Tito, Hoffmann, Tito…
Hi there,
This week we continue with rehearsals of Lucia. After last week adventure in Paris, I must say at the beginning of this week I was very tired, cause I did lots of things while in France and my head was a bit saturated with lots of new information. Today finally I have a complete free day. We had at the theater 3 performances (Wednesday, Friday and Saturday), 2 performances of Clemenza di Tito and our derniere of Hoffmann. I am glad I sang Spalanzani and Nathanael but I am also happy I do not have to sing them again this season. We said at the performance of Hoffmann farewell to our mezzo Marzia Marzo with whom I shared the stage for the last 6 seasons here in Wuerzburg. We did togehter many operas among them, Barbiere, Helena, Cosi fan tutte, Capuleti, Magic flute, Ariadne, Schicchi, etc. I really enjoyed our time and I wish her all the best to whatever is to come for her.
Last night it was really nice to sing Tito, I really enjoy singing it, and everytime I sing it I discover new things and I change some phrases here and there, in order to keep the recitativi fresh, and for me sometimes I want to interpret them slightly different without going out of the proper style. I feel more comfortable and in control on some of the difficult parts of the role. I really enjoy working with Akiho Tsujii, Silke Evers, Vero Miller, Igor Tsarkov and Barbar Schoeller, on this opera, I think all give their best and we do make a good Tito team, also Gabor Hontvari as our conductor makes a good interpretation of this Mozart together with the orchestra.
I am now that is Sunday a bit tired after the three performances this week, so I am really happy to have a free day today before starting next week with full on rehearsals of Lucia. I am still exploring Edgardo, there are few passages that I want to improve and still unsure of how to approach others. The place were the tessitura is in Edgardo is different from Tito. Tito is more central and Edgardo is much higher and the dramatic demans although in both cases are strong, they are different from each other. Definitely Edgardo is full belcanto but at the same time it has its dramatic moments ( to be clear I do not mean it in a pushed or in a spinto way). After my meeting with star tenor Javier Camarena, I am really digesting his observations and personal approach to this role, that he himself has sung several times and in different productions. So, I am trying to find my own approach but with his advice and remarks in order to help me to improve on the areas I am still working on. A lot of it at the moment for me is about building the right pace for the whole opera. At the moment I have to be very clever to not oversing the first finale and also to really be clever on how to sing the last aria with the complete finale of the opera. Those 2 places specially I must be careful to sing them really well and correct so that I do not run out of gas at the end. I really like that Edgardo has so many colours and one can do so much regarding interpretation, and in how one phrases the music. So many of it is written on the music of course and I do my best to be as correct as possible, plus also finding my own interpretation with all the respect possible towards the style and music. Edgardo is very challenging and I am most of the time enjoying it, but I also sometimes get a bit frustrated (in some places that I would like to sing better but still can't) and there, I have to remember myself to be pacient and just keep working smart on it not only hard. But, in general I am slowly finding my way, and I will keep digging into this wonderful music from Donizetti. This will be my second Donizetti after singing in 2 productions of L'elisir d'amore in which I sang Nemorino, which by the way, is perhaps one, if not my favorite role so far to sing, and which I believe is so good for my voice, I really love singing it.
I hope tou are well and take care, see you next week.
