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!