A Preface about THE Face

I have to apologize for not posting my vacation entry yet. It’s hilarious how long it sometimes takes me to put the stuff already written together and publish it. I bet those of you who blog know the reason. It’s editing that is always the most time consuming of all. Anyway, here is the Preface, but in my opinion, rather the highlight of the whole vacation week. Strangely enough, it is opera related. Very much so.

Even though at first glance, nothing is Music in West Virginia , the truth is – everything is. It’s all around you in the serene harmony and the gorgeous abundance of the wild untouched nature. One has to be deaf not to pick up on the whisper of the wind in the woods and the echo of their own voices up in the mountains.

There was not a single day on this trip when Troy and I would not listen to, think or talk about music. It was there with us every minute of the day. And was it just us, or did that music really make even more sense there in this ever-lasting primal beauty?

What you are about to read now might have happened only because we were thinking and talking about music at the very moment it happened. Honestly, I am not sure that we would have even made that discovery, had out thoughts been elsewhere.

A while ago when Troy and I just started listening to Gluck's Orphee et Eurydice, I said to Troy : “When we go to West Virginia , I’ll show you mountains and rocks, just like the ones that were surrounding Orphee on his journey to Hades”.

Babcock State Park turned out to be just the place. Having walked around an old watermill, we started strolling down a path, among deadly cold rocks, under a clear blue sky, with the murmur of the river fading away and the lazy sunlight playing among the yellowing trees.

So we talked about Orphee, humming some tunes and envisioning his journey, possibly along similar rocks, as he walked to confront the mean inhabitants of Hades.

And then, suddenly, we saw IT.

The Face.

A miraculous creation of Wind, Water and Time, staring right at us out of a rock, very high above our heads.

Laissez-vous toucher par mes pleurs,
Spectres, Larves, Ombres terribles!

Remember? It felt like a mirage, like the most breathtaking vision...

We just could not take our eyes (and camera) off it. Take a look. How amazing is that?

Seeing things like that really makes one’s imagination run wild and feel just a tiny bit part of a Steven King's story.

Gluck’s music always made me envision deadly pale silhouettes standing among the rocks, staring at Orphee from behind every possible rock, but never being part of those rocks, never staring out of the rocks themselves!!!

That said, enough about Orphee.

I am pleased to announce my Annual Musical Contest for you all, opera and classical music lovers!
What other classical music character (opera or not) could this face belong to?

The author of the best idea will receive a musical prize.

Feel free to post your answers in the comment section or e-mail them to me.

The deadline is October 4th.

Good luck!

(The rest of West Virginia trip description will be published tomorrow. Please stay tuned!)

Sing the Character?

Dear Friends:
The post you are about to read has been sitting among my drafts forever. I did feel the urge to publish it more than once, but the sane part of me called Common Sense always stopped me from doing so.
I hate when amateurs speculate about something that requires professionalism. And now, by publishing this post, I am becoming one of them...

I sincerely hope that the contents of this post will stay just between myself and you, my loyal and the most unjudgemental readers and that no professional musician will see it. This is a post of a passionate amateur with an urge to share her humble discoveries in music making.

As usual, the fine print first : Please know that I am very well aware of what I am and have no ambitions whatsoever of becoming what I am not meant to be.

That said, to my point.

Singing has always been my daily routine.
My stage is every room in the house, including the kitchen and the shower. My stage is my own car and sometimes my office after hours. My stage is the park when I am by myself or with my son. And my only listener and biggest fan is my son Troy. Well, every once in a while my mom too.

Like every child, Troy likes his mom’s voice. It does not mean that my voice is good, even though I think I do have a pleasant voice and a good ear for music. This said, I have to tell you that my "pleasant" voice was good for nothing while, like most amateurs, I was struggling with breath control and running out of that air way too soon.

Not original, I know.

This summer I have increased my gym workouts to 2.5 hours per week. My workout routine as well as long stretches that I do require a lot of deep thorough breathing.

Little did I know that while I was doing all that breathing in the gym, breathing stopped being an issue on the vocal front!
Somehow I learned to use that air flow wisely, without spending too much of it right away and then be left completely out of breath before I could afford it.

That means easier singing, my friends. Less tension – more music. More music – more character.

I am positive that the quality of singing is directly related to understanding of the character, his/her motives and actions.
Singing can be a very abstract thing with a potential of becoming more illustrative, if done the right way. For Troy it is extremely important to envision the character standing behind this or that aria. That’s how he learns about the music and the story.
Because I want my music to mean something for Troy, before I sing I try to put myself in the character’s shoes and live at least a couple of minutes with the life of that character and experience joy, excitement and anger that the character is experiencing in the opera.

Yeah, I know, I am not being original here either. Joyce DiDonato has written beautiful entries about it in her blog. The only reason why I am writing about it, is that these discoveries on my way to music making make me so excited.

With the amateur vocal skills that I have, I should be naturally afraid of high notes. What pulls me through is not thinking about them. Please do not assume that I am trying to diminish the importance of technique – no way!
However, in one of his interviews Juan Diego Florez said something like “thinking about jumping will never take you through the jump”.

On the other hand, thinking about the motives to jump actually might. Therefore, to be able to do those notes, I force myself to re-focus and start thinking the character, rather than the notes. And it works all right, once I get to keep my mind off the notes and consequently, off the fear.
Play the music, not the instrument, someone once said.

Sing the character, not the notes?

A Celtic Journey

This afternoon I took Troy to Maryland Renaissance Festival not far from Annapolis (feel free to click on the link in My Favorite Hideaways to see what it is).
Today they had an Irish Day there with lots of authentic music and dance, and I thought it would be good for Troy to see and hear original dance and music live.

We had such a blast - ahhh, what a day we had!
The first band, the Rogues, was awesome!
In White Hart Tavern, with only a roof but no walls, open to the public and the wind, four musicians, dressed in kilts, were playing Scottish and Irish gigs on a huge drum with a really enormous sound, a fiddle, and of couse, a bagpipe.
Needless to say, the crowd was cheering for them and everyone was dancing and clapping their hands.
I guess it's the rhythm of Celtic music and the voice of bagpipe that hypnotizes you in the best and the most magic and spiritual of ways.
Then one of the guys in the crowd, dressed in kilt and all, came out to the front and started dancing. He did not do anything undoable, but he had the moves.

My son was fascinated and started dancing the same way. When we came home, he was still dancing on the floor, in the tub, in the high chair and in the crib.

We also heard very nice Irish ballads sung by a nice looking Irish lady,

saw a gentelman, dressed in a Renaissance costume play a virginal (an early version of a harpsicord), which Troy absolutely loved,

listened with so much attention, and then clapped and laughed so happily, and a young guy playing Celtic melodies on a flute.
It was such an uplifting experience for both of us, but for Troy it was also extremely educational and so much fun, just like I meant it to be.

Happy Birthday, Anna!

Thanks to my fellow blogger Carlos, I do remember that today, September 18th is Anna Netrebko's birthday! I would like to send her the warmest wishes along with the deepest admiration of an inspiring, spontaneous and beautiful artist that she is.

Happy Birthday, Anna!

(and to myself - to finally go see Anna live!)

P.S. Beautiful photo, isn't it? Donna Anna in Mozart's Don Giovanni!

We Need Baroque!

Well, I guess by now many of you( if not all )have seen this article
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/15/arts/music/15opera.html?_r=1&src=twt&twt=nytimesarts
in the New York Times.
If thoughts like: What? Why make a compilation of arias from different operas and pretend it's Tempest or Midsummer Night's Dream, when it would be much easier to just stage Purcell's lovely Tempest or not less lovely Fairy Queen? visited you, go back to the very beginning of the article and read it again. ( I confess I had to do it!)
Compilation is the law of the genre. That's how it was done in the old days, when people were much more focused of music and courtship, and when opera was not considered an outdated art form.
I think it's a great start of bringing Baroque into the Met repertoire. Hopefully, it will get settled comfortably there and give us, the Met patrons, moments of great joy. I spend a lot of time studying Baroque music, and you know what?
It's got it all.
No, don't say it's too whatever. It's perfect, it's flawless, it's most refreshing, it's rejuvenating, it's real!
Today's opera needs Baroque!
Placido Domingo in a gigantic seashell as Neptune - you can't miss it! Can't wait for December 2011.

On a side note, my vacation update is almost ready and will be published this weekend. Please bear with me just a little longer.

Signing Off!

Dear Readers!
Just letting you know that I am going on vacation (a well-deserved one, I should say) to West Virginia tomorrow morning and will not be back on my blog until a week from Monday. My husband and son have kindly agreed to accompany me, so the three of us now look forward to an exciting adventure among those gorgeous mountains.
I promise to take some nice pictures on the trip and post them here along with the supporting update.
Till next week y'all!
Stay cool, enjoy the week and don't forget: the one thing we don't need a vacation from is Music!
Cheers!

FCS: A Musical Odyssey with Renee and Dima

On September 1st, I finally watched the long waited-for A Musical Odyssey in St. Petersburg on PBS.
The film was shot in St. Petersburg proper as well as its gorgeous suburbs, featuring Renee Fleming as a hostess and both Renee Fleming and Dmitri Hvorostovsky as performers.
The cameraman's was a work of genius, having captured all the breathtaking beauty and mystery of my favorite city in the world, and my Russian heart could not be more proud or more filled with joy!
All the places that I have been to so many times: the palaces, the cathedrals, the bridges, the canals, the gardens – all of them were filmed with so much love and passion for history and beauty.
However, I thought it would look a little better if the tour we were taken on by Ms. Fleming, were a conversation between herself and Dmitri, rather than just her telling the story of this or that place solo.
The singing was incredible, as it always is when the two come together to share a stage.
I absolutely loved both Verdi duets: from Il Trovatore and Simon Boccanegra. The latter was truly striking. It was acted out with so much feeling and drama and intense emotion!
The famous duet from Eugene Onegin was sung very beautifully as well.
On a side note, I could not help but notice that two of the gorgeous dresses that Ms. Fleming was wearing were the same ones she wore for her Baltimore concert in December 2009.
I am glad we recorded it. I might want to show it to my senior students at one of my opera appreciation seminars. This film would be a draw for both English-speaking and Russian-speaking polulations. Isn't it a good idea?