The Wonderful First Week!

Alright so after my long absence, here I am to ease your fears that I may have fallen off the face of the earth. It has been rather difficult to muster up the effort to write or post videos each night... I do have quite long and eventful days.

So the past 5 days have been so fabulous. I have been rehearsing scenes (opening duet from Nozze and the quartet from Falstaff), working in the chorus of Don Bucefalo, taking voice lesson with Brian Leeper, perfecting my Italian diction in Italian coachings, and attending Italian class every morning with my teacher Frederico.

The Italian classes are going very well. I have always loved learning languages and have found myself learning Italian easily by having experience learning Spanish and French. Our teacher speaks very little English during class and is animated and encouraging when teaching. Maybe I'll blog a little bit in Italian soon to show my skills :)

As far as the coachings and lessons, I am learning so much. The coachings are one of my favorite things; I have had two of them now. They basically consist of me singing repertoire or speaking my texts to an Italian voice teacher who does not speak English. They give pointers on pronunciation of texts and singing technique. For example, I'm working on having a brighter, more forward placement on my Italian vowels. My lessons, of which I've had two now, are just wonderful. Brian is a very talented professor of voice who is a perfect match for me here. Together we work a lot on technique. I always feel like I understand what he wants and how to achieve it. I feel I'm improving a lot even though the new elements of my technique feel strange to me now. This atmosphere here in Novafeltria is just so perfect though. I'm singing all day every day and not doing much else, so I don't feel distracted or rushed at any point. It is just so very beautiful. :)

The opera and scene rehearsals are going well also. I'm trying to work memory for those, but it's a tedious process. However, there's no time for just absorbing the texts for memory during rehearsals which is a change from my prior experience working on shows for entire semesters... Even in IOC, I felt there was more time... Gahhhhh :/

One exciting event was the witch festival here in town! It is a festival unique to Novafeltria in which it is believed that you should put a bowl of water outside your window where he moonrays will shine on it and give the water magic powers. To celebrate this night, the people in the town have a festival in he piazza and dress up like witches and wizards. There was music and dancing (and drinking vino)!! LOTS of fun :)

Also, last night was the young artists recital. I and 22 other member of the young artists division performed in a recital for the other members of the program, instructors, and citizens of this town. It went very well! There is a HUGE amount of talent here... I was performing up next to grad students some of whom had 10 years on me age-wise... But I felt very good about the performance. ((VIDEO TO COME!))

But overall, I'm having the time of my life. I live with Aly and Emily, and we have now stocked our kitchen with delicious Italian food ingredients and snacks. We cook everyday now and have made some delicious pasta dishes!!! I will miss all of the fresh ingredients here when I go back to the states like veggies from the town market, prosciutto cut fresh from the leg, and handmade pasta from the deli down the road. Actually... One of those pasta rolling machines may find it's way home with me... Haha :)

I send my love to you all, and know that I'm safe and having so much fun! I'm headed to Venice on Sunday for an excursion... So more to come soon!!! Ciao!