Steal Me . . . but don't take me to far!

My voice teacher assigned a new song for me from an opera called 'The Old Maid and the Thief'. Its about a transient man who is looking for food and money. And he is HOT! So the maid and the mistress decided to take him in and help him out. The mistress begins to steal money to help him, from the church and from friends, to entice him to stay. He does, but the maid is very jealous and tells him that people are beginning to suspect him of being the thief. The end of the opera ends with the man leaving with the maid, leaving the mistress alone.

At first I wasn't sure I would like the song. My voice teacher, Barry Bounouse, played it for me in our lesson and I was kind of hesitant to it. But I've been working on it and fallen completely in love. The music is very contemporary, so there are a lot of dissonant cords and strange resolutions. The video below is a pretty good redition of the piece.

The song is from the maid's view and she's singing about how the man won't make any moves to her. She goes through what the mistress has been doing to keep him there and he still makes no advances. It continues with her wishing he would steal her heart, her lips, her life and take it before death steals her life. Very nice.

Voice Lessons!!!

La La La La!!!

All they want is the dancing! I hope'a his is as excited by dancing girls as your new managers, because I will not be SINGING!
- Carlotta Phantom of the Opera


I had my first voice lesson yesterday since I took my break in November. The break was involuntary because Weston lost his job and we couldn't afford it. So I went to see Phantom of the Opera being done by a high school in our area and was totally blown away by the girl that played Carlotta. Seriously, I have never heard that type of technique coming from a high schooler before. After the performance, I asked her who her coach was and got in contact with Barry Bounous (pronounced Ba-noose).

Funny enough, I found out last Sunday that my brother had also taken from him a while back. Small world! Anyway, I get to the Richards Building on BYU campus and I was really confused because the sign says its the physical education building. How am I going to take lessons in a gym, does that make any sense to anyone else? Hot sweaty bodies, huffing an puffing while I'm trying to sing and aria doesn't really appeal to me. Well, it turns out the east side is dedicated to the music and performance departments. So there are practice rooms and studios all over the place. It is actually very nice. I got there early and had to sit in the lobby for a while. Now understand, I hate sitting in the lobby. I hate being there with other people, we are all waiting and staring at each other. AWKWARD!

6:15 came and went and I still wasn't in my lesson. I knocked on the door once to let him know I was there, but it was still about five minutes before I finally got in. But it was worth the wait. He is a great teacher and I'm so excited to be taking from him. The first lesson is always about getting to know each other and getting to know my voice. The first thing he said was 'Yep, you are built for opera.' When I asked about that later he said that larger, taller people have a decidedly larger advange then short, thin people. For once my height will help!

He gave me two songs to work on and they are bellow. Tell me what you think!

HUGS!

Hayley