Trip to NYC - Day 5 - Meeting Anna Netrebko / Norma 2

Hi everybody! I’m again so sorry I took a while again to post here. My mum again is making things very difficult. Let’s get down to it then.

On Monday we actually went back to Century 21 way down town where the Twin Towers feel so we could get some stuff for my grandma. I ended up buying a lot of girly themed house stuff, like dish washing scrubs with flowers and things for a very good price. The clothes there are far too expensive but there are some things that are affordable. We went to Lancome to buy my grandma’s 235785 non aging creams and we ended up getting two rather nice gift bags!

We came back uptown and had lunch at P.J. Clarks, seriously this place dropped from the heavens, it’s so good and so near the Met! I went to the Met Store to get in line for the “Meet Anna Netrebko” thing at 2:30, she was coming out at 3:00 and the cue that real big already. I made a friend while I waited. I’m making loads of friends in this trip! He’s Russian and he was so very excited to meet Anna as was I! It was good I found him since that half hour was spent with a nice conversation. It was so ridiculous, because we were at the bottom of the stair case and all of the sudden someone says “IT’S HER!”. And we see Anna going up the revolving stair case waving and blowing kisses as the most perfect modern diva! She had gone past me and I didn’t even notice! What? Yeah.

Well after that the feeling of my heart beating in my throat came back. As we got closer and closer I was getting more and more excited! My new found friend went first and she was delighted to see someone from her home country there. Then it was my turn. I told her I was from Brazil and that it was actually watching her that I fell in love with opera. She was so happy about that, she was very gracious and very nice, signed all my three cds writing my name in each every one of them. We had a picture taken together and then I told her that I would probably look real bad in the pic because I always looked weird in pictures with people I really liked. She then laughed and said “Oh, that’s not true. But in any case, just do the fashion pose” and she struck the pose and I imitated her and we both laughed, it was AWESOME!

Me and my friend left the store dazzled, star struck really, we couldn’t stop laughing and smiling! Even as the most horrid wind blew out of nowhere we were still smiling and talking. He headed on his way eventually and I met my mum and we went to the Juilliard Store. That shop, is AMAZING! It has quite literally, everything! Shame the stuff is really expensive, so I only bought stuff I knew I’d be using in the present time, two Mozart vocal scores, one of Don Giovanni and another of Die Zauberflute and a book on Style and Singing.

I forgot to say, it was freaking raining, that crazy wind actually was a warning to crazy rain! So we went back to the hotel in one umbrella, me clutching my new acquired sheet music as if my life depended on it. We got back to the hotel, changed and then prayed that the rain would stop. Well it did, and before you could say ‘banana’ we were off to the Met for a performance of Norma.

We got there and my mum couldn’t believe how high our seats were, Family Circle Premium, but it’s still Family Circle. I must admit I’m not really afraid of heights, but when I entered the auditorium I was very afraid. Being there in the middle between the Balcony and the Family Circle looking down it’s very scary indeed! We went to our seats and my mum wasn’t feeling so well because of the height, it’s very high, and very scary.

Well, the opera starts and I’m so excited! It’s also amazing how the sound in the Family Circle is so clear and good! As my mum said it’s as if she’s singing right next to us! Needless to say Sondra totally rocked it! Gosh, her Casta Diva is so incredible. Placid and powerful, and then she explodes at the cabaletta and you just wanna sit there listening to her sing ‘till the end of time. I think that one of the best things about her performance, apart from the impeccable singing, is that you can see character transformation. Norma is such a complicated and difficult role to play not just because it is highly demanding vocally but because the character goes through a roller coaster of an emotional journey.

I love it how in her cabaletta just after her Casta Diva you can see the placid, strong priestess that she puts across to everybody else but also the woman in love and the mother. And I’m gonna say it once more, Sondra’s voice is beyond anything I’ve ever heard. You people GOTTA see her perform live. Her voice is huge plus it has such a distinctive and magnetic color, it’s really to die for, and you will probably never hear anybody sing the way she sings, it’s really something out of this world.

But back to Norma, as the story unfolds and we have that amazing moment between Norma and Adalgisa.  At first is pure delight with the two of them melting their voices together to voice their love for the same man. It’s fun to notice how even though their lines are meant to entwine they are very different and the contrast is very well made by the performers, although I must confess Sondra’s brilliant color voice outshines her fellow singer.

Then it kept building up and more and more until the last act and my absolute favorite part. Norma is furious and vindictive and all kinds of awesome and I can only imagine that must be the most fun part to play of Norma, although it must be very draining. She is just so maliciously glad to have for former lover’s fact between her fingers, when he says “Norma?” and she replies “Norma!” it’s like ‘BANG, karma is a bitch!’. From then on it’s awesome awesome awesome. I loved how in this staging he’s almost all the time on his knees while Norma talks to him. I thought it was so incredible how Sondra was able to come across with a color to her phrases which was quite unique for this scene. Resolute, decisive but also still in love deep down, she’s harsh but there’s some sweetness to her tone. It’s quite incredible!

At the end I was a mess but a good mess! Didn’t have time to get too depressed because Sondra was so kind to put me on the backstage list and as we went down ALL those stairs I couldn’t help but giggle like a six year old. Well we got to the security guard and gave our names and he let us in, we went to the dressing rooms area and oh my God I was freaking out on the inside. There were about 7 people waiting for Sondra there, we waited for about 10 minutes and she came out. My mum was kind of tired so she sat on one of those chairs and I told her “Many very important booties sat in that chair, you know that, right?”

Well I went to talk to Sondra and she greeted me like we were old friends. She is such an amazing human being! We talked for a while about many many things and really, she’s the best! Such an amazing person, a real role model. I can't begin to describe how incredible it was for me to actually meet Sondra and talk to her. She is, hands down, my favorite soprano and kind of like one of those people I look up to and say "I wanna be like that when I grow up!". So I'm really surprised I didn't cry, I almost did though, but I was too happy to have time to cry. But again, every time I travel back to the memory of the times I saw her I cry. Happy tears though :) 

In the dressing rooms corridor

Guys, that’s it for this past Monday! Now I’m gonna hit the showers because I have Onegin in exactly one hour! BYE!

Trip to New York - Day 2 - Operarox Meetup/ Met Backstage Tour/ Norma

Hey guys! So, I'm totally having the time of my life right now, so let's get down to it.

Woke up around 8 and after taking far too long to get ready me and my mum went out for breakfast. We went to this fantastic place called Le Pain Quotidien, half of the menu is in french and it's kinda posh but the food is incredible. As I had plans to have coffee later I ordered a raspberry lemonade, plus a waffle and a croissant that I enhanced by adding cheese and smoked salmon. 

Then I rushed to Lincoln Center to meet my good friend Kim. It was so nice to finally meet a friend from my twitter/internet world in real life. She's the sweetest and we had loads to talk about while having coffee just bellow Lincoln Center. Then she took me to the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts and I was so stunned. Man, there are no places in Brazil like that. Shelves and shelves of all kinds of sheet music you can possibly think of, there just a touch away and you can actually take it home with you, WHAT? I took some pictures because I'm such a tourist, right?

And that's me and Kim at the Library

Time flew by today! Before I knew it it was one in the afternoon and I had to rush to my mum so we could have lunch. We ended up going to the place just bellow the Empire Hotel (Chuck's Hotel), I don't remember the name of the place right now but I'll edit this as soon as I do. 

So we were there waiting for our lunch and along comes this cute old couple and sit right beside us. It was only obvious that we started chatting, and when I say we I mean me and the lady, my mum just nods haha. And what do I find out but that she's also a huge opera fan and has been going to the Met ever since FOREVER. That she even bought her apartment 50 years ago just around the corner from the Met because she loves opera so much. Her place is worth 20 times the price she payed. 20, insane. I had such a lovely time talking to her that I barely touched my Fish and Chips which were delicious but the conversation was so engaging! She told me she had seen the new production of Norma and that it was spectacular. Unfortunately we had to leave since we had to be at the Met at 2:30 for our backstage tour.

Well, we crossed the street and went straight into the Met. Our group had about 10 people I think and our guide was very nice indeed. But nicer than that was discovering just a few minutes in that there was an operarox peep with me there. Our Donna Elvira, Kelsey, what a coincidence, right? Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take any pictures but I will try and describe the tour as best as I can.

We went in through the stage door and I was so excited! First she showed us the auditorium. She explained how everything there has a round format in order for the sound to travel better and how the ceiling was actually made of gold and the wooden walls came ALL from the same gigantic African tree. It was my first time inside the Met so I felt like crying a lot, it's really HUGE. I'd be afraid to try and fill that house with my voice! There had just been a stage rehearsal of Midsummer Night's Dream and the stagehands were muscling down the stuff from that production and setting up everything for tonight's Norma.

From there we went to the actual backstage part of the tour. We went behind the stage and really, this place is huge, like the whole stage is the size of a football stadium, with a bunch of elevators and all sorts of things you could never imagine seeing in an opera house. What was exciting though was that the boxes and pieces of scenery all had the opera name tags on them. I was very tempted to one 'Werther' tag home with me, but didn't. Actually when we went by a rack of costumes that said Eugene Onegin I spotted Tatyana's first act dress and touched it because I'm such an idiot haha.

We saw the costume department with hundreds if not thousands of awesome costumes, gosh everything at the Met is so huge and awesome! Then we went to the rehearsal rooms. We only saw a tad bit of two rehearsals through the relatively small glass of the doors. The first one was Tobby Spence singing a Midsummer Night's Dream and that already was very exciting. The next one I almost a heart attack and died. It was FREAKING ALICE COOTE! She was rehearsing Two Boys and me and Kelsey were FREAKING OUT! I couldn't actually believe it, I adore her. I seriously did not want to leave there, really just not. 

But I had to and then we headed to the dressing rooms area. Really exciting since we see a lot of that at the Live in HDs and The Audition documentary. It's so funny because it's a long corridor and they separate the rooms by voice type, so in the middle you would have the sopranos and tenors and to the ends mezzos, baritones and basses. weird, right? We couldn't actually get inside the dressing rooms but one had it's door opened and I could see both of Norma's dresses hanging and I was like "HOLY MOTHER OF JESUS THIS IS SONDRA'S!!!", I'm such a goof. But anyways then we were off to the Set department and Jesus, huge, gigantic, holy crap. Really, guys, those people at the Met are building dreams, every single one of them! After that it was bye bye time and I couldn't help but think that this tour should have showed us more and lasted longer.

I chatted with Kelsey for quite a while before her dad arrived and then I decided that I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I didn't grasp the opportunity to see Norma later that day. So I went to the box office and asked the very nice (and cute) guy if they had any tickets left for today's performance. He told me he did and that he actually had a pretty awesome student ticket for $37 sitting at the Grand Tier. The normal price of that ticket was $200. THANK YOU GOD and cute guy. I was so happy hopping around with my precious ticket.

Then me and my mum went back to the Hotel and I tuned in to watch what remained of Joyce's Masterclass. What I could hear of it was, of course, awesome as can be. I wasn't able to go to the Masterclass itself because it was only for Juilliard students and guests so no luck there. But as I got ready to go to the Met and watched the Masterclass it dawned on me that I could actually catch her when she left Juilliard. So the second the Masterclass ended I rushed out of the Hotel all dressed up to go to the opera and ran 4 blocks to Juilliard. But when I asked the security guard if she had left he told me she was probably in a reception they were giving upstairs. Then he asked me if I had arranged to meet her there and I just put on my non fanatical fangirl face and said "On no, I just wanted to tell her something, but that's quite alright, I can't wait for her because I'm going to the opera. I'll talk to her later, but thank you, bye!"

Well, I had one a blueberry scone for dinner and headed off to the Met for my first opera EVER there! I was actually glad I was alone because I find that at the end of the day I am a loner you know and I could just have this moment to myself. Well, of course I took pictures of the chandeliers and just looking at them makes you believe in magic you know. My seat was REALLY NICE. It had an amazing view, I was so lucky. The gentleman sitting next to me was extremely nice and of course, again, I started to talking to him and his wife. They are from the Netherlands and also love opera. Man, all these people that I'm meeting here are so awesome. Why aren't there people like that in São Paulo? 

The Chandeliers and the view from my seat

The chandeliers went up and it was time for Norma. One amazing thing about the Met is that they don't work with surtitles above the stage but with amazing monitors just on the seat in front of you were you can see the translations. And at the tour we learned that it is not automatic, that there are actually two people controlling the release of the translation in EVERY SINGLE PERFORMANCE! Wow!

This was my first time ever seeing Norma so that already is pretty exciting. I hadn't read the story and was ready for the opera to tell it to me. Curtain comes up and it's a pretty simple set and also simple costumes for the chorus. It was so odd seeing a live opera at a house as big as the Met, because you think you will never be able to hear the singers well because it's so big, right? But it was scary how clear everything was and I could hear everybody quite well. 

The story is not our usual opera plot but we have the heroin being actually totally rejected by her beloved even though they'd been together for quite a while and even had kids! When Sondra walked in I gasped and when she started singing my mouth was hanging opened and it only closed to clap for Casta Diva. I can't even begin to describe how her voice is, it's so big and just as it is in the CDs I have of hers which was just delightful! It's so incredible I never heard a voice like that before, it is velvety but has a strong brilliant point that just showers you with amazing sound. 

Her Casta Diva was INCREDIBLE. Just so amazing. Really. And I think everybody in the audience agreed with me because she got almost a minute of ovation after that. The plot moves on and we met the mezzo who has stolen Norma's love and she has a great duet with the tenor and he finally convinces her to come away with him. Second act we have sad lonely Norma with her two cute kids and Adalgisa comes along to confess to her everything that has happened between her and the Roman who stole her heart. At first Norma is totally sympathetic and supportive and their duet just soared, I liked the cadenzas specially when they sing together in thirds that was really lovely. 

But along comes the tenor and they realize they are talking about the same man. This trio at the end of act 2 was so amazing. Their voices really melted so well with one another and it was just a bomb of "YOU BASTARD" "I DON'T WANT YOU ANYMORE" "OH MY GOD I'M SO CONFUSED". And I love it how Norma starts getting a bit of that crazy vibe at this point. It just explodes and at the end of act 2 I was mind blown. 

Intermission was spent basically tweeting and at the ladies' room line but it went by pretty fast, before I knew it this scary sounding gong was going on and on and I went back to my seat. 

Act 3 we have worried Norma who wants to kill her children, going all Medea on us, but she can't do it (thank God, how awful would that be, hun?). Sondra was real amazing in this, specially her pianos and pianissimos, they were so poignant at this point to express her absolute despair and loss of hope it touched my heart. Adalgisa comes along and they make a plan to have Adalgisa convince the tenor to return to Norma and her kids and they are quite happy with the arrangement. And again we have the happy sappy thirds cadenzas and cool phrases that soared!

Of course, they plan does not work out because the tenor is such a jerk (this character is a real jerk to Norma). So Norma is pissed  and goes totally bananas, this is the kind of stuff that I love. She calls on to her people and says that the Gods have commanded for them to on into war with the Romans and just when she's about to announce who's gonna be the sacrifice they bring in her old lover. 

Now this part is so insanely cool, she hates him and loves him so bad. She was to tear him into shreds for what he did to her abandoning her with two kids to raise. And she does try to kill him, of course she can't. So she asks everybody to leave so she can interrogate him. This scene reminded me a bit of the fourth act duet of Amneris and Radames in Aida, because Norma says he can have his freedom if he vows to NEVER see Adalgisa again. I was almost thinking he would say "Non posso" like Radames, so odd.

But in his own words he refuses her offers of freedom saying he'd rather die than succumb to her wishes. She, of course is furious and there is an insane exchange at this point! She calls back her peeps and says that there is a priestess there who has dishonored her vow and shall burn in the pyre to pay for her sins. I thought that was rather bitchy but fair to the almost mad mind of Norma and then she surprises me saying that the priestess is herself.

After that the tenor sees what he once loved in her and he dies saying "I love you". It is so romantic and sad, all their exchanges from now on are tender and sad. They die burned alive (that didn't happen on stage though) and the end. 

A huuge roar came from the audience and everybody was clapping most fervently! When Sondra came on it felt like thunders were falling on the audience, it was quite lovely! 

After the opera was done down I went to the stage door. I was so excited to meet Sondra, she's one of my favorite singers and one of my big role models. I could feel my heart beating so fast in my throat. She was the last one to come out and she looked radiant. When I saw her I stopped breathing for a second, I couldn't actually believe it! She was SUPER DUPER NICE! She shook my hand and said "Hi, I'm Sondra! But you probably know that, right?". And then I told her I had come from Brazil to see her and that I was a huge fan of her work and that her "Never Louder Than Lovely" saved my life! She was so thrilled she started talking about the never louder than lovely rule but then asking me if she had applied that to her performance today. 

It was incredible, I had my picture taken with her and I kept hopping up and down with excitement while she laughed and "I don't bite you know!". She was the sweetest! She's even putting me and my mum at the backstage list for Monday's performance, by then I was over the moon!

I went walking but feeling light and free as a bird, life is good and opera is awesome, peace everybody! 

Annick Massis, tons of talent and sweetness!

Holy BeJesus. It’s been a month since my last post. Shame on moi. But you know I started like 6 different posts over the last month and wasn’t able to finish any of them. One about Glyndebourne's Don Pasquale, another about Munich's Il Trovatore, another about a Strauss/Wagner concert I watched 2 weeks ago, another about my opera anniversary, another about Manon, those are the ones I can remember. I'll probably finish them all, plus I want to write about the Don Carlo stream that happened yesterday. Time? Where did you go?

 

These past few weeks have been really busy. I'm back in São Paulo living alone in my tiny but adorable apartment and back to college which is always stressing. Plus I designed a study routine in which I’m not at home a lot, I wake up early make my lunch that has to consist on things that I can eat cold since we don’t have anything in my college to warm up food (ps; yes, that's outrageous). Then I go to college and have classes in the morning. Right after class I run to one of the practice rooms which I have the key for and lock myself in and have lunch ALL BY MYSELF (don’t wanna be), I actually don’t mind. And then study all afternoon long, ‘till about 5:30 when the guy kicks me out. Then I come back home and to make the story short have little time to write. Hence, this is Saturday and there’s no class. Plus I was working really intensively on an article for Opera21 magazine about the musical education in Brazil so that ate up a lot of my time. I’ll post it here when it comes out in the magazine.

But before I get down to the subject of the post, let me share some EXCITING news! I’m going New York in 48 days! YEES! This time it will work out! And I bought my Met tickets last Sunday so if anybody wants to meet there here are my dates:

Cosi Fan Tutte – 05/10

Norma – 07/10
The Nose – 08/10
Eugene Onegin – 09/10
A Midsummer Night’s Dream – 11/10
Eugene Onegin – 12/10

But, now I’m full of inspiration. Why? Guess! Inspiration strikes me when I see something wonderful live, hun? And last night I went to a wonderful concert that definitely stroke inspiration. It was of a French soprano called Annick Massis, now she’s sung all over the world, at the Met, in Paris, Munich, London you name it. She’s actually playing the Fairy Godmother in the Barcelona production of Cendrillon with Joyce DiDonato and Alice Coote in the new years. Well she performed in the opera house just around the corner, so the performance was at 20:30 I left my apartment at 20:15 with ASSASSIN shoes that I will NEVER EVER wear again.

I got there and my opera bff was already there sitting in the front row as per usual I sat next to him. I took a look at the program and it was daring, exciting, versatile and awesome. They managed to get a little piece of every kind of opera and jammed it into a concert. Lights came down and here we go.

First enters the São Pedro Theatre entire orchestra and the guest conductor Jamil Maluf. They played one of, probably my favorite really, symphonies from opera openings, DON GIOVANNI. That music does something to me. Mozart is my everything really, so I was quite pumped right from the beginning. This orchestra is quite good and man, they can play anything, I was quite surprised. Because I have just recently seen them play Strauss and Wagner really well and now they are playing Mozart. It’s a real good orchestra.

Then Annick enters wearing a beautiful red dress with a red scarf matching. One problem here, from where I was sitting and from where she stood I COULDN’T SEE HER FACE. But how, I was sitting in the front row, right? Yes! But her sheet music holder was standing in the way. So as she sang Lascia Ch’io Pianga I was leaning in every direction I knew possible so I could see her face, very frustrating. I eventually gave up in the beginning of the B section and just sat back and enjoyed the sound of her voice. And what was interesting was that the color of the voice was a tad different from the videos I had seen on YouTube, it was a bit darker, which I like very much. I loved what she did with the variations of the A section. So many people take this aria for granted just because it’s Top Hits from opera (like Babbino Caro and Libiamo), but it is baroque and people forget it. And baroque is a bitch to get right, just a freaking bitch, and she nailed it.

Next she sang Norma’s Casta Diva, now I don’t know that much about Bellini and I must confess that I never watched Norma. My first experience watching Norma is going to be on the 7^th of October at the Met. I had just heard Renée Fleming and Anna Netrebko singing this aria, I personally think it’s so gorgeous but I don’t know much else, nor do I know it by heart. But by then I had changed my seat so I could see her face and I did. And let me tell you, she acted her ass off! This aria is so gorgeous and full of feeling and you could see that she was totally feeling it!

Then she left and the orchestra played the opening of the opera Vespri Siciliani by Verdi, which I never heard of but I really liked, can’t expand much on this one as well, sorry. She came back and sang an aria called “Egli non riede ancora… Non so le tetre immagini” from the opera Il Corsaro which is also Verdi and which I also didn’t know.

But then if I didn’t know the next one they could send me back to Santos to sell hamburgers at McDonalds. One of the coolest and most difficult arias ever, “È strano… Sempre Libera”. Ah gee I love this aria and even though it was written in the program that she would be closing the first part with this aria when she started I gasped. Again, she was acting wonderfully with every word every nuance of the music. I love it when artists are not afraid to really use up the music and words to convey the story. Especially in a concert situation where some people might say that it is ok to not act as much as you would on stage of a full length opera production. She started with the turbulence of the doubt Violetta’s feeling getting her high notes always in piano which was quite nice. Then for follia, follia she changed, laughed, it was such a treat. When that little Sempre Libera melody started playing she laughed out loud and it was real, she was Violetta, ya know? And then at the end, against all odds and that damned air conditioning that was getting not only in her way but ours, she delivered that high E strong and sustained and the crowd went wild. She got a solid 2 minute standing ovation for that.

Then at intermission I decided to just sit back and tweet a little bit as opposed to talking to the people I knew in the audience. Why? Because after the whole Vesselina experience with the bitchy girls trashing her I didn’t want to ruin my mood hearing that kind of stuff. But as per usual intermission flew by and before I knew it the lights dimmed and the orchestra took the stage.

The conductor came in and after taking his place at the podium he turned around and addressed to the audience. It was so sweet, he told us how amazingly honored he was to be there conducting in that stage for the very first time. That he had always been a big fan of that theatre and that now he was going to conduct one of his favorite pieces of music, the prelude of the third act of La Traviata. He thanked us for being there and rocked that prelude out. It is interesting and inspiring to see really fantastic professionals doing a certain piece of music they TRULY adore. At that time I couldn’t take my eyes off Jamil Maluf and the prelude was heart breaking but beautiful (as it is supposed to be).

Annick came in and sang Teneste la promesa… Addio del Passato. This particular piece of music does something to me. I already sang it once, before I had a sensible teacher that hacked it away from me (quite rightly, I’m too young for anything Verdi, simple rule, just because you can read it doesn’t be you can sing it), plus Traviata is one of my favorite operas, so I was quite in heaven. Her reading of the letter was so heartfelt and then coming to the aria itself it was really gorgeous. Her voice boomed in this aria, it took a different strength to it and it was gorgeous. She acted so well and when she sang her second Ah della traviata soride a del sio she pointed out at the audience and had a fierce look like “Who are you to judge me” that was INCREDIBLE. The hairs in my arms and left leg were all up! The audience went WILD after every aria she sang.

 

The orchestra played the symphony from Norma that again, I know nothing of so can’t help ya. Annick came back and sang the famous aria from La Sonnambula “Oh, se una volta sola… Ah, non credea mirarti, Ah non giunge” again I’m no Bellini expert. But I do admire anybody who sings his music, because it’s just difficult, it seems to never end and has so many complex lines, at least my ears. This aria had everything, a bit of coloratura, high exiting notes, most especially a high E (I think) that for me came out of nowhere and was just right! She finished the aria to thunderous applause, the audience was really excited and for a good reason.

She came back to do her first encore, Je veux vivre! I love that aria and it was a breath of fresh air to be able to hear her sing in her own language. It was high spirited and brilliant, such an absolute delight really. It actually helped me to see someone sing it live to help me with those damned little notes before “Je” “Veux” “Vivre” which are really hard to do and that I could never really hear in recorded versions. I could hear them, but it was nice to see someone actually do them right in front of you, you know?

People were crazy with applause and she came back for a second encore when she sang La Rondine’s Chi Il Bel sogno di Doretta. I LOVE this aria, it’s one of those things that I crave to one day sing. I got shivers all over with her interpretation and voice. Her pianissimo high notes were just what the doctor prescribed, precise, bittersweet and full of feeling. That almost drove me to tears, my eyes were literally filling up. Had she sung another encore I would have broken down for sure.

Well the concert was over and we (me and the bff) decided to linger in the audience area. Then out of the blue Otávio said “Oh my God! It’s Odete Roitman!”. Now let me explain something, Odete Roitman is one of the most famous soap operas characters in the whole soap opera history in Brazil. The character was a vile, rich, stuck up woman who disdained everyone and was a huge success. I actually found quite comic that the actress who played her was there in the small opera house because there is a scene in the soap opera where Odete says that she never goes to opera houses in Brazil, she only goes to the Met, La Scala and The Royal Opera House. Well Otavio went to talk to her and took a picture but to me she looked a bit scary, she did have a very diva posture.

Another sneaky work of mine, I took a quick pic of her talking, in French, with the actress who played Odete Roitman

Annick arrived not long after and everybody formed a line to talk to her. I felt slightly stupid because everybody was speaking French and although I could understand them I couldn’t bring myself to speak in the language. Well our turn came and as usual Otavio couldn’t stop talking and the other people in line were getting impatient. But then her manager, who was so very nice, asked us to sit and wait a bit while the others took their pictures and exchanged a few words with her and then we’d be able to talk with more tranquility.

Everyone got their pictures and autographs and as soon as they left Otavio was talking non stop again. I chatted a bit with her manager about many a number of things, from the production of a Debussy opera she had just done (he showed us some lovely pictures on his phone) to the crazy weather in São Paulo. Then as she sat down in one of the audience chairs to autograph programs I got to my knees (not kidding) and we chatted.

I told her I was studying to be an opera singer and she was immediately very interested in knowing more about me. I really wasn’t ready for that conversation, I was very nervous and on my knees wearing a dress I might add. She asked what repertoire I was singing, we chatted about maturing voices and he gave me tons of advice and inspiring words. It was really wonderful, I felt like a million bucks. She stood up and said “I want a picture with this girl, she’s a singing student”. We took a lovely picture together and then Otavio said “Another” and I said “Let’s change sides!” and she said “I just gonna say that!”.

 

It was really a delight! Her words will be with me until the day I die. She told me never to doubt myself and to just do the job. We only parted when one of the staff members told us to leave because they were closing up the theatre. We hugged and she told me again to believe in myself that I was bound to do great things. Man, I almost cried, it was SO surreal! Then we left through the artists exit, so we got to go by the stage wings, and of course I took a pic!

 

Tonight I’m watching the Theatro Municipal’s production of Aida, I’m excited! Review will probably come out tomorrow, and then tomorrow I’m watching Annick’s concert again! HUL! Fun! Peace everyone!