Showing posts with label MERG. Show all posts
Showing posts with label MERG. Show all posts
Wednesday, 2 April 2008
Gideon.
This was my first recording for Naxos a few years ago...
This was my first recording for Naxos a few years ago...Initially, I was going to use 'g' for 'garden' but was rather overwhelmed by the amount of photos to choose from. I love gardens and all things green and have taken hundreds of pictures of things that have caught my eye in that department, but my wee blog just isn't up to the amount of photos I could add... I just couldn't choose... So hence, 'Gideon' - a pastiche oratorio by G F Handel and compiled by J C Smith. It was recorded over two live concerts in Germany - talk about stress! I've done 'Solomon' (Queen of Sheba and 1st Harlot) and 'Hercules' (Dejanira) with them since... The 'Hercules' project holds particularly good memories, as it was during this that Klozknitz (aka C) taught me to knit! She was playing cello in the orchestra while I screamed out front...
I am now back at home in France. (Huzzah!) Mind you, I've been as sick as a dog since I got back and have been sleeping roughly 18 hours a day. Ugh. Not sure if it's a bug I caught or just exhaustion kicking on from the shows and travel... But I feel like cack. Moan, moan, moan! I did manage to make it outside to buy some essentials yesterday (ground coffee for my lovely life-saving machine), but that's about it!
MERG went down well. It's basically a fusion of baroque music (Monteverdi, Rossi, Luzzaschi) and modern dance using 3 singers (2 sopranos and an alto), 5 dancers and 5 musicians (2 violins, 1 theorbo, 1 viola da gamba and a harpsichord). The musicians are kept in a kind of cage (I'll try and find a photo) and the rest of us move around them. Yes - ALL OF US - DANCE!! The show was an hour and a half long extravaganza and rather good fun to do! The photo below shows what the stage looked liked when I was singing the 'Lettera amarosa' by Monteverdi. The monody itself is a long love letter/poem to a woman with blonde hair and the text of the poem was projected onto the covering of the cage, but the staging by the choreographers was quite opposite to the meaning of the words (quite difficult to maintain when you've been trained to be honest to the text) so I was to be unattached to the poetry and had to cut locks of out my long blond wig with very over-sized scissors. Bizarre, but it worked! Mind you, I was very fond of my baroque corset and full skirt! The blond wig, on the other hand... (Especially after being hacked away... One wig only lasted three shows at the most!) But I think photographic evidence of those can wait a while!
Right now I'm going to concentrate on getting well again.
Please do not feed the musicians.
I am now back at home in France. (Huzzah!) Mind you, I've been as sick as a dog since I got back and have been sleeping roughly 18 hours a day. Ugh. Not sure if it's a bug I caught or just exhaustion kicking on from the shows and travel... But I feel like cack. Moan, moan, moan! I did manage to make it outside to buy some essentials yesterday (ground coffee for my lovely life-saving machine), but that's about it!
MERG went down well. It's basically a fusion of baroque music (Monteverdi, Rossi, Luzzaschi) and modern dance using 3 singers (2 sopranos and an alto), 5 dancers and 5 musicians (2 violins, 1 theorbo, 1 viola da gamba and a harpsichord). The musicians are kept in a kind of cage (I'll try and find a photo) and the rest of us move around them. Yes - ALL OF US - DANCE!! The show was an hour and a half long extravaganza and rather good fun to do! The photo below shows what the stage looked liked when I was singing the 'Lettera amarosa' by Monteverdi. The monody itself is a long love letter/poem to a woman with blonde hair and the text of the poem was projected onto the covering of the cage, but the staging by the choreographers was quite opposite to the meaning of the words (quite difficult to maintain when you've been trained to be honest to the text) so I was to be unattached to the poetry and had to cut locks of out my long blond wig with very over-sized scissors. Bizarre, but it worked! Mind you, I was very fond of my baroque corset and full skirt! The blond wig, on the other hand... (Especially after being hacked away... One wig only lasted three shows at the most!) But I think photographic evidence of those can wait a while!
Right now I'm going to concentrate on getting well again.
Please do not feed the musicians.
Monday, 17 March 2008
Man, I'm knackered! The second week of rehearsals for MERG are in full swing and going well - I say well, but really I mean surprisingly well. We (the three singers) have managed to remember not only the arias but also the blocking, staging and dances. Not bad for over a year away from it, believe me!
Holland is dull, dingy, dreich and damp, as per usual, but it's jolly nice to see my friends up here. I discovered that three of the dancers have taken up knitting in the last year, so we've been comparing cables! (Or 'How Not To Cable' as it turns out...) The Swan, one of the dancers, has offered to introduce me to his favourite LYS (expensive) and another dancer, The Lovely Canadian, has offered to show me hers (euro-tastic). You can guess which one my wallet will let me visit... Oo - I have found a rather excellent craft shop in The Hague, though - I had to be torn away from the wire and beads and knitting needles and sparkly things and hooks and jewellery findings and embroidery threads and fimo blocks and hand-made paper and... Actually it was just as well there was a shop next door selling Cadbury's chocolate, or I would still be in the craft shop lusting over everything...
But I have been knitting... mostly Q's draught excluder (still don't ask...) but I finished one of the Brigid socks - hoorah. I'll try and upload a photo, but as I'm not at my own computer I'm not sure if it will work...
Whee - upload successful! Ach well, the photo is not the best quality, but you get the gist... The sock fits, though - a grand accomplishment for me! I'm now on Brigid Two, but I'm also around row 40 of the Wavy Socks - 'tis a pretty pattern! Mum's Coco bag is also slowly being added to, but I'm hoping I'll have a plethora of FO's to post when I get back down to France at the end of the month...
Q's Birthday Bear was a great success, btw, although after being named 'Stanley', he has now been re-christened 'Bear of Chucky' as his blue eyes seem to be unnerving the best friend somewhat... 'Tis easily remedied, but it did make me giggle!
Holland is dull, dingy, dreich and damp, as per usual, but it's jolly nice to see my friends up here. I discovered that three of the dancers have taken up knitting in the last year, so we've been comparing cables! (Or 'How Not To Cable' as it turns out...) The Swan, one of the dancers, has offered to introduce me to his favourite LYS (expensive) and another dancer, The Lovely Canadian, has offered to show me hers (euro-tastic). You can guess which one my wallet will let me visit... Oo - I have found a rather excellent craft shop in The Hague, though - I had to be torn away from the wire and beads and knitting needles and sparkly things and hooks and jewellery findings and embroidery threads and fimo blocks and hand-made paper and... Actually it was just as well there was a shop next door selling Cadbury's chocolate, or I would still be in the craft shop lusting over everything...
But I have been knitting... mostly Q's draught excluder (still don't ask...) but I finished one of the Brigid socks - hoorah. I'll try and upload a photo, but as I'm not at my own computer I'm not sure if it will work...
Whee - upload successful! Ach well, the photo is not the best quality, but you get the gist... The sock fits, though - a grand accomplishment for me! I'm now on Brigid Two, but I'm also around row 40 of the Wavy Socks - 'tis a pretty pattern! Mum's Coco bag is also slowly being added to, but I'm hoping I'll have a plethora of FO's to post when I get back down to France at the end of the month...
Q's Birthday Bear was a great success, btw, although after being named 'Stanley', he has now been re-christened 'Bear of Chucky' as his blue eyes seem to be unnerving the best friend somewhat... 'Tis easily remedied, but it did make me giggle!
Saturday, 8 March 2008
'Tis that travelling time again - I'm off up to Holland tomorrow for a reprise of the dance production 'MERG' (which is Dutch for 'marrow' or 'an inmost or essential part') with the Leine&Roebana Dance Company, and - oh woe is me - I'm leaving my little hermitage! (I chose a career that is not completely conducive to my homebody sensibilities... what's a girl to do?!) But I thought I'd throw on a couple of FO's before I left to go and sing some Luzzaschi, Monteverdi and Rossi... I've been a mad-woman with the sticks recently! Nothing amazing, but I'm pleased that they look okay! I'm staying with Q when I'm up there and I wanted all his birthday pressies finished before I arrived. Nothing like a dead-line to concentrate the mind...
I decided to make a little pouch from the ever-open 'Last-Minute Knitted Gifts' to house the bear I made for Q. Actually, it started off as just something else for his birthday (Q, not the bear!) but he looks cute in it, (the bear, not Q!) so I've decided to combine the two, as it were...
The pouch does look better on it's own, however well-meant my ambition for a bear-bag was, but it does has a high cuteness factor just the same!! I couldn't bear (pun not *really* intended) to cover the wee man's head, so he looks more like he's in a fancy-schmancy sleeping bag!
I'm also making bits and pieces for my Mum's birthday coming up in May - she'll be reaching another mile-stone age and I know she loves hand-made things, being the arty type herself. (You should have seen the great vase my sister decorated her for Mother's Day last weekend.) So far the Wire Rose is for her, as is the Coco bag currently in progress, but I've just finished my first crocheted thing... Okay, it was just a couple of chains and some jewellery findings, but...
Green 28-gauge wire (Hoh yes - I've learned the Lesson Of The Wrong Gauge) and a 2.5mm crochet hook! Oh, and a lots of green glass beads!
I'm now trying to decide what to take up with me to knit... Brigid socks, of course (I'm determined not to suffer from SSS); the Coco bag to finish cabling; I found a lovely pattern for socks called 'Giles Wavy Socks' that is a definite starter; a pile of yarn to make a draught-excluder for Q (don't ask...) and as long as I find a LYS up there, all other demands should be met...
I just have to remember how the music goes now...
I decided to make a little pouch from the ever-open 'Last-Minute Knitted Gifts' to house the bear I made for Q. Actually, it started off as just something else for his birthday (Q, not the bear!) but he looks cute in it, (the bear, not Q!) so I've decided to combine the two, as it were...
The pouch does look better on it's own, however well-meant my ambition for a bear-bag was, but it does has a high cuteness factor just the same!! I couldn't bear (pun not *really* intended) to cover the wee man's head, so he looks more like he's in a fancy-schmancy sleeping bag!
I'm also making bits and pieces for my Mum's birthday coming up in May - she'll be reaching another mile-stone age and I know she loves hand-made things, being the arty type herself. (You should have seen the great vase my sister decorated her for Mother's Day last weekend.) So far the Wire Rose is for her, as is the Coco bag currently in progress, but I've just finished my first crocheted thing... Okay, it was just a couple of chains and some jewellery findings, but...
Green 28-gauge wire (Hoh yes - I've learned the Lesson Of The Wrong Gauge) and a 2.5mm crochet hook! Oh, and a lots of green glass beads!
I'm now trying to decide what to take up with me to knit... Brigid socks, of course (I'm determined not to suffer from SSS); the Coco bag to finish cabling; I found a lovely pattern for socks called 'Giles Wavy Socks' that is a definite starter; a pile of yarn to make a draught-excluder for Q (don't ask...) and as long as I find a LYS up there, all other demands should be met...
I just have to remember how the music goes now...
Tuesday, 12 February 2008
AARGH!! (Translation - WHEEEEE!)
This is a nightmare. (Trans. - this is fabulous!) I can't keep away. I can't stop fiddling. I can't stop fussing. Maybe this will be the last template incarnation, and I can get on with whatever I'm actually supposed to be getting on with! And I'm supposed to be getting on with learning some Mahler, learning Santuzza's aria (what?!), re-learning the Monteverdi, Luzzaschi and Rossi for the MERG dance performances, getting to grips with some new Mozart arias and finishing the Teddy for my best friend.
And not necessarily in that order.
But as addictive fun goes, I give this blogging lark 10 out of 10. (FYI - I decided to go with the black background as it's environmentally friendlier than a bright screen [less energy/power is used to show a dark screen], and it has nothing to do with my faffing about with what I think looks prettier! At all. Honest.)
So, I shall sign out, make some coffee, rev up the engine (warm-up) and start annoying the neighbours. Mind you, one of them seems to have a deep and intense need to loudly play his recordings of Romantic piano music at random times of the day, so I'm sure my screaming away will cause not an eyelid to bat.
But I might just check my emails first...
This is a nightmare. (Trans. - this is fabulous!) I can't keep away. I can't stop fiddling. I can't stop fussing. Maybe this will be the last template incarnation, and I can get on with whatever I'm actually supposed to be getting on with! And I'm supposed to be getting on with learning some Mahler, learning Santuzza's aria (what?!), re-learning the Monteverdi, Luzzaschi and Rossi for the MERG dance performances, getting to grips with some new Mozart arias and finishing the Teddy for my best friend.
And not necessarily in that order.
But as addictive fun goes, I give this blogging lark 10 out of 10. (FYI - I decided to go with the black background as it's environmentally friendlier than a bright screen [less energy/power is used to show a dark screen], and it has nothing to do with my faffing about with what I think looks prettier! At all. Honest.)
So, I shall sign out, make some coffee, rev up the engine (warm-up) and start annoying the neighbours. Mind you, one of them seems to have a deep and intense need to loudly play his recordings of Romantic piano music at random times of the day, so I'm sure my screaming away will cause not an eyelid to bat.
But I might just check my emails first...
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