Sing it girl!

Tuesday- March 6

After handing my intercultural midterm to Fabbio, I felt confident that I did well, and I was so happy that I actually studied last night and didn't wing it. If I had tried to wing it I would have totally bombed it. 

The rest of the day I had classes...since it was Tuesday and all. For Italian Art we went to Santa Maria Novella, a church near the train station. Rocky taught us about a fresco on the inside that he considers the most important fresco in the city of Florence. It's called the Holy Trinity. It's a fresco that portrays the holy trinity and was created in the 1400s. 

In the 1500s since people were against Gothic style churches, like the Santa Maria Novella, the church underwent construction. The fresco was covered during that time. 

In the late 1800s someone was reading about this fresco and eventually discovered a part of it. It wasn't until the mid 1900s that the entire fresco was rediscovered. I found that really interesting because that's not that long ago. 

In Practicum we worked on our script for our documentary and began editing out video. It's slowly coming together and shouldn't be too difficult to do for the rest of the semester. 

At 7:45 Lydia, Kate and I met Petra and a group of people at the school. I was going to my first Italian Opera. We walked across the Arno and went to the same church I went to for Ash Wednesday mass two weeks ago. When we got there I thought we would walk up the stairs and go to a different part of the building, but we ended up going to the same church. 

It ended up being a lot different that I imagined. I pictured a big-stage atmosphere, like the Benedum in Pittsburgh, but it was a small audience of about 40-50 people and the actors only a few feet in front of me. 

Even though the atmosphere was different than I thought it would be, I really enjoyed it. The narrator of the plot made things a lot easier to follow because he spoke English and then the actors sang Italian. This was I was able to follow the plot. 

When the actors began singing, especially when I heard the first girl, I was "wowed." I figured I knew what an opera sounding like with women and men belting out notes, but boy when my ears started ringing, I knew what I was seeing and hearing. It was a loud but beautiful noise and I cannot believe something like that can come out of a human. I sat there wondering why I didn't get those special talents.  Every time I try to belt like that woman I squeak!

The opera was called La Bohème. It was about a poet and an artist who were best friends. One night the poet was at home and a woman rang his doorbell. It was love at first sight and they began dating. Later the two were out with the artist at a cafe, where the artist saw his ex-girlfriend with an older man. Eventually the ex-girlfriend and the artist leave together leaving the old man behind.

After the intermission, the scene started two months later and the poet was complaining to his best friend, the artist, about how Mimi, his girlfriend, was coughing too much and it distracted him from his writing. He decided to break up with her so she could find a new man with a lot of money to help her get a doctor. The artist and his girlfriend ended up breaking up too.

At the end, the artist's ex-girlfriend comes running in and tells the two men Mimi is downstairs and too weak to climb the stairs. She was even worse than before and was slowly dying. The end of it was very sad, but I won't ruin it for you. 

I was very surprised by the ending though because I am so used to happily ever afters.