Bah. My day has been all thrown off by daylight savings. I didn’t change my clock last night, so I got out of bed at 8:30, which felt a little late anyway, but once I got showered and all I realized it was now /ten/, not nine, and now everything feels all cramped and crowded. Grumble. I’m making corn beef & cabbage for dinner (we were going to make it at St. Patrick’s Day, but Mom made it then, so I’m making it now!) and this cake for dessert, and I was going to do this all in this orderly one at a time fashion, but instead I’m doing everything at once, which isn’t REALLY a problem, but it doesn’t really leave time for writing or biking or walking or any of the other -ing things I wanted to do, although we did at least get the shopping done and I have an entire box of heavy-weight paper for submissions, now, and so I’m working on getting MD put together to send to the Writer’s Weekend contest, so that’s something, anyway.
West High’s Les Miserables production was /wonderful/! Dad and I had a magnificent time! We agreed that the director had them over-singing, but /wow/, she just got everything they /had/ out of them. It was /wonderful/. We both thought that the boy who played the Bishop should have been cast as someone else, because he had a really magnificent voice, but we disagreed on who he should be cast as: I thought he should’ve been cast as Javert, and Dad thought he should’ve been cast as Jean Valjean.
We both also thought they probably needed more vocal warmups before the show, because they got a lot stronger, vocally, as the show progressed, and we thought it was less nerves than it was a lack of proper warm-up.
Marius was just wonderful–I was especially nervous about him, ’cause he’s got my favorite song in Les Miz (Empty Chairs at Empty Tables), so I didn’t want him to blow it, but pretty much the first time he opened his mouth to sing I was pretty sure he’d nail it, and he basically did. Lovely tenor voice. And Jean Valjean just did *wonderfully* with ‘Bring Him Home’. Very, *very* good. And Eponine had a great voice, although she overacted an awful lot, completely upstaging Cosette and Marius in their first song together (I’m /sure/ she was directed that way), and Cosette was, well, she was quite the soprano. Actually, she was really very good. It’s just that sopranos are practically always incomprehensible in stage shows, even if you know the music, and I /do/ know the music. She had a lovely voice. I just couldn’t understand half of what she sang. :)
The Innkeeper and his Wife were grand, especially the wife, who just reaaallllly could deliver a line. They were lots of fun, just like they’re supposed to be. And the boy who leads the revolution whose name I forget was vocally off a lot, but when he was on he was very good (same with Javert, I thought), and he did a splendid job. It was just a really great show! I’m so glad we went! I wish they were playing another weekend, because I’d go again!
There is no excuse for bad diction in sopranos. Really. Just because voice teachers focus more on sop. tone than on sop. diction doesn’t mean it’s unachievable and/or impossible. If tenors can enunciate, so can sopranos. Feh. Sopranos *should* be comprehensible, it’s just that so many aren’t, it has become the new standard.
Well, to be fair, she /was/ comprehensible at least half the time, but I don’t know if that’s because she was actually comprehensible or if it was because I know all the words. :) I suspect the latter. :)
And I do know that sopranos /should/ be comprehensible, but, well, usually they’re not. Although I think that the tenor vocal range is simply easier to understand, because sopranos really do go way up there and it’s not so much a range that we’re accustomed or trained for /listening/ in, either. Tenors go very high for men, but not out of a sort of daily human (not necessarily male) auditory range.