#15 libertà, finalmente mia!

Exams are like the Ring Cycle: it never seems to end. Fortunately, today marks the end of my fourth block examinations. After three grueling weeks of hammering things like names of various testosterone preparations, why old men leak a lot but never spray, and the wonderful things you can grow from vaginal discharge, I am finally free!

On the other hand, it also marks the first day of the study leave. The finals are looming, and I... I never know what to do for these things. I have very short attention span (more reason to love Bellini-esque melodies!) so it's almost impossible to stay attached to the desk and read tomes heavier than my head. At the end of the day I just hope I do well enough to satisfy powers that be.          

Speaking of which, I have been watching both seasons of RuPaul's Drag Race back-to-back, watching beautiful people doing beautiful stuff. The tension's worthy of an atonal opera, and if only these people were the costumiers of the recent-est Met mega-flop, maybe it wouldn't have been so bad.

My favorite contestant for first season is Shannel. She has such energy in every performance that it's impossible to look away. She had a dramatic run too: losing her wig during lip-syncing, costumes that burn into your mind, and proposing herself for elimination. I don't know why but I understand that: there comes a time when other people's judgement just sounds like bullshit. And those eyes! The only thing that scares me more is Jessye Norman's mouth!

The second season is like dripping in drrrrama sauce! But my fave is easily Pandora Boxx. She's such a pleasant girl, but she really draws you in, kinda like a Liù with a very well-acted death scene. And funny, too! Her Carol Channing kills! I don't know if she was booted out due to ageism or anything, but she looks like 21 going on to 16!

Oh God. I am really easily depressed right now. But no matter, because recently I have purchased one of Leontyne Price' greatest works, the legendary Blue Album (Leontyne Price). It was aural Eden: the cover was extremely classy & timeless (unlike Gheorghiu's Verdi Heroines, where the green cover just look like bile splashed on her face), and the singing was... Lordy. And she actually changed the whole timbre of her (well, heroic) voice for Sogno di Doretta aria! It was amazing! And well, after Moffo, her Tu che di gel sei cinta was as close to perfection as you can get. As for the Verdi excerpts, they were testament to why she was the Verdi soprano of the 20th century. Clever, also, putting Aïda excerpts as the first three tracks. You can have the 1997 remastered version here, where they took the Il Trovatore scena from another 1959 recording.

And of course, a drop of greatness from an ocean of art:

Off now to study, love.

#14 why singers wake up late

Because they'll wake up with the squillo built in! As opposed to waking up earlier and having to warm up the voice and all, they wake up at 4 p.m. and lo and behold! they're ready for the stage!

#13 facial expressions in singing

Cecilia Bartoli. Kathleen Battle. Some times, Diana Damrau.

What do these three ladies have in common, besides being examples of perfection of vocal art in their respective fachs?

(SO-CALLED) EXCESSIVE FACIAL CONTORTIONS!

In fact, they at Parterre Box coined Bartolitis for such an occasion where a singer (usually a lady singer, but sometimes Tom Hampson falls to the axe also; weirdly, countertenors are never alleged of this crime - you'd thought with all that falsetto going around their faces would be a war zone) struggles with her cheeks and brows to emit a tone.

I was watching the divine Mag Kožená singing Più non si trovano at Youtube, when I scroll down and detected diatribes against her facial expressions. I don't know why, but these comments incurred a passion in me that I had to stop drawing Microbiology slides - which I have to send in tomorrow! Talk about conflict of interest.

FYI, I like Magda but not too much. Her voice has a kind of unstability that makes one always think it wants to veer everywhere but on pitch. Maybe it's the quick vibrato. Magda is like Debbie Voigt - mezzo version. But I acknowledge her artistry, her industrious talent and her musical scholarship. In the clip she displayed a certain amount of facility in her facial muscles, but not unpleasantly so. This incurred one comment that Her facial expressions ruin it... they're wayyy too distracting. 

The point here is not how the tone is produced. It is easy to forget that the main purpose of everything - technique, training, concentration etc - in Classical singing is to produce a legitimate tone. Beautiful or not, that is another matter altogether - Callas vs Tebaldi, anyone? - but the main purpose of every shit that they do is to produce a tone which responds to every whim of the singer, every beck and call of the score, and maybe a few extrapolated notes here and there. In other words, babeh, the end justifies all means possible.

According to the proper ideals of bel canto - I remember reading a book by an lady Italian pedagogist, who had direct links with the son of Manuel Garcia, Maria Malibran's daddy - the proper position of the lips in singing anything is in a smile. A smile! Tell me, is it proper for a Lucia to be smiling while she's singing the mad scene? She is supposed to be crazy, yes, but should you smile when you're singing Il fantasma, il fantasma? Tell me, is it proper for a Maria Stuarda to smile when she's screaming Meretrice, indegna oscena?

Maybe we should blame TVs and videos of live performance, where cameras and other paraphernalia of visual recording are practically shoved down the throats of singers. Long time ago, the only medium to experience this art was via the theater, where over a long distance any contortions of the face became blurred and the overall effect on the performance as a whole was thus minimal. Over TV, HD performances and DVDs however, even a flick of the jugular is magnified thousandfold, leaving one somewhat exhausted after 2 hours of staring at blowed-up cheeks, wrinkled forehead and oh Lord, beads of sweat, before one lauches into a cavatina.

What I want to say is, if a singer requires that his/her face be contorted in order to achieve a sonorous projection / a big acuti / perfect legato, why not? After all, Classical singing is the art of singing with one's all, from the crotch all the way to the scalp. And if a pursed up lips can help the soprano  a little to reach the high Eb, so what? And finally, who are we to question the artist, who are vessels of the sublime?

#12 bitch

Some people are just so damn ungrateful. I wrote to them tenderly, and they gave me back scorn. Well, vafuculo! 

#11 lady gaga: alejandro video

I have always been intrigued by Lady GaGa. Her melodies are very contagious - in a good way, babeh! - and her exuberant style refreshing. Pop is not my forte, but I admire GaGa for the most basic of her talents: the creation of hooks and lines which stick to one's mind.

Her new video, Alejandro, is out. It is dark, it is raw, it is funny (machine gun bra? LOLS), it is open to myriad of interpretations: as GaGa always is. You may think it excessive, but after all that German personenregie, this is a trip in Central Park.

#10 exams week / Op 24 Waltz No 1 in B minor

The last few days had been incorrigible. I was almost certainly dead by Monday - and Tuesday was Microbiology! Lord in heavens!

One of my favourite-est persons in the world, Mas, celebrated her birthday on Saturday. It was also Pharmacology exam, so I didn't manage to buy her a proper present. I asked her what would she like, and she answered: a song, like last year!

I made a waltz for her.

Personally I hate the waltz, except a few divine ones, including Strauss' Frühlingstimmen - which Kathleen Battle sang with maestro von Karajan in a 1990 Neujahrskonzert in Wien album - and the theme to The Stepford Wives, which was really camp (the movie), but was an absolute bomb - I don't know why, but I'm blaming Kidman's immobile brows.

Anyway, waltz is one of those things that had been done to the death, and its blatantly romantic nature allows very little opportunity for my dramatic streak - such as they are, IMHO -  but I tried. I cheated a bit: the transition between the middle part and the recap was in common time, but hey, rules are made to be broken babeh!

You can hear it here. The score, all rights @fUGA arts limited 2010, is here.

Unfortunately, such joyful creation may accost me my Microbiology exam results. And I'm strangely feeling unaffected. Tralalala~!


Enough playing. I recently downloaded Gheorghiu's DVD of the now legendary 1994 Traviata with Solti. I cried like a baby, many times. I already had the audio track for a few months, but the thrill of watching a live performance is on a different plane altogether. Now I understand why Gheorghiu was such a phenomenon when she burst into scene. Ah, of things that could have been!

#9 The Office S06 E25 The Chump

I like sitcoms. They are probably the only thing I understand better than classical music. I used to watch The Nanny all the time and I tell you, that thing taught me - a lot - on employing the nasal resonance.

As of this decade, perhaps the show that I like the most is The Office, the US version. Nothing else can be as sweet and repulsive in one shot. Michael Scott is like the most idiotic person on the planet, but most of the time you'd end up rooting for him. The sixth season of The Office has recently concluded on a rather lame-ish note, but that's according to the reviewers! I was watching the last four episodes back-to-back at 2 a.m. last morning and let me tell you, my laughs must've been louder than Azucena's final scream of triumph!

I must say my favorite episode of the whole season is Episode 25 The Chump. And a lot of them seems to like it also. Favorite scene: Dwight's crotch attack! OMG if that isn't funny! Poor Angela. I also like the part when Phyllis is acting all disgusted with Michael - if that isn't a diva-esque moment I don't know what is.

Fave exchange:

DWIGHT : Are you warmed up?
ANGELA : No. (pronounced as naw, as in miaow; I swear that's what made this one-liner works.)
DWIGHT : God, why is that always my responsibility?

Oh. My. God.

Maybe I'm a dirty-minded guy after all.