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So I finished Anderson's bio of Shostakovitch's 7th, and I do recommend it altogether as a good combination of style and content - it reads like a novel, and then you turn to the back and find a ream of citations, which is what I'm all about lmao - but it also reminded me of one of my favorite choral moments! 

See, back in my choir in high school, we did a good load of Britten, and my first concert with them had Rejoice in the Lamb. Smart originally wrote Jubilate largely while confined to asylum, hence his preoccupation with his cat, who was his only company. 

So up until last year, I was in an opera company. I could split my time with them and school, until transferring into this program to work on my master's. I'm very excited about my department! I like my new job! But oh, I miss the company so much. A day doesn't go by when I don't wish I was still singing a role. I wanted to work up to Cherubino, Prince Orlofsky, I was working on Che faro senza Euridice? for recital and I couldn't carry the role but the music - just the music-
You know the bit at the end of Captain Marvel when she looks down at earth and lets her powers arc over her? this one? that's being in voice. And I miss being in active vocal practice like a limb. A family friend is composing and I'm bringing my voice to that project, but full opera voice is like nothing else. 

But actually, lately I've been missing something else, just as much: I didn't enter the company as an actor and I don't identify as strongly as one, but to be on stage in recital versus in character can't be compared! Of course, there's the costuming and sets and props and other actors to work off of, which is an entire delight, but something even more special to me is also building and inhabiting a character. Whether you're named or ensemble and giving yourself a backstory, there's only way I've found to be the final trick of being comfortable in their skin: You have to love them.
For me, acting comes out of empathy, out of understanding their motivations for the choices they will make over the next few hours. In the ensemble with Luisa Miller, I was a messenger and attendant to the Count and his son, and ended up being the one to, specifically: attend Worm welcoming the Duchess, arm Rodolfo, bring Worm to Rodolfo for the attempted murder, and lead Rodolfo back down to the village so that he could kill Luisa. If a character begins and ends there, it's nothing but blocking. But to play someone who, too late, realises what he has enabled is so much more interesting! Before and after that few days, who would he be? That guilt doesn't make it into events that constitute the play, but I know it's there. I could be anyone onstage because I knew him down to the bone. And maybe I just read Ender's Game at too formative an age, but if Card got anything right ever, how can you understand everything about someone, their hopes and fears and flaws and pride, and not love them at the end of the day? 
I don't know. I'm not an Actor. There's a million ways to take a stage. But I can't be confident in a role if it's only a costume and set of stage directions. Acting comes out of understanding, for me, and a character coming together in you is an amazing feeling. It begins with an embrace. And I've been missing that more than usual, lately.

Aah, Luisa Miller was a good production! I don't care much for the staging of this version, but I studied the off of the 2007 Parma production, and miss it all!
It's a little odd visually, but such beautiful music!! 

so I already did my oversharing elsewhere, but lemme just say that this fucked me Right up, Will Jay Strikes Again with the good shit

For my birthday I wrote 2,700 words and had the tart from the bakery across from my preschool, the more they change the more things stay the same :) I'm so exhausted but hey it's been productive I suppose!

Also I did finally watch the second episode of Disguiser lol, I'm taking it suuper slow
Keeping it spoiler-light: So, so far, I keep being confused by the bgm on a couple counts -

• Take the part when Ming Tai is putting his uniform on for the first time, and it's got a few electronic/obviously synthesized lines, in a scene that's set in 1939. I can see how Ming Tai would want something modern and carefree as his motif, and it's fun for the ear, as itself, but pulled me right out of the period.
• OTOH, his practice with the telegram fading into the bgm as something with many more percussive elements was a great transition. I get that BGM isn't music to be listened to for its own merits, it's an element of a scene, and this was a much better way to build environment. The academy is all about regimentation, about discipline; the auditory environment should reflect this tension and precision. 
• There was also a really great number in the bg of the part in Ming Lou's office, when Ming Cheng is bringing Wasp's message. Jin Dong does a really rather good job there, and I knew there was another element they'd added to pull at the strings, and I checked and the nostalgia element for me was actually the exact same key and progressions as the Resembool Lullaby. Listen to that and imagine having to resign yourself to the fact that your little brother has been conscripted!
• But the scene transition between Ming Tai meeting whatsherface for the first time, with the entirely obvious 'they're gonna fall in love' music, turning into the supply-truck arriving, with the romance theme still running for a good three seconds into the new shot - that was weird! That was very confusing. I didn't care much at all for the introduction of the romantic-lead-to-be as in a locker room, and if their chemistry depends so heavily on the bgm telling us what to feel, I'm not impressed. But if they are going to use that tool, they need to keep it very precise to the appropriate scenes, and there was nothing romantic about the truck pulling up!
  • speaking of that truck - You know how everyone's favorite line from Mei Changsu is the one about a person's heart becoming harder and harder, I wonder if Ming Tai's line here about not needing to be rescued; he'll walk out on his own two feet, will prove to be similar. We'll see! But that scene, as he turned back, was very striking!

Anyway, Hu Ge's physicality is super funny, after how stiff Mei Changsu had to be. Ming Tai clatters down the stairs and gestures expansively while tied to a chair and grins with a model razor in his mouth. Mei Changsu played Xia Jiang like a fiddle, and Ming Tai pulls Lt Guo's feet under him without even thinking, but Ming Tai is artless in a way that's entirely foreign to seeing Mei Changsu's face again. 
It's only episode two, but if the production remembers not to fling itself into shots of female cadets changing, I'll keep chipping away at this story. The layers of politics are a mess (appropriately enough) and I'm taking excessive notes again, to try and offset the plot running rings around me. It's less convenient, but I do have that much concern about this family. They all have different ways of trying to express that they care about each other, and too many conflicting loyalties keeping anyone from being able to actually look after one another :(( I hope that they can come out intact but I know better than to actually ask for it, here. 

questionoftheday asked: What song lyric resonates with you the most? Why do you respond so strongly to it?

My belated answer: Today, I'm really feeling Now And For Always from the LOTR musical
If wikipedia guides me right, Sam and Frodo are on the outskirts of Mordor, and it's weighing on both of them. But no, no matter the ring, or their guide, or their destination, they still have a moment to remember they have each other. First, together, they remember the Shire, their neighbors, and the good green world they're doing this for, far away. Then Sam steps up, reminding Frodo of who he is, not as much who their narrative needs him to be, but as the friend Sam knows and trusts and admires. Frodo might not believe it about himself, but he knows Sam means it, and he turns the tale to Sam, in turn. Sam, who he wouldn't have a chance without. And Sam might not be so ready to take himself seriously, either - isn't Frodo the hero, here? No, if Frodo is going to be painted as the hero, he won't let the tale be told without Sam. And so their harmony reinforces the sincerity and resilience of the scene. 

I need to go back and read at least that section again - the lines in the book are from somewhere around Cirith Ungol, right? Which also has one of my favorite passages from Tolkien, hands down: 

Thank you, Snowflake mods, for not making this a timed challenge! My jan has been pretty busy up until recently, so I'll just keep filling them in. Also, I've spent most of this time trying to pick exactly what songs to talk about for a favorite bit of original canon. Or a few bits, I can't restrict myself!
Filk, at large, is one of the most fun genres out there. I see a good handful of suggestions for what should define filk - subject matter of fantasy or sci fi? folk roots? fandom elements? But it all seems to me to come together under the umbrella of celebration.
Also, it feels to me like we're starting out this year on something of a dire note. this government situation tho, not a fan. I feel like that headline from Hawkeye - Everything Awful (Oh God Someone Do Something). When I wanted to live in interesting times as a kid, I should've thought twice. Ah well.

Anyway, something's got me on a space race kick! The Final Frontier and all; music for fun about the great unknown:

First, another about our own spaceflight:
Surprise! Written by Leslie Fish, sung by Gunnar Madsen