#opera is weird

[garland-on-thy-brow]

Ok but all the time watching Giulio Cesare I remember Ptolemy is a kid historically so it’s like Nearly Threw Hands With a 13 Year Old

[odense]

re: gender presentation in opera and traditionally trouser roles

so, trouser roles are male characters with voices in the upper registers. often this is because the role calls for a young voice, but professionally, it’s easier to cast someone more mature. so boy or adolescent male parts are most frequently played by sopranos or altos. ditto “heroic” roles that used to go to castrati.

on the one hand, this is a great opportunity for female actor/singers to work in a different mode of presentation. playing someone of another gender is a different sort of challenge than usual. fun, have at!

but on the other hand, this is a fantastic opportunity for traditionally male roles to be given to women. queen xerxes. her daughter queen artaxerxes. princess caprice. not to mention lesbian romeo and juliet. or awkward cherubino discovering her sexuality. 

I’m just saying, there are more opportunities here than directors are taking advantage of. it’s 2016. it’s time.

[odense]

lolol I was feeling good about picking up the tempo for i capuleti ei montecchi until I listened to the recording again

our first scene is 12 pages long and it’s only 6:00-10:00 on this version (which, I have to say, I’ve only cherrypicked through so far for choral bits, but I do hope our staging is more inspired than that entry. (and also, about to draw on Romeo, excuse me))

[odense]

hilariously, it turns out I'm not the first to read homoeroticism in Dido and Aeneas between the Sorceress and Dido. 

This "homosexual" dyad (camouflaged by Aeneas) provides the dramatic/musical dynamic that drives the opera.

may be one of the greatest sentences I've ever heard in a musical analysis, though "Scarpia enters, accompanied by the Imperial March" is still good.

[odense]

guys everyone I just realized that Scarpia and Frollo are the Italian and French versions of one another

except after that the direct parallels break because Esmerelda doesn't kill Frolo and then herself, and Frollo doesn't manage to kill either Phoebus or Quasimodo.

[odense]

so the director I thought we were going to have for Tosca had a fight with the main director and now the main director is taking over again

which is a pain in the butt because it sounded like the other guy was actually gonna, y'know, direct us at all, and he was updating it to 1940s hungary and it would have been interesting

but I am assured that I'll have my 'bit with Scarpia' nevertheless, and I'm not even sure if this is a good thing because my 'bit with Scarpia' is 'the bit where they chose me to play the molested altarboy because the only other person they could think of who would look the part is a 14 year old girl' so I'm just

[odense]

...this makes two for two productions I've been in with this company where halfway through it all, they've had me switch from playing a girl to a guy. I'm still a nun in Suor Angelica, but now I'm 'miscellaneous village boy' in act two. 

I'm fine with this, I mean. It's just this is an oddly specific trend, and maybe they should just make up their minds? Because the 'learn a whole new set of stage directions by tomorrow, here's no directions' part gets old fast.

*the person who made last run uncomfortable wasn't there today, but I stuck to the other side of the stage than he had, just in case. Now it should be a non-issue, I hope. 

[ironmaidenantoniastark-blog]

((so i just took advantage of my free time and made a bruce rp blog

its doc-bruce-banner

go give him some love