Week's Almost Up

I leave NEMC tomorrow...the week has been bittersweet. This place is still absolutely amazing: beautiful scenery, fresh air, and you hear music being played no matter where you are on campus. But the experience has made ME feel pretty old; most of the counselors were younger than me, if not in many years then in schooling and life experience. But I had fun anyways.

We were given some downtime, as promised, and I tried to use it wisely. Occasionally life things got in the way (I battled some nasty food poisoning one day; another day, the toilets in my cabin overflowed and we all mopped it up) but I also became MUCH more familiar with the music I'll be singing in the next 2 months. I think it was helpful to have time and learn how to budget it, because my fall is going to be a crazy mishmosh of nanny work and music work, and it will be interesting to see how I make it all happen. I know everything will get done, but I'm going to have to be harder on myself than I have been in the past with time management...I sense some new schedules are going to be drafted.

Tomorrow I meet with my family again, spend 1 more day in Maine at a friend's house, and then prepare to head back to the midwest.

We're going WAAAY Back

Tomorrow I go to my old music camp, where I spent 4 summers playing violin and singing. From the ages of 11-15, this camp was my haven...and I haven't really forgotten that feeling.

I now have the opportunity to work for a week as a counselor at my old camp! every year after their summer sessions, they have a 2 week intensive for kids in the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra, and they needed a counselor for the last week. So I volunteered, and I'm driving up tomorrow at 7am.

I've been told I will have some down time while the kids are in rehearsal, and that is grand, because I have two operas and a recital to learn by October 1st! So here's to a speedy, awesome learning week.

I hope to blog more while I'm there, but if internet is spotty, I'll be back on in a week.

On a non-singing related note

Jon and I got engaged yesterday! Very exciting.

Not only do I love being around him and living with him, but I also love performing with him. Boheme was the third opera and fifth performance-type thing we've done together. Many singers find that they can't work with their significant others, or can't date a singer or musician, if they don't like to bring their work home with them and talk shop all the time.

Jon and I are not those singers. I love being with someone whom I can share my work and my passion. I have never been good at separating areas of my life. I like everything to blend together into one big awesome experience. And thanks to Jon, that will continue to happen :-)

It's Working

I've figured out how to make myself into a more convincing Musetta.

Two words: mirror work.

I've reverted back to my 10-year-old days where, in an effort to delay bedtime, I'd stand in front of the bathroom mirror making faces at myself. It's funny how uninhibited we are as kids, and how that inhibition creeps up on us as adults, until we can't even make goofy faces at ourselves anymore. So I'm back to doing that, and figuring out how to make a sad face that doesn't look like I'm smiling, and how to make a bitchy, curt gesture when I beckon to Alcindoro.

And it's working.

God Bless Mirrors.

Boheme is upon us

So I'm heading into Tech Week of Boheme, and trying to wrap my mind around Musetta. I always thought it would be easy to play her...she's a crazy sexy girl who just wants to get her way all the time.

But it turns out that I am too "nice" onstage to convey all of the anger that Musetta seems to have. She is very argumentative, VERY pouty and bitchy...all the things I've been told not to be in life. Then I have to remember that it's not ME on stage, but MUSETTA. It is easier after I get my staging, go home, and write it in my score. I try to find sepcific musical moments to coincide with the actions the director gave me. Once I find those musical moments, I plot the actions with them, and then I can stop thinking with my "Sammi" brain and start thinking as Musetta.

There is also a lot of physical comedy in this show, particularly with Alcindoro, the man who plays my lover in Act II. The role, played hilariously by Aaron Hunt, is one of a sugar daddy, who buys me everything I want because I'm hot and presumably give him physical attention when we're alone. Unfortunately, Aaron is SO FUNNY as this nebbish old man that I, Sammi, have a hard time not laughing onstage even though I, Musetta, am supposed to be alternately ordering this guy around and disgusted by him. This is an issue I've had my entire life...I LOVE to laugh. I find humor in almost any situation. So one of the hardest things for me is tamping down that urge when I'm onstage, and getting so into my character that humor doesn't affect me, unless it is supposed to.

Another layer of Musetta surfaces in Act IV. Prior to this final act, we've seen her be a sexpot, a very naughty, ungrateful, bratty girl, and a very angry person. Emotion pours out of Musetta at every turn. The audience may have turned against her and decided she is no good as a person...I think almost all of us can think of someone like that whom we've met in our lives. Musetta is very identifiable as a "character."

BUT

In Act IV, the first time we see her she has found Mimi, who is extremely ill, and brought her back to be with Rodolfo. Then she goes to find Mimi a muff to warm her hands, and sells her earrings to afford medicine and a doctor. She then prays and reassures Rodolfo. Everything Musetta does is inherently GOOD. So we see that she has so much dimension as a person...her emotions run high in all situations, but many of those emotions are empathetic and relatable. She is a very complete character...Puccini made sure of that.

Quite a lot for me to swallow, but I'm loving every minute of this process.