Home!

I'm finally home, and now just trying to readjust to the time change. Load pictures, and see friends and family again. Love you all! See you all soon!

show time

Tonight's the night! This week has been very long.... and so have the walks.... literaly! When we got off the bus at Cortona to go to the theatre for our first dress rehearsal, we thought yay, till we saw it, the hill of doom! it is practically a 90 degree incline for about a quarter to half a mile. ugh! but the theatre is very well known it has been used in at least 2 different movies, Under the Tuscan Sun and La Vita i Bella, which was also filmed in Arezzo. Also the view from the bus stop is AMAZING!!!! cause its on a mountain! Any way, we open tonight, first part of my test tomorrow, then second show in Cortona, then morning off, then show in San Sopocro, then sunday morning off, then second show in San. S . then last half of test, than finish packing, then leave next day.... so If I don't get on here till for a while or till I'm in the states its cause I will be dead tired.... or studying...... or sleeping..... I like that one alot... :)....
Funny thing happened today, in my lesson last week, Ms. Manz said I had a light voice, for someone my age. WOW not what I'm used to hearing! and then today she said that I had a very sizeable voice, larger than what she first thought I had.... lol.... she said she can tell know that I am fully healthy what a diffence it plays in my voice..... what i'm not telling her is that I'm still a little groggy and that I'm still not 100% back to normal voice. :) I had another good lesson, and like I figured she said what Dr. Foradori had been saying, posture, watch your shoulders, keep your sternum up, breath low, and out, ( if you sing you understand it better), and keep vibrato in through out the piece not just some notes.....
Love you all and miss you more than you know... see you very, very soon!

Market Day

Today rather than going anywhere outside of Arezzo, I decided to go with several girls from Santa Catarina and go to the market. I have now bought presents for everyone one I needed to. YAY me! hopefully everyone likes what they are getting. I bought a new purse for myself, yes mom ANOTHER purse, but this is the first thing I have bought for myself on this trip, other than food, and it was only 13 euro, and I haven't bought any shoes! I'm doing good! Also through out the 2 hrs we spent at the market I think we walked about 3 miles, and I'm feeling it now. I also found a really nice pair of earrings that I can wear for concerts or for dressy events.
The Galla tonight was canceled so a lot of people went to Rome tonight. So that they could spend more time visiting the differnt places. I apperntly can't read schedules at all, cause we have shows on thursday, friday, saturday, and sunday and not on monday like I thought. oh well that means that i have more time to pack on monday, cause I think that the bus to Florence leaves pretty early on tuesday the 7th.
Gianni Schicci was wonderful last night! The Italians loved it! The mayor came and told them all good luck, and that he was proud to host such wonderful singers and students in his city.
Love you all, and miss you more than you know!

new day

Italian classes are getting harder. To be expected of course, but any way, we have been learning the present tense up till now, and slowly but surely the class numbers have continued to drop. Today we started the past tense, also so today was the first day of my "special" homework. When I say special I mean, " I'm having so much trouble that our teacher who will only speak to us in Italian, pulled me aside and spoke English, which I did not no she could do, and told me she was going to send home extra work for me so I could try to bring up my grade" kind of special home work.... not so much fun.... but I'll try.
Tomorrow night the other group has their performance of Gianni Schicci, and then Saturday night is the Gala, then the beginning of next week is tech for Rondine, and then we perform Friday thru Monday and leave on Tuesday, and my final is in 2 parts the oral part is on Friday and the other half is on Monday..... it will be a very busy week. But busy is good cause other wise I sit around being bored. tomorrow I have a quiz that I HAVE been studying for, but alas no amount of studying is helping me in Italian. :( We start dress rehearsal next week. and for the chorus it will be long rehearsal because the show has double cast the leads, meaning that we will be doing it 2 times every day, and once we start dress which will be done at the space, at the correct time we get back really late, and have early class the next day.... hopefully Marilena won't mind that most of the class is very stanca in the mornings....
Everyone is talking about going to Rome on Sunday and though I would love to go, its the day after the Gala, and we will all be out late, and I like sleep a little too much, :) And Rome costs alot, and is a long train ride, so not sure about that..... sleep sounds good since the days keep getting longer, with the home work and rehearsals getting longer.
Love you all, and miss you more than you know!
Ps I get to use a cell phone soon, my purple best friend has missed me I think! lol
though I think dad hasn't minded the decrease in the phone bill!

nothing out of the ordinary

So you would think that in Italy I would naturally be more graceful right..... Wrong! I have rolled my ankle several times, most while walking, in tennis shoes, once or twice while standing (what can I say I'm special) and last night I quite possibly did the most stupid thing ever. While cleaning up my room. I stood up too quickly, first mistake. I managed to also be under the open window when I stood up, mistake number 2. Normally not so bad right, except that we're talking about me, and so I managed to catch the corner of the open window on the back of my skull. So consequently to make sure I didn't have a concussion i stayed up another hour reading after taking 4 ibprophen for the sudden splitting headache. I had slept in on Sunday after deciding not to go with the group that was going to Pisa ( ha spelled it right this time) and then practiced some of my music. Went to eat with one of the girls who didn't go anywhere either, and then well hit my head.
Today, I didn't go to Italian, because for some reason I felt totally exhausted, so I stayed in bed till the cleaning ladies came, then got ready. wen to rehearsal, and then waited around for my coaching. I had it with Enza Ferrari again and I was scared it was going to be as rough as last time, but today was different. I introduced my piece, V'adoro Pupille, and was corrected on the pronunciation, then we started. she only stopped me twice for corrections on pronounciation this time, yay! She changed a couple ornamentations in the repeat but they won't be hard to relearn. then she asked me what I wanted to look at next, I told her what I had that I already knew well, what I had that I didn't know at all, and what I had that I had only just briefly looked at, she chose, Geme la Tortorella. I was worried she would be upset that I didn't know it well, because after all this was a coaching, we were supposed to work on the feel of the music, and the diction, not the notes, but she helped me pick out the notes, on the ENITRE piece! I was so thankful! And she also noticed that several of the words were wrong, in several places a suo should have been a sua and the word "campagna" meaning country should have been "compagna" meaning campanion.
I left the coaching today very thankful that I got to work with Enza, and that she was kind enough to pound out notes for me, rather than just do "O mio babbino" like every soprano here..... that's what happens with popular aria's though everyone knows them and brings them out as a last resort.
Love you all and Miss you more than you know.... 15 days till I start to come home.... but who is counting> :)

Saturday!

So last night was fun. I went out with the girlies and had dinner then we went to this bar called Martini. I had one drink, a Bellini, yumm, but it was a little strong for my liking. During the day I had a lesson with Ms Manz, who is my voice teacher while I am here. We worked on V'adoro Pupille for a while, then she said she wanted to find something more challenging and "sexier" for me I showed her that I had Geme la Tortorella, and she said it was perfect. My homework is now to work on agillity excerises. Earlier this week during my coaching with Enza I had a tougher time, because my italian, which i thought was fine (in Si, ma d'un altro amore) sucked! Though she dpes think that I should only be singing italian, as she said "no german, it not for you". She suggested I start looking at Porgi amore, Deh vieni, and the aria from Il monteci Il capuleti (yeah I can't spell that), and another one, but it didn't register in my head at first what she was telling me so I missed the first aria she told me. Tomorrow I might be going with one of the girls on the early train to Rome, or I might be sleeping in, who knows yet, thats to be decided later today, as right now it is only about a quarter till 1pm right now.
Love you all and miss you more than you know!

Ugh its getting stressful

So today and yesterday have been a little stressful. Wednesday was just a long boring day, and then that night one of the girls in our group had a rough night, boy issues, and then got sicks. The next day she ended up passing out right before we went to class. she was fine after a little bit. The ladies who run the place were on it pretty quickly and it was hard at first to translate wheat happened since the girl who all this happened to was the one that speaks the best italian. She was just dehydrated, and everything had kind compiled itself in the 2 days for her. so my self and 3 other girls spent the morning with her, then one of her roommates stayed while the other girl and I wen to rehearsal. Tomorrow is the midterm for us so all of us are either studying or taking a break from it, which is what I am doin, yes I have been studying, and actually doin homework.
Love you all and miss you more than you know!