The Rite of Spring on a Summer Night at the beach

Ok, yesterday was probably the coolest most unexpected way for me to close my musical year. When I started this blog, one of my first posts was about a traditional concert held at the beach every year with Brazil’s most prestigious orchestra, OSESP. They've made it their tradition to close their year's season here for the past 7 consecutive years, which is pretty cool. And yesterday it was about that time of year for another concert. I don’t know why, but it wasn’t until yesterday’s afternoon that I took a great big look at the sign of the concert and I almost had a freaking heart attack. MARIN ASLOP was conducting, and I could hear the orchestra rehearse and all I could think of was “Holy mother of God, Marin Aslop is in front of my house”. Insane.

I went to the concert with my mum, as usual, and the beach was insanely packed. I read online that there were about 25 thousand people there, and I believe it because it was really very crammed. People had brought their beach chairs, some sat on the sand but most people stood. What I thought was kind of stupid was the fact that right in front of the stage there were about 100 chairs for VIP people and around those chairs the area was absolutely empty and then everybody had to stand behind a “barricade”. I thought that was SO STUPID. Specially because the people on this VIP area were the closest to the stage and had the nerve to chat like they were in a cocktail during the concert. But that’s just how my shitty country works, I’m not even gonna go there. You guys can see it for yourselves... 

The concert itself was so incredible. I was so thrilled to see Marin in the flesh conducting! I have been a big fan of hers ever since that incredible Last Night at The Proms. But seeing her conduct for the very first time at the beach where I grew up and have gone time and time again for my entire life was really the cherry on the top of a fantastic year!

After some introductions Marin hit the stage and they played Beethoven’s 5th Symphony, the first, third and fourth movements. It’s just electrifying to hear that symphony alone but the whole context made it even more special. It was a very informal kind of concert, since the orchestra was facing the setting Sun I could see some musicians sporting sunglasses (how often does that happen?) and they were all in very light colors, like a light kaki and white.

I’m not gonna sit here and pretend that I know much about Beethoven to expand thoroughly in their playing. But I thought it was real good, very consistent and strong. Those guys know what they are doing. It’s interesting to notice how different this orchestra sounds from the Met’s Orchestra for instance (because I saw them play the 7th symphony back in October) and I’m not pointing fingers and saying this one is better than that one. Just saying it’s so ridiculously different. Why of course it is and that was even more explicitly obvious when they played their second piece of the day, The Rite of Spring.

I know it might sound suicidal but I prefer the Rite of Spring to that 5th Symphony, that’s just my personal taste. Maybe it’s because I know more about this particular piece than Beethoven’s symphony. I have never been much of a symphonic person, I like vocal music too much and most importantly, I like stuff that comes with a story. I feel like I can relate much, much better to the piece if there’s a story behind it, that’s why I liked studying Symphonic Poems  so much (no idea if I translated it right) back in college. 

The guy introducing did a horrible job. Not only did he not tell the story of the piece nor the historic context but he did describe the music as “ALIEN”. ALIEN? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? He said that this music will sound “alien” to our ears. Who does he think he’s talking to? A bunch of people from the Middle Ages? This is not Schoenberg or Berg, come on, you offend my people by saying that. You offend me at least.

But just before they started it there was an ANNOYING dog barking like crazy and Marin just turned to the direction the sound was coming from and people started booing and screaming at the dog. It was quite funny, I screamed too, FUN!

I felt so grateful for most of the concert. Like “I’m so blessed to be here, to be able to hear this in the city where I grew up, with one of the most incredible conductors of this century on the year of The Rite of Spring’s 100th birthday”. And the presenter did say something quite right, I don’t think that this particular piece was ever played in such circumstances, to an opened public in a Brazilian beach on a delicious Summer December evening. The evening was actually quite perfect, the sunset was GORGEOUS and it gave the concert a magical background of all sorts of blues and some reds coming from the setting Sun. The pictures I took were the best my phone's camera could do. 

But down to the Rite itself it was real nice. It’s so interesting to see how different kinds of people conduct the same music in completely different ways. I mean, I saw Valery Gergiev conduct this just last October and his take on it could not be more different from Marin’s. I love to watch her conduct, she quite literally jumps on that podium, over and over again. You can just feel all the excitement emanate from her and how her body responded to all those crazy rhythms, she would sometimes move on their impossible pacings. I loved it! I actually made video to show how many people were there just as the first part ended.

And alien or not, I think that the music managed to touch everybody. I would look around and see people’s expressions, it was a mixture of shock, eagerness and happiness. They were glued to that unusual music, especially after hearing the most “best hits” of symphonic music. When the piece ended the audience roared with cheers and applause. Marin did two calls and they left and so did the 50 million people on that beach. There were a lot of people there.

Overall it was incredible and part of me was so eager to just stand at the “artist exit” to talk to Marin but then I thought it was better not to. Anyways, my friends arrived a little bit after the concert ended and we went to drink coconut water and chat about last night’s party. But I was secretly hoping Marin would decide to get some coconut water for herself. But she didn’t haha

Well guys, that’s it for now. I’m now at my parent’s house in Santos until the end of the year waiting eagerly for the colleges to reply my applications! I’m already working on some other pieces to post later this week so stay tuned! Peace everyone!

Operatic New Years

What an absolutely crazy new year! The festivities are endless for my family on New Year’s, because apart from the normal celebrations there’s also my baby sister’s birthday that is on the 1^st of January.

So on the 31^st afternoon I baked my sister’s birthday cake (that is in the shape of a castle, by the way, pretty cool!), while listening to Il Barbieri di Siviglia, and then made my famous Tomato and Bread Soup (it’s not miiine, it’s from Jaime Oliver’s Italian Recipes Book) listening to Le Comte Ory. Not very smart I must confess, I should have switched, made the cake listening to the French Italian Pastry (I don’t know who said that in the Met’s broadcast of Le Comte Ory, but I think it’s fitting) and then made the super Italian tasting soup listening to the ‘I can’t get more Italian than this’ Barber of Seville. I did mess up a bit in the cake’s recipe because I was trying to separate de parts of the egg in the same speed as the coloratura was being done. But they all turned alright in the end!

In evening I resembled my grandfather very much. That is because I was walking around my grandma’s house clutching my phone, wearing earphones and occasionally making loud noises like “FIGLIA IMPURA DI BOLENA!”. And my grandpa used to do that every football game there was, it was really quite funny.  Especially ‘cause sound travels faster than image or something like that, so there was a microscopic delay on what we saw on TV, and he’d shout “GOAL!!” like 3 seconds before I’d happen on TV.

Anyways, the broadcast of the opening night of Maria Stuarda was amazing. My congratulations to Joyce DiDonato, Elsa van der Heever, Matthew Polenzani and the whole cast and crew of Maria Stuarda who have given me the best new years I could have asked for. But the fact that I had one ear in New York City and the other in Santos did piss off my mother a bit. But she gets it that it is very important to me, my dad is getting slightly irritated by the incessant opera singing that I listen to, but he’s also very supportive.



Dawn on the first of January at the beach

of Santos, we went there to jump the seven

waves as we say here in Brasil.



After the family festivities I went to a party and my drunken friend was rambling about how much he loved watching Le Nozze di Figaro. And most importantly on how he wanted to watch other operas, especially the Barber of Seville (since I told him it’s the story before Nozze). My plan to make my friends like opera is going pretty well!





On my sister’s party the next day another friend of mine commented on how much he had enjoyed watching the Maria Stuarda clip I had shared on Facebook (The “Figlia impura di Bolena” one). And so we started talking about the story of the opera, then another friend who likes the Tudor history joined in, and before we knew they were super interested in knowing about opera. Plus towards the end of the party I found myself telling the story of Nozze di Figaro to quite a large number of my friends who were very keen on learning more about it. But I think today was the best one yet, one of my friends who was listening to the story actually googled Nozze and read more about it, loved it and started asking me all sorts of questions about Cherubino!

This makes me truly VERY happy, because opera makes me thoroughly happy, and having my friends like it and talk about it is a dream come true! They even want to do Nozze as a play this year, which is awesome, ‘cause then I get to be Condessa earlier than I expected (since as my teacher has told me, I’m in my Susanna years).



Me, my dad and my uncle on New Year’s. I just thought this picture was too funny not share.

This year is going to be awesome, I can feel it. I’m graduating in college and because of that I have to put up an opera all by myself (of course with the help of my fantastic theatre group friends who have already agreed to help). I chose to do La Serva Padrona, ‘cause then I can use even 2 actor friends of mine and only one other singer (willing singers are hard to find here, but thank God I have a great friend who is more than happy to help). It’s gonna be crazy cool!

It seems as if everyone in the universe comes to spend New Year’s in my City, here’s a picture of the beach around midnight.

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE! May it be as amazing as you all hope, with loads and loads of good music, fantastic food and great company! Cheers!



NY Trip and Operatic Beach

I never got to explain the actual name of the blog, hun? Well, believe it or not, it’s the name I’ve always used, ever since I was a teenager blogging for the sake of layouts. It’s from an Andrew Llyod Webber musical called Song and Dance, never saw it, but I like the song. And now more than ever the name makes sense, this whole thing was completely unexpected.

Since I am not talking about anything specific in this post I’ll talk about my crazy decision to go to New York City alone. It was I think September of this year and I was bursting with the need to watch first rate live opera. And then the craziest idea dawned on me, ‘cause me and my family are going to spend something like 3 weeks in Orlando. So I could easily go to New York for a couple of days and then come back, and that’s exactly what I told my dad, and he agreed. It was odd, ‘cause normally, he doesn’t, so I bought the ticket from Orlando to New York, 3 tickets for the Met Opera, and booked 3 nights at a Hostel in Manhatan.

I had chosen the date that coincided with certain performances of certain super cool opera starts (just a reminder that I didn’t know Joyce at the time, if I had the dates would have been completely different). So I’m arriving on the 8^th of February and watching Rigoletto with Diana Damrau (hell yeah baby!) and Piotr Beczala both which I LOVE! Then the next day I’ll be watching L’Elisir D’Amore, one of my favorite bel canto pieces, with Anna Netrebko (my heart will stop when I see her), Erwin Schrott (then I’ll have a convulsion when I see him) and the increasingly handsome Mariusz Kwiecien (marry me!). Then in the evening I’ll watch Carmen, because Carmen never gets old, and this production is really very beautiful.

And I’ll be at the stage door alone, God help me. But my friend told me it was very easy to make friends at the stage door, we all have an objective in common! I remember it was very easy making friends at the stage door of broadway musicals, I suppose it’s gonna be like that.

 So yesterday I made a list with everything I intend to buy when I go to New York. And yeah, I’m gonna be so broke I might as well stop eating now so I can afford these things. Here is a glimpse of the list I made looking only at the Met Opera Store and at the Julliard Store. There are some titles in the sheet music department that don’t have prices ‘cause I didn’t find an edition that can fit my pocket yet, they are all in French, and my favorites.

Most importantly I found the Cendrillon dvd, they sell it at the Met Store, and it’s $40! The things we do for love, like buying Opera Cooks, I love to cook and this is the ultimate book to have if you love opera and cooking! I also decided to buy the critic edition of Don Giovanni and Die Zauberflüte because these are the ones I’ll be using for real you know. I already have a critic edition (Bärenreither) of Le Nozze di Figaro and it’s just wonderful! I could be spending much less, but my teacher warned me against buying from certain publishers that to my utter delight were the cheapest!

And I also selected quite a few cds, I mean come on! I feel so bad already downloading these things, the least I could do is buy the cd when I have the chance! Of course I’m buying the 4 Joyce DiDonato cds they have, but that’s just because she’s my idol!

I also finished my “The Mark of Athena” book the day before yesterday, sad, I didn’t want it to end. But immediately started another one called Contos de Opera e Cantos by Sergio Casoy, who is a brilliant Opera History professor here in Brasil. This book is rather delicious to read, in it he shares little stories about things that happened during the productions of the operas. Like that for instance, the Othello project of Verdi was actually called the Chocolate Project because Verdi didn’t want to compromise in the beginning and took a good two years to write the piece. While Donizetti wrote L’Elisir D’Amore in less than a month! Really very entertaining, I’m still in the Italian operas part, he talks about all sorts of opera which is rather cool.

Also yesterday I did something quite soothing! I got my opera book, a towel and my purse and headed off to the beach. It was the end of the afternoon, so it wasn’t packed with people, but I had to walk a while to find a good spot to read. It was quite nice, and a beautiful sunset!

Opera on the Beach!

It’s Christmas! Yay! My xmas festivities so far have been amazing, great family moments, loads of fantastic food and truly good music. The playlist I made for the for the xmas party include, Michael Buble’s  Christmas CD (who is such a terrific singer), the soundtrack from Love Actually (my favorite Xmas movie of all time), some tracks from the Glee Xmas cds, some musical theatre songs sung by Joyce DiDonato, the calmer Beatles songs, Frank Sinatra and Nat Cole King. I got exactly what I wanted, an amazing Jamie Oliver cook book (I LOVE to cook, I can’t wait to get my hands on Opera Cooks) and Havaianas Cheshire Cat Flip-flops (I loooove flip-flops, since I’m from a seaside town it’s like common sense fashion around here). That’s basically it that I got yesterday, because I’ve asked everyone for money since I’m going to New York on February and I wanna buy thousands of opera scores, hundreds of cds and a couple of dvds.

So since it’s Christmas I’m going to talk about a concert here in my city that is sort of like a Xmas tradition and it’s one of the only moments the big public gets to hear classical music. By the way, right now my mum is talking to some aunt who called to wish us a Merry Christmas and is already talking about how me and my sister are only hooking up and how unfortunate it was that I broke it off with my boyfriend. Don’t you just love that?

So the lord works in mysterious ways, and even when I want to do something that is considered normal I end up going to a concert instead. I was gonna go to the movies with some friends, but then I heard there was this great orchestra called OSESP (which is one of the most important orchestras in the country) playing at the beach. So I ditched my friends (who were late by the way, they saw it coming) and called another friend who said she was going and went to the beach. To my utter and complete delight and surprise they were actually doing opera! ‘Cause they always come and play, but it’s always orchestral pieces, never with singing! But there they were with fantastic soloists and the OSESP choir (in which I have a great friend who sings in, he’s big time good) doing the highlights of Porgy and Bess!

It was fantastic! It was around 8 when I got there, but since it’s summer here the sun was starting to set, so it was quite an experience, fantastic music and a magnificent view.  I didn’t get to hear “Summertime” which they probably did in the beginning since they were following the order of the piece. I arrived at “My Man is Gone Now”, which was breathtaking. The guy playing Porgy was crazy good, just awesome, his “I got plenty of nothing” was superb, the color of his voice was very really beautiful, quite enticing. Another great performer was the guy playing Sporting Life, I have to look up who was who in this, but he sounded like a wonderful musical theatre professional, he nailed it, he even danced a little, both his songs were the ones that got the biggest applause.

There was a great number of people there, I’m going to guess a thousand people, but I’m really bad at guessing, here are some pictures from where I was, but there were loads and loads of people standing behind me.

And of course the beautiful Sunday sunset we had as a background for such a wonderful early evening.

But of course things are so well organized in this country that I simply cannot find the cast list, but I will look for it later, I gotta go now, since the guests have arrived and we're having a Christmas barbecue by the pool, that is one good thing about living in the tropics, we don't freeze at Christmas, but I'd rather freeze and have a decent opera program than this.