audience
Among the people listening to the outdoor opera broadcasts: a young couple who have chosen seats close to the giant screen and are now eating noisily and whispering, a young boy who is entranced, a panhandler crouched outside of a pharmacy blocks away, the voice of the soprano an eerie reverberation around him.
categorizing
"It's not a baby," he insists. "It's an action figure." But she doesn't care. Every small human-shaped toy, including Iron Man, is a baby to her.
expressively
The cantor is astonishing. His voice is full of hope and poignancy.
fey
The opening scene is entrancing. The green curls in her hair flow into her shimmering gown, as she reclines among the roots of a tree.
riches
We admire the embroidered birds and flowers on robes the color of pomegranates. We peer at the details on peacock feathers and at rivers ghosting across a canvas. The delicacy of blossoms and snow is exquisite. So are the tigers rippling across the golden panels.
sweets
At the restaurant, they move her to a different chair, one that isn't in view of the gum ball machine. Another way to distract her is to ask her to sing; her repertoire includes the classics, "Take Me Out to the Ballgame," "Baa Baa Black Sheep," and "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star."
upright
With a sketch book positioned on her thigh, she sits before a painting by Artemisia Gentileschi that depicts Esther and Ahasuerus. The sketch focuses on Esther, who is close to fainting; her body looks as if it's about to come apart in different directions.
Showing posts with label opera. Show all posts
Showing posts with label opera. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 5, 2019
Sunday, September 13, 2015
Week in Seven Words #261
backgrounded
On stage, there's a doctor, silent for the most part, who hangs in the background of every scene reminding people of impending death. For the actor who plays him, it must be a fun if not challenging role - he gets to look grave and silent while listening to grand music, night after night.
fibrous
Mango in ropy slices on a blue china plate.
gutless
What he tells her is a cop-out. "Heaven will reward you," he says. It's a consolation that's easy for him to offer, as he gently insists - at no cost to himself - that she give up what's important to her in this life.
inching
They're all careful in the dim, carpeted room. Their shoes are off. They speak quietly, even about things that devastate them. On a table to the side, there's seltzer and cookies.
operatic
She sings her way to an early death.
rejection
When she hugs him, he keeps his arms by his sides and turns his face away.
threadbare
She takes the view that people are motivated either by fear or by love in anything they do. Love and fear are battling all the time in her, and she's exhausted with both.
On stage, there's a doctor, silent for the most part, who hangs in the background of every scene reminding people of impending death. For the actor who plays him, it must be a fun if not challenging role - he gets to look grave and silent while listening to grand music, night after night.
fibrous
Mango in ropy slices on a blue china plate.
gutless
What he tells her is a cop-out. "Heaven will reward you," he says. It's a consolation that's easy for him to offer, as he gently insists - at no cost to himself - that she give up what's important to her in this life.
inching
They're all careful in the dim, carpeted room. Their shoes are off. They speak quietly, even about things that devastate them. On a table to the side, there's seltzer and cookies.
operatic
She sings her way to an early death.
rejection
When she hugs him, he keeps his arms by his sides and turns his face away.
threadbare
She takes the view that people are motivated either by fear or by love in anything they do. Love and fear are battling all the time in her, and she's exhausted with both.
Friday, April 4, 2014
Week in Seven Words #210 & 211
210
absorbed
He drinks in picture books.
busywork
I doubt the teacher will care what she writes. The requirements are a neatly typed page. The contents, which amount to some painful regurgitations about the leather-making process, will pass muster.
charred
The lake water exists in different states. The ice is puckered; at the edges it's darkened, as if crisped. The remains of a tree rear up from the ashy ice and slush.
formed
Childhood has become remote to him. It's a phase portrayed in books. He was always an adult.
froze
A landscape of rocks, ice and petrified trees.
kinetics
I'd like to stretch my legs and stride.
uplift
Beneath a sheet of ice, the water sings.
211
deflection
He won't examine the things he fears. He pretends he has no fears and is contemptuous when other people are afraid.
graded
Does she feel like a Mr. Goodbar among the Godiva truffles?
herbaceous
When using henna, I feel like there's a greenhouse on my head. An earthy odor, moisture, bits of herbs clinging to my scalp.
intuitive
When they were younger, they liked what they liked without looking to other people to see what they should like.
primary
In Act I, the stage is draped in a decadent red. Act II is full of gold and champagne. That lasts until the third act with its blue and gray bars of shadow.
rebounding
It's a brilliant cold night, and the lights are bouncing off the black reflection pool.
respite
I watch her enjoying the music and think that this is what she could be, more often: contented, engaged, and full of delight.
absorbed
He drinks in picture books.
busywork
I doubt the teacher will care what she writes. The requirements are a neatly typed page. The contents, which amount to some painful regurgitations about the leather-making process, will pass muster.
charred
The lake water exists in different states. The ice is puckered; at the edges it's darkened, as if crisped. The remains of a tree rear up from the ashy ice and slush.
formed
Childhood has become remote to him. It's a phase portrayed in books. He was always an adult.
froze
A landscape of rocks, ice and petrified trees.
kinetics
I'd like to stretch my legs and stride.
uplift
Beneath a sheet of ice, the water sings.
211
deflection
He won't examine the things he fears. He pretends he has no fears and is contemptuous when other people are afraid.
graded
Does she feel like a Mr. Goodbar among the Godiva truffles?
herbaceous
When using henna, I feel like there's a greenhouse on my head. An earthy odor, moisture, bits of herbs clinging to my scalp.
intuitive
When they were younger, they liked what they liked without looking to other people to see what they should like.
primary
In Act I, the stage is draped in a decadent red. Act II is full of gold and champagne. That lasts until the third act with its blue and gray bars of shadow.
rebounding
It's a brilliant cold night, and the lights are bouncing off the black reflection pool.
respite
I watch her enjoying the music and think that this is what she could be, more often: contented, engaged, and full of delight.
Friday, May 25, 2012
Week in Seven Words #120
alfresco
Early Sunday afternoon I sit on a bench by the fountain, my face brushed by its windblown mist as I eat a hamburger.
cultivar
It's one of the best kept secrets of the city: a small rose garden crackling with bumblebees.
fullness
It feels like late summer here in the Ramble. The air in the early evening is heavy and warm; the trees look about as full and green as they'll ever get. I find a quiet place where the path slopes down to the water. Long-stemmed purple flowers grow there, and the light reflecting off the lake shimmers on the tree trunks. It's a deep gold early evening light that soaks into everything.
pastime
From the sidewalk they look like odd modern sculptures in metal or harsh plastic. Just as I'm about to walk by, it hits me: they're game pieces. Game pieces as big as people. I climb the steps to the sunlit plaza where they're displayed, among them chess pawns and the wheelbarrow from Monopoly.
recidivism
They've invented a game where I'm a visitor at a museum who can't help but touch everything that's on display. As a punishment I'm to be repeatedly shot at with plastic space commando guns and dragged into a jail cell from which I will have to break out, so that I may go to the museum again and repeat the process.
stagy
It's an operatic evening. I'm not at the opera myself, but I do walk across a curving stone bridge that looks like it could be a prop for a soprano to stand on and sing. Then I go by the opera house when it's darker. The fountain lights are on, and the windows are golden.
unfurling
At the end of the pier, the river feels like an ocean. All around us are boats, sunlight, and sky, water that doesn't seem to have an end in either direction.
Early Sunday afternoon I sit on a bench by the fountain, my face brushed by its windblown mist as I eat a hamburger.
cultivar
It's one of the best kept secrets of the city: a small rose garden crackling with bumblebees.
fullness
It feels like late summer here in the Ramble. The air in the early evening is heavy and warm; the trees look about as full and green as they'll ever get. I find a quiet place where the path slopes down to the water. Long-stemmed purple flowers grow there, and the light reflecting off the lake shimmers on the tree trunks. It's a deep gold early evening light that soaks into everything.
pastime
From the sidewalk they look like odd modern sculptures in metal or harsh plastic. Just as I'm about to walk by, it hits me: they're game pieces. Game pieces as big as people. I climb the steps to the sunlit plaza where they're displayed, among them chess pawns and the wheelbarrow from Monopoly.
recidivism
They've invented a game where I'm a visitor at a museum who can't help but touch everything that's on display. As a punishment I'm to be repeatedly shot at with plastic space commando guns and dragged into a jail cell from which I will have to break out, so that I may go to the museum again and repeat the process.
stagy
It's an operatic evening. I'm not at the opera myself, but I do walk across a curving stone bridge that looks like it could be a prop for a soprano to stand on and sing. Then I go by the opera house when it's darker. The fountain lights are on, and the windows are golden.
unfurling
At the end of the pier, the river feels like an ocean. All around us are boats, sunlight, and sky, water that doesn't seem to have an end in either direction.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
"I know they were singing those arias out of their own sorrow."
Says Cecilia Bartoli when interviewed about her new album, in which she sings pieces originally written for castrati. The interesting Slate article in which she's interviewed, Nature's Rejects, explores the lives of castrati, male singers forcibly castrated as young boys in the hopes that they would attain fortune and fame, illustrious singing careers. Most did not:
And the famous ones, outside of their brief dazzling triumphs on stage, led lives full of distortion and depression:
I recently became a fan of Andreas Scholl, a countertenor whose vocal range is said to be that of the alto castrato Senesino. Countertenors of course have not gone under the "little knife", a euphemism that only hints at the true horror of what the castrati went through when they were young boys:
Countertenors did exist side by side historically with castrati, with the castrati apparently considered more illustrious and dominating opera especially. And it's reported that the castrati didn't quite sound like anyone else, including the female sopranos they replaced; there also would've been differences with countertenors (whose speaking voices tend to be low; testosterone, different type of vocal cord structure and development).
Countertenor Scholl and mezzo-soprano Bartoli render music with beauty, richness and power. Now after this article I wonder, what were the differences perceived in a castrato singing voice (of whatever range)? It seems the castrati in general were deemed to possess a prized vocal quality entirely their own, beyond individual differences in voice and musical ability; their listeners felt like they were hearing something not quite human.
They weren't viewed as human, not really. They were treated as instruments, cruelly shaped, forcibly carved. If the instrument cracked, you just threw it out; there were new ones to craft and maybe those would give you sounds you'd never heard before.
They were the products of a social, cultural and biological experiment, and a fascinating and disturbing example of how easy it is to adopt skewed and unhealthy cultural norms, and to excuse horrors in the name of (and for the sake of) beauty, art, or any number of other ideals.
These nobodies sang for pennies in the streets, turned to prostitution for male customers, and sooner or later disappeared into the oblivion of the outcast. A great many ended up suicides.
And the famous ones, outside of their brief dazzling triumphs on stage, led lives full of distortion and depression:
Meanwhile, the years of superstardom were limited, because castrati tended to age badly: "Most of them become as big and fat as capons, with round and chubby hips, rumps, arms and throats." Even successful singers were shunned by many, their status as ambiguous as their bodies.
I recently became a fan of Andreas Scholl, a countertenor whose vocal range is said to be that of the alto castrato Senesino. Countertenors of course have not gone under the "little knife", a euphemism that only hints at the true horror of what the castrati went through when they were young boys:
... brought unsuspecting to a nameless place, screaming as he is held down for the operation, the wound cauterized with hot iron.
Countertenors did exist side by side historically with castrati, with the castrati apparently considered more illustrious and dominating opera especially. And it's reported that the castrati didn't quite sound like anyone else, including the female sopranos they replaced; there also would've been differences with countertenors (whose speaking voices tend to be low; testosterone, different type of vocal cord structure and development).
Countertenor Scholl and mezzo-soprano Bartoli render music with beauty, richness and power. Now after this article I wonder, what were the differences perceived in a castrato singing voice (of whatever range)? It seems the castrati in general were deemed to possess a prized vocal quality entirely their own, beyond individual differences in voice and musical ability; their listeners felt like they were hearing something not quite human.
They weren't viewed as human, not really. They were treated as instruments, cruelly shaped, forcibly carved. If the instrument cracked, you just threw it out; there were new ones to craft and maybe those would give you sounds you'd never heard before.
They were the products of a social, cultural and biological experiment, and a fascinating and disturbing example of how easy it is to adopt skewed and unhealthy cultural norms, and to excuse horrors in the name of (and for the sake of) beauty, art, or any number of other ideals.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)