The Held Held Up

Things have been going well.

I am getting more and more excited because my lessons are really getting better. I, for a very long time, have listened to my lesson tapes with pure fear oozing from me, practically clutching the arm rests while listening, and hating every sound that I made. Well, I can kind of understand that, though, because, frankly, a lot of the sounds I was making were pretty ugly. That being said, though, I also needed to change my perception of what “beauty” really is. Wagnerian singers do not tend to have what most people refer to as “beautiful” voices. They always get adjectives like “big”, “strong” or “powerful”.

After seeing Parsifal in Frankfurt where Stuart Skelton sang the title role, I left feeling somewhat disappointed. The production was wonderful, overall. The chorus was fantastic. (Alexander Marco-Buhrmester as Amfortas was truly impressive—I could have written his text as in dictation, his diction was so good. Michaele Schuster was also quite a wonderful Kundry, even if she was a bit too sexy for the part.) A friend had recommended Stuart after having heard him in something else, and I made a special trip just to hear what other people in my Fach sing like. He had a very pretty voice, yes. But, it just was not powerful enough. There were many times when I simply could not hear him. “Heldentenor” translates as “heroic tenor”. It doesn’t always need to be pretty, but, folks, it does need the capacity to be loud.

In other news, my friend Karen came to Germany and somehow forgot to look me up. Actually, I was terribly upset by this. I REALLY wanted to see her. I also really wanted to meet the man that she married. Of about the 20 people that I know in New York City, I wanted Chris especially to stay with her. I have always felt a very strong kinship with Karen wanted Chris to know her. She was a wonderful host for him and he was really looking forward to returning their favor by hosting them here. He even shortened his vacation to Hamburg by two days in anticipation with their visit on Friday of last week. When she just didn’t show up and then sent an "sorry we missed you" email after having gotten back to America, I was very hurt. When will the next time be that I can see her? It will be years and years before I end up in NYC again, and I am assuming she doesn’t plan on making visits to Germany an annual outing.

I guess part of my hurt, too, though, is because I thought that we were closer than that. I didn’t think that she would just blow me off. Imagine for a moment that you haven’t seen someone that you actually care about for years. They come within 30 minutes of where you are and don’t connect with you. Do you see it as some kind of not-so-subtle rejection? Yeah, me too.

Tonight the craziness is going to be over. The French and the Italians are hashing it out as I write. I want the French to win. i find their style of playing to be quite “gentlemanly”” somehow. The Italians play with a lot of gusto, but the French have got such a precision with their feet. You gotta love that.

Ok, I take that “gentlemanly” thing back. Zidane was just thrown out for head-butting some guy in the chest. What an ass.