Here and Back Again in NYC - Day 10 (part 1) - Werther

Hey you all! Ah I just finished reading my Fifty Shades trilogy and I must say I really liked what I read! I'm feeling very book orphaned now that I finished and since the movie trailer (HOLY SHIT IT'S SO HOT, click here if you dare and watch it) came out today you won't be surprised if I start reading the series all over again soon. There are some parts that are over sweetened but the story is involving and the sex is real great! My AMAZING voice coach gave me a book called Fifty Shades of Mr. Darcy for my birthday which is a crossover of Fifty Shades of Gray and Pride and Prejudice, it’s a satire and I cannot wait to start reading it tonight! I also downloaded the first season of Mad Man which I’m excited to start watching!

Remember there was one day missing from my New York City adventures? Here it goes then!

It is always like this, when we near the end of a trip like this we start wanting to do a gazzilion things all at the same time. That is why mum and I were up extra early that morning and after our breakfast, we hit the streets. We went to several stores buying all in our way (Brazilians are very much like that, we have no sense of proportion). We went to this trendy sunglasses store, ah, the name escapes me, ah, I know! Sunglass Hut (or something) on Fifth Avenue. Don’t worry I wasn’t about to throw a couple of hundred dollars into sunglasses, I mean, I got mine at Forever 21 for like $10 and they are great! We were actually there because my cousin’s sunglasses broke and my uncle asked us to take them there to get them fixed. And I can say without a shadow of a doubt that that was the very worst service I ever got in a store. I would hop from attendant to attendant trying to get someone to help me and they would either ignore me or just try and shove to another attendant. My patience was coming to an end because I had a ticket to see Werther at 1 and the hour was nearing. Bottom line, we didn’t get anything solved and that store is the worst, I’m serious, the worst!

that's my mommy, ain't he the cutest? 

Well I got in a cab and rushed to the Met. Man, why am I ALWAYS rushing to that godforsaken place? Why can’t I just be early for once? I always arrive at the nick of time! Anyway, I did get there a good 15 minutes prior to curtain and I thought I might try my luck yet again with the student ticket thing since my seat pretty much sucked balls. And I think I’m starting to understand this whole thing, it depends ENTIRELY upon the good will of the person in the booth. Because as soon as I saw the sour face of the attendant I knew I wouldn’t be getting shit. Well, I had a ticket, a $30 Family Circle side ticket, but a ticket nonetheless, in a bit I was in!

As I headed towards my seat, which was oddly near to the stage but far too high I started regretting the decision of buying this ticket. It was the nearest seat to the stage up in the family circle so I actually had to lean forward a lot to see the stage. I also had to make a choice, to either read the surtitles or watch the opera, I could not do both. Anyway, I was just happy to be there so sod it! A very cool couple sat next to me and we chatted for a little bit before it began.

THE fabulous view!

Oh dude, Werther, it’s Massenet, only one of my favorite composers, my favorite French composer, I was in the clouds as soon as those first notes rang. Again, I loved the story telling in the beginning and the good thing about this seat was that I could actually see facial expressions! I could see them extremely well! The back of the stage was blocked to me but in the front part, not a single facial expression was missed. So it was really like watching a whole new thing, I already had a very good notion of how the production worked but now I could actually see all their faces twist and twitch!

Kudos yet again to those kids playing Charlotte’s siblings, they were simply incredible. Such sincere, playful and truthful acting you would think they were not acting at all! This makes me wish I could have seen my good friend Melanie perform in the children’s chorus. But anyway it was really great to be able to actually see with my own eyes the first time Werther sets his eyes on Charlotte. And we’re talking Jonas Kaufmann here so you people know that he absolutely rocked the singing and the acting part of Werther. I feel so lucky that I was able to actually see this amazing production live, twice! I’ll never tire of saying that because I’m truly humbled and extremely grateful that I was lucky enough to be there.

As the plot moves along I’m able to see the ball scene upclose which was such a lovely amazing surprise to me and quickly became one of my favorite scenes from this production. Even though it’s like 3 minutes long, it’s extremely romantic and gives me goose pups. Because when they arrive at the garden after the ball they are already smitten with each other. But to have that ball scene you get to see their firsts, like the first dance, the first time they look in each others eyes, their first conversation alone, it’s inspired. Gosh I’m getting way too overly excited about this. Sorry guys, you people have to remember I’m a hopeless romantic even though I put on the ice queen façade. 

You cannot help but fall for Jonas’ Werther, now I could see the amount of adoration his eyes carry for Charlotte. Although I felt again that Koch was a tad cold to MY taste. As everyone knows I’m a bit too fiery sometimes and expect characters to match that warmth. I did purchase the original Goethe “Die Leiden des jungen Werther” last Sunday. I was lucky enough to find it in a local bookstore here in my hometown and I was a sight to see squirming like an idiot because of my discovery and buying it regardless of the fact that I cannot read German. I find it it’s always good to have the origins and the originals of my favorite works (although my Pushin’s Eugene Onegin is in English but Russian is a step too far, right?). Anyhow back to Koch’s (Charlotte’s) coldness, maybe I found it frustrating because it contrasted SO much with Kaufmann’s (Werther’s) ardor.

The garden scene was so great and it was real wonderful to see the facial expressions! One day I’ll have enough money to get myself on a seat in which I can see the facial expressions, sit up straight, read the surtitles and have full view of the stage. Or at least be relevant enough to be given such a seat!

As act one finishes the couple next to me is cuddling and exchanging loving words and I’m surprised that I don’t feel the annoyance I normally do in this kind of situation. I felt actually really happy for them, they were very nice and looked very cute together. Maybe it was the opera. And in that little interval I find out that the lady is actually Brazilian, what are the freaking odds??

Act two of Werther, not my favorite part of the day. I started getting very irritated with Charlotte’s coldness and lack of compassion for this dude who was crawling at her feet! Sophie’s aria however was LOVELY. I’m so dead serious when I say that Lisette has one of the most beautiful voices I’ve ever heard! Geez, what a gift, and paired with such great acting as well as the fact that she is SUPER sweet she just totally wins me over.

I had such an amazing time at intermission. I was joined by my good, good opera buddies Harry and Kim and we talked about opera all the way and it was awesome. Gosh, I LOVE it that I have them and we can discuss stuff at the same level without me having to explain stuff. We can just talk and exchange so much in such a small period of time! Anyways, as per usual intermission flew by and we were back for DRAMA, DRAMA, DRAMA!

Act three of Werther, my favorite act! I must admit that Sophie Koch purred her soul out in this, she was INCREDIBLE. She has such a beautiful full, rich, velvety voice that fills the Met and melts your insides. It’s very contrasting with her portrayal of cold Charlotte. Although in this act she was much more emotional, kind of desperate because she thought Werther was going to kill himself. Her sister arrives and she finishes us off with “Va laisse couler me larmes” and I know that’s only the beginning of angst festival but the poor woman next to me does not as she weeps and weeps. The whole opera became even sadder because of her reaction to it, she cried most of the time. And I totally do not judge her, the first time I saw this I also cried the entire final acts. Sophie leaves and DAM, DAM, DAM, DAAAAM, Werther arrives.

I was so grateful that they remained mostly downstage for this act because then I could see the angst filled expressions of both of them. It was so FREAKING intense I was almost throwing myself off that seat in order to get a better view! At the end of that too impossibly good for words “Pourquoi me réveiller” that opera house almost came apart. I love this part because this aria prepares you for the passionate, desperate part when for brief moments Charlotte gives in. No need to say he’s all over her, and just a fun fact, they TOTALLY toned it down for the HD. They were so all over each other when I saw it, just like the kiss at the end of Eugene Onegin, they REALLY had it going ‘off camera’.

Then act four was the most frustrating thing that EVER happened to me. Why? Because I could see naught! That little square that was Werther’s room was far to upstage plus the structure blocked my view from above! Meaning I did not see anything really of this whole part. Very, very sad. I could hear it though and that was pretty awesome. And I could also see the lady who was sitting next to me fall apart. She was full on SOBBING, it was so sad, I felt really bad for her. But I also did shed a tear for our Werther.

bows from my crappy seat

At bows the audience was wild and the whole cast was just in awe of the whole response. I sat there talking to the lady for quite a while after the curtain fell and she was telling me how she knew opera could be sad but not SO sad. Then I met Kim and we headed down to the stage door so she could get her stuff signed.

Harry, Kim and me after the opera

DUDE, that stage door was PACKED! I’m talking about 60 people making loads of noise and pushing and pushing. I was really very shocked, I had never seen the stage door like this before. I made a silent prayer thanking my Scots friend Mike for making me wait for 2 hours in the freezing cold at opening night because there was no way I could have exchanged 3 words with Jonas Kaufmann in this crazy gathering.

When Jonas came out loads of people clapped and I just stayed behind waiting for Kim as she ventured to try and get a pic and autograph (she succeeded btw). I felt really bad for Jonas actually, he had to scream several times “I swear I will sign everything and take pictures but please STOP PUSHING!” that is really fucked up. Some people have no respect.

I got this pic from Lisette's twitter but it really does not do justice to what happened, here people are actually giving her room to breathe, something Jonas did not get

After the crowd cleared I was tempted to go talk to him but decided against it at the end.

I’m gonna stop here because I really wanna post this today and if I went on and told you about Fledermaus I wouldn’t be able to. I’ll post last day in NYC part 2 soon! Thanks for reading and cheers!

Here and Back Again in NYC - Day 7 - Wicked and Pippin

Hey world! So you guys might have noticed something different about the blog. Yeap I changed it up. I never had changed the layout or anything like that so I felt it was time for a change, let me know if you guys liked it in the comments! 

Over the past few days I’ve been a busy bee. I don’t know if I mentioned this here but I moved back to my parents place in Santos. It was the logical thing to do since I finished college in São Paulo and didn’t have anything there that tied me up to the city itself.  And even if I got a part-time job there all my salary would go to paying rent. So I’m back in my beach cave. I had to bring all of my stuff from São Paulo to Santos and that’s a work in progress but most of my bedroom and bathroom stuff is already here. So I decided to do a little makeover on my bedroom, I cleaned up a lot of unnecessary stuff and donated a bunch of things I don’t use anymore. Plus I bought some shelves to make my live easier and my room less crowded. I’m planning on making a post about that soon.

But let’s go back in time a month to my fabulous 7^th day in NYC. I remember that it rained all day and so we thought that there wouldn’t be a soul who would want to stand in line for musical tickets at TKTS. We were wrong. Regardless of the rain the line went on and on, we could do nothing but join in and hope that when we got to the booth there would still be tickets for Pippin. You see some of my friends told me it was a fantastic show and their performance at the Tonys last year was quite remarkable. And so we stood in line, in the rain for about 45 minutes but were able to get nice seats at half the price for that matinee performance.

As we were starving and wet we just went across the street to Oliver Garden for lunch. We did strike a conversation with a French guy who was like Prince Charming material when it came to his looks and also very, very nice. I did tell him that I had just seen a wonderful French opera the night before called Werther but that didn’t seem to ring a bell to him. No one is perfect, right?

At almost two we said our goodbyes and headed off to the theater for Pippin. I felt like me and my mum were the only people in that theater that were watching this show for the first time, that sensation only grew as the show began. I’m still in awe how the whole dynamic of musical theater audiences and manners are SO different from opera. I think I’ve already said this in my Cinderella post but the overture works as a shut up mechanism and also at the end of the musical after everyone has had their rushed bows they keep on playing and people just leave and always a handful of people stay behind and acknowledge that there are real life people playing. Anyways, this hasn’t started very well hun?

View from our Pippin seats

The musical was fun, but it felt more like a night at the circus than a musical. From what I’ve heard this is an old musical but I seriously found it very difficult to find a tune that lingered. If I’m going to be totally honest here the music wasn’t all that interesting, at least in my opinion. And, come on, I’m a musician, if the music isn’t relevant what am I to do?

Let me tell you guys the story, it’s very weird and I don’t know if I got it right. So there’s this lady who owns a theater company or circus company, I don’t know, and they are performing the life of Pippin. But it’s weird because the performance takes place as he lives, and the boy playing Pippin is actually Pippin, or something. Anyways, she tells him he’s bound for greatness and being son of the king and heir to the throne that’s not really hard to believe. And so Pippin goes on and tries to do many things but he fails miserably. The numbers were really amazing, the performers were so good, they could twist and turn their bodies in ways I did not know were humanly possible.

One great feature of this show was the narrator, circus company owner or whatever who was played by Patina Miller. Now Patina has a beautiful singing voice and I had seen her live before doing Sister Act, the musical which was so fantastic. She got a Tony award for this role in Pippin last year and no wonder since she works the trapeze while singing and it's just amazing!

But the thing was, it felt 70% of the time like a circus act. Like I was in the circus watching contortionists and people balance themselves in unfriendly objects and to be completely honest I am not a fan of the circus. Now before you run away and never come back because you think I have no soul because I don’t like the circus, hear me out. I don’t like it for a very simple reason, it makes me nervous! I feel nervous for the people doing their acts knowing that sometimes they don’t have safety nets and that they could be jumping to their deaths and that’s not an idea of a good time for me. So as much as I was impressed by all they could do I was also freaked out.

One incredible highlight was the grandmother, now, she was INCREDIBLE. Because then you had a 65 year old lady doing trapeze stuff with a hot, hot, hot guy and going like ‘yeah, I sail this ship!’. That was awesome! Kudos for Andrea Martin who originated this role in this production and surprise, surprise, got a Tony for it last year. She is AWESOME. She did some operetta you know. She played the Old Lady in Candide some good old years ago. You might know her from the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding (I LOVE THIS MOVIE, one of my favorites), she played aunt Voula. She was the aunt, Toula’s dad’s sister, she wore shoulder pads, she’s fab!

Well, the musical was ok I guess, if you like big spectacles with complicated dance routines and unimaginable moves this is definitely for you. But as for the story, I am still trying to figure it out. And I find that there isn’t a real message, it’s all smoke and mirrors.

My mum didn’t like the musical at all. She was thoroughly disappointed so I decided to take her to see something I knew she loved, Wicked. We went to the Wicked theater and I texted Mike and proceeded to buy 3 hot seats for THE coolest, most awesome show on Broadway! I had some great tomato soup nearby the theater with my mum and then waited outside for Mike. He was late, but I think the funniest thing about us going in was that the usher who was zapping the tickets told me I couldn’t go inside with my coffee. So I did something quite alarming, I seriously drank the whole thing in one go right in front of them and even I was a little impressed that I could process so much caffeine at such short notice. I’m proud of me for that.

We went in and took our seats and before we knew it overture hit us.

View from my wicked seat!

Ok, I really love Wicked so this might extend itself a lot, it’s one of my favorite musicals. Sometimes I feel like such a baby, as soon as it started and that flying monkey appeared I was feeling the tears coming. Since I’m feeling generous about talking about musicals that rock I’m gonna go a lot deeper on this one.

So Wicked is the untold story of the Wizard of Oz’s Wicked Witch of the West, Elphaba. The first scene is actually just after the bucket of water has been thrown on the Witch and she melted and the people rejoiced. So Glinda, the good, appears to confirm the facts and we have our first song “No one mourns the wicked”. I think the only thing I did not like about this was the fact that the girl playing Glinda was trying to imitate Kristen Chenoweth’s voice. We all know how Kristen sounds and bless her heart for her instrument and yes, she did originate Glinda but trying to sound like her made the girl sound squeaky and awful! When she started to sing me and Mike just looked at each other instantly like “Oh no!” .

Kristen Chenoweth in 2003 as Glinda

One of the people asks Glinda if it’s true that she was the Wicked Witch’s friend. Glinda is a little taken aback by that and we flashback to the time they were in college together. One thing that was pretty awesome about this performance was that when Glinda showed up there was a huge ovation for her and when Elphaba showed also, the house felt like it was coming down. And people proceeded to cheer A LOT after songs, during songs when they would do some nice vocal line. It just felt great to have that freedom, it can feel kind of constricted in the opera house with all the rules and the etiquette.

Well we flash back and Elphaba walks in and huge ovation right there. But her fellow classmates don’t think she’s as awesome as we know she is and nobody really likes her because she’s green and has a little bit of an attitude. Her father actually only sent her there to take care of her handicap sister, Nessa, who is a perfectly normal color. The father is not a real fan of Elphie (what a jerk) and dotes on his other daughter openly.

As for Galinda she’s a very spoiled young woman who always gets what she wants. And now she wants to do a witchcraft seminar with the headmistress of the school, Madam Morrible. Things get tangled and Elphaba gets assigned to share a room with Galinda and as they protest Elphie gets nervous and does some magic. The headmistress is impressed and tells Elphaba she will teach her privately and take other students plus giving a ring to the Wizard of Oz about her.

Shoshana Bean as Elphaba in the left and Megan Hilty as Glinda in the right 

Elphaba then proceeds to sing one of the coolest songs in the whole musical The Wizard and I. The girl who was playing Elphaba wasn’t the principal and not even the first replacement and she rocked! I mean, she was SO good and it amazing! She had very good technique which allowed her to play with the song and really feel it and it was really quite incredible.

Idina Menzel as Elphaba, she originated this role

As life proceeded in school Elphaba wasn’t popular at all but found friendship with her history teacher who also happened to be a goat! In Oz animals were just like people, they talk and are sometimes even more intelligent than humans. But the professor warned her that something odd was happening and that he’d been hearing rumors of animals not being allowed to live out their lives as they always had and who had forgotten how to speak!

A new guy arrives in the university named Fiyero and he’s the perfect personification of a charming bad boy, killer looks and lack of sense of responsibility. He sings about how we should all dance through life and not think of our problems and only have a good time (Dancing through life). Galinda and Fiyero come to the conclusion they were made for each other. When a munchkin named Boq tries to ask her out Galinda tells him how the guy who asked Elphaba’s sister out would be her hero he hurries to do just that. 

So everyone is going to this big party and Galinda being the self-centered person that she is gives Elphaba a pointy black hat telling her it’s the latest fashion.  But just as Elphaba arrives at the party wearing the hat and everyone proceeds to laugh at her, the headmistress goes up to Galinda and tells her she can be in the witchcraft lessons because Elphaba insisted she also took them. Now Galinda is feeling like the worst person in the face of the planet and Elphaba starts doing a crazy dance all by herself while others watch and laugh. Galinda joins her in dancing and before you know it everyone is dancing quite a beautiful choreography and finally accepting Elphaba.

Galinda and Elphaba bond and Galinda tells her that she’s going to give her a makeover and teach her how to popular in a very funny song of that said name. Even though the girl was imitating Kristen it wasn’t all that bad because she sounded real funny in the spoken bits and she did add her own personal touch to the character which made her even funnier.  

After that things start to look up for Elphaba but one day they fire her goat teacher, Dr. Dillamod and bring into the classroom a cage with a lion cub preaching how good these things are for animals because then they will never learn how to speak. Elphaba is enraged by this and uses her powers to make an escape with the lion cub and Fiyero who helps her. There’s an awkward moment between the two as they free the lion cub but Elphaba knows they can never be (I’m not that girl).

The wizard wants to meet Elphaba so he invites her to go to the Emerald City. Galinda isn’t really well because ever since that day with the lion cub Fiyero has been different, as she herself says “He’s been thinking!” which apparently isn’t a good thing. And he indeed seems changed somehow, concerned about their goat professor. Galinda in an attempt to seem worried about the teacher states that since the professor never could pronounce her name correctly she would change her name to Glinda. (What? Yeah!)

Elphaba invites Glinda to go to the Emerald City with her and off they go! But when Elphaba finally gets to meet the Wizard harsh reality punches her in the face. Because you see, she wanted to tell him of all the things people had been doing to animals so he could stop it, but the thing was, he was actually behind all that. Furthermore he possessed no magic whatsoever, that’s why he was so interested in her, she had magic that could help him carry on his plan to separate humans from animals.

After learning all this Elphaba panics, grabs the spell book and runs for the roof. Glinda follows her. Elphaba can’t work for the wizard after all she’s heard and is resolute in running away and telling everyone the truth about the wizard. But as soon as she’s out his door he announces that she stole his spell book and that she’s a liar and wicked.

That leaves Elphie with very little options but to run, she enchants a broom for it to fly and asks Glinda if she would come with her. But Glinda decides to stay behind and hold off the guards so Elphaba can escape and there’s that moment that my eyes fill with tears and my mouth hangs open, when she freaking flies. I know how the whole thing works, where the machine holds her and how the effect is made but still it’s so freaking perfect that it does indeed seem as if she’s flying and quite literally Defying Gravity. End of act one with screams, tears and cheers!

On to act two and it opens with one of my favorite songs, Thank Goodness. Some time has passed and Glinda has been appointed to be Glinda, the good, kind of like a cheerleader to spread joy and hope to the people of OZ, or something. And Fiyero is now the captain of the Wizard’s guard and Elphaba is still in the run. The people from Oz now believe all sorts of weird things about Elphaba, like that she has a third eye, or that she can change her skin and even that her soul in so impure pure water can melt her.

While that happens we are brought to the estate of Elphaba’s family for she goes there to ask aid from her sister. Her sister is not at all happy to see her and confronts her, telling her that she never ever used her powers to help her get out of her wheelchair. Elphaba is taken aback but puts a spell on her sister’s diamond shoes and as they burn up and turn into ruby her sister can finally walk. She calls on Boq and tells him now they can be happy together because she can walk. But Boq is in love with Glinda and now that Nessa can walk he can finally tell Glinda how he feels. Those news are not welcome to Nessa who is so mad and so desperate to have Boq’s heart to herself that she starts chanting something from Elphaba’s spell book and Boq starts tugging his chest. Elphaba tries desperately to fix her sister’s mistake and after she’s taken care of Boq she goes away. We can’t see Boq and as he wakes up and comes out of his hiding place we see he’s become the Tin man, he has no heart. PRETTY COOL!

So Elphaba heads off to the Wizard’s place to try and free the winged monkeys she created by accident. The wizard finds her and tries to convince her to come to his side and he almost succeeds. He calls on the guards and who shows up but Fiyero who is absolutely stunned to see Elphaba and in a heartbeat has his riffle pointed to the Wizard and is telling Elphaba to run. Glinda arrives just to see this exchange and then Fiyero makes the decision to go with Elphaba.

Now it’ Glinda’s turn to sing I’m not that girl. Since she’s very upset she tells the Wizard that to get to Elphaba he should make her believe that something had happened to her sister. But the wizard knows that Elphaba is too smart and a rumor won’t do and that’s why a house was dropped on Nessa, the wicked witch of the East.

But before that happened Fiyero and Elphaba are having a romantic and fiery duet about how much they care for each other. It’s pretty hot. Elphaba though senses there’s something wrong and rushes to where her sister was and BAM, she’s been hit by a house.

Glinda is there paying her respects to Nessa and when Elphaba arrives they have an awesome catfight. The guards seize Elphaba and just as they are about to take her away Fiyero appears and holds Glinda as a hostage so Elphaba can escape. She does but he is seized and condemned to die. As Elphaba gets to his abandoned castle she’s trying to do any kind of magic to save him (No good deed).

When Glinda arrives in her castle Elphaba is pretty much defeated and doesn’t believe that even with all her power she can make a change for the better. So she hands her spell book to Glinda and says “Now it’s up to, for both of us” and they sing one of the most beautiful and tear producing duets in musical theater history, For Good. It’s about friendship and it lasting forever, I sing it with my sister and with my good, good friend Paula, I love them. Anyways, I cried a lot.

And then we see that iconic scene from The Wizard of Oz, the little girl throwing a bucket of water on her and Elphaba melting through a sheet, so we only shadows. When the sheet is drawn the only thing that’s left is Elphaba’s black hat that Glinda gave her all that time ago. I’m crying just writing this,  you can imagine how I was when I was actually seeing this, hot mess. Glinda takes the hat and goes on her bubble and we come back to the first scene of the musical.

Glinda then proceeds to send the wizard away because he wasn’t even from the land of Oz, he’s from our world. He did spend the whole show drinking from a green bottle when in distress and Glinda says she’s only seen another green bottle like that with one other person, Elphaba. The bottle belonged to her mother, and then we find out that Elphaba was actually the Wizard’s daughter and the reason why she had such powers was because she was a child of both worlds.

As the cries of joy from the people diminish a scarecrow enters and hits the floor 3 times and opens it up. He cries “It worked!”. Elphaba comes out from the trap door and we then learn that her spell was able to save Fiyero from execution but it had also transformed him into a scarecrow. And so they head off to another world never turning back to Oz and their friend Glinda never knowing that they were both alive.

Isn’t this like the best fanfiction ever written or what? The story of this musical is based on a book by Gregory Maguire who based her story in the Wizard of Oz movie and book, meaning, fanfiction.

Mike and me after the show

Well after the musical me and Mike went to the stage door because we wanted to congratulate the lady playing Elphaba. But it was so weird. There were a lot of people waiting out in the cold and some of the performers came out and autographed their programs and took pictures. Then suddenly this lady comes up to the line and says “Those are all the performers who will be coming out from this door tonight” and everybody leaves. Neither Elphaba nor Glinda came out to greet all those girls who were standing in the cold, I thought that was preposterous. I mean, seasoned stars from the Met, people who are so much bigger and older than these ladies come out the stage door every time and greet their fans. And don’t start me with “They are tired” “It’s a tough show” because 1- they wear microphones and 2 – Renée Fleming was also tired but she talked to everyone, signed everything she was given and took pictures with everyone that asked.

Anyways, after that me and Mike headed to Greenwich Village to meet our Russian friends of a late dinner or something. Getting there we happened to stumble upon a drunk opera student and it was hilarious, he made us add him on facebook right then. We met our friends in a diner and we just hanged out there, talked, ate, it was really fun! But then Mike had to pack and my mum was already freaking out so we left at about 1, 2 in the morning.

aren't we adorable?

On our way back uptown we met the nicest couple and talked to them for a bit. Mike left and we had this big hug moment and I was so sad he was leaving! The couple was really moved by our exchange and then I found out that, surprise, surprise, they were both opera singers! WHAT ARE THE ODDS?

And that’s basically it, that day was fun! Jut so you guys know the pictures from Wicked are from many different casts throughout the 10 years it's been on Broadway but I did put in more pictures of Shoshana Bean as Elphaba and Megan Hilty as Glinda because they are my favorites! 

And now it' freaking Once Upon a Time time PLUS the comeback of the last season of Drop Dead Diva! Tonight is gonna be awesome! Peace everyone!

Here and Back Again in NYC - Day 6 - Opening Night of Werther at the Met and Met Museum

I’m going describe now one of the coolest days of my life!

  

It all started quite smoothly but I knew that by the end of the day I would be freaking out. So after me and mum grabbed some breakfast we went to the Met to pick up my tickets for Werther and I took this opportunity to snap a pic with my favorite tenor.

This day we went to one of my favorite places in NYC, the other Met, the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  I make sure that every time I come to the city I go to this museum and I was particularly pumped about going because I was (am actually) reading the Kane Chronicles by Rick Riordan. I know what you might think, these books about the Kanes and Percy Jackson are for children/teenagers but, even if they are, I couldn’t give a rat’s ass! I absolutely LOVE the way this guy writes, I read all the Percy Jackson books and the Heroes of Olympus in lighting speed. Plus I love everything about mythology, any kind, but specially Greek and then my second favorite is Egyptian, so there you go. Some of you might be confused, the books I’m reading tell the story of two siblings who find out they are descendant from not only one but two pharaoh blood lines. Being a descendant they can do Egyptian magic but being a double descendant makes them very powerful and also apt to host spirits of Gods like Isis and Horus. Pretty cool I must confess. Most importantly they live in our present so, yes, they do have a battle at the Temple of Dendur at the Met Museum.

As I was saying I was pretty pumped to go to the Met Museum and of course started out at the Egyptian part. I probably have already said this but they make you make a very though decision just as you arrive in that museum. Would you like to start in the Greek/Roman part of the Egyptian one? Well, we hanged around Egypt for a while as I ate up everything I could and took pictures of the mummies and patiently waited for something to move (sad to report nothing did move though…).

We had a museum quality lunch in which we ate over priced salads and then moved upstairs where they had the cool musical instruments and the paintings. This second floor is just bliss, especially the French Paintings bit, such exquisitely beautiful works of art. I’m what you would call very traditional when it comes to paintings, so I mostly like very realistic paintings as opposed to dots and shapeless things. But one of my favorite painters is George Serraut that introduced such revolutionary ways of painting back in his day (information I have acquired thanks to a musical called Sunday in the Park with George).

We left the Museum around 5:30, more like they kicked us out because they were closing. We went back to the hotel and for the first time in forever I actually had time to dress up for the opera. Because I was wearing my day clothes back in Rusalka and it just wasn’t classy. I decided to wear shoes and 2 thick stockings because it was opening night and I had been wearing boots all day, worst decision ever. I wore a very pretty black dress but I should have brought the boots in a bag or something. The moment I was out in the street on my way to the Met I regretted the shoes. They got wetish and so very very cold, when I finally made it to the Met I was almost crying out of sheer joy of being warm but then I remembered what I was there for and became even happier.

I met Melanie and we chatted for a little while before the opera began. We spotted Danielle DeNiese and Placido Domingo in the rich person’s dinner thing. So exciting! I had never seen Placido before in the flesh and he’s like the coolest person in opera today apart from being the very first opera singer I ever heard actually sing. My dad had his CD when I was little and I just loved it!

Werther time! I was beyond excited, this would be the first time of me seeing Jonas Kaufmann and I just adore him! Plus the first time I saw Lisette Oropesa who is so incredible and it was opening night of one of the most anticipated operas of the season, so yeah, pretty fucking awesome. I was sitting in the Family Circle premium so I got amazing sound and OK view, couldn’t see facial expressions, which was really a bum, but what can you do?

Patrick was super pumped about this

The overture starts and we see a family (Charlotte’s) at Christmas when suddenly the tallest woman faints and one of the small children exclaims “Mama!”. This I thought was so incredible. During the overture we could see when the mother died, after she was taken away they came back all in black carrying a coffin. There was a statue of a woman weeping covering her face in the garden that represented the mother in whose feet all her children laid flowers. This is quite interesting and useful because in a superficial level you kind of understand why the father is rehearsing Christmas Carols in July. And in a deeper level you can see the mother, she’s not a ghost, the promise Charlotte makes to her becomes more tangible and alive.

The scenery was so lovely! It was simple yet relevant. I love stagings like this that act as a vessel for the performer as opposed to upstaging them. The floor was made out of crooked floor boards that give the whole first scene a nice “twist”. We are brought to a sunny July afternoon when the widowed Baliff is trying to rehearse Christmas carols with his young children but all the youngsters want to do is play. I have to give a standing ovation to those kids, they were simply perfect. Of course this is the Met and perfection is the ultimate goal but not only did they sing the part with most clear diction, dynamic and beautiful color but they also acted so well. I do like to observe everyone on stage when I watch something like this, because during the not so interesting conversation Baliff is having with his two friends the kids are on fire.

Seriously, when Jonas first appeared some people actually clapped. I thought they only did stuff like that for Placido Domingo or someone as equally monumental. Not that Jonas isn’t great but I didn’t think that the clapping was so necessary. I probably have said this before but Werther is one of those operas that I know most of by heart so as Jonas melted my heart with his amazing rendition of “Oh Nature” I didn’t know if I was gap faced or if I mouthed the words. Now some people like to say that he darkens his voice and that he must sound small live. That couldn’t be farther from the truth, his voice is scarily dark but from what I could capture it was all natural and it was monstrous! It was BIG! I didn’t think it was that big, so I was really in the clouds when he finished the aria, unfortunately the people didn’t clap. Go figure.

As soon as Werther sees Charlotte is like he’s been shot by the cupid. They are both kind of shy and adorable around each other at first which is so endearing! I must confess I hadn’t seen Sophie Koch in many things but I was blown away by how amazing she sounds live! Lush, velvety, big and full of emotion she was a perfect Charlotte from start to finish.

To add to the mix Lisette Oropesa’s voice sounded just as big and lovely as the two protagonists. I found that in this production, apart of all the wonderful things I will describe later, they had an amazing balance of voices that sounded absolutely gorgeous together. Everyone had quite full voices which melted into each other's and that helped tremendously in emerging oneself into the piece.

Lisette Oropesa and David Bizic

Charlotte serves a very real chocolate cake to her siblings and her and Werther are off to the ball. The ball part must have been one of my favorite parts. I know what you are thinking, what ball part? What happened was, during the big introduction of the garden scene after the party they actually made a silent party scene and it was SO romantic! The floor boards uncrooked themselves and projections helped build the idea of an indoors location. There were some couples that started dancing together and so did Werther and Charlotte and seriously, it was so freaking damn romantic! The music helped immensely setting the romantic mood but Jonas and Sophie were absolutely in the same page and had incredible chemistry.

We go to the garden scene that is one of my favorite scenes and it was just bliss from start to finish. The orchestra sounded exquisite and the couple on stage seriously stole my heart. It’s so great to watch people who have already done the work together before because the more they do it the more intimate they become and let me tell you, that duet was downright romantic and melancholic and all things Massenet! Charlotte’s father calls her out just in time to ruin the almost kiss they would be sharing, I hate that part. End of act one.

We only had a 2 minute pause until act 2 began. Curtain goes up on act two and we still have the same mold of the set but some props have been put up to make us believe we are in a different location. I thought one thing that was absolutely fascinating was during that duet from those two ‘comic relief’ guys there were some ladies setting up a table. And I seriously could not tear my eyes from them, they did such a meticulous job, the table looked absolutely gorgeous by the end. But on to the story, it’s Sunday and it’s apparently the Vicar’s wedding anniversary so he’s having a lunch with his friends.

Everyone is pretty much sunshine and happiness and here comes Werther as gloomy as can be because his beloved married someone else because of a stupid promise (Yeah, the scenes at the beginning did not change my mind as to how stupid I thought that promise was). Charlotte looks very miserable as well with her marriage.

I’m not a really big fan of the second act, I don’t really like it that Albert (that’s Charlotte’s husband) approaches Werther and sings an aria about how he kinda knows the guy is into his wife. Although the Serbian baritone David Bizic (sorry, I am not able to write his name right) was absolutely fantastic, just like the rest of the principal cast his voice soared through the Met with much ease and beauty. Even though I’m not a fan of this act my favorite part has to be Sophie’s aria and Lisette did such a marvelous job. She was so happy and bubbly and what a VOICE! At the end of the aria she just turned around and walked away sustaining a gorgeous diminuendo A, I felt the itching urge of clapping and screaming.

Well Werther and Charlotte have another aching duet sequence in which he tells her he loves her and wants to run away and be with her. And she’s like “I’m married, I can’t, that ship has sailed Werther”. They keep that for a while and then Charlotte tells Werther to leave and to only come back on Christmas day and that’s the best for them both. Werther is of course distraught and Sophie comes on to him like “Come on dance with me Mousier Werther” and he’s like “My live is over, I’m leaving forever” and Sophie is rather upset about that. Maybe she has a crush on him, WHO WOULDN’T? You’d have to be crazy to send away a guy like Jonas K, right Charlotte? Ok, I’m getting too emotional. Ends act 2 intermission time!

I spent my intermission with my great opera friends Melanie and Mike. We all could barely describe what we just saw, we were all so impressed by the whole thing. I love spending my intermissions like this, chatting with friends about the real deal of opera. What normally happens in Brazil during my intermissions is that I spend them alone tweeting about what just happened. But being with these people makes me so incredibly happy. The gong went off and on we go for acts 3 and 4.

Three very happy opera heads

Curtain up and we see Charlotte’s living room with the traditional piano, books, and gun box. As I’ve said before, the production is very pretty but it really does not stand out. Then Sophie Koch totally rips our hearts out with the troubles of Charlotte. Because Werther left but they still correspond, he sends her letters all the time, love filled letters that would melt any heart! In his last letter he tells her that if he doesn’t come back for Christmas that she pray for his soul. Meaning he was gonna kill himself. So she’s pretty desperate.

Enters Sophie all cotton candy and happiness. She notices her sister is distressed and then Koch sings one of my favorite arias “Va! Laisse couler mes larmes”. It was so gorgeous and the ease with which Koch travels through her registers is really amazing. That ease allows her to give herself completely to the performance and really bare her soul in one of the most heartfelt musical moments of the entire piece. My teacher used to say that this aria is two pages complete and utter FEELING. I wish I could sing it, but elas, I can’t haha

After that Sophie leaves and just as Charlotte is getting to the edge of desperation that Werther theme plays and double doors open. He’s looking worst than ever and having homicidal thoughts. Sometimes Charlotte’s lack of compassion towards him irritates me and I really would like to see a production in which she is warmer to him. I know it’s impossible to change what’s being said but what they actually do is entirely up to the stage director, she could be saying “NO” in a less cold way. I know this is a German tale, but still, I’m Brazilian, we want heat and physical contact for Christ sakes, isn’t this a love story or something?

Anyways, they talk and as Werther starts getting into that suicidal vibe again Charlotte asks him to read her a poem he’d been translating and here we go. “Pourquoi me réveiller” was out of this world. No wonder there’s a video on YouTube of Jonas singing this entitled “The best tenor of the world”. It is just so unbelievable how his voice is so absolutely different from what you would expect from a tenor singing this kind of repertoire and still, he sounds like something out of the heavens.

Something quite funny happened to me during this aria actually. Because it was such a heartfelt moment and I started leaning forward and suddenly I feel a hand grip my from behind and it proceed to put me back on my normal sitting position. I have to say I was kind of mortified when that happened and felt really bad that I was blocking the guy’s view. But after the opera the first thing I did was turn around and apologize expecting the guy to be a total jerk but he was actually really cool about it and said that happened all the time.

Anyways, this aria got a very generous ovation. Then there’s that flame that starts building up as Werther sees that Charlotte does indeed have feelings for him and, for lack of better word, kinda attacks her. I thought it was pretty hot, them both in the divan kissing, then dropping to the floor while passionately gabbing each other. If I was the lady playing Charlotte I would give a big shout out to that stage director “THANK YOU MAN!”, I mean, it’s Jonas Kaufmann!

But of course she has that whole guilt and vow bull and runs away locking a door on her way out and one of the most heart breaking things in the opera is Werther reaching out for the locked door and begging her to open it then slowly sliding his back on the door crying. BANG, my heart was torn to pieces! He leaves and Albert comes back home to find it messed up, he calls Charlotte. They receive a message from Werther asking for Albert to lend his guns for he is going on a long journey. Albert sends them off to him and Charlotte finally realizes that the plan is actually suicide. She rushes through the snowy streets to Werther’s house.

What was pretty cool about this production was that there was no pause whatsoever between acts 3 and 4. The scenery is taken away as Charlotte puts on her boots and then you see a large square far in the back of the stage. At first I thought it was a projection but it was actually Werther’s room with Werther on the inside. As it approaches you can see the scene of Werther getting the guns unfold. He takes one of the guns and points to his head and for a moment there you go like “Holy moly he’s gonna do it!” but he lowers the gun looking quite desperate. The music starts building up and then out of the blue BAM, he shoots himself in the stomach area. And let me tell you live in HD people, it’s sudden and really loud and everyone is gonna get startled when it happens. Specially because a perfectly synchronized projection of his blood spilling on the wall happens and you are like “Holy shit that was brutal”. I’m so not complaining about it though, I thought it was brilliant but it is not subtle.

Charlotte arrives moments later to find him nearly dead on the floor and I couldn’t believe I wasn’t crying yet (it’s mostly because the guy behind me doing that thing kind of unsettled me a bit). Now Charlotte is beyond desperate but Werther is already in another dimension, he knows he’s gonna die so all he wants is to cherish his last moments with the woman he loves. OH MY GWAD THE FEELS! He puts him on the bed and tucks him in and of course gives him all he ever wanted, a kiss which is so romantic! For a moment they are there in each other’s arms, he stands and she comes to stand behind him as they embrace and oublion tout.

This is when I started crying, they are there forgetting about everything when suddenly there’s an orchestral bang and you can hear the children go “Noel, Noel, Noel” and Lisette starts singing the most gorgeous melody and Werther comes back to his senses feeling his wound and falls on the floor. This isn’t even heart breaking, this is heart dilacerating! Jonas gave one hell of a performance, absolutely genius performance. I was expecting something quite exceptional coming from him but he exceeded my expectations by a long shot! At the end I was helplessly crying like a retard and many people around me where also weeping. That’s why people go to the opera, right? To cry their eyes out!

Curtain call was insane, the audience was crazy! I think even the singers were a little bit taken by surprise due to such a loud ovation. Jonas only had to give one tiny step down stage that I felt like that Metropolitan Opera would fall from the screaming and applause. It was SO FUCKING AWESOME to be a part of that! These curtain call pic were taken by my friend Felipe Cunha, thanks man!

the principal cast plus maestro

Jonas Kaufmann and Sophie Koch

Jonas getting flowers, close up on Lisette's face, da best!

Well from having tweeted Lisette I found out they would be going to a cast party after the opera and would be leaving quite late. But I had attached to me a very big Jonas fan whose only opportunity to actually talk to him was today so we were not leaving. What we did was, we went to that Starbucks just across from Lincoln Center and grabbed some coffee and there we stayed until they closed up (around midnight) and kicked us out. Then we went to the stage door that was not deserted (I was expecting it to be deserted). There were two guys there and OF COURSE the crazy white haired bag old lady named Linda. She was chatting (the way we all know so well how she ‘chats’) with the two guys who seemed so nice but we didn’t want to talk to them afraid that the crazy lady would talk to us. One thing you do NOT want to be associated with at stage doors are people like her, you just don’t. She went away for some mysterious reason and we took this opportunity to approach the boys and them about these ‘stage door beggars’. The guys were beyond nice, they were both from Russia, one was a singer and the other was a pianist and they were both still students just like me and Mike. We hit it off SO well. They told us that Placido Domingo had come out the stage door just a while before we arrived and they got to chat with him! Of course I was very jealous but I was about to meet Jonas Kaufmann so I wasn’t THAT upset!

At about 1:15 in the morning Jonas came out with some other people that turned out to be his agent and publicist. I don’t know why, but I never am the first person to go up and talk to the singer, I always let my friends chat to the person first. I don’t really know why but in doing so I end up talking to the people that are accompanying the singer and this time I had the absolute pleasure of talking to his agent. The guy is so cool, he’s from NYC and he speaks many languages and when he learned I was from Brazil he immediately started to talk in Portuguese like a native. Now Portuguese is a very difficult language as Renée Fleming herself has already pointed out, the most difficult language for her, and she sings in Czech and Russian and Elvish for Christ sakes! Plus, he was really nice.

But on to Jonas, I have to admit I was very star stuck when I met him, I think I’ve never been so star struck in my whole life. He’s very tall and very handsome and when he smiles I feel like fainting, he’s a presence, and no, I’m not overreacting! He was SO cool, he talked to all of us and even told me that he was dying to do something here in Brazil. He’s a very simple guy and was extremely humbled by all the things we told him. When I told him he was my favorite male singer of all times he looked me straight in the eye and said “Really? Oh my, thank you so much, it’s such an honor”. I mean, how can you not adore a man like that? He signed all my cds and took this lovely, lovely picture with me which I will cherish forever.

Right after he left Lisette came out and I just turned to her and said “I know you told me not to wait in the cold, sorry!”. And she was soooooo cool. It just like the whole Joyce thing all over again, she looked at me with a big smile and said “Isabela?” and we hugged and it was awesome! We talked a great deal more with her and her husband who was also really cool. And I totally love it how we can just talk about the production and the music and everything with the performers and it’s totally normal, they are extremely humble and so opened to what you have to say. I love it when I feel I got to have an exchange with the singer and tell her how I really felt when I heard her sing and that was definitely what I felt about meeting Lisette.

I was happy as can be after that. Sophie Koch came out but since I don’t really know her work I didn’t think it would be very sincere to go up to her and start up a conversation and ask for a picture. I did congratulate her and tell her she had done so wonderfully that night but Mike did most of the talking and I acted as more of a photographer.

After that we decided to grab something to eat, so off we went to some diner place, me, Mike and our new found Russian friends. We stayed in that diner eating not so good junk food and talking about opera until 3:30 in the morning! It was a lot of fun and you people know me, I love making new friends, especially if they are opera fans and even more if they are fellow musicians. So we really had a blast that night.  

I took about a week to write all this, I hope you guys liked it and I promise I won’t take that long ever again to post. Peace to you all!