Progress

"Condotta" is going better. The secret is to build up energy and buoyancy, not tension. This is a piece with lots of different sections, and plenty of breaks, so there's really no reason why I should get tied up in a knot. I am now at the point where I can always sing that B flat if I start fairly close to the section where it is - the trick is to be able to do it after singing the entire piece. It is not a tiring thing to sing. If anything, the monotony of it can sap my energy. Yesterday I sang through it and the first time I was choking by the time I got to the B flat and then I sang through it again, paying attention to how I felt every second to see if I could pick up clues to what was causing all that tension. I have to recoup myself if I even feel the tiniest smidge of tension creeping in. And this is something I can do. Staying "bouncy" helps, which is really quite hilarious when you think that I'm singing about watching my mother being burned at the stake and throwing a baby into the fire. But then the drama is in the music. As Maria Callas was reported to have said, just look at the score. It's all there. Or as The Mentor once said "You are not supposed to feel anything. You are supposed to make the audience feel something." I learned that with the Judgment Scene from Aida. I don't have to feel dramatic. I just have to follow all the markings in the score. If the character is getting agitated there will be short notes, rests, staccato. I see this in "Condotta" as well. Or as the great Susan Eichhorn Young said to me when I sang "Acerba Volutta" for her, I can be dramatic during the musical passages when I'm not singing. (Although at this point I'm best off using those breaks to get the tension out of my body.)

So I sing this aria every day. I will sing it until I have no more fear of that bloody B flat and then I'll move on to memorizing the following scene. I pretty much have the Aida scenes memorized.

And tomorrow Don Carlo is on tv. I'm not crazy about the cast, but I'm always game to see another Eboli.

Next year I'm going to sing O Don Fatale in the original key, come Hell or Highwater!