"Songs of Travel" turns 100 posts!

Greetings again from the *extremely cold" snap we are having in W-CNY! (That''s Western-Central New York to those of you who don't know the abbreviation.)

Two weeks from now, my comprehensives will be finished. Later today, I will post again the list of possible "big-topic" essays that might be on it. I had a great chat with PP yesterday about the scope of this exam. He assured me that I will do "very well." I just have to keep going at this point. It is an endurance test, after all.

I am thrilled that I've been able to stick with this blog for this long. I had started one about ten years ago, prior to usability ease and ability to label or post photos without a problem. 

Someone asked recently, "how do I have time to write so much." It's not a lot, actually. "Much" would be what I am thinking about writing, about learning twentieth-century vocal repertoire, or my own techniques that I have found in coaching throughout the years. For me, it is a need to communicate. 

Another "need" that I've been realizing that I have is a desire to be an educator, even on a project that is in the "professional" realm. There seems to be a large divide between "music making in academia" and "music making in the real world." This divide is sad to me. I have encountered equal amounts of bliss and frustration with both fields. 

I've been talking to the conductor on this project about how much we love teaching (we both teach at the same school). And it made me realize, that whether I am working with a freshman on basic Italian, or with a managed artist on (her) role for the first time, I am a very happy teacher. I like feeling like I can make a difference. 

Tonight, I have an interesting task ahead. My job is to help our speaker in our current production carry his voice more, more like an orator. His roles are written with underscoring (this means spoken dialogue or text over an accompaniment. This also means that the text has to be timed, in general, with the accompanying music. This happens a lot starting in late nineteenth-century French opera, such as Massenet's Manon. This writing techique is employed a lot in the twentieth century by Britten and Sondheim). Another challenge is that the text is in surrealiist-symbolist Spanish, and not only that, in the "lunfardo" dialect. This implies that consonant clusters in Spanish do different things phoenetically. ( ll = [d3] ), for example. Arrgentinian Spanish has different pronunciation than standard Mexican or European Spanish. (These are the things that I'm learning on the job!).

I will resume studying at this point. I will leave you with this lovely photo that I found online. It is me with Syracuse Opera's last production lead, "Carmen" (sung very colorfully by OR). I really enjoyed working with that cast and of course, on that wonderful music. 

PHOTO: Ola Rafalo and I work on some French and interpretation together at the piano, before rehearsal starts. 

Ferrer, Rococo, and Tango

Greetings, everyone!

I am working on a few things while in Syracuse:

1) Maria de Buenos Aires. The music is really fun, enchanting, powerful, and spiritual. This operita (small opera in Spanish) is tango-based, but it also includes the milonga, habanera, and different kinds of waltzes. The poetry-libretto is by Horacio Ferrer, a Uruguayan poet-librettist who worked closely with the composer. In fact, he appeared as the role of the poet-speaker El Duende in the premiere of his own opera. 

What would I give to go back in time and see daPonte play, for example, Don Curzio in La nozze di Figaro? Or see Hoffmannstaal play a small role in one of his libretti for Richard Strauss? 

This piece was written in the 1960s. Piazzolla died in the 90s, but the librettist is still alive. 

The poetry is dark, surrealist-symbolist. Very evocative. It leaves a lot of room for interpretation.

2) Comps study for Eastman. Today's order - I'm through the Baroque Titans (Handel, J.S. Bach, Vivaldi) and the demi-Gods (Rameau, Couperin, de la Guerre, Steffani, Mattheson, Graupner, Telemann). On to the progeny of J.S. Bach, through the double-edged sword of stile galant and Empfindsamer stil. By day's end, I should be at the Eszterhazy palace.

3) Staying in touch with Zheng. He came and stayed over the night before last (he had the day off on Wednesday). He loves where I'm staying, especially with the king-sized bed and the HD Cable of Animal Planet. (My husband is happy with the simple things, one of the many reasons why he's wonderful). We trekked to Wegman's and picked up some essentials for hotel-microwave-refrigerator-healthy-eating-Paleo-Whole30. Since Syracuse is only 75 miles away, I am able to see him once or twice a week. The fact that it's winter here in the Finger-Great-Lakes and that my rehearsals go until 11pm means that I need to stay put, mostly. That being said, travel in the professional performing arts is a big deal, especially for newly married couples. The work is in the perfect location, at the perfect time.

PHOTO: A "special breakfast," which I did before leaving - with our youngest kitty trying to eat part of it ... 

Red for Music, Blue for Text

This is a post that I've been meaning to write for a while. I got this idea from a colleague with whom I worked in Italy (thank you, HH!) and have been working on how to implement it for quite some time. 

There are many schools of thought about how to mark a score. Mark everything. Mark nothing. Mark what you need. Mark what you think you will forget "next time." For an instrumentalist, fingerings and bowings are necessary. Singers - translation for sure (though many of them also write staging or technical suggestions - those scores look "interesting" and I've been privy to seeing a lot of them.)

But when I really starting using this method, everything became even more clear about intention, form, and expression. 

The other thing I've started doing (though I've been advising singers to do this for years) is to write out "all" of the text ..." then check for rhyme-scheme, structure, poetic form, assonance, alliteration, vocalic harmonization (a big fancy term for what kinds of vowels are adjacent to each other) ... then to re-implement what blueprint that has, against the text. 

I am attaching my text-anaylsis of the final trio from "Faust." This was part of Syracuse's recent "Nine Operas in Ninety Minutes" which I played and coached. 

Notice how Faust's lines rhyme with a lot of what Marguerite sings. They were in a love for a time, and he wants to be helpful to save her eternal soul. At another point, Faust and Memphisto have the same line, showing that they are / were in league together. 

Yet another level to notice is that Marguerite's vowels are bright and pure (she has a lot of [a] and [y] and [i] here). No coincidence, since she is enlisting leagues of angels to save her. 

I'm not going to pretend this isn't time-consuming, but what it shows cannot easily be discovered when the text is "on the page" amidst rhythms, an accompaniment, a vocal line, dynamics, and orchestra. In doing this, I have firmly adopted an adage of my own from my beloved colleague and mentor of sorts, Laura Brooks Rice (Westminster Choir College / CoOPERAtive program).

Convergence with a Masterpiece

My project here in Hungary this week is a lot of work on Mozart's "Don Giovanni." For me, the piece just gets better every time I play it - teach it - coach it. There is so much IN it, and one can make different choices every time one interprets it.

For this rotation, my goal is to use this project to front-load practicing for major job auditions coming up. I'm also going to delve even deeper into how Mozart has painted these characters through Lorenzo da Ponte's text. I was talking today with two of the cast members about harmonic motion in recitative, and how the harmonies tell us *exactly* what is going on, even if the text goes somewhere else.

Of special note throughout are the miraculous shifts between major and minor. This is true even in the overture, and shades of this continue in almost every recitative (dialogue) scene and most of the accompanied music. Mozart clearly loved the theater and he also loved the element of suspense, moments of supreme drama, and a hint of the romantic era to come.

It has also been a delight to reunite with cast members (some of which are from former projects or festivals in the US), colleagues, and dear friends. Hungary isn't home in terms of language, but in terms of pilgrimage, my time here has always offered something of a compass. I believe that this time around might be the best yet.

Photo: rooftop of Sárospatak at sunset.

Speaking and Singing

Today was a rewarding teaching day, in that I got to do a lot of re-visiting with different students. I saw mostly familiar faces and even some repertoire that we had worked on together. The common thread today was,

Speak. Then Sing.

I had a lot of fun today having the students speak a phrase over the accompaniment, and then *immediately* go to the same spot, singing. It clarified a lot of language issues (vowels, consonants, leading with the text, timing), and it also cleared up some rhythmic ones. This is a technique I will definitely use regularly on my next appointment(s).

I am also advocating that all non-pianists(*) must be able to do business with a piano part. What does that mean?

What key does this start in? (I got some special answers on this today).
What key does this end in? (Ditto).
Does the key change? Where? Why?
How quick is the harmonic rhythm?
When does the music change?
Am I a dissonant or consonant with what is around me?

I would then advocate for the non-pianists to play a reduction of their aria and be able to speak the text above it. (Yes, I am aware of how difficult this is.). In my practicing this month, I have been having a great time making some headway on my big-house audition repertoire (various Richard Strauss ensembles) especially in the playing-and-singing department. It takes hours to get this right, and I spend hours a day at the piano.

I am also very proud of all of the singers and pianists from the concert tonight. It was *long* but very exciting to see the progress and ideas that the artists are putting together!

The photo today is from my time in Italy, working for "Si Parla, Si Canta" (One speaks as one sings). It is essential, in every language.


(*) Non-pianist means someone for whom piano is not a primary instrument, but, they need to really work at the instrument anyway.