Renée Fleming plays it safe, but executes well in a program of opera favorites and show tunes. Apparently still learning the ropes of big-venue concertizing, she admitted that one piece was completely new to her performance repertoire, and she kept her music close to hand for her leadoff arias from Handel's Rodelinda, including a very good reading of the haunting "Ombre, piante." She set aside one piece and rearranged the program order in the second act, but had enough gas in the tank for three encores, among them a fine "Summertime," well-suited to her chocolatey-dark voice, and an over-decorated "Somewhere over the Rainbow." She effortlessly skipped through the bel canto runs at the end of the bolero from Verdi's Les Vêpres siciliennes, and teased out lots of dynamic range from "O mio babbino caro." Fleming used a microphone for the Broadway numbers on the program, but filled the Filene Center with rich, natural sound for the art music selections. She wore a glittery dress of royal purple that was sometimes better at finding her spotlight than she was.

Patrick Summers and the National Symphony Orchestra spelled off Fleming with an park-friendly assortment of overtures, dances, and a Wagnerian prelude.

posted: 5:41:52 PM  

The current DHS Threat Condition is

posted: 12:41:46 PM  

Queen Anne's lace and joe-pye weed are blooming along the trail.

I need to take a break from theater for a few months. There is just too much unfinished business in my life that I need to take care of—I have paperwork to be filed and crafts projects to finish, I want to set up a new computer, I need to make some other changes, I have the budget to buy things for the house and no time to shop for them—and theater is just sucking up all my energy. The last time that I had a completely unfettered weekend, one that didn't have me in a theater or rehearsal space in some capacity, was last Christmas.

When I was nine and ten years old, I competed in spelling bees. I was never national caliber, but I won a couple of local bees. And then I got the idea that I wanted to take music lessons. I had the notion, and I think I was right, that I could handle one or the other, but not both, so I found a way (perhaps not so graceful) of getting myself out of the spelling bee racket. Now it turns out that I was a better speller than a musician, but that's not the point. It's that I learned how to say, "No, I have too much on my plate now to take on that project, thank you." And yet I usually feel guilty when I say no: I don't feel that I'm letting someone else down (that's my mother's reaction) but rather that I'm letting myself down, that I'm not fulfilling "my potential."

There's a play coming up, with a nice lead role that I would do a good job with, and I would have a better than average chance of being cast. And I have to say no. It's time to work on other things.

What else is out there on the trail?

posted: 10:41:44 AM