(no subject)
I've had a productive day. I love productive days. And it's not like I got much done, but with an infant, getting ANYTHING done is productive.
I had a bach magnificat soloists rehearsal this morning that went really well. Bach is growing on me. I hate to admit that. I'm a fan of the romantic period and 20th/21st century vocal literature. And by fan I mean I eat, drink and sleep that stuff in. I hear a certain passage or chord progression from any number of pieces and just want to melt into the floor into a puddle of good. I have always loudly protested Bach. I got a gig to do the alto solo on a cantata in Italy and was dreading learning the music. I would already be there to do Maddalena in Rigoletto. A small, fierce, sexy, screaming banshee, crazy murderer whore of a role. It's perfect. The audience is desperate for new characters and there you are! You sing your 20 minutes, look good doing it, collect paycheck, rinse, lather, repeat. So it was a fun 5 weeks. But that Bach was a doom cloud over my head as the performance drew near. It was in a huge, massive, ridiculously gorgeous cathedral in a little city somewhere that had possibly the longest reverb I have ever encountered. I could whisper and it would be heard in the robing room. It was so easy to sing in that space. But I wasn't really impressed.
When I was done with my cantata I wandered outside into the empty church piazza to hear the second cantata a dear tenor friend of mine was singing. I walked around that dark, empty courtyard in my formal gown, took my shoes off, called my parents on the cellphone, stared at the full moon and listened to the Bach spilling out of the cathedral. And suddenly, alone, in the middle of some city in Italy, I FINALLY got it. I finally understood why so many people loved Bach. It took a gig in Italy to do it, but it finally happened.
Anyway, the magnificat is a splendid work. The tenor/alto duet alone gives me chills. It's no Wesendonck Lieder but it's glorious in a very different way.
Then I come back home, get on the phone with my prescription insurance, health insurance, doctors office and get this IUD business started. The fact that I had enough free time to call 3 different numbers which require several minutes of your life to be filled with punching numbers, speaking with perfect diction and overly enunciated consonants, to THEN be put on hold is a miracle. And now she's awake and grabbing at my sleeve and being generally adorable. So I'm off to read with the Gracie girl.
That was a very disjunct post. My bad.
I had a bach magnificat soloists rehearsal this morning that went really well. Bach is growing on me. I hate to admit that. I'm a fan of the romantic period and 20th/21st century vocal literature. And by fan I mean I eat, drink and sleep that stuff in. I hear a certain passage or chord progression from any number of pieces and just want to melt into the floor into a puddle of good. I have always loudly protested Bach. I got a gig to do the alto solo on a cantata in Italy and was dreading learning the music. I would already be there to do Maddalena in Rigoletto. A small, fierce, sexy, screaming banshee, crazy murderer whore of a role. It's perfect. The audience is desperate for new characters and there you are! You sing your 20 minutes, look good doing it, collect paycheck, rinse, lather, repeat. So it was a fun 5 weeks. But that Bach was a doom cloud over my head as the performance drew near. It was in a huge, massive, ridiculously gorgeous cathedral in a little city somewhere that had possibly the longest reverb I have ever encountered. I could whisper and it would be heard in the robing room. It was so easy to sing in that space. But I wasn't really impressed.
When I was done with my cantata I wandered outside into the empty church piazza to hear the second cantata a dear tenor friend of mine was singing. I walked around that dark, empty courtyard in my formal gown, took my shoes off, called my parents on the cellphone, stared at the full moon and listened to the Bach spilling out of the cathedral. And suddenly, alone, in the middle of some city in Italy, I FINALLY got it. I finally understood why so many people loved Bach. It took a gig in Italy to do it, but it finally happened.
Anyway, the magnificat is a splendid work. The tenor/alto duet alone gives me chills. It's no Wesendonck Lieder but it's glorious in a very different way.
Then I come back home, get on the phone with my prescription insurance, health insurance, doctors office and get this IUD business started. The fact that I had enough free time to call 3 different numbers which require several minutes of your life to be filled with punching numbers, speaking with perfect diction and overly enunciated consonants, to THEN be put on hold is a miracle. And now she's awake and grabbing at my sleeve and being generally adorable. So I'm off to read with the Gracie girl.
That was a very disjunct post. My bad.