Tuesday and Barbiere Wednesday!
Well, it snowed for the first time today!! It wasn't a nice, romantic snow, though.....it was a disgusting half-rain/half-snow that just made everything disgusting and mucky......but once I got to IES it was neat to look out the window and see snow falling! German was interesting...at least now we're learning new stuff. (I mean stuff that Pelzer didn't even mention....) I got an A- on my test, so there we go! After German I went out to lunch with Mike, Gretchen, and Ann....we went to Nordsee, which was molto fantastico......I just love fried fish, you know? After a delightful lunch and friendly conversation I returned to IES and went to work at the library....which was interesting, as always! (not really, but whatever...) Performance Workshop was OK....it was mostly the people who were going to sing on Thursday night's recital sang....Caitlin sang her aria from Bellini's Il Montagi e Capuleti, or whatever (Romeo and Juliet) again, which was very, very good.....Mike sang his Massenet, and Allison sang her Olympia again.....after the break we spent the other hour and a half listening to Russell tell us about auditioning in Europe and sharing audition experiences and tips. It was interesting, I suppose, but I wasn't very interested at the time.....that was it for Tuesday.
Wednesday I woke up rather late, had breakfast, and then went back to sleep until 12:30, when I left for school at 1:00. I realized on the way to school that AA&A had been re-scheduled for right in the middle of my shift, and I realized that I had a difficult decision in front of me: boring lecture, or €10? After weighing my options on the U-bahn, I realized that I could always look at someone's notes from the lecture (especially since this would have been the first AA&A class I would have missed) but I can't get €10 from anyone so easily....so I went to work. It would have been better, I suppose, if Dr. O hadn't seen me at work and asked me to bring her books down to the library after class, but I just sneaked into her classroom as people were leaving after class, and went up to her desk, got the books from her, and went back to work. After checking my e-mail and fooling around at the center, I went home briefly and debated whether or not to go to Barber of Seville at the Staatsoper that night...I was tired enough that I wasn't feeling up to standing, but I realized that this was my last chance to see it, I decided to go. Boy was I glad that I went!! It was sooooo good! I mean, that opera makes you smile anyway, 'cause it's just a funny show, but the staging, the acting, the SINGING.....everything was incredible. The conductor was great...this old Italian guy whose name I can't remember who had obviously conducted this 5 billion times....the orchestra sounded great, probably because most of it isn't technically challenging in any extreme way. The count was good, Bartolo was great, Rosina was pretty good, and of course Figaro stole the show.....this was the first time I'd seen it, however, when the Count was on par with Figaro, both theatrically and vocally. Usually I end up liking Figaro way more (he's just a funnier character, I suppose) but I liked them both equally. Marcellina was also very good....she doesn't have a huge role, but vocally she kept up a good mix of the sort of nasal/whiny-servant tone while still sounding really good.....I can't explain it. There was just a hint of that sort of whiny woe-is-me type sound (typical in the Viennese dialect, might I add)....I don't know....it really added to her character, though. Anyway, I'm really, really glad that I went, and kind of pissed off that I didn't go sooner so I could have seen it more than once. (for some reason almost everyone in standing room was a tourist....hardly any Viennese showed up, and almost none of the Stammgäste, or regulars, of the standing room.....it was kind of funny when this one girl, who I've seen a couple of times now, was having a rather loud conversation with her friend about the awkward sex she and her boyfriend were having.....maybe she thought she was safe because she assumes nobody spoke English, but quite a few of the people in the four rows between her and me, who could hear and understand every word, got a kick out of it, I'm sure) All in all, a fantastic day!
Wednesday I woke up rather late, had breakfast, and then went back to sleep until 12:30, when I left for school at 1:00. I realized on the way to school that AA&A had been re-scheduled for right in the middle of my shift, and I realized that I had a difficult decision in front of me: boring lecture, or €10? After weighing my options on the U-bahn, I realized that I could always look at someone's notes from the lecture (especially since this would have been the first AA&A class I would have missed) but I can't get €10 from anyone so easily....so I went to work. It would have been better, I suppose, if Dr. O hadn't seen me at work and asked me to bring her books down to the library after class, but I just sneaked into her classroom as people were leaving after class, and went up to her desk, got the books from her, and went back to work. After checking my e-mail and fooling around at the center, I went home briefly and debated whether or not to go to Barber of Seville at the Staatsoper that night...I was tired enough that I wasn't feeling up to standing, but I realized that this was my last chance to see it, I decided to go. Boy was I glad that I went!! It was sooooo good! I mean, that opera makes you smile anyway, 'cause it's just a funny show, but the staging, the acting, the SINGING.....everything was incredible. The conductor was great...this old Italian guy whose name I can't remember who had obviously conducted this 5 billion times....the orchestra sounded great, probably because most of it isn't technically challenging in any extreme way. The count was good, Bartolo was great, Rosina was pretty good, and of course Figaro stole the show.....this was the first time I'd seen it, however, when the Count was on par with Figaro, both theatrically and vocally. Usually I end up liking Figaro way more (he's just a funnier character, I suppose) but I liked them both equally. Marcellina was also very good....she doesn't have a huge role, but vocally she kept up a good mix of the sort of nasal/whiny-servant tone while still sounding really good.....I can't explain it. There was just a hint of that sort of whiny woe-is-me type sound (typical in the Viennese dialect, might I add)....I don't know....it really added to her character, though. Anyway, I'm really, really glad that I went, and kind of pissed off that I didn't go sooner so I could have seen it more than once. (for some reason almost everyone in standing room was a tourist....hardly any Viennese showed up, and almost none of the Stammgäste, or regulars, of the standing room.....it was kind of funny when this one girl, who I've seen a couple of times now, was having a rather loud conversation with her friend about the awkward sex she and her boyfriend were having.....maybe she thought she was safe because she assumes nobody spoke English, but quite a few of the people in the four rows between her and me, who could hear and understand every word, got a kick out of it, I'm sure) All in all, a fantastic day!
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