It was a pretty full day here in the Steel City (I am going to run out of nick names and euphemisms for this city fast).
 |
| The Steel City at night (photo courtesy of google) |
With what would have marked Strauss' 150 birthday [June 11th to be exact] if here was still alive, it makes sense that the company is presenting Ariadne and an evening of Strauss songs. WQXR, the radio station in New York, in fact, just finished its Strauss week this past Sunday.
Are you familiar with Cacilie and Heimliche Aufforderung? They are both from op. 27. The text is particularly sultry and illustrative. There is something so sensual about late German lieder...
We had a Merry Widow production meeting and we ran through all of Camille's music today. Which was tiring, but still rather exciting to have rehearsed all of my music. I would like to share that Maestro McDonald made some fascinating arguments for the distinction and treatment of 19th century dances in the Merry Widow. There are Polkas, Waltzes, Mazurkas and lots of other dances in 3/4 time in the show an the Maestro made a well supported argument for their differentiation musically and dramatically. Unfortunately, Maestro McDonald suffered a minor injury after our first rehearsal and had to reschedule my coaching. Please, let's hope that it is nothing serious.
With this new chunk of time to myself and no practice rooms available, I sat in my car and studied my music a bit. I then took a self-guided tour (a.k.. got lost) in Oakland and made my way back to Rosslyn Farms to meet, once again, with Ettore Borri. Mr. Borri is the Italian musicologist who wrote the chapter on Bottesini's "liriche da camera." Further more, he is quite possibly the only person to have written anything about Bottesinis 70+ songs. I am proud to announce that tonight, I finally completed the second draft of my translation.
Cheers to great music and progress!!!
Thanks for reading,
Joe
No comments:
Post a Comment