My First Opera...In English?

On Friday, November 20, I went to go see UNCG's school of music put on the fall opera: a modern mix of Gilbert and Sullivan's "Trial by Jury" and Mozart's "The Impressario." This opera was a whole new scene as compared to the one put on by the Greensboro Opera Company. For one thing, the opera was in English. I had no idea that there were operas written in English. I thought that operas were all Italian, but this performance of "Trial by Jury" and "The Impressario" both shattered that stereotype in an instant. There were still supertitles on a screen above the performers with the script written out, as it tends to be difficult to understand what words opera performers are singing no matter what language they are singing in. The second thing that I found completely different from my previous thoughts of opera was that it was a comedy. I had always thought that operas were tragedies - "La Traviata" had certainly added to that prejudice - so when I realized that what was happening on stage was both completely hilarious and incredibly ridiculous, not only was I amused, but I was slightly perplexed as well. However, I found the story line and actors incredibly entertaining. The first act was pretty much two soprano divas battling out over the main role because the prima dona - the main female role - was missing. Of course, as the first act finished, it had turned out that both divas had conspired and kidnapped the prima dona, at whose discovery this was revealed. The divas were, of course, arrested and the play the company in the opera was supposed to put on - "Trial by Jury" - was able to begin at the start of act two. I loved the entire opera; the singing was amazing and the acting was thoroughly entertaining. I would definitely love to see it again, especially if I would be able to go with someone besides myself; laughter always enjoys company.

A Memorable Play

On Friday, November 20, I went to go see "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" performed by UNCG's theatre department at 9:30 in the morning. When I arrived at Taylor Theatre, chai in one hand and pre-purchased ticket in the other, I was not expecting to see what was there: a seething mass of elementary school children waiting in their not-so-straight lines to see the show - the show that I was about to see. I froze, suddenly finding a new appreciation for the caffeine that the chai had sent coursing through my system moments before. Taking a deep breath, I moved forward toward the doors again, avoiding the small children as their teachers attempted to get them all seated without having an accident or - goodness forbid - loosing one of them among the homogenous crowd of students flooding in. Of course, it got better once everyone was seated - we (we being the group of about 40 students above four feet in height) all were put in the back row so the children could see above us - and the lights finally dimmed. The scene opened on the main characters - Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy - cowering while air-raid sirens blasted over their heads. It was a familiar scene for me, as I have read the book and seen both the old cartoon and new live-action versions of this play. However, it was a new experience to see how the directors, set-makers, and costumers were able to bring the worlds of Narnia to the audience without the use of computer animation or special effects. I found myself drawn to the cast member who played the unicorn and how well she played her part, despite the fact that she did not have 10 words throughout the whole play. The acting was not as good as I had hoped, but the children enjoyed it and once the children calmed down, I was able to enjoy it as well. The play was appropriate for the age group and all-in-all it was very entertaining. I would definitely recommend it to anyone who is up for a light, though allegorically deep, play and who enjoys a little bit of magic.

International Festival

On Friday, November 20, I attended an International Festival at the Philips-Hawkins Dormitory with one of my best friends, Esha. Esha was born here in the U.S. but her parents are from Punjabi, in North India. Having Esha as a friend, I have learned so much about her culture and the differences even between Northern and Southern India; it's a bit like the opposite of the U.S. where we think that Northern people ("yankees") are stuck up and Northerners think that Southerners ("rednecks") just farm and drink all day. In India, the Northerners farm and the Southerners are considered stuck up. At this festival, however, where my friend was mostly the only Northerner, I found that this stereotype, like most, wasn't entirely fair or true. Everyone was welcoming and, as it was in part a fashion show to show off the garb from different regions of India and talk about the diversity, dressed in what appeared to me around the same garb. Now, Some girls had adorned themselves with beautiful jewelry and some wore bindis on their foreheads. Some wore saris and some wore more a more casual tunic-like dress with a pair of paints. Unfortunately, the latter has a specific name which I cannot recall at this moment. All traditional dresses were beautiful; even some of the men were wearing rather intricate - and, if I may, shiny - outfits. About 15 regions of India were represented within the entire show and each of them told their region and how to say "hello" in their particular dialect. The show was incredibly enjoyable and eye-opening and I hope that they will host more festivals within the future.

My Education: My Plan

"What do you want to be when you grow up?" This is a question that many of us recognize from days as early as kindergarten, perhaps even earlier. A typical answer of someone so young is "a princess!" or "a firefighter!" However, as we grow older, we begin to think about what we really do want to do with our lives and it seems almost inhuman to ask a child to decide what he or she wants to be, perhaps more so to ask him or her to think about growing up; especially when we consider what it entails: a loss of innocence and becoming responsible. In our senior year of high school is when we typically begin asking of ourselves: "Well, what do I want to do when I grow up?" Most of all, I find the pressures of knowing what it is I want can be overwhelming as they delve even deeper into a sense of self: What do I like? What is morally right to like? What are morals? Why do we have morals? Is something good or bad? How do I decide? Does it matter? Who am I...The list goes on and on. However, we'll save the cliche "What is the meaning of life?" for another time and focus on what this essay is supposed to be about: simply what I plan to do with my life despite whether or not I know why it even is. I am currently a music education major at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro to learn more about the broad, incredibly fascinating world of music so I may be able to make a difference with the next generation. As such, the deservedly well-known music school here at UNCG has my entire four years already planned out, minus my own plans of learning Japanese and studying abroad in Japan. Unfortunately, UNCG's Japanese program does not offer Japanese 101 in the spring semester and therefore I am unable to begin this endeavor until the fall semester of my sophomore year - a strange concept for me, being comfortable as a "big, grown-up, college student," as I'm sure I will be very adjusted to life here when my sophomore year comes speeding right around the corner. I do have the years planned out though, with AP scores able to get me out of most GEC classes, I'll be able to take the few GEC classes I need while in Japan. With the incredible international connections UNCG has, I hope to find a program during which I may be able to study abroad during the summer and avoid falling behind in music classes. I know Japanese is a strange language or culture for a music major to consider; typically we'd be studying the Romantic languages and cultures. However, I think it's a good idea to be well-rounded and explore a culture so different from our own; Japanese will also offer a new market for me in terms of knowing a different language as well as a vastly different perspective on life than that with which I have lived. Japanese will also offer a new culture for the chorus students which I intend to teach. I will be able to show them a completely non-Western language and set of traditions different from anything they have seen. I hope to be able to show my students the wonders of music and how one can never ever stop learning about it and the world-wide cultures which all have some music within them. It's fascinating the way different cultures use music: traditional dances, entertainment, story-telling, ceremonies, religious practices, and so much more. For instance, I find it incredibly interesting that a particular African tribe uses the same word for "sing" as it does for "dance." Typically, these are seen as to separate areas of the performing arts, but when you think about it, you can't really have one without the other. When one dances, it's to music and when one sings, the soul dances. Your body has to move to the beat, be it be-bop or Baroque and one just has to listen and find it to know that both forms of art are intertwined. No matter what age one is, he or she can find this internal joy in music, which is why I am not sure which age group I want to teach. Any age from kindergarten to college has its pros and cons, but no matter who I want to teach, I want to be able to teach them well. For this reason, I would very much like to pursue my masters in choral education and perhaps even earn a PhD in some music education-related field; either way, I intend to work a little in the field and really get to know what I want before pursuing graduate school any further. Right now, all I know is I love music and teaching. Teaching gives one the sense of making a difference and chorus is a great community to offer students, especially in a world becoming steadily more focused on education for the sake of salary as opposed to for the sake of learning and enjoying the process. In music, kids do not have to worry about traditional grades or standardized tests, but are able to enjoy creating and learning what they can do both as an individual and in a community. Music is able to nurture the fun side of learning without the pressures of grades, one of the amazing things about this part of life. Music is all around us and is a part of life; to appreciate music is to appreciate life and the beautiful cultures and aspects of this world. I want and plan to be able to show this to the future generation of children and that's why despite the work load and time it takes, I will continue my education as a music education major to become a teacher of one of the true miracles in life: music.

Sonia Nazario Reflection

On Monday, November 16, at 3pm, I attended a lecture by Sonia Nazario, author of "Enrique's Journey." I was rather excited about the lecture at first; I mean, I was going to get to see the author of this great book talk about it and what she was trying to do with the novel; but when the lecture was over, I actually found myself rather disappointed. All I felt Sonia Nazario did was reiterate what I had already read. From beginning to end, even in order of the book, she pretty much summarized the difficulties and emotional roller-coasters presented in each chapter, even starting with the day described in the first part of "Enrique's Journey" when Nazario asks her housekeeper about her children. As far as I was concerned, she presented little to basically no new material and just summarized the book, which every single person in that room had - I'm assuming - already read, as it was the required reading campus wide. The only new material I even remember her presenting are some pictures I hadn't seen in the book. Even when the questions were asked at the end of one hour (and I was expecting a lengthy, in-depth, 2 hour lecture), I still felt that I could have answered the questions and the prepared questions simply reiterated a previous discussion topic. What I wanted to know were her feelings towards Enrique after learning that he was going to do the exact same thing to his daughter and girlfriend as his mother had to him. How could he possibly rationalize being able to bring his girlfriend and toddler daughter to the U.S. when his own mother couldn't even afford to bring him there? At least Enrique's mother didn't go out and sniff glue or get drunk, wasting her money on self-destructive tendencies. How does Enrique think he'll be able to do twice of what his mother couldn't when he already has problems with spending money irrationally? How can he do something - after living with the emotional consequences for most of his life - to his own daughter that he knows tore him apart? I don't want or mean to be judgmental as I have never been in the situation, but I can never find myself rationalizing drug use or hypocrisy. I wanted to know Nazario's feelings about that issue, not that a pile of vulture feces-infested trash smelled bad or that a metal train railing in near triple-digit heat was hot. I can figure these things out for myself. I know the journey was difficult - the book would be half as popular if it didn't have all these horrors in it - but I want to know Nazario's views on moral and political issues. What is Nazario's religion? Does that affect her use of the church's in the story or was that just a part that she had to put in there because it was part of the journey? Does she still keep in touch with Enrique? How is Enrique's family? How does Nazario feel about using someone else's story and gaining so much, despite original intentions of bringing the story to the public? Was anything embellished or left out for certain purposes? I want to know what Nazario thinks about her writing; not that she can read or present a lecture on something she spent a good deal of her life on. Perhaps I'm being too harsh in expecting an author with such great material to give us something more, but I guess I just expected something more than what I had already been given.

My First Opera

Last Friday, November 13, 2009, at 8 p.m., I went to Greensboro Coliseum's War Memorial Auditorium with one of my friends to attend my first opera. The opera is called La Traviata, by Giuseppe Verdi and was presented by an organization called Greensboro Opera. The opera was absolutely gorgeous, despite an obvious lack of funding for stage sets or even costumes. The opera company had to make do with what they had, draping nice sheets over lawn chairs as substitutes for the elegant furniture Violetta Valery - the female lead who was a very well-off French courtesan - would have most definitely had. It was clear that some of the costumes were borrowed by the actors or had been scoured for during multiple trips to thrift shops. The lack of funding for such an amazing opera, combined with the small casting and single-night performance all made it very clear to me that we are still in a recession, despite what any radio station or news anchor might tell me. However, the absolutely angelic voice of Jennifer Black, who played Violetta, and the skills of the entire cast in telling the beautiful, tragic story definitely made up for a lack in funding. The basic story reminded me very much of Moulin Rouge, where the female lead is a rich French courtesan with a regular patron - Barone Douphol, played by Scott MacLeod, in this case - and captivates the heart of a simple young man - Alfredo Germont, played stupendously by Chad Johnson. The courtesan has never really known love, only lust and when Alfredo insists that he truly loves her, Violetta finds she is willing to leave her life of riches and the manipulating control of the rich Barone for this true love. Of course, as this is a tragedy, there is a twist: Violetta has tuberculosis, and has only a few years at most left to live. However, because of this, Violetta wants to live the last of her life with Alfredo, which she does. There is a twist as Giorgio Germont (played by Mark Walters), Alfredo's father, comes to Violetta to ask of her the ultimate sacrifice: to leave Alfredo and make the estranged son return back to his family; the drama intensifies. I will leave the rest of the opera to those who wish for the end not to be spoilt, and conclude with the statement that this opera was most definitely worth seeing both for the awesome talent and beautiful story line and I would encourage anyone who enjoys either to go see it.

Evil Dead paper

On Friday, October 30, I went to go see Evil Dead: The Musical with one of my best friends and my boyfriend. When . To my surprise, one of my friends from home, named Steven Spencer, who had graduated 2 years prior was one of the main characters in the play: Scottie, the main character's best friend who had picked up a hooker in a bar three days before, subsequently making the main character's nerdy, homely sister a fifth wheel. The musical was a parody of horror movies, much like The Rocky Horror Picture Show, but a bit less crude. To be sure, there was definently plenty of crude humor, sexual inuendoes, cussing, taking the Lord's name in vain, and - of course - violence. However, in a show that is not only a parody, but a parody of the generally gruesome genre of horror, these things can't but be expected. It was interesting to see my high school friend on stage after seeing him in the leading role of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew two years before. I can definitely tell that he has grown. I can also tell that in theatre, one cannot very easily hold to one's own personal morals because in scripts, at least in most of the good ones, there are things that go against a lot of people's morals. I could not be an actor because there would always be that part of me saying "this is wrong" despite the fact that I would know "it's only acting and I'm not actually saying these things; it's just the character." I must give props to those who are truly actors, however, for the art is not easy morally or psycologically. I enjoyed the show however, as well as seeing my friend, and would most definitely go back and see it again.