Nothing too important...

Holy crap it was HOT today... This needs to stop.
I WANT AUTUMN WEATHER!!!!!

I have been teaching at an upscale kindergarten/day care school here in Tokyo since this past August.

I mainly teach 5 yrs. olds singing and also discipline/manners/etc...

Along with that, I get the little ones, they are as young as 6-8 months olds and up to 3 yrs. olds, to do English immersion.

No big news here other than these kids are SO damn CUTE!!!!

that is all...

That was today.

Well, Monday was a study session that happens every once in a while.

We have a Japanese Arts dealer who LOVES opera and classic music in general.

He rents a large studio for bunch of singers and make us sing in front of him and everyone else.

We all make comments/advice(mainly he and yours truly make comments/advice) to singers involved.

It is quite fun though because we all make improvements by performing in front of others.

These opportunities to sing in front of someone in a large space is hard to come by here in Japan.

We got some great singers in the group too!

So that is fun.

Of course, not always fun and games but nonetheless...

Thanks to this study session(or as everyone calls it "Master Class"...), I got to try out my new aria that I will be using for an audition.  The same one I mentioned few days ago.

It went alright for a first time with a pianist since last working on this piece almost 2 years ago.

Of course, there will be a lot of fixing to do in this piece to get it up to performance level.

We got one more class on Thursday so I'm gonna try again then.

Until then, I have couple other things so study... Like "La Boheme", "Kojiki"...

OH YEAH, I'll be doing a Christmas Dinner Show in Karuizawa in December!

I'll post more about it here.

秋らしく無い暑い日でした・・・

ほんまにやめて欲しいわ！

今日は夏から教え始めたちょっと(＝かなり)高級な幼稚園で歌を教えて来ました。

いや〜、小ちゃい子達は可愛いね〜〜〜。（笑）

月曜は数ヶ月前から参加し始めた勉強会が有りました。

今回はオーディションに使おうと思っているアリアを歌いました。

まー、1回目にしては上手くいった方かな？

でもまだまだ整えていかないとダメですね。

約２年ぶりに伴奏と一緒に歌ったせいか最初は緊張半分・興奮半分で力みなぎり過ぎちゃいました。（汗）

また木曜も有るんで、その時もう一度挑戦しようかな？

でもその前に他にも色々と勉強しないといけない物が有る・・・

「ラ・ボエーム」とか「ドラマチック・コジキ」とか・・・

あ！後１２月にやるクリスマスコンサートの選曲とか！

そうです、12月14日に軽井沢でクリスマスディナーショーをやります！

また詳しい事が分かったらここで書きますね。

Table Reading

Today was a table reading of the work I am doing in November called "Dramtic Kojiki".

It is a Japanese Mythology about how Japan was created by Gods and their story afterwards.

You may think that since I am an opera singer, this would be an opera. Well, guess what, it's NOT!

LOL

It is a stage work, with music, dance, narration, visual arts.
This may sound like a musical or an opera.
There are three characters in the show and two of them are dancers(one ballet and one Chinese tradition dance).
Of course, they dance their parts so no talking.
I sing(duh) my part.
And we have a narrator, who will... Well, you can probably guess what a narrator does.

It will be like a tableau of scenes depicting the dynamics of husband and wife Gods "Izanami" and "Izanaki", and also sister and brother Gods "Amaterasu" and "Susano-o"

I will be playing the part of Susano-o.
He is the God of Sea but being a bit of a childish and wild God(more on the childish side), he has been complaining and crying from the beginning because he wants to see his mommy...
So his father(God "Izanaki") got tired of his crying and ranting(which created all sorts of mess=natural disasters on the world his parents created) that he expelled him from his duty as the God of Sea.
Being set free he decides to go see his mother but before doing that, he thought to say hello to his older sister Amaterasu...

The tough part about this show is that no music is written!
Like I mentioned earlier, I will be singing all of my part(and some dancing).
I come to find out later was that most of the part, except for the very end where I will have an aria(solo), I will be doing a recitativo(a dialogue put to pitch to be sung but not a definite melody, it is used for conversation like situation outside of arias and other ensemble pieces) throughout the show.
Well, this is ok but what I am having the hardest time is that I am doing this pretty much ad lib!
Being an opera singer, I am not good at coming up with stuff on a spot...
I am not clever like that, so hopefully this coming two months until the performance, with the music director we can come up with something that is more solid.
Because let me tell you, what I came up with was pretty lame...

Wow, this post has gotten longer than I first intended.

For those who like to read up on Kojiki more, click on the link below.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kojiki


Well, this is all for tonight.

Good night y'all!

Next aria on the docket. 次のオーディションで使うアリア。

I'm applying for an audition in November and one of the companies will be doing Attila! So, I thought to work this back up to a performance level. This is such an exciting aria and yeah, it's tough... But what's new?
Here is the great Nicolai Ghiaurov's dramatic portrayal of the aria.

来月に有るオーディションでAttilaをやる劇団が有るのでこのアリアを歌おうと久々に準備しました。レッスンでは勿論、コーチとも練習をしましたが1年は経っているので久しぶりに歌いました。オーディション目指していい具合にチューンナップして行こうと思ってます。
今回はレジェンダリーなバス歌手ニコライ・ギアロフ様の素晴らしい歌声でお届けしたいと思います❢

Enjoy!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WKIcElfgMU&feature=youtube_gdata_player