hiatus.

But the real point of this message is the Phrase of the Day.

I called Student Health to see if I could be seen today since my other tonsil is threatening to swell to the same size as the first one. And that would be very bad.

What did the receptionist say when I included fever among my list of symptoms?

"Well, we don't want you to come in if you have a fever."

Yep.

I understand being cautious about the spread of swine flu and all, but what is the point of Student Health in the first place?

~Hope

Master Class

Judy Kaye and her husband gave a master class today. It was extraordinary.

Five of my fellow students sang for them. In each case, I watched their initial performances and thought, "What will they possibly critique?" Each first run was so good. Yet in every case, the two artists found interesting and new angles to lift the students to entirely new levels.

The repertoire presented was all in the musical theatre/operetta genre. This basically means a slightly different technique than opera (more forward voice, what sounds to me like less open space or full resonance - a bit more "talky"/belt, more diphthongs and fewer pure vowels, etc.) as well as a different style of acting. When opera/art song is performed unstaged (i.e., with just a piano), it's rare to use props. But when you have musical theatre, props are a frequent part.

Here are the pieces that were sung:

Vanilla Ice Cream from She Loves Me (the musical that pre-dates Meg Ryan's You've Got Mail - essentially the same story)

A Bit of Earth from The Secret Garden

Funny from My Favorite Year

What Good Would the Moon Be? from Street Scene

My Friends from Sweeney Todd

Beauty from The Light in the Piazza

All were beautifully sung. The comments that Ms. Kaye and her husband gave were focused on the dramatic side of these pieces. Overall, they kept coming back to the idea of intimacy, of realism. "Acting," her husband said, quoting his acting teacher, "is living truthfully in imaginary circumstances." When you think about that, you begin to realize that acting is not "performing". It's all too easy to think about grand gestures, about "putting on a show" for people in the audience, about "making them understand." But, while there are "performance pieces" (e.g., Norina's "So anch'io la virtu magica"), none of these pieces are it. Instead, all of these are sung as introspective soliloquies (except for Funny, which is really sung half as a soliloquy and half to the pianist.) That changes the game. Turns out the audience will come with you, like "peering into a snowglobe", as one of my studiomates commented, if you simply "be".

The other point they had was that you should "Discover what you're going to say next - you don't know yet." When we prepare a piece really well, it can become rote. We as a performer know what's coming up. Perhaps we're thinking about the technical requirements we'll need to ready ourselves for a big phrase, or we're worrying about the next interval or diction nuance. But our characters are inevitably "thinking on the spot." These thoughts aren't written out for them. They are making it up as they go along. And the audience needs to feel like we are doing that, too. It reminds me of something my Voice Rep professor said; he saw a concert where Benjamin Britten accompanied Peter Pears on some of Britten's song literature. These pieces were clearly composed in advance. But the concert appeared like it was improvised on the spot - the performances that both Britten and Pears gave were just that fresh.

Finally, Ms. Kaye pointed out that everything goes back to the text. When she learns a new piece, she starts with the text, asking herself "Who am I? What do I want?" For her, the music just flows from that. If it's composed well, it should be a natural extension of the interpretation of the character.

All of these are rather lofty ideas, but what did they actually have people do to put them into effect? In "A Bit of Earth", they had the singer turn his back to the audience and speak the text conversationally to Ms. Kaye's husband, David, who sat on a stool in front of him. In several of the other pieces, they had people start their performances sitting down, as if to themselves. In "Vanilla Ice Cream", they had the soprano actually write the letter she writes in the song, taking her time with each word. In "Funny", they had the soprano stand behind the pianist, place her hands on his shoulders, and actually sing to him. And in "My Friends", they gave the baritone a pen (meant to be the knife to which he sings) and had him focus completely on it, singing to it and drowning out everything else around him.

It was really interesting and very well done. We were all so pleased and grateful that these two incredibly talented artists took the time to come speak with us.

The rest of my day was filled with performing. I sang Vivaldi's "Senza l'amato ben" in Voice Rep for the class this morning. In the afternoon, I sang Britten's "Be Kind and Courteous" in Studio. I still have work to do with each piece, but I was pleased with the performances overall. Tonight, I'm constructing my own personal logo for my Digital Portfolio Class and working on a paper on "Be Kind and Courteous". Meanwhile, the search for Shakespeare repertoire continues...many obscure manuscripts lurk around the world. Boy would I love to travel to Helsinki to get my hands on the Finnish one...or Vienna to find the one by Vogl. But I think my summer travels will have to last me for a while.

~Hope

The Fair

This weekend, I went back to my parents' place for two reasons. First, I wanted to see them and welcome them back from a trip they just took. Second (and perhaps secretly more importantly...) I wanted to go to The Fair.


The Fair is an annual event that draws people from all over our little region. There are permanent fairgrounds in a nearby town, complete with a billboard-like sign that cheerily proclaims the dates of The Fair up to six months in advance of its actual opening.


As you wend your way through the crowds of people in sweats and jeans, you find all manner of delectables to munch. There is pizza and Greek food, roast beef sandwiches and oyster stew, and, of course, a coronary avalanche of fried food. Anything you can picture fried will be done so. This includes the normal French fries and corndogs but also fried Oreos, fried Twinkies, and fried Milky Ways.






















Another highlight of The Fair is The Buildings. There are several permanent buildings that play home to exhibits when The Fair rolls around. The Arts and Crafts building hosts quilts and crocheting, painting and pencil drawings, photography and other "more crafty" things like you'd see at a church bazaar. The Education building has all manner of exhibits created by schoolchildren, including a scarecrow contest. Horticulture is where you can find the local Garden Club displays that are built around a particular theme. Agriculture shows off the local farm products in various forms - canned, plated, baked, and jellied. There's a fudge contest and a pie contest and even a Hershey Chocolate Baking Contest. (Yes, I was tempting to break into the cases when no one was watching and steal a bite of the prizewinner.)


















As you wander towards the back of the fair, you hit the livestock buildings. You can walk through and see cows, chickens, sheep, goats, and even chicks and bunnies. (Yes, the second picture below is actually a rabbit, not a dog.)











It's a great slice of rural Americana with a big dose of deliciousness when you add in the homemade apple dumplings, homemade ice cream, and the incredible French fries that are made from potatoes cut right in front of you. I probably gained five pounds just from those two days at the fair, but boy was it worth it. Especially considering that I live on vegetarian lasagna here.



Hope you had an equally tasty weekend!



~Hope

Souvenir

I saw the most wonderful production tonight. I feel odd calling it a musical, although that's what it was. There were only two people onstage the entire time, and the set remained exactly the same - a mid-sized grand piano stage right, a generic living-room-like window upstage center, and the occasional bench or chair stage left. The wings were reached through doors that appeared to lead to "other rooms".

Yet despite the outward appearance of scarcity, this show had drama, action, and many more characters than the two we saw packed into it.

Souvenir is based on the life of Florence Foster Jenkins, an incredible woman who lived during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Born in Wilkes Barre, PA around 1868, she grew up in a wealthy family. After she left home, she married and then divorced a man in an age when I believe divorce was still quite scandalous. After that, she supported herself teaching piano lessons. When her parents passed away, they left her their fortune, and she was finally able to pursue music. She began to travel in elite New York City social circles and to sing therein.
The musical begins when she is in her late 60s, about to really start performing full-time. It's told through the eyes of her accompanist, Cosme McMoon (we think this is a stage name.) He is reminiscing in a cabaret bar, tinkering around the piano and singing occasional excerpts of popular early-mid 20th century tunes. His reflections take him back into the suite at the Ritz Carleton where he met Ms. Foster Jenkins.

All of this sounds fairly interesting, right? But pretty standard?

What you need to know is that Florence Foster Jenkins was spectacularly terrible. She was consumed with passion for music and for her art, for the expressive power of song. But she was tone deaf. Yet, she performed recitals that drew record-breaking crowds and even sold out Carnegie Hall. People came to see her because she was so awful she was funny. She believed she really could sing. "Instead of laughter", her accompanist comments in the show, "she heard bravos." Her costumes were extravagant, as were her gestures and expression. She also made a few records. Go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6h4f77T-LoM to hear a recording of her Queen of the Night aria.

There is something wonderfully endearing about this woman, her determination to perform and her complete infatuation with music. It's also heartbreaking - here was a woman with an absolute love of singing and yet a very limited sense of pitch. How can God deny talent to someone who so desperately wants it? And yet, I guess that is partly the point. Somehow, she stands out in history because she lacked the very voice she thought she had. She also is a stark reminder of how far passion really can take you. How many times do we hear a singer who has a beautiful voice and great sense of pitch but is so caught up in technique that she forgets to actually get lost in the music? How often do we plod to the practice rooms for yet another go at our aria? We forget the joy in music sometimes. And Florence Foster Jenkins serves as a fantastic reminder of the gift we have, not only in our talents but also in the music itself that graces our lives.

Souvenir is hilarious and happy, touching and tender, poignant and passionate. If you get a chance to see it, definitely go. You won't forget it for sure. Judy Kaye was nominated for a Tony for her performance as Madame Jenkins. You'll see why if you attend this performance.

My favorite quote from the real Florence Foster Jenkins? "Some may say I couldn't sing, but none may say I didn't sing."

Now go sing.

~Hope

Need More Brains

This mouse is from a storefront in Bern, Switzerland. I didn't snap the photo today, of course, but I figured I'd "cheat" and use it anyway since I don't have a satisfactory picture from this weekend. Which is not to say that I shouldn't have one -- it was gorgeous weather, especially today. There was a beautiful blue sky that perfectly set off the emerging fall leaves. The 70 degree weather was also a terrific complement to the sleeveless dress I wanted to wear for this afternoon's donor event.

Today, I attended the voice and opera preview for our voice department donor group. This lovely, lovely set of people gave me two grants last year. They are warm and enthusiastic individuals who truly adore the students. As the head of our department said today in his opening address, not only do they provide monetary support; they are also often our "family away from home", the warmest and most supportive audience members you could ever find. I was priviledged to be part of that audience today, watching my wonderful colleagues stand up and perform in a sunlit atrium with a grand piano. Clad in lovely formal and semiformal attire, they sang everything from arias from Florencia en el Amazonas or Cosi fan tutte, to semi-staged excerpts from The Secret Garden, our fall musical, to beautiful "audition arias" from the opera in which I'm cast: The Impresario. Even with a warm audience like these folks, it still takes a lot of courage to stand up in front of 200 people without the glare of stage lights blocking their shapes and faces from your view. My fellow singers were amazing!

It was truly a weekend filled with performances. Last night, I went to the master's recital of a harpist here. This was her program:

Sonatine, Op. 30 by Marcel Tournier (the Allegrement, Calme et expressif, and Fievreusement movements): This was tremendous, a great opener - accessible, interesting, and technically virtuosic without being scary for the harpist (I imagine, seeing as I'm not a harpist. Yet. ;) )

Prelude No. 10 by Edward McGuire: Very interesting. Modern. Odd intervals and tonalities in parts - not what you think of as "typical harp music".

Gems of Verdi, Op. 149 by Charles Oberthur (umlaut over the u in Oberthur): This was a setting of "Si, la Stanchezza m'oprime" and "La Donna e Mobile", two opera arias. The harp functioned like its own orchestra with one hand plucking chords and the other playing melody in bits. A really interesting arrangement.

Spanish Dance No. 1 from La Vida Breve by Manuel de Falla and Marcel Grandjany: This was basically a Spanish guitar piece played on a harp. I didn't really think about the harp being in the same broad family as all plucked instruments, but it is. So you can transfer guitar pieces to harp in a really neat way.

Sonate pour flute, alto, et harpe by Claude Debussy (Pastoral, Interlude, and Finale): Quite a gorgeous soundscape pervaded this one. Here, the harp functioned as the underlying land, a blanket woven of many threads on which the viola and the flute glided. It is such a French piece with all its odd yet tonal and strangely beautiful, ethereal intervals. It made me remember how much I am in love with Debussy and how much I really ought to listen to his complete works.

If you ever have the chance to see a harp recital, take it! It's gorgeous and completely worth it.

In the meantime, with all of these performances and my own practicing, I haven't had much time for the other more intellectual pursuits that I need to be doing this weekend, like crafting my proposal for some outreach work I'll be doing. That's why the neon green brain mouse is up there. I'm hoping it will give my fingers some inspiration to magically click my proposal onto the screen. I'll let you know if that works...

~Hope

Onion Schiacciata

Two nights ago, I made onion schiacciata from a recipe I found on http://thepioneerwoman.com/tasty-kitchen/recipes/breads/onion-schiacciata. When I was in Florence this summer, I would eat schiacciata often for lunch. My favorite little deli would have round ones with olives, mini-pizzas with this bread, and even some prosciutto sandwiches. I miss it. This recipe is the closest thing I've found so far, and it's pretty simple. I do need to learn to chop onions more quickly, though...that part took me about half an hour by itself. Guess I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer, so to speak...

Besides my splurge on cooking, I've spent the week running from one meeting to another or working. I have a giant stack of repertoire that I'm trying to get through to choose pieces for my recital. I'm hoping to center it around Shakespeare. There are plenty of art songs written in English using Shakespeare's text, but I'm searching for the unique ones that are in German, Italian, French, and maybe even Swedish or Spanish. My goal is to create groups around specific characters, like Ophelia or Ariel. So far, I have two really fun groups - for Ariel and Ophelia, in fact. Now it's on to the others... It may be a good idea to focus on specific plays rather than characters - makes it a lot easier to find repertoire. But that's a brainstorm for this weekend.

Resume rework was also on the slate. I need two: a performance one and a business one. Performance resumes list all your performance experience - roles, concerts, etc - as well as education, performance training, and "special skills" like "Stage combat" or "Acrobatics." Business resumes are more typical, although a kind mentor suggested that I adapt my normal business resume to the arts by putting a bio at the top. It gives it a more narrative flavor, essentially mixing in some of the artistic format.

Another fun bit was today's lunch. It was the first meeting of my coffee/lunch Italian group. We converse only in Italian - my little way of keeping up with the language. I can hardly believe how rusty I've gotten in just a few months, and how much my Spanish keeps dripping in. I'll need to hit the books to review - my grammar, especially future and conditional tenses, is a bit stilted at the moment.

Time to turn in. It will be an early day tomorrow, and I need all the energy I can get!

~Hope

Fun, fun, fun!

This is a random picture from my daily walk to school. I just found the sky combined with the early fall shades of the trees so beautiful. Right now, I'm reveling in the weather here, in full knowledge that the snow will come soon enough!

Today was a fantastic day! I started off with some yoga, which may have something to do with the rest of my day. My mind was whirling all through the 45 minutes of my little yoga dvd, I confess, but at least I forced my body, fingers, and voice to do something relaxing and good for that period of time. And I felt so relaxed for the rest of the day! There's definitely something to this yoga thing, I tell you.

Afterwards, I made my way over to the student dining hall. Sequestered in a side "conference room" were about thirty wonderful individuals who comprise the main donor group for the voice and opera department here. In the spring, they were incredibly generous and gave me two grants. One was to attend the Opera America Conference in Houston. The other was to put towards my studies in Florence. Today was my chance to thank them all in person. The head of the group warmly welcomed me and gave me a very kind and glowing introduction. Then, I took a few minutes to describe my experiences and the benefits of each endeavor. The entire crowd was so kind. They really seemed glad to have made a tangible difference for me.

I need to remember this feeling when I'm raising money for some purpose in the future. Reynold (Lincoln Center President) was right -- it really does make a huge difference for people to donate to something, to feel like they can have an impact. They become part of the art then, just as much a maker-of-art as the singer or actor onstage. And they really enjoy it and are thrilled about the chance to do it, about having been asked.

Too often, fundraising can feel like begging, I think. This is probably because we all have exasperating experiences with those letter blasts from various organizations or the telemarketing calls that may or may not be legitimate. But when it's something you really believe in, when they show you tangibly and specifically what your particular gift enabled, that's when it really makes a difference.

Anyway, that was my day's opening. The rest of the day was spent in practice and coaching with a dash of library time thrown in. Tonight, I'm combing through art song textbooks to prepare for tomorrow's class. I have a long to-do list yet again. But perhaps I'll just rise early, start with some yoga, and dive in.

~Hope

Virtuosi

Tonight I attended a concert titled "Virtuosi", which was in reference to the players. It could just as easily have been in reference to the composers and arrangers of the works, of course, since all were phenomenal.

This was the line-up:

1) Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor -- played by 6 French horns! This arrangement is by Kerry Turner, and if you can find it, listen to it. It will blow you away. The way that the different notes are divided among the different French horns is just incredible. The effect is better live, of course, but if you miraculously find a 6 channel recording and have 6 speakers, that might mimic it :)

2) Ravel's Introduction and Allegro - this was a gorgeous, flowing piece, very French. It reminded me why French music from the late 19th/early 20th century is my favorite genre. There are so many colors there. For me, it's like an audible representation of Monet's paintings - beautiful and varied, sweeping and smooth, lilting among different colors that are just slightly different than normal, an idealistic vision of nature. This piece featured a harp (set off over top of a flute, clarinet, two violins, a viola, and a violincello), which was played by a faculty member here. Picture the typical celestial sound of that instrument, and you can see how it would fit right in with a Monet painting.

3) Bozza's Scherzo from Opus 48 - For this piece, a flautist, oboist, clarinetist, bassoonist, and French horn player all took the stage. They stood in a semicircle without music stands and played the relatively short piece in an unbelievably organic fashion. The line that one instrument would start, another would pick up or echo. This work moves very fast, and the whole energy of the piece was reflected in the bouncing joy of the players. They received huge and well-deserved acclaim afterwards.

4) Piazzolla's Two Tangos (Verano Porteno and La Muerte del Angel) - Played on a classical guitar, these were a nice, mellow way to open the second half of the program.

5) Mozart's Serenade in C minor (the Allegro, Andante, Minuetto, and Allegro) - This work involved a medium-sized chamber ensemble - two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, and two French horns. What impressed me was that the duplicate instrumentalists could seamlessly mimic their counterparts. In other words, the one oboist would play, and the other would echo the line. But for their position on the stage (so you could tell where the sound was emanating from), you often would swear it was the same instrument. I have to say, though, I find Mozart a little boring. He's just too conventional for me. I know he was radical in his day, but now we are so used to those turns of phrase which form the background for so many movies and advertising and the foundation for so much of modern music. So for me, this was the least exciting piece of the night. Still, it was very well-played, and I can definitely respect that!

I love that I get to attend all these incredible concerts here! And it's all free! It's so amazing, so vibrant to hear music live. You get something completely different than if you just listen to a recording. The possibility that someone might make an error and the delight when they don't, the richness of sound that comes from not having certain layers stripped as they are on CDs, the immediacy of watching someone play in real time, and the connection with the rest of the audience as you listen to them discuss the performance or watch them be captivated - it's all so wonderful. And the shared experience, being able to walk out in a community with those other people and know that you all are tied together by this unique event that will never happen in the same way again - it's a great expression of humanity.

I hope you get a chance to see some music or a play live soon, too.

~Hope

Blurry

Today has been a blurry day. In fact, it's been a blurry week.

I was up quite late last night finishing various odds and ends that seem to be cropping up at every turn. I feel a little like this officer on horseback; if you look closely, you can see him carefully cradling his cup of coffee. Not only was I cradling my own caffeinated brew today; I also feel like I'm trying to keep moving without spilling any drops of my cup of to-dos.

But that's neither here nor there. Overall, the week has been exciting, if a bit treadmill-ish. Yesterday evening, I attended a wonderful lecture recital where a fabulous accompanist, GM, performed Poulenc's Le Bestiare and Ravel's Histoires Naturelles. He was complemented by QP, a gorgeous mezzo who is in my classes. She thrillingly illustrated the vocal line over top of the colorful accompaniments. Both of these sets are about animals, with often-whimsical poetry depicting their various flavors.

Because it was a lecture recital, the first half of the program was just like a class. GM, the accompanist, talked about many facets of the pieces, complete with musical excerpts both played/sang and visually illustrated in our programs. He informed us about the composers and the poets, the musical qualities of the accompaniment (much of which "paints" the animalian characteristics, like the rolling of a caravan across a desert for the camel's piece, or the high chirp of a grasshopper.) He also spoke about the different ways the pieces debuted. (Poulenc's cycle was first performed at an art gallery before a small audience gathered to pay homage to Guillaume Apollinaire, the poet. In contrast, Ravel's was debuted at a large hall to a very hostile audience who were especially threatened by his decision to shatter the "rules" of classical sung French in favor of fidelity to the way it is spoken. The key difference is the little "e" at the end of French words like "Comme". In spoken French, this e is mute. In sung French, it is traditionally articulated and given its own note. But not in Ravel's Histoires Naturelles!)

Afterwards, there were refreshments, as is typical for the recitals here. But these included - what else? - animal crackers. :)

It was a tremendous recital.

Today, I also got to hear performances, this time in class. In Advanced Opera Seminar (where we prepare our audition arias), everyone sang one piece for the class. One person did Mozart's "In Uomini" from Cosi fan tutte with impish glee. Another sang a gorgeous rendition of "Porgi Amor" from Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro. A third did a piece from a Strauss opera that I didn't know. And I performed the "Bester Jungling", also by Mozart from his little-known opera, The Impresario. I need as much performance practice as I can get on it because that is the main piece for me in the upcoming winter opera.

After Advanced Opera Seminar, I had a coaching on the "Bester Jungling", where we talked about a few questions of pronunciation as well as dynamics and tempo. It makes such a difference to pull back dynamically in various sections of the piece, to be a bit gentler. Not only is it easier on my voice; it also feels more "right" when the vocal line swells again. Sometimes a well-placed decrescendo or mezzo-piano or piano can be more impactful than the largest high-note forte. This piece is such a high, showy work that it needs a little contrast, a "break for the ears" in a way to save it from sounding angry or forced.

It's about time I dive into learning more German...Hopefully I'll get some time this weekend to tie up the remaining odds and ends so that I can start studying that language regularly. And investigating my recital repertoire. And learning more of the Impresario music. And getting that new Strauss lieder into my voice. And refreshing my Italian. And and and...

~Hope

Swimming

Water seems to crop up in my imagery frequently at the moment. I'm swimming in all the beginning-of-semester busy-ness, of course, which is a little more hectic than I'd initially forecast.

I'm also immersed once again, and delightfully so, in the sound waves of music. It's around me all the time as I walk down the halls; snatches of vocal exercises or arias, violin notes, and oft-recognizable strains of various piano pieces all catch my ear as I involuntarily find myself trying to place what they are and where I know them from. Practice rooms and studios are poor keepers of sound, allowing much to escape, much to my happiness. There's a wonderful communion in being able to be "one of" the musicians here. When I left in May to study Italian in Florence, I felt keenly the dearth of my constant musical blanket. It's wonderful to be back among it. It lives, too, in all the new music I'm learning and processing. As I walk down the street, the rhythm of my feet call to mind the rhythm of a new piece, and I find myself running through it in the time metered out by my steps. Of course, there are the coachings and the lessons and practicing where I'm actively singing, too. And there's the music I put on at home, my evening companion as I work or wash dishes.

But perhaps the most interesting water imagery to me is the one linked to the piece whose score you see in the above picture. This is the second of three pieces Richard Strauss wrote about Shakespeare's Ophelia. Set with text from after she's lost her mind, these works are splintered in much the same way you see the water and glass twisting the notes above. Each vocal phrase sounds tonal and centered on a key when excerpted by itself. But the very next phrase will be just slightly different, with another key center. And the piano accompaniment clashes in defined ways that are just slightly off, perhaps by a half-step dissonance. Labyrinthine in their keys and notes, as well as their chromatic turns, these pieces also reflect Shakespeare's text; Ophelia tends to leap from one bit to another, making sense within a verbal paragraph or stanza but then twisting to another moment.

These pieces will be part of my recital in the spring, and I have much to do on them. So I am immersed in these as well. I find myself thinking often of a cracked mirror or shattered mirror fragments, too, as I search for the vocal core of these works. An interesting journey.

~Hope

Plucky Day

Today I got to explore a childhood dream.

When I was 3, I told my parents that I wanted a harp for Christmas. They bought me a lap harp.

It's not the same thing.

For the past year, I've been wondering about taking harp lessons here. When else would I have an easier chance, I reasoned. Plus, I could help some poor harp student earn a little extra on the side. The trouble would be finding a harp student to teach me...

I was pondering this question Monday evening in the practice rooms. As I walked out towards the stairwell, a poster caught my eye.

A poster with a giant sketch of a harp.

It was an advertisement for an Introduction to Harp class. 1 credit (translation: minimal money) in exchange for lessons on basic technique with a splash of harp history and more.

Our first class was today. I played a full-sized harp for the first time in my life today. It was incredibly fun. We learned that the red strings on the harp are Cs, while the black ones are Fs. The foot pedals raise or lower the strings -- these are your accidentals. There is one foot pedal for each "pitch class" (all the Cs or all the Ds, etc.) The natural (uppermost) state of the pedals is flat for every note. The middle spot (halfway depressed) is naturals, and the bottom-most state is sharps. Why? Because each depression of the pedal tightens the strings, thereby making them higher.

Fun, no?

We also learned the proper way to pluck along with the little aphorism to help us remember: "If your thumbs are up, your fingers won't let you down." My other favorite phrase from the class: "One of the secrets of harp is that it never sounds bad, no matter what you play. It's just a beautiful instrument."

At the very end of the class, the instructor showed us how to make the "heavenly glisses" -- that sound you hear in all the cartoons whenever they depict the characters as angels. Absolutely beautiful and surprisingly easy -- it's all in the position you put the pedals in. Just run your thumb away from you along the strings or your forefinger towards you, and the instrument does the rest.

The basics of the instrument are surprisingly straightforward. Of course, playing more than one note at a time with one finger (or a gliss) takes a little more expertise. But I'm just so happy that I finally get to try out this gorgeous fantasy instrument!

~Hope

Beginning the Ending

Today was my first day of my last year of school.

It feels so odd to write that. Even in my other higher-education years, I was always conscious of this dream to attend conservatory. Nothing was ever this final -- I always pictured myself applying to music schools and once again sitting down in a classroom, ready to learn. But now, I'm embarking upon my last year of classes. The last batch of fresh notebooks and new boxes of pens and pencils are sitting in my drawers, waiting to be streamed gradually into my bookbag. I still harbor occasional wisps of wanderings toward D.M.A. or D.B.A. (Doctorate of Musical Arts or Doctorate of Business Administration) programs, but I think that has more to do with my scheming about how to be a perpetual student than with any concrete professional goals.

It's been a good last first day. This semester is rather light for me from the academic standpoint; I'm taking all performance classes. Today was Voice Repertoire (the companion class to last semester's repertoire class) and Studio Class.

In Voice Rep, we listen to and read about lots of art song literature. The class is comprised of both singers and pianists, and we all perform various songs for each other. The goal is to make folks familiar with a swath of useful repertoire across the voice types. This semester, we'll focus on early art song (Renaissance and Baroque), as well as German Lied (18th and 19th centuries) with a dash of Italian and French.

Studio Class is the one hour each week where members of my voice teacher's studio get to perform for each other. Today, we heard the full group of singers. Everyone sang one piece with minimal input from my teacher. It was a great opportunity to hear all the wonderful progress folks have made over the summer and to get to know the newbies a bit. We have one new grad student and two new freshmen. All seem very nice. I sang an "old standard" for me - Pierrot, by Debussy. After I finished, my teacher commented that the high phrases toward the end of the piece have the sort of core and volume/strength I should be finding everywhere. Looks like I'll be exploring some bigger repertoire to get there!

The picture you see above is where I ate lunch today. The weather here was gorgeous - about 70 to 75 degrees and sunny. You may be able to glimpse the little sparrows at the base of the statue. These birds were fighting over some bagel or bread someone had dropped. One would start to carry off the giant piece (which was about the size of the bird himself). It inevitably proved to be too heavy for him. After he dropped it, another bird who'd been tugging on it would attempt to steal the treasure. Nature's entertainment at its best.

Evening is melting into night too quickly. Tomorrow promises another fun and interesting class -something completely unexpected. I'll write more tomorrow night.

~Hope

Cast!

Well, I'm thrilled beyond belief!! We just found out the casting list for the fall and winter productions, and I have a lead role in one of the winter operas!

Madame Silberklag/Silverpeal is a youngish diva who is auditioning for an impresario. Unbeknowst to her, the reigning (aging) diva is also being courted by this man. There's a catfight and some high fireworks singing. Bester Jüngling is Silberklang's aria, which she actually uses in the opera to audition. The piece itself has gained a life apart from the opera and is frequently used in recitals and concerts.

While it makes me a little uncomfortable to play such a catty, arrogant character (It's challenging to play someone I find so inherently distasteful), the music is fantastic. It's Mozart, and the opera's name is, aptly, The Impresario. And I plan to put on some stilettos and find a way to revel in the snootiness of this woman :)

Hooray!

~Hope

It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World

Just got back from the Opera America Conference in Houston, TX. What an incredible event! I met so many amazing people, from stage directors to general managers to board members, and I learned a ton about both sides of opera (business and performance.) More to come on that later...

For now, though, I'm in the thick of final exams and papers. After chatting with people and attending events for 15 hours a day from Wednesday through Saturday this past week, you'd think I'd have a bit of time to rest :) But my flight landed at midnight Sunday (after 12 hours of traveling), and I stayed up till 4 am finishing a project due Monday. Today was my audition for the fall operas/musical and a keyboard audit. Tomorrow is my Medieval History final, and Thursday is music theory. I'm coasting on a thin veneer of sugar and caffeine, desperately trying to substitute techno music for coffee. We'll see how this goes.

May your week be more restful than mine! And if you're getting sleep, catch an hour for me, will ya?

~Hope

The Alphabet Game

Maybe it's just because it's 3 am, but I feel like I'm playing the alphabet game as I type up my works cited list for my third paper. I've hit almost every letter, and a part of me is tempted to go find a Jones or a Jay to round out the list. Z would be more difficult, of course, but I do have four S's. Maybe one of those would be glad to smoosh a bit and pose as its angular cousin.

I hear a Tom Lehr song coming on...

~Hope

It's Here!

In honor of the fact that spring has Finally arrived, I'm uploading pictures of a three foot tall, lavishly decorated chocolate Easter egg that I found in a New York City Valharona Chocolate Shop. They were raffling it off. I was tempted to enter but realized that there would be several logistical difficulties if I actually won. First: How would I get it from New York to me? Second: Who could I give it to in New York who wouldn't hate me forever due to the vast calories they would likely consume and the fact that they would have to pick it up on Easter weekend? Third: If I ended up with it, how would I avoid eating the whole thing in three days?

But enough on the chocolate egg. The point is that the trees here have finally burst into that first gold Robert Frost talked about. The air has that silken quality it gets when the humidity rises a bit and the air is heated by sunlight instead of electricity. It is a pleasure to move around in it, like you're lightly moving through a cushion. Everything smells fresh and summery, and the days are light much longer. I love it!

You'd think this would make it difficult for me to dive into paper-writing, but in fact, it just makes me so happy that I'm glad to sit in my sunlight-filled room, lounge without shivering, and read and write.

I hope you're finding spring wherever you are, too. Unless you're in the southern hemisphere. In which case, Happy Fall!

~Hope

Lute and Voice

Tonight I went to hear two of the top early music performers in the world: Paul O'Dette, a lutenist, and Ellen Hargis, a soprano. (Let me just say that I LOVE student tickets. Top seats for $15? Incredible.) Mr. O'Dette has been nominated for five Grammys, and boy does it show. He plays so fluidly and with such virtuosic expression, his fingers arpeggiating easily across all the strings. Tonight, he played the theorbo. Ms. Hargis is equally skilled and colors her notes with an almost boy soprano quality. She also has incredibly technical control with her dynamics, able to diminuendo with seeming ease. (Diminuendoing is the hardest technical act for a singer.)

In case you're not familiar with the theorbo, this is basically a lute with an extra-long neck. (A lute is kind of like a guitar with a pear-shaped body.) The theorbo was used from about the 16th through the 18th centuries. Tonight's instrument was about 5-6 feet in length. Mr. O'Dette had to set it on the floor and reach above his head to tune the longest strings. It has a very soft sound, and only some of the strings are fretted.

Tonight's music was a mix of vocal/theorbo and theorbo-only works. The pieces for voice and theorbo were written in Medieval Italian, which has some words and pronunciations that remind me of French. Luckily, translations were provided. Most of the pieces dealt with love in its various monstrosities, but the final one ("Aspettate! Adesso canto!" by Antonio Cesti) was all about the prima donna who was singing. She went through various pieces, trying them out one after another for the presumably adoring audience, got fed up, and finally closed with "What, are you still here? Don't you know that when I say "wait" (and listen to me), I really mean "Get out of here!"?

The performers were not chary of acting and fully exploring the comedic nature of some of these pieces. At one point, Mr. O'Dette donned a Renaissance character mask with a long, sharp proboscis. In her first piece (L'Astratto by Barbara Strozzi), Ms. Hargis leafed through music and crumpled sheets as she "discarded" the various refrains her character was trying to sing. At one point, she even folded one piece of music into a paper airplane and launched it at the lutenist. The stage manager got in on the act by huffily picking up the papers when it was her turn to reset the stage.

The music from this era is interesting but can seem a bit monotonous in color to me. That's why I think it's so great when performers really bring it to life dramatically. Tonight, they did.

~Hope

PS Here's the full program in case you're interested:

L'Astratto by Barbara Strozzi (1619-1677)

Tocatta arpeggiata by Giovanni Girolamo Kapsberger (c. 1580-1651)
Ritornello by Kapsberger
Bergamasca by Kapsberger
Kapsberger by Kapsberger (no, this isn't a typo)
Ciaconna by Kapsberger (described by Mr. O'Dette as the "earliest piece of rock music." I think this was because it had so many ornaments that were basically like modern guitar riffs. The tonality was sort of similar, too, and he had some energetic strumming.)

Respira mio core by Strozzi
L'amante segreto by Strozzi
Questa e la nuova by Strozzi

Orfeo by Alessandro Scarlatti (1660-1725)

Toccata VI by Alessandro Piccinini (1566-c. 1638)
Corrente VII by Piccinini
Partite variate sopra l'Alemana by Piccinini
Corrente sorpa l'Alemana by Piccinini

Aspettate! Adesso canto by Antonio Cesti (1623-1669)

My Best Friend

I know, I know. This is extremely sad.

Yes, my best friend is The Microwave.

When you cook for one and that one is an impoverished student, I've found it's most effective to make a lot of food that you can freeze and heat up quickly later. Casseroles top my list, as does my mom's vegetarian lasagna. These are sliceable, freezable in Tupperware containers, and easily reheatable in my friend, The Microwave.

3 minute dinners. Can't beat 'em. Especially when you have 3 papers to write, 2 finals to study for, 3 upcoming final performances, and a final project all due in 5 days.

Stay tuned for my Other Best Friend in times like these: Chocolate.

~Hope

Juries

Today marked the first time I've sung for the entire voice faculty since my audition here last year. The event is called "juries". All first year grad students sing for the faculty in the spring semester of their first year. It's a way to show progress, to help the faculty get to know all the voices in the department, and to provide some sort of evaluative sense for the teachers themselves. (If a student doesn't improve or gets worse, this is not a good indicator for his/her voice teacher.)

My voice teacher kindly told me that the faculty would be evaluating her rather than me. She meant this to be comforting, a way to say, "Don't worry: it doesn't matter for you." But I would MUCH rather the department evaluate just me based on how I sing. It's far more pressure to think that she'll be judged based on how I sing and how well I control my nerves. After all, I love studying with her. I don't want her reputation besmirched by my performance.

Fortunately, no matter who people were evaluating today, I think my jury went fairly well. The cold I'd been battling finally left the building, and I was able to sing clearly with my Real Voice back at last. Welcome home, darling, welcome home. (Here's your initiation to another singerly tendency: singers find themselves occasionally talking about their voices as though these instruments are other independent beings. This is not too far off; it is a quintessentially human instrument, with all of the uniqueness, personality, and vibrance of a person, and "the voice" also can operate independently. A singer can have the best intentions to hit that note, hold that support, get the agility into the run, and no matter what the breath support or mental processes, "the voice" can have a mind of its own and decide not to cooperate.)

The way the juries are set up is like an audition format. You dress up, make up (if you're female or if you happen to be a guy who enjoys makeup), and print out your list of jury pieces. They ask for four pieces in three different languages, one of which should be English. You walk in, announce your name and your accompanist's name, and tell them what piece you would like to sing first.

Our juries were held in the black box theatre, which is a fairly large room (large for a classroom, small for a theatre) whose walls, floor, and ceiling are all painted in black. Theatrical lights hang from grids on the ceiling. Because Cabaret will soon be going up in that room, there is also a wooden set there right now. Fortunately, the set was somehow folded up to provide clear space in half of the room. As you enter, the faculy are all seated along a long table along the right wall. The small grand piano is to your left, along the left wall. The faculty greet you warmly because they all know who you are, even if they haven't all heard you sing yet.

For my first piece, I chose "Pierrot", one of Debussy's Quatre Chansons de Jeunesse. It's a lovely comic piece about a drunk mime. Very funny, great to get nerves out, and with lots of high notes, which is where my voice automatically engages. It's much easier for me to deal with pieces like this that swoop up to a high B and high C when I'm nervous, especially since it's a fast one. I don't have time to assess. The notes aren't held out, and they just fit in my voice. That means even when my breath is a little shaky because of nerves, this piece is there. It's also a great way to get breath support going. I have to support to hit those notes, and my body just automatically knows what to do - no mental effort required. Plus, the colorful characters and comedy mean that I have a wonderful distraction from "critiquing" myself in the midst of the performance; I have to focus on expressing this wry humor.

This piece went well. Then, the faculty chose the next piece from the remaining three on my list. Their options were Castelnuovo-Tedesco's "Ophelia", Debussy's "Pantomime" (also from Quatre Chansons de Jeunesse), and Faccio's "Sortita d'Ofelia". They picked the Faccio, as I thought they might. This piece is a wonderful Puccini-esque work from a little known opera. I love it, and it feels and sounds good in my voice. I'd give my performance a 90%. I was definitely nervous, which affected my breath support and forced me to end a diminuendo early at the end. But the held high C and following downward arpeggios went well. Hooray!

It was an interesting day. I wore the same dress I'd worn when I auditioned here last year, a minor tip of the hat to the closure of a year. I can hardly believe I've been here a year already. It now seems second-nature to be immersed in music all the time, to be thinking about practicing and performing so much instead of contemplating PowerPoint. My performance anxiety has dissipated much more than I ever thought it would. Performing is feeling more and more natural to me. My voice itself has rounded out in color, volume/support, richness, and resonance. And I feel so much more whole as a person. There are always challenges and questions, and I still don't know exactly what path I'll take next. But it is such a gift to be here, to be able to pursue my passion completely.

This is definitely one of the best decisions and opportunities of my life. I am so, so grateful.

~Hope

Study break

Finals are rapidly approaching, along with paper deadlines and jury week (this week.) All that prompts colorful stress relievers like the poster above, which is plastered outside the door to the practice room building. In case you can't read it, it says, "Regaining your sanity one cookie at a time." The lovely folks at one of the Christian Fellowship groups on campus decided to create a "stress-free zone" in one of the classrooms with cookies and happy thoughts one day last week. Lovely.

I'm juggling a few different papers, one of which is a character profile on a minor role in Delibes' Lakme. You'll recognize two songs from this opera: The Flower Duet and The Bell Song. Both have been used in lots of advertising, film, and other pop culture arenas. I believe The Flower Duet is the one in Shawshank Redemption that's played over the prison loudspeakers. That said, the opera itself has not been studied that much, which makes locating information about Delibes' composition process and his co-creators a bit tough. I'm starting to be very grateful again for my five semesters of French in college. Nothing like plowing through late nineteenth century biographies of Delibes in French to make you glad not to have to look up every individual word.

In the meantime, I get to take study breaks with a ton of music to sing and learn. My jury is this week, and I need to know four pieces for that. These just keep getting refined and placed back in my voice after the cold. In two weeks, though, I have an audition for the fall productions, which means I'm learning two new pieces. One is a high coloratura piece ("Bester Jungling" from Mozart's Impresario). The other is its complete opposite: a low-sitting sustained piece ("How Could I Ever Know" from The Secret Garden). Because I'll miss my voice lesson next week for a conference, I need to learn these pieces fast and go over them with my teacher this week. Whew! Lots to think about.

On that note, I think I'd better go review the two scenes I need to know for tomorrow. (Even more music! And this time, with blocking! I sound like an infomercial...)

~Hope

Madness

I'm exploring various shades of madness right now, namely those of Ophelia.

Shakespeare's works have been a particularly fertile source of inspiration for many composers, and Hamlet is no exception. The character of Ophelia has sparked several variations, and I'm working on four.

The first is a little-known aria by Franco Faccio called "Sortita d'Ofelia". It's from his opera, Amleto, which was written in the mid-19th century. This is a soaring bel canto piece with lots of portamenti (slides between notes), legato, and rich lyricism. It is tonal and represents Ophelia before she goes mad. She basically tells Hamlet that the royal marriage seems black to her; something is rotten in the state of Denmark. (I know - that isn't her line in the original play.) Then, she goes on to tell him not to worry, that he should doubt everything -- that the stars shine in the heavens, that the sun radiates, that seeds germinate, people's tears and people's smiles, and even the angels in paradise -- but he should believe in love.

The next piece is in English and is by Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, a twentieth century Italian composer who eventually moved to America. His piece is a study in multiple personality disorder. He has taken Shakespeare's lines for Ophelia and smashed them together in a single monologue. She flits from mourning her father, to spouting nursery rhymes, to talking about St. Valentine's Day and how men cannot be held responsible for deflowering maidens and then leaving them (perhaps a veiled reference to Hamlet's rejection of her), to blessing all Christian souls as she drowns at the end.

Another twentieth-century composer who wrote for Ophelia is Richard Strauss. He wrote a set of three songs that are kaleidescopic. Fragments of them seem tonal in their own individual universes, but the bits are collected together in an ever-shifting sonic landscape that creates the sense of a not-quite-rationality. You can just start to make sense of something when it leaps out from under you. These pieces are written in German, and the text is similar to that of Castelnuovo-Tedesco's.

Finally, Ernest Chausson, a nineteenth-century composer, wrote a song called "Chanson d'Ophélie" that is in French. It is a short, melancholy piece that deals entirely with Ophelia's mourning her father. "Il est mort, ayant bien souffert, Madame." "He is dead, having suffered much, Madame," she begins.

Several different portraits at several different stages of madness, perhaps with several different Ophelias. I'm thinking of using these pieces as a set on my recital next year. I may explore how Ophelia was understood in the different cultures and time periods when/where each of these pieces was written to get a sense of how to portray Ophelia differently.

For now, though, it's back to the land of sanity and paper-writing.

~Hope

Upside-down week

It's been an Alice Through the Looking Glass kind of week. I'm in the throes of a rather nasty head cold that's been throwing me off-kilter in all ways - physically, emotionally, artistically, and mentally. My energy is down, I'm foggy in thought, and I haven't been able to sing full-out for days. Not singing generally tosses me for a loop and drags me down like ballast on a balloon. Odd to not be able to find your equilibrium.

On the other side of it, I was able to go home for Easter. It was wonderful to see my family and to be immersed in that warm and loving environment. I ate my favorite chocolate cake (see picture), made by my mom for birthdays, and I luxuriated in all the sunshine of being there. Since it was only a two day trip, it seems rather like a dream. You just get used to it, and you're back to the empty apartment again.



Here's hoping that the cold vacates soon, that the world rights itself, and that I can climb back through the looking glass without too many unfortunate remainders.

~Hope

Traveling

It has been a crazy week. The contemporary performance on Monday night meant that I was burning the candle at both ends in order to be up on time for Tuesday's classes.

Tuesday, e and I were up late because it was his second and last day here. We hadn't spent much time together during the day since I dragged him to six and a half hours of classes.

Wednesday, we rose at 3:50 am to catch 6 am flights -- New York City for me and home for e. A whirlwind day in NYC saw me on another plane home at 10 pm.

Thursday, I was up at 6:30 to finish a mailing list for my graduate assistantship. (Hello, Excel. Nice to see you again.)

Today, another early morning to review a duet scene we were staging today in class. And tonight, I'm up packing just to rise again tomorrow and drive home for Easter.

It will likely be a push till the end of school. The fatigue is finally catching up with me. My body just feels weary, and my throat is tight. I need sleep and lots of vitamins. One more big performance for the semester: juries are in 2 weeks. Yikes! (Juries are where you sing for the entire voice faculty. I need four pieces covering at least three languages. I'm working out the full list now...)

But overall, things are still exciting and good, even if I am still on the treadmill. Hopefully, Easter weekend will provide a bit of R&R.

I hope you have a wonderful Passover or Easter or Spring Fling or whatever else your beliefs imply!

~Hope

Performing Galore

After four performances of Figaro in the last four days, tonight I performed the contemporary piece that my composer buddy wrote. We had a concert in the relatively small hall here, a very intimate chamber music room with very warm acoustics.

Our piece was the last one in the dress rehearsal (which ended 30 minutes before the performance began), and we were the first on the program. I think this was partly due to logistics; our piece requires two pianos, one of which must be "prepared" (which means fiddling with the piano's interior to create unusual sounds when keys are played.)

Overall, it went fine. The whole concert was really good; the other performers were amazing! What a great experience to go from tonal Figaro to modern music in 24 hours :)

~Hope

Be careful what you wish for...

On Wednesday and Thursday, it was 60 degrees and gorgeous here. Restaurants actually put out tables for people to eat outside.

However, my April Fool's Day joke for my mom was that it was supposed to turn cold and blizzardy this weekend. She fell for it, was promptly "April Fooled", and we laughed about how lovely the weather actually was.

Last night, a giant windstorm came through. I woke up to this:

It's hard to see with my camera's too-long shutter speed, but the streaks in the lower left corner are - you guessed it - snow. The clouds are dumping the cold flakes, and the wind continues to blow at gale force levels.

Serves me right for April Fooling my own mother.

~Hope

Figaro Bookends

Tonight's show was wonderful. The audience was warm and vocal, laughing audibly in funny places and clapping with enthusiasm. We all sensed it early on in the show, and it gave such a lift to all the performers, infusing the show with a vibrant, happy energy. Everyone sounded so good and did so well. I'm just delighted!

I think my favorite moments in this opera are bookends; the overture that opens Figaro and the Finale. The overture is a classic piece, something that is familiar to most ears because it has been used in countless films and commercials. It is gorgeous with just the right rhythms and instrumentation. An example of Mozart's genius. It fills me with excitement every time I sit and listen to it. It's this feeling of "We're beginning! Here we go! The show is happening!"

The Finale starts in a slow, gentle manner, filled with warmth and emotion, and it makes me cry almost every time I hear it. It is about forgiveness. Figaro is a comedy, so things must come right in the end. Here (spoiler alert) the Countess forgives the philandering Count. The Count forgives the Countess for her ruses. Figaro and Susanna rejoice together. But it is more than just a simple pardon; it is a warm river that wraps itself around every audience member. It is about the true meaning of love, about how wonderful love is. But before it becomes maudlin, it launches into a bouncy "Corriam tutti" - "Everyone run!" "Let's all celebrate!" that finishes off the opera with a true joyfulness.

If you haven't heard these two gorgeous pieces, go find them on iTunes immediately. You won't regret it.

~Hope

Opening Night

Figaro is opening tonight. The third act has just started. I'm listening to a beautiful Count/Susanna duet. Their voices are so resplendent -- full, spinning, gorgeous. I love it! All of the leads in the show are super talented. My only regret about being in the chorus is that I never get to see the full production from the house. I'm always listening from the dressing rooms since the chorus performs with both casts. (We double cast here partly to give more folks a chance to sing the roles, partly as an insurance policy in case someone becomes ill, and partly because singing four performances of a major opera is a significant undertaking. You have to space them out since opera fatigues voices. By double casting, we can do the four performances all in a row over a weekend, which also cuts costs in terms of lighting/costumes/set rentals, etc.)

In any case, there is a heightened energy here tonight. It makes such a difference to have a live audience in the house as opposed to empty seats and ghosts of past patrons soaking up the sounds. If you sing in the shower or your car, just imagine what it would be like to have someone who happens to be outside your bathroom door or in your passenger seat listening to you. You'd have a heightened sense of performance. Perhaps you'd be super nervous. Perhaps you'd secretly love it and want to step it up to impress them. That's sort of like the difference it makes here.

There is also a dialogue that happens between the people onstage and the audience. The singers are always conscious that the people in the audience must be able to see and hear them, so they "cheat out", angling slightly outwards onstage, as though inviting the audience members in to hear what's going on. This is different than film where actors will face each other directly, creating a more "realistic portrayal." Onstage, if you face your compadre directly, you block the audience from seeing your full expression, and it's much harder to get them to hear you, especially in a large hall like this one.

The dialogue bounces back from the audience to the stage as well. The audience laughs, groans, applauds, and gives feedback to the performers. Having an audience with "good energy" is like walking into a lively party. A difficult audience is like walking into a room with an awkward silence. You know what that feels like; you may not be able to point to something palpably as evidence, but you can feel the discomfort in the air. Our audience here tonight seems warm, although perhaps a bit over-polite or small. It is a Thursday night, after all.

Know that when you go to see an opera, it's perfectly acceptable to laugh out loud, to clap, to shout "bravo" when you particularly like something, to make noise. Performers like to know that they're garnering a response from the audience, that they're having an effect and being appreciated. Just because it's "opera" doesn't mean it's on some sort of pedestal, like a library environment. Opera is all about human emotion. Express away in the audience!

Back to swinging my huge dress around. It's a lot of fun having an extra foot of width across my hips. :)

~Hope