Left at Albuquerque

In July my parents and I made the long drive to Albuquerque, New Mexico to visit my sister and her family. Who'd have thought there would be some much great music to be found.
First of all my little nephew, Robby just sings all the time. He's the singin-ist kid that ever there was. It was so fun to get to see this musical expression of his joy.
While in Albuquerque we noticed there was a broadcast of the MET's Tosca production. My sister, mom and I went. Amazing! The crowd scene in act II, on the MET stage was incredible. The amount of people and the scale of the sets knocked our collective socks off. The music, Puccini, was beautiful and we were all sniffly by the end. It was so moving and I'm reminded again that there is quite an enormous difference between movies that try to make you cry and dramatic opera. No contest. All I can think in movies trying to make me cry is, "really? That's all you got?" But opera, hello! It is so moving. There's a reason Puccini was a master composer.

Who can visit Albuquerque and not make the quick drive to Santa Fe for the Santa Fe Opera? Especially when they are performing Madame Butterfly. (Puccini.) Luckily Santa Fe's opera season extends over the summer. Most companies take the summer off. The open theater is so simplistic that the sparse sets really fit and played well with the beautiful desert sunset seen in the distance. The singing was beautiful and once again there wasn't a dry eye in the house. Cio-Cio San's fantastic aria Un bel di vedremo can be heard on my play list. This aria is opera perfection. From a scholastic viewpoint, Madame Butterfly is noticeable in western music history as Puccini has taken Japanese melodies and incorporated those into his Italian style of writing. He didn't just copy their style of music but to blend it with his style. There are moments more Italian and moments where the Japanese melodies come through. He even uses familiar American tunes at times throughout the opera.