Plans

Well, family is not being any more supportive but plans are moving forward.

Yesterday I went with my teacher to look at the concert venue. It's small (seats 40) - about the size of the studio where they hold the coaching classes I've gone to - but unlike that studio it's pretty, with pictures on the walls and knicknacks on the built-in shelves. And a shawl draped over the piano. And using it will be even cheaper than we thought....there's a room next door we can use for a rehearsal that's only $15 an hour (the performance space is $25).

I think my teacher is really getting excited about this.

We are going to do either the Amneris/Radames duet or the Azucena/Manrico scene beginning with "Condotta" and going through to the end of the duet. (The latter choice is easier.) So I need to learn the Trovatore duet.

Then probably the Laura/Emzo scene from Gioconda beginning with his "Cielo e Mar", going through the duet, and then ending with my aria "Stella del Marinar".

Those will be the two big numbers. Whatever else we do will depend upon who else is going to sing with us. If we get a soprano I might do the Aida/Amneris duet which is very easy to sing (for me).

And of course I will sing "Mon Coeur". (Whether I do the G, the PG, or the R rated version will depend upon who's in the audience, of course!)

My teacher also mentioned the final scene from Carmen (which I don't know and don't think of as concert fare, but we'll see).

I'm sounding really good. I have a handle on the high A in the Randall Thompson. I've given up trying to sing it pianissimo. If I try that all I do is choke on it. Last rehearsal I sang it mezzopiano and didn't get any complaints. And the attempts I've made with this have added a new dimension to my singing. Basically I'm doing the backward scoop with an imaginary "w" in front of the note. It's funny. I've tried to sing high notes by thinking down and thinking forward and continually had a problem with them getting "stuck", but this backward scoop drops my larynx without causing tension. At my lesson Thursday my teacher and I sang through the Gioconda scene and he said I sang the B flat on Laura's entrance (never a difficult note for me, because it's in the middle of a phrase and she hasn't done a lot of singing before it) better than he has ever heard me sing a B flat. I am continuing to work on that until we've through with the Randall Thompson because I worry that the Verdi will make my voice too heavy. The Gioconda scene is something I sang with The Mentor and it was during our rehearsals for it that our relationship began to disintegrate. But I hardly think of him at all now, other than that I hope he's proud of me.