Words or music? You decide.

Have you ever had one of those special moments in your life where you just simply can't believe you are experiencing what you are experiencing? I had one tonight. It happened when I found where our seats were at the Staatsoper to watch Renee Fleming sing in the Strauss opera, Capriccio. We had fabulous seats on the right side of the center section in the balcony. Renee Fleming was unbelieveably beautiful. Did you know she is 51 years old?? She looked amazing, and sounded really lovely.

I am so happy with the timing of this trip. After having conducting classes, being in opera, and finishing music theory and history, I love being able to feel confident in really forming an opinion about the performance, and the opera itself, as well as every musical performance I go to. The performance was incredible in every aspect. I loved the rotating sets and the designer costumes--especially Renee's dress for the final scene, and how the designers used the colors in the costumes to be brought out against the blue floor on the set! There were rotating walls with writing and musical manuscripts on them. Every seat was filled. The applause seemed to last a lifetime! The opera itself, on the other hand, was not that great. The plot was really cliche and not very interesting. At times, it was cute, and at times, funny, but a little drawn out and unecessary also at times. The most time in the plot was taken for Renee to get the idea to ask her two suitors, the poet, and the composer, to collaborate and write an opera together. The theme of the opera was "which is more important, words or music?" Kind of a silly question if you ask me! Of course both are important. Sometimes music says things that words cannot, and sometimes music can take away from the beauty of the language alone. It didn't matter that the plot was slow. I got to see Renee Fleming, hear her beyond-beautiful voice, hear a great horn solo before the final scene, and I got to sit in a great seat in the Staatsoper in Wien!

What an interesting dilemma to have! Renee's character wasted so much energy worrying over which was better, the words, or the music. I've talked a lot about language in my blog so far, and how much I love words. But yet, I am here to study music. As a singer especially, words and music MUST be inseperable, there is no question. But in my own real life, which is really more important to me, if I had to choose? I am not a composer by any means. I love sharing my gift of words in writing notes, letters, messages, emails, and blogs like this. I can only share my gift of music when I have an opportunity to peform. And then what happens? I get nervous, and consequently upset with how I sounded to the listeners. If I could share my music the same way I feel comfortable sharing words with people, my world would be a Utopia.

Language fascinates me. I love thinking about the way people learn languages and how they are so comfortable with a whole different way of moving their lips and tongues to form sounds, and how humans are built to naturally "pick-up" a language if they are immersed in the culture for long enough, at the prime age. I love thinking about the way words can affect people's emotions and actions so much. What about the words in the Bible, or in the Quran, or any other religious book? Those words have completely changed peoples lives. Words can come alive.

Music is the way I want to spend my life. I don't want to be the next Renee Fleming, but I want to share music in the way it was shared with me when I was growing up, only better. Most people need to be trained or taught to be able to look at music, and have it come alive as it would if it were words on a page. But music doesn't need words to make it come alive. Somehow, it captures the pure emotions and transports different people in different ways, some ways I'll never know! I guess I, like in Capriccio, would not be able to choose a lover based on whether he was gifted with words, or gifted with music. It's too hard to contemplate them separately!

Off topic, I cooked a great meal yesterday, and tonight, I went to Cafe Mozart and ate Wiener Schnitzel with Emily, dressed in our finest! I am becoming quite a chef by watching the other girls cook in the hause. I cooked rice, sauteeed some veggies, and even cooked raw chicken in a pan! I put it together to make a delicious stir-fry! Yum! Food is good.

So tired! Should have been asleep a long time ago. If you can, pray for me, because I have a German midterm on Thursday, that I really want to do well on. My german class moves fast, so it takes a lot of concentration to understand some of the things that I haven't thought about in 5 years or so--since high school German!

Guten Nacht!