Tito, Lucia, photos...

Hi there! This week we came back from Milano on Monday. It was a great trip, and to be in Italy for 10 days living "la dolce vita" was exactly what we needed. I was longing for the latin warmth of people, the italian cuisine, the smell of the bigs cities of Italy, the smell of the sea in Napoli, the culture, its buildings, monuments, sculptures, museums, history, coffee!!! Anyways... going back to my reality in Wuerzburg, on Thursday we had our last performance of La clemenza di Tito, it was a very good performance and I am really glad I got the opportunity to sing Tito, it is a nice role to sing and specially to understand and act. There are some "recitativo accompagnato" which I just love singing, they have so much you can play with in terms of color and intention of the phrasing and how to declamate the words. Of course, the arias are very nice and challenging, specially the last one "Se all'impero amici dei" which it comes near the end of the opera, and, out of nowhere Mozart puts some difficult coloratura in what is a long aria. I am a bit sad that the production is finito, I wish I have some more performances of it, we had in total I believe of 9 performances, I say this because we put so much effort into the staging and developing the characters and the relations between them, that every time I went on stage it was a really vivid experience for me in terms of interpreting Tito, so I wish I had more opportunities to keep exploring the role. I hope I can sing this role in the future in another production.

Then, today (Sunday) we had Lucia di Lammermoor. I am really happy singing Edgardo, I feel very nervous everytime we have Lucia, but in a good way. Edgardo is so challenging but exciting. Every performance I try to find small ways to improve here and there. In my brain I have at the moment a certain vision of how I want to sing the role, there are some phrases that I have still not reach the way I really want to sing them, but I know it takes a lot of patience and specially smart way of working to achieve the "easyness" that I am looking for. This belcanto role offers me so many ways in which I can approach phrases, again the coloring of the phrasing depending on the text and of course what is written in the music score. Besides that, the technical part is a very challenging one for the opera, like any other. I must prepare really careful and very clear the way I approach the opera as a whole, and then also number by number, in order to be able to get through it without any problem. To know how to pace yourself, finding the balance. I really enjoy this challenge and Edgardo take so much attention specially towards the end of the opera where I have to sing the final aria and then the whole end, I am almost like in trance every time the end comes, as I use all my attention and energy while remaining with cool brain and stady inner pulse. It is difficult to describe, like being in the zone.

I am still with the sense of "la dolce vita" that I got from Italy. I have been going through the photos I took with my Fujifilm and editing some of them in Lightroom and what a nice trip we had. I really hope soon I go back to Italy, as every time I am ther is like charging batteries. On this note I go to sleep. I wish you a good week ahead and please take care and be healthy. Until next week, ciao!