I watched La Fille du Regiment today. Twice. It's freaking hilarious. It helps that it's not exceedingly long. Two acts of awesome.
What else did I do? Practiced like I said I would. I've also been reading cookbooks. Oh! And I fell in love. With Juan Diego Florez. That man's voice is like butter for the soul. Like lube for the ears. Not to mention candy for the eyes ;)
But about that practice. I was getting really frustrated with my first session this morning. My voice just was not doing what I wanted it to, and it was starting to make me upset. So, given this luxury of spring break during which I have hours to spare, I walked away. I did some housework, cooked lunch, ate, watched an opera, made a (savory) daikon cake for breakfast tomorrow, cleaned the kitchen, then settled in front of the piano once more. And it all worked out. I did some intensive interpretive work on one of my Debussy songs, polished up the coloratura in my favorite Handel aria, practiced timing my entrances for the Chausson I'm performing with Professor Negyesy & co. in April, and focused on grounding myself throughout. It was one of the more productive practices I've had in the past month, and I'm very happy with what I managed to make progress on :)
Tomorrow's plan of attack: hammer out another Debussy song, try to maintain the focal consistency I established today, and work intensively on that Puccini aria that's been giving me grief all quarter. It is probably the simplest aria I have in my rep from a technical point of view. That does make it extremely challenging to successfully interpret. Think of it this way. Everybody and their mothers can sing "Imagine." Few people can really make it ring. I'm dead serious. The simpler the melody, the greater the difficulties encountered in expressively performing it. Anyway, this "Quando m'en vo" is too easy to butcher. And that's exactly what I do. I butcher it. Terribly.
ANYWAY, I'm pretty damn excited. Tomorrow's gonna be a great day. I feel it. That Puccini will be mine.
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