I have recently joined Skype. Feels as if I am a bit behind the technology today. I am totally hooked on this. I can't believe I didn't jump on this sooner. The fact that I can talk to someone for free, or at a very low rate, anywhere in the world! In fact, I just had a conversation with my old choir director's wife who is also on Skype. We got to catch up on few things before she had to go on an errand. It was so convenient to make a call as well. Although I have been trying to get a hold of my parents this way, they have not answered... It is definitely cheaper to call this way than using my phone card through my cell.
I say, once this catches on, maybe we won't need a land line. Almost everyone that I know has high speed internet nowadays. Hell, even my girlfriend's parents have one, and they live in a more rural area. It's free to join with an option of paying $30 yearly fee to have a phone number attach to your account to have unlimited calling out and receiving calls in US and Canada. The international rate is quite low as well. Before I start to sound like a commercial, everyone should check this thing out. All you need is a microphone and your computer speaker to talk to someone, anywhere in the world!
I give two thumbs up for Skype!
Friday, June 1, 2007
Summer is beginning!
So I have finished my run of Don Giovanni and it has gone well. Well, it went well in a musical way... As I mentioned in a post earlier that we have been having a problem in the set department. Well, we still had the said problem on our opening night. But the show must go on. We did the show without the complete set. Actually I felt better doing the show that way. We had to not deal with the extravagant scene changes that we were suppose to have if we did have the set completed. Even the set not being finished the show went quite well. We had a first rate cast. Even the review that came out after the opening night mentioned that the show was carried on by the music. Yeah, the set was not completed but who cares, we sang the show like we meant it. By the second and the last show we have finished the set, which became more problem than we expected. Having all the stuff we were suppose to have created such complication that the show got delayed every scene changes we faced. Anyhow, at the end we finished the run of Don Giovanni on a high note.
Since I have finished my first production of 2007, I now face the bitter fact of unemployment... Sadly, the few auditions I sang for this past fall came up quite unfruitful. So now, I go through the bitter life of jobless singer. Which brought this thought to my mind. How about getting a job!? Well, I have been having this thought for quite a while and finally decided that I will go seek a teaching job in this area. Now, of course the teaching thing have been on my mind for a while. But I was reluctant to go through with it. I just don't feel confident enough to teach someone else how to sing when I am still learning. Now, I know people will say that one can learn so much from teaching others. I have a feeling that I can teach someone what I know already(little bit that I have learned so far). Yet, I still feel the fear of teaching. I think everyone goes through this. I was talking to a good friend of mine who teaches and does the singing thing for a living. He told me his first experience of teaching. He was so clueless, he didn't know what to do in the middle of his lesson! Of course, this does not make me feel better to face teaching voice. It has so much more commitment. Someone is actually going to rely on my knowledge to learn something. That's given that I will find somewhere to teach. I will figure this out throughout this summer. But the time is always against me, and I must prepare for another season of audition in the fall, not to mention perspective job offers that might come my way. Needless to say, things will be interesting...
Other than that, I am getting ready for couple auditions in the next few weeks. First, I have couple auditions here in Chicago for the local companies. Hopefully I can get some gigs through them. Second, I am flying out to New York City for Hawaii Opera audition. Now how awesome would it be to get out to Hawaii to work! I am quite excited to have an opportunity to sing for them. So cross your fingers for those auditions for me!
I recently sang for a competition. It was my first one for a major international competition. It was just a preliminary but they are expecting about 1000 singers to hear during the preliminary round. The main part of the competition takes place in Germany late October. So far I am on a wait list but as you can tell there will be quite a few singers I will have to beat out to get into the 40 chosen for the main rounds of the competition.
Life wise, outside of singing, my life is quite dull. I look at music to see what other repertoire I should look at. Deal with some e-mail stuff, keeping in touch with my friends. Of course spending time with my girlfriend is in that as well. Looking closely to my life, most of my time really rely on what I am doing with my singing. Let me tell you, it gets quite boring to know that I have one thing to look forward to, and that is when I am working. I realized that as I was in a production. It is refreshing to hear that other colleagues of mine have day jobs and keeps "normal" life. From other's point of view, I am one of the few special people who does not have to deal with a "day" job. Again, going back to the whole teaching thing. If I can get a "day" job, I would love to do it. But due to my visa status, I must seek a job in my field: Singing.
Hopefully over the summer I can find myself a "day" job where I will get some financial support. It is great to have a huge support from my parents but now being 29, I should be able to support myself somehow. I know full well that I will not be able to make a living teaching or by singing, yet. But it will definitely help, and also show my parents that I am making the best out of the situation I am in. Let's see how things will be in the very near future.
Since I have finished my first production of 2007, I now face the bitter fact of unemployment... Sadly, the few auditions I sang for this past fall came up quite unfruitful. So now, I go through the bitter life of jobless singer. Which brought this thought to my mind. How about getting a job!? Well, I have been having this thought for quite a while and finally decided that I will go seek a teaching job in this area. Now, of course the teaching thing have been on my mind for a while. But I was reluctant to go through with it. I just don't feel confident enough to teach someone else how to sing when I am still learning. Now, I know people will say that one can learn so much from teaching others. I have a feeling that I can teach someone what I know already(little bit that I have learned so far). Yet, I still feel the fear of teaching. I think everyone goes through this. I was talking to a good friend of mine who teaches and does the singing thing for a living. He told me his first experience of teaching. He was so clueless, he didn't know what to do in the middle of his lesson! Of course, this does not make me feel better to face teaching voice. It has so much more commitment. Someone is actually going to rely on my knowledge to learn something. That's given that I will find somewhere to teach. I will figure this out throughout this summer. But the time is always against me, and I must prepare for another season of audition in the fall, not to mention perspective job offers that might come my way. Needless to say, things will be interesting...
Other than that, I am getting ready for couple auditions in the next few weeks. First, I have couple auditions here in Chicago for the local companies. Hopefully I can get some gigs through them. Second, I am flying out to New York City for Hawaii Opera audition. Now how awesome would it be to get out to Hawaii to work! I am quite excited to have an opportunity to sing for them. So cross your fingers for those auditions for me!
I recently sang for a competition. It was my first one for a major international competition. It was just a preliminary but they are expecting about 1000 singers to hear during the preliminary round. The main part of the competition takes place in Germany late October. So far I am on a wait list but as you can tell there will be quite a few singers I will have to beat out to get into the 40 chosen for the main rounds of the competition.
Life wise, outside of singing, my life is quite dull. I look at music to see what other repertoire I should look at. Deal with some e-mail stuff, keeping in touch with my friends. Of course spending time with my girlfriend is in that as well. Looking closely to my life, most of my time really rely on what I am doing with my singing. Let me tell you, it gets quite boring to know that I have one thing to look forward to, and that is when I am working. I realized that as I was in a production. It is refreshing to hear that other colleagues of mine have day jobs and keeps "normal" life. From other's point of view, I am one of the few special people who does not have to deal with a "day" job. Again, going back to the whole teaching thing. If I can get a "day" job, I would love to do it. But due to my visa status, I must seek a job in my field: Singing.
Hopefully over the summer I can find myself a "day" job where I will get some financial support. It is great to have a huge support from my parents but now being 29, I should be able to support myself somehow. I know full well that I will not be able to make a living teaching or by singing, yet. But it will definitely help, and also show my parents that I am making the best out of the situation I am in. Let's see how things will be in the very near future.
Saturday, May 5, 2007
Don Giovanni
I have been in a rehearsal for my upcoming production of Don Giovanni with American Opera Group. It's a company out in Oak Park, IL. The production has been going through some ups and downs from the beginning but despite that, I myself and the whole cast have been having a great time working on this great work.
It's my third Mozart opera that I'm doing a main role, and at first I wasn't sure if I can pull off the Don knowing his character. Well, simply put, I'm not quite the "Don Giovanni" material in real life. But I feel that I have shed a new life on the legendary Libertine. This particular view I have taken has been working quite nicely, also thanks to my director and his kind sharing of my ideas and also his. I am quite enjoying the role for my first outing as the Don. Musically I have no problem since it is not as challenging or taxing(or so I feel) as Figaro, Count, Guglielmo or Don Alfonso, which are all the Mozart roles I have challenged thus far. The main challenge of being Giovanni is his inner person. Sadly in the opera, one can never really see him succeed in what he is well-known for. As he says himself in the middle of the first act; "Mi par ch'oggi demonio si diverta d'oppporsi ai miei piacevoli progressi... Vanno mal tutti quanti", "Today must have been cursed by the devil just for me so that I will not succeed in ANY of my business... Everything is going wrong". He gets almost all of his conquests foiled by several different people throughout the show. Even if he gets somewhat successful, one never really get to observe his art at it's best. You do get to hear him re-tell his tale to his faithful servant. Which Don tells with greatest pleasure.
I always saw this character one-dimensional for some reason. What you see on stage with him is quite simple, and one pattern. Quite frankly that gets boring... He LOVES his women. He likes to pursue them, conquer them, and when he is done, he leaves for the next game. It is a hunt. He lives for it, for the fact that women are more important than the bread he eats, the air he breathes. Yet, everything goes wrong from the very beginning. I saw that there is a growing change in Giovanni's own perspective.
In different literary examples on Giovanni, or Juan, he is written as this raping murderer. The lowest of the lows in human behavior. I couldn't portray him like that. Simply being that I don't really know how to tap into my own resources of character development. I would be lying if I say that I can really put myself into that shoes.
I wanted to do something different in a context of the story. He is opening people's mind, well actually women's, to a different light. One that is not acceptable in a stuffy class system, not acceptable in what society would call "decency". He is, in his own mind, doing the right thing for the world. Liberating people. Now of course, by "loving" many women, he feels that he is sharing this huge love that he has, which is not the most common way of seeing how a relationship should be. But if you got it then why not use it. I see my Giovanni as more smooth seducer, no need to use force, if in need of force he will use it but with women he can charm them, lure them, or convince them by his class, power, charm, charisma, money, or of course his strongest suit, sex.
So I thought, if I portray him as not-so-conventional, I will have to go for the route of being the most gentleman known to the society. Polite, treat people with utmost respect, never had to seduce women by force, or even had to harm or kill anyone to achieve his goal. I felt that that would bring a totally new meaning to the very opening scene. Where he happens to end up killing the father of a woman he just try to conquer. The director thought this very interesting because it is different from the norm. He refuse to fight him because it is not respectful, yet the battle begins. He gets overpowered by this old man and ends up shooting him. Not in the nasty, "stabbing in a back" kind of way but it was either himself or the old man. He had to go to his final solution, kill or be killed. This affects him deeply. The story from then on spirals down each scene by scene. He is stunned with the fact that he had to "kill" someone to get out of a tight spot. Yeah, maybe twist some arms and sneak away with his cunning skill but never to imagine that he will have to pull out a gun and shoot someone down to his dying breath. As the show goes on the life style he leads finally begin to catch up with him. Things start to get out of hand, mostly in his mind. I think he doubts about it himself, is it wrong what I'm doing? No it can't be. I know I am right, this is what I am suppose to be doing. But his action begins to change. He is forced to be more aggressive. He is not afraid of doing so anymore, he killed someone already. Yes, it is not gentleman like to beat someone down but if it needs to be then why hesitate. His ego, his courage(or is it just his ego) drives him.
In the second act, he beats the living hell out of Masetto. He is like a mad-man. Something that shows the audience that he has changed since the beginning. He might be going crazy. At the end, it's not really the ghost of commendatore that brings him to his end. The "Hell" that opera refers to exist in this world. The "Hell" Giovanni sees, is his life without women. And that collapses him, literary. He can't be alone, yet he will never settle with just one person. The death, in our version, is caused by heart attack. A massive stroke. I think it's a fitting end to his life. Well, also the fact that the director didn't really wanted to do all the supernatural ordeal that happens in the show. The commendatore's statue and him talking, coming to dinner are mostly Giovanni and Leporello's figment of imagination. Do with it what you will. But they have experienced something out of the norm that day. They are both paranoid for the fact that they were pushed to the limits. It's fear that truly brings Giovanni down to his final breath.
I thought to share what I have in mind of this role, to the best of my literal ability.
Now, if that is all I have to worry about then this show is a piece of cake. Unfortunately we have been having some misfortune in other aspects of the production. Well, the main concern that we have right now is the set. We came upon this understanding that this wonderfully elaborate set that our director concocted has been the vain of our existence. The people who were supposed to build it has pretty much quit. So, our Masetto kindly offered to finish the task. Well, we realized tonight that it is much bigger fish to fry then I myself imagined. Fortunately we had some great help and some last minute ideas. Hopefully we can bring our director's vision to reality but we have much work to do about that. Other things, compare to the set business, that I thought was a mess now seems like a joke. In fact, despite what we have been going through, this show is coming along so greatly that I know it will be a great show. Thank God we have a wonderful cast, very talented and each one of us bring new and fresh ideas to the show. I'm glad to be a part of it.
I thought to share what I have in mind of this role, to the best of my literal ability.
Now, if that is all I have to worry about then this show is a piece of cake. Unfortunately we have been having some misfortune in other aspects of the production. Well, the main concern that we have right now is the set. We came upon this understanding that this wonderfully elaborate set that our director concocted has been the vain of our existence. The people who were supposed to build it has pretty much quit. So, our Masetto kindly offered to finish the task. Well, we realized tonight that it is much bigger fish to fry then I myself imagined. Fortunately we had some great help and some last minute ideas. Hopefully we can bring our director's vision to reality but we have much work to do about that. Other things, compare to the set business, that I thought was a mess now seems like a joke. In fact, despite what we have been going through, this show is coming along so greatly that I know it will be a great show. Thank God we have a wonderful cast, very talented and each one of us bring new and fresh ideas to the show. I'm glad to be a part of it.
So, we have a week until our opening(yikes!). Hopefully we will finish the set so there is something on stage... I know we will, just a bit stressful I guess. I can't imagine what's going on our director's mind, I know he must be frustrated. For those who will get to come, I hope you will enjoy this production of Don Giovanni. Maybe you will see something that's little different from the conventional portrayal of this opera. As for myself, I have got to get some rest so I can help out building this set, oh yeah, and rehearse too!
American Opera Group presents:
Don Giovanni
by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
At Oak Park Arts Center(same place as Hemingway Museum)
200 N. Oak Park Ave.
Oak Park, IL
May 13th and 20th at 5:00pm
May 18th at 7:30pm
for more information, cast bios etc., please visit:
www.americanoperagroup.org
Thursday, April 19, 2007
I will survive
So this is what is missing from the business of Classical Music. They are still very much accomplished, talented, well-trained musicians who are trying to spread the art to a whole new group of audiences. Why not do something they love and enjoy it! There are few more videos. If you are interested go check out www.igudesmanandjoo.com
Sunday, April 15, 2007
Would you like to have a landlord like her???
She is a very fierce landlord. She will do anything to get her rent.
Thursday, April 5, 2007
It's April, what's up with the freezing weather?
I shouldn't be surprised with how the weather is going so far. Being in Chicago for the past two years and on top of that in Cleveland for the 7 years before that, being in a lake effect area comes with a price of weird weather. Knowing all the odds and yet I would like to just put it out there that it is so COLD!!!! I mean it's not normal to experience the winter chill in April. I've seen snow around end of April several times, which is odd on it's own.
For a brief moment, I thought that Spring has truly come to Chicago. But it was a wishful thinking... Usually the weather goes from Winter to Summer. Maybe a little Spring-like temp but other than that the season changes in a blink. I am so looking for the summer, or I should say a "warm weather".
So on a more personal note. I have been working hard on Don Giovanni for the past month or so and I feel pretty good about it. I have the last two scenes of the opera to memorize and hopefully I can do a couple of run of the show before I go into rehearsal April 21st. I am so excited about doing this role that I want to make this go really well. Of course, I've been working on my arias as well for my audition repertoire. In fact I have an audition tomorrow for Chicago Opera Theater, then next week I head out for New York City to sing for Lake George Opera's 2008 season.
Now, not that I didn't have enough to work on at this time but I came up with a possible program for a recital I can do sometime in a near future. Not that everyone of y'all care or not but I would like to post it up here.
Three Concert Arias by Mozart
Cosi dunque tradisci... Aspri rimorsi a troci
Io ti lascio, o cara addio
Mentre ti lascio, o figlia
Three songs by Duparc
Phidyle
La vie anterieure
La Vague et la Cloche
Three songs from Des Knaben Wunderhorn by Mahler
Revelge
Der Tammbourg'sell
Lob des hohen Verstands
Let us garlands bring by Finzi
Come Away, Come Away, Death.
Who Is Silvia?
O Mistress Mine.
Fear No More the Heat o' the Sun.
It Was a Lover and His Lass.
Five Japanese Songs by various composers
Kujyukuri-hama Kujyukuri-beach
Marumero Karin-Fruit
Kibou Hope
Hatsukoi First Love
Sen no kaze ni natte On Thousand Winds(Do not stand at my grave and weep)
I think if I have the chance to do it, it will be a nice recital. Very diverse, hopefully it will be a possibility. Perhaps I can get someone to sponsor it. Oh well, we will see.
For a brief moment, I thought that Spring has truly come to Chicago. But it was a wishful thinking... Usually the weather goes from Winter to Summer. Maybe a little Spring-like temp but other than that the season changes in a blink. I am so looking for the summer, or I should say a "warm weather".
So on a more personal note. I have been working hard on Don Giovanni for the past month or so and I feel pretty good about it. I have the last two scenes of the opera to memorize and hopefully I can do a couple of run of the show before I go into rehearsal April 21st. I am so excited about doing this role that I want to make this go really well. Of course, I've been working on my arias as well for my audition repertoire. In fact I have an audition tomorrow for Chicago Opera Theater, then next week I head out for New York City to sing for Lake George Opera's 2008 season.
Now, not that I didn't have enough to work on at this time but I came up with a possible program for a recital I can do sometime in a near future. Not that everyone of y'all care or not but I would like to post it up here.
Three Concert Arias by Mozart
Cosi dunque tradisci... Aspri rimorsi a troci
Io ti lascio, o cara addio
Mentre ti lascio, o figlia
Three songs by Duparc
Phidyle
La vie anterieure
La Vague et la Cloche
Three songs from Des Knaben Wunderhorn by Mahler
Revelge
Der Tammbourg'sell
Lob des hohen Verstands
Let us garlands bring by Finzi
Come Away, Come Away, Death.
Who Is Silvia?
O Mistress Mine.
Fear No More the Heat o' the Sun.
It Was a Lover and His Lass.
Five Japanese Songs by various composers
Kujyukuri-hama Kujyukuri-beach
Marumero Karin-Fruit
Kibou Hope
Hatsukoi First Love
Sen no kaze ni natte On Thousand Winds(Do not stand at my grave and weep)
I think if I have the chance to do it, it will be a nice recital. Very diverse, hopefully it will be a possibility. Perhaps I can get someone to sponsor it. Oh well, we will see.
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