#the vocal score to an italian opera in italian.

[opera-ghosts]

Here we see the Italian bass Nazzareno de Angelis (1881 – 1962) as King Henry from Lohengrin. I love the imposing costume and regal pose.

De Angelis was born at L’Aquila on 17 November, 1881 and began his musical life as a boy soprano, first with local choirs, then at the Capella Sistina in the Vatican. After his voice lowered, he studied with one Dr. Faberi at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome. For several years, he and his mentors wondered about his true vocal placement, and he studied both baritone and bass scores with equal intensity. The top of his voice was tremendous, but it became increasingly clear that it was centred where kings, prophets and devils live. His last two years at the Accademia were spent developing repertoire, and he gave several recitals there before making his opera début at the Comunale of L’Aquila in May of 1903 in Linda di Chamounix, followed by an opera called“L’Educate di Sorrento, by E. Usiglio, at the same theatre. 

Hearing of his enormous success the management of Rome’s Teatro Quirino immediately engaged him, and, in early July, he débuted in Norma. He subsequently appeared at the Teatro Adriano as Il Spettro in Hamlet, to the Ofelia of Maria Barrientos and the Hamlet of Battistini, followed by Rigoletto and Tosi Orsini’s Yanthis. In 1904, after some twelve performances of La Gioconda at the Teatro Lirico of Milan, he appeared at Santa Maria Capua Vetere as Colline and at the Quirino in La Favorita, Il Barbiere di Siviglia (Basilio), Carmen (Zuniga), Ernani, Norma and Rigoletto. Carlo Galeffi was his Rigoletto in several performances. He toured the Netherlands from December of 1904 to May of 1905, singing such diverse roles as Dr. Grenvil in La Traviata, Zuniga in Carmen, Sparafucile in Rigoletto, Ferrando in Il Trovatore, Fouquier-Tinville in Andrea Chénier, Tom in Un Ballo in Maschera, Angelotti in Tosca, Basilio and Raimondo in Lucia di Lammermoor. The company gave performances in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague. 

In the Autumn of 1905 he appeared at Mirandola in La Gioconda, at Parma’s Teatro Reinach in Rigoletto and Faust, and at Cagliari’s Teatro Regina Margherita as Alvise, along with those first historic performances of Mefistofele. Gaspare Nello Vetro’s Teatro Reinach says of his Faust Mefistofele: “The young Nazzareno De Angelis, now at the outset of his career, received the greatest applause and had to repeat ‘Dio dell’ Or’ at every performance.” At Cagliari, after his first performance of Boito’s Devil, the applause was interminable and it immediately led to a contract at Bari’s very important Teatro Petruzzelli, where he added Lohengrin and Iris to his roster of operas. 

In the Spring of 1906 he left on his first South American tour, appearing at Santiago de Chile and Valparaiso from June to November. He sang nine roles to enormous success. On 16 August, the region was stunned by an earthquake so severe that performances had to be suspended until 1 September. The opera house at Valparaiso was almost completely destroyed, and it was there that the greatest damage occurred. Hundreds of people died, and the wounded numbered in the thousands. Despite recurring after-shocks, the season eventually returned to normal and, in addition to his scheduled performances, he participated in several hastily arranged benefits for earthquake victims. Among his new assignments were Ludovico to the commanding Otello of Antonio Paoli, and Marcel in Gli Ugonotti. His receptions were increasingly enthusiastic, and, before the season ended, he happily agreed to return. That agreement was honoured in both 1908 and 1909. El Mercurio said of him: “…. at the end of the Prologue to Mefistofele, De Angelis received a huge and most sincere ovation.” A later review stated that “he has reminded us again as Mefistofele how superb an artist he is, and in Germania has made us marvel at his versatility in this new role”. 

The 1908 season saw him in eight operas including Gli Ugonotti with Hariclea Darclee, and in 1909, he sang nine roles including the creator part of Aquilante in Gloria After his appearances at Santiago, he is thought to have sung in Buenos Aires at the Teatro Coliseo, but no details have been unearthed about his roles during that engagement. He returned to the South American continent in 1910, 11, 12, 14, 19 and 1926, and he appeared in Buenos Aires, Rosario, Montevideo, Rio de Janeiro and São Paolo. He sang Mefistofele in every theatre at which he appeared, and in every season, except for 1914. The list of operas he performed in South America only is long: Tannhäuser, La Sonnambula, I Puritani, Gomes’s Il Guarany and Salvator Rosa, Galitsky in Prince Igor (his only Russian opera, though sung in Italian), Les Huguenots (also in Italian), de Campos’s Um Caso Singular, Verdi’s Otello and Franchetti’s Germania.

On 15 January, 1907 he débuted at La Scala as Alvise in La Gioconda and appeared for the first time in Tristan und Isolde, La Wally and as Aquilante de Bardi in the world premiere of Cilea’s Gloria. Despite recurring arguments with the theater’s management, including one four year hiatus, he would sing twenty four roles over twelve seasons. The year offered two other very important debuts, Alvise at the Teatro Verdi of Firenze with Eugenia Burzio, and King Marke at Bologna’s Teatro Comunale with Amelia Pinto, Giuseppe Borgatti and Giuseppe Pacini. Tristan und Isolde received fifteen performances and was followed by De Angelis’ only appearances in Tschaikovsky’s Iolanthe.

1908 brought with it the beginning of his Scala partnership with Ester Mazzoleni. They first appeared in Franchetti’s Cristoforo Colombo conducted by Toscanini in a run of 16 performances, followed by a revival of La Forza del Destino. Mazzoleni described the event: 

You will not be able to imagine what happened on that opening night. Icilio Calleja started ‘O tu che in seno agli angeli’ both too soon and out of tune, at which point all hell broke loose in the house. The theatre took on the atmosphere of a bullring, and, as often happens when things are not going well, the audience vented its rage at everything in sight. Both Pasquale Amato and Luisa Garibaldi were booed and hissed without mercy. The only ones who escaped their fury were De Angelis and myself. At the end, after almost collapsing from nervous exhaustion, we received a standing ovation. Notwithstanding our personal success, Toscanini, eyes ablaze, cancelled the remaining performances. 

On 19 December, 1908 De Angelis and Mazzoleni appeared in the historic production of Spontini’s La Vestale, a revival that was repeated 16 times, and then travelled to Paris. Verdi’s I Vespri Siciliani was next in the list of successes, and, on 30 December, 1909, they caused a sensation in Cherubini’s Medea. In March 1910, they appeared in what was to be their last opera together, Meyerbeer’s L’Africaine. This unbroken string of personal triumphs is one of the most legendary of all stories associated with the Milan theatre. Among other memorable evenings at La Scala was the world première of Montemezzi’s L’Amore dei Tre Re on 10 April, 1913 in the role of Archibaldo, which he later premièred at the Colón of Buenos Aires, the Costanzi of Rome, Rio de Janeiro, São Paolo and Trieste’s Teatro Verdi. 

Of his Archibaldo in the Rome première of L’Amore dei Tre Re, Il Tempo, on 15 March, 1919, said: “De Angelis, the old lion, he of the pungent, powerful voice, sang the ideal performance of Montemezzi’s king.” 

Most of 1910 was spent in the Western Hemisphere. On 31 May De Angelis debuted at Buenos Aires’ Teatro del Opera in Lohengrin with Salomea Krusceniski, Luisa Garibaldi, Dygas and Riccardo Stracciari ,and he completed his season in Aida with Giannina Russ, Garibaldi, and Giovanni Zenatello, Norma with Russ, Garibaldi and Dygas, Mefistofele with Krusceniski and Dmitri Smirnov and Gotterdammerung with Krusceniski and Dygas. In August, the company visited Montevideo for a three week season. after which De Angelis traveled to Chicago for his only performances in the United States. 

On 3 November, 1910 he sang in the inaugural performance of the Chicago Civic Opera Company as Ramfis. The cast included Karolewicz, de Cisneros, Bassi, Sammarco and Dufranne. He subsequently sang Colline in La Boheme with John McCormack, Raimondo in Lucia di Lammermoor and Ashby in La Fanciulla del West. On 18 January 1911, in a closing night gala, he appeared as Ashby with Carolina White, Caruso and Sammarco. It is curious that De Angelis accepted a contract with Chicago for roles so small when he had already become the most important bass at La Scala and in many of South America’s theatres. Perhaps the heady company that he would be keeping attracted him; that, with the hope that other more important roles would come his way. He visited several other cities, but, outside of a single appearance in Fanciulla del West at Milwaukee in November.

Upon his return to Italy, De Angelis prepared for the most important début of his career: the Costanzi of Rome. The theatre was to present a gala ‘Musical Exposition’ of opera and ballet in celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the declaration of the Kingdom of Italy. Among the notable events were the company premières of Verdi’s Macbeth and Donizetti’s Don Sebastiano and the Italian première of La Fanciulla del West, with Eugenia Burzio and Giovanni Martinelli. Serge Diaghilev’s Ballet Russe presented local premières of Les Sylphides and Giselle with Nijinsky, and Toscanini conducted several of the operas. In the midst of this carnival of riches, on 16 April, 1911, De Angelis débuted as Don Basilio with the stellar cast of Graziella Pareto, Umberto Macnez, Titta Ruffo and Giuseppe Kaschmann. The theatre was packed with family, friends, colleagues from his days at the Vatican and the Conservatorio, and former teachers. Dal Costanzi all’Opera states that “it was an evening of surpassing grandeur, refinement and polish, a performance beyond any criticism”. Il Giornale d’Italia reported that “De Angelis convinced a highly expectant audience that he is truly an artist of the first rank….The tumultuous applause that greeted the singers became a roar each time that he appeared before the great curtain”. He was to tell Paolo Silveri many years later that it was the most emotionally satisfying evening of his career. The bond between singer and city had been permanently cemented and he would return in thirteen additional seasons in seventeen roles.

On 23 May, De Angelis debuted at the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires as the Landgrave in Tannhauser with Pasini-Vitale, Ferrari-Fontana and De Luca. He sang in ten operas, including his first performances in Don Carlo with Agostinelli, Garibaldi, Constantino and Ruffo, La Sonnambula with Barrientos and Bonci and I Puritani with Barrientos, Bonci and De Luca. The Colon hosted him the following year in seven operas, including his only performances as Friar Lawrence in Gounod’s Romeo et Juliette with Lucrezia Bori and Giuseppi Anselmi. De Angelis sang at the Colon for the last time in 1914, but he returned to Buenos Aires in 1919 as Basilio, Mefistofele, Galitzky, Mose and Archibaldo at the Teatro Coliseo. 

On 10 October, De Angelis sang Mefistofele at the Costanzi for the first time, and it would be the defining event of his career. The first night audience cheered for nearly an hour and the next day’s reviews were among the most laudatory ever seen: 

Mefistofele at Rome - Il Corriere d’Italia - 11 October, 1911. “This singer and magnificent actor can truly claim to be the greatest basso currently on the lyric stage. Extraordinary power, an excellent voice, clear and perfect diction and impeccable technique were all completely confirmed last night. His success was enormous.” 

His triumph was reported on the front page of newspapers throughout Italy and he was immediately asked to sing the role in virtually every Italian theatre. Within four months he had débuted at Turin’s Regio, Trieste’s Verdi and the San Carlo of Naples, where he sang fourteen performances of the opera. Barcelona’s Liceo received him with enormous acclaim in April of 1913 and Mefistofele was to serve as his debut role at Venice’s Fenice, Genoa’s Carlo Felice and Politeama, Brescia’s Grande, Padua’s Verdi, Palermo’s Massimo and the Verona Arena. In 1918, De Angeles sang the role for the first time at La Scala with Linda Cannetti, Elena Rakowska and Gigli, and, in 1920, at Milan’s Dal Verme, he appeared in some fifteen performances of the opera with Hina Spani as Margherita. It was so overwhelming a part of his career, that in 1923, it was the only role he sang. 

On 4 April, 1915, he sang Mosè for the first time, appearing at Rome’s Teatro Quirino and took the role to Firenze, Livorno’s Teatro Goldoni, the Comunale of Bologna and Milan’s Dal Verme. The cast included Giannina Russ, Adele Ponzano, Luigi Pieroni and Alessandro Dolci, and was conducted by Mascagni. The tour was among the very few performances he gave between the Spring of 1915 and the Winter of 1918. A 1916 press release from the Teatro Municipal of Santiago, Chile notes that, because he was serving in the Italian armed forces, he would not be able to appear. He returned to the stage at Rome’s Costanzi in February, 1918, and sang Mosè there on 23 April. 

Mosè - 2 June, 1918 - Rome Dal Costanzi all’Opera. “On the closing night, which presented the tenth performance of Mosè, De Angelis achieved one of the greatest successes of his career.” 

La Tribuna said: “The great bass received an ovation perhaps without parallel in memory. His performance was of monumental proportions, and the audience responded in kind.” 

Over the next several years, De Angelis sang Mose at La Scala, Buenos Aires, Rosario, Montevideo, Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paolo, Bergamo, Genoa, Ferrara, Trieste, Turin, Ancona, and, for the last time in 1925 at the Verona Arena. 

Although De Angelis’ stage debut was in Linda di Chamounix, Donizetti and Bellini seem not to have been composers for whom he felt much affinity. In 1911, he sang in La Sonnambula and I Puritani at the Colón of Buenos Aires and, on the closing night of the 1926 season at Rio de Janeiro, he sang one additional lonely performance of I Puritani. By 1912, he had stopped singing in La Favorita and Lucia di Lammermoor and seems never to have appeared in a Donizetti opera again. He sang important revivals of Norma with Giannina Russ, Claudia Muzio, Vera Amerighi-Rutili, Bianca Scacciati and Iva Pacetti, but they were few in number and widely separated in time. 

Lucia di Lammermoor at Buenos Aires - La Prensa - 27 May, 1911 Though the soprano role is the centrepiece of this opera, Barrientos’s grand companions, Constantino, Ruffo and De Angelis were all triumphant. 

Norma at Rome - Il Tevere - 28 December, 1928 The evening confirmed the triumph of Norma, and of Muzio, Luisa Bertana, the tenor Mirassou and Nazzareno De Angelis, who conferred, with beauty of voice and physical presence, the ultimate realization of Oroveso.

Don Basilio in Il Barbiere di Siviglia was a very important role in De Angelis’s career, and he sang it in both the largest and smallest theatres. In the Spring of 1916 he toured among Parma’s Regio, Naples’ San Carlo, Pisa’s Verdi, Pesaro’s Salon Pedrotti and Rome’s Quirino in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the opera’s premiere. The cast for the performances was Fanny Anitua as Rosina; Carpi and Macnez sang Almaviva; Galeffi portrayed Figaro and Kaschmann, Bartolo. At Rome, the cast included de Hidalgo, Salvati and De Luca. He sang it at the Costanzi in 1919 and garnered his usual superlatives. 

Il Barbiere di Siviglia at Rome - Il Messagero - 16 February, 1919 “This old opera rarely has one divo, fewer times two, but tonight there were four, de Hidalgo, Schipa, Galeffi and De Angelis, truly an Olympus of singers. It was a marvellous evening, one which made us almost believe that we were seeing the opera for the first time. The soloists sang as though inspired by some magic spirit.” 

In 1919, De Angelis toured to Buenos Aires, Montevideo, Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paolo as Basilio with Angeles Ottein, Tito Schipa and Armand Crabbe. It was on this tour that he appeared in Prince Igor, Il Guarany and Salvator Rosa for the only times in his career. In 1921 he appeared as Basilio at Spoleto with the inimitable Conchita Supervia and in 1922 he appeared in a lavish production at La Scala with de Hidalgo, Hackett and Galeffi. In 1925 he made both his Swiss debut and farewell as Basilio at Lugano. 

His Wagner roles were seven: King Marke in Tristan und Isolde, Wotan in both Das Rheingold and Die Walküre, King Henry in Lohengrin, Hagen in Götterdämmerung, the Landgrave in Tannhäuser and Gurnemanz in Parsifal. In 1914, he sang Gurnemanz an amazing twenty seven times during La Scala’s first season of Parsifal and premièred the opera at Buenos Aires’s Teatro Colón the following May. In January 1922, he returned to La Scala for eleven performances in a cast that included Helene Wildbrunn, Amadeo Bassi, and on the fourth night, the debut at that theater of Apollo Granforte. He appeared at Paris as Gurnemanz in May of the same year. De Angelis appeared in Die Walkuere at Rome, La Scala, Naples, Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paolo and in Das Rheingold at Bologna, Rome and La Scala. In the winter of 1938 at Rome, he sang Wotan in Das Rheingold and Die Walküre, as well as Hagen, in the first ‘Ring’ ever performed completely in Italian. The undertaking was supervised by Tullio Serafin and the four operas were broadcast throughout Italy. De Angelis’ last Wagner performances were as Gurnemanz at the San Carlo of Naples in April, 1938.

Of his performances in the 1938 ‘Ring’at Rome, the following reviews are quoted. 

Il Messagero, 25 January - Das Rheingold De Angelis sang with enormous resonance. His achievement was hard to imagine, sung with the greatest of expression, vigour and vibrancy.

Il Piccolo, 27 January - Die Walkuere He maintained a level of excellence throughout this very long and difficult role that was exceptional. 

Among Verdi’s operas, he sang Zaccaria in Nabucco, Silva in Ernani. Ferrando in Il Trovatore, Grenvil in La Traviata, Sparafucile in Rigoletto, Tom in Un Ballo in Maschera, Padre Guardiano in La Forza del Destino, Procida in I Vespri Siciliani, Fiesco in Simon Boccanegra, King Philip in Don Carlo, Ramfis in Aida and Lodovico in Otello. Interestingly, he sang far fewer performances of Verdi than he did of Wagner. In fact, in no Verdi opera, outside of Aida, did he sing more than twenty five performances, and Simon Boccanegra, had only one revival, at La Scala in 1933. It was his last new role. 

Aida - Rome - La Tribuna - 6 October, 1911 The Ramfis of Nazzareno De Angelis showed an extraordinarily robust, mellow and vibrant voice. 

Nabucco - Rome - La Tribuna - 2 June, 1916 A memorable evening of art, of patriotic love.... in which all the artists offered a spectacle of singular interest. The interpreters, Nazzareno De Angelis in the white robes of the high priest, Zaccaria, Carlo Galeffi, Cecilia Gagliardi and Fanny Anitua gave superb examples of their great art. 

Non-operatic appearances were fairly infrequent. He sang in Verdi’s Manzoni Requiem several times, most importantly at La Scala in 1913 under Toscanini’s direction, at Rome’s Teatro Augusteo in both 1913 and 1922, and in 1924 at Vicenza and the Verona Arena. The Verona engagement with Rinolfi, Minghini Cattaneo and Taccani, was so successful that after two performances in the outdoor stadium, an additional two were given at the Teatro Filarmonico with Lucia Crestani singing the soprano music. In May 1938 he returned to the work for the last time when he sang it at Rome’s Teatro Adriano with Caniglia, Stignani and Alessandro Granda. On 4 December 1924, under Toscanini’s direction, he and Hina Spani sang at Giacomo Puccini’s Funeral in the Duomo of Milan, and on the 29th , the program was repeated at La Scala. Among De Angelis’ more interesting concerts were three at Rome’s Teatro Quirino. On 4 April 1915 he appeared with Russ and Battistini in an all Mascagni programme honouring the composer. In September, 1915 he appeared in a composition called Inno alla Patria by Zandonai accompanied by Gabriella Besanzoni, and in June 1916, he sang in Canto di Guerra, written by the great bass-baritone Giuseppe Kaschmann. 

De Angelis’ career in Iberia was not impressive. He sang Mefistofele at La Coruña, Spain in 1908 and appeared at Barcelona’s Liceo in the Spring of 1913 as Boito’s Devil. The La Coruña engagement includes a reference to Gounod’s Faust, which, if it were to have happened, would have been an extremely interesting juxtaposition of roles. Perhaps it did. There are announcements of a second engagement at La Coruña in 1912, but I have found no details. It would seem, from the evidence, that he never appeared in Portugal.

By 1927, De Angelis was averaging no more than 20 performances a year, though he continued to make recordings at a prodigious rate. In 1934, his only appearances were as Mefistofele at Piacenza and, about a year later, he sang Oroveso, Gurnemanz and Padre Guardiano at Genoa’s Carlo Felice. After a three-year absence, he returned to Rome’s Teatro Reale in January of 1938 for Mefistofele and the celebrated ‘Ring Cycle’. In August, after a debut at Rome’s Caracalla as Mefistofele, he sang his valediction at Naples’ Arena Flegrea as Boito’s Beelzebub, with Delia Sanzio, Margherita Grandi and Granda. De Angelis had appeared in fifty seven operas and had sung well over fifteen hundred performances. 

It has been reported that he gave occasional recitals until about 1942. Upon his eventual retirement, he taught in Milan and, later, at his favorite city, Rome. He died on 14 December, 1962, in Rome, at the age of 81. 

[reggiecristal]

Act 3:

Maestro Callegari: Where on earth is the middle of the orchestra’s sound? Like, hello? Can we get the violas and cellos up, please? Where is the color, bruh? I still don’t have a strong impression of Callegari’s interpretation of the piece after all these hours, which is crazy cause this is one of the central scores of the core repertoire of the art form. Surely we could scrounge someone up with more to make them worthy of leading this orchestra than their nationality?

Sierra’s dying makes me want to see her Mimì. It’s such a delicate art to master, and her grasp of it is admirable. I think the more speechlike candor of her speak-singing, rather than the more sustained lines of the previous acts, allows her to color the voice more than her technique would otherwise allow. Her letter reading, however, lacked some of the italianità I’d like. Being Latina, I expected better Italian than she gave. The wilting, plaintive thread of melody in “Addio del passato” was nicely rendered, if a bit hampered the over-veiled timbre of this part of her voice. I’d like it a bit more blanched—more breathless, rather than cloudy, and perhaps less consciously mournful and more empty, or even fearful or bitter at what Violetta knows to be her final hours. I think Sierra’s soft singing in this act has been more effective than her louder outbursts, in which her militant training overcomes the natural beauty of her voice to make it sound older and cloudier than would be ideal. Overall, however, this has been an admirable presentation of this difficult role, whatever reservations I might have about her voice.

Costello was more or less as expected: beautiful instrument, square phrasing, stifled expression. The naiveté and shallowness of Alfredo wasn’t fully rendered, nor was the change in him at realizing Violetta’s sacrifice readily apparent in Costello’s vocalism. I just wish he’d listen to Gigli’s head tones for a bit—the ones in his recordings in the 30s, before he took on heavier roles. They gave his Alfredo a sweetness and youth that Costello lacked.

Salsi is, at this point, a known quantity for me. I expect stodginess from him and receive it. His Germont lacked the warmth of his love for his son, the coolness of his approach to convincing Violetta to his plans. There was something of the character’s dignity and noble carriage, but not to a degree that it seemed to come from conscious action on Salsi’s part so much as it was the general impression of his voice. He’s reliable for what he’s reliable for, but I could wish for much more in this role, for its being as important as it is to the opera’s action.

[hedgehog-moss]

The “Readers also enjoyed” feature on Goodreads (which GR says was created 10 years ago to “use people’s reviews, ratings and other data to make great personalised recommendations”) is still so bad when it comes to non-anglo books, it’s kind of funny at this point. I don’t understand how it continues being so useless when there are lots of people logging and rating books in other languages on this platform every day? It’s not breathtakingly accurate for anglo books either but the “See similar books” link will suggest at least some books that are somewhat similar in some way, whereas for non-anglo books after all this time it’s still like “I see you enjoyed this short French nonfiction book about literary salons in 18th-century Paris—I’m sure you’ll love this modern epic novel written in Romanian about a man who cheats on his wife with a ghost, since you're into the Foreign Books genre.”

[opera-simplified]

Opera Simplified #7: Les Huguenots—Notes for Act V and an Appendix!

Notes:

** For some bizarre reason (possibly a combination of length and the fact that this act does not portray the Catholic Church in a good light at all), it was surprisingly common performance practice for a very long time (although not anymore) that this act would be cut entirely and the opera would end with Raoul getting shot outside Valentine’s house at the end of Act IV. If you’re scratching your head too...yeah.

*** Partly because this scene is often seen as not really necessary for the main plot and partly because it primarily consists of an extremely difficult tenor aria, this scene is frequently cut.

**** The version of the aria given in the main text is the version commonly performed; due to a combination of cuts and censorship of anti-monarchical content, the aria here is much shorter than originally written. Below is an English translation of what was to have been an additional verse of the aria and would have been inserted after this line:

RAOUL

When he [Coligny] was alive, they did not dare look upon

this noble face honored by victory without paling—

and in death, they insulted him!

Friends, here is his blood!

Do you still doubt?

And these are Frenchmen!

And these are Christians

who claim their support from Heaven and the royal throne for this!

Roving and full of fury, cursing their torture,

I ran to the Louvre, running through the danger,

to plead with King Charles! What a crime! May he be cursed!…

I saw the King himself shoot down his [Huguenot] subjects,

whom he is supposed to protect, from the top of his balcony!

Everywhere, murder and fire!

Everywhere, furious priests

proclaiming the wrath of Heaven!

And alas, no one, not even

the young girl in prayer

or the baby at its mother’s breast,

escapes their blows!

Will we helplessly watch this blood flow

when it cries out for vengeance?

It is waiting to be avenged! And they will have that vengeance from us!

***** The Louvre Palace was the royal palace of France prior to the building of the Palace of Versailles. It did give its name to the art museum now partially housed within it, but to be clear, Valentine is not telling them to take refuge at an art museum.

****** Props to Olivier Py (director of La Monnaie De Munt’s 2011 production) for apparently being the only director with enough common sense to let Nevers die onstage.

******* The ending of the previous scene is often modified so that this and the previous scene take place in the same setting.

Appendix:

so as you may have guessed, there was a shitton of research and online articles and things used in the making of this very long, very detailed project!

the following are some of the resources used in the making of this Opera Simplified:

-Wikipedia

-Google Translate

-Collins French-English online dictionary

-Wiktionary

-five (5) different libretti:

Google Books previews of Giacomo Meyerbeer: The Complete Libretti

Nico Castel’s word-for-word English translation

this webpage of Eugène Scribe’s original libretto before Deschamps (and others) made changes to it

this French/Spanish libretto

and this French/Italian libretto

-a piano/vocal score and a full orchestral score both available on IMSLP

-this delightful post from my dear @monotonous-minutia

-this post i wrote over two years ago

[thetudorslovers]

Francesca Caccini was born to composer and musician Giulio Caccini. She received a musical education as a child and began performing as a singer and instrumentalist, her first recorded public appearance being in 1600 at the marriage of Henry IV and Marie de Medici. For two decades, from 1607 to 1627, Francesca served as a singer, composer, and teacher at the Medici court. The first of her five operas, La liberazione di Ruggiero dall’isola d’Alcina (1625), was the first opera composed by a woman and also the first Italian opera to be performed outside of Italy.

Francesca Caccini wrote some or all of the music for at least sixteen staged works. All but La liberazione di Ruggiero and some excerpts from La Tancia and Il passatempo published in the 1618 collection are believed lost. Her surviving scores reveal Caccini to have taken extraordinary care over the notation of her music, focusing special attention on the rhythmic placement of syllables and words, especially within ornaments, on phrasing as indicated by slurs, and on the precise notation of often very long, melodically fluid vocal melismas. Although her music is not especially notable for the expressive dissonances made fashionable by her contemporary Monteverdi, Caccini was a master of dramatic harmonic surprise: in her music it is harmony, more than counterpoint, that most powerfully communicates affect.

Opera and stage works:

• La Stiava , performed 1607 & lost

• La mascherata, delle ninfe di Senna, balletto, Palazzo Pitti, Florence, 1611

• La tancia, incidental music, Palazzo Pitti, Florence, 1611

• Il passatempo, incidental music to balletto, Pallazo Pitti, Florence, 1614

• Il ballo delle Zingane, balletto, Palazzo Pitti, Florence, music lost, 1615

• Il Primo libro delle musiche a 1–2 voci e basso continuo (1618)

• La fiera, incidental music, Palazzo Pitti, Florence, 1619

• Il martirio de S. Agata, Florence, 1622

• La liberazione di Ruggiero dall'isola d'Alcina, musical comedy, Villa Poggio Imperiale, Florence (1625)

• Rinaldo inamorato, commissioned by Prince Wladislaw of Poland, 1626.

[luthienne]

hiya, i see you mentioned your background is in classical music and i was wondering how it is and what it's like. have you talked about it before? i don't mean to consume much of your time and it seems very, very interesting 😳

i’ve talked a little bit about it before but i’m always happy to talk about it more if you have any specific questions ♡ i studied / got my degrees in singing (opera). it’s definitely an interesting field—very competitive, very intense, draws on many other fields—it’s late night rehearsals and early mornings in the practice room, practicing your conducting and solfeggio while walking between classes; it’s analyzing the exposition and development of mozart and beethoven sonatas all semester in form & analysis only to stare in horror at the paul hindemith sonata on the table in front of you during your final exam; it’s practicing hours a day between classes and after dinner, before rehearsal and after rehearsal; running to the gym and putting the opera score you’re learning on the exercise machine to continue learning music because you have to be off book in a couple of weeks; it’s learning multiple languages so that you’re aware at all times of what everyone around you is singing, so that you’re reacting to your colleagues in the moment and in a natural way; it’s learning stage combat and movement, renaissance dance and ballet; it’s learning the anatomy of the body so that you can understand the way the voice and the body work when you are singing, the names of the muscles that you are using and the way they function even though you cannot see them—singing is not an exact science and that’s what makes a good voice teacher so special: someone who can listen to you and watch you and then diagnose the aspects of your vocalization that can be improved and how to improve them; it’s learning the international phonetic alphabet so that you can look at any of the languages you are singing in and immediately know how every word is pronounced; it’s learning how to listen to a line of music and transcribe it onto music staves, and looking at a line of music and knowing how it will sound when you play or sing it; it’s learning roman numeral analysis and studying vocal literature, learning the differences between italian art songs and french art songs and lieder; it’s knowing that a baroque-style ornamentation will be different from a classical, mozartian-style ornamentation, will be different from a bel canto-style ornamentation. it’s taxing and exhausting and you can’t imagine doing anything else. you might end up with a 20+ hour course-load every semester (i did) and have absolutely no free time and wonder how you’re going to learn all the music you have to learn and still also get your coursework done and papers written and prepare for your auditions and you’ll cry in the practice rooms and you still won’t be able to imagine doing anything else bc if you’re pursuing a career as competitive (and abusive and structurally archaic and crushing) as one like this, it’s like the blood in your veins, it’s the thing that keeps you alive, that you love more than anything else—enough to take everything: the abuse and the fatigue and the loneliness and fear that you won’t have what it takes after all and the endless work ethic and practice and dedication—and you’ll pour your everything into it and know that you have to take this path wherever it goes before you’re willing to consider anything else.

anyway this is obviously not comprehensive but hopefully a little window into the world! you can also check out my #opera tag and #music study tag where i’ve elaborated more about my personal experiences in the field. ♡

[stephenjaymorrisblog]

The Maestro’s Baton Lies Still

Ennio Morricone 1928-2020

Tuesday, July 7, 2020

Stephen Jay Morris

©Scientific Morality

Imagine if Max Steiner’s composition, “Tara’s Theme,” never made it to the final cut of the 1939 movie classic “Gone With the Wind.” It would have immensely depleted the movie’s potency.  Music in movies is an invaluable component.  It makes the movie.

There have been experimental movie genres, in which no music is featured.  Avant-garde movies are fine and challenging, but nothing can beat the movie epic.

Beginning with Bach, Chopin, and Mozart, ascending to Stravinsky, and reaching all the way to George Gershwin:  at the front of the line stands Ennio Morricone.  Out of the 20th and the 21st Centuries came Ennio Morricone, the Italian composer who changed the way musical soundtracks figure in cinema.

Ennio Morricone attended a conservatory at the age of 12 where he learned to play the trumpet. He studied Choral music and music theory and, eventually, he transformed into a conductor.  

I will cut to the chase here because Ennio had a festinating life and it would require, at least, a lengthy, well-researched book to give a fair account of his life. I will focus on his career in cinema, beginning with the Spaghetti Western years.

In the 1950’s, foreign cinema was popular in America with a minority of culture vultures.  European censorship standards were more lenient, so soft-core porn could be enjoyed in foreign film theaters in cities across the U.S.  If you wanted to see full frontal nudity, foreign movies were your ticket.  The late 50’s featured the Hercules movies imported from Italy, which hit the drive-in circuit.  In the early 60’s, those movies made their way onto local T.V.  They were popular for a few years, then the public tired of them.

Before long, Italian filmmakers decided to make American Westerns Italian style.  Movie critics labeled them “Spaghetti Westerns,” which was intended as an insult.  Well, the label stuck and Italian filmmakers eventually made hundreds of these movies in the 60’s and 70’s.

One filmmaker prominent in the genre was Sergio Leone.  He and Ennio Morricone had a long friendship and they ultimately collaborated on all of Leone’s movies.  Leone was an ambitious man who initially worked as an assistant director, but wanted to make his own films.  His first Italian western was “A Fistful of Dollars,” in 1964, which was the second feature on which he and Morricone collaborated.  It could have been a cheap, low budget western, but Morricone’s musical soundtrack elevated it.  Theirs was the most successful and creative partnership in cinema history.

Ennio Morricone was experimental himself.  He spent time with a lot of artists by whom he was greatly inspired.  He wrote many songs for T.V. commercials so he could pay his rent.  He was not a classically trained snob, so in his musical compositions, he would use everyday gadgets, such as a ticking clock or a ringing telephone.  In scoring his first western (“A Fistful of Dollars”), he employed common whistling by someone as the score’s lead instrument.  His music gave the low budget movie an eerie and hypnotic quality to it.  Ultimately, the film became popular in Europe and Ennio was in demand to score Westerns.  

Ennio’s Westerns’ scores had Flamenco and Spanish flavors to them.  They were otherwise eclectic, as well.  He would interject hillbilly tones, or a surf guitar into various parts of a composition.  He could insert a standard 4/4 time signature, transition to a 2/4 meter, move all the way to a 6/8 time, and then return to a 4/4 standard time.  His music can range from “Affettvoso” or “Zando.” Yeah, he was versatile.  

For the 1968, Anthony Quinn movie, “Guns of San Sebastian,” Ennio created one of the most beautiful scores in cinema.  He employed an Italian opera singer, but instead of having her sing the score with words, she vocalized it in sounds.  Thus, her voice was an orchestral instrument.

For the first time in my life, no matter what the plot, I’d readily go to a movie when I saw it was Ennio Morricone who wrote the musical score.  He is that good!

I am sad that I will never see him conduct an orchestra, which makes my existential depression justified.  However, I still own many of his soundtrack recordings and can easily locate more, as they are plentifully preserved in recordings for all time.

Rest in Peace, Ennio.

[quarantinemusiccalendar]

Day 208: Claudio Monteverdi - Teatro d'Amore (L'Arpeggiata | C. Pluhar)

It’s quite well known in my friends circle, that when it comes to classical music, I am a sucker for old music. Meaning Renaissance and Baroque. Motets, madrigals, complex pieces for choirs of 8-16 voices and such. Renaissance music can sometimes feel a bit too calculated, too predictable, a little stale. But back then it was not uncommon to use mathematical principles when composing music. And then came Baroque as a gust of fresh air and the music suddenly felt wilder, more free and carried more emotions: affection, anger, fear, sorrow and even love and lust. At the center of this huge stylistic shift is Claudio Monteverdi. Claudio Zuan Antonio Monteverdi (1567- 1643), son of an apothecary from Cremona in northern Italy (belonged to Spanish Empire at that point), composer and in later life also a priest, spent most of his life employed as a court musician and choirmaster by Duke of the nearby Mantua and later by the Venician Republic as the maestro di cappella at the basilica of San Marco. Having started his career within the established renaissance musical forms and then incorporated new musical ideas from other musicians and composers (rejection of polyphonic style), he then developed his style even further by the groundbreaking basso continuo technique (bassline and a chord progression) and truly landed music in Baroque. And although he played a part in developing the new style, he was not the only composer responsible for making that leap into that new Baroque style. But he certainly is the most visible of this generation of north Italian musical pioneers of his generation. Just purely due to the fact that his music reached the furthest. In both geographical sense as well as in time. His is the ultimate bridge between Renaissance and Baroque.

As for his work, he composed both sacral and secular music. He wrote a huge variety of music for masses and other sacred occasions, but also 10 operas which were a completely new emerging genre at that time. Unfortunately only 3 of them survived ( L'Orfeo, Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria,  L'incoronazione di Poppea), from 2 other ones we only have fragments and for further 4 we have only the libretto. He is not the founder of Italian Opera, as he is sometimes called, that title belongs to Jacopo Peri, but the new genre was indeed popularized and spread through Europe by Monteverdi’s works. His other secular works included 8 series of madrigals.

Christina Pluhar, a soloist and continuo player originally from Graz, Austria, found a deep passion for old music during her studies. In 2000 she founded the Arpeggiata ensemble. They are based in Paris and their particular focus is on Italian music of the 17th century. They are known for daring instrumental improvisations, exploiting rich textures created by the blending a variety of plucked instruments, and a vocal style strongly influenced by traditional music. Pluhar’s arrangements are driven more by the emotions and feel of each piece rather then the precise instrumentation directed by the score. On this album, Pluhar and her ensemble focus on Monteverdi and his secular compositions. It’s a showcase of the early use of ostinato and walking bass. And since these principles are also heavily used on jazz, this whole album does have a distinctive “classic meets jazz“ quality about it. It’s playful and lush. In the words of Charlote Gardener: “The technical perfection, and the easy informality with each other and the music, with which these pieces are performed, makes for a captivating listen. It's back to those ostinato and walking basses, though, for the disc's trump card. A walking bass is a bass line that moves step by step, and it is an ostinato bass if repeated over and over; they are often associated with jazz musicians, an example being the opening repeated downward bass line of Nina Simone's My Baby Just Cares For Me. Monteverdi, Christina Pluhar points out, actually invented such things as early as 1607. Here, on the tracks featuring a walking bass, the musicians have injected a swing (or, as Pluhar puts it, a 'scherzo musicale') that has turned these pieces into an extraordinary fusion of Baroque and Jazz. The first track on which it appears, Ohime ch'io cado, feels as though Miles Davis has swapped his trumpet for a Baroque cornett and time-travelled back with his band for a jamming session with Monteverdi.  Meld Philippe Jarroussky's sweet countertenor into the mix (who is also letting his hair down), and you've got something that is very special, and very surprising. A Must Listen.” (1)

From the five tracks I have selected, two are taken from Monteverdi’s operas:   L’Orfeo (Orpheus) and L’ incoronazione di Poppea (The Coronation of Poppaea). Ballo is a madrigal from Monteverdi’s Eighth Book of Madrigals, which was titled Madrigali guerrieri et amorosi (“Madrigals of Love and War”). It was was published in 1638, four years before the composer’s death. The Ballo was originally written for the 1608 wedding of Francesco Gonzaga, son and heir apparent of the Duke of Mantua, and Margaret of Savoy, but it remained unpublished until 1638. Zefiro Torna is a madrigal for 2 tenors and a basso continuo celebrating the return of spring. The lyrics are adapted from a poem written by Ottavio Rinuccini and describe the Greek god Zephyrus who brings spring to the mountains and valleys, filling them with sunlight, blossoming fields, and joy. Chiome d'oro, bel thesoro is a madrigal for 2 sopranos, 2 violins and lute/harpsichord from Monteverdi’s Seventh Book of Madrigals (published 1619).

Happy Sunday, relax and enjoy.

Album highlights: - L’Orfeo, Act 5: Sinfonie & Moresca (SV 318), Arr. Pluhar - Chiome d'oro, bel thesoro (SV 143) - L’ incoronazione di Poppea, Act 3: Pur Ti Miro (SV 308) - Ballo (Book of Madrigals 8, SV 154b) - Zefiro Torna (SV 251), Arr. Pluhar Playlist: https://spoti.fi/37EGELb

Links and references: - Claudio Monteverdi - Wikipedia - Transition from Renaissance to Baroque in instrumental music - Wikipedia - (1) C. Gardener (2009) Claudio Monteverdi: Teatro d'Amore. Review. BBC. - S. Childed (19 September 2019) Zefiro Torna: famous madrigal by Monteverdi lauds the west wind that brings spring. MusicTales.

[unibrowzz]

My 2020 reviews

All the cool kids were doing these so now I finally dragged my ass into doing them too lmao. 

Albania- Fall from the Sky

A song I swear cursed this whole contest from the moment it won Festivali i Këngës. Like with the shitshow this song caused I just knew the whole year was fucked. With half the fandom whining they didn’t get their first club song of the year to the other half smugly shoving it as their winner despite no other songs being around to compare it to, the whole fiasco just left me knowing that 2020 would end in tears, just hopefully not my own. As for the song, it’s lame. It’s a standard ballad with OBSCENE amounts of autotune, which is weird because the girl can actually sing pretty decently without it, so why they decided to make her sound like a damn computer is beyond me. And WHY did they translate it, haven't the past few years proven that Albania's better off leaving their songs in Albanian? 

Armenia- Chains on You

A bootleg Ariana Grande song, and a really shit one at that. The kind of song only people who think being young, gay and mean counts as having a personality would say is good.

Australia- Don’t Break Me

One of the few decent Australian entries (but that REALLY isn’t saying much coming from me, I barely care they’re in the contest by this point) but marred by a horribly untidy performance and lacklustre lyrics. At least it’s not fucking pop-opera, that’s all I can say. I’d rather listen to the sound of my face being dragged down the runway at Heathrow airport than be subjected to another Zero Gravity.

Austria- Alive

One of those pseudo-jazz dance songs, á la Olly Murs or Bruno Mars (I swear there’s a song like this in every recent contest). I mean, it’s good, but it’s just kinda meh since I’m kinda getting tired of this genre rearing its fedora-wearing head every time a new lineup rolls in.

Azerbaijan- Cleopatra

One of the “better” trashy entries this year, comprised of about five different musical genres, six ancient cultures being appropriated and absolutely zero class. Probably sounds at least 50% better when you’re absolutely steaming drunk and face down on the floor in the middle of a gay bar.

Belarus- Da Vidna

Somehow, this song sounds both very unique and original yet trite and average at the same time. I couldn’t decide whether listening to it was a new experience or if I’d heard it a million times before.

Belgium- Release Me

A song which just drones on till it ends. I would say it’s ripping off the song that won last year, but it forgot that having a chorus stops your song from being three minutes of snooze.

Bulgaria- Tears Getting Sober

A typical breathy mumble-girl song, AKA a genre I can’t fucking stand. Really don’t see the hype with this one, the melody is pretty but the vocals are out for lunch and it’s otherwise completely and utterly boring.

Croatia- Divlji Vjetre

One of the token big dramatic ballads you listen to once, enjoy, then forget about until Darius in the Discord server plays it one night whilst you’re hitting up the radio bot with requests. You’ll find that “nice, but forgettable” is a common theme for this year.

Cyprus- Running

Ironically Cyprus didn’t send a crappy Fuego knockoff for 2020, and I say ironically because a crappy Fuego knockoff would’ve actually stood out this year, and I say crappy because honestly Fuego wasn’t even all that great to begin with. "Running” itself is just one of those edgy tortured soul pop songs which, let’s be honest, would have been paired with an impressive performance which would’ve overshadowed how bland it is. Kind of like “You’re the Only One”. Or even Fuego for that matter.

Czech Republic- Kemama

Standard Afro-pop, a genre we don't often see at the contest so I'll let it pass. I feel like this is the kind of song that’s infinitely better live, and that it would’ve been one of those songs that suddenly became a frontrunner after the semi finals, but I guess we’ll never know eh?

Denmark- Yes 

The quintessential mid-10s Eurovision song. It's got guitars, happy people, Scandinavian origins… it’s just a typical radio guitar song, nothing special.

Estonia- What Love Is

I mean it's better than La Forza. Granted, the sound of someone pissing directly onto a microphone installed in the bowl of a toilet would sound better than La Forza but still. Going back to this song, it’s just... a standard Eastern-ballad with some very desperate lyrics. It feels kind of outdated, if I’m honest. Like something about this just reeks of 2011.

Finland- Looking Back

Yet another dreary, forgettable ballad. It comes to something when the best song they COULD have sent was a party song which sounded like it was from the mid 90s. At least that song was memorable. That said, this one at least has some decent lyrics. Bravo for that I guess.

France- Mon Alliée

France decides to say “fuck it” to being an underground fan-favourite and takes a leaf out of the UKs book by sending the same rent-a-Swede schlock they’ve been sending since 2015. I’m just confused as to why anyone in their right mind would choose to follow the UKs example but you do you France.

Germany- Violent Thing

A rehash of Sweden's entry from two years ago, but this time sung by Justin Bieber circa 2008. Kind of alright if you can stomach the singer's whiny voice, but otherwise pretty dull and kinda forgettable.

Greece- Superg!rl

Hello fellow kidz, we are hearing you like the girl power? The super heroes? The t3xt $p3ech? We made you song, please give us the votes *dabs*

Georgia- Take me as I Am

I mean… this sure is a choice. This feels like one of those songs that everyone memes on because the lyrics are kinda janky and the singer’s voice (and accent) take a bit of getting used to, but other than that it’s just one of those NQ songs for hipster fans to declare as their unironic winner at a later date. All in all this just feels like the male equivalent of one of those mid-10s fat acceptance women’s songs, only a lot shoutier and this time he has more flaws than not being skinny.

Iceland- Think About Things 

A bootleg George Ezra song, performed by a load of disinterested tumblr users in their pyjamas. Because if there’s one thing that sells me on a song, it’s being given the evils by a bunch of nerds who look like they’ll send me death threats for not agreeing with their Pokémon headcanons. To be fair, the song is kind of groovy since it sounds so 70s, but the performance is very off-putting to people who aren’t in the Eurovision loop. And also people who are, because I sure as Hell don’t see the appeal in this myself and this whole performance just feels like Save Your Kisses for Me without the charm. I feel like this would’ve come second or third, definitely with a lot of televotes but either the jury would’ve dragged it down or it wouldn’t have scored enough televotes to win.

Ireland- Story of my Life

A song that’s at LEAST ten years out of date by this point, think like an early Katy Perry, Jessie J or Avril Lavigne song. I’ll forgive it because even though it sounds like it should’ve been entered in 2013 (at the latest), it at least evokes some nostalgic memories of shitty school discos and holiday parks.

Israel- Feker Libi

The female equivalent of the Czech song. Unsurprisingly, people went wild for it when it was released. I guess only women are allowed to sing Afro-pop at this contest. Like with the Czech song, I’ll forgive it since Afro-pop is a cool genre anyway, and even though this is just another club song I can at least see myself dancing to it.

Italy- Fai Rumore

Well, at least my wish of “Italy sends a typical power ballad devoid of anything the mainstream fandom likes” finally came true. It was pretty refreshing to have a year where people weren’t shoving Italy’s entry up my nose left right and centre. In terms of my actual thoughts I can’t deny that the guy has a tremendous voice, but for some reason the song just doesn’t… click with me. I guess I like my male Italian singers a little more gruff and raspy, if you know what I mean. They gotta sound like they smoke at LEAST five packets of cigarettes a day for me to take notice.

Malta- All of my Love

Listen I am 100% rooting for Destiny Chukunyere to win this contest some day but man was this song a disappointment. It feels so… un-special and generic, like it gets the job done and that’s it. It’s not the stand-up-and-belt-it-out soul anthem I’d hoped for, it’s just… there.

Moldova- Prison

All I remember about this song is that it vaguely reminds me of that one Meccano song about the gypsy who makes a deal with the moon or something. And I’ve TRIED to remember more about what it sounds like, trust me.

Latvia- Still Breathing

The one horrible weird song you get every year which overuses strobe effects to the point it comes with an epilepsy warning. Would be bearable if it wasn't for the singer’s insistence that this is actually some feminist masterpiece when it's really just a self-empowerment club song about the singer fingerbanging herself over the fact she writes music.

Lithuania- On Fire

One of the songs everyone thought was going to win at one point, even though it seems like a surefire non-qualifier to me. It’s one of those weird entries, but not the kind of over the top, batshit insane, you’d-have-to-be-drunk-to-enjoy-it weird, the kind of subdued surreal weird. Like this is weed instead of LSD or cocaine weird. Granted my mom, who I consider to be a "typical" Eurofan, actually really liked this song when she saw it in the recaps, so who knows maybe this would have done well with televoters after all.

Netherlands- Grow

I appreciate this song for how artsy and clever it is with its structure, since it starts off acapella and the instrumental builds up with the song until it stops suddenly, symbolising a person’s growth from a child into an adult, and ending suddenly with their death (Geddit? The song’s called “Grow”). But it feels like the kind of song that would be lost on a Eurovision audience. The juries would have taken note, for sure, but the televote… let’s be honest, they’d have been too busy drunk voting for Russia to care about anything else.

North Macedonia- You

Well, it's better than the miserable dirge they sent last year, but given how I'd rather pleasure myself with a steak knife than listen to that song, that really isn't saying much. Going back to “You”, it really just feels like a diet version of Switzerland’s entry from last year, combined with Sweden’s song from 2018. What I’m saying is it’s your average “I’m a man in a club and I want to dance with and probably fuck this hot girl I just met” song, which I a new genre I just made up. You’re welcome.

Norway- Attention 

One of those songs you appreciate because it sounds nice and the singer has a good voice, but instantly forget because it’s really not all that interesting. If I sound like I'm repeating myself, welcome to Eurovision 2020.

Poland- Empires

“Rise Like a Phoenix” but sung by a wannabe Adele and not a mascara-wearing Jesus in a dress. Like a lot of other songs on this list, it’s just average across the board, likeable when it’s on, but instantly forgettable as soon as the next song comes on.

Portugal: Medo de Sentir

Pretty, but also similar to their ill-fated 2018 entry, only with a bit more energy and less pink hair. What I’m saying is this would have been another NQ unless the crowd who enjoy subtle ambience music come in to save it like they did with Slovenia's entry last year.

Romania- Alcohol You

See Bulgaria, because this is practically the same song. It’s just as dreary, just as badly sung (if not worse because holy shit this girl sounds like she’s being suffocated), and I suppose you COULD excuse that by saying she’s drunk or hungover… but I don’t want to listen to someone ungracefully mumble into a microphone for three minutes.

Russia- Uno

A classic big camp party song, the kind of song people who haven’t watched Eurovision since 2003 think wins on the regular. I can see why people would like it (especially in this boring year lmao, I applaud Russia for taking the opportunity to loosen their corset and just send a complete mess instead of their usual clinical vote grabs), but it’s just not something I enjoy. It's the song that plays into the misconception that Eurovision is just a clown show for drunk people, like this is just here to be that one flash-in-the-pan meme song that only entertains people who don’t really care about Eurovision until the day before it airs. Kind of like the old ladies they sent in 2012 (remember them?).

San Marino- Freaky!

San Marino, in true Sammarinese fashion, have yet again sent a decade-ambiguous song which sounds like it was either released in 1978 or 2003. I feel like this would have been one of those songs which could have surprised us if it had a really wacky, creative performance (think like Moldova in 2018), but this is San Marino so you know that would never happen.

Serbia- Hasta la Vista

Insert unoriginal joke about a decade wanting their shitty trend back right here. Okay maybe that’s a bit harsh, especially considering how this song is actually, yanno, unique in comparison to the rest of this year. But it still feels weirdly dated, in a way where I can’t decide whether it sounds like it belongs in 1998 or 2018. I suppose girl power ages a song regardless of when it was released.

Slovenia- Voda

Yet another standard Balkan-European power ballad which you appreciate because it’s well sung, but forget the moment it ends because it’s kinda boring. … Does anyone else have a bit of deja vu?

Spain- Universo

For some reason I feel like this song is shilling itself out to someone but I have no idea who. Aside from the horny people voting solely because the singer is moderately attractive even with that wretched Jedward haircut.

Sweden- Move

Imagine soul but… boring.

Switzerland- Répondez Moi

Imagine Arcade but… in French.

United Kingdom- My last Breath

Not the best the UK could have done, but it’s at least a modern offering unlike the residual dregs of the mid-90s that we sent throughout the 2010s. It’s definitely a bit too generic to have done any better than maybe 15th, but hey at least the cancellation means we won’t have to see it not do as well as the BBC thinks it’s entitled to do, prompting a billion clickbait articles about how Brexit somehow affected our performance.

Ukraine- Solovey

At long last we come to something you probably weren't expecting: a song I actually really like. Which is weird because I usually don't care for or don't like whatever Ukraine vomits into the contest, so I was pleasantly surprised to find a song I liked from them in such a weak year. This song isn’t for everyone, it’s white noise singing which is a very acquired taste, but this is honestly the only 2020 song I find myself coming back to over and over. And it’s in Ukrainian too, so you don’t have to put up with their usual mangled English offerings.

[blackkudos]

Marian Anderson

Marian Anderson (February 27, 1897 – April 8, 1993) was an American singer of classical music and spirituals. Music critic Alan Blyth said: "Her voice was a rich, vibrant contralto of intrinsic beauty." She performed in concert and recital in major music venues and with famous orchestras throughout the United States and Europe between 1925 and 1965. Although offered roles with many important European opera companies, Anderson declined, as she had no training in acting. She preferred to perform in concert and recital only. She did, however, perform opera arias within her concerts and recitals. She made many recordings that reflected her broad performance repertoire, which ranged from concert literature to lieder to opera to traditional American songs and spirituals. Between 1940 and 1965 the German-American pianist Franz Rupp was her permanent accompanist.

Anderson became an important figure in the struggle for black artists to overcome racial prejudice in the United States during the mid-twentieth century. In 1939, the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) refused permission for Anderson to sing to an integrated audience in Constitution Hall in Washington, DC. The incident placed Anderson into the spotlight of the international community on a level unusual for a classical musician. With the aid of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and her husband Franklin D. Roosevelt, Anderson performed a critically acclaimed open-air concert on Easter Sunday, April 9, 1939, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in the capital. She sang before an integrated crowd of more than 75,000 people and a radio audience in the millions.

Anderson continued to break barriers for black artists in the United States, becoming the first black person, American or otherwise, to perform at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City on January 7, 1955. Her performance as Ulrica in Giuseppe Verdi's Un ballo in maschera at the Met was the only time she sang an opera role on stage.

Anderson worked for several years as a delegate to the United Nations Human Rights Committee and as a "goodwill ambassadress" for the United States Department of State, giving concerts all over the world. She participated in the civil rights movement in the 1960s, singing at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963. The recipient of numerous awards and honors, Anderson was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1963, the Congressional Gold Medal in 1977, the Kennedy Center Honors in 1978, the National Medal of Arts in 1986, and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1991.

Early life and career

Marian Anderson was born on February 27, 1897, in Philadelphia, to John Berkley Anderson (c. 1872–1910) and the former Annie Delilah Rucker (1874–1964). Her father sold ice and coal at the Reading Terminal in downtown Philadelphia and eventually opened a small liquor business as well. Prior to her marriage, Anderson's mother had briefly attended the Virginia Seminary and College in Lynchburg and had worked as a schoolteacher in Virginia. As she did not obtain a degree, Annie Anderson was unable to teach in Philadelphia under a law that was applied only to black teachers and not white ones. She therefore earned an income caring for small children. Marian was the eldest of the three Anderson children. Her two sisters, Alice (1899–1965, later spelled Alyse) and Ethel (1902–1990), also became singers. Ethel married James DePreist and their late son, James Anderson DePreist was a noted conductor.

Anderson's parents were both devout Christians and the whole family was active in the Union Baptist Church in South Philadelphia. Marian's aunt Mary, her father's sister, was particularly active in the church's musical life and, noticing her niece's talent, convinced her to join the junior church choir at the age of six. In that role she got to perform solos and duets, often with her aunt Mary. Marian was also taken by her aunt to concerts at local churches, the YMCA, benefit concerts, and other community music events throughout the city. Anderson credited her aunt's influence as the reason she pursued her singing career. Beginning as young as six, her aunt arranged for Marian to sing for local functions where she was often paid 25 or 50 cents for singing a few songs. As she got into her early teens, Marian began to make as much as four or five dollars for singing; a considerable amount of money for the early 20th century. At the age of 10, Marian joined the People's Chorus under the direction of singer Emma Azalia Hackley, where she was often given solos. On March 21, 1919, during a March Festival of Music, she was a lead singer in a concert by the Robert Curtis Ogden Band and Choral Society at Egyptian Hall in Philadelphia's John Wanamaker department store.

When Anderson was 12, her father was accidentally struck on the head while at work at the Reading Terminal, just a few weeks before Christmas of 1909. He died of heart failure a month later at age 34. Marian and her family moved into the home of her father's parents, Grandpa Benjamin and Grandma Isabella Anderson. Her grandfather had been born a slave and had experienced emancipation in the 1860s. He was the first of the Anderson family to settle in South Philadelphia, and when Anderson moved into his home the two became very close. He died just a year after the family moved in.

Anderson attended Stanton Grammar School, graduating in the summer of 1912. Her family, however, could not afford to send her to high school, nor could they pay for any music lessons. Still, Anderson continued to perform wherever she could and learn from anyone who was willing to teach her. Throughout her teenage years, she remained active in her church's musical activities, now heavily involved in the adult choir. She joined the Baptists' Young People's Union and the Camp Fire Girls which provided her with some limited musical opportunities. Eventually the directors of the People's Chorus and the pastor of her church, Reverend Wesley Parks, along with other leaders of the black community, raised the money she needed to get singing lessons with Mary Saunders Patterson and to attend South Philadelphia High School, from which she graduated in 1921.

After high school, Anderson applied to an all-white music school, the Philadelphia Music Academy (now University of the Arts), but was turned away because she was black. The woman working the admissions counter replied, "We don't take colored" when she tried to apply. Undaunted, Anderson pursued studies privately in her native city through the continued support of the Philadelphia black community, first with Agnes Reifsnyder, then Giuseppe Boghetti. She met Boghetti through the principal of her high school. Anderson auditioned for him singing "Deep River" and he was immediately brought to tears. Boghetti scheduled a recital of English, Russian, Italian and German music at The Town Hall in New York City in April 1924 which took place in an almost empty hall and received poor reviews. In 1925 Anderson got her first big break when she won first prize in a singing competition sponsored by the New York Philharmonic. As the winner she got to perform in concert with the orchestra on August 26, 1925, a performance that scored immediate success with both audience and music critics. Anderson remained in New York to pursue further studies with Frank La Forge. During the time Arthur Judson, whom she had met through the New York Philharmonic, became her manager. Over the next several years, she made a number of concert appearances in the United States, but racial prejudice prevented her career from gaining much momentum. In 1928, she sang for the first time at Carnegie Hall. Eventually she decided to go to Europe where she spent a number of months studying with Sara Charles-Cahier before launching a highly successful European singing tour.

European fame

In 1933, Anderson made her European debut in a concert at Wigmore Hall in London, where she was received enthusiastically. She spent the early 1930s touring throughout Europe where she did not encounter the racial prejudices she had experienced in America. In the summer of 1930, she went to Scandinavia, where she met the Finnish pianist Kosti Vehanen who became her regular accompanist and her vocal coach for many years. She also met Jean Sibelius through Vehanen after he had heard her in a concert in Helsinki. Moved by her performance, Sibelius invited them to his home and asked his wife to bring champagne in place of the traditional coffee. Sibelius commented to Anderson of her performance that he felt that she had been able to penetrate the Nordic soul. The two struck up an immediate friendship, which further blossomed into a professional partnership, and for many years Sibelius altered and composed songs for Anderson to perform. He created a new arrangement of the song "Solitude" and dedicated it to Anderson in 1939. Originally The Jewish Girl's Song from his 1906 incidental music to Belshazzar's Feast, it later became the "Solitude" section of the orchestral suite derived from the incidental music.

In 1934, impresario Sol Hurok offered Anderson a better contract than she previously had with Arthur Judson. He became her manager for the rest of her performing career and through his persuasion she came back to perform in America. In 1935, Anderson made her second recital appearance at The Town Hall in New York City, which received highly favorable reviews by music critics. She spent the next four years touring throughout the United States and Europe. She was offered opera roles by several European houses but, due to her lack of acting experience, Anderson declined all of those offers. She did, however, record a number of opera arias in the studio, which became bestsellers.

Anderson, accompanied by Vehanen, continued to tour throughout Europe during the mid-1930s. She visited Eastern European capitals and Russia and returned again to Scandinavia, where "Marian fever" had spread to small towns and villages where she had thousands of fans. She quickly became a favorite of many conductors and composers of major European orchestras. During a 1935 tour in Salzburg, the conductor Arturo Toscanini told her she had a voice "heard once in a hundred years".

In the late 1930s, Anderson gave about 70 recitals a year in the United States. Although by then quite famous, her stature did not completely end the prejudice she confronted as a young black singer touring the United States. She was still denied rooms in certain American hotels and was not allowed to eat in certain American restaurants. Because of this discrimination, Albert Einstein, a champion of racial tolerance, hosted Anderson on many occasions, the first being in 1937 when she was denied a hotel before performing at Princeton University. She last stayed with him months before he died in 1955.

1939 Lincoln Memorial concert

In 1939, the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) refused permission for Anderson to sing to an integrated audience in their Constitution Hall. At the time, Washington, D.C., was a segregated city and black patrons were upset that they had to sit at the back of Constitution Hall. Constitution Hall also did not have the segregated public bathrooms required by DC law at the time for such events. The District of Columbia Board of Education also declined a request to use the auditorium of a white public high school.

Charles Edward Russell, a co-founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and chair of the DC citywide Inter-Racial Committee, convened a meeting on the following day that formed the Marian Anderson Citizens Committee (MACC) composed of several dozen organizations, church leaders and individual activists in the city, including the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the Washington Industrial Council-CIO, American Federation of Labor, and the National Negro Congress. MACC elected Charles Hamilton Houston as its chairman and on February 20, the group picketed the board of education, collected signatures on petitions, and planned a mass protest at the next board of education meeting.

As a result of the ensuing furor, thousands of DAR members, including First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, resigned from the organization. In her letter to the DAR, she wrote, "I am in complete disagreement with the attitude taken in refusing Constitution Hall to a great artist ... You had an opportunity to lead in an enlightened way and it seems to me that your organization has failed."

Author Zora Neale Hurston criticized Eleanor Roosevelt's public silence about the similar decision by the District of Columbia Board of Education, while the District was under the control of committees of a Democratic Congress, to first deny, and then place race-based restrictions on, a proposed concert by Anderson.

As the controversy swelled, the American press overwhelmingly backed Anderson’s right to sing. The Philadelphia Tribune wrote, “A group of tottering old ladies, who don't know the difference between patriotism and putridism, have compelled the gracious First Lady to apologize for their national rudeness.” Even some Southern newspapers supported Anderson. The Richmond Times-Dispatch wrote, ‘’In these days of racial intolerance so crudely expressed in the Third Reich, an action such as the D.A.R.’s ban. . . seems all the more deplorable.’’

At Eleanor Roosevelt's behest, President Roosevelt and Walter White, then-executive secretary of the NAACP, and Anderson's manager, impresario Sol Hurok, persuaded Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes to arrange an open-air concert on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. The concert was performed on Easter Sunday, April 9, and Anderson was accompanied, as usual, by Vehanen. They began the performance with a dignified and stirring rendition of "My Country, 'Tis of Thee". The event attracted a crowd of more than 75,000 of all colors and was a sensation with a national radio audience of millions.

Two months later, in conjunction with the 30th NAACP conference in Richmond, Virginia, Eleanor Roosevelt gave a speech on national radio (NBC and CBS) and presented Anderson with the 1939 Spingarn Medal for distinguished achievement.

A documentary film of the event has been selected for the National Film Registry, and NBC radio coverage of the event has been selected for the National Recording Registry.

Midlife and career

During World War II and the Korean War, Anderson entertained troops in hospitals and bases. In 1943, she sang at the Constitution Hall at the invitation of the DAR to an integrated audience as part of a benefit for the American Red Cross. She said of the event, "When I finally walked onto the stage of Constitution Hall, I felt no different than I had in other halls. There was no sense of triumph. I felt that it was a beautiful concert hall and I was very happy to sing there." By contrast, the District of Columbia Board of Education continued to bar her from using the high school auditorium in the District of Columbia.

On July 17, 1943, in Bethel, Connecticut, Anderson became the second wife of a man who had asked her to marry him when they were teenagers, architect Orpheus H. Fisher (1900–86), known as King. The wedding was a private ceremony performed by United Methodist pastor Rev. Jack Grenfell and was the subject of a short story titled "The 'Inside' Story" written by Rev. Grenfell's wife, Dr. Clarine Coffin Grenfell, in her book Women My Husband Married, including Marian Anderson.

According to Dr. Grenfell, the wedding was originally supposed to take place in the parsonage, but because of a bake sale on the lawn of the Bethel United Methodist Church, was moved at the last minute to the Elmwood Chapel, on the site of the Elmwood Cemetery in Bethel, in order to allow the event to remain private.

By this marriage she had a stepson, James Fisher, from her husband's previous marriage to Ida Gould. The couple had purchased a 100-acre (0.40 km2) farm in Danbury, Connecticut, three years earlier in 1940 after an exhaustive search throughout New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. Through the years Fisher built many outbuildings on the property, including an acoustic rehearsal studio he designed for his wife. The property remained Anderson's home for almost 50 years.

On January 7, 1955, Anderson became the first African-American to perform with the Metropolitan Opera in New York. On that occasion, she sang the part of Ulrica in Giuseppe Verdi's Un ballo in maschera (opposite Zinka Milanov, then Herva Nelli, as Amelia) at the invitation of director Rudolf Bing. Anderson said later about the evening, "The curtain rose on the second scene and I was there on stage, mixing the witch's brew. I trembled, and when the audience applauded and applauded before I could sing a note, I felt myself tightening into a knot." Although she never appeared with the company again after this production, Anderson was named a permanent member of the Metropolitan Opera company. The following year she published her autobiography, My Lord, What a Morning, which became a bestseller.

In 1957, she sang for President Dwight D. Eisenhower's inauguration, toured India and the Far East as a goodwill ambassador through the U.S. State Department and the American National Theater and Academy. She traveled 35,000 miles (56,000 km) in 12 weeks, giving 24 concerts. After that, President Eisenhower appointed her as a delegate to the United Nations Human Rights Committee. The same year, she was elected Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1958 she was officially designated delegate to the United Nations, a formalization of her role as "goodwill ambassadress" of the U.S. which she had played earlier.

On January 20, 1961 she sang for President John F. Kennedy's inauguration, and in 1962 she performed for President Kennedy and other dignitaries in the East Room of the White House, and also toured Australia. She was active in supporting the civil rights movement during the 1960s, giving benefit concerts for the Congress of Racial Equality, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the America-Israel Cultural Foundation. In 1963, she sang at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. That same year she was one of the original 31 recipients of the newly reinstituted Presidential Medal of Freedom, which is awarded for "especially meritorious contributions to the security or national interest of the United States, World Peace or cultural or other significant public or private endeavors". She also released her album, Snoopycat: The Adventures of Marian Anderson's Cat Snoopy, which included short stories and songs about her beloved black cat. In 1965, she christened the nuclear-powered ballistic-missile submarine, USS George Washington Carver. That same year Anderson concluded her farewell tour, after which she retired from public performance. The international tour began at Constitution Hall on Saturday October 24, 1964, and ended at Carnegie Hall on April 18, 1965.

As a citizen of Danbury, Connecticut

From 1940 she resided at a 50-acre farm, having sold half of the original 100 acres, that she named Marianna Farm. The farm was on Joe's Hill Road, in the Mill Plain section of Danbury in western Danbury, northwest of what in December 1961 became the interchange between Interstate 84, U.S. 6 and U.S. 202. She constructed a three-bedroom ranchhouse as a residence, and she used a separate one-room structure as her studio. In 1996, the farm was named one of 60 sites on the Connecticut Freedom Trail. The studio was moved to downtown Danbury as the Marian Anderson studio.

As a town resident she was set on waiting in line at shops and restaurants, declining offers to go ahead as a celebrity. She was known to visit the Danbury State Fair. She sang at the city hall on the occasion of the lighting of Christmas ornaments. She gave a concert at the Danbury High School. She served on the boards of the Danbury Music Center and supported the Charles Ives Center for the Arts the Danbury Chapter of the NAACP.

Later life

Although Anderson retired from singing in 1965, she continued to appear publicly. On several occasions she narrated Aaron Copland's Lincoln Portrait, including a performance with the Philadelphia Orchestra at Saratoga in 1976, conducted by the composer. Her achievements were recognized and honored with many prizes, including the NAACP's Spingarn Medal in 1939; University of Pennsylvania Glee Club Award of Merit in 1973; the United Nations Peace Prize, New York City's Handel Medallion, and the Congressional Gold Medal, all in 1977; Kennedy Center Honors in 1978; the George Peabody Medal in 1981; the National Medal of Arts in 1986; and a Grammy Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1991. In 1980, the United States Treasury Department coined a half-ounce gold commemorative medal with her likeness, and in 1984 she was the first recipient of the Eleanor Roosevelt Human Rights Award of the City of New York. She has been awarded honorary doctoral degrees from Howard University, Temple University and Smith College.

In 1986, Anderson's husband, Orpheus Fisher, died after 43 years of marriage. Anderson remained in residence at Marianna Farm until 1992, one year before her death. Although the property was sold to developers, various preservationists as well as the City of Danbury fought to protect Anderson's studio. Their efforts proved successful and the Danbury Museum and Historical Society received a grant from the State of Connecticut, relocated the structure, restored it, and opened it to the public in 2004. In addition to seeing the studio, visitors can see photographs and memorabilia from milestones in Anderson's career.

Anderson died of congestive heart failure on April 8, 1993, at age 96. She had suffered a stroke a month earlier. She died in Portland, Oregon, at the home of her nephew, conductor James DePreist, where she had relocated the year prior. She is interred at Eden Cemetery, in Collingdale, Pennsylvania.

Awards and honors

1939: NAACP Spingarn Medal

1963: Presidential Medal of Freedom

1973: University of Pennsylvania Glee Club Award of Merit

1973: National Women's Hall of Fame

1977: United Nations Peace Prize

1977: New York City – Handel Medallion

1977: Congressional Gold Medal

1978: Kennedy Center Honors

1980: United States Treasury Department gold commemorative medal

1984: Eleanor Roosevelt Human Rights Award of the City of New York

1986: National Medal of Arts

1991: Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award

Honorary doctorate from Howard University, Temple University, Smith College

Legacy

The life and art of Anderson has inspired several writers and artists. She was an example and an inspiration to both Leontyne Price and Jessye Norman. In 1999 a one-act musical play entitled My Lord, What a Morning: The Marian Anderson Story was produced by the Kennedy Center. The musical took its title from Anderson's memoir, published by Viking in 1956. In 2001, the 1939 documentary film, Marian Anderson: The Lincoln Memorial Concert was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante included Anderson in his book, 100 Greatest African Americans. On January 27, 2006, a commemorative U.S. postage stamp honored Anderson as part of the Black Heritage series. Anderson is also pictured on the US$5,000 Series I United States Savings Bond. On April 20, 2016, United States Secretary of the Treasury, Jacob Lew, announced that Anderson will appear along with Eleanor Roosevelt and suffragist on the back of the redesigned US $5 bill scheduled to be unveiled in the year 2020, the 100th anniversary of 19th Amendment of the Constitution which granted women in America the right to vote.

The Marian Anderson House, in Philadelphia, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2011.

Marian Anderson Award

The Marian Anderson Award was originally established in 1943 by Anderson after she was awarded the $10,000 Bok Prize that year by the city of Philadelphia. Anderson used the award money to establish a singing competition to help support young singers. Eventually the prize fund ran out of money and it was disbanded after 1976. In 1990, the award was re-established and has dispensed $25,000 annually.

In 1998, the prize was restructured with the Marian Anderson Award going to an established artist, not necessarily a singer, who exhibits leadership in a humanitarian area.

[sinceileftyoublog]

Alex Weston Interview: Scoring the Year’s Most Universal Film

BY JORDAN MAINZER

In Lulu Wang’s fantastic new film The Farewell (A24), a Chinese family chooses not to reveal to their matriarch that she’s dying but want to see her before she goes. So, they do what any good family would do: stage a fake wedding. Right? As absurd as it sounds, it’s Wang’s story, the center of which is presented through the perspective of Billi (Awkwafina), an NYC-based aspiring writer befuddled by what she perceives as her family’s dishonesty and betrayal. At the heart of the conflict are diverging modes of thought, the individualism of the West at odds with the collectivism of the East. According to Billi’s Japan-based uncle, the family, not the grandmother, Nai Nai, should bear the emotional burden of death. As such, the film is chock full of scenes of characters experiencing extreme emotion without trying to make it look like it, so as not to give away the secret they’re keeping from Nai Nai, but often failing and having to make excuses for tears.

This same strife is rife throughout composer Alex Weston’s essential score. Based around a motif of desolate classical string compositions and eerie, high-pitched, wordless vocals, Weston’s music drives along the film as the family tries as best as they can to achieve their secrecy, adding the tension that inevitably threatens to boil over due to longstanding familial disagreements and differences in values and country of residence. At the same time, it’s moments of musical familiarity and tradition that keep the family’s bond strong. Wang’s deft script presents these moments as key--Billi and her father singing “Killing Me Softly” at wedding karaoke, Italian aria “Caro Mio Ben” superimposed over the family getting wildly drunk with booze, splendor, and despair--while Weston’s arrangements supply them with the timbre and tone to allow them to maintain their importance to the film’s impassioned journey.

I spoke to Weston over the phone last month about his approach to scoring the film, working with Wang, and curating the soundtrack. Read the interview below, edited for length and clarity.

Since I Left You: How did you become involved with the project?

Alex Weston: It was kind of a traditional pathway for something like this. They were looking at a lot of composers, and the music supervisor was giving Lulu Wang, the director, a bunch of options. Someone suggested me, and I met with Lulu to talk about the project and wrote a couple of scenes sort of as a little tryout. She decided to go with me.

SILY: Was she aware of your work before the recommendation?

AW: No, she wasn’t. It was just that someone who was familiar with my work had her listen to some samples, and she was intrigued enough by the samples to want to see what I’d do.

SILY: Do you know what specifically you had done that led to the recommendation?

AW: No, I don’t know.

SILY: Had you seen the film without any music before scoring those couple scenes?

AW: I had seen the movie with the temp track on. All pre-existing music.

SILY: How did you approach the two scenes you tested the waters with? Was it your normal approach to scoring?

AW: Yeah, I don’t think I approached it differently--capture the energy and the emotion. Ultimately, Lulu had in mind for the movie a very particular kind of sound and tone. Even though I got the job off of scoring those two scenes, what we ended up having in those two scenes was not at all related to what I had written [for the tryout].

SILY: How would you characterize what she had in mind?

AW: As we were starting, we had a lot of conversations about tone. We were trying to find this particular balance of emotion. The story itself is very small. Every family has experienced this--not exactly with the whole lying and fake wedding thing, but every family has experienced loss or grief and has lost a grandparent. So the stakes are incredibly small. It’s a grandparent dying, which is what grandparents do. But for [the family in the film], the stakes are so high, the added tension of the fact that they’re maintaining this lie. So we wanted it to feel more dramatic and heavier to play against that. Two things we wanted to incorporate to accomplish that were using classical music--capital “c” classical music--and for it to be very vocal-heavy. A big, dramatic choir that would play against what’s happening on screen. So she was originally planning on just hiring an arranger to do vocal arrangements of Vivaldi and stuff, and that would be the score. Ultimately, we decided to make something that was unique for the film that we could build and expand on rather than try to shoehorn in something pre-existing.

SILY: On the soundtrack, there are three tracks credited to someone else. Can you tell me a little about each?

AW: The first one on there is a cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Come Healing”. Lulu had the idea to use that song in the movie from the get-go. But it did feel kind of ridiculous for this female-centric movie to suddenly have gravely Leonard Cohen. It didn’t fit; it was jarring. We wanted a cover that was more vocal-heavy and string-heavy to fit with the score, and a female vocalist. We ended up finding this cover by Elayna Boynton, who is a phenomenal gospel singer based out of L.A. She has a bunch of really great albums on her own. She’s written songs for movies before; she has a credits song in Django Unchained. Lulu actually found her by just watching covers of “Come Healing” on YouTube, and there was a video of Elayna doing it at church. In terms of the arrangement for that, I produced the recording with Elayna and did a version that matched the rest of our score.

The second song, “Caro Mio Ben”, is a pretty famous aria. There’s a scene in the wedding where family members are going up and singing songs, and there’s karaoke at the wedding. One woman sings “Caro Mio Ben” ,and it’s juxtaposed with a slow motion montage of other things happening at the wedding: the family playing drinking games, the groom getting wasted and breaking down into tears, stuff like that. It’s a very funny juxtaposition over the anarchy of what’s going on. We recorded it with a wonderful opera singer and her accompanist, but Lulu wanted something different with the accompaniment. She used to play piano, so she ended up going to the studio and recording the piano part herself. I think it’s kind of cool she ended up performing on the soundtrack itself.

The last one was added after my involvement. That plays during the credits. Similarly, because of the sense of community that the voices provide, and the karaoke, it starts with an Italian cover of Harry Nilsson[’s “Without You”] and breaks down into a full karaoke version of it, which I think Lulu and 10-15 other people recorded after a shot or two of tequila. One of the music supervisors took a big passenger van up to Woodstock, where the recording studio was, and they passed out shots and sang it.

SILY: How do you go about naming the tracks?

AW: The tracks were named afterwards, of course. When I was working on them, they were more functionally named: “M1″, “M2″, “M3″, that kind of think. Before the album, me and Lulu just had a phone call debating what would work, what would flow nicely.

SILY: Sometimes, it’s something thematic, sometimes, it’s “this piece of music takes place during this specific scene where this happens.”

AW: There was a fair amount of that. The first track, “The Lie”, is the first scene where they decide they’re going to lie to their grandma. “Family” is slow-motion the whole family walking together. Most of the time, it was fairly literal.

SILY: To what extent does this score function as a separate piece from the film?

AW: There are a couple cues on the soundtrack that are variations of what appear in the film, but it didn’t make sense to have two 45-second things on an album that were practically identical. So I kind of combined them and worked out a transition between the two to make a piece that someone could listen to. An example of that would be track 3, “Changchung”, where there are two distinct halves but similar material. We spent a lot of time working on the sequencing, making sure it felt like an album, not standalone tracks. I think there’s even one cue on there that ended up getting cut from the movie, but we liked the music, so we put it back on the album!

SILY: What other projects do you have coming up?

AW: I have a few films that are starting now. I’m working on another solo instrumental record. But at this point, I just hope people decide to go out and see The Farewell!

[opera-ghosts]

OTD in Music History: Beloved Italian opera composer Giacomo Puccini (1858 - 1924) dies in Brussels as a result of complications stemming from experimental radiation therapy that had been deployed in a failed attempt to treat his recently-diagnosed throat cancer; uncontrolled bleeding induced by the radiation caused a heart attack just one day later. (Puccini never even knew just how serious his cancer was, since that news was revealed only to his son.) Generally regarded as the greatest and most successful proponent of Italian opera after Giuseppe Verdi (1813 - 1901), Puccini was actually descended from a long line of composers dating all the way back to the late-Baroque era. (He was by far the most successful.) Although his early work was firmly rooted in traditional late-19th-century Romantic Italian opera, in his mature operas, Puccini branched out into the then-popular "verismo" style (which emphasized grittiness and a heightened if melodramatic sense of "reality”) and actually became one of the leading exponents of that movement. Puccini's wrote almost exclusively for the operatic stage, and his most renowned works are "La boheme" (1896), "Tosca" (1900), "Madama Butterfly" (1904), and "Turandot" (1924, left unfinished at his death) -- all of which rank among the most popular and most frequently performed operas in the entire repertoire. Indeed, Puccini was that rare great composer who truly succeeded in financially capitalizing on his own greatness; when he died, he left behind an estate worth a staggering $4,000,000 (~$70,000,000 adjusting for inflation). PICTURED: A first edition copy of the printed piano-vocal score for Puccini's immortal opera "Tosca," which he signed and inscribed to a fan in Milan in 1910.

[namixart]

To start off 2019 with some positivity, I'm going to make a list of things that I absolutely love and make me happy in my favourite shows, movies, books, games etc. Small things, big things, no particular rhyme or reason. It was surprisingly therapeutic. Feel free to reblog and add your own!

Link being left-handed now let him use sign language Nintendo please

The entire Sector 6 Market section in Final Fantasy VII and the Honeybee Inn in particular

Zuko's character arc

The Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack

Final Fantasy X's worldbuilding

Everything about Disney's Mary Poppins it put me in a good mood for three days straight

How Percy absolutely adores his mum and is supportive of her relationship with Paul (after a while)

Edward Elric

(Yes. Just Edward Elric as a character, person, concept, actions...)

Major character design kink: boys with long (ish) blonde hair (see Edward, Link, Zidane, Howl)

Final Fantasy IX's soundtrack

Aerith and Tifa being close friends despite both being in love with Cloud

The Gentleman Bastard Sequence's worldbuilding

The fact that one of the characters in Zootopia speaks with my city's accent in the Italian dub (you never see it in any movie)

Final Fantasy IV's world being just vague enough that it tickles my creative bone to expand on it

Kingdom Hearts I using original storylines for the Disney Worlds

How Yato's eyes are very a very clear indication that he's a supernatural being in Noragami, being unnaturally light and bright

That one panel in the Kingdom Hearts II manga where an almost-naked Pete carries Maleficent bridal style out of the collapsing tower

Sleeping Beauty's art style and instrumental soundtrack

The fact that two super popular shonen manga/anime have leads who are super smart instead of being dumb muscle or the stock happy-go-lucky-not-very-bright protagonist (Fullmetal Alchemist and My Hero Academia)

How some of the Olympians like Hermes and Poseidon are so casual when interacting with mortals

The scene where the Spaceport is revealed in Treasure Planet and the look of the film in general

The first few chapters of the Yu-Gi-Oh! manga before card games took over the plot

People in the Gentleman Bastard Sequence being emotionally honest despite being literal con artists

The theatre motif in The Republic of Thieves

Cloud, Aerith and Tifa threatening Don Corneo, but especially Aerith saying that "she'll rip it off" if he doesn't cooperate

Locke and Jean becoming pirates in Red Seas Under Red Skies

The Hunger Games movies being the most accurate film adaptations I have seen in my life

The Kingdom Hearts soundtrack, especially the vocal tracks, Dearly Beloved and The Other Promise

Final Fantasy VI shoving you in what usually is the backstory of a videogame and literally destroying the world

Edward defending Mustang when he had his sight taken from him despite them having spent 90% of their screentime together bickering

Tony Stark and Peter Parker's relationship in the MCU

Sophie throwing a tantrum after she realises she's in love with Howl and creating deadly weedkiller to express those feelings

Darcy being a goddamn social Disaster in every incarnation of Pride and Prejudice

The relationship between Roy Mustang and Riza Hawkeye

The Once Upon a December sequence from Anastasia

The mere existence of Zamira Drakasha and Ezri Delmastro and everything they represent

Sokka's role as both the strategist and the goofball in the Gaang

Peter Parker sharing a hot dog with Loki when he could have asked for anything because Loki owed him a favour

How the plot of Kingdom Hearts is so ridiculous we don't even question it anymore

Enormous muscly men I can still categorise as "super adorable and sweet" (Major Armstrong, All Might)

Howl being the biggest drama queen in the book

My Hero Academia's fantasy AU ending

Spider-Man (PS4) nailing the Friendly Neighbourhood Spidey aspect of the character and letting him interact with civilians

That moment when I was sure Bakugou was going to join the League of Villains but then he didn't and I've never been happier about being wrong my entire life

Zuko practising before asking the Gaang to join them

SNAP SNAP SPARK SPARK

Harry's wonder at every new thing in the Wizarding World

The fact that Spider-Man's backstory could just as easily be that of a villain but instead he's a hero and he has the biggest heart

Jake and Amy being in an Adult and Communicative relationship while still being themselves and each other's best friend

Winry being just as much of a prodigy as Ed and Al and building Ed's automail at 11 years old

Percy Jackson starting out as a standard straight white kids' series and Riordan adding ALL THE DIVERSITY as soon as it got popular enough that Disney couldn't say no

Charlie Weasley just outright trespassing into Hogwarts to smuggle an illegal dragon out

The soul and essence of Pride and Prejudice being passive-aggressiveness and sarcasm

Apollo's haikus in Trials of Apollo

Every scene using Deep Canvas in Tarzan

Winry and Edward's diametrically opposed reactions to the realisation they're in love ("Oh I guess I've fallen for him alright moving on" vs "Fuckfuckfuckfuck oh shit no why oh god aaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh")

Lilo & Stitch's watercolour backgrounds

The fact that Roy Mustang's womanising persona is a facade to hide the fact that he's a) a huge nerd, b) going to overthrow the government and c) in love with his lieutenant

The "makings of greatness" speech in Treasure Planet

Spider-Man (PS4)'s swelling score as you start web swinging

The Battle of 1000 Heartless in Kingdom Hearts II

Sophie proudly describing Howl to Abdullah, him assuming she was listing flaws and her getting angry about it

Edward and Alphonse being atheists despite having literally met their version of God

The fact that Amajiki is one of the top three hero students despite his crippling anxiety

Rubicante recognising Edge as a warrior and apologising for Lugae's horribleness

Edge unlocking new powers out of sheer rage

Sora throwing a tea party at the end of Dream Drop Distance while his best friend was still asleep

The backstory in Skyward Sword about Hylia and the first Link

The "immoral manga" omake in Fullmetal Alchemist

The School Festival arc in My Hero Academia, Eri finally smiling and Deku and Mirio being the best big brothers I've ever seen

Kingdom Hearts III finally coming out this month

McGonagall's cat form resembling her human form

Edward finally breaking down at the end of Fullmetal Alchemist god I love this boy so much he has such a big heart

The Enlarged Suit Scene from Howl's Moving Castle

Most of Howl’s Moving Castle is a delight to be honest

Kairi's reaction at the news that she would be training with Axel in A Fragmentary Passage

The bonfire scene in Cosmo Canyon from Final Fantasy VII

Uraraka deciding not to focus on her crush on Deku in order to grow as a hero

Rydia summoning Titan and raising a mountain at the ripe age of seven in Final Fantasy IV

The friendship between Percy, Annabeth and Grover

Kairi and Lea looking like they're going to be a team in Kingdom Hearts III

Greed (at least the second one) claiming that his goal in life is to have everything when in fact he only ever really wanted friends

The Main Theme of Final Fantasy playing during the scene where the characters not in the final battle pray for the party in Final Fantasy IV

The Overture from Phantom of the Opera

Locke Lamora from the Gentleman Bastard Sequence being named after Locke Cole from Final Fantasy VI

Luna Lovegood never having to change who she is and remaining weird and happy

Terra Branford becoming more human by feeling not romantic love but maternal love for a bunch of orphaned children

The "You're not alone" scene from Final Fantasy IX

Darcy respecting Elizabeth's refusal of his first proposal and working to become a better person after she points out his many flaws

Neku learning to open up to people in The World Ends With You and literally saving Shibuya through character development

Bakugou's slow development into a better person

The sketchy animation during Disney's Dark Age

The official character artwork for Skyward Sword

Harry and Sirius's relationship

Spider-Man being a street-level hero and being super humble even though he can literally lift Thor's hammer

That little high-five between Sora and Remy in the 30 seconds trailer for Kingdom Hearts III

Rosa and Rydia immediately ignoring the boys' order to not come to the Moon and stowing away on the Lunar Whale

Plus Edge's adorable "Y-you're here too!?" in the DS remake

Cloud not being allergic to smiling and joking around in the original Final Fantasy VII ("Let's mosey!")

Thor and Loki starting to mend their relationship in Ragnarok

Into The Spider Verse has a scene where Miles uses Spider-Man comic books to figure out how to use his powers and it's the best and I love it

You know what, Into The Spider Verse as a whole because I saw it a while back and I'm still gushing

[pierreism]

The Light in the Piazza at Royal Festival Hall, July 5th, 2019.

Privileged to have experienced my favourite show of the past two decades in its London debut this past week. Daniel Evans’ economic production, fitted for the concert stage, only utilises one set: a swooping slice of Florentine stucco encircling a raised platform set slightly off-kilter, much like the show’s sprightly protagonist Clara. Dove Cameron, also making her London theatre debut, shines in this challenging role, her bright tone gilding the show’s sweeping, semi-operatic passages.

The score remains a high watermark of contemporary musical theatre and often reaches for harmonic and rhythmic complexity, though the speakers couldn’t quite convey the fullness of Opera North’s ample 35-piece orchestra. No matter, since seasoned opera star Renée Fleming had enough vocal brass to fill the space lushly. Rob Houchen’s turn as the lovestruck Fabrizio threatened to steal the show however, his forceful tenor consistently rousing the crowd, even when a bulk of his solos are sung entirely in Italian, sans-subtitles.

The book hinges on two curious revelations that may be too antiquated and quaint for 21st century sensibilities. But as a sunbathed exploration of young love taking flight against the heavy atmospheres of parental doubt, it’s luminous theatre. It also just happens to have some of the most swooningly romantic music you’ll hear in a lifetime.

[mamusiq]

Opera Dictionary

ARIA: A solo piece written for a main character, which focuses on the character’s emotion.

BARITONE: The male singing voice that is higher than bass but lower than tenor.

BASS: The lowest male singing voice.

BEL CANTO: An Italian phrase literally meaning “beautiful singing.” A traditional Italian style of singing that emphasizes tone, phrasing, coloratura passages and technique. Also refers to opera written in this style.

BUFFO: From the Italian for “buffoon.” A singer of comic roles (basso-buffo) or a comic opera (opera-buffa).

CABALETTA (cah-bah-LEHT-tah): Second part of a two-part aria, always in a faster tempo than the first part.

CADENZA (kuh-DEN-zuh): A passage of singing, often at the end of an aria, which shows off the singer’s vocal ability.

CAVATINA (cah-vah-TEE-nah): The meaning of this term has changed over the years. It now usually refers to the opening, slow section of a two part aria. In Rossini’s time it referred to the entrance, or first aria sung by a certain character. Norma’s “Casta diva” is an example of a cavatina in both senses.

CHORUS: A group of singers, singing together, who sometimes portray servants, party guests or other unnamed characters; also the music written for them.

CHORUS MASTER: The one in charge of choosing chorus members and rehearsing them for performance. If there is a backstage chorus, it is usually conducted by the chorus master who is in communication with the conductor of the orchestra.

CLAQUE (klak): A group of people hired to sit in the audience and either applaud enthusiastically to ensure success or whistle and boo to create a disaster. In past years, leading singers were sometimes blackmailed to pay a claque to insure that claqueurs would not create a disturbance. Even now, a claque is sometimes used but rarely acknowledged.

COLORATURA: Elaborate ornamentation of vocal music written using many fast notes and trills.

COMMEDIA DELL’ARTE (cohm-MEH-dee-ah dehl-AHR-teh): A type of comic opera popular in Italy in the 16th to 18th centuries that involved improvisation using stock characters and gestures. The characters were often masked to represent certain archetypes.

COMPOSER: A person who writes music.

CONDUCTOR: The leader of the orchestra, sometimes called maestro.

CONTRALTO (kuhn-TRAL-toh): The lowest female singing voice.

COUNTERTENOR: The countertenor is a natural tenor (or sometimes baritone) with an elevated range. With training and practice this higher range, similar to that of a woman alto, becomes the natural voice.

COVER: The name given to an understudy in opera; someone who replaces a singer in case of illness or other misfortune.

CRESCENDO (kri-SHEN-doh): A gradual increase in volume. Orchestral crescendos were one of Rossini’s trademarks.

CUE: In opera, a signal to a singer or orchestra member to begin singing or playing.

CURTAIN CALL: At the end of a performance, all of the members of the cast and the conductor take bows. Sometimes this is done in front of the main curtain, hence the name curtain call. Often, however, the bows are taken on the full stage with the curtain open.

CUT: To omit some of the original material from the score.

DIVA: Literally “goddess,” it refers to an important female opera star. The masculine form is divo.

DRAMATIC (Voice type): The heaviest voice, capable of sustained declamation and a great deal of power, even over the largest operatic orchestra of about 80 instruments. This description applies to all voice ranges from soprano to bass.

DRESSER: A member of the backstage staff who helps the artists change their costumes. The principal singers usually have their own dresser. Supers and chorus members share dressers.

DRESS REHEARSAL: A final rehearsal that uses all of the costumes, lights, etc. While sometimes it is necessary to stop for corrections, an attempt is made to make it as much like a final performance as possible.

DUET: An extended musical passage performed by two singers. They may or may not sing simultaneously or on the same musical line.

ENCORE: Literally means “again.” It used to be the custom for a singer to repeat a popular aria if the audience called “encore” loudly enough. This is still done in the middle of an opera in countries such as Italy, but it is rare elsewhere. Soloists frequently give encores at the end of a concert but not an opera.

ENSEMBLE: Two or more people singing at the same time, or the music written for such a group.

FALSETTO: A method of singing above the natural range of the male voice. Often used in opera for comic effects such as a man imitating a woman.

FINALE: The last musical number of an opera or the last number of an act.

GRAND OPERA: Strictly speaking, opera without spoken dialogue. It is usually used to refer to opera which uses a large orchestra and chorus and grand themes.

IMPRESARIO: A person who sponsors entertainment. In opera, the general director of an opera company.

INTERLUDE: A short piece of instrumental music played between scenes or acts.

LEITMOTIV (LEIT-moh-tif) or MOTIF: A short, recurring musical phrase associated with a particular character or event.

LIBRETTO: The text or words of an opera.

MAESTRO (mah-EHS-troh): Literally “master;” used as a courtesy title for the conductor. The masculine ending is used for both men and women.

MARK: To sing very softly or not at full voice. A full-length opera is very hard on a singer’s voice so most mark during rehearsals. During dress rehearsals singers try to sing at full voice for at least some of the time.

MELODRAMA: In a technique which originated with the French; short passages of music alternating with spoken words.

MEZZO-SOPRANO: The middle female singing voice, lower than soprano, but higher than contralto.

OPERA BUFFA (BOOF-fah): An opera about ordinary people, usually, but not always comic, which first developed in the 18th century.

OPERA SERIA (SEH-ree-ah): A “serious” opera. The usual characters are gods, goddesses or ancient heroes. Rossini was one of the last to write true opera serie.

OPERETTA or MUSICAL COMEDY: A play, some of which is spoken but with many musical numbers.

OVERTURE: An orchestral introduction to an opera.

PARLANDO (pahr-LAHN-doh): A style of singing like ordinary speech. It can occur in the middle of an aria.

PRIMA DONNA: Literally “first lady;” the leading woman singer in an opera. Because of the way some have behaved in the past, it often refers to someone who acts in a superior and demanding fashion. The term for the leading man is primo uomo.

PRINCIPAL: A major singing role, or the singer who performs such a role.

RECITATIVE: Words sung in a conversational style, usually to advance the plot. Not to be confused with aria.

RÉPERTOIRE (REP-er-twahr): Stock pieces that a singer or company has ready to present. Often refers to a company’s current season.

RÉPÉTITEUR (reh-peh-ti-TEUR): A member of the music staff who plays the piano for rehearsals and, if necessary, the piano or harpsichord during performances. They frequently coach singers in their roles and assist with orchestra rehearsals.

SCENA (SCHAY-nah): Literally “a scene;” a dramatic episode which consists of a variety of numbers with a common theme. A typical scena might consist of a recitative, a cavatina and a cabaletta.

SCORE: The written music of an opera or other musical work.

SERENADE: A piece of music honoring someone or something.

SEXTET: A piece for six singers.

SINGSPIEL (ZING-shpeel): German opera with spoken dialogue and usually, but not necessarily, a comic or sentimental plot.

SITZPROBE (ZITS-proh-bah): Literally, “seated rehearsal,” it is the first rehearsal of the singers with the orchestra and no acting.

SOPRANO: The highest female singing voice.

SOUBRETTE: A pert, young female character with a light soprano voice.

SPINTO (Voice type): A lyric voice that has the power and incisiveness for dramatic climaxes.

SURTITLES: Translations of the words being sung, or the actual words if the libretto is in the native language, that are projected on a screen above the stage.

TENOR: The highest common adult male singing voice. (Countertenors are uncommon.)

TESSITURA: Literally “texture,” it defines the average pitch level of a role. Two roles may have the same range from the lowest to the highest note, but the one with a greater proportion of high notes has the higher tessitura.

TRAGÉDIE LYRIQUE: Early form of French opera that recognized a distinction between the main scenes and divertissements consisting of choruses, dances, etc.

TREMOLO: The quick, continuous reiteration of a pitch.

TRILL: Very quick alternation of pitch between two adjacent notes.

TRIO: An ensemble of three singers or the music that is written for three singers.

TROUSER ROLE: A role depicting a young man or boy but sung by a woman.

VERISMO: Describes the realistic style of opera that started in Italy at the end of the nineteenth century. Although the peak of the movement was past by the time of Puccini, his operas are a modified form of verismo.

VIBRATO: A natural wavering of frequency (pitch) while singing a note. It is usually inadvertent as opposed to a trill.

VOCAL COACH: A member of an opera company who coaches singers, helping them with the pronunciation, singing and interpretation of a role.

Opera Dictionary

https://theowordblog.com/opera-dictionary

[franciscarothcolumbus]

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