È ben altro il mio soooooogno!

There continues to be little for me to report on as my life presently consists of very little musicological doings and inquiries. I did, however, have a dream that I applied for an internship with the Kennedys/Juilliard in which I had to write some sort of thesis/dissertation relating to World War II. Unfortunately, the bulk of my dream consisted of me frantically packing. Then, in true dream form, I completely changed topics. It had been discovered that Maria Callas was living in Brazil and had decided to run for president of the United States. Former First Lady Betty Ford spoke of her warmly in a press conference. First, I was Callas's press agent, but then I turned into a young Callas auditioning for some random guy in a cabin. He made me sing "Ah, non credea mirarti" from LA SONNAMBULA but in the incompetency of my dream-Maria Callas-self, I started singing something else halfway between. He yelled at me. I yelled back. I overturned a table, shook some hands, and then got back into my covered wagon.

Seriously.

I had my first day of work on Saturday, of which I will speak no more, came home and discovered that I had a fever. That was pretty glorious. I took the opportunity to get ahead in my reading of Jude the Obscure and was successful in that endeavor.

I am feeling better now just in time for my voice lesson at 6:30 this evening.

Highlights of this week?

Tuesday: Interview at Borders; Second day of work

Wednesday: Third day of work

Thursday: Fourth day of work

Friday: Voice/Piano lesson for 9 year old girl, which has been going splendidly.

It is now time to shower!

Il capira! (Il capira!)

Short post.

1. I have a job calling subscribers to the Paper Mill Playhouse to make them subscribe again. Oy. At least it's talking to people about theater?

2. I also have an interview at Borders on Tuesday. I will try to have two jobs at once if all works out.

3. I am also applying for a temporary research position at the Metropolitan Opera.

4. I must finish studying for this DAMN EXAM.

Good night, cuties!

Boredom.

Dear Musicology,

I hate you right now. Well, that's not true entirely, I just hate studying for this diagnostic exam that I have on Friday. Technically, I could just take it on August 27. The only thing I am struggling with is this list of about 60+ terms that they will chose 20 from for me to 'provide short definitions or identifications" for. What causes further complications is the guideline that all definitions can be found in History of Western Music by this guy, this edition. So, I got it from Amazon for $0.50 (+ expedited shipping), and, of course, it is the vaguest, most convoluted 800 pages I have ever skimmed through.

For example, I have define "hymn," "isorhythm," and "sturm und drang." For the first two, the book provides about 15 definitions across three stylistic periods, none of which are anything more than "Hymns were used in fifteenth century church services." Um. Okay? That is not a definition. My absolute favorite is "Sturm und drang was a literary movement. We will discuss this more in the next chapter."

I go to the next chapter.

"Sturm und drang was a literary movement. Now let's talk about Haydn for 70 pages."

And my favorite piece of contradictory information ever:

"Motets were the most popular form of secular music in the medieval ages."

In the glossary: "Motets: a polyphonic, vocal composition, almost exclusively written using sacred texts."

So, this is stressful. Luckily, the majority of the exam is on things like

"Who wrote [insert piece of music]?"

Or "Who is [insert composer's name]?"

This blog post is intensely boring, but I thought that I would inform you all of my current frustrations.

Good news? I have a job interview tomorrow to telemarket for Paper Mill Playhouse. Yes...telemarketing. But it's basically just convincing people to buy theater tickets who like theater. I like theater, too! It's part-time, so it'll hold me over financially until the fall comes, and I can find something more stable since part of the salary is based on commission.

Boring. Sorry. Hugs.

Bea Arthur. Marijuana.

This has nothing to do with musicology. I found this yesterday, and I have watched it multiple times in a row laughing hysterically!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XotNYOZfbtE

Short Short!

I am really tired, so this is a short post.

I went into the city today to have my voice lesson. I decided to walk from 34th and 8th to 83rd and Broadway, because I need to get exercise and the whole "having a car and living in New Jersey thing" is not conducive to exercise. On the way, I stopped at the Westsider Records store and bought some fabulous items including a Verdi Requiem score ($9) and a recording of highlights from Lucia di Lammermoor with Luciano Pavarotti and my beloved Renata Scotto ($5). They also had Ned Rorem's diary, but I will buy that next week. He "tells all" about his liaisons with famous gay Americans such as Truman Capote, Leonard Bernstein, and Aaron Copland...oh, and I guess he talks about musics too???

Then I went to my lesson. People. I cannot tell you how absolutely happy and now confused I am. Happy because this was the best voice lesson I have ever had. Twenty minutes into the lesson I was singing high A's, B-naturals, and (2) C's that were (almost all) connected to the breath, my body, and right on pitch. That is a good fifth + above anywhere I have normally vocalized let alone healthy sustained. The best part? It wasn't just "hitting notes." Oh, no, no! Anyone who has worked with me knows that it is not enough to "hit" the note. I sustained them. They were my voice, and they were connected, and they were pretty darn attractive.

Additionally, my teacher is of that rare breed who really wants to and loves teaching. She was just as excited as I was. I remember at one point we were both laughing hysterically because we were both excited about what was happening. Ridiculous.

That being said, we have a lot of work. She is basically reworking my voice entirely. I cannot wait.

Now, why am I confused? Because she told me to not entirely give up the idea of performing. She thinks that as a singer I am employable, and that I'd be very marketable as a "spieltenor" (character tenor.)

UGH! I just spent two years of my life convincing myself that I had no desire to perform! And now I have a consummate professional, who actually knows what she is talking about, who is teaching me how to sing for the first time in my life with my voice, telling me that I could perform for a living.

The question is...do I want that life? Maybe. I do not want to audition endlessly. I do not want to face massive rejection. I don't want to be in debt, and I don't want to have to live the nomadic life of a professional opera singer or musical theater actor. But I have to say that the stage is one of the few places that I feel comfortable "expressing myself" and taking risks. And, let's be honest, we all like the applause.

All things for me to think about. What I am concentrating on right now, however, is the here and now. I am getting my masters for free in a field that I love, which leaves money for paying off my loans, paying for voice lessons, and extra language and theory classes in the city if I want. Plus I am close enough to NYC that I could audition if I wanted to.

One day at a time! Now, I just need to get over my massive anxiety (I felt like I needed 6 valium before I auditioned for Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and felt like I need an additional six every night before the actual performances) and enjoy life.

Oh, wait. First, I need a job.

Okay, I am interested in everyone's thoughts and comments. Hugs.

Also, I know I am a terrible blog proofreader. Forgive me.

Extreme Ennui. No discussion of music (or the TONY's for that matter.)

"In my soul I feel an inner lack. Just suppose he wants his dinner back!"

Well, here I am about to turn thirty...almost!

Being unemployed was fun when I had dentist appointments to do and general "things" to do, but now I am just suffering from extreme ennui. This has only been exasperated by my reading of Russian novels in which everyone seems to be constantly bored. Grigory Alexandrovich Pechorin? Bored. Sophia Alexeyvna? Bored. Anna Karenina? Bored. Andrei and Pierre? BORED. Princess Mary Ligovsky? BORED again! You get the idea. Everyone in Russia during the nineteenth century was bored.

I received my History of Western Music book (5th edition Grout) that is required for taking my diagnostic test on June 25, but I was too bored even to read THAT. You know it's bad when you are too bored/tired to do anything that would make you unbored or untired. Crippling! Ennui is crippling! I am crippled by ennui. Okay, you get the point.

The problem with my ennui is that it is caused by a lack of activity, because I do not have a job besides teaching my nine year old. If I could teach nine year olds all day everyday, I would. Not kidding, and not just for the money! Nine year olds, at least the one that I teach, are so smart and insightful. It is so wonderful to see someone who has yet to be corrupted by a world in which you're "supposed" to give the right answer. When I ask her question she actually looks for the answer instead of saying "Okay, what do I have to say in order to make him think that I am smart?" I am going to begin practicing this more.

Oh, I got off topic. So ennui comes from no job. No job equals not having money to do things that would help to alleviate ennui. I would love to take yoga or a Russian class in the city, but such things cost the money, and since it now costs me $20 to go to NYPenn roundtrip (as opposed to $13 in March!), it is an expense for me to even go into the city and walk around, window shop, pretend I live there.

One luxury that I am allowing myself is the revival of my voice study. I found a great teacher who teaches in the city. When she told me her fee, I nearly died because 1. I couldn't afford it 2. I was embarrassed to say I couldn't afford it, but I told her anyway. The moral of the story is: people are nice. She said that I could pay what I could afford. GET IT!!! So, because I feel bad taking charity and not giving anything back, I offered to help her. Now she wants me to be her studio assistant and help her with scheduling. SCORE. The downside (which is not even a downside) is that I won't get paid to do this...I think. I'll just get discounts (like 60%) off of an hour lesson. Yay. I am willing to do this, because if I am going to take voice lessons again they are going to be from someone who is known in the business and who knows what they are talking about. My first lesson is tomorrow at 2:30. ZOMG I am getting out of the house, and it doesn't involve going to Borders to buy books or go to Dunkin Donuts to get fat!

So friends. Pray or send out good vibes that I will get a job so that my ennui will be banished, and I can go back to being the eccentric, snarky Jersey boy that you all fell in love with all those years ago...

Renata Scotto and How To Act.

Scotto was the sole topic of one of my first posts way back in February. I believe I promised that she'd be back, and she is. Surprisingly, though, I have not blogged about Callas. That needs to happen soon.

Now, one of the "hot topics" in opera today is that everyone has to "act" now. Whenever anyone says this I immediately dismiss them as moronic and ignorant to the richness of opera history. I mused on this point before that opera and entertainment in general have become so visual that we turn off our ears. This is why I frequently close my eyes when going to a concert or at the opera. It is not because I am trying to say "Oh. My. Gawd. Everyone look how DEEP I am. I am feeling it SO much. Look how artistic I am!" For me opera is still very much an aural art. If a singer cannot move me through the music alone, then I am not interested. What I am saying is that when we talk about how singers have to "act" in opera nowadays, we are trying to superimpose classical acting methods, many of which are based on spontaneity, reality, and a feeling of 'being in the moment, with acting that is initiated through the music, which, unless it is some sort of improvised performance, has to be established technically, rehearsed, and planned. Of course, there is spontaneity and reality alive in such things but singing Blanche in Andre Previn's operatic adaptation of A Streetcar Named Desire is very different from playing Blanche in the original A Streetcar Named Desire of Tennesse Williams. When an actor is given the text of a play, they of course must do textual, dramatic, and character analyses and learn the script by rote, but after they experiment with intention, gesture, staging, et cetera in rehearsal.

Here is the difference: When a singer receives a score all of that is laid out for them by the composer. It is up to the singer to study that score and bring nuances out. The character analysis comes from a study of the libretto as it is related to you through the music. There is a fine line between "okay, I have learned the music. Give me a cookie!!!" and "I have studied this music (structure, dyanmics, rhythmic and melodic nuance, orchestration, et cetera), I have studied the text as it relates to the music, and this is how I think they work together." And there are as many possibilities in this type of acting than there are when you are given a dramatic script not set to music, it just takes a lot more effort to bring it out.

Another difference is that with the singer 75% of the acting is communicated through the voice. I really want to emphasize that I do not mean a "beautiful" voice. Beauty has nothing to do with it. Life isn't beautiful all the time, life's situations that are reflected in drama and comedy are not beautiful all the time, therefore the voice should not and cannot be beautiful all the time. All the intention and energy of that moment has to be filtered through the voice and through the music with genuine feeling. This is when opera, art song, and musical theatre are most powerful, when the expression is genuine. This goes back to my original point. People say "Oh, opera singers just stand there and do nothing!" While sometimes this is unfortunately true, it is often an issue with the listener. I give you the example of Carlo Bergonzi heard in this performance singing an aria from Verdi's Luisa Miller at 72. He stands still almost the entire time, but just close your eyes and listen to how he is singing, how he fuses the intention of the text and the music and sucks you into his world:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NQniGmtiy4

No one sings like this anymore. And he was 72!

Now, how does this relate to Scotto? Besides Callas, I believe that Scotto is the greatest operatic actress of the twentieth century. Unfortunately, she is almost totally forgot or misunderstood by many young singers. Her voice, in her later career, is not the most gorgeous but she knows how to command the stage as the character through the music. Every gesture that she makes comes from the music. Every word and note is fused with meaning. Nothing is lost. What is marvelous about this is that in her singing and gesture the music is enhanced. Please observe everything:

Il Tabarro (This is how to act in opera, people. Watch this constantly, and come back to it often!) Also Moldoveanu is a GORGEOUS Romanian, and what a fabulous voice!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2AHbz2siHA

Compare this to a 2007 production of Il Tabarro from the Met. You know, 27 or so years later when opera was all about "acting." "Nowadays, opera singers have to act!" Yeah, is there ANY of that in here? Not at all. Hint: Technical imprecision = terrible singing, terrible acting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkHHDKF9nj0

Don Carlo. With Moldoveanu again!

http://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=hcPOV_tZE1E&feature=related

More Don Carlo! More perfection!

http://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=lkw4dIRhFuU&feature=related

Luisa Miller. This entire DVD brings me to tears consistently.

http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=4853746922177403319

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lb_3lVWgkIA

What is fabulous to notice is how Scotto colors her voice for different aspects of Luisa's character. In "Tu puniscimi" there is more bite to her sound as she rails against God, but when she addresses her father right before her death, it is a sliver of gorgeous sound! FEARLESS!!!

Otello.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjtKkulTLPw

And, now, just listen!

La Sonnambula. This is bel canto with life as it was meant to be sung!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxfwR6q6zws

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2OEGSUKIvo

Madame Butterfly. Scotto pretty much owned this role for all of her career.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8S068auyMo

I am anxious to hear any and all of your comments.

ONE WORD OF CAUTION: Scotto, like all great artists, must be appreciated. You don't have to like her, but be cautioned that Scotto is not someone that you listen to in the background and say "oh, I like her!" Her interpretations challenge you to be an intellectually active listener. You may not like what she does, but there is nothing worse than saying "Oh, I don't like her" without examining her choices first. :-D

Restless!

Oh, how restless am I! I've been waking up exhausted for the past three days and simply willing myself to get up. Obnoxious. Waiting to hear back about employment opportunities is most exhausting. Perhaps I'll go to the mall tomorrow (which mall is the question since I am in New Jersey and live within 30 minutes of 4 malls) and see what's up.

I taught my nine year old today, and it was surprisingly satisfying! I thought she'd be really bored by technical exercises but she loved them. The best part was that she made up her own exercises based on what I was doing. Since this stage of her music-making life is all about the creative experience and learning to express herself I went with it. We need to work on matching pitch more consistently. She's pretty consistent up until about a G above middle C, but anything above that is a little worrisome. I am sure that'll come with breath. She also really liked the little bit of piano lessons that we did. Overall, this is a great learning experience for me because you really need to explain things well to young children or they will call you out on it. :-)

I also began Lermontov's A Hero For Our Time, and I am quite enjoying it. I hope to finish it tomorrow, and then I will move away from Russian literature and try to read Jude the Obscure (Hardy) for the fourth summer in a row.

And now, in a separate post, I will muse on Renata Scotto's acting.

No Musicology Yet

I will take a brief moment to discuss the ridiculousness that is the American-born, Canadian-residented Sondra Radvanovsky.

I was mildly obsessed with Sondra (we're on a first name basis clearly) for about a year or so before I saw her last spring break at the Met in Verdi's Il Trovatore. After that performance, I was hooked. Sondra Radvanovsky is THE Verdi soprano of our generation.

What makes a Verdi soprano? Here is a crash course. A Verdi soprano must have the size to cut over the orchestra of Aida, Forza, and Un ballo in maschera, possess the agility for coloratura, have an upper extension to a D-flat (a D if she is to sing Giovanna d'Arco without cuts, or a D#/E-flat if she is to sing the traditional, but not written, 'high notes' of Gilda and Violetta), and have a strong lower extension down to at least an B-flat or A (if she has a low F-sharp for Elena in Vespri then she is everything we have ever needed in life.) The Verdian soprano contains the same 'morbidezza' that we want in verismo - that beautiful, sad quality that pulls at the heart strings and sends our ears into aural rapture! She possesses utter control over her voice navigating Verdi's long melodies (an influence of Bellini to be sure) with exquisite breath control, staying true to the dramatic markings of the score, and coloring her voice to match the dramatic structure of the opera.

A Verdi singer, therefore, isn't just someone who screams in Italian loudly.

Anyway, Sondra possess all of these fabulous things. One of the greatest musical moments of my LIFE was hearing her singing Leonora's Act IV aria "D'amor sull'ali rosée" at the Metropolitan Opera. I don't think she breathed for all five minutes. Her high pianissimi on C's, B-flats, and D-flat were just breath-taking. They literally stopped time. I could not believe what I was hearing. Most amazingly I was in the Family Circle or the 'nosebleed' section, and I could hear her just as well in these pianissimi sections as in her loudest fortissimo. That is amazing.

Equally amazing was her handling of Leonora's death "Prima che d'altri vivere" in which the soprano sings one phrase from a middle voice G to a high, hopefully pianissimo A-flat, and then descending back down. Sondra took what was written on the page, executed it beautifully, and truly made it seem like the breath of life was being sucked from her. Oh, I can't do it justice people! And the amazing thing was that she was not even supposed to be singing at the Met that season.

Thankfully, she will be singing this again at the Met next season as well as Tosca. I will be there as often as I can. What a fabulous artist.

Some choice examples of this amazing singer.

From her CD, Aida's "O patria mia"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9t6fAk-ALc

This may actually be the SAME version that I saw. D'amor sull'ali from Trovatore:

http://www.youtube.com/user/camilla0690#p/search/9/tKnPs3C8sE4

And "Prima che d'altri vivere" (I also thought that Marcelo Alvarez was particularly wonderful.)

http://www.youtube.com/user/camilla0690#p/search/0/-WP2mzokORU

(A brief translation that makes this even more heart breaking "I would rather die yours, then live belonging to someone else!" Everything loses poetry in English. :-(

Showin' off that F# in VESPRI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLungTHZook

Showin' off that E-flat in Traviata!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxWU1sRo55E

And if you have 55 minutes to watch this, please do! She sings everything that needs to be sung...tehe

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auZABJ94JN4

NOW ABOUT MY LIFE.

So, one of my fake teeth came out the other day while I was flossing. AWESOME. I got it re-adhered yesterday. Awesome. It came out again today, I bit it, and it broke in two. Great.

So, I got a new tooth today.

What else? Oh, I went in to see my old piano teacher at her music store in Scotch Plains, and her husband and herself want me to start teaching voice lessons at their store. :-) They teach everything but voice, so this is fabulous!

Still no news on the job front. Sent in my application to Avery Fisher Hall, waiting to hear back from Trader Joe's, and I am teaching a voice lesson on Thursday to a nine-year old who likes Lady Gaga. Certainly going to be blogging on THAT, man!

Otherwise, I am spending most of my time studying for my music history diagnostic exam. The basic moral of THAT story is that I cannot stand medieval music. So much conflicting information and interpretations since the time period in general is not well-documented.

Goodnight, y'all. I am going to start reading War and Peace.

Hugs!

ZOMG! A Summer Post!

And, so it begins! After a 3.5 month hiatus, I am back on the "blogosphere," as they say. All my friends seem to have taken up summertime blogging, so I figured that I will resurrect mine since it is quite popular.

Praise for "Musicology with Flair: My Sordid and Fabulous Adventures in Musicology:"

"I check your blog everyday to see if you've updated it." - Asha Carroll (paraphrased.)

"I love your blog." - Claire Mitchell (paraphrased.)

"When are you going to update your blog?" - Ian McEuen (paraphrased.)

"I liked your post on verismo style!" - Ian Tendick (paraphrased)

"Your blog is very interesting!" - Aprile Millo, divine American soprano.

That's a lot of pressure, but I am grateful that I can make "musicology" interesting to some and, hopefully many. I say "musicology" in quotes, because what I talk about is not exactly musicology. I mostly muse on style, performances, singers, problems with modern performances, issues with historical performance. Over the course of this summer, however, I hope to present my nascent explorations into some musicological questions that interest me, and which I hope to take into consideration for my master's thesis and eventual doctoral dissertation in historical musicology. These include:

1. Bellini's influence on Italian opera through Donizetti and Verdi to Puccini.

2. Bellini's influence on Wagner.

3. How certain voice types are associated with certain characters types in Russian opera in contrast to their character associations in the Western tradition. Example: baritone or the bass is often the hero in Russian opera whereas the tenor or low bass is the villain. In the Western tradition the bass or baritone is almost always the antagonist and the villain whereas the tenor is the hero, Romantic or otherwise.

4. Challenging the gendered assumption that women in Italian opera are one-dimensional, weak, and subjugated to the male Romantic hero. This draws heavily upon the work of Mary Ann Smart (U-Berkeley) and Carolyn Abbate (UPenn.)

5. Comparing and contrasting stylistic ideals in concurrent movements in art and music.

Anyway! Here I am in New Jersey. I am most bored. I legitimately have two friends from high school that I still talk to. To keep myself occupied I have been applying for jobs (Trader Joe's and every place at Lincoln Center), trying to find students to teach the singin' too, pretending to read, pretending to study for my music history diagnostic exam, and watching a LOT of FoodNetwork. It is dangerous. I want to eat everything.

I need to start working out. Taking ballet. Doin' the yoga. Of course, I cannot do ANY of these things without money, and so I need a job. I had a good interview at Trader Joe's, and I should hear from them soon. It would be beautiful if I could work there part-time and then usher somewhere at Lincoln Center as well as teach a couple of kiddies on the side. The music studio I took voice lessons at throughout high school anticipates having students for me this fall. :-) Happy face.

I also have a reading list for this summer. It includes:

A Hero for Our Time - Lermontov (trans. Nabokov)

War and Peace - Tolstoy

Anna Karenina - Tolstoy

The Winter's Hero - Vasily Aksyonov (and the pre-quel Generations of Winter if I can locate it.)

Jude the Obscure - Hardy

Winter Queen - Boris Akunin

House of the Dead - Dostoevsky (bad translation, but whatever!)

Suggestions? As you can see I go for the classics, Russian or otherwise!

I will leave you with this gem from one of my favorite shows, Sordid Lives: The Series:

"And she couldn't even afford plastic surgery to fix her shot off titty...And she never danced the jitterbug again. The memory of that almost-midget shooting off her titty was just too painful!"

Additionally, leave comments for what you want me to talk about musicologically!