OPERA ARIAS!

Wednesday I'm auditioning for an---- OPERA! EEEEEEEEK! There is a LOVELY equity loophole that says you can do OPERAS that don't pay because they are covered under a completely different union. (AGMA) I also don't like NOT doing something - so I"m auditioning for the VLOG equivalent of the opera world - they are doing Carmen - and they asked me to prepare THREE arias! WHAT? I have - ZERO arias! So for a while I was freaking out that I had to learn THREE arias! *OPERA* ARIAS are far harder than anything I have ever worked on. For one - they aren't in ENGLISH! (Unless you are doing the weird operas I like - such as NIXON IN CHINA or DOCTOR ATOMIC - but that's not what they want for CARMEN.) It is very hard to MEMORIZE things that aren't in English - much less - pronounce them - and "singing" pronounce them...which is different that speaking them. I started working on a French aria - and all the rules of pronunciation are thrown out. Apparently you roll the Rs like you do in ITALIAN when you are singing and make one syllable words two syllables. Example "Revre" (pronounced REV) is SUNG Rev-Uh. Arias are also LONGER - much longer than musical theatre songs - and they tend to not have any "choruses" every line has it's own unique little embellishments. By the time I"m don't - I want to pass out of exhaustion. But that's not just due to the length - it's also due to the difficulty. THere are lots of "runs" and "candenzas" which are very difficult and you literally use your entire range - consistently. In musical theatre - you are lucky if you get one high note at the end of song. Here - you have high low middle - notes everywhere! in every four bars you probably use your entire range - both in terms of high and low notes and loud and soft notes. Wow - opera singers - my hat truly goes off to you!

Anyhow - I offered before the whole CAROUSEL ordeal to do this very bizarre VLOG concert this weekend - and it turns out the guy I am auditioning for on Wednesday was also in the concert. It was suggested I talk to him and explain that I just don't have three arias - (and really one can't learn 3 arias if one has NEVER learned an aria and have them ready to audition with in 5 days.) So I explained that I have never done opera before - unless you count IOLANTHE - (which after learning these "real" arias - IOLANTHE does not count!) - but that I was very excited about learning and would be thrilled to just be in the ensemble. (Really - learning an entire opera in FRENCH - ensemble is probably what I'm capable of!) And he said to just sing my IOLANTHE aria - and prepare Juliet's Waltz - which is in French - the same language as Carmen - so he could hear my French. SO FEW! I only have to learn ONE aria ---- and I have great friends who are helping me figure out the style and how to pronounce everything etc...I'm excited and hopefully I'll get to be a part of it!

And - let me tell you - after working on Juliet's Waltz - all of my musical theatre songs feel so much easier! It's like lifting 500 pounds to prepare to lift 300 pounds. I'm excited. We'll see what happens. Just gotta keep trying things!:)