Craziness
Monday, September 11th, 2006I have been so crazy!!! Sorry I haven’t posted in a while, but things are as good as they are busy right now.
I’m back in a fall semester at my wonderful school, finishing up my master’s and getting ready to audition for everybody and their grandmother for this summer and the future. I LOVE my classmates, as always, and I’ve found myself a few extra niches to make myself even busier, including some concerts with Bel Cantanti this month and a tribute to Francois Loup next month, before I finally settle into doing Zerlina in Don Giovanni in November. Translation? A lot of opera. 
The coolest thing that’s happened recently was the master class I sang in Saturday with Marilyn Horne. I heard she spent an hour working with me (I really couldn’t tell how long it was), and she gave me some wonderful things to think about and fix. She said I had a beautiful voice, and I really enjoyed working with her and seeing my colleagues work with her too. My friends Jim and Darren got some nice feedback from her as well, and they sounded fantastic. :) Best of all, I got to see my old friend Sue, her personal assistant. We so need to hang out soon!
So anyway, things are going crazy, but I’m doing so well. And no, I’m not getting a lot of money from any of this. I just keep having to tell myself, baby steps, baby steps. In the meantime though, here’s today’s Washington Post review! of the concert I sang in on Friday with Bel Cantanti. We’ll be singing at the French Embassy on Friday and at the Randolph Theater on Sunday. For more information, go to www.belcantanti.com. Drop me a line if you want to chat - I’ve been crazed and don’t have internet access at my new house, but I will get there eventually!
And by the way, Carl, Paul, and Elohim get MASSIVE kudos for helping me move into my new place last month. You guys rock.
Bel Cantanti, Singing Superbly in a Place to Call Its Own
Monday, September 11, 2006; C03
Katerina Souvorova’s ambitious Bel Cantanti Opera Company, a troupe of young up-and-coming singers, regularly programs two operas and two concerts of arias a year. Now it has found what it hopes will be a permanent home in the Randolph Road Theatre (the old Round House Theatre) in the Wheaton area, a nice, funky, small stage that should be ideal for the scale of its productions. It was there that the company opened its fourth season Friday, with a "Salut à la France," a concert of arias and ensembles from French operas.
All 13 company members got a chance to sing in the choruses from Bizet’s "Carmen" and Donizetti’s "La Fille du Régiment" (an opera that might not be French in origin, but certainly is in spirit). As might be expected, these are singers in varied stages of vocal development. Baritone Bryan Jackson projected enormous energy and considerable beauty in everything he touched, and was as compelling as Mephistopheles in "Le veau d’or" from Gounod’s "Faust" as he was contemplative in his duet "Au fond du temple saint" from Bizet’s "Les Pecheurs de Perles" with tenor Kevin Perry (who handled several ensemble assignments with assurance). Soprano Keesun Kwon gave a knock-out reading of the "Bell Song" from Delibes’ "Lakme"; mezzo Jessica Renfro’s Carmen in the "Habanera" aria was convincingly steamy and seductive; and soprano Rhea Walker lavished a warm sound and fine diction on Salome’s aria "Il est doux, il est bon" from Massenet’s "Herodiade."
Mezzo Abigail Wright delivered an aria from Ravel’s "L’Heure Espagnole" with delicious flair backed up by splendid diction, and soprano Meghan McCall handled the "Chacun le sait" aria from "La Fille du Regiment" with humor and energy. Randa Rouweyha, Emily Ezzie and Cynthia Farbman were at their best in well-rehearsed ensemble numbers, and baritone David Krohn and mezzos Lingling Peng and Alexandra Christoforakis handled their assignments with determination and serious purpose. Souvorova accompanied all that with considerable flair on a small upright piano and managed to sound almost orchestral.
– Joan Reinthaler
