Anything but a Shock

Before I start this post, I have to ask my loyal readers to bear with it not being devoted to music. During this past week I have been asked many times about how I feel about Figure Skating in general and Russia not winning gold. (Not yet!) Thus, I thought I might as well use my weekly Culture Shock issue and write about it on my blog.

Can’t say that Plushenko’s silver medal was a shock to me.
Of course, being a proud Russian and a figure skating fan, it’s hard for me to witness the collapse of the Russian Skating Empire. That hegemony ceased to exist. And it did not happen yesterday. To me personally, it all became clear when Slutskaya fell at the last Olympics in Torino. However, unhappy and disappointed as I may be about it, I would like to be objective and share my personal viewpoint of Russian figure skating.

We are all aware of how important good coaching is. In sports more so than anywhere else. Victory equals endless practice plus good coaching. Years back, in Soviet Russia, athletes were literally worshiped and generously sponsored by the government. Russian figure skating coaches, known to be the best, were well paid by the government to generate new champions.
At this point, Russian athletes are just like you and me. They can only rely on their own wallet and get whatever they can afford. The vicious circle starts and ends right there. They can’t win until they can afford a decent amount of good couching, and they won’t be able to afford it until they win and get a little more funds.
Good potential, lots of talent if you will, but definitely not enough coaching – that, my friends, in one sentence, is my humble opinion of Russian figure skaters.
Going back to Plushenko, the last of the Mohicans, as soon as I saw his short program, I knew it – he was rusty, good but rusty. No surprise there - the guy has been retired for two years.
He is rich.
He is famous.
He has had it all: medals, success, money, fame.
Back in Russia, he is a successful showman.
He was obviously pushed out there and told: Go and bring us that gold.
The scary thing about it is that had they not scraped Plushenko off the bottom of the Russian skating pan, there would probably be nobody there to represent Russia in Men’s Singles.
Plushenko’s long program was nice, but not clean at all. Those minor mistakes turned to be too costly. It was not a champ’s performance! We could certainly say that unlike Evan Lysacek, Yevgeny made those quads. I think it’s fair to say that Lysacek’s program was not hard enough, but whatever he did was flawless and artful. Therefore, until the quads become an official program element, one can’t say that Plushenko deserved gold more than Lysacek.
Moreover, the attitude matters.
One can never underestimate his rivals. It’s always much safer to overestimate them. Yevgeny was sure that nobody could beat him and that he could afford those mistakes. Turns out he could not.
And even all this said, there is one more very important thing.
It’s no secret that success lies in the ability of letting people see and hear what they want to see and hear. A skating program has to be super-exciting, effective, impressive, stunning. Everything should be breathtaking. The skating. The ice presence. The acting. The costume. The music.
Those several minutes have to become a mini-performance of one actor who in that short time must capture the audience, produce an effect and deliver a message.

The program certainly has to be new and original, but at the same time, it should be conservative, i.e. appealing to and understandable for the majority. The best example of all that put together is Aleksey Yagudin’s Salt Lake City long program. Man in the Iron Mask. I re-watched it yesterday on You Tube and was impressed again.
Unfortunately, Plushenko’s program did not make that effect.

Anyway, it’s probably still early to assume that Russia has completely ran out of its figure skating heroes. Let’s just lay back and see what happens next.

On another, quite a pleasant note, my son, as it turned out, loves figure skating!
Every time he watches skating, he points to the screen and claps endlessly.
We have been recording some clips for him to enjoy, because they always show the good stuff way past his bed time. It’s such a joy to see him so excited about figure skating. Must be the Russian genes.

Ah, Orphee!

On February 14th , the Day of Love, I introduced Troy to my favorite Gluck's Orphee and his J'ai perdu mon Euridice.

I would like to share how I sing it for Troy, because he really loves it and demands that I sing it again and again. To me it means that,by pure intuition, I have probably got into the right groove, allowing him to understand it and appreciate it.

I sing it in Russian with my own poetic translation - my Russian readers out there, tell me what you think:


Потерял я Эвридику
Где найти ее не знаю.
Я страдаю
И рыдаю
И хочу ее найти.


Эвридика... Эвридика...


Средь скал холодных
Долин бесплодных
Как тебе страшно
Как тебе страшно...


Потерял я Эвридику
Не смирюсь с такой судьбою
В путь отправлюсь за тобою
И любовь свою верну
И любовь свою верну!


Эвридика... Эвридика...


The point here is to really act it out.
First Orphee is breathless with sorrow and pain of his loss. But then, quite soon in fact, like most young people, he changes grief for hope and lightens his heart with a new goal - to go to the Kingdom of the Dead and get his beloved back.
Therefore, with music being similar, those are two very different parts and I sing them very differently.
When Orphee calls out for the first time: Euridice.... there is just despair in his voice about his irretrievable loss, but the second time there is hope and quite a bit of joy of seeing his beloved again. Sooner or later they will meet and be together forever.

And then, after the second part, I do the vocalise of the same music of J'ai perdu, but it's just the voice, going softer and softer, as if Orphee is going away and gradually his voice fades away.

Plus, of course I am singing it while driving with Troy through the still much snowed up scenic Maryland... it kind of puts you in the mood.
Ah, Orphee...
Is there anything more about love than this incredible opera?
It's very romantic, yet it's pretty fairy-tale-ish, like most ancient Greek myths. It's easy to understand, it's all about adventure and devotion.
We looked at the book tonight to illustrate the singing. It was fun.

P.S.
Just thought about a little addition to my post…
For those of you who are not familiar with that particular aria, you could find it both on you tube and on CDs of so many great artists. This aria, originally written for castratti, is nowadays sung by mezzo sopranos, contra tenors, light tenors (check out Mr. Florez’s Great Tenor Arias CD) and even baritones (check out Mr. Hvorostovsky’s Aria Antiche CD). So follow your intuition there, compare, contrast and see which one you will like best.
My personal preference can be found on you tube. It’s Magdalena Kozena, singing Orphee in Theatre du Chatelet. Her Orphee is very deep, dramatic and mythological.
Enjoy and don’t forget to share your listening experience here on this blog.

Friday Shock: He Sings!!!

I have mentioned many times before that Troy and I spend a lot of time singing.
We sing anywhere and everywhere: in the kitchen, in the nursery, in the car, in the tub. We do not pick a special time to sing - any time is good - it's part of our life, part of our day.
The morning ( don't laugh, you guys) usually starts with coming down to the kitchen and singing Di tanti palpiti ( from Tancredi).
He does lighten up every time he hears it. And I do thank God for giving me my little kitchen level mezzo to sing it for him.
Then we drive and sing a lot of operetta, Russian folk songs, Rossini and some Handel.
After work, I pick him up and we drive home and sing on the way back or listen to a CD.
When I fix his dinner and we sing again, most often something folk and melodic. And then when he goes to bed I sing his lullaby to him and sometimes he sings it with me or whenever I stop he encourages me to keep singing by singing it himself.
When he was really young, I would sing and he would listen.
Then he started singing too.
First just a long nice aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah, then he learned his Baba's lullaby and shaped up his singing into
ah-ah-aaaah
ah-ah-aaaah
This morning, however, I heard something new.
I was fixing Troy's breakfast, while he was patiently sitting in his high chair, waiting and playing with his new music toy that plays the ABC song if you spin the wheel.
He spinned and spinned and spinned, and the song went on and on and on.
And then I heard him sing:
a-a-a-a with exactly the music of A, B, C, D!!! I mean EXACTLY!!!

Believe me, dear Reader, I am far from being one of those crazy moms who make opera stars out of their babies as soon as they open their mouths!
But I am happy about the little real things that my son does. I am incredibly happy that he likes music and lightens up every time he hears it. And I am happy that he can carry the tune.

Irina Arkhipova Dies in Moscow

Today a famous Russian mezzo Irina Arkhipova passed away in Moscow, at the age of 85.
In the Soviet times, there were not that many prima donnas on the Bolshoy stage. The 2 leading mezzos were Irina Arkhipova and Yelena Obraztsova. Opera lovers would always argue whose Old Countess (The Queen of Spades) was better: Arkhipova's or Obraztsova's.
Ms. Arkhipova was quite a big lady and there were always jokes about her weight and body shape. However, there was one thing nobody could deny - her voice was incredible. Therefore, she was nicknamed "The Queen of Russian Opera".
Well, what can I say - another big loss, and this time in the opera world.

Saturday Culture Shock:And It Snowed, and it snowed... And it snowed!

This morning our village of Elkridge (for nice as it is, it's still way too small to be called a town) got onto the national news for having the most snow in the world today - 30 inches! For my European readers - 76.2 cm, you guys!
It kept snowing until 3 p.m., so I guess we had the whole 40 inches by then.
The views above and below are from our living room window out to the deck. Our cars are completely buried.
The snow is too powdery today to make a snowman or a snow maiden for Troy. Hopefully, tomorrow it will warm up and the snow will get stickier.
Oh, and did I mention that we love it? We LOVE it! We love the snow!
Cheers!