Old Foes Become New Friends (2)

Well, my concert music is going so well (I can't think of any "tweaking" that needs to be done at this point, other than making sure I am spot on with entrances in the Heggie pieces) that I didn't want to sing it at yesterday's lesson, so I sang through "Stride la Vampa" (which I don't think I'd sung in 35 years) and "Condotta" preferatory to my (tentative) planned Fall concert featuring Act 2 of Trovatore.

All I can say is "Wow"!

I can't believe that I actually know what to do with that B flat!!! For the past two years I have been doing an exercise consisting of a descending octave scale.  For the previous eight years I could not do this above a high A natural, but then one day, something broke through that "gag reflex" and I started being able to do the exercise starting on a B flat, then starting on a B natural, and now I can even do it starting on a C!!!  So I just sing "figlio avea bruciato" with the syllable "a" on a high A, then just chill while the tenor sings "Quale orror!" and vomit out that B flat.  The point is that everything felt so much easier.

Posts are too numerous to link to, but if you read some of what I wrote in the Fall of 2011, you will see what a struggle I had with this aria.  Now I think the whole thing is going to be fun.  (Yes, the word "fun" is OK here; it's a melodrama, not a Requiem.)

Otherwise things are a bit shaky monetarily, but I'm optimistic.  I got some more work (I'm  hoping I can just earn enough to supplement my Social Security), I signed my new lease, and I should get my first Social Security payment a month from now.  I got a birthday card from one of the people whose card came back to them in the mail last year and it was a big card covered with glitter; just my kind of thing.

Wish me luck for Sunday, although I am not nervous at all - other than wondering if my partner will be upset by my singing "Mon Coeur".  If she is, I can tell her my teacher helped me plan the program.  I put her (my partner's) name in the program as the title of one of the song sets, so I'm hoping she stays.  I am going to go get her on the second verse of "Let Me Call You Sweetheart".  I hope I don't cry.

And did I say I'm ending with "Home Sweet Home"?  That was Joan Sutherland's favorite encore, and home is my and my partner's favorite subject.