I had this conversation recently:
Woman: "Men don't notice details. All they see is boobs and butt, and if they like what they see then that's all they need. The details are lost on men."
Me: "Well, at least we don't generalize, the way all women do."
Woman: [pause as she seems to ponder what I have said, then...] "Ugh, that is such a man thing to say."
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Things are still good in Germany, for all who have been asking after me. If I haven't responded to an email or facebook message that you've sent, please don't take it personally. It probably means I wanted to take the time to write you a "real" response and never got the time and eventually it slipped out of my head.
I'm very much looking forward to heading back to Waco next month, but in the meantime I am having the time of my life here in Weimar. The only things anyone expects me to do here are a) learn my music and b) perform it well. The fact that I'm enjoying so much is very affirming in my decision to make this my career for the rest of my life.
It's ridiculous how much the human mind is capable of memorizing in a very short amount of time, by the way. I remember it used to take me close to two months to really feel like I knew an aria. I remember one aria in particular that Prof Sadlier (my voice teacher) assigned to me that I STILL haven't learned a full year later (Billy Budd's aria, if you're curious). Then, this week, I decided I wanted to learn some new arias, and two days later I had three of them in my voice and I'm anticipating that by Tuesday of next week I'll have them comfortably memorized. In the meantime, I'm still memorizing the role that I'll be performing next month. That's close to two hours of music learned in only a few weeks. And I'm not even close to being a "quick study" compared to some of the people here. My buddy from Mexico, Jesus, has now learned five ROLES this summer, and I don't think he's even broken a sweat to do so (again, for the curious: Don Giovanni, Bartolo and Figaro from Nozze, and Don Alfonso and Guglielmo from Cosi. It's honestly some of the most impressive work I've ever seen, but I think it's really just par for the course for this job. I love watching these people work; it's inspiring.
Okay, time to go. I've got studying to do!
2 comments:
In Germany is a man who sings
Much joy to the patrons he brings
He's well rehearsed
And feasts on wurst
But DAMMIT, COME HOME; we have WINGS!
The opening dialogue made me lol, literally (lol,l?).
Reading about the heavy memorization load makes me think of Shakespeare: playwrights highly valued a good leading man, as he could effectively memorize thousands of lines in a few days. (My memory might be fudging the details. But they were impressive.) Anyway, good luck!
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