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The two Foscari of the title in Verdi's opera I due Foscari are father and son. Francesco, the father, is Doge of Venice; Jacopo, the son is awaiting trial in prison. As Doge, Francesco must uphold Venetian justice impartially and publically, but in private he is distraught at the fate of his unjustly accused son. This is the basis for the powerful duet that concludes Act I, in which Lucrezia, Jacopo's wife, demands that Francesco help his son, and is unable to understand the father's apparent cruelty and distance.
It is a great scene, with two clear characterizations. Displaying steadfastness under duress is a characteristic of the Doge in this opera, and thus in his music. The Doge's situation require the exercise of restraint, especially when faced with the unrestrained responses of his son and daughter-in-law. In this duet, Lucrezia sings an impassioned section in C minor 'Tu pur lo sai…' ('You know it well…') where her vocal lines grow more accented, dramatic and higher in pitch as she continues, in an unmistakable expression of her fervour. Her unaccompanied concluding cadenza features much repetition of the word 'barbaro' (cruel), making her view of Francesco completely clear.
Francesco's reply, in the key of C major, contrasts with Lucrezia's C minor. His phrases are more evenly pitched at the start, and the decorations of line more lyrical than explosive. He is trying to calm and placate her, while at the same time revealing his own suffering as a father. Rather than insult him, he argues, she should weep with him. This is the personal Francesco, not the public politician. Both voices sing together at the end, still in C major – Francesco has had some musical effect on Lucrezia at least. In the final shared cadenza she sings again 'cruel father', while he declares his wish that his son may once more be free.
On its own this is great stuff. But 'Tu pur lo sai' is just the second part of the whole concluding duet – an entire scene with several sections. It is a good example of a recurring idea in 19th-century Italian opera sometimes referred to as 'la solita forma' – the usual form (a phrase first used by Abramo Basevi, a 19th-century writer on Verdi's music). But the point of it is not some formula, not least as there are so many more variants to be found than model ones, this example included. Rather, it is a way of seeing how a scene can be made more intense through the use of the music.
The first section (Basevi's 'tempo di attacca') launches the action boldly. Often someone arrives or a dramatic announcement is made: in this example, Lucrezia enters, determined and angry, ready to confront the Doge. The music combines recitative with agitated, explosive orchestral interjections that convey Lucrezia's passion.
The second section, 'Tu pur lo sai', is the 'adagio', a slow reflection on the feelings of the two characters, giving the audience time to consider the implications of what is happening. The third, short section is a slightly faster but still measured, and marks another interjection of news or a different point of view – here, where Lucrezia admits she believes Francesco is not a heartless father.
The final section is the 'Cabaletta', fast and energetic, usually with a call to action or a sense of determination: here Verdi uses several short sections run together. Lucrezia plays hard on Francesco's emotions – to act as a father, not a doge – and he with equal firmness declares he is deeply moved but powerless to act. With each challenge and counter-challenge the music adapts rhythm and key to build dramatic tension.
In Verdi's hands, this type of construction of a whole scene is brilliantly compelling, as the audience are introduced to the characters, presented with their opposition and drawn in as the situation gets more fraught and the music faster and bolder. It is hardly a surprise that such scenes invariably end with the same result: resounding and emotion-filled applause!
I due Foscari runs 14 October–2 November 2014. Tickets are still available.
The performance on 27 October will be live in cinemas around the world. Find your nearest cinema.
The production is a co-production with Los Angeles Opera, Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía, Valencia, and Theater an der Wien, and is given at the Royal Opera House with generous philanthropic support from Mrs Aline Foriel-Destezet, Mrs Susan A. Olde OBE, Colm and Ella Kelleher and Mrs Philip Kan.]]>
Despite that fact that you can wear what you want to the opera, few people sit in their seats with raincoats and umbrellas. From what happens on stage this is surprising: opera is full of bad weather.
Since classical times, storms have been used as a narrative device to push characters into situations of conflict. In Virgil's Aeneid, a storm at sea shipwrecks Aeneas on the shores of Carthage, where he begins his doomed affair with Carthage's queen, Dido (portrayed in both Purcell's Dido and Aeneas and Berlioz's Les Troyens). The Act I chorus of Mozart's classically inspired drama Idomeneo, 'Pietà, numi, pietà', portrays sailors desperately praying to the gods as wind and waves threaten to overwhelm them. Mozart's music is in a minor key and with repeated cries from the sailors for mercy ('Pietà'), while the violent elements are represented with woodwind in whirling, continuous scales and strings playing tremolando. The music moves to the major key with a lighter texture, then a pause – and salvation. But the abatement of the storm came at a price – Idomeneo's vow to sacrifice the first person he meets on shore, who turns out to be his own son. As in the Aeneid, the storm drives the story.
Rossini liked to score a good storm and there are several in his operas. In Act II of Il barbiere di Siviglia, Rosina has been driven to despair because it looks as though her lover 'Lindoro' (Count Almaviva in disguise) has deserted her. As so often in dramas, her bad mood invokes bad weather. It is a purely orchestral piece, and Rossini represents the gradual change, beginning with clouds and the first spots of rain through initial low rumblings interspersed with short flute flourishes. The rain starts lightly but builds in intensity: brittle string notes to which flute is added for the effect of increasingly dense drops of rain. The thunder and wind arrive: full orchestra chords, rushing scales. But the storm quickly blows over, as does Rosina's temper.
Storms can be more than a reflection of one character's bad day. In Act III of Verdi's Rigoletto the storm becomes a manifestation of Fate: a higher power that mortals can influence no more than they can control the weather. There are hints of the impending storm at the start of the scene in which Rigoletto pays Sparafucile to kill the Duke of Mantua. The cheerfulness of the Duke, heard singing out of sight, and the rumblings of the incipient storm become subsumed into the increasingly menacing tone of the following events. The rising and falling chromatic chords (heard with an offstage chorus imitating the wind) is one of the most instantly recognizable recurring meteorological features.
Sudden, loud chords and a cymbal crash reflect the thunder and lightning as well as the dramatic tension of the events. The peak comes as Gilda's first knocks at the door are matched by chords representing lightning and thunder: she knows and we know that knocking for entrance to the inn signals her doom. The prolonged rumble of the timpani is both thunder and impending death. The weather is not an imposition from outside, but a psychological expression of what is inside.
The rise of the storm at the start of the scene is mirrored in its dispersal at the end as the musical motifs gradually unravel and reduce: the murder has been committed. Distant sounds of the retreating storm are heard fleetingly as Rigoletto arrives to gloat over his revenge on the Duke – distant thunder from the timpani and high woodwind flurries of dispersing rain. But the storm is no longer the focus, for the final few bars reveal the awful truth that Rigoletto has brought about the murder of his own daughter.
This is the first of two articles looking at the stormy weather in The Royal Opera's 2014/15 Season. Look out for the next article in January, when we explore the tempests of Wagner's Der fliegende Holländer, Weill's Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny and Rossini's Guillaume Tell.
Rigoletto runs until 6 October 2014. Tickets are still available.
Il barbiere di Siviglia runs until 5 October 2014. Tickets are still available.
Idomeneo runs from 2 to 24 November 2014. Tickets are still available.
Inevitably it's the extreme side of Anna Nicole Smith that first comes to mind: blonde, busty, noisy, vulgar, provocative, controversial. But engaging drama demands more than flamboyance and the hypnotic draw of prurience. A poignant moment in the second act of the opera Anna Nicole, distills the emotional essence of an altogether more tragic life. This is the very short solo sung by her son Daniel – a minute and a half of concentrated impact, just ten minutes before the opera's finish.
The music is gentle and even. The orchestral sound is sparse, with strings and celesta, a steady cymbal rhythm and underpinning bass. Add the jazz inflections of the orchestral riff and an easy, rocking rhythm, and the effect is of a bluesy lullaby. Over this, Daniel sings a dreamy vocal line with an improvisational feel. The sound alone is easy listening, shot through with the popular music inflections of Mark-Anthony Turnage's style: well suited to this modern American tragedy. But in the dramatic context it is far from easy, for Daniel is dead.
Daniel is in one chair, in a body bag. His mother sits in a chair next to him, devastated with grief. What he sings is a list of mood- and mind-altering substances (some legal, some not), including Zoloft, Lexapro and methadone. It is thought that it was from a combination of these three that Daniel Wayne Smith, born on 22 January 1986, died in the hospital room of Anna Nicole Smith on 10 September 2006. He was visiting his mother, who was in hospital in Nassau after giving birth to a daughter Dannielyn three days before. He was 20.
Appalling enough as a true story. But Anna Nicole the dramatic work introduces changes and inventions of characters and events that further heighten the human themes beneath, which is where the impact of Daniel's 'drug ballad' (as the libretto calls it) comes to the fore. Daniel (often called Danny) has been a presence in the opera from Act I: his birth is part of the scene showing Anna Nicole in her home town of Mexia, Texas, married to a fellow worker at a fried chicken restaurant. (This was six years before her second marriage, to the oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall II: she was 26, he was 89.)
Episodes in the opera show Danny growing up in his mother's increasingly strange world. His brief appearance in the Act II party scene emphasizes the unsuitability of Anna's environment for a young child. As he gets older, he becomes one of the few stable points in his mother's life. She is constantly protective of him; he is a source of reassurance to her (as in the tense dressing room scene in Act II before an interview on the Larry King Show). Through all this Daniel is seen, but not heard. The only time in the opera he is given a voice of his own is after he has died.
Even more striking is the emotional impact of this one very brief number. It comes after a loud orchestral outburst that portrays Anna Nicole's deep pain at the death of her son; the contrast with the ballad's calm is striking. The real-life Howard K. Stern, Anna Nicole Smith's lawyer-publicist-partner, said after her death that 'Anna and Daniel were inseparable. Daniel was without question the most important person in Anna's life'.
In the opera, Daniel's body is removed from the stage as he sings his final phrase. Anna Nicole in response sings of her own fear that 'Danny's so scared. He's waiting for me. He doesn't know how to get to the other side'. This is derived from the last interview, tearful and distressed, that Anna Nicole Smith gave before her own death on 8 February 2007. In the opera, Daniel's seductive voice from the afterlife is a siren song for Anna Nicole. Her final aria begins with the lines 'Tired now, Danny, Mama's nearly there. Nothing left for me'.
Anna Nicole runs 11–24 September 2014. Tickets are still available. The first performance is available exclusively to members of the ROH Students scheme with tickets priced £1–£25. Find out how you can join ROH Students.The scheme is generously made possible by the Bunting Family and Simon Robey.]]>
Schoenberg's opera Moses und Aron is unknown musical territory for many – true too for most if not all of Schoenberg's music and that of his fellow Second Viennese School composers, Berg and Webern. The case is the same for recent operas in the Linbury Studio Theatre, such as Quartett, Through His Teeth or The Killing Flower. More mainstream is Berg's Wozzeck, recently performed on the Covent Garden main stage by The Royal Opera; but even this has not become as familiar as operas from the same time or even after, such as Britten's Peter Grimes. Why is it that some works appeal more immediately and more broadly than others?
When we hear the phrase 'we know what we like', it often means 'we like what we know'. The new is almost always more draining than the familiar as we need to concentrate on how to assimilate what is strange and unknown. And because human nature is generally risk-averse, it means we can be slow to accept or even actively resistant to the unfamiliar. The effort of comprehending the unfamiliar can sometimes be more than we want to invest – especially if we expect to use culture for relaxation or diversion.
The challenge of convention and familiarity is one part of how art works: the emotional effect and the intellectual interest can come from expectations we have of one thing happening, but the work doing something slightly or dramatically different. That deviation from our expectations provokes a reaction – and some people are open to more provocation than others, which contributes to our personal tastes. But how does this work in regards to music?
Music is built on a use of pitch and rhythm that we assimilate from our cultural background. Although it is often stated that music is a universal language, it clearly isn't. The same basic elements can be put together in very different ways, and require different ways of listening. We need to learn and become familiar with what these conventions are. Then we can get 'inside' the sound and follow what the composer (or equivalent) is doing with more confidence.
When we don't know the conventions, the result may be intriguing or frightening: one person's lovely sound is another's awful racket. Looking back over the centuries demonstrates how works we consider mainstream were once heard as disturbing:
On Beethoven and his Seventh Symphony, 1825: 'It is a composition in which the author has indulged a great deal of disagreeable eccentricity… Altogether, it seems to have been intended as a kind of enigma – we almost said a hoax.'
On Verdi and Macbeth, 1850: 'The unfortunate man is incapable of real melody – his airs are such as a man born deaf would compose by calculation of the distances of musical notes and the intervals between them.'
On Wagner and Tannhäuser, 1861: 'I believe that I could write tomorrow something similar, inspired by my cat walking down the keyboard of the piano.'
This is not to say that anything we don't like will become a much-loved favourite. Far from it – music can still be well or badly done wherever it comes from. The point is that so many elements go into listening to music new to us, that we can be worn down by the sheer overwhelming novelty of the experience.
Ultimately, everyone in the audience will have their own response, made up of how much is familiar or unfamiliar, how much they enjoy a challenge, how alert or tired they are. They may be engrossed or bored, enlivened or enraged: the best thing an audience can do is respond in whatever way they feel. But sometimes, a little context picked up beforehand – through discovering the story, listening to the composer's music, or through reading others' responses to the work – can be enough to counteract the alienation created by the unknown to make a lot of difference to our enjoyment of the performance.
Welsh National Opera performs Moses und Aron on the Royal Opera House's main stage 25–26 July 2014. Tickets are still available.]]>
Our 'How to Stage an Opera' series offers different perspectives on the practicalities of staging an opera, from the initial research through to the final performance. Here we see how the director and designer of La bohème intensify the reality of the story on stage.
John Copley's production of La bohème is the longest-established production in The Royal Opera's repertory. It had its premiere on 6 February 1974, and right from the start audiences and critics noted the detail used to create the stage image. And a very particular image it is too.
Julia Trevelyan Oman designed the sets and costumes with her usual forensic approach for accuracy; the opera is set in Paris in 1830, and so that is exactly what we see. As the curtain rises for each of the four acts we see a tableau of lifelike clarity. The attic of the students in Acts I and IV has bare floors, a stove, basic wooden furniture; and the bohemians huddle against the cold that you can almost feel whistle through the pokey windows. Act II splendidly uses three levels and a split across the stage to give a panoramic sense of a Parisian bustling street outside and the inside of the Café Momus – complete with waiters, food and billiard table. Act III outside the Barriere d'Enfer (a gateway into Paris) has the railings, a parked cart with its load – and snow for a cold morning at dawn.
All through the opera props are needed – a manuscript for burning, food to eat, a shoe to scream about, toys for children. The list is seemingly endless and gives stage management much to prepare. Each prop relates directly to the libretto, which includes so many specific points of movement and use of objects – although, that said, Act IV's memorable cricket match using bread and a coal shovel is Copley's own invention.
Why make everything so busy, so complicated? The first reason is simple. It is the same approach as a television period drama – think the BBC and Jane Austen! The creation of the whole picture draws us into a very specific world so that it becomes believable. Even in the theatre, that underlying sense of naturalism in appearance can support the sense of 'realness' of the characters and the story. Puccini and his librettists worked hard to bring the characters alive in consistent and believable ways, so a detailed approach to production matches their intentions well.
As with a period drama in film or on television, the completeness of the period imagery helps an audience concentrate on the characters and the emotions within the stage landscape. From this there can be a sense of time travel through the comparisons it invites with our own times. What of the people we are watching and their society is different from us and ours? And what is still the same? In particular the emotions of the human condition – love, anger, grief, joy – become clear as common to every age.
There are also practical aspects with such a set-and-prop-heavy production. Copley consciously uses the different levels of the set of Acts I and II in particular to create movement. With the need for props to handle, the performers are obliged to pick them up, use them, even throw them. They have to climb up and down stairs, sit on chairs or move them aside, carry baskets, eat food. But you'll notice too that in the strong emotional moments between the principal characters, such as the seductive conclusion to Act I and the traumatic quartet in Act III, nothing in the staging distracts. Action and stillness play off each other, like the wide shot and the close-up in film. Physical motion propels us through the plot, while a slowing or suspension of physical action becomes intense and emotional through the contrast.
Not all opera librettos and scores provide as many naturalistic cues as you can find in La bohème. But when they do, the observing of such minutiae can create an engrossing and believable world. It is artificial to re-create so precisely a time and place that no longer exists, yet paradoxically the result feels so lifelike. At the heart of all great theatre is the creative use of the boundary between the unreal that we know is really artificial, the unbelievable that we choose to believe. When done with the level of care as in this classic production of La bohème, a naturalistic style of production can draw the audience into the completeness of a convincing, onstage world: you feel that you are really there.
Read other posts in our 'How to Stage an Opera' series.
La bohème runs until 19 July 2014. Tickets are still available.
The production returns for the last time in the 2014/15 Season, running 23 May–16 July 2015. Tickets go on general sale on 31 March 2015.
The production is staged with generous philanthropic support from The Royal Opera House Endowment Fund. Original Production (1974) supported by The Linbury Trust.]]>
There is a much-repeated backstage line: a bad dress rehearsal means a good first night. True, it is usually spoken more in hope than expectation. But can the reverse be true? What if it was a really good dress rehearsal? Donizetti found out the hard way in Naples in 1834, where he was about to have the premiere of his opera Maria Stuarda. It wasn't the first time – and nor would it be the last – that Donizetti fell foul of the Neapolitan censors.
Maria Stuarda's dress rehearsal went exceptionally well, what Donizetti called 'a fanatical success'. The whole show had been commissioned, written, checked by the official censor who approved it with a few changes, and everything was made ready for the premiere. But just a day or so after, the bombshell dropped: the King refused permission for the opera to be performed.
The reason for the ban was never explained – but we can speculate. It may well have been because the opera includes a scene in which Mary receives confession and absolution. Presenting religious rites and even religious figures is a running theme in the censoring of opera in Italy in the 19th century. But equally it could have been because the first performance was intended to be a Royal Gala and the King had previously forbidden serious subjects for Royal Galas. Whatever the cause the result was the same: all that effort and money and time, but no premiere.
A year earlier, the premiere of Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia in Milan had been a triumph, but such success did not mean it would automatically be fine for Naples. One of the censors there was so horrified by it that he protested about it to the police, stating that 'it ends with the death of six individuals, five of whom are poisoned at one table, where they have been enticed by the blackest perfidy disguised as polite and chivalrous hospitality'. So, not just a dangerous example of treachery among the ruling classes, but an appalling breach of manners.
Donizetti had written Pia de' Tolomei for Venice, where it was performed in 1837; for Naples in 1838 it had to be revised to accommodate the censors' demands. The same year, Donizetti must have felt Maria's history was repeating itself in the Naples rehearsals for his new opera Poliuto. This was based on Corneille's play on the life of the Christian martyr St Polyeuctus and had already been approved by the official censor. But the King of Naples is reported to have said 'Let's leave the saints in the calendar and not put them on the stage'. And that was that.
It's no wonder that Donizetti's next move was away from Italy to the less restrictive, more glamorous international sphere of Paris, where he arrived more than ready to turn Poliuto into a French grand opera, Les Martyrs.
By 1843, Donizetti's success was international and his operas acclaimed. But he still had to worry about the censors for his Caterina Cornaro, written that year for Naples – even over such details as whether the censors would allow one character to wear a Maltese cross.
Of course, Naples was not the only Italian city with irritatingly intrusive censors. In a Catholic country, suicide is a mortal sin, and so was an action that could not be presented on stage anywhere in the country. As a result, Donizetti found himself required to ensure that Maria Padilla, the title role of his 1841 opera for Milan, should die at the end of the opera not through suicide but 'of joy'.
Just as with Giuseppe Verdi, the censorship Donizetti faced in Italy was a crucial factor in shaping the works he created. The concerns of those Italian censors are not ours, yet the effects of their preoccupations remain in so many works as we know them today.
Maria Stuarda runs until 18 July 2014. Tickets are still available.
The production is a co-production with Polish National Opera, Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Paris, and Gran Teatre del Liceu, Barcelona, and is given with generous philanthropic support from Lord and Lady Laidlaw, Susan and John Singer and Michael Hartnall.]]>
From the first line of this famous tenor aria from Act I of Puccini's Manon Lescaut we know exactly what this character is thinking: 'Never before have I seen such a beautiful young woman!' (Donna non vidi mai simile a questa). The Chevalier Renato des Grieux, who sings it, has fallen head over heels in love with the gorgeous Manon Lescaut. In this lyrical and impassioned solo, Des Grieux thinks how fervent he'd feel telling her that he loved her; her name touches nerves deep inside him; he does not want the memory of her whispered name ever to fade.
Strong stuff! And it needs a musical setting to match – Puccini marked the aria 'con accento appassionato'. The melody for the first eight bars constantly yearns to rise, shown in slowly ascending phrases punctuated by sudden single high notes. In fact the second highest note of the whole aria – a top A – is reached as soon as the start of the fourth short phrase. This is important, because everything about the music needs to be heightened to reflect the sensation of love that has overcome Des Grieux. What's more, it was love at first sight – he only met her a few minutes ago!
At the start of the opera Des Grieux was an unattached young man, detached from playing romantic games. He knew nothing of love, dismissing it as a tragedy and a comedy, but he went along with some mock-flirting with a groups of girls. He wasn't serious, so when he finished everyone laughed. But then Manon Lescaut arrived on the scene, beautiful and unknown. Des Grieux was instantly captivated by her: love at first sight – genuine passion, something completely new to him. So he introduced himself. There is something tentative about the music for his approach as he couldn't know how she would react. The melody of this introduction becomes the main theme of 'Donna non vidi mai'.
At their first meeting, he also asked her name, and she replied with a memorable descending phrase to the words 'Manon Lescaut mi chiamo' (I'm called Manon Lescaut). The first words she said (sang!) to him lodged in his mind, and so in 'Donna non vidi mai' he repeats this phrase – music and words – twice. The first time is quiet and relatively low, starting on an E flat and falling away to the second lowest note in the aria. He is recalling her quiet, shy reply in every detail (the music is marked 'con semplicità'). But he loses all restraint through the effect she has had on him, and his vocal lines swell in volume and keep rising in pitch – up to a top B flat as he sings of the passion she inspires deep in him. He repeats her 'name' phrase, now high and loud, 'con anima'.
Throughout the aria, the music moves in broad waves from quiet to loud, from low to high in the melody, from quiet orchestration to forceful. It is a musical description of Des Grieux's release from emotional restraint under the transformative sensations of his instant attraction. The music repeats the same group of phrases and ideas as Des Grieux re-lives this unexpected and intoxicating meeting. The music is slow and stretched out so he can linger in every pleasurable moment. Their short first exchange was enough for him to ask her to meet him again, and for her to say she would, so Des Grieux is also singing with a sense of expectation that she will soon be back!
This aria is not just a wonderfully lyrical and romantic soliloquy, but dramatically sets up the whole story. Des Grieux's overwhelming love for Manon is so strong he defies all sense and follows her destructive path – ultimately to be taken down with her. But all that is yet to happen. As Des Grieux sings 'Donna non vidi mai', he is full of hope, anticipation and an all-consuming passion for Manon Lescaut.
Manon Lescaut runs 17 June–7 July 2014. Limited numbers of tickets are still available.
The production is generously supported by Rolex, with generous philanthropic support from Mrs Susan A. Olde OBE, Lord and Lady Laidlaw, Mrs Philip Kan, Marina Kulishova, Mrs Trevor Swete, Quentin Holland, Mercedes T. Bass, Bruce Kovner, the American Friends of Covent Garden and The Manon Lescaut Production Syndicate.
The production will be relayed live to cinemas around the world on 24 June 2014. Find your nearest cinema and sign up to our mailing list.]]>
One of the defining features of Puccini's musical settings is how he portrays the geographical settings for the stories of his operas. He was not the first to do this, nor the last, but Puccini's works are notably well-travelled. The scores' set descriptions themselves make the point – for example:
Puccini's aim was to create a realistic world on stage that included the specific locale of the drama, so he included in his music sounds that give this sense of a real place. One of the most famous is the opening of Act III of Tosca. The final part of the story takes place on top of the Castel Sant'Angelo in Rome, just before dawn. The points of starlight in a black sky provoke condemned hero Cavaradossi to recall a romantic night spent with Tosca – this is the famous aria 'E lucevan le stelle'. Paul Brown's designs for Jonathan Kent's Royal Opera production re-create the scene beautifully, but Puccini provided the lead through the music.
The opening creates the sense of quiet over a sleeping city: a shepherd leads his flock out to graze – we don't see him, but hear his song and the ringing of the sheep's bells, and then the church bells start to chime the call to matins. It is a lovely evocation of peace and calm, a world on the brink of awakening. This was one of the first sections of the opera that Puccini began composing, and indicates his desire to get an accurate sense of place right at the start of his work on the music. He had visited Rome and had local help to notate the sound of the Roman bells so that he could include the pitch and rhythm of their tolling into the music with some precision. It's detail like this that makes the atmosphere so convincing.
It was harder to draw on such literal sounds for the landscape of the American West of the Gold Rush. But Puccini's ear for colour and texture brilliantly conjure up that sense of the sublime that was captured in the art of the American Hudson River School, with painters such as Thomas Cole, Frederic Church and Albert Bierstadt: the majestic power and scale of nature untamed in a barely explored New World.
The short orchestral prelude that begins La fanciulla del West (The Girl of the Golden West) uses sweeping chords, tremolo strings and big changes of dynamics to evoke with the orchestra the idea of huge spaces subject to the elements, the wind through great redwoods, the swaying of their branches (a wind machine is used later in the opera to convey such a soundscape literally).
The last act of Manon Lescaut opens with an equally haunting, if more contracted, effect of expansive chords to represent the wide barren expanse outside New Orleans (geographical licence is part of opera!) in which Manon will perish.
Puccini's time allowed him to bring the pictorial quality of 19th-century Romantic music into opera with a purpose beyond the decorative. Puccini wanted to make you feel as though you were there, alongside the characters in the story. His music evokes the power of their emotions, but it also brings alive the landscapes in which they live and die.
Manon Lescaut runs from 17 June to 7 July 2014. A limited number of tickets are still available.
There will be a live cinema relay of the production on 24 June 2014. Find a showing near you.
Find out more about Puccini's use of local colour in John Snelson's article in the Manon Lescaut Digital Guide
Tosca runs from 10 May to 26 June 2014. Tickets are still available.]]>
Gounod's opera Faust is full of really memorable tunes, especially for the chorus. One of the most delightfully exuberant comes towards the end of Act II – 'Ainsi que la brisé légère'. It has a lightness and consistent propulsion that captures the spirit of the words, which describe waltzing as a light breeze raising dust from fields. The first verse describes being drawn into the waltz and making the countryside resound with singing. In a second verse, the words are of dancing till out of breath, until carried away as the earth dizzily spins round. The final lines are: 'Quel bruit! Quelle joie dans tous les yeux!' – What a noise, what happiness in everyone's eyes!
By the middle of the 19th century, Europe whirled to the waltz. For people with two legs and a left/right two-time rhythm, the effect of three beats in a bar proved intoxicating. It invited a sense of perpetual motion through the momentum of turning as you dance. And with this came associations of liveliness, levity and even lasciviousness – you need to hold your partner very close! The waltz was the dance of hedonistic enjoyment. So when Gounod uses a waltz to introduce the celebrating crowds in Act II of Faust, he signals through his musical setting their complete happiness.
Gounod uses more than the three-beats-in-the-bar regularity of the waltz rhythm and the steady oom-pah-pah accompaniment. While the first part of the waltz begins with repeated notes in a middle register, the second section picks out a high note at the beginning of each phrase (echoed in the orchestration straight after). This creates that sense of lift, as though the tune just can't be kept down.
Using the waltz as a social dance that evokes a sensation of group abandonment to pleasure recurs in operas and operettas. For example, Puccini uses it in La rondine with a series of waltz sections that sweep through Bullier's dance hall, where Act II is set. But it works for solo moments too.
One of the highlights of Gounod's Faust is the Jewel Song for Marguerite. She discovers a box of wonderful jewels, conjured up by Méfistofélès to help Faust seduce her. As she opens the box, then tries out how she would look in diamonds and pearls, she sings an aria famous for its coloratura (fast and delicate high notes). Here is the same musical creation of breathless excitement, the racing heart. It shows itself in the main tune, which begins with a run up to one little high note – a thrill of delight – followed by a phrase of incredulous delight, and continues through successive rising phrases.
Gounod recognized a good bit of musical characterization and used exactly the same technique in his opera Roméo et Juliette. In the first act, Juliette declares she has no intention of marrying and settling down to some domestic restraint. Instead, 'Je veux vivre' – she wants to live! She sings about this in a gloriously catchy coloratura waltz song that is sister to Marguerite's Jewel Song. The little gasping effect is now the breathless enthusiasm of Juliet as the song starts – her will to indulge in life's experiences is already in the audience's mind contrasted with the knowledge of how doomed a desire this is. And of course, in Faust, we also know that Marguerite's happiness too will be short-lived. But while that waltz song plays, we forget the future and just give in to the moment and that delightful, invigorating, seemingly endless whirl.
Faust runs until 25 April 2014. Tickets are still available.
Faust is a co-production with Opéra de Monte Carlo, Opéra de Lille and Fondazione Teatro Lirico Giuseppe Verdi, Trieste, and is given with generous philanthropic support from David Hancock, Spindrift Al Swaidi, Martin and Jane Houston, Mr and Mrs Christopher W.T. Johnston, The Tsukanov Family Foundation, The Connoisseurs' Series and The Friends of Covent Garden.
There is a point in classical ballets where the story is suspended or just ends, and the focus moves from telling the story to the pleasure of dance for its own sake. Often this happens in the final act, as with The Sleeping Beauty, when fairytale characters come to the wedding of Prince Florimund and Princess Aurora and join in the celebrations. These are the divertissements.
Often divertissements are linked to a common idea. In The Sleeping Beauty, the fairytale theme gives rise to dances for such characters as Puss-in-Boots and the White Cat, Princess Florine and the Bluebird as well as Red Riding Hood and the Wolf. In The Nutcracker (which features some of the most famous of all ballet divertissements) the theme includes delicious treats in the guise of national dances, including Spanish (chocolate), Arabian (coffee) and Chinese (tea). In fact different national styles – at least, as classical ballet interprets them – are one of the most familiar linking ideas for sets of divertissements, and easily identified by their musical styles as well as their distinctive dance steps.
Contrasts of style are the very point of divertissements. The dance for Puss-in-Boots and the White Cat includes all the preening and ear-and-whisker stroking gestures to suggest the cat, while the pas de chat jumps inevitably make their mark. How different that all is from the more fluid and airborne feel of the divertissement for Princess Florine and the Bluebird. And the divertissement for Red Riding Hood has the Wolf stalking her, Red Riding Hood attempting to escape and finally being captured and carried off!
Most 19th-century ballets include divertissements. For example, in Coppélia, there are divertissements that allow the mechanical toys their individual spots, and in the last act the marriage of Swanilda and Franz leads to the expected celebrations in the form of a set of entertaining dance divertissements – 'Prayer' is possibly the most well-known of these.
Our expectation today is for a strong sense of continuous drama, and sometimes it can seem odd to us for the story to pause for divertissements. But in the 19th century ballets audiences revelled in those moments when the story gave way to dance as an enjoyment in itself – the dance was the main attraction and divertissements allowed for this.
But there were also practical considerations too with a ballet company that still have their place today. How do you allow all the well-known dancers to have a chance in the spotlight? They can't all play the leads at every performance. And how do you give developing dancers the chance to raise their performance stakes? You can give them the chance to step out of the corps de ballet and be seen more for themselves in a pas de six, pas de quatre or with a solo of their own in a divertissement and so gain a bit more experience to move up one day to prima ballerina or danseur noble. And at the most basic level – you need to do something to give the principals a chance for a break before their demanding and show-stopping grand pas de deux!
Both practically and aesthetically, the divertissements in classical ballet are part of the whole package. They draw our attention to the brilliance of the dancers' techniques and their ability to evoke mood through movement alone, not in the service of describing the actions of the story. With such concision, single-minded characterizations and requirement for wonderful technical command, it isn't surprising that divertissements so often provide some of the most distinctive and memorable moments of classical ballets.
The Sleeping Beauty runs 22 February–9 April. Tickets are still available.
Production sponsored by Coutts; generously supported by Sarah and Lloyd Dorfman, Peter Lloyd and in memory of Ellen Burkhardt; with additional philanthropic support from The Royal Opera House Endowment Fund. Original production (2006) made possible by The Linbury Trust, Sir Simon and Lady Robertson and Marina Hobson OBE.]]>
A fugue has the reputation of being a very complicated musical idea – and indeed it is if you're planning to compose one. It's the musical equivalent of constructing the Times crossword and a difficult Sudoku puzzle at the same time. But listening to one and following how it is put together is intriguing and fun – it can have the obsessive interest of untangling string and the logical surprises of trying to follow the staircases in an M.C. Escher drawing: interesting patterns, intriguingly fitted together.
In essence, a fugue is a conversation in which everyone talks about the same thing at once, and you have to listen carefully to follow all the different speakers. Sometimes one of the speakers is more prominent; sometimes everyone piles in together. But importantly the speakers keep repeating what the others have said – a fugue is about one part imitating another.
Fugues developed from musical counterpoint of the 16th century, in which parts imitating each other (polyphony) was a big contrast with music written in block chords (homophony). The German organist Michael Praetorius wrote in the early 1600s that 'in constructing a good fugue one must with special diligence and careful thought seek to bring together as many ways as possible in which the same material can be combined with itself: interwoven, duplicated, used in direct and contrary motion; in short, brought together in an orderly, artistic and graceful way and carried through to the end.'
J.S. Bach in particular is associated with fugues, with his collection of 48 Preludes and Fugues among his most famous and influential works. Bach wrote very many fugues for keyboard (organ and harpsichord) and included them in his choral works. In the case of The Art of Fugue, Bach never specified what instruments it was to be played on, and some people have thought it more a game at inventing complex musical ideas than something actually to perform. But it also means you can hear many different versions – single keyboard (organ, harpsichord, piano), two harpsichords, string quartets, instrumental ensembles, and even jazz ensembles.
The parts that make up a fugue have particular names that give some indication of what their musical function is:
One endearing example of a fugue is seen in the final movement of Britten's The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra:
But Bach will always be the acknowledged master of these musical conundrums. The Art of Fugue is a wonderful compendium of absolutely everything you need to know about fugues.
Tetractys – The Art of Fugue is staged as part of a Royal Ballet Mixed Programme alongside Rhapsody and Gloria. It runs 7–15 February 2014. A limited number of tickets are still available.
Tetractys – The Art of Fugue is supported by Outset in partnership with The Luxury Collection, and staged with generous philanthropic support from David Hancock, Linda and Philip Harley and two anonymous donors.]]>
From some of the evidence available – at least in the arts – dancing can be very bad for your health (and often fatal). Occasionally it's self-induced: the Chosen One in The Rite of Spring has the honour of sacrificing his or her own life, pushing beyond the body's physical limits at the ecstatic climax to collapse in death.
Death through dance is transcendent for a willing sacrifice, but not a victim. In Hans Christian Andersen's fairytale The Red Shoes, a vain girl puts her obsession with a pair of shiny red shoes before her devotion to God. The shoes develop a life of their own, forcing her to dance without stopping. She even has her feet cut off – but still the shoes keep on dancing and only when she prays sincerely for forgiveness do they stop. The message is clear: God first, Manolo Blahniks second. But it is a psychological twist rather than a moral lesson in the film The Red Shoes, about a company performing a ballet based on Andersen's tale. The prima ballerina – played by Moira Shearer, who danced with Sadler's Wells Ballet (later The Royal Ballet) – is torn between jealous rivals for her love. As the strains become unbearable, the red shoes of her on-stage ballet character seem to dance her off stage, out of the theatre and straight under a train. Was it suicide, or the shoes bringing fiction into life? Michael Powell (co-director with Emeric Pressburger) relished the ambiguity.
A similar destructive blurring of fantasy and reality in a ballerina's mind brings death in Black Swan, with Natalie Portman's character Nina Sayers dancing the whole last act while fatally wounded. Sometimes, though, the ending is not entirely bleak. Heinrich Heine described a German folktale in which the spirits of vengeful women cause men to dance themselves to death, and this became the spur for Giselle. Two men are thus challenged – Hilarion is forced to dance himself to death, but Albrecht is saved by the spirit of his dead love.
The inevitability of these fatal endings stems from an association of dance and death that goes back some 1,500 years, if not longer. The skull-headed death figure leading mortals in a dance to hell was a long-standing representation of the mortality of all humans. That deep association re-emerged in the Gothic Romanticism of the 1800s with two musical ideas: the plainchant theme of the Dies irae from the Mass for the Dead, widely quoted in wild dances to suggest mortality (and later used in the opening credits of The Shining); and the tarantella, (wrongly) associated with a supposed cure for spider bite through energetic dancing. Such fatal hysteria and destructive energy appealed to the Romantic musical mind – composers latched on to its furious pace and seemingly perpetual fast, triplet melodies to evoke life-threatening frenzy.
Death seems to go in three-time – as in the Devil's violin of Camille Saint-Saëns's Danse macabre (familiar to many as the theme to 'Jonathan Creek'). By the early 1900s an air of decay and death also lingered around the waltz. The saturated atmosphere of Maurice Ravel's La Valse has often drawn associations with the spirit of its age – the aftermath of World War I – and the relentless ratcheting up of this whirling musical melée has widely been taken to suggest decadence leading to utter collapse. At the end of Ashton's ballet to Ravel's score the curtain closes on dancers still in motion. Should we think they are also condemned to dance till they drop?
Which dances to the death send a shiver down your spine?
Giselle runs from 18 January to 10 February 2014. A small number of tickets are still available.
The ballet will be broadcast live to cinemas worldwide on 27 January 2014. Find your nearest cinema.
The production is staged with generous philanthropic supportfrom Mrs Aline Foriel-Destezet, Celia Blakey and the Jean Sainsbury Royal Opera House Fund.]]>
One of the most awaited moments (and there's a lot of competition) in The Nutcracker is the Grand Pas de deux in Act II: visually stunning, musically gorgeous. It is part of the entertainments in the Kingdom of Sweets to reward Clara for her help in saving the life of the Nutcracker and defeating the Mouse King, and comes after a series of divertissements that includes the famous Arabian Dance, Chinese Dance, Dance of the Mirlitons (little flutes) and the Waltz of the Flowers.
A pas de deux is a centrepiece that allows two star dancers to shine with their technique, communication of emotion and especially their partnering – the sympathetic way they respond to each other. In classical ballets the pas de deux is usually for a male and female principal (and thus in the story so often between two lovers): here it is the Sugar Plum Fairy and her Prince. There is a general pattern for a classical pas de deux. First the two soloists enter and dance a slow section together (the Adagio), then they each have a solo number (called a Variation) and finally they dance together in a spectacular and usually fast conclusion (the Coda). Essential elements of the whole form draw on contrasts between the different sections in the choreography, characterization and, of course, the music. So how is this all shown in Act II of The Nutcracker?
For the first section, the choreographer Petipa asked the composer Tchaikovsky for 'an adagio intended to produce a colossal impression' – which is just what Tchaikovsky delivered. After a few chords of introduction, and unexpectedly in the middle of a bar, a striking and soulful cello melody begins, little more than a descending scale. Tchaikovsky transforms this unlikely material into a powerfully expressive melody, using repetitions matched with increasingly full and intense orchestration. The choreography focuses on the beauty of the line of the two solo dancers, treated as one as they flow gracefully into a series of momentary striking images of beautiful shapes and gravity-defying lifts and balances.
The Variation for the Prince is musically almost understated at the start, a quiet tarantella. The twisting and hopping quality of the melody is paired with choreography that seems equally understated in making a series of impressive and vigorous jumps and leaps seem effortless. Leaving the ground and occupying the air with total ease is a very hard thing to do indeed!
Next, the Sugar Plum Fairy has her Variation, which contrasts the Prince by showing lightness in contact with the ground through her beautifully precise and delicate movements, poised on pointe. Petipa asked here for music that sounded 'as if drops of water were shooting out of fountains', and Tchaikovsky matched this description superbly to the sounds of the celesta, the solo instrument that has helped make this one of the most immediately recognizable of all pieces of Tchaikovsky ballet music.
To finish, the two dancers come back together for a shared flourish of agility, supported by wonderfully vigorous and assertive music – marked to be played allegro assai (very fast). Over steady chords sails a catchy, flowing melody that breaks out into furious runs of scales and then decorative figures and trills, capturing perfectly the energy and speed of the dancers. At the end, the Sugar Plum Fairy is in the arms of her Prince once more – and the whole joyful Grand Pas de deux becomes a summary of how choreography, superb technique, wonderful music and the thrill of performance can make ballet so extraordinary and uplifting.
The Nutcracker runs from 4 December 2013 to 16 January 2014. Tickets are sold out, though returns may become available and a limited number of day tickets will become available for each performance.
The production will be relayed live to cinemas around the world on 12 December. Find your nearest cinema and sign up for our cinema newsletter.
The production is staged with generous philanthropic support from Lady Jarvis and The Royal Opera House Endowment Fund.
The Prelude to Wagner's opera Parsifal begins with a melody that only gradually reveals its shape. It is slow, sustained, with long phrases that seem to yearn upwards in pitch. Subtle syncopations are half-hesitant, half-urgent. It's played twice, each time building and then dying away almost to nothing. Then silence. The melody is played again but varied, and again followed by silence. Then comes something unexpected (at 4:23 below). It is a very different theme, a musical opposite: short, no chromatic notes or modulations of harmony, rhythmically simple and with a melody based on a five-note rising scale (A flat up to E flat). The style of the theme is so different from the first one, with an air of calm authority – a quietly confident full stop, after the numinous, intangible first theme. What is this musical 'full stop' and why is it so different?
Wagner is especially known for his use of leitmotifs – musical themes that represent people, actions, objects and concepts, which are altered throughout an opera to reflect what is happening in the story and what the characters are thinking. Usually these leitmotifs are almost fragmentary or open-ended to allow for change. The Parsifal 'full stop' is totally different because it is so closed musically, almost defying change. But then it isn't by Wagner. It is a sung 'amen' widely performed in Protestant churches in Wagner's time, associated in particular with Dresden and hence called the Dresden amen, also present in the composer's other operas Das Liebesverbot and Tannhäuser.
This association matters. In any opera prelude or overture we may hear melodies that come later in the opera and have significance as leitmotifs. But at the beginning they have no associations – these themes are just sounds until we discover their dramatic context. But for the audiences of Wagner's time the Dresden amen came with its own preformed religious associations. Parsifal is based on Wolfram von Eschenbach's 13th century epic poem telling the tale of Arthurian knight Parzival and his quest for the Holy Grail, and when we hear the Dresden amen in the drama it is clearly associated with the revelation of the Grail to the knights at the climax of the ritual that is also the climax of Act I.
Mostly we continue to hear the Dresden amen in contexts when the Grail is present as symbol and in actual fact. This is why it is part of the music for the transition as Gurnemanz leads Parsifal to the temple for the first time to witness the ritual. We also hear the Dresden amen referenced as Parsifal catches the spear in Act II, where its musical certainty contrasts starkly with the 'unstable' music of sorcerer Klingsor's magic realm. In Act III it is a significant part of the final scene of redemption.
The orchestral prelude that opens Act III shows this theme in a different and very unexpected way. So often in such introductions Wagner takes a familiar motif and changes it through a process of symphonic development. But here it works the other way round. The uneasy, syncopated climbing figure in the orchestra gradually coalesces into a forceful statement of the Dresden amen (at 2:55 above). It is as though the five-note rising phrase has got tangled up like string, and the music is trying to unravel it. So the Dresden amen is not the music's starting point, but its goal. The symbolism of spiritual aspiration is very clear. But that aspiration is thwarted, as the Dresden amen isn't allowed to resolve onto the last chord as we expect it to – though this only adds to the power of its final resolution at the end of the opera. Ultimately, the certainty of the Amen is more than just a musical 'full stop'. It represents through music the certainty Parsifal has gained in Faith itself.
Parsifal runs from 30 November-18 December 2013. Tickets are still available.
The production will also be relayed live to cinemas around the world on 18 December. Find your nearest cinema.
The production is staged with generous philanthropic support of the Metherell Family, Roland & Sophie Rudd, Dr and Mrs Michael West, Marina Hobson MBE, Ian and Helen Andrews, Peter and Fiona Espenhahn, Annie Frankel, Malcolm Herring, Dr L Mikheev and N Mikheev, Lindsay and Sarah Tomlinson, The Wagner Circle and The Parsifal Production Syndicate and generously supported in memory of Simon Tullah.]]>
'Nessun dorma' must have a claim to be the most famous opera aria ever – thanks to a certain World Cup and the Three Tenors. No doubt some of the millions encountered Turandot through 'Nessun dorma' then listened to more music from the opera. And there are other wonderfully smooth and tuneful solos in the opera, such as Liù's 'Signore ascolta'. However, it is just as much an opera of big crowds. They can have their lyrical moments too, and sometimes in the most unexpected places.
In Act I there is a beautiful number for the people of Peking, 'Perché tarde la luna'. The sound sweeps the audience away into an exotic world suffused with a romantic musical glow. First the women and then the men sing a repeated note as the violins climb slowly higher and higher in long, sustained notes. Gradually short phrases emerge that float around, rising and falling, and then sustained. The volume pulses in waves, from soft to loud, then dying again, and between each little set of phrases there is a pause, as though the men and women are waiting for something to happen. The orchestra decorates this sumptuous vocal quality with a range of rising and falling phrases of their own: sliding strings, wafting woodwind, little punctuating points of percussion. The combination is strange, hypnotic and downright magical.
But there's something darker lurking beneath. Eventually the musical elements coalesce into a single, loud repeated statement chanted by all the voices at the climax of the chorus. What the people of Peking are chanting at the end is 'Pu-Tin-Pao', the name of the executioner. (He is described in the stage directions as 'enormous, gigantic, tragic… carrying his immense sword on his shoulder'). The crowd sing their suspenseful chorus as they keenly wait for the rising of the moon. When the moon rises it is time for the executioner to do his work, for another head to roll. The beautiful vision of the natural world in their words is related to a severed head, a lover of the dead. We can find the same verbal and musical imagery in Richard Strauss's Salome – with another executioner and another severed head. Opera can be a bloody business!
This Turandot crowd are in thrall to an erotically charged bloodlust. What throws the chorus into even starker relief is what immediately follows. We hear the angelic voices of boy trebles singing a little processional tune that represents the beautiful and vengeful Princess Turandot – a genuine Chinese melody to suit the ancient Chinese setting of the opera. Temple gongs are heard lightly striking under their voices, and there is the steady intoning quality of a formal procession. It is mesmerizing and seductive and fades to nothing. They are accompanying the young Prince of Persia who has failed to answer correctly the three riddles posed by the Princess. The penalty for failure is death – so he is about to be beheaded by Pu-Tin-Pao. Gorgeous music, violent passions. It's exactly the sort of shiver-down-the spine moment that opera does so well.
Turandot runs from 9 September 2013 – 10 March 2014, and will be screened live in cinemas on 17 September.
The production is staged with generous philanthropic support from The Royal Opera House Endowment Fund.
Puccini's opera La rondine is full of waltzes. There are delicate toe-tapping ones with a solo voice, and full-blown whirling ones with dramatic pauses in the Viennese fashion and the entire company singing and dancing. What is it about a waltz that is so captivating?
The elegant, respectable and restrained gliding we associate with 'Strictly Come Dancing' is not how it was first viewed. The waltz grew popular in Vienna in the late 1700s and began to appear in continental dance halls. But it was a suggestive and dangerous dance in comparison to the propriety of the main shared dances in formal groups. Think of those Jane Austen period dramas with everyone in long lines – men on one side, women on the other, changing partners and everyone watching and listening to everyone else. But with the waltz the couple dancing were together, alone, and their bodies were even pressed against each other. There was suggestive physical contact and the couple could have private conversations.
Clearly, the waltz was not thought respectable and decent. On the occasion of her 18th birthday party, Princess Victoria – later Queen – wrote in her diary that 'Count Waldstein looks remarkably well in his pretty uniform'. She wanted to dance with him, but 'He could not dance the quadrille and, as in my station I unfortunately cannot waltz and gallop, I could not dance with him!' This romantic and even erotic air has contributed to the mystique of the waltz. Through the 19th century it became the soundtrack for love.
The waltz also finds its way into musical comedy, where Rodgers with Hart and then with Hammerstein gave it a particular American, 20th-century twist ('Falling in Love with Love' and 'Wonderful Guy' are just two of many examples). The use of the waltz to signify romance allowed Sondheim to write the lyrics of the show title song 'Do I Hear a Waltz?'. In other words, if you hear a waltz, then you know it must be love.
When Johann Strauss II – the 'Waltz King' – began writing operettas, he naturally put waltzes in them as the perfect means of combining lilting music with romance and drama. In fact, the waltz is now intrinsically associated with operetta. In Lehár's Die lustige Witwe (The Merry Widow) the tensions and final resolution of the love affair between Hanna Glawari and Count Danilo are developed through a shared melody, the famous 'Merry Widow Waltz'. Puccini wrote La rondine as an opera – he as very clear from the start that it was not an operetta. But something about that original commission he had from Vienna put the possibility of using the waltz into his mind. From the music Puccini wrote, it's clear that this was an opportunity he wanted to indulge.
The appeal of the waltz has much to do with its three beats in a bar. We have two feet, so anything in threes immediately makes us move differently with more continuity, which thus leads to turning. The energy of this whirling propels dance into what feels like perpetual motion. And the music responds to this too. To listen to the main waltz section in Act II of La rondine is to experience this uplifting feeling, and be drawn into it, as are the dancers in the drama.
La rondine runs from 5 – 21 July. Tickets are on sale now.
The production is sponsored by Coutts. Generous philanthropic support was given by Mr and Mrs Christopher W.T. Johnston and The American Friends of Covent Garden.
Opera began as a court entertainment. Wealthy nobility in the 17th and 18th centuries had their own theatres, composers, musicians and theatrical troupes to entertain them and their guests. So it's not surprising that there was a good degree of flattery on stage to reflect the status of the aristocrats who paid for it all. Baroque and Classical operas are full of scenarios in which rulers are challenged, angered and betrayed. But whatever happens in the course of the story, the monarch (mythological or historical) invariably ends the work through dispensing a bit of noble forgiveness.
This type of opera was part an education in how to exercise power and part a distancing technique ('any resemblance between those on stage and those in the audience is entirely coincidental'). It's a pattern to be seen in such a work as Handel's Tamerlano, and with Mozart's La Clemenza di Tito (The Clemency of Titus) the title gives it away! Even presenting Queen Elizabeth I in an opera written for the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II – as Gloriana does – has loud echoes of this.
We can easily forget today how powerful and suggestive stage works could be. Gloriana's Act III is about the rebellious uprising led by the Earl of Essex. The uprising's failure results in Essex's execution on the orders of Queen Elizabeth I. It is a matter of fact that on the night before this historical event of 8 February 1601 a performance of Shakespeare's Richard II was given at The Globe theatre by The Lord Chamberlain's Men, for whom Shakespeare wrote. This was a change from the planned play – the actors were paid 40 shillings by the leading aristocratic supporters of Essex's uprising. Significantly, it is a play about a weak king with no direct heir whose throne is usurped for the good of the country. In Elizabethan times, theatres provided one of the few places crowds could legally assemble in large numbers, and in a situation where they could be incited to mob action by rhetoric from the stage. Theatres could be dangerously political places.
It's not surprising then that censorship of the stage became part of the government's role. And it wasn't just the potential for political incitement that caused concern, but increasingly anything that could corrupt public morals or offend individuals – especially the monarchy. By the early 1900s, censorship of British theatre routinely stopped any portrayal of living people or those whose immediate descendants were still living.
We are used now to seeing the present British royal family portrayed on film and stage – Helen Mirren has cornered today's market for Queen Elizabeth II. Yet around the time the current Queen was crowned, the Lord Chamberlain was regularly banning the presentation of Queen Victoria on stage, while any inclusion of the reigning monarch in a drama was unthinkable. The Lord Chamberlain's censorship continued right up to the abolition of his powers in 1968. One of the last plays to be banned from public performance featured Queen Victoria having a lesbian affair with Florence Nightingale. That play can now be performed legally of course, but it hasn't yet been turned into an opera…
What are your favourite depictions of royalty on stage?
More about the presentation of monarchy in drama can be read in the article 'We Three Queens' in the programme that accompanies Gloriana.
Gloriana runs from 20 June to 6 July. Tickets are available now.
It will also be screened live in cinemas on 24 June, and will be broadcast live by BBC Radio 3 at 6.45pm on 29 June.
This production has been made possible thanks to the generous philanthropic support of the Britten-Pears Foundation, the Boltini Trust and Lindsay and Sarah Tomlinson.
Music plays a big part in the first impression of any new character in an opera. The clues to Elena, the heroine in the title of Rossini's La donna del lago, are all there in her first song. So what does 'Oh mattutini albori' tell us about this Lady of the Lake?
Rossini's opera La donna del lago is based on Sir Walter Scott's poem The Lady of the Lake. We first encounter Elena (Ellen in the poem) as she rows a small boat across Loch Katrine from the island where she lives to the shore. As she rows she sings a lovely lilting song, 'Oh mattutini albori!' ('Oh morning rays of sunshine'). Each morning she is aware another day has passed in which she has been separated from Malcolm, the man she loves who is away fighting for the Scottish Highlanders against King Giacomo V (James V).
Elena's song is a barcarolle, so called after the easy rocking rhythm and flowing melody that is meant to suggest the gentle undulation of the waves as a boat glides along. Barcarolles are most associated with Venetian gondoliers and what they sang as they worked. You can hear this type of measured pace, rhythm and smooth melody in the well-known folk song 'The Skye Boat Song'. Sharing associations of country and conflict with La donna del lago, 'The Skye Boat Song' recalls Flora MacDonald rowing the escaping Bonnie Prince Charlie over to the Isle of Skye following his defeat at the Battle of Culloden in 1746.
For Rossini's audience, 'Oh mattutini albori!' does three things. First it establishes the landscape through the rocking 6/8 rhythm – early audiences would have known the convention that this style of music meant a boat song. The simplicity of the opening bars of the melody also indicates something naive, honest and rural (in this case, the Scottish Highlands).
Second, it gives the singer of the role the chance to make an impact with her first number. There is a long introduction for us to get used to the style of the music and also get some of the melody imprinted on the ear. When Elena begins to sing we can relax to listen – and also notice just how difficult the part becomes for the singer. This is music to let you know how not just who the character is, but also how good the performer is: the straightforward melodic outline is made very elaborate with decorative flourishes that must be performed effortlessly.
The third thing Rossini did was to have Elena sing offstage to begin with, as though she is on the lake and gradually coming towards us - a common device in opera. Before we see Elena, we have already decided how lovely she is from the music alone.
But there is one more thing about this aria. When Elena reaches the shore she meets Uberto, who is really Giacomo V in disguise. He has lost his hunting party, and she offers him shelter with her family in her island home for the night. As she rows them back they both sing the barcarolle tune, taking turns on the lines. In the final act of the opera, Elena has to go to the King, whose armies have now defeated the Highland rebels to which her father and her lover belong. She wants to plead for their lives. Offstage she hears that barcarolle, and thinks it is Uberto. The shared tune identifies the man she rowed across the lake at the start of the opera. But then she realizes that everyone else treats him as Giacomo V – and his true identity is revealed. So, Rossini's simple boat song tells us the setting, introduces the character of Elena, and is an essential part of tying up the loose ends of the plot. Not bad for just one little boat song.
Joyce DiDonato as Elena and Juan Diego Flórez as Uberto in La donna del lago © ROH / Bill Cooper 2013
Daniela Barcellona as Malcom and Joyce DiDonato as Elena in La donna del lago © ROH / Bill Cooper 2013
La donna del lago runs until 11 June. Tickets for the performances at Covent Garden are very limited but the opera will be relayed live into cinemas around the world on Monday 27 May.
The production is sponsored by the Peter Moores Foundation and the Friends of Covent Garden with generous philanthropic support from Celia Blakey, Hélène and Jean Peters, Judith Portrait and Susan and John Singer. The Production Director generously supported by Hamish and Sophie Forsyth.]]>
Afternoon tea has long been a favourite event in dramas, when its formalities and rituals can be stood on their head for fun, embarrassment and shock. Gerald Barry takes an unexpected direction presenting afternoon tea in his opera of Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest with a tea party that's a masterpiece of vitriol in the guise of utter politeness. But Wilde isn't the only one to tackle how this 'civilized' institution can bring out the worst in people and so we thought we'd take a look at a few iconic afternoon teas. Cucumber sandwiches at the ready…
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Everything about the Mad Hatter's tea party is wrong. It is held permanently at six o'clock as the Mad Hatter's watch has stopped at that point, Alice is first offered wine – which they don't in any case have, the Hatter accuses the March Hare of oiling his watch with butter, and the March Hare dips the Hatter's watch into his cup of tea to see if that will start it. The table is piled with unwashed crockery, so the Mad Hatter, Dormouse and March Hare just keep moving round to clean place settings (the servants here have passed from being taken for granted to being non-existent). The conversation has the trappings of polite exchanges, but constantly goes wrong, most famously when the Hatter asks the riddle: 'Why is a raven like a writing desk?' No one knows the answer; it is a conversational dead end. Nothing at this tea party functions: the timing, the food, the drink, the service, the conversation. It is the opposite of the ordered, polite, structured afternoon tea of a well-to-do Victorian household. Carroll pokes observational fun at daily routine.
I Lived with You
The class-bound concerns of afternoon tea were picked on by Ivor Novello in his 1932 stage farce I Lived with You, made into a film the following year with many of the same actors. Novello himself plays the lead: a Russian prince who fled the Revolution and is adopted by a social-climbing middle-class household in Fulham. This family is full of pretensions, desperate to present an image above its station; the prince is used to doing exactly what he wants without fear of consequences, and inconsiderately encourages them to emulate him. The result is increasing chaos and confusion. Afternoon tea is the point at which everything finally goes horribly wrong. As a bit of social one-upmanship, the respectable ladies of the neighbourhood are invited to meet the Prince. The Prince insists that vodka takes the place of tea – but still served in the fine china cups and saucers: the cup that cheers and inebriates. Ultimately, the snobbish, middle-class women who play at being civilized through an increasing alcoholic haze provide the perfect audience for the noisy and revelatory appearance of the mistress of the husband of the house. The greater the veneer of social-climbing etiquette, the further the fall off the unvarnished pedestal.
Mary Poppins
In Mary Poppins, author P.L. Travers created a highly subversive character. On the surface the magical nanny is strict and formal in the novel, with an extra dose of charm in Julie Andrews's portrayal in the Disney film. But Mary Poppins really exists to challenge and overturn pretty much anything that limits her children's opportunities, hopes and imagination. She likes afternoon tea, and an idealized version is described in her perfect day out with the street-painter Bert. The pair jump into Bert's pavement art of a lovely countryside scene and have afternoon tea with 'a pile of raspberry jam-cakes as big as Mary Poppins' waist'. But there is a more famous tea party in the book and film, held on the ceiling. Mary Poppins's Uncle Albert is full of laughing gas, and the nanny's two charges Jane and Michael Banks catch the same affliction. Uncle Albert, Jane, Michael and Mary Poppins all end up eating 'piles of bread and butter, crumpets, coconut cakes and a large plum cake with pink icing' while suspended near the ceiling. With her usual mock-show of disapproval, Mary Poppins describes such behaviour as 'silly and undignified' – but readily joins in. This tea party is a witty subversion of respectability and convention, and suggests something of the wide-eyed perspective of children trying to make sense of a confusing adult world of strange social rituals.
What are your favourite iconic tea parties?
The Importance of Being Earnest runs from 14 - 22 June. Tickets are sold out though returns may become available.
The production is generously supported by the John S Cohen Foundation.
There aren't many operas that manage to kill off all the principal characters by the end (although many have a good stab at it). But that's what happens in Tosca – and wonderfully too with one knifing, one firing squad and a sudden suicidal leap. Of the many explanations given about why it has become one of the most loved and watched of all operas, the appeal of the story must be a major one.
The plot is a simple one of love and jealousy. Cavaradossi is an idealist, and almost everything we want in our romantic hero (but a stronger sense of self-preservation wouldn't go amiss). Scarpia is the villain with no redeeming features (he may love his mother, but we are never told). The opera, however, is called Tosca, after the woman caught – and finally falling – between two completely opposed views of life. So we have the necessary ingredients for disaster on all character fronts, and can sit back to enjoy the hypnotic appeal of a car-crash in slow motion.
On the straight stage, Sardou's Tosca was a hit of its day, Sarah Bernhardt famously in the title role to lend it star appeal. But the opera has become international standard repertory, and we almost never come across the play. The music has made the difference. Puccini rises to the occasion to portray emotions of jealousy, rage, power, love, passion, hope with music that we respond to at a visceral level. It is tuneful, taut and overtly dramatic. This is not real life, but a piece of theatre presenting an acutely heightened version of real life. We aren't cajoled into exact identification with our own lives (at least I hope not!), but are swept away into the extremes of things we usually experience at a diluted level. Not so much 'escapist' drama as 'absorbist' drama. Suspend any disbelief and just go with it.
We extend our own emotional experiences each time we see the world through the heightened senses of those caught up in the drama. Tosca, Cavaradossi and Scarpia each have their chances to tell us what they think and – most importantly – feel. It is not about realism, but about hyper-reality. It's no coincidence that the finale to Act I of Tosca makes a great setting for evil conspiracy and the music from Act II for a slow-motion shoot out in Quantum of Solace. If Puccini was writing today, would he be writing opera or big-budget film scores?
Some people use Tosca's long-lived, global popularity as a weapon with which to beat it up. Can anything so popular actually be any good? Is it just a 'shabby little shocker' to amuse the undiscerning masses? Conventionally, popularity has been thought of as the opposite of quality, and there are plenty of TV reality shows to suggest there is a case to answer here. 'Extraordinary how potent cheap music is,' as Noël Coward had Amanda say in Private Lives. Which goes to the heart of the critical problem. If music is popular, must it automatically be of indifferent quality? Why can't something become popular because it is recognized as very very good? This question has plagued Puccini's reputation since his own day.
Often popular successes are dismissed early on as symptoms of the zeitgeist, with the expectation that they will sink beneath the waves as fashions change. But after a century, the idea of a passing fad really won't stand up to scrutiny. By the time Tosca finishes here this Season, it will have reached Royal Opera House performance number 471, in the top line-up since World War II with La bohème, La traviata and Carmen. (So we can also say that killing off the heroine in the title is good for box office.) I have read and heard many arguments that deconstruct Tosca in detail – psychological, musicological, dramaturgical. I've even written a few. They all have their merits. But I always come back to the same thing. However you package it up or pull it apart, Tosca is just wonderful theatrical entertainment. Isn't that enough?
Tosca runs from 2 – 26 March and 9 - 20 July. Tickets are still available.
An article by John Snelson on the music of the opera, as well as other articles, features in the production programme. This is available in the theatre at performance times and from the ROH Shop.
It's a familiar cliché: as death approaches, your life flashes before your eyes. If you live in the world of opera, you could be mistaken for thinking this isn't a cliché but a simple matter of fact. In a significant number of operas, including La bohème, the death of a heroine is accompanied by a musical montage of key moments from her life. Consider just a few of these memorable, operatic death scenes:
In the final act of Verdi's La traviata, the dying heroine, Violetta, sings a long and haunting duet ('Parigi, o cara') with Alfredo, the lover with whom she has – only just in time – been reunited. The brass go on to announce her imminent death in funeral-like rhythms, but Violetta finally expires after a few sentences spoken over the sounds of an ethereal solo violin. It is playing the major-key tune of her Act I showstopper 'Ah! fors'è lui' (Ah, perhaps he is the one), the point when she realized she loved Alfredo, Her dying musical memory is a beautiful tune, poignant because the theme recalls the start of her love affair.
Wagner adopted the same approach as Verdi. Isolde dies singing a solo version of her love duet with Tristan in Act II of Tristan und Isolde. He has just died, and she is about to follow him. As with Violetta, it is the return of music from
a great love scene earlier in the piece that generates the emotional charge: past elation meets grim present. If the big event in your life was that one great passion, then maybe it is exactly to that your last conscious thoughts turn. Although revisiting one event is not quite the same as a whole life flashing before one's eyes.
We get much nearer the 'flashing life' cliché at the end of Wagner's Ring cycle with Brünnhilde. As she prepares for death she recalls not just her own life but runs back through the story, motivation and music of all four of the Ring's operas. It is one very big flashback indeed for her as she contemplates what has brought her to the point of sacrificial suicide – it's also the culmination of a theatrical marathon for the audience!
Puccini does something similar in his first major opera success, Manon Lescaut. There are only two characters in Act IV: Manon and her lover Des Grieux. The title of Manon's famous Act IV aria says it all: 'Sola, perduta, abbandonata' (Alone, lost, abandoned). Stuck in a desert outside New Orleans – it's opera, the geography isn't always perfect! – the end is nigh for Manon. The act is full of musical themes from the previous three, which have shown us Manon's life from her meeting as a naive young girl with Des Grieux, through to her time as a Paris courtesan and her deportation to New Orleans for theft and prostitution – taking the besotted Des Grieux with her. In effect, the act compares the innocent girl of the start of the story with the dying figure at the end of an unhappy, unfulfilled life. The use of familiar music literally plays out elements of the story for the audience as Manon's life gradually seeps from her worn-out frame.
For the death of Mimì in La bohème, Puccini takes the idea further. The first and last acts both take place in the same cold, poorly furnished student garret, and Act IV is a montage of earlier melodies, mostly taken from Act I. However, Act I is the bright optimistic, joyous start of the story: the introduction of the lively bohemians, their carefree and colourful life and the beginnings of the romance of Mimì and Rodolfo. The music describes this atmosphere. So in Act IV, these optimistic and melodious sounds seem on first impression out of step with the darkening drama as Mimì succumbs to the final stages of tuberculosis. But Puccini intends to create this tension. The lightness of the sounds throws into relief the darkness of what is fast becoming inevitable, and it is the friction between the two that creates the tension and hence the emotion. Act I and Act IV are two sides of the same coin: one ends with lovers united, the other with lovers parted. It is the flashback of memory and its reminder of a happier past that heightens in Act IV the tragedy of a life dramatically – and operatically – cut short.
Do you have a favourite operatic final moment?
La bohème runs from 16 February - 12 March 2013.]]>


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How many times a week do you pop into Target?
Do you run errands on your lunch hour – quick shopping trips, or maybe to make a few returns?
Earn rewards when you walk into your favorite store. Even without purchasing a thing.
There's an app for that.
It's called Shopkick.
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Posts tagged: survival
David Heatherly holds "Cujo" in West Virginia. Heatherly, who recently was stranded for three days on a snowy mountain road in Montana after his SUV became stuck in the snow, attributed his survival to God, a rationed supply of beef jerky and the video game "Angry Birds" that he played on his cellphone to keep his wits. Story here. (AP Photo/David Heatherly)


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One Direction Singing Toothbrushes Launch Worldwide
Brush Buddies, the world's leading brand of licensed manual toothbrushes, and Global Merchandising Services, a leader in international music merchandising, announced today that One Direction is the newest artist to be featured on the wildly successful line of Brush Buddies Singing Toothbrushes. The announcement was made today by Anish Patel, Chief Executive Officer of Brush Buddies, and Barry Drinkwater, Founder and Owner of Global Merchandising Services, Ltd.
Brush Buddies created the Singing Toothbrush category during the summer of 2011 with their launch of two products that each featured two hit songs by Justin Bieber. Brush Buddies expanded the category with new products in 2012 featuring new songs by Justin Bieber and new artists Lady Gaga and LMFAO.
"We are thrilled to announce One Direction as the second music group in our portfolio and are particularly excited about launching in their home countries of the UK and Ireland," states Patel. "Our products have become known for representing artists in their unique style and our packaging allows consumers to play the two songs on each brush while maintaining the product in a safe hygienic shell while in-pack.
Brush Buddies is one of three licensee's of One Direction in the Oral Care category. Brush Buddies acquired the worldwide license, excluding North America, to produce singing toothbrushes utilizing the name, likeness and music of One Direction.
One Direction is comprised of members Niall Horan, Liam Payne, Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson and Zayn Malik, who were put together after auditioning for The X Factor UK in 2010. Their debut album, Up All Night, has reached #1 in 16 countries, selling more than 3 million albums, 8 million singles and 1 million DVD's worldwide. The group has also amassed nearly seven million followers on Twitter and 10 million Likes on Facebook.
About Brush Buddies
Brush Buddies is the world's leading provider of entertaining and educational oral care products for people of all ages. The Brush Buddies brand includes Singing toothbrushes, featuring chart-topping hits by Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga and LMFAO; Sonic toothbrushes, which clean with 30,000 stokes-per-minute; Talking toothbrushes, designed as five characters to teach young brushers proper technique; Poppin' toothbrushes, designed as five animal characters whose brush head pops with action and Standard toothbrushes, designed as three whimsical characters fit for smaller hands.
Brush Buddies
Follow on Twitter
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About Global Merchandising Services
Based in London, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, Global is the turnkey solution for design, product development, manufacturing and sales in all channels of retail distribution: live events, web stores, sponsorships, and third-party licensing. Global Merchandising Services was established in 2008 by 30-year industry veteran Barry Drinkwater, founder and former worldwide CEO of Bravado International Group. GMS provides a non-corporate alternative for artists and entertainment-rights holders searching for a combination of old-school service and cutting edge development. Global creates unique and innovative international merchandise programs as creative as they are profitable. Our staff of industry experts combine passion, experience and knowledge to maximize all potential revenue streams and deliver quality merchandise to the consumer.
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Thanks so much for all your suggestions in my last blog. Fortunately, I did find a place to start doing my Insanity Workouts again (BIG YAY!!! lol.)! We do have a conference room in our dormitory, and it has closed double doors (but tons of windows, but I have no problem with that), so I was thankful for that since I didn't wanna do it in the main lobby wear anybody could walk in and look at me like I was some sort of sweating maniac (but when you do Insanity, you kinda are, right??? lol). Since I've missed two weeks of Insanity, I'm re-doing weeks 4 &5 to re-build my speed and endurance for the workout again. I hate that I'm having to re-do the weeks, but it's needed, and it could only help me, and not hurt me. I'm probably gonna head to my gym on campus later on, towards the end of the day, and get on the treadmill for about thirty minutes. I paid enough to use it, so I'm definitely going to be in there frequently; maybe go for a swim every now and then to switch up the routine. And I know for some people, they might think that it isn't that serious to finish this sort of program, but it is to me. When you find something that you can stick with, you need to finish. I felt really annoyed with myself when I thought I couldn't complete this program, and now, because I didn't give up, I'm going to. Thanks everyone for the ideas and advice. Your awesome. peace.
You know how you know you're committed to something? When you're mad when you can't complete it. I can't complete my Insanity Workout Program because I simply have no place to work out. It's very hard for me to except not being able to finish this. I'm trying really hard to think of a way to do it. Maybe I could take my laptop to the park, and do it outside (lol)??? But I know that will put me in danger of getting my things stolen from me, and I don't want that to happen, no matter how safe a place might be. I try to workout at the gym on campus, but that's kinda hard for me. It's like when I'm on that treadmill, I feel like I should be doing more. I crave the intensity that I found with Insanity. This really disappoints me, because I only had four more weeks left. Maybe I can find a way around this. Thank you guys for all your past support. I will try to stay committed to some type of exercise routine. It's just hard when your focus and commitment was into such an awesome program. peace.
I'm in my recovery week of Insanity. I finished my second day of it and it was fine. Later on in the day I had to go through an emotional breakdown. It really hurts, but I'm gonna try not to slack this week because of it. I'm good at persevering for the most part. Even though it's gonna be hard with what I'm going through emotionally right now. Anyways, if anyone else is going through what I'm going through, please do not relapse to eating unhealthy things, or slacking on your workouts. I will try to heed my own advice as well. Peace.
Today, was a great day for me eating wise. I was able to eat today without over-eating. Even though my problem is not with over-eating as much as it is drinking calories instead of eating them. I bought Crystal Light today, and I think that that helped a lot with my drinking habits. I've learned that I'm more attracted to the taste of what I drink, rather than feeling dehydrated or thirsty. With Crystal Light, I'm able to solve both problems without taking in too many calories, which is great for me since today was my cardio recovery day, and I probably don't need as many calories on that day, as I would with the other days on the high impact workouts. And I'm sooo excited that I am almost done with week 4 of insanity!!! That would be considered a month on the calendar, and I can't believe I've made it this far! I'm very excited, because now I get to move on to some new dvds! Even though it's gonna be tougher, I'm gonna push through it until I finish the whole program. Oh, and my new weight is 159.8. Whoo hoo! It took long enough, lol. I 'm sooo happy to be out of the 160s, even if it's only slightly. I'm hoping to be down to a complete 159 by the end of this week. Thanks for everyone that's keeping up with me, and for those who started these workouts around the same time as me: don't give up, and I'll see you at the finish line!!!
Here is something about me that has always made it hard for me to lose weight. Food. I really don't understand why. Now, it's never been to the point I've gotten obese. The highest weight I've ever been is 177, and I felt like that was ridiculous. It only to took me to get just slightly overweight to realize that this wasn't the life I wanted to lead. My ultimate goal is to get to the 140s. If I can get under that, that would be great. The only thing that's holding me back is my eating habits. I can exercise everyday and stick with it, but it's so hard for me to not eat junk food. It's especially hard for me not to drink my calories, which I do a lot of. I don't drink sodas, but sometimes I can drink too much tea or juices that are high in sugar, and that's what gets me in trouble. It's very hard for me to stay on a healthy eating regimen because I'm a college student and sometimes I can't buy the most healthiest foods. Another thing I hate is drinking water. lol. I don't like to drink water unless it's while I'm working out. I think with the money I do have, I'm gonna go buy some crystal light packs to put in my water can at times, so I won't be so tempted to drink those sugary juices all the time. I really hate that I'm struggling with this eating thing, and there's so much more I could say right now, but I'll share it on another blog. I just don't wanna hold myself back from my potential. Me confessing this really makes me wanna do better, and I wanna try harder. Thanks for the support along the way, it's been really helpful. Can't wait to start Insanity later on today. I'm ready for the challenge. I think this is the longest I've ever stuck with a DVD program, so I'm excited to get ready to complete my fourth week. Hopefully this will be a better week for me eating wise as well. Much love.


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main index
A Smash Cut cut occurs without warning in the middle of a scene and transitions abruptly to another, and is often intended to startle the audience. Very often, it goes something like this:
Bob: I'm so not gonna —Can also be combined with Gilligan Cut, or Ironic Echo, though a Smash Cut is defined by the lack of warning that it is coming and the fact that it usually cuts someone off mid-sentence. This is also a popular technique for going to credits, or for when someone wakes up from a Nightmare, so it often overlaps with Catapult Nightmare. Compare Ironic Echo Cut and Smash to Black. Overlaps with Interrupted by the End. Not to be confused with the Canadian movie Smash Cut.
(smash cut to Bob doing whatever he was about to say he wouldn't do)
Bob: ...Dangnabbit.
ExamplesAnime & Manga


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A few months ago we posted about Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman's giant inflatable rubber duck while it was floating in the waters of Hong Kong. The city of Shanghai recently created their own version of Florentijn Hofman's famous rubber duckie by transforming a passenger boat into an enormous floating roast duck, complete with crispy brown skin and protruding drumsticks. The duck's great big papier-mâché head rests peacefully upon the bow of the ship.
'The design process took place during Shanghai's scorching hot summer days, so we just thought: 'let's roast it", designer Han Beishi told AFP.
This floating faux feast is also a functioning ferryboat responsible for transporting passengers to cultural performances around the Shanghai River for the Art Bund Project 2013.
[via designboom]


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