London, Totoro, Concert…
Hi there! I hope you are having a nice week. It has been a nice one, being in London and writing you from somewhere around the Soho area, so more central I could not be.
This week, I came to Uk, to visit the city of London and spend some days with Aki. She invited me as a part of my present for my 40th birthday, to see “My neighbour Totoro” live show at the Gillian Lynne Theatre. The show was so touching and special. It really fired me up on how we should make better opera productions and bring a better level in general to Opera Houses. The show was so moving, we cried several times and we both were blown away, how a tale of phantasy character were brought to live theatre using very effective ways to solve the challenges. If you are in London, I cannot recommend you enough to go and see the shoe. This is an adaptation from the animated version from 1988 by Studio Ghibli. This is one, I think was the 2nd or 3rd movie I saw from the Studio. Ghibli films really transformed how I see animations and how Japanese Culture is so ingrained in these films, although full of phantastic adventures, creatures, stories, yet with such a strong roots to their culture. I have only respect and admiration for these creative minds behind the films. The live show was really something else, the actors were so convincing, the creatures very well done by the many members of the team, using traditional Japanese art of theatre.
Here in London we visited some of my favorite coffee shops, some new ones, book stores, the Bristish Museum, Borough Market, Covent Garden, etc. Among these activities I also took the time to rent a practice room to work on the 2 oratorios pieces I was working on. First because I needed it and second because they were both sung in English, and I decided to make a big commitment to sing it as best as I can, and do all hard work of really making sure I color the vowels and consonants the best I can. English I may say is more difficult for me to sing that any other language, maybe German is easier for me because I am used to it, nevertheless, up to this day I still have so much respect to this Language. Working on, L'Oratorio de Noël, Camille Saint-Saëns and Christmas Oratorio from Bob Chilcott, has been a joy and a challenge and I had the opportunity to put on my voice the sang English and to push myself to really dig into this language again from the singing perspective.
Last night was the concert near London and with a very good friend of mine conducting, it was a nice concert and I enjoyed very much working with the colleagues and singing this beautiful works of Music. Very different from each other but both really nice. I was very positively surprised with the Chilcott, and discovering the way he thinks and write for the voice. It had really beautiful moments.
I still have some 2 days left here and I will tire my legs walking around and tasting coffee and reading a book a found of G.B. Lamperti, “Vocal Wisdom” at one of the “Foyles” book stores. This is such an old book from one of the masters of Belcanto, I have read one of his books with concret exercises, plus his ideas, also, Juvarra mentions him in some of his books, and some other singers have mentioned him as reference throughout the 20th century.
I keep my daily reading, morning pages, but, my exercise routine suffered, so I only did 3 times this week instead of 4. Take care and see you next week.
