#notyouraveragejulie writes

[infinitelytheheartexpands]

…is this anything

[From the Depths

De profundis

We are the common people

The ones who have been

Left in the depths

You might not think That we're anything

But we are

We're here

clamavi

We're here

And we're crying out

Raising our voices

We will not be silenced

Even though you may try to push us

Down into that voiceless oblivion,

You who think you are gods

ad te, Domine

You who think you are gods

In your delusional folly

Who believe that you can silence us

That your power, your wealth, your fame

Makes vou untouchable

That you are inherently better than us

But you are wrong

Domine, exaudi vocem meam

But vou are wrong

And even if you were right

We are here

The majority that has been silenced

For far too long

So listen to us

Keep listening

Fiant aures tuae intendentes

Keep listening

And understand what we are shouting

From the depths

Because our problems are real

And they're not going away

And we won't go away either

We'll keep asking

in vocem deprecationis meae

We'll keep asking

We'll ask why things haven't changed

Why things are still the way they are

Why no one is doing anything

We'll ask until there is change

For us in the depths

We are the common people]

#poetry #poems #notyouraveragejulie writes #i was literally 15 when i wrote this and very fed up with things #probably not my best work but i did win an award for this and it literally got published so… #words words words

[princesssarisa]

The staging of death is always important. Since I made a poll some time ago about the different stagings of Don Giovanni's doom, I thought I'd make a similar poll for the other most famous "seductive" character in opera. Of course there's not as much wild variety for the staging of Carmen's death as for Don Giovanni's, because she's just murdered, not supernaturally dragged to hell. But directors have still found ways to be creative.

It's interesting that while the libretto's stage directions call for Carmen to try to escape from José's knife, far more productions have her accept her fate. I suppose this is because in Prosper Mérimée's original book, she accepts her fate and doesn't try to escape. Yet the opera's librettists wrote that their Carmen was different in some ways from Mérimée's Carmen – they weren't trying to write a direct page-to-stage translation. Personally, I think it works either way. It makes sense for a person as strong-willed as Carmen to struggle to survive to the very end, despite the fate she read in the cards, but it also makes sense for her to bravely accept her fate and die with dignity rather than give up her freedom.

That said, I also like Sir Peter Hall's third option from his Glyndebourne staging with Maria Ewing, where she calmly crosses the stage toward the bullring, past José, still wanting to live but resigned with dignity to whatever José chooses to do.

I also like the staging from the first production I ever saw onstage, which I've also seen in a few YouTube videos, which is Option #5: José draws his knife and Carmen calmly offers him her chest, but then he can't bring himself to stab her, and she laughs at him and starts to walk toward the bullring... only for José to finally snap, run after her, and stab her after all.

I think the few stagings that have Carmen and José's movements explicitly mirror a bullfight are interesting too, especially because they vary in which character is the toreador and which is the bull.

As for the suicidal Carmens in the last two options... I'm not sure. I think it would work best in a production which made it clear that Carmen wasn't happy being constantly chased by men and having to use her sexuality to get by. She would have to realize that her only way to be completely free is to die. In that light, I might approve of a suicidal staging because it gives Carmen more agency over her fate. But at the same time, it might whitewash José's character too much by reducing his ultimate guilt.

I look forward to seeing how people vote on this subject!

@simone-boccanegra, @paexgo-rosa, @supercantaloupe, @notyouraveragejulie, @leporellian, @ariel-seagull-wings

#opera #carmen #georges bizet #poll #staging #tw: death #tw: murder #tw: suicide #tw: stabbing

[theresa-of-liechtenstein]

tagged by @notyouraveragejulie, and as i was working on it, @supercantaloupe. thank you!

1. are you named after anyone? heh, nope. ‘let’s give the child as conventional of an american name as we can because our surname is so weird,’ my mom said, and here i am

2. when was the last time you cried? last week after i fumbled several things in lab, had a nearly hour-long commute home in a heat advisory, and then put my shirt down on top of a counter where diluted bleach had been dripped but not wiped up. twas just clusterfuck after clusterfuck that day

3. do you have kids? no

4. do you use sarcasm a lot? now that i think about it…i don’t think so? i don’t try to anyway

5. what sports do you play/have you played? i used to swim semi-competitively in junior high but didn’t continue it, i was only there to become a stronger swimmer and i never liked competition

6. what’s the first thing you notice about other people? gait, usually

7. what’s your eye color? dark brown, almost black

8. scary movies or happy endings? happy endings, though i just don’t watch movies in general 😂

9. any special talents? plane/airline identification. still working on getting better at seeing the differences between variants and trying to learn engine types by sound

10. where were you born? california, usa

11. what are your hobbies? music (performing it and listening to it), drawing, writing, and hiking. i just generally like to Wander

12. do you have any pets? no, but i used to have a goldfish named sebastian (after the crab, not the formula 1 driver, and my grandmother overfed it to death while i was in grade school) and george (a betta, who lived much longer than sebastian)

13. how tall are you? 5’0” (152 cm)

14. favorite subject? physics (electricity and magnetism), history, and music

15. dream job? a professor of teaching in engineering, but i would also love to be a test pilot or flight test engineer!

tagging 15 people off the top of my head: @sircarolyn, @malcolm-f-tucker, @fractionallyfoxtrot, @ecrooked24, @smile-at-the-stars, @fractionallyfoxtrot, @stoppablethetramstory, @stoportotouch, @hurricanewindattack, @arendelve, @lunanimal, @tempestclerics, @therehavebeenstranger, @mothergrinningbird, and @embraer175

#em answers #tag games

[vera-dauriac]

Tagged by @notyouraveragejulie. Thank you, dear!

1. are you named after anyone? No.

2. when was the last time you cried? I think 3 days ago. I cry a lot. Inherited it from my dad, who was also a crier.

3. do you have kids? No, and that was definitely a deliberate choice. No shade at people who have or want kids, but it’s not for me.

4. do you use sarcasm a lot? A fair amount

5. what sports do you play/have you played? I played a lot of softball as a kid, but if we’re talking about what we inherited, my sister got all the athletic ability and left me with almost none.

6. what’s the first thing you notice about other people? I’ve been thinking about this, and I honestly have no idea.

7. what’s your eye color? blue

8. scary movies or happy endings? Happy endings.

9. any special talents? Not to pull out the sarcasm I use a fair amount, but seriously, what constitutes “special” and “talents”? Is it special that I’m good at organizing books? Or is it just my job? The whole question requires a level of immodesty that I’m uncomfortable with. Which leads me to…

10. where were you born? The Midwest.

11. what are your hobbies? Writing

12. do you have any pets? Nope

13. how tall are you? 5’2”/157 cm

14. favorite subject? Well, in college I double majored in English and Music, so I suppose those.

15. dream job? Being a fulltime writer would probably be great, but honestly, I love being a Librarian.

So, tagging new folks who can do this or not as they see fit!

@lenskij @myalchod @muchadoabout @kimannebb @i-own-loki @revedebeatrice @smile-at-the-stars

#tag you're it #personal

[supercantaloupe]

tagged by @notyouraveragejulie, ty!

1. are you named after anyone? - a great grandfather, i think. middle name after my father. russian name scheme innit. my hebrew name unsurprisingly comes from the tanakh

2. when was the last time you cried? - last week when my cat passed

3. do you have kids? - ...no?

4. do you use sarcasm a lot? - yeah

5. what sports do you play/have you played? - i was a field hockey goalie for six years. i hate basically every other team sport lol

6. what’s the first thing you notice about other people? - clothes, i guess

7. what’s your eye color? - blue (i know. sorry.)

8. scary movies or happy endings? - happy endings i guess? i don't watch scary movies but i also don't watch many movies period. i prefer a satisfying ending over anything else, whether that means happy or not

9. any special talents? - finding four leaf clovers

10. where were you born? - i'm from the mid atlantic and that's as specific as i'm going to get on a tumblr post.

11. what are your hobbies? - music (listening and creating), writing, drawing, cooking, being weird about theater

12. do you have any pets? - i consider the two cats at home mine still. the dog is my parents, i don't claim her lol. but i also don't live at home full time anymore. my roommate just got a kitten at our apartment tho i'm excited to meet him

13. how tall are you? - 5’5/165 cm

14. favorite subject? - music history

15. dream job? - music preparation/librarian or artistic operations with a professional orchestra or opera company. it would be very cool to be able to perform full time for a job but that's never going to happen

tagging @tragedyposting @yardofblondegirls @grasslandgirl @kingfisherkink @tempestclerics @theresa-of-liechtenstein @malcolm-f-tucker and @nablah if you'd like

#sasha speaks #tag game #tagged for me #notyouraveragejulie #ty!

[nablah]

tagged by @malcolm-f-tucker (thanks for tagging!)

Rules: share the first lines of ten of your most recent fanfics and tag ten people. If you have written fewer than ten, don’t be shy and share anyway!

I don’t write that much fanfic so mixed in some original work about OC’s here :>

1. The Measurement of Time - Original Work

It is ten o’clock on a humid night when his daughter, in a rare fit of wakefulness, asks him for a story, and Marcel del Mundo III attempts to bargain.

2. All Soul’s Day - Original Work

Aling Mila’s is a small, nondescript pandesal-and-coffee store, just around the corner of Haven of Rest Funeral Parlor.

3. Mars Shall Glow Tonight - Star Trek: TOS, Star Trek: The Voyage Home

He's getting a bit tired of the navigation console, mostly because he's already been promoted and promised his own command and their impending court martial might just end up delaying things, so Jesus, Mary, and Joseph have mercy if he's not really in the best of moods.

4. people have been trying to kill me since i was born - Star Trek: AOS

When he is older, and perhaps wiser, and when the death of Vulcan has become a distant memory enshrined in the now thriving Ni’Var with its new people, and when, much like his counterpart, gray has crept on his head and a blue uniform has been traded for the robes of his homeworld, a thought, which has been growing steadily in his side, blooms with the breaking of a bond.

5. all my theory complete - Star Trek: TNG

Malcorian mathematics (or at least, the one that eventually dominated their world) was formed, much like so many Federation cultures, on native Malcorian hands.

6. seek the shelter of some other place of worship - My Fair Lady, Pygmalion (Shaw)

When the old lady professor down the street dies at last, it is with a quiet sigh— a vast ocean away from her indignant cries so long ago in Covent Garden.

7. The Effects of Hair Growth on Tectonic Plate Movements - Original Work

“I’m sorry, I’m— ,” the therapist’s brow furrows before returning to smooth professionalism. “— I’m not very familiar with that particular theory.”

tagging: @kagilagilalas @leporellian @theresa-of-liechtenstein @supercantaloupe @notyouraveragejulie @smile-at-the-stars and, everyone else, if you write, consider this a tag :D

#love fake journal article titles and poems #in media res my beloved #thanks for the tag!

[beckmessering]

i got tagged by @vera-dauriac (thank you!!) and i’m rlly bad at doing tags but this time i was able to identify my last 6 albums so here goes!

1. really loving tallis atm for anything from work/concentration to late-night walks and this album leaves nothing to miss

2. i’m picky about my passions but i’m so happy with this one overall - great solo voices, even if i tend to prefer extreme conducting choices. andreas scholl’s countertenor though?? godly.

3. how!!! did i forget this existed??? extremely distinct conducting. i think i could get drunk on the boulez + wagner sound alone.

4. i 🙃 dearly 🙃 hope 🙃 no 🙃 one 🙃 is 🙃surprised 🙃 anymore

5. once in a while i play the game “let’s find out exactly what doesn’t feel right to me”. 1990s met walküre is musically fine, but the production drives me insane because it’s a “hold my coffee while i furiously type, this could’ve been significantly better than it is” from me.

6. i started listening to this album three years ago as research for a writing project whose stage has since surpassed the one in which this album was needed, but honestly? it grew on me so much that i now listen to much more baroque music.

i have zero (0) idea who’s been tagged so i’ll go for @dichterfuerstin @notyouraveragejulie @monotonous-minutia @carovisetto and @bfuhrnerd and thanks for the tag :)

#opera #classical music #thanks for the tag!

[queen-paladin]

I posted 1,208 times in 2022

92 posts created (8%)

1,116 posts reblogged (92%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@notyouraveragejulie

@shecaughtthekaty

@spellbook-gayboy

@strrawberrryjam

@queenofnevermore

I tagged 189 of my posts in 2022

#carrie speaks - 14 posts

#star wars - 6 posts

#obi wan kenobi - 5 posts

#shakespeare - 5 posts

#swedit - 4 posts

#les miserables - 3 posts

#ilovequizzes - 3 posts

#uquiz - 3 posts

#the gilded age - 3 posts

#usermelanie - 3 posts

Longest Tag: 107 characters

#bc i think one reason he secretly dumped me was bc he was in private a trump supporter at the 2016 election

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

In case y’all forget who the real king of period drama husbands of 2022 is.

Men- in a world of William Ransomes, be a George Russel.

19 notes - Posted May 18, 2022

#4

That moment you realize you have a type and it’s Cassio from Othello

See the full post

21 notes - Posted April 15, 2022

#3

This:

Is literally Anne Elliot doing this:

23 notes - Posted October 18, 2022

#2

31 notes - Posted June 18, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Leo Tolstoy really put his whole Tolstussy into writing  'If I were not myself, but the handsomest, cleverest, best man in the world, and if I were free I would be on my knees this minute to beg for your hand and your love.”

49 notes - Posted February 18, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review

[rayatii]

Tagged by @notyouraveragejulie, here we gooooooo

1. Are you named after anyone?

Nope.

2. When was the last time you cried?

During a therapy session, nearly a month ago or so iirc. I was going through a relapse of my anxiety issues caused mostly by specific stuff I'd much rather not think about, and I was expressing how tired I was of all these relapses and feelings of anxiety and worrying every evening about whether I would be able to sleep, and my therapist encouraged me to cry my feelings out, which I did; by which I mean, I SCREAM-CRIED my feelings out to the point where half of myself was beyond my control (which she encouraged). Needless to say, it felt really good afterwards. (idk if I expected this to be that serious, but okay ig)

3. Do you have kids?

Nope. Still debating whether I do want to have one in the future tho. Otherwise, I'm a chorister/assistant in a kids choir, so I obviously work with the kids there.

4. Do you use sarcasm a lot?

I love using humor as much as I can, so I sometimes use sarcasm when the situation calls for it.

5. What sports do you play/have you played?

Currently, I just do gym training stuff. Otherwise, the sports I have majorly played in my life are skiing, gymnastics, dance (ballet, and later Zumba), and tennis.

6. What’s the first thing you notice about other people?

Honestly, I don't know. It really REALLY depends on the person and situation. Maybe hair???

7. What’s your eye color?

Honey-brown.

8. Scary movies or happy endings?

What kind of question is this?? It looks like a HUGE stretch. Anyway, happy endings.

9. Any special talents?

As a documented thing, perfect pitch. Otherwise, I seem to be pretty proficient at things such as language learning and some other creative and intellectual stuff (yeah, sorry for stealing your answer, Savannah, I didn't know how to answer this without seeming arrogant 😅)

10. Where were you born?

Beirut, Lebanon.

11. What are your hobbies?

Writing, singing, playing music (usually piano nowadays; I haven't touched my violin in months), reading, learning, watching movies/TV shows, playing video games, wasting time of social media and/or YouTube...

12. Do you have any pets?

We have a dog, a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel named Otis. An absolutely lovable dumbass 🥰🥰

13. How tall are you?

About 1.69 meters (~5'5"??)

14. Favorite subject?

Theater, or anything language/literature related.

15. Dream job?

While I know the THINGS I want to do in life, I wouldn't say I have a dream JOB (maybe screenwriter, or anything film-related?)

*SIGH* Savannah, you have already tagged most of my mutuals, so I probably won't be even close to 15... ANYWAY, @jamietheunsuspiciousmelodicaman @blackseaxtc @revedebeatrice @todesboten anyone who wants to!!

#raya answers #tag game

[infinitelytheheartexpands]

eyyyyyyyyyyyyyyup finally got this fic done:

#opera #opera tag #nabucco #verdi #giuseppe verdi #notyouraveragejulie writes #opera fic #opera fanfic #opera fanfiction

[princesssarisa]

I'm thinking of trying to write a novelization of Don Giovanni, and I have an idea for the ending.

Literally having a character dragged to hell doesn't exactly suit modern tastes, so here's what I think I'll do.

The final confrontation between Don Giovanni and the Commendatore's statue will be described in very sparse terms. Maybe it would just be the dialogue, with no physical description of what's happening.

Then, at the beginning of the last chapter, the characters will arrive to find Don Giovanni's house on fire. Inside, the Don's dead body will be found, with Leporello unconscious but alive nearby. Once they manage to put out the fire and revive Leporello, he'll claim that the Commendatore's statue came and sent Giovanni to hell. But no one – except maybe Donna Elvira – will believe him. They'll think he's just delusional from smoke inhalation or trauma. And maybe he is, or maybe he isn't.

In the end, it will be left ambiguous what happened. Maybe the Commendatore really did come. Or maybe the drunk Giovanni just knocked over a candle, started an accidental fire, and was killed. Or maybe one of the other characters murdered him and elaborately covered it up. We'll never know.

How does that sound?

@leporellian, @notyouraveragejulie, @salieri27

#opera #don giovanni #novelization #concept #ideas

[opera-simplified]

all of the Così fan tutte Opera Simplified is officially drafted! now all that’s left is notes, formatting, inserting links, and possibly minor revisions! it should be up by the end of the week!

#opera #opera tag #Così fan tutte #coming soon! #it's finally drafted! #notyouraveragejulie writes

[vera-dauriac]

I posted 1,214 times in 2022

390 posts created (32%)

824 posts reblogged (68%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@automaticdreamlandkid

@xserpx

@vera-dauriac

@notyouraveragejulie

@verdiesque

I tagged 1,208 of my posts in 2022

#opera - 424 posts

#verdi - 182 posts

#the met - 117 posts

#the musketeers - 117 posts

#a great show that ran 2 seasons - 113 posts

#don carlo - 59 posts

#ask me stuff - 56 posts

#spotify - 52 posts

#mariusz kwiecien - 52 posts

#mozart - 47 posts

Longest Tag: 94 characters

#can you imagine being a tumblr user of 8 years and waking up to something that makes no sense?

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

OK my bitches (by which I mean the lovely operblr folks), Don Carlos at the Met has been seen. Here’s a bullet point list of my thoughts.

--Even if I don’t like Act 1, if you’re at the Met and those opening notes sound, it’s very exciting!

--If you ever asked yourself: “When Matthew Polenzani does that gorgeous pianissimi, can it possibly hit the back of the hall?” The answer is yes, yes, it does. *sobbing*

--Hubby: “I expected Sonya to be pretty good, but she’s even better than I expected.” Truth.

--The Met orchestra playing the Act 2 prelude…. Fuck. Me.

--The bro-love duet is everything you want it to be.

--If a mezzo doesn’t own the stage when she walks on as Eboli, can she really call herself a mezzo? Barton is A Mezzo ™.

--Carlos is so extra in the scene with Elizabeth. Matthew was perfectly ridiculous.

--Dupuis is so natural in the duet with Owens, I didn’t even think about the fact he was singing. It was just so good. The only criticism I have is most of the night, I wish I could have turned up the volume on Owens’s lovely voice.

--There are moments in DC when I am wont to drift. A mediocre garden trio will do it every time. This was not mediocre.

--The Met chorus was just crazy good in the Auto-da-fe.

--Owens best moment is the open of Act 4. Without anyone else to compete with but an orchestra at a volume he can work with, he’s great.

--The Grand Inquisitor scene is the only tempo issue I had with the evening—too fast. Let the bassoons of doom take their time.

--Relyea is everything you thought he would be.

--Let’s be blunt: this duet and the quartet that follow is one of the places I drift sometimes.

--If the audience had clapped any longer for Barton, the Met would have been forced to reconsider the encore policy.

--My poor Rodrigue! The singing could not have been better. And good lord, Matthew and Etienne were all up in each other’s stuff. One quibble about the staging, though. There are long stone benches/tombs (depending on the scene) and people sit on them all the time. Couldn’t Carlos have schlepped his boyfriend over to one rather than letting him stand until the very end? It barely registered the poor guy was dying.

--Did I cry literal tears during the lacrimosa? No one will ever know, because it was very dark.

--Sonya nailed her aria, unsurprisingly.

--Until it hits “Au revoir,” this is another duet where I sometimes drift, but once they hit that part, I was invested and it was lovely.

--So, those reviews were not exaggerating—Carlos gets stabbed, and Rodrigue comes back surrounded by a bright light to embrace him and they collapse on each other in the middle of the stage together.

Obviously, I loved it. It’s in cinemas next weekend. Go see it if you can!

22 notes - Posted March 19, 2022

#4

Trying to actually do a little writing tonight in the first time in forever. Wish me luck.

25 notes - Posted February 21, 2022

#3

I simply do not understand people who say they don't like to read history. Like, how do you not want to hear about all the crazy shit people did 600 years ago? It's absolutely fantastic.

26 notes - Posted September 2, 2022

#2

So, I just watched Becoming Traviata, an excellent documentary about the 2011 Aix-en-Provence Traviata with Dessay, Castronovo, and Tezier. Just in case anyone is looking to win my undying love, the person who gifs the rehearsal of Un di, felice, eterea will have it.

30 notes - Posted January 15, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Rewatching The Borgias, and fuck me sideways, but who the hell gave Francois Arnaud the right to be this sexy?

30 notes - Posted August 12, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review #am i seriously my own 3 most often reblogged? #did not expect that #oh well #and how did i make 4 muskie's posts without the important additional tag? #i'll take a very pretty cesare as my top post #blast from the past for sure

[solraneth-archive]

13, 50, 51

13 - Sugar Daddy by Qveen Herby

50 - Beggin’ by Måneskin

51 - Près des remparts de Séville sung by Elena Obraztsova

....that sure is a mix

#dhfgshsk i remember having sugar daddy on loop while i was writing my thesis because anything more serious wouldn’t let me focus lmao #ask #notyouraveragejulie

[harry-leroy]

okay: Così opinions? spill. I want to hear them all.

okay okay okay oh boy oh boy oh boy (Thank you, Savannah! It’s time to go absolutely insane...) I’ll tag @vera-dauriac because I said I would go off about the Così opinions. 

So I’m currently in the middle of the Met’s Così stream for tonight - and it’s okay. Definitely not my favorite production. I think the strongest cast member is Isabel Leonard as Dorabella - I might have a bias though, because I absolutely adore her. Thing is, I think it’s the acting that’s bringing this production down for me, not the singing - so time to spill my thoughts about how Così should go down in my head. (These will be about the four lovers, not really about Despina and Don Alfonso - I think I still need to sit with them for a little longer). 

To me, Così is the Love’s Labour’s Lost of opera. (It even got the Shakespeare treatment in 1863 - where Mozart’s score was put to the text of LLL, translated into French. Ferrando and Guglielmo became Ferdinand and Berowne, and the ladies were the Princess of France and Rosaline). While some may read this opera as a sexist joke with fickle and uptight characters, I think there’s a lot more to it than that - and it’s why I prefer the title “The School for Lovers” to “All Women Do It”. Everyone is learning something in this opera, not just the women. I also think the ending is far more complicated than the libretto would have us believe. 

I made a post a while ago about the 2006 Glyndebourne Così giving us a really complicated set of looks from the singers right before the curtain drops. The couples are back where they should be, according to the libretto. Guglielmo is holding Fiordiligi, Ferrando his Dorabella, but then Fiordiligi looks back at Ferrando. Ferrando looks intently and longingly at Fiordiligi, Guglielmo realizes this and looks angrily at Ferrando, only to have Dorabella look at Ferrando, confused and hurt. And I think this is exactly where we should end. While the original couples are supposedly back in place by the end of the opera, I think each of these four young people end up in a totally different place. I think Fiordiligi loves Ferrando. I think Ferrando loves both women. I think Dorabella is lost, and I think Guglielmo wants absolutely no part of it anymore. You can find evidence to support this ending in the score and in the libretto, and you can end up creating much more exciting characters to watch in the process. 

I’ll begin with the boys. Guglielmo was played by Francesco Benucci in the original 1790 production, the one singer in the cast that Mozart could trust (Mozart and Da Ponte had a thing against four out of six people in the original cast). Benucci was the first Figaro, the first Viennese Leporello, and also a singer who was thirty years older than the original Ferrando, Vincenzo Calvesi. You can hear it in the score too. Guglielmo seems older than Ferrando - if you had a pick a leader of the two it would be Guglielmo. He’s also got an ego, and if Mozart’s slight affinity for the man in the original role wasn’t enough indication, you can also look at the libretto. “No one can resist a Guglielmo” he says after wooing Dorabella. His aria “Donne mie, la fate a tanti” is all about  women and their annoying habits, but it also points to the fact that he’s been with a lot of women. Also look at the two love duets we get in this opera, “Il core vi dono” (Guglielmo + Dorabella) and “Fra gli amplessi” (Ferrando + Fiordiligi). Which one seems more sincere? Keeping with the opera buffo style that Benucci was so well accustomed to, “Il core vi dono” plays with the theme of the heartbeat. It’s meant to be funny. Guglielmo, (I think in a good staging) also does not seem as invested in the love duet as Dorabella, and he certainly isn’t invested in her afterwards. He feels bad for Ferrando at points, but keeps up with the idea for soldier’s play. I feel that he’s the man who thinks women would be a fool to turn him down. 

Ferrando is a little different. He’s the younger of the two, infinitely more passionate, and possibly could be depressed - to me, he’s a classic enneagram 4. If Guglielmo’s the leader, then Ferrando certainly follows his lead. Until “Un’aura amorosa”, he lets Guglielmo take control of wooing the women. I really think that when Ferrando sings “Un’aura amorosa”, he should have the stage all to himself. It’s the first little hint of his personality that diverts from Guglielmo’s, and shows that he cares about not having his heart broken, more than keeping his ego intact. In fact, I don’t think Ferrando is at all afraid to have his ego wounded. After Dorabella’s moment of infidelity, he toggles between love and revenge in “In qual fiero contrasto”, but is ultimately softened a bit by love. His love for Dorabella will always nag at him. I think his revenge (to woo Fiordiligi) is more against Guglielmo than it is against Dorabella. Guglielmo’s never felt the pain he just had to go through, and Ferrando’s going to make sure he does. But the lengths to where Ferrando goes to win Fiordiligi tell me that he’s more invested in her than originally thought. As he holds a sword against his throat, I think a believable Ferrando would have let her drive the blade in. It’s the moments where Ferrando acts independently of Guglielmo that are the most exciting to watch. It’s where he asks Fiordiligi for “just one glance”, it’s imagining what happened on that walk with her offstage, it’s “Un’aura amorosa” if it’s staged right. (It’s that one last glance at Fiordiligi at the end of the Glyndebourne Così!). He and Fiordiligi have this link in which they’ve been following Guglielmo’s lead for what feels like all their lives. Ferrando is shaped by Guglielmo’s philosophy, just as Fiordiligi is shaped by the (false and perhaps social) need to remain loyal to Guglielmo. 

That said, I think the reason that Fiordiligi is so uptight in this opera is because she’s young, and she’s got the hottest soldier in town for a fiancé. She’s got the man that women could only dream about, and until Ferrando (in disguise) shows up to break her defences, I think she’s never thought about the idea of not being with Guglielmo. I don’t think she’s all that in love with Guglielmo when it comes down to it, but in love with the idea of being in love with Guglielmo. They would easily be the it-couple of their social circles, why throw that away? It takes all of the courage that Fiordiligi has to say in “Fra gli amplessi” that final “I am yours” - do with me what you will, because falling in love, real love, is the scariest thing that a young person will ever go through. I think, if done right, both Ferrando and Fiordiligi should be terrified the entire love duet-  terrified of rejection, terrified of yielding their hearts up, terrified because ‘is this what real love feels like?’. (That terror is missing from Guglielmo in “Il core vi dono”). I also assume that because she owns a house, and she has a maid, that Fiordiligi is rich - it’s very possible that many choices in her life have been made for her, and making those independent choices for the first time can also be terrifying. That said, I completely understand her obstinate behavior. 

And that leaves Dorabella, my poor darling. I really think she gets the short end of the stick here, and it’s because of Guglielmo mostly. When I first saw Così, I really wanted the switched couples to stay together, but I think that was because of Ferrando and Fiordiligi, and when you watch the Glyndebourne production, you just see how much Ferrando and Fiordiligi love one another. But now that I’ve seen a few more productions, I really just want Ferrando and Fiordiligi to be together. Guglielmo and Dorabella actually don’t have that sincere of a connection, and while Ferrando does love Dorabella, I’m not sure how much we can recover from their love after watching the passion between him and Fiordiligi just moments before. Dorabella is someone who follows Fiordiligi’s lead for the most part, but also has her own moments of independence, and I think in that way, she’s like Ferrando. Both she and Ferrando have moments of passion, far more than their counterparts. “È amore un ladroncello” is a marvellous aria, and I think it’s because Dorabella gets it. She gets that love is about putting your heart on the line and going for broke, and she knows how terrifying that is, and she found that in Ferrando and Guglielmo, but I’m not entirely certain that the boys found it in her. In that way, she is the most mature of the four, but she also gets left with the least. 

So back to that ending, I think that we should understand that it’s not just that these lovers are getting back with their original couples, but that they all have a lot of individual work to do and a lot to think about. It’s the school for lovers and they’ve all learned their individual lessons. Guglielmo learned how to have his heart broken, Fiordiligi learned how to love, Ferrando walks away with a conflicted heart, and Dorabella has to swallow her own words: love is a thief. They may have forgiven each other, but their story is far from resolved. 

If I were staging this, I would love to stage it in the regency period - like 1810s England, because there would be no end to the Austenite yearning and the costumes would be gorgeous. You would also get the boys rolling up like the desperate romantics they are (especially Ferrando). I’ve also been entertaining a gender-bent version, probably set in the same period, because of how sex-charged the opera’s connotations are, but I also think it would work really well. 

Obviously, there are places in this discussion of mine that you could probably tear and stretch a bit. It’s not the only reading of Così out there - but I think we need to give this opera a more human shape rather than make it a battle of the sexes or an opera where the characters are caricatures, which is why I think a conflicting ending (like the one that Glyndebourne did) works so well. No one group is supposed to win the day at the end, but I think forgiveness is a good first step. 

#thank you savannah!! #i hope these make sense #i'm still trying to work dorabella out because i really think she gets left with the least #but yes ahhh #i think i just want ferrando and fiordiligi to be together #that's it #così fan tutte #cosi fan tutte #not going to do a cut because tumblr doesn't like me doing that so i will tag it #long post #opera #opera tag #i'm gonna write a play just you wait #mozart #w.a. mozart #classical music #staging #staging ideas #theatre #notyouraveragejulie

[stoportotouch]

okay, I’ll play: what the fuck is zum raum wird or however you spell it (love you I just genuinely do not understand)

it is (currently) this (there is also a bunch more in a scrivener file. this is under half of what i have written), and it was uh. it was originally going to be one (1) fanfic of pathologic but that decided "actually. i need to be. at least 200,000 words long." and, uh, who am i to deny its whims,

more specifically it's.......... i figured that pathologic and the fisher king myth (Ya Know) had very similar themes and thought "hmmm... what if", and now. here we are,

#ask #ollie considers #what is your song o? #ollie writes #notyouraveragejulie #sometimes one must write Plague Game Fanfiction