Propera in Pictures

The Brindisi from Verdi's La traviata: Stephen, Claire, Nicole, Crystel, Rewi, Fiona.

Bester Jüngling from Der Schauspieldirektor (Mozart): Stephen, Claire, Crystel, Nicole, Fiona.

Fiona wants to be a primadonna-donna-donna! Stephen, Claire, Crystel, Fiona.

Stephen and Crystel in a scene from Manon

Backstage mischief: Crystel, Claire and Nicole.

Propera - Opera with Props!

I was in a rather grumpy mood when i arrived at a rehearsal for Stephen's concert this evening, but by the time i left my mood was considerably lighter. This was mainly due to the hysterics induced when Crystel started dancing around and Terence suggested that Fiona, Crystel and I enter the stage 'dancing' the famous Cygnet part of Swan Lake. This isn't *quite* as random as it sounds as we are supposedly drunk and carousing at a party given by Claire when she sings Orlofsky's aria from Die Fledermaus.

Sooo serious ballet faces, linked arms, turning heads, little scissor jumps (having never done ballet i have NO idea what these are called in French), and little faux ballet steps. Our grand finale is of course the leg lift, sliding down to kneel on the floor with one knee raised. This would all have been grand and good if my foot hadn't been trodden on three times by the lovely Fiona! Terence was so excited we had to do it three times. I was awfully glad i wasn't singing straight after that!

I have a feeling this concert is going to be absolutely hilarious.

A spot of bother for Teddy

Looks like NZ opera singer Teddy Tahu Rhodes has embroiled himself in a little scandaahl of his own making. He's currently in Edinburgh performing Escamillo in Carmen, but has also been busy offstage wooing one of the members of the orchestra by leaving roses under her chair in the pit. The only hitch is that the elderly millionaire partner of the 27 year old violinist that Teddy is trying to seduce is NOT impressed! Full text of the article is here

Singstar shame

Ok its official. I might be an opera singer but that doesnt mean that i'm any good at Singstar. Sure i can beat the people who cant sing anything vaguely resembling a melody, but a 13year old beat me singing Cyndi Lauper's 'Girls just wanna have fun.' God she wouldnt have even been born when it was released. Grrrrrrrr.

Hibernation

I've been hibernating ever since I finished exams exactly a week ago today. I, Miss self styled I-hate-all-popular-culture-and-laud-my-cultural-superiority-over-pe0ns, have done very little except watch more DVDs in the space of 3 or 4 days than i have for the previous 5 months. I have also read a tawdry novel. Sooo what have i watched? Bridget Jones' Diary, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, Chocolat, Van Helsing and Trainspotting. Trainspotting was cool. I love fucked up drug movies a la Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. And Scottish boys have hot accents - so what's not to love?

The tawdry novel i read is entitled The Virtuoso by Dutch author Margriet de Moor and has a fat cherub/child on the front holding up a book of music, with the f holes of a cello visible to the left. It was translated from the Dutch which may explain why it was a little difficult to understand at times, although the narrative also contributed to this - even lapsing into 2nd(!) person at times. Anyway it's the story of Italian Countess Carlotta who was the childhood friend of now famous castrao singer Gasparo. Oh who am I kidding? The entire novel was a thinly veiled excuse for Magriet (trained as a singer) to give long scientific explanations of vocal mechanisms (not all of which i agreed with), interspersed with sex scenes with boys dressing as girls, girls dressing as boys, boys getting in on with boys and girls having a lesbian threesome, as well as Carlotta's more heteronormal relations with Gasparo, her husband, and her French lover. If anyone is interested in buying a copy it's available new and used on amazon from $0.06. Now that's gotta hurt Magriet's feelings...

Chamber Music... Take 2!

This morning's sessions of the New Zealand Chamber Music Secondary Schools Chamber Music Competition were again, full of
(be/a)musement. My favourite group today was called The Pink Flipflops , a trio consisting of flute/flute/clarinet.

They walked onstage and the girl given the task of introducing the trio promptly forgot the name of their group, and had to look at another member. Once aforementioned name was remembered the girl introduced the two pieces the group was to play. The first piece "Minuet" was by a composer whose name, in the programme, looked suspiciously like Mozart, but was introduced as being by Mo-Z(as in Zoo)art. This really has got to be one of my pet hates of all time. After the other item was introduced ("O little sweet one" by Bach) the flutes tried to tune. I say tried, because the second flute was a good semitone flat. This took quite a long time to rectify. The minuet finally began and I recognised the melody, soon rendered unrecognisable when the consecutive major 3rds between the flutes in the B section started sounding more like consecutive augmented 4ths. To add to the ambience the clarinet was out of time.

You might think I'm being mean, but I really do admire these groups getting up to perform. I know it's not easy, especially when you are young, so brava to all who tried their best. I can quite forgive the flat flute, the dodgy intonation, the grossly anglicized mispronunciation of Mozart; I cannot forgive the groups (and there were many) who were under-rehearsed and found that fact hideously amusing.

Mill-Horde

For twenty hours this weekend I am supervising Marama Hall and acting as adjudicator's assistant/stage manager/bored spectator (although not all at once!) for the NZ Chamber Music Secondary Schools Chamber Music Competition. Hmmm... How many times can i listen to bad jazz in classical clothing? If a group plays "The Entertainer" arranged for a combo of "interesting" instruments tomorrow I may scream.

Actually, it hasn't been all that bad. Some of the kids are really cute. They walk onstage awkwardly, bump into each other and their music stands, introduce their piece in an embarrassed manner, and THEN tune.

Occasionally there are humorous gaffes.

"We are going to play Introduction et Final by Mill-horde" - uhh... Milhaud?
"We are The Boisterous Trio" - said in a voice so quiet as to be hardly audible.
"We are going to play such and such in D maj... D minor"

Continuing my musical day I'm about to head off to the Mostly Mozart concert at St. Paul's. At least they won't play "The Entertainer."

Top 3 things I've spotted in town lately

1. A man who looked surprisingly like Ozzy Osbourne outside the hospital.
2. A pianist with beautiful curly hair that made me want to run my hands all through it.
3. An elderly asian man in the central library, drinking some sort of concoction out of a jam jar.

I could feel the panic rising...

But there was nothing i could do about it. I told myself to breathe deeply, because if i got any more stressed than i already was i wasn't going to be able to function at all.

This afternoon i had the worst test of my life. Ever. I have a sneaking suspicion that i, along with half of the class, will have failed. And the thing that pisses me off the most was that i actually studied for this test - something that i NEVER bother with.

The test was for my GERM332 paper, which is the most advanced german paper that we have at uni. It was mainly on grammar, with a few short comprehension type questions. The grammar section was so nasty, i couldn't believe it. I could hear little noises of disbelief from around the rest of the classroom as well. The section on turning verbs, adjectives etc into nouns was okay(ish). The next section i didnt even understand! Anyway the rest of the grammar was pretty crap, and i was so panicked by the time i got to the reading comprehension that i think i did quite badly, despite it not being too hard, but i was just running out of time, and totally thrown by how hard the first section had been. I could have done it so much better.

I feel grumpy now. I dont think we even spent much time in class on the stuff that was in the test.

It's only worth 10%, but hey - i need every bit of 10% that i can get for this paper.

*mutters about not living in Germany*