Throughout the past couple of weeks, stress has overtaken my life and all I've need is some relief from it all! It has been fun to find some funny things to help keep my mind off of things!
My first video is of Kimchilia Bartoli. No...that is not incorrect. Someone at a college has decided to do some parodies based on Cecelia Bartoli's performances of some pieces. And...you know what makes it better? It's a guy in drag!!! My personal favorite? "Agitata da due Venti"
My second video is also of a drag queen. Maybe it's because I just watched the premiere of RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars and drag queens are just fierce in general. I came across this video when I was working on the aria "Poveri Fiori" with Dr. Hay. She proceeded to show me this video to show how "dramatic" I could be and I couldn't stop laughing. This is so hilarious! Please enjoy Madame Vera Galupe Borszkh! (For some reason, the website will not embed the video. So here is the link.)
One of my favorite movies of all time is The Rocky Horror Picture Show. And you may have been able to guess already (based on my love of drag at the moment) , but Sweet Transvestite never ceases to make me laugh the entire time it is playing. Everyone enjoy this fabulous song!
I absolutely LOVE Pat Benetar. She's probably one of my favorite singers of all time! I was introduced to the "literal version" of her music video Love Is A Battlefield a few months ago. Someone has dubbed over the lyrics and the result is hilarious! Enjoy!!! (P.S: There are several other videos of different songs just like this! Check them out! They are just as hilarious!
For a few months, I have found some videos on Youtube that crack me up every single time I see them! The videos are part of a series called "Dr. Opera." They are presented by the Lyric Opera of Chicago to promote upcoming opera productions. Basically, there are a set of characters from different operas that come in for a psychologist appointment to talk about their problems. It is like the characters are living in our time period going to a shrink! I think it's a brilliant idea and one that people will find interestingly funny!
Something else I really enjoy is the 3 minutes or shorter previews that San Francisco Opera produces. These videos give you enough of the opera for you to have a general idea of what it's about without giving away the plot. It also allows you to be able to preview every aspect of the show before deciding to attend.
Feast of Music caught my eye by its very exciting title. I mean...a feast of music!? Who wouldn't want that? When I got to the page, I was excited about journeying through the music of New York because the website clearly stated this. It also gave a list of categories to peruse through and to find one of your liking. It was fun to discover some new music through the various categories that I wouldn't have found otherwise.
I was so pleased to find the blog of Jennifer Rivera, who is giving an every day account of the life of an opera singer. She describes the ups and downs of this lifestyle through hilarious blogs/vlogs. If you want to sing, this is a great place to discover how it is in the "real world." She will also keep you on the floor rolling with laughter.
Sequenza 21 is a great place to find new music. The website has reviews of new CDs from new composers and new artists. You are also available to advertise on this website should you choose to do so. There is also a composer's forum and a calendar of events by new artists that have chosen to advertise on the website.
An Unamplified Voice caught my eye because of the clever name. This blogger goes to operas every week, particularly Metropolitan Opera House productions. Each week, he gives us an account of how he interpreted each opera and gives us criticism based on the performance.
When I get stressed out, I enjoy listening to songs from pop culture. I love classical music, but sometimes, it's just nice to walk away and let loose!
I always enjoy listening to P!nk. Every song I listen to keeps me going. When I get stuck during a project, I will pop a CD of hers in and bam! Instant inspiration!
One song that will have me grabbing my microphone, AKA, my hairbrush and dancing and jumping all over my room, is Smash Mouth's I'm A Believer. For some reason, as soon as this song comes on, everything that is on my mind goes away.
90s pop is probably the one thing that will keep me sane while I study, while I go on road trips, and while I clean. However, the Spice Girls have a special place in my heart. It's always more fun to sing with other people for their songs and of course, there are others that will join in with you if they are around. It's a win-win situation! Stress relief for you! Stress relief for them!
Anything from RENT is instant happiness to me. I love it and as much as I am not fond of singing from musicals, I love trying to play every part as I watch RENT and act everything out. In a time of stress, I just take a break, pop in the DVD, and get to some awesome singing and dancing!
I am constantly surrounded by artwork, whether it be at school, at a local coffee shop, or even in my own dorm room. I believe all works of art have a quality of beauty to them. When I look at artwork, I always find the ones that are the most colorful and the most mysterious to be the most exciting. I find this a lot with Monet's paintings. He's the first one that comes to mind when I think of a painting that is colorful.
Claude Monet was a French impressionist painter. This painting is a Monet's own depiction of his Garden at Giverny, his water-garden, part of which is pictured below.
Another painting I have always enjoyed is Woman With A Hat by Henri Matisse. It's full of color and it's quite mysterious as well.
1905; Woman With A Hat
Henri Matisse
Henri Matisse was a French artist, known for his use of color. He is considered to be a leading figure in modern art. I love the use of color in here because it leaves us to believe that the woman is mysterious or misunderstood. The real emotion is not conveyed because the face is not all one color; neither is the rest of the painting.
One other painting I've never quite understood is The Persistence of Memory by Salvador Dali.
1931; The Persistence of Memory
Salvador Dali
Salvador Dali is a Spanish surrealist painter. I love the concept of the pocket watches melting in this painting. I've interpreted it as meaning that time is not rigid or strict in nature. I gather this from the other images in the painting as well.
I love The Tilled Field by Joan Miro. I feel like it came straight out of a cartoon.
1923; The Tilled Field
Joan Miro
Joan Miro is a Spanish surrealist paintor, sculptor, and ceramicist. This picture reminds me of a Cartoon Network TV show, Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends. The creatures in here look like they would be on that show. The colors aren't vivid in this as in the rest of my examples, but I love how mysterious it is
One of Dr. Beverly Hay's former students came back for an alumna recital, either my freshman or sophomore year. Every piece on the recital was new and exciting. I especially fell in love with the song cycle by Ned Rorem, entitled Ariel, a setting of five poems written by Sylvia Plath. While I admit Sylvia Plath may not be my favorite poet, the way that Ned Rorem set these poems absolutely spoke to my heart and my emotions. It is also so important that these be sung with conviction. I could not find anyone actually performing, but this recording has become my favorite.
Ariel by Ned Rorem
Performed by: Jesslyn Thomas
I. Words
Axes after whose stroke the wood rings,
And the echoes!
Echoes
travelling
Off from the centre like horses.
The sap
Wells like tears, like the
Water striving
To re-establish
its mirror
Over the rock
That drops and turns,
A white skull,
Eaten by weedy greens.
Years
later I
Encounter them on the road______
Words dry and riderless,
The indefatigable hoof-taps.
While
From the
bottom of the pool, fixed stars
Govern a life.
What is most interesting to me in this opening is that it immediately engages you. The singer does not come in immediately and the instruments help create a sort of mood. The darkness of these poems speaks volumes through the musical aspects. It is very interesting to me that he would choose to use a clarinet, a piano, and a soprano voice. It all creates a feeling of dread.
II. Poppies in July
Little poppies, little hell flames,
Do you do no harm?
You flicker. I cannot touch you.
I put my hands among the flames. Nothing
burns
And it exhausts me to watch you
Flickering like that, wrinkly and clear
red, like the skin of a mouth.
A mouth just bloodied.
Little bloody skirts!
There are fumes I cannot touch.
Where are your opiates, your nauseous
capsules?
If I could bleed, or sleep!
If my mouth could marry a hurt like that!
Or your liquors seep to me, in this glass capsule,
Dulling and
stilling.
But colorless. Colorless.
What I enjoy most about this selection is the simplicity of the clarinet and piano parts. The text painting in this is remarkable. It was wonderful when the poem expressed that the poppies were "colorless" that every aspect of the music ceased to exist.
III. The Hanging Man
By the roots of my hair some god got hold of me.
I sizzled in his blue volts like a desert prophet.
The nights snapped out of sight like a lizard’s eyelid:
A world of bald white days in a shadeless socket.
A vulturous boredom pinned me in this tree.
If he were I, he would do what I did.
What strikes me the most in this selection is the fact that the piano and the clarinet seem to be arguing with each other. Because the poem is speaking about two people (The Hanging Man and the poet), the composer decided that the music should convey this idea.
IV. Poppies in October
Even the sun-clouds this morning cannot manage such skirts.
Nor the woman in
the ambulance
Whose red heart blooms through her coat so astoundingly --
A gift, a love gift
Utterly unasked for
By a sky
Palely
and flamily
Igniting its carbon monoxides, by eyes
Dulled to a halt
under bowlers.
O my God, what am I
That these late mouths should cry
open
In a forest of frost, in a dawn of cornflowers.
I really enjoy the sense of calming down more in this piece. It is a good contrast from the rushed nature of the other pieces. I really enjoy how legato everything is as opposed to "Poppies In July." This is great for showing the contrast of these flowers in different seasons and months.
V. Lady Lazarus
I have done it again.
One year in every ten
I manage it--
A sort of walking miracle, my skin
Bright as a Nazi lampshade,
My right foot
A paperweight,
My face a featureless, fine
Jew linen.
Peel off the napkin
O my enemy.
Do I terrify?--
The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?
The sour breath
Will vanish in a day.
Soon, soon the flesh
The grave cave ate will be
At home on me
And I a smiling woman.
I am only thirty.
And like the cat I have nine times to die.
This is Number Three.
What a trash
To annihilate each decade.
What a million filaments.
The peanut-crunching crowd
Shoves in to see
Them unwrap me hand and foot--
The big strip tease.
Gentlemen, ladies
These are my hands
My knees.
I may be skin and bone,
Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman.
The first time it happened I was ten.
It was an accident.
The second time I meant
To last it out and not come back at all.
I rocked shut
As a seashell.
They had to call and call
And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.
Dying
Is an art, like everything else.
I do it exceptionally well.
I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I've a call.
It's easy enough to do it in a cell.
It's easy enough to do it and stay put.
It's the theatrical
Comeback in broad day
To the same place, the same face, the same brute
Amused shout:
'A miracle!'
That knocks me out.
There is a charge
For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge
For the hearing of my heart--
It really goes.
And there is a charge, a very large charge
For a word or a touch
Or a bit of blood
Or a piece of my hair or my clothes.
So, so, Herr Doktor.
So, Herr Enemy.
I am your opus,
I am your valuable,
The pure gold baby
That melts to a shriek.
I turn and burn.
Do not think I underestimate your great concern.
Ash, ash--
You poke and stir.
Flesh, bone, there is nothing there--
A cake of soap,
A wedding ring,
A gold filling.
Herr God, Herr Lucifer
Beware
Beware.
Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.
I really love how the composer calmed down the movement before, just to shake things up. I love that he got back to the idea that she was truly crazy during this movement. I feel like this is the point in her life where she is thinking of taking her own life.
Overall, this whole song cycle is a very dark. I was very surprised to find that a song cycle had even been thought of that was based on Sylvia Plath's poems. This has become one of my favorite song cycles over the past couple years here. I wish to hear it sung again sometime and look forward to it!
