In fair Verona where we lay our scene...

Ok, I'll try to hit some quick highlights before heading out the door today to go to an Argentinian restaurant/bar to watch the Italy v. New Zealand football match this afternoon. What follows here is not necessarily in chronological order, nor is it by any means an exhaustive summary of events of the past 3 weeks, but here it is anyway:

Our apartment here in Firenze is adorable. It has wood floors and elaborate, aged
wooden ceilings in several rooms.
I'd personally guess the ceilings are at least 100 years old, based on the similarities they bear to the way the wood has aged in my family's old farmhouse. I'm sharing this 2-bedroom, 1 full bath/1 half-bath, with full kitchen and living room with 2 other girls, Stefanie and Brenna. They are both grad students in vocal performance, so I've enjoyed having students to look up to musically and getting to pick their brains about grad school and suchlike. As well as working hard on our music, we've also had a fair amount of fun, including late-night Nutella/girl-talk sessions. In the three weeks we've been here, I'm ashamed to admit, we've gone through 2 kg of Nutella. Yes, the other students who hang out in our apartment periodically have definitely helped with that, but that's still a LOT of Nutella. It's seriously addictive. :)

Speaking of Nutella, the food here in Italy is AMAZING. Nothing less than I had hoped or expected. I've learned enough Italian to be able to order completely in Italian when I want to, so that a nice small triumph, I suppose. I've also been cataloging recipe ideas every time I encounter a new dish on a menu...maybe I'll be a good cook by the end of the summer!

The city of Florence is really beautiful. The buildings are wonderfully colorful and represent a wide variety of historical architectural periods. Here are some pics I've snapped during my time here:

...and of course some pics to prove that I was actually here and didn't just steal someone else's pics off the internet:




In other news, God is (as always) so good to me. He provided an English-speaking, gospel-centered church that caters to internationals just a few blocks from my apartment. What's more, they have a young adult Bible study during the week. Even more, God provided several other Christians to go to church and Bible study with me. It's been really encouraging. Once again, it's been amazing to see the way the Lord is faithful to me even when I'm not faithful to Him and how He knows no international boundaries! Praise God!

During the week, I spend a good portion of each days in voice lessons, coachings, or scene rehearsals. Like I mentioned in the last brief post, I had fallen in love with doing opera scenes in the original language. It's fascinating. It provides a great intellectual and artistic challenge every second. Intellectually, I have to focus on pronouncing a language that's not my own precisely correct so that native speakers will understand it. This means every double-consonant has to be there or the meaning of the word changes. Meanwhile, all the normal challenges of singing classical music--phrasing, dynamics, breath support, register shifts--still apply, with the extra element of acting and following blocking added in for good measure. You never know what challenge you'll have thrown at you next. For example, in one of my scenes, I have to sing a line whilst lying on the ground. But once you learn your material and learn how to adapt to the different situations that your breathing and singing have to work within, it's so much fun! Here's a brief video clip from our masterclass on Friday (we ran our scene in character but without the blocking) of the duet from Verdi's Falstaff that I'm singing with a chap named Jacob. Unfortunately, my camera ran out of battery just before the part where I get to hit and hold a high Ab for four bars...but anyway this will still serve as a taste for anyone curious about what I've been up to. I'll try to get a better/more complete recording of this and my other scene this week now that my camera has fresh batteries!


In addition to the singing required of me for class, we've all been singing a fair amount of spur-of-the-moment duets. Last weekend, when my friend Chy and I went to Cinque Terre to hike for the day, we sang duets along the trail and surprisingly several people hiking around us joined in! The next post will have pics from that day's adventures as well as more thoughts on adapting to life in Firenze.

Until then,
Emily

Vorrei un panino, per favore!

Ciao tutti!

...So I realized that it's been nearly 3 weeks since I last posted. Bad Emily, bad! Anyway, life has been relaxing, crazy, happy, sad; in short, life is an adventure as usual. I'm not going to write you all a massive tome like Hugo, Melville, or Tolstoy, but I will give you a few quick thoughts on the end of my time in London and the first half of my time in Italy. I'm headed to Verona tomorrow night to see an opera and returning very, very late, but I hope that I shall have time either Saturday evening or Sunday afternoon to do some proper updating of this here blog.

Thoughts to tide over any eager readers until then:

1) I really do love London. I have come to realize that even more over the past few weeks. Looking forward to being back there, even if only for about 48 hrs, in less than two weeks.

2) Learning Italian and adapting to the culture is harder than I anticipated it would be, especially since I thought I knew how to adapt to a new culture after doing that process last fall in London. However, this culture is so much different and the language barrier is much more inhibiting than I'd expected it to be. But I'm making it work and looking less and less like a lost American tourist, so I consider that to be decent progress given how short my time in Italy really is.

3) I LOVE doing opera scenes in the original language. I think I could enjoy doing this for the rest of my life. It has all the theatricality of musical theatre/straight theatre but the beauty of music by Mozart and Verdi. Wow. I have a masterclass in the morning where we're running our scenes and I can't wait. I'll be presenting two different scenes (Fenton and Nannetta's duet from Verdi's Falstaff and the Countess and Susanna's letter-writing duet from Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro).

4) This city is really beautiful. I'm trying really hard every day not to lose my sense of awe and to remember to always look up at the buildings and landmarks, even just when I'm on my way to class or lessons.

5) I've been more homesick than I was the first time I studied abroad, strangely enough. Lots of possible reasons why, but not entirely sure if I could pinpoint just one. But hey, I'm still really enjoying this beautiful city and making the most of the short time I have here.

6) A month is really not that long. I've already been in Firenze for over 2 weeks, and I leave in less than two more. I arrive home in the States (completely exhausted, I'm sure!) two weeks from tomorrow. Weird. Time really flies sometimes.

7) Last weekend, I went with one of my friends in my opera program on a day trip up to Cinque Terre, where we hiked 9 miles along the mountainous coast of the Mediterranean Sea. It was 9 of the most beautiful miles of earth I've ever seen, I think. And to top it all off, we finished the day with a swim in the Mediterranean (WIN) and dinner of pasta, local wine, and gelato overlooking the beach and the sea as dusk approached. Epic Win? I think so. :)

Ok, I'm going to go get LOTS of sleep before the masterclass tomorrow since my voice was kind of tired today, but I hope to post better updates this weekend, including thoughts on fair Verona!

Arrivederci amici,
Emily