Sempre Libera: Day 2

As I sit here and write this, my brain hurts. Badly. Today was a great day but thoroughly exhausting. We recorded six more tracks today:

“Je dis que rien” from Carmen (Bizet)
“Mi tradi quell’alma in grata” from Don Giovanni (Mozart)
“Una voce poco fa” from Il Barbiere di Siviglia (Rossini)
“Cavatina Sandrina” from La finta giardiniera (Mozart)
“Quando men vo” from La Boheme (Pucinni)
“Ebben? N’andro lontana” from La Wally

As Valerie and I anticipated, the Rossini was a real challenge. It’s just so difficult for both of us, but we powered through and I think it’ll be really beautiful. For me, it’s the most difficult piece on the disc. I’m doing Callas’s ornamentations which are extremely challenging. I hope I did her some justice!

I think the most rewarding piece of the day was the Cavatina Sandrina. I always get pure joy from playing Mozart. I find it so cleansing. We did La finta giardiniera in Santa Fe this past summer. It’s a rarely performed early opera of Mozart’s. In fact, it was composed around the same time as the bassoon concerto, so when he was about 16. A young piece, for sure, but this aria is absolutely gorgeous in it’s simplicity.

Valerie and I had a great lunch at another local bakery called Rolling Scones. And tonight, Bruce and Alan from Azica are going to join us for a Cinco de Mayo dinner. I believe there will be some drinks imbibed. Certainly by me!

We go back in tomorrow morning for the final 5 arias, including the title track. There are another couple of challenging ones, but a few we think will go together quite quickly. I’m also really excited that Barry Trent from Fox products, the maker of my bassoon, is going to come to the afternoon session. It’ll be great to see him and for him to see how things are going.

Stay tuned for the final update tomorrow!

Thanks 🙂

Ted