The best of my musical 2013

The end of the year is near! And so I thought it would be fun to do some “best of 2013” lists! I might do this in more than one post, depending on the amount of stuff I write.

Best Operas

It’s in alphabetical order because I really don’t wanna choose which I liked best than the other, so those are the highlights of the year of operas I’ve seen live in 2013

Aida (Theatro Municipal de Sao Paulo)

This was my first time seeing Aida and it was really love at first sight! The music is just so incredible, the chorus parts are exhilarating and the solos, duets and trios just swept me off my feet! The staging was simple but dignified and Radames and Amneris were particularly wonderful. I saw this production of Aida twice at the Theatro Municipal in the city where I live, Sao Paulo, it was my very first time going there.

Eugene Onegin (Metropolitan Opera)

I felt so privileged to be able to see this opera live not only once but twice! Before I even saw this production I already loved this opera thoroughly. And then having such a stellar cast under the musical direction of none other than Valery Gergiev was just an absolute delight. The staging was beautiful and the interpretation of the characters was slightly different but it worked incredibly well for that particular set of performers.

La Cenerentola (Theatro Sao Pedro)

This opera I also saw more than once, if you have been reading this blog for a while you will know that I actually watched some rehearsals of this opera. The cast was adorable, the staging slightly bleh but the performers totally made up for it! Special spotlight for the ladies who played the evil step sisters who are sisters in real life and totally stole the show!

Norma (Metropolitan Opera)

I had never seen this opera and let me tell you, even though the staging was as dull as it gets, I loved it! It was my first night at the Met and I was alone and it couldn’t have been more perfect! I remember my eyes filling up with tears seeing Sondra come out for the first time and feel the tears roll down my cheeks when she started singing. Again, I saw this opera twice when I was there and feel so fortunate!

Best Concerts

Again in alphabetical order because they were all such different kinds of concerts and I really can’t choose, each had a very different kind of special meaning

Annick Massis Concert (Theatro Sao Pedro)

Two incredible nights. Annick is such a fine artist and with such an impressive repertoire. I remember that in her very last encore I nearly cried at her rendition of “Chi bel sogno di Doretta”. And also her reading of Papa Germont’s letter and “Addio a del passato” was heart breaking and inspired. I was SO lucky to sit in the front row for this concert in both days!

Maryinsky Theater Orchestra plays Stravinsky led by Valery Gergiev (Carnegie Hall)

I’m such a grateful person to have seen this! I guess that’s why I wanna live in NYC, I mean, come on! I stayed there 10 days and was able to watch so many top notch musical performances, like with the absolute best in DA WORLD! Ah well, this concert was incredible. I mean, it’s not every day that I get to see an entire all Russian orchestra play Stravinsky. I was particularly moved when they played “The Rite of Spring” because my history teacher back in college dedicated quite a lot of time to this piece in particular. So to be able to see an orchestra like that play it was something I will never forget! Plus this concert was on the very DAY of Verdi’s 200th anniversary so as a present to the audience maestro Gergiev led the overture of La Forza del Destino that was composed for the Maryinsky theater! By the end I was in tears, tears, tears!

Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Joyce DiDonato led by James Levine (Carnegie Hall)

This was one of those things that is on one’s bucket list, again I felt very blessed to have been able to attend this one night only sold out event! First of all y’all know Joyce is one of my personal heroes, so just to get to see her perform was already such a thrill for me. And let me tell you, she was everything I had ever dreamed of and more, such an amazing artist. Then you add the Met Orchestra led by none other than the legendry James Levine and it’s heaven! Seriously, Beethoven’s 7th Symphony was just impossibly gorgeous and the overture of Il Vespri Siciliani being played the WEEK of Verdi’s 200th anniversary was just a marvelous slap of my musically drugged face.

Vesselina Kasarova and the Camerata Berg (Sala Sao Paulo)

Two magical nights in a row! I was already a great fan of Vesselina’s work but to actually see her live right in front of me was so incredible. Plus, as you guys have read in my posts about this concert, she kept looking and smiling at me and my bff for almost half of the concert which was just impossible and insane and wonderful. She did her Mozart and Rossini repertoire which I love and I got to fall in love with her Sesto once again! *sighs*

Best Opera Singer Meetups

Now this is where I get overly emotional like a good Brazilian always does and start crying. I can’t help it though, these are also in alphabetical order because they were all equally awesome.

Annick Massis

Annick is such a generous person and I knew that from the moment she walked on stage she gave it her all to that performance. I will never forget the kindness she showed towards me, looking in my eyes and being sincerely interested in what I had to say. She showed such interest in me I was a bit shocked and even gave me my very first opportunity to sing in a real life masterclass, her masterclass. I look back at those two amazing evenings that I chatted for a while with her after her performances with always a smile on my face.

Joyce DiDonato

I think this was one of the best moments of my life, getting to meet Joyce the way it happened. It was so surreal, first to walk in that room and see her SO DAMN CLOSE and just wait a few minutes that felt like 974298734 hours. Then to get to have her first words uttered to me be my own freaking name, I mean, how cool is that? She’s like one of my heroes and she actually knows who I am and plus was so thrilled that we had finally met and that I went to see her. I mean, that’s daydream material, that’s fanfiction material and it happened to me in real life. I got several hugs and even more kind and amazing words from her. Plus I got to walk around the Carnegie Hall backstage area WITH HER and talk.

Sondra Radvanovsky

Now Sondra is someone who inspires me SO MUCH to pursue this career. She’s also one of my personal heroes and ultimate role model. And I got to see her twice! First time I met her it was in the Met’s stage door area and I was terrified because A- it was my first time stage dooring at the Met B- she walks out and she’s like SUPER TALL C- I’m afraid I won’t be able to speak because of nervousness and/or unexpected tears. So I just stood there like an idiot with my mouth probably hanging opened looking her while she sighed stuff feeling my heart beat in my throat (Lord help me I might choke in my own heart!). She saw me there and walked up to me, took my hand and shook it and said “Hi! I’m Sondra! But you probably know that, right?”, for the first 3 seconds I was frozen but then I regained consciousness and was able to speak fluently and well and we hit it off quite well. After talking to her for a while I told her I’d be watching Norma again on Monday and she proceeded to invite me to go to her dressing room to talk to her after the show on Monday. I nearly had a heart attack then. Monday we met again, in the dressing rooms area backstage at the Met and she was again, SO SWEET and SUPER KIND. Seriously, I wanna be like this lady when I grow up, she’s fabulous and all kinds of wonderful!

Vesselina Kasarova

Vesselina’s heart is the size of a house. And it’s funny because she has such a strong stage presence that me and my bff were a bit apprehensive about going up and talking to her. But she was a bucket of sugar, so sweet I couldn’t believe it. She was particularly fond of us because she saw us in the front row smiling at her every 5 seconds. We both quickly connected with her and had a lovely time talking to her. The second day she waved at us from the stage when she walked in and actually took my hand during one of her last ovations to thank me. That was SO SURREAL!

Well, I guess that’s it for now. In other news I’m NEARLY graduating, I have one grade to come out yet. I pray to God everyday to help me pass, so help me God I WILL!

La Cenerentola

Just back from an AMAZING performance of Rossini’s La Cenerentola. As some of you guys know I attended some rehearsals the last weeks and now have gone there on their closing night to see the finished product. This was by far the best opera I've seen here in Brasil.

Well my cousin who was going with me took “sick” and didn’t go, but that’s quite alright because I sat with a very good buddy of mine from college, a fellow musician. The first thing that made me real real happy was the fact that I was seeing loads of young faces, not teenager young but still under 60/50 which is already a huge accomplishment. The house was packed, and you could feel the enthusiasm building up.

First things first, cast list;

Loriana Castellano Angelina
Leonardo Ferrando Don Ramiro
Homero Velho Dandini
Bruno Praticò Don Magnifico
Carlos Eduardo Marcos Alidoro
Edna D’Oliveira Clorinda
Ednéia de Oliveira Tisbe

Maestro in, and let the party begin. We start off with a very clever way to not losing the public on the overture, because let’s be honest, those Rossini overtures just really take their time hun? While the overture played we had a scene with Dandini, Don Ramiro and Alidoro, where they discuss (silently of course) their plan to trade roles. Curtain opens we have the two sisters drowning in makeup and fake lashes, No, no, no, nooooo!... Si, si, si, siiiiiii! These sisters were on fire! I must admit that when I first saw this opera I found the sisters quite dull, but these ladies stole the show, they were hilarious!

Just a thing, I’m writing on the balcony because my cousin is asleep and I just saw the entire cast pass by on the street, COOL! Back to the opera, the sweet adorable Cenerentola enters with her Una volta… and the sisters almost kill her with daggers shot by their eyes! Enters Don Magnifico, the guy is awesome, let me just say that, he’s a wondrous singer and a fantastic comedian. He kept up with the frantic and amazing real life sisters and together the trio was unstoppable, it was very clear that they were improvising things as they went and doing so absolutely organically and with loads of fantastic humor.

Then comes my favorite duet from the whole opera Un soave non so che… Oh man, the guy who played Don Ramiro was super dreamy and has a silky very refined voice, their duet was deliciously romantic, it made us feel as if walking on clouds too mesmerized, such good quality! First rate stuff! Then we have our very Dandini dressed up as the prince, kind of trying too hard to imitate royalty, waving like a pageant girl which was real funny.

This is one part I really have mixed feelings about, what follows when Cenerentola asks to go to the ball and Don Magnifico is such a pig to her you want to rip is throat out! I don’t even have to comment that it was all perfectly executed, but this part gets me real mad. Cenerentola is left alone and on he comes her fairy Godfather/father/tutor of the prince where have you been all these years? (I feel like that is what Cenerentola should say to him when he shows, but she’s too forgiving…) Again we had a first rate singer, absolutely perfect for the repertoire, while he sang his two impressive arias the set changed from Don Magnifico’s house to Prince Ramiro’s palace. In the palace we have Tisbe and Clorinda running after the so called Prince with arduous fervor, they hit on him quite sexily, well their version of sexy anyways…

The thing with the sisters is that since they are real life sisters they have an organic timing and it’s absolutely perfect, they are those kind of sisters that complete each other’s sentences (they actually do that, Tisbe goes GRA and Clorinda goes CIE!), And also the faces they make were hard to not crack up upon looking at, anger, pleasure, rage, hope, all were seen as if using a magnifying glass!

And here comes on Magnifico drunk as drunk can get wearing a grape tiara just like Bacco! He sang his aria with majesty and yes, a lot of humor too, he actually asked for an audience member to write down the letter he as dictating.

Another thing I found very smart that they did was add some jokes, speaking one or two words in Portuguese, this quickly won over the public who was dying of laughter! Plus, some of the times the characters would enter the scene from the audience another great thing that I think helped the pubic warm up to the piece even more! Not it really needed special effort for the singers won everyone over with their stellar performances.

Cenerentola finally gets to the ball and the sisters look as if they are going to rip her to shreds! The first act ending was a beautiful scene with everyone on stage and good staging. The public went wild with applause at that, actually, after every single thing they sang, solos, duos, trios, quartets, quintets, you name it the crowd would give it’s all in enthusiastic clapping, which made me real happy!

Intermission went by quite quickly, me and my buddy didn’t even get up, we talked to our other buddies who were working there and before we knew it second act was starting.

We have another glorious aria for Don Magnifico and the sisters accompany him quite rightly, they even danced the samba, YES, they danced the SAMBA, it was supper cool! The sisters try to make yet another bold move on the “prince” and when he tells them that the other sister should marry is friend, they freak out and it was ooh so hilarious! The actual prince is quite taken by Cenerentola, as we all know, and Dandini tries to make a move and she ends up confessing her love to his friend. This part I find rather funny, because she’s telling something to Dandini super hush, hush and then suddenly the subject of the conversation just springs out of nowhere talking of love, but it’s Rossini, we will let it go…



One of the pics I took in the dress rehearsal

She leaves but before she does she gives him a bracelet so he can look for her. Next the prince takes his rightful place at the throne and wants to trovar his bella! What a VOICE, smooth and AWESOME! This cast was really a gift! Wonderful, just wonderful!



Don Ramiro singing his kick ass aria



Then the FUNNIEST MOMENT OF MY OPERA LIFE HAPPENED! Curtain closes and we have Dandini telling Don Magnifico he’s actually not the prince, alrightly. UNTIL Don Magnifico is singing and accidentally drops his walking stick on the ORCHESTRA PIT! There was a huge gasp from the audience and since I was sitting in the third role I could see Don Magnifico going Scusa! To the Maestro and the Maestro giving him the eye, but the funniest thing was, they did not stop! But then Dandini and Magnifico went near the pit to look over and see if everything was ok, while singing. At this the audience was filled with laughter and clapping, I myself laughed my behind off! And at the end of the duet Don Magnifico said “AI MINHA NOSSA SENHORA” which means OH HOLY MOTHER OF GOD in Portuguese, and the funniest thing is, he isn’t even brasilian, he’s Italian. Great guy, great singer and great actor!



The funniest moment of my life!

After this accident it was quite hard going back to Cenerentola’s Una volta… I wanted to laugh so bad! Well, the prince found his Cinderella and after Queste è un nodo… We are left again with the sisters not wanting to bow to Cenerentola not even for their lives, but eventually giving in. Skip, skip, skip we get to the most important aria of the piece Non Piu Mesta, I’m picky about this one, but the girl rocked it out, she was fabulous.

Thunderous applause, the curtain closed and even before it opened again most of the audience was on their feet clapping, cheering and screaming loads of BRAVA, BRAVO, BRAVI!

Tonight

After it was over everyone went to the main lobby to talk to the singers, but me and Anara (my friend who super got me in!) waited in the deserted theatre. I just took in everything, what a night, and then being there at that theatre alone, I felt like I belonged. I did sing my praises to all of the singers, so cool to actually get to say “Bravo Signore!”. Then I went to talk to Don Ramiro and he was a sweet pie, so, so, so nice! I said I wanted a picture and Cenerentola was just running by and I said quietly, “Oh I wish she could be in the picture too.” No need to say anything more, he called after her and we took an AWESOME picture in the theatre!

Awesome ending to an awesome evening! Gracie tutti!

Another awesome thing was that I got to leave the theatre yet again from the stage door, therefore going through the stage and all the feels happened, specially since they had actually performed for a whole audience tonight for the last time, the energy was crazy!

Well, please I’m a crazy happy bunny tonight, it’s super late, 2:00 in the morning, it’s super cold around here, yes I’m still in the balcony, but I’m radiating happiness. This life is awesome, ooh, and I started learning how to play the piano on Friday, it was so much fun! :) Peace peeps!

Fairytaleish Dress Rehearsal

Yay, happy sappy me! As most of you know last week I went to the rehearsal of La Cenerentola here in São Paulo and had a blast! Well, today was the last dress rehearsal and I was able to get in. It was quite different from the other rehearsal, but equally fun. Getting in from backstage is so thrilling for me, getting to see all the props and the singers with half their makeup on, apart from the fact that you get to be on stage, even if it is for a few minutes. I know it sounds slightly silly to hear someone say they get chills when they step on stage, but I’m a theatre geek, for me the theatre is so much more than a place to perform, it’s a temple. But I’ll make a post only about that someday.

Once inside I had a seat, another great thing about dress rehearsals, you get to pick whatever seat you like, you get to try them all and see which you like best. The buzz was much much louder than last time, there were a lot of people there to watch, about 50 or something.

I guess I can post at least a picture of the stage before the rehearsal

This rehearsal was much like a performance, and it was insanely cool! I felt as if part of a special club that was able to get into this sort of things, everyone there was super into it. They’d clap enthusiastically after the arias and group numbers and I’d shout my brava/bravo/bravi along.

I’m not gonna talk about the production itself because I want to leave that for when I watch an actual performance (already got tickets for myself and my cousin) but I can tell you guys this, the cast is STELLAR! Everyone is so great in their own roles and bring in something fresh and wonderful to it!

I did take a lot of pictures, I must admit, but I won’t post them until at least their opening night. When it was finished we all went wild with clapping and cheering our Rossini heroes. Something quite funny that happened was that when the maestro took too long to get to the stage, the tenor playing the Prince took another bow quite in divo style to everyone’s delight.

My friends were utterly exhausted, why of course they were, while I was enjoying the wonderful performance they were running around with their scores telling everyone their cue. When me and my friend Anara were leaving (again passing through the stage, oh joy!) we heard one of the awesome sisters speak, so I went to talk to her. We hugged and I got a lot of glitter on me (something which I was totally ok with because first I was hugging a super awesome opera star and a wonderful person and second because I love glitter). I asked for a picture and when we took it my friend said it was too dark in there. So Edineia suggested we’d go to the dressing room because the lighting there is better and we could take a picture with her sister also.

I couldn't go without posting this picture, Edna D'Oliveira and Edineia De Oliveira the awesome sisters and moi in center haha

I was stunned and giggling like a four year old going up those stairs heading to their dressing room. We got there and Edna had almost taken half her makeup off and she looked hilarious, they both looked quite funny with their over the top glittery makeup. We talked and took pictures and there I was, in heaven again, in an opera house dressing room talking to amazing people after an out of this world performance.

I say it again, I love this, my life without art and music would be absolutely meaningless. I rejoice on the fact that I found my true love and what makes me really happy, now it’s off to study my behind off! Peace everyone!

Opera in Rehearsal

I wanna write this fresh fresh. Yesterday was the first professional opera rehearsal I ever watched. The opera house just around the corner from my cousin’s apartment (where I’m currently living during the week in São Paulo) is doing Cenerentola a week from this. And the conducting professor in my college is the conductor in this opera and was letting some of his students watch the rehearsal, I asked my friend if it was ok if I went and so after he said yes, off I was to the opera house.

Nice pic of the Theatro São Pedro, I did take some pics of the rehearsal but I don't wanna post them before the opening

Walking into the opera house was already thrilling to me, we entered from backstage, so we walked on the stage and I tried to take in as much as I could from those 2 minutes we made our way to the audience. It’s very much like Renée Fleming’s description of the Met's backstage, it’s not as beautiful and as glamorous as the parts the public sees, it’s got wires and things we singers cannot comprehend but it’s also kind of cozy. It definitely has a very good feel to it.

The rehearsal startsed at 7, so 6:30 we were there and so was the majority of the orchestra and the singers. The noise I heard was indescribably amazing. A mixture of all the orchestra instruments warming up,  playing their scales at their own time and tone, people talking in Portuguese and Italian, the scenery coming in and out of stage. I just sat in the audience in total bliss, feeling like the luckiest person in the world!

My friends who went with me were actually helping backstage and were a bit lost, so they had the scores with them so they could write down stuff. But I didn’t need that; I was there to watch, only. I felt sort of special then, because we were the only ones in the audience apart from the crew and I was the only one there that didn’t have my nose glued to the sheet music, so I felt as if they were singing only to me. And boy could they sing!

As the opera started I was absolutely transported, the singers weren’t in costume and the lightings weren’t up but I left that to my imagination. Sometimes I’d imagine the costumes from that famous production of the Teatro Liceu in Barcelona. The blocking had already been rehearsed so it was more like a run-through with the orchestra, meaning there were very little pauses and so I could sit back and watch just as if it was the day of the performance.

But something very cool about being in the rehearsal is seeing the singers up close sitting in the audience near you. In their normal people self persona, they laugh, make jokes, talk, you could mistake them for everyday people. But then when they step on stage they are transformed, it’s like they’re all two meters tall when they take the stage!

My friends chitchatted during some of the arias, but I didn’t even move, I couldn’t take my eyes off that stage. The breaks came and went by so fast, and then I’d finally unglue my butt off the chair and chitchat as well.

All that coloratura made me dizzy! But I was loving it, it’s at these moments that you reaffirm what you really love and want to do, and this is definitely something I love and need to do. Their rehearsal isn’t like the ones I’m used to, with hundreds of jokes and silly things. The jokes were made but the music didn’t stop so the singers would actually laugh and sing at the same time which was quite amazing.

In the end and mustered my courage and went to talk to the two sisters playing the sisters. Let me explain this one from the beginning, the day before yesterday I was leaving the subway station when I saw them and was too shy to talk to them and then immediately regretted not talking to them. So today after the rehearsal was done I went up to talk to them, and when I told them I had seen them yesterday they asked me why I hadn’t talked to them. When I said that I was shy, they both gave me big big hugs! So sweet! We talked for a while and I was feeling like the luckiest cookie in the jar! They said “See you tomorrow!” and ah I wish I would see them tomorrow, because if it were up to me I’d live in that theatre!

I got home 2 minutes after saying goodbye to everyone and felt as if I was Eliza Doolittle singing “I could have danced all night”, too excited to go to sleep!

Ah opera is life, you gotta love this, it’s so cool! I will try and get into other rehearsals next week. If I do I’ll be sure to post my experience here! Cheers everyone!