I'm currently in the midst of PapersGrantApplicationsTaxesTheoryHomeworkExamsSpeechesPerformancesVideoEditing. That means my mental capacity to be coherent in anything outside schoolwork is diminishing rapidly.
I thought I would therefore throw a pass to one of my favorite blogs. A cop out, I know, especially since this one isn't really music-related, but I promise you'll enjoy it. It's much more visually stimulating than my blog in any case. And it's written in France. About food. What's not to love?
Go to http://chocolateandzucchini.com/ and enjoy. I am not responsible for any extra calories you may consume as a result of said wonderful and mouthwatering site. Just so you know.
~Hope
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Murder She Wrote
Look closely at the top line under "Friday February 13". From 12-1, Murder is scheduled in Room 805.
In what other world would you actually see that on a schedule oh-so-matter-of-factly?
Opera is incredible for so many reasons. Where else do you see murder, flaming pyres, mythological forces, glamorous love, happy endings, TB-inspired sad endings, romance, anguish, jingoism, exoticism, and any other host of emotions and happenings you can imagine? Yes, straight theatre has its own beauty and amazing angles. But for adding that little extra spark, that additional universal language that clues you into the subtle intricacies of what's actually going on, music can't be beat.
We're in the midst of midterms here, which partly explains my skipped postings over the last few days. While I don't have exams, I do have papers and projects that all seem to be scheduled at once. Add three grant applications due this week to that, and you pretty much have a recipe for a techno-inspired existence.
At least the craziness is fun-infused. How can I not keep laughing with schedules and signs like that one above?
~Hope
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Why Accompanists are Amazing
Accompanists are the unsung stars of the music world. For vocalists, most accompanists are pianists. They provide a richly textured tapestry of sound underneath our single-note vocal line. A great accompanist can make a piece leap from the page and become three-dimensional. The way an accompanist plays influences how a singer takes her breaths, how much she feels the ground under her feet and aligns herself to sing, and how she feels and emotes the piece.
Bottom line: the accompanist makes all the difference in the performance.
A poor accompanist can cripple a great singer. It's up to the accompanist to follow the singer, to pause in places for the singer to breathe, to anticipate what the singer wants to do with expression and to complement that. If the accompanist plays woodenly or without regard to his/her singer partner, disaster or, at best, a stiff performance can ensue.
All this means that the accompanist has an incredibly difficult job. (S)he must be a terrific pianist in his/her own right, able to bring out colors and characters in a piece. (S)he must have a knowledge of singing technique to be able to understand what kinds of piano support are most helpful to a singer technically. (S)he needs to investigate the vocal line, translating any foreign language text to know what the poem says. (S)he must present ideas about expression but also be open to the singer's opinion. And (s)he must be a psychologist, anticipating what could go wrong, having a touch of ESP to leap ahead seamlessly if the singer skips a passage or a beat or just speeds up a bit.
All this comes into play, and yet the accompanist often remains unsung, unnoticed, sitting quietly by the piano while the singer in the flashy attire takes a bow. If you've been to a recital, think of how often you remember the singer's name vs. how often you can say who the pianist was. Whom do you watch at a recital? Chances are, it's the singer, who has the text and his/her face turned to you.
I find myself watching the accompanists more and more at recitals, even though I still watch the singers most. And, as a singer, I try to be really conscious of my pianist partner. The next time you attend a performance, take a look at the person on the piano bench. And think, just for a moment, about what it would be like if you were the one with your hands on the keys, trying to follow and support that singer.
Pretty impressive, no?
~Hope
Bottom line: the accompanist makes all the difference in the performance.
A poor accompanist can cripple a great singer. It's up to the accompanist to follow the singer, to pause in places for the singer to breathe, to anticipate what the singer wants to do with expression and to complement that. If the accompanist plays woodenly or without regard to his/her singer partner, disaster or, at best, a stiff performance can ensue.
All this means that the accompanist has an incredibly difficult job. (S)he must be a terrific pianist in his/her own right, able to bring out colors and characters in a piece. (S)he must have a knowledge of singing technique to be able to understand what kinds of piano support are most helpful to a singer technically. (S)he needs to investigate the vocal line, translating any foreign language text to know what the poem says. (S)he must present ideas about expression but also be open to the singer's opinion. And (s)he must be a psychologist, anticipating what could go wrong, having a touch of ESP to leap ahead seamlessly if the singer skips a passage or a beat or just speeds up a bit.
All this comes into play, and yet the accompanist often remains unsung, unnoticed, sitting quietly by the piano while the singer in the flashy attire takes a bow. If you've been to a recital, think of how often you remember the singer's name vs. how often you can say who the pianist was. Whom do you watch at a recital? Chances are, it's the singer, who has the text and his/her face turned to you.
I find myself watching the accompanists more and more at recitals, even though I still watch the singers most. And, as a singer, I try to be really conscious of my pianist partner. The next time you attend a performance, take a look at the person on the piano bench. And think, just for a moment, about what it would be like if you were the one with your hands on the keys, trying to follow and support that singer.
Pretty impressive, no?
~Hope
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Double Shot
It was a double shot day today - 2 one-shot-of-espresso-each mochas. The last time I did that I was pulling a 30 hour writing extravaganza on a final paper. And before that? Try the Old Life in Consulting.
Why so much caffeine? Well, today I pulled myself out of bed quite early to trek in to the practice rooms. Only the cleaning staff was there when I arrived. I spent over 5 hours today glued to a piano in one of the toasty, musty rooms. That's right: it's keyboard audit time. When they throw a sheet of paper at you and say things like, "Play a V7/V chord in F major. Set the key first, and then bring it to an authentic cadence. Then do it in D major," you learn to sit yourself in front of a piano for a long while to get it under your fingers. We also had sequences on the exam. These are progressions of notes that follow a pattern. The top note might step down by half steps, while the bass note moves by whole steps. The middle notes might alternate between thirds and some other interval. For this, the sheet gave us the first few chords, and we had to continue the pattern. Then we had to "transpose it into keys with up to two sharps or two flats." You don't write anything down while you do this; you just play it.
I continue to thank my piano teachers from my youth who put up with my reluctance to practice and my relative boredom with the instrument. (Singing was always much more exciting to me. I couldn't wait to take voice lessons! Piano, on the other hand...I was more than a bit of a slacker with that one. One of my teachers used to glower, "You know, BJ practices an hour a day!" Me? I was at about 10 minutes, if that. Homework seemed more important.)
Anyway, my keyboard audit popped up this afternoon. Before that, however, I had a coaching with my accompanist, rehearsing "Pierrot", a Debussy piece I'm singing in my voice lesson tomorrow. I also played guinea pig for a master's in directing candidate who was auditioning today. She coached me on "Laurie's Song" from Copland's The Tender Land. Throw in a theory class and an afternoon meeting talking about entrepreneurship in music, and you pretty much have my day before the audit.
Afterwards, I had a rehearsal for Figaro. I'm in the chorus, which means I get to nip in, do a little scene, and nip out again. It's so fascinating to watch the leads, though, that I'm hoping to ask if I can sit in on some more rehearsals. They are truly wonderful! And the director is fantastic. You can learn so much by just watching how other people figure out how to express this thing called opera.
Lots of odds and ends to finish up before sleep, so I'm grateful to the remants of caffeine that are keeping me going. There will be time enough to detox tomorrow...
~Hope
Why so much caffeine? Well, today I pulled myself out of bed quite early to trek in to the practice rooms. Only the cleaning staff was there when I arrived. I spent over 5 hours today glued to a piano in one of the toasty, musty rooms. That's right: it's keyboard audit time. When they throw a sheet of paper at you and say things like, "Play a V7/V chord in F major. Set the key first, and then bring it to an authentic cadence. Then do it in D major," you learn to sit yourself in front of a piano for a long while to get it under your fingers. We also had sequences on the exam. These are progressions of notes that follow a pattern. The top note might step down by half steps, while the bass note moves by whole steps. The middle notes might alternate between thirds and some other interval. For this, the sheet gave us the first few chords, and we had to continue the pattern. Then we had to "transpose it into keys with up to two sharps or two flats." You don't write anything down while you do this; you just play it.
I continue to thank my piano teachers from my youth who put up with my reluctance to practice and my relative boredom with the instrument. (Singing was always much more exciting to me. I couldn't wait to take voice lessons! Piano, on the other hand...I was more than a bit of a slacker with that one. One of my teachers used to glower, "You know, BJ practices an hour a day!" Me? I was at about 10 minutes, if that. Homework seemed more important.)
Anyway, my keyboard audit popped up this afternoon. Before that, however, I had a coaching with my accompanist, rehearsing "Pierrot", a Debussy piece I'm singing in my voice lesson tomorrow. I also played guinea pig for a master's in directing candidate who was auditioning today. She coached me on "Laurie's Song" from Copland's The Tender Land. Throw in a theory class and an afternoon meeting talking about entrepreneurship in music, and you pretty much have my day before the audit.
Afterwards, I had a rehearsal for Figaro. I'm in the chorus, which means I get to nip in, do a little scene, and nip out again. It's so fascinating to watch the leads, though, that I'm hoping to ask if I can sit in on some more rehearsals. They are truly wonderful! And the director is fantastic. You can learn so much by just watching how other people figure out how to express this thing called opera.
Lots of odds and ends to finish up before sleep, so I'm grateful to the remants of caffeine that are keeping me going. There will be time enough to detox tomorrow...
~Hope
Monday, February 16, 2009
The Human Barometer
The weather has been yo-yoing up and down in temperature, teasing us with glimpses of a thaw and then smashing us with snow again. I was doing fine with this until today, when I just feel particularly "off" and migrainous.
On the one hand, being out of an office job makes this much easier. Most of my day is very active - moving among people and places, using my entire body to sing, focusing on where to go with staging, and being completely engaged with people. It's a very different existence from parking myself in front of a computer screen, trying to generate content and ideas and mold them into some sort of cohesive PowerPoint. I no longer feel myself digging deeply just to muster enough oomph to keep going.
On the other hand, because I'm now much more aware of my entire body as my instrument, I feel more keenly the times when I'm not entirely "aligned." I try to stay away from caffeine because I sharply notice my muscles tensing under its reaction. That means I don't really have that "energy boost" as a go-to. Instead, I'm more likely to just let myself be when I feel tired. A good thing in some ways, but definitely not as "productive" as I used to be.
Of course, that begs the question of whether "being productive" should really be the ultimate goal and value in life anyway.
All that to say that I hope the weather settles down soon, even if that means we're back into a consistency of cold. In the meantime, I'll try to add more tea, yoga, and sleep to my life. Mmm.
~Hope
On the one hand, being out of an office job makes this much easier. Most of my day is very active - moving among people and places, using my entire body to sing, focusing on where to go with staging, and being completely engaged with people. It's a very different existence from parking myself in front of a computer screen, trying to generate content and ideas and mold them into some sort of cohesive PowerPoint. I no longer feel myself digging deeply just to muster enough oomph to keep going.
On the other hand, because I'm now much more aware of my entire body as my instrument, I feel more keenly the times when I'm not entirely "aligned." I try to stay away from caffeine because I sharply notice my muscles tensing under its reaction. That means I don't really have that "energy boost" as a go-to. Instead, I'm more likely to just let myself be when I feel tired. A good thing in some ways, but definitely not as "productive" as I used to be.
Of course, that begs the question of whether "being productive" should really be the ultimate goal and value in life anyway.
All that to say that I hope the weather settles down soon, even if that means we're back into a consistency of cold. In the meantime, I'll try to add more tea, yoga, and sleep to my life. Mmm.
~Hope
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Surreal
e. came to visit me this weekend. He flew all the way across the country for about 24 hours with me. It was a warm and wonderful weekend, wandering past the boutique shops, sitting by a fire sipping homemade hot chocolate (by melting the chocolate in the milk), and munching on a lovely Valentine's Day dinner that he made me.
At the same time, it feels very surreal. He nips in for a day and then, just as quickly, is gone again. Mixing with this is a sharp sense of longing I have for the city where I went to college. I think this is partly due to the fact that it is much warmer there; spring is about two weeks away there instead of two months. But that feeling is also likely triggered by the fact that I'm currently listening to Feist.
Certain music evokes a particularly strong sense of place for me. Dave Matthews Band and Feist are associated with Charlottesville, VA. It's not that I necessarily listened to them in college; it's more that their ambience matches that of C-ville for me. Music sometimes holds a memory function for me (like when you smell fresh baked bread and are instantly transported to your grandma's house), but it more often just paints a feeling that envelops me, an environment.
Because of this, there is some music that I know I can't listen to. The soundtrack for Shakespeare in Love always makes me feel melancholy, no matter what else I'm doing. On the flip side, certain techno makes me immediately more productive and focused. And Frank Sinatra almost always offers happiness.
Is there any particuarly music that has those effects on you?
~Hope
At the same time, it feels very surreal. He nips in for a day and then, just as quickly, is gone again. Mixing with this is a sharp sense of longing I have for the city where I went to college. I think this is partly due to the fact that it is much warmer there; spring is about two weeks away there instead of two months. But that feeling is also likely triggered by the fact that I'm currently listening to Feist.
Certain music evokes a particularly strong sense of place for me. Dave Matthews Band and Feist are associated with Charlottesville, VA. It's not that I necessarily listened to them in college; it's more that their ambience matches that of C-ville for me. Music sometimes holds a memory function for me (like when you smell fresh baked bread and are instantly transported to your grandma's house), but it more often just paints a feeling that envelops me, an environment.
Because of this, there is some music that I know I can't listen to. The soundtrack for Shakespeare in Love always makes me feel melancholy, no matter what else I'm doing. On the flip side, certain techno makes me immediately more productive and focused. And Frank Sinatra almost always offers happiness.
Is there any particuarly music that has those effects on you?
~Hope
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
I'm Head Over Heels
for Claude Debussy (shh - don't tell e.)
Right now, I'm working on his Quatre Chansons de Jeunesse. This is a set of four songs by a few different poets (Verlaine for the first two, Banville for Pierrot, and Mallarme for Apparition). All the pieces are incredibly gorgeous. What I see as my favorite changes from day to day.
Pantomime is about a puppet play. Pierrot is a boorish fellow who guzzles a bottle of wine and a meat pie without waiting at all. Cassandre stands at the bottom of the avenue and cries a tear without anyone seeing because his nephew is about to be disinherited. (We don't know if he's crying out of selfishness for his own loss of wealth ;) ) The rogue Harlequin devises a scheme to abduct Colombine and pirouettes four times. In the meantime, Colombine dreams, surprised to feel a heart on the breeze and to hear voices in her heart.
Clair de lune is sung to a lover, saying that your soul is a chosen landscape that charmingly goes about in masks, playing the lute and dancing and almost sad under its whimsical disguises, all the while singing in a minor mode about victorious love and the opportune life. These bergamaskers don't quite believe their happiness, and their song mixes with the light of the moon. The calm light of the moon, sad and beautiful, makes the birds dream in their trees and makes the jets of water (fountains) sob in ecstasy. The great jets of water, slender, among the marble. The calm light of the moon, sad and beautiful.
In Pierrot, that good fellow Pierrot wanders away after the Harlequin's wedding while the crowd watches him. He dreamily walks along the church boulevard and doesn't even notice the young woman who flashes a supple leg at him. She tries to catch his eye and delights in him, but he pays no attention. The white moon throws a glance to the horns of a bull while she slides over to her friend, Jean Gaspard.
The final song, Apparition, is more abstract. The moon was saddened by the angels who were in tears, dreaming, with the bow at their fingertips. In the calm mist of the flowers, they plucked the dying strings of the violas, like white sobs, slipping over the azure blue of the flower petals. It was the blessed day of your first kiss. My reverie, loving to torment me, cleverly got drunk on the perfume of sadness that, even without regret and without setbacks, let the gathering of a dream stay in the heart that caught it. I wandered then, with my eye riveted on the aged cobblestones when, with sunshine on your hair, in the street and in the evening, you appeared, laughing at me. And I believed that I saw the fairy with the hat of lightness who had been in my dreams before as a spoiled child, always letting fall from her half-closed hands a snowshower of white bouquets of perfumed stars.
Beautiful, no? You can find these on iTunes as sung by Donna Brown under the title "Melodies de Jeunesse." Youtube also has a few sung by Natalie Dessay when she was very young: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPf5xWZcCHw Personally, I think they should be more legato than how she sings them, but that's just me.
Enjoy!
~Hope
Right now, I'm working on his Quatre Chansons de Jeunesse. This is a set of four songs by a few different poets (Verlaine for the first two, Banville for Pierrot, and Mallarme for Apparition). All the pieces are incredibly gorgeous. What I see as my favorite changes from day to day.
Pantomime is about a puppet play. Pierrot is a boorish fellow who guzzles a bottle of wine and a meat pie without waiting at all. Cassandre stands at the bottom of the avenue and cries a tear without anyone seeing because his nephew is about to be disinherited. (We don't know if he's crying out of selfishness for his own loss of wealth ;) ) The rogue Harlequin devises a scheme to abduct Colombine and pirouettes four times. In the meantime, Colombine dreams, surprised to feel a heart on the breeze and to hear voices in her heart.
Clair de lune is sung to a lover, saying that your soul is a chosen landscape that charmingly goes about in masks, playing the lute and dancing and almost sad under its whimsical disguises, all the while singing in a minor mode about victorious love and the opportune life. These bergamaskers don't quite believe their happiness, and their song mixes with the light of the moon. The calm light of the moon, sad and beautiful, makes the birds dream in their trees and makes the jets of water (fountains) sob in ecstasy. The great jets of water, slender, among the marble. The calm light of the moon, sad and beautiful.
In Pierrot, that good fellow Pierrot wanders away after the Harlequin's wedding while the crowd watches him. He dreamily walks along the church boulevard and doesn't even notice the young woman who flashes a supple leg at him. She tries to catch his eye and delights in him, but he pays no attention. The white moon throws a glance to the horns of a bull while she slides over to her friend, Jean Gaspard.
The final song, Apparition, is more abstract. The moon was saddened by the angels who were in tears, dreaming, with the bow at their fingertips. In the calm mist of the flowers, they plucked the dying strings of the violas, like white sobs, slipping over the azure blue of the flower petals. It was the blessed day of your first kiss. My reverie, loving to torment me, cleverly got drunk on the perfume of sadness that, even without regret and without setbacks, let the gathering of a dream stay in the heart that caught it. I wandered then, with my eye riveted on the aged cobblestones when, with sunshine on your hair, in the street and in the evening, you appeared, laughing at me. And I believed that I saw the fairy with the hat of lightness who had been in my dreams before as a spoiled child, always letting fall from her half-closed hands a snowshower of white bouquets of perfumed stars.
Beautiful, no? You can find these on iTunes as sung by Donna Brown under the title "Melodies de Jeunesse." Youtube also has a few sung by Natalie Dessay when she was very young: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPf5xWZcCHw Personally, I think they should be more legato than how she sings them, but that's just me.
Enjoy!
~Hope
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Immersed
It's been a relatively crazy few days (well, crazy by current life standards at least. Nothing compares to consulting.) As of yesterday, I attended my fifth recital in three days. Yesterday also saw me either singing or listening to singing for 5 hours. Pretty amazing. I love being able to do this!
The recitals ran the gamut -- a marvelous baritone from my voice studio, a high spinny lovely soprano, a couple creamy mezzos, two high tenors, and then a smorgasbord at the Departmental Recital.
"Departmentals," as they're fondly known here, basically involve a smattering of singers from freshmen to masters' students. All voice types are represented, and you spend an hour hearing about 15-20 singers churn through. Each sings 1-2 pieces, and they don't spend any time pausing. It's fascinating to watch people at all these different levels, each clearly talented but each at different points in their performance growth. The younger singers typically sound amazing but may have some diction yet to solve or may still be somewhat awkward onstage. I completely sympathize since I'm still trying to polish my own diction and stage presence - not easy things to do when you haven't grown up performing.
Overall, having the chance to go to all these events is just amazing. It immerses me in a continually high level of performance, and, since it's my fellow students, people at my level, it makes me believe that I can do that too. There's something about building that intuitive kind of confidence that's really important. Singing especially seems predicated on psychological beliefs that engender the ability to walk onstage and Perform with aplomb.
Another amazing occurrence I saw this past weekend was a friend who sang with a terrible cold. She had her doctoral recital, and there was no postponing it. The first half was 30 minutes of Berlioz without a break. She just sang it straight through. The next half was a German set of Mignons (many of these have been written) and a Spanish set. She stood there with her incredible mezzo voice and not only made it through; she shone. Especially in the second half when she realized that she didn't have to preserve so much anymore, she really let it fly. This is very, very hard to do. It's like bowling with a broken finger or ice skating with only one skate. You feel totally off when your instrument is compromised. But she knocked everybody's socks off. Truly incredible.
At this point, I leave you with a terrific story on one of my favorite subjects: The Muppets. It's on CNN.com, and you can click here to see it.
~Hope
The recitals ran the gamut -- a marvelous baritone from my voice studio, a high spinny lovely soprano, a couple creamy mezzos, two high tenors, and then a smorgasbord at the Departmental Recital.
"Departmentals," as they're fondly known here, basically involve a smattering of singers from freshmen to masters' students. All voice types are represented, and you spend an hour hearing about 15-20 singers churn through. Each sings 1-2 pieces, and they don't spend any time pausing. It's fascinating to watch people at all these different levels, each clearly talented but each at different points in their performance growth. The younger singers typically sound amazing but may have some diction yet to solve or may still be somewhat awkward onstage. I completely sympathize since I'm still trying to polish my own diction and stage presence - not easy things to do when you haven't grown up performing.
Overall, having the chance to go to all these events is just amazing. It immerses me in a continually high level of performance, and, since it's my fellow students, people at my level, it makes me believe that I can do that too. There's something about building that intuitive kind of confidence that's really important. Singing especially seems predicated on psychological beliefs that engender the ability to walk onstage and Perform with aplomb.
Another amazing occurrence I saw this past weekend was a friend who sang with a terrible cold. She had her doctoral recital, and there was no postponing it. The first half was 30 minutes of Berlioz without a break. She just sang it straight through. The next half was a German set of Mignons (many of these have been written) and a Spanish set. She stood there with her incredible mezzo voice and not only made it through; she shone. Especially in the second half when she realized that she didn't have to preserve so much anymore, she really let it fly. This is very, very hard to do. It's like bowling with a broken finger or ice skating with only one skate. You feel totally off when your instrument is compromised. But she knocked everybody's socks off. Truly incredible.
At this point, I leave you with a terrific story on one of my favorite subjects: The Muppets. It's on CNN.com, and you can click here to see it.
~Hope
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Soundscape
I thought I would try to paint my day today for you in sounds since that's the sense that came to my mind the most vividly tonight as I was reflecting on the day's events. Here are the ones that are still ringing:
- The slightly muffled twinklings of a piano scattering about on some modern piece that skipped among different tonal centers and registers, constantly moving in a Baroque style rhythm. It was hidden behind a wooden door, a mysterious disembodied music floating into the hallway.
- The smooth nonsense syllables of a vocal warmup wrapped in a peppery baritone voice as his lesson mingled with the aforementioned piano.
- The piercing, eardrum shattering, tinnitis-causing, shrill screams from the fire alarms that forced all of us to evacuate the building, desperately trying to shield our hearing from the blasts
- The laughing, high cadences of a gaggle that was gossiping around me
- The French accordion lounge music that soared across the ceiling of the coffee shop, giving everyone a bit of audible caffeine
- The chatter of voices and coffee cups that blended into a white noise that insulated me and gave the same calm as silence
- The crunch of my boots through the newly-fallen snow
- The warm yet slightly worried voices of my parents on the other end of the phone
- The happy, teasing, sliding voice of e.
- The light tap of my fingers on the keyboard over the gentle hum of my computer, backed by the occasional swoosh of a car or airplane passing outside
- The soon-to-be soft rustle of my feather pillows
What was your day in sounds?
~Hope
Monday, February 2, 2009
A Not-Peanut-Butter Sandwich
Today, sandwiched between the various errands and other pieces of work I've been doing, I had two classes.
The first was music theory. We're talking about sequences, which are a particular type of harmonic progression in tonal music. The class was split in half. First we listened to a recording and wrote down the parts played. There are various tricks you can use to figure out what the notes are likely to be -- certain things in tonal music follow patterns. There are also rules of dos and don'ts. In this class, it's a pretty good guarantee that nothing we dictate will violate the rules. In the second half of class, we got a bass line and composed the parts above it.
My second class was stage directing. This is my two hour weekly seminar with one of the opera directors here. It's an incredible class. Today, we talked about budgeting -- all the different elements that go into producing a show. Ticket sales make up between 30% and 80% of revenues depending on the opera company and the repertoire. Most companies fall on the lower end of that, which is not to say they're poorly run. Performing a lot of musical theatre might help your mix. Opera might hurt it. Doing modern productions which have royalty payments drive up costs. And on and on.
After this discussion, we moved on to actually directing pieces. There are only three of us in the class, so it's very intimate. One of my classmates played director today for me as I sang Laurie's Song from The Tender Land by Aaron Copland. She staged the aria as if I were actually going to sing it onstage as part of an opera production. (You typically don't stage as much for recital performances with arias, although opinions vary as to what is appropriate there in terms of movement.)
The closer to my "official" day at school was a voice recital by a doctoral candidate here, QP. She looked stunning and sang with a gorgeous, spinny, rich mezzo soprano sound. She chose very difficult music, and she was able to express all of it so well with such nuance. I loved this performance!
Now I'm off to work on takeaways from the conference I went to last week. "Takeaways" -- a word that feels unused, strange in my mouth these days. Pretty funny given that it was my bread and butter language just six months ago.
~Hope
The first was music theory. We're talking about sequences, which are a particular type of harmonic progression in tonal music. The class was split in half. First we listened to a recording and wrote down the parts played. There are various tricks you can use to figure out what the notes are likely to be -- certain things in tonal music follow patterns. There are also rules of dos and don'ts. In this class, it's a pretty good guarantee that nothing we dictate will violate the rules. In the second half of class, we got a bass line and composed the parts above it.
My second class was stage directing. This is my two hour weekly seminar with one of the opera directors here. It's an incredible class. Today, we talked about budgeting -- all the different elements that go into producing a show. Ticket sales make up between 30% and 80% of revenues depending on the opera company and the repertoire. Most companies fall on the lower end of that, which is not to say they're poorly run. Performing a lot of musical theatre might help your mix. Opera might hurt it. Doing modern productions which have royalty payments drive up costs. And on and on.
After this discussion, we moved on to actually directing pieces. There are only three of us in the class, so it's very intimate. One of my classmates played director today for me as I sang Laurie's Song from The Tender Land by Aaron Copland. She staged the aria as if I were actually going to sing it onstage as part of an opera production. (You typically don't stage as much for recital performances with arias, although opinions vary as to what is appropriate there in terms of movement.)
The closer to my "official" day at school was a voice recital by a doctoral candidate here, QP. She looked stunning and sang with a gorgeous, spinny, rich mezzo soprano sound. She chose very difficult music, and she was able to express all of it so well with such nuance. I loved this performance!
Now I'm off to work on takeaways from the conference I went to last week. "Takeaways" -- a word that feels unused, strange in my mouth these days. Pretty funny given that it was my bread and butter language just six months ago.
~Hope
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Wild Game
Just got home from a Superbowl party that the Graduate Students' Association threw. A big screen tv, unlimited pizza, all the Doritos and salt and vinegar chips you can eat, chocolate chip cookie cake, and tons of soda -- does it get any better than that?
It was a spirited group, especially with the colorful lone Cardinals fan in the room. While I'm a Steelers fan, I do feel a bit sad for the Cardinals. I like to root for the underdog, and the Steelers have had so much good fortune with the Superbowl. That said, I let out plenty of cheers for the Steelers, especially at that incredible 100 yard run.
Whether your colors are red and white, black and gold, or something else altogether, I hope you've had a fun night, too!
~Hope
PS If you happened to miss the Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head commercial for Bridgestone tires, go to http://www.hulu.com/ and watch it. Absolutely hilarious.
It was a spirited group, especially with the colorful lone Cardinals fan in the room. While I'm a Steelers fan, I do feel a bit sad for the Cardinals. I like to root for the underdog, and the Steelers have had so much good fortune with the Superbowl. That said, I let out plenty of cheers for the Steelers, especially at that incredible 100 yard run.
Whether your colors are red and white, black and gold, or something else altogether, I hope you've had a fun night, too!
~Hope
PS If you happened to miss the Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head commercial for Bridgestone tires, go to http://www.hulu.com/ and watch it. Absolutely hilarious.
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