Black Friday Underground

I spent Black Friday attempting to avoid shopping.  Our one foray out in the late morning gleaned no deals we couldn't walk away from.  Derek and Royna found a couple of items for her Ipad 2 and wandered around a mall for an hour while Terry and I snoozed in the Bonneville.  After all that excitement, Terry and I headed back to Denton to help Rachelle transport her new Yamaha keyboard to the Abbey Underground for that evening's performance of "All in the Family: Putting the 'FUN' in Dysfunctional" by the North Texas Opera on Tap performers.

I had planned that my  twenty-fifth installment in my 'Thirty Days of Thankfulness' would be about family vacations, but instead I feel very thankful for live music.  The Abbey Underground venue provided a fantastic atmosphere to enjoy the company of friends and family, relax with your favorite beverage and appreciate the talents of local vocal performers, including my daughter (an under-graduate at UNT), graduate students, doctoral candidates, UNT faculty and Dallas Opera regulars.  The selections consisted of arias, duets and ensembles from several operas, including Mozart's Cosi Fan Tutte (Rachelle sang a Dorabella aria) and the Marriage of Figaro; Hansel and Gretel by Humperdinck; Handel's Serse (or Xerxes); Verdi's MacBeth and La Traviata; Puccini's Gianni Schicchi.

My husband noted the nice stage size and excellent sound system available for live performances.  Compared to some of the places his band, WolfGuard, has performed, the Abbey Underground facilities shined.  And even though we were in the basement, everything was well lit and clean and the patrons refrained from smoking (at the courteous request of the vocal performers) so we were spared the usual night club haze and miasma.  The only thing that keeps me from attending more local live music venues is whether or not the club hosting the concert allows smoking.  I refuse to subject my lungs to the second hand smoke.

Another aspect of live performance in a small venue that I love is the opportunity to meet performers and experience the energy often generated in the feedback from the audience to the performance.  It's live, it's impromptu at times, and it's definitely not Memorex, even though I did capture a couple of the numbers with my video camera.  I'll get those uploaded to YouTube later this weekend (the camera is in Denton and I'm currently at my son's apartment in the Colony).

Opera on Tap finished off a great week and and put paid to Black Friday, bringing great opera performances to the masses congregating underground in Denton.

North Texas Opera on Tap (Abbey Underground, Black Friday Show, Nov 2011)

Music to My Ears

I am thankful for my sense to hearing, and specifically music, which will be the focus of the fifteenth day of my 'Thirty Days of Thankfulness.'

At age five, I started taking piano lessons from a close neighbor (close being a relative term out in the wilds of northwestern Leavenworth County). Reading music came to me just about as easily as reading words. Oddly (because I love mathematics), my only long-standing issue is my (un)willingness to count out a song in my head so that I get the rhythm and tempo correct. I didn't spend much time in a band environment (only played flute for two years before middle school), so I rely heavily upon a percussionist if I play and/or sing in a praise band. And my audio memory of how a song should sound. Yes, I'm lazy. Probably why I'm not a professional musician.

Rachelle posing as a diva a couple of years ago

As I've mentioned before, my husband is a hundred times, or more likely, a thousand times better musician than I will ever be. He has impeccable timing and near perfect pitch. He has the patience and technical skills to practice a piece to perfection.

My daughter inherited most if not all of her musical ability and talent from him (I can still play piano better than her, but she knows more music theory than I'll ever understand).

Rachelle started singing about the same time she learned to talk. She surpassed my measly vocal abilities way back in early high school. Along the way, she learned how to play violin, guitar, saxophone and piano. However, her voice is her most finely honed instrument. As she approaches her final semester as an under graduate at UNT's College of Music, I look forward to attending her senior recital, which will include all of the following songs Rachelle recently recorded for her graduate school auditions (click on the song title link, then click on the play button):

The Nurse's Song by Benjamin Britten
Rachelle Moss, Mezzo Soprano Violetta Zharkova, Piano

Smanie implacabili from Cosi fan tutte by Mozart
Rachelle Moss, Mezzo Soprano Violetta Zharkova, piano

Ah scostati! Paventa il tristo effeto d'un disperato affeto! Chiudi quelle finestre Odio la luce, odio l'aria, che spiro Odio me stessa! Chi schernisce il mio duol, Chi mi consola? Deh fuggi, per pietà, fuggi, Lasciami sola. Smanie implacabili, che m'agitate Dentro quest'anima più non cessate, Finchè l'angoscia mi fa morir. Esempio misero d'amor funesto, Darò all'Eumenidi se viva resto Col suno orrible de' miei sospir.

English Translation:

Ah, move away! Fear the sad effect of a desperate affection! Shut those windows, I hate the light, I hate the air that I breathe I hate myself! Who mocks my pain, Who will console me? Oh, leave, for pity's sake, leave, Leave me alone. Implacable restlessness, that disturbs me Inside this soul, doesn't cease, Until it makes me die. A miserable example of fateful love I will give to the Furies, if I live, With the horrible sound of my sighs.

Auf dem Kirchhofe by Johannes Brahms
Rachelle Moss, Mezzo Soprano Violetta Zharkova, Piano

Auf dem Kirchhofe

Der Tag ging regenschwer und sturmbewegt, Ich war an manch vergessenem Grab gewesen, Verwittert Stein und Kreuz, die Kränze alt, Die Namen überwachsen, kaum zu lesen.

Der Tag ging sturmbewegt und regenschwer, Auf allen Gräbern fror das Wort: Gewesen. Wie sturmestot die Särge schlummerten, Auf allen Gräbern taute still: Genesen.  

English Translation:

In the churchyard

The day was heavy with rain and disturbed by storms; I was walking among many forgotten graves, with weathered stones and crosses, the wreaths old, the names washed away, hardly to be read.

The day was disturbed by storms and heavy with rain; on every grave froze the words "we were." The coffins slumbered calmly like the eye of a storm, and on every grave melted quietly the words: "we were healed."

Les Berceaux by Gabriel Faure
Rachelle Moss, Mezzo Soprano Violetta Zharkova, Piano

Les berceaux

Le long du Quai, les grands vaisseaux, Que la houle incline en silence, Ne prennent pas garde aux berceaux, Que la main des femmes balance. Mais viendra le jour des adieux, Car il faut que les femmes pleurent, Et que les hommes curieux Tentent les horizons qui leurrent! Et ce jour-là les grands vaisseaux, Fuyant le port qui diminue, Sentent leur masse retenue Par l'âme des lointains berceaux.

English Translation:

Cradles

Along the quay, the great ships, that ride the swell in silence, take no notice of the cradles. that the hands of the women rock. But the day of farewells will come, when the women must weep, and curious men are tempted towards the horizons that lure them! And that day the great ships, sailing away from the diminishing port, feel their bulk held back by the spirits of the distant cradles.