Azucena Deconstructed

First, about the new color.  I submitted my blog for some feedback, and one thing that was said was that the black background was not a good fit.  So I am trying red.  As a diva, there can never be too much red in my life, right?

Of course diddling around with anything techie makes me nervous, so I tend not to change things once that aspect is taken care of.  Surprisingly, though, I am much better at handling technology that I think I am and am much better than most people my age.  I installed Windows 10 by myself, for example.  I think one issue is simply that I am not photographed very much and therefore have very few visuals to add here.

But now to the import of this post.  I have a date to sing the Azucena scenes from Trovatore at the LGBT senior center on Monday October 17.  I know what scenes I'm singing.  I couldn't find a copy of the original play in English, so my teacher's wife can read from the libretto.

For all things Trovatore, go here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Il_trovatore

The amazing thing I discovered when telescoping the opera is that the entire romantic story between Leonora and Manrico can be removed and you've still got the story!!  It's really about Azucena, her mother, the count who sentenced her mother to death, his brother, and Azucena's son (and which is which).

So I'm now wondering if the readings should fill the Leonora story in, or if it can just be omitted entirely and instead the readings will set the scene for what the audience will be hearing (like speaking the words to Ferrando's opening aria, for example).

In any event, I am really singing this very well, including the B flats.  I thought the breakthrough in early 2015 was "it", but now I seem to have made another.  I not only now can attack a B flat or a B natural off the cuff, I can do it full voice!!  In my last two practices I sang two off the cuff B naturals that were truly O Don Fatale worthy! Is that in my future?

And when I started looking at Act 4 something interesting happened, which surprised me.  Looking at all the opening recitative and imagining a woman sitting in a prison cell, knowing that she is going to be burned to death actually gave me the creeps.  I mean I could actually feel what she was feeling.  Now, OK, I know once I actually sing that music I can't do that (The Mentor once said "You are not supposed to feel anything; you are supposed to make the audience feel something") but it was interesting that I was that moved.  I was not moved that way by the Act 2 music, probably because in that act she's having flashbacks not in terror about her own future.  I was going to write that nothing like that had even happened to me when I was working on a role, but that of course is not true.  If singing Dalila or Carmen always ended up making me horny, it makes sense that singing Azucena would take me to a very dark place, existentially.  According to my teacher, she has PTSD from having spent her life in an intergenerational world of violence.

So now I'm all fired up!! (no pun intended) and am really looking forward to the next two months!!