Listening

As my "about me" says, I plan to do the journaling mentioned in the previous post on this blog. Though I've been slacking and haven't actually started the research part of my thesis yet, I have been working a bit on the music. Though I already know a substantial part of the music for this project, I've been doing lots of listening to recordings of the opera to help me pick up the rest. In listening to these recordings, I've had to reevaluate some of the pieces I've already learned. For example, I found that I've been doing Dorabella's first aria all wrong-- though the notes and rhythms are correct, my characterization is off. I've been interpreting it as far too seriously angry (yes, I know that doesn't make sense). Perhaps this stems from a general misunderstanding of the opera. I'd heard the opera before in Italian, but one of the recordings I have is in English. It's easy to call an opera comic, but until one completely understands the language, it is difficult to pick up on the funny parts. Though I realize the English is in no way a direct translation from the Italian, it is close enough to make me realize that the opera is much more outrageously funny than I knew. Part of the beauty of opera is its departure from reality, and until I heard it in English, I wasn't able to understand just how far this particular opera deviates from reality.

So, I've learned that while Dorabella may be sobbing hysterically and pleading for poison, were she presented with said poison, she wouldn't touch it with a ten-foot pole. She's simply an overly-dramatic teenage girl (redundant? yes). As this applies to her first aria: Rather than being sincerely distraught and wishing for death, the emotions should be ten times greater than they would be in reality.

Perhaps I should take a lesson from my 14-year-old niece in this teenage drama thing. We could trade lessons-- She does seem to want to be a singer, though she would never admit it. Afterall, her eighth-grade drama class wrote one-act plays, and she wrote herself in as an opera star (I'm giving myself credit for this, and for forcing her to listen to Carmen in the car).

Anyway, listening to the opera a few times this last week hasn't helped me so much in learning the music yet, but has really helped me with the characterization aspect of this role (which I wasn't even planning on getting to until the fall).