40th, Marcelo Álvarez, Pagliacci…
Hi there! This week was an intense one. As you know from my previews blog, I started my week in the beautiful city of Prague, and I have 2 days of lessons with Mr.Álvarez. I also turned 40 on Wednesday and on Saturday Aki had premiere of Pagliacci where she made her debut as Nedda.
The lessons with Marcelo Álvarez were so entertaining and also so productive. He carries very much the Italian way of singing and the tradition. He is full of energy and really motivated to make you sing the best you can by giving you energy and the necessary impulses to produce full sounds. He also works very much on the phrasing and legato lines. He, being from Argentina, we share same language and it has been such a refreshing experience for me to work in my own language, there are just character trades that only latin people feel. I am so grateful he was able to offer some time to give my advice, kick my ass and through really raw comments. He is incredibly honest on telling you how he feels and thinks, he has, how was say in Spanish “no hair in his tongue” that means really straight forward without making pretty comments to avoid the truth. That, I really liked it. We worked on French repertoire (Faust and Romeo) which he sang a lot, and also on Ernesto from Don Pasquale. I was open to his opinions and I just tried all he suggested, I dived into it, without resistance, to be able to understand his point of view and just shift my way of thinking in order to absorb in the most unfiltered way I could. Of course, it is impossible for me to get rid of what I have already worked on but I just listened and tried my best to not hold my ideas and approach the voice from his view point. I succeeded few times, not always, because muscle memory is a bitch but it was worth giving it a go. We really worked hard. After 2 intensive days with him, I find myself still digesting what I learnt from him and still need more time to process it. We got along really well and he shared his story with me and we will definitely try to meet soon again, to keep working.
On Wednesday I came back and I celebrated a very nice relax Birthday with Mexican food the Aki cooked for us, we had pozole and flan. It was really tasty and delicious. I turned 40 and I celebrate this time on this earth. I am really grateful for the opportunity to experience what I have on my first 40 years, I am now in a very pivotal point of my life and I look forward with excitement and I swim in the uncertainty of tomorrow. Uncertainty, could be so scary and it is the getting use to it that I must again re learn after being 8 years fest at a theatre. Now facing the freelance life is no easy thing to do and it is as challenging as I imagined it to be before I quit the theatre. I am learning so much through this path I chose, and also facing challenging situations that are necessary for me to keep growing and developing not only as a singer but as a human being. I will continue to strive for improvement but without loosing site of the present, which sometimes is so difficult. I of course have fears and doubts, but through reading, philosophy, faith and support from the people I have in my life I keep going and whenever fear comes, I am learning slowly how to get rid of it quicker and not being stuck. However, I know this is all part of the process and it is, I think also important to rest and allow everything to flow and not stopping or blocking either good or bad feelings. But always have in mind that we can process all the feelings and it is how we deal with them, either to stay sad or to use that energy to propel you to be productive and do something. I look forward to my next 40 years…
Aki was great in Nedda, the staging was nice, unfortunately the rest of the cast was in a different level, either vocally or acting. If I can put it in simple words, there was nothing Italian about this production, not the way it was conducted and neither musically. There was not real verismo. I do not even speak about the voices, but the style. The phrasing was like just singing nice legato but there was not drama or intensity in the voices in the meaning of Italian style. One could not feel the characters, the way they said the words was just lacking all intensity needed to present such Italian opera. I am certain they did not have any Italian coaching them, and one hears the lack of musical understanding and diretion. However, Aki understood with her incredibly musicality the demands of Leoncavallo.
I kept my exercise routines and my daily reading. I hope you are well and see you next week.
