sacred music

 

Is she Vietnamese? This Paris-based opera singer, Ms. Le Van (now in the U.S.)

Please check her out:  

http://www.solenelevan.net/newspage

http://www.solenelevan.net/newspage

 I have listened to her sing.  She is the real thing. Operatic.  I can't say with conviction whether she sang her heart out, with soulful expression that touches people or that people understand her art, but she expressed the music, the text and the role -- what an opera singer should do in the repertoire.   AND, SHE DOES NOT NEED A MICROPHONE!  HER TRAINED VOICE, VERY PROPERLY USED, ROSE ABOVE THE ORCHESTRA. 

This is legitimately an opera singer. She appeared in roles with opera companies and on recital/operatic stage. 

In my work, life, and travels, I have met and listened to many real Vietnam-born classical and opera singers, including counter-tenors and dramatic sopranos.  Or, they are of Vietnamese descent either by their father or mother.  I have also known of Vietnam-born ballet dancers and modern dancers (members of the American Dance Company).  

While practicing law full time with major law firms, billing 2200 hours a years, and as a prosecutor for the U.S. government, I myself took up ballet, classical singing, musical theater,  operatic voice training, and appeared in American productions as a young adult, within 5 years after the fall of Saigon and going forward until age 42 (1999).  I just never had enough time to practice except when I auditioned or was cast.  In those incidents, I took leaves of absence without pay from work to do the art. 

Naturally I remain an amateur who only did what I could or enjoyed.  But, I can recognize performing art professionals when I see and watch them.  I can assess because I absorbed knowledge and learning from the places where I have been, no matter how short and often under great challenges because a person only has 24 hours a day and can only do so much. 

I become a better person.     

among my favortie's by Chopin

 

Serenade -- Stanchen -- by Schubert

Beethoven and the piano

 

NÓI VỀ OPERA, ÂM NHẠC, VÀ QUÝ TỘC TÂY PHƯƠNG:

 

NÓI VỀ ÂM NHẠC:

có posting cuả một người VN chắc cho là mình sành điệu âm nhạc cổ điển Tây Phương, và chắc theo thói quen TỪ VN: gọi nhạc sĩ Wagner soạn opera cuả Đức là "vĩ đại nhất nhân loại." Posting ca tụng thêm vua chúa và người có tiền tài trợ cho tài năng.

xin đọc câu nhận định rất chua cay nhưng chính xać cuả NN, dưới đây: .

Có người cho NN biết: Một độc giả cuả sự tôn dương "vĩ đại" này vô nói "Phew".

"Phew" nên nói khi người VN ca tụng "vĩ đại nhất nhân loại" và chỉ nói bời nhử̃ng kẻ có khuynh hướng đó. Một là̉ "hỗn," hai là...bị cứng họng không nói gì được nưã thì "phew," nhưng rất thích hợp với loại quần chúng đó.

"Phew" cũng có nghĩa...vâng lời, vì NN không muốn đối thoại với bất cứ ai ca tụng sự "vĩ̉ đại" cuả bất cứ ai. Nghe rất chướng. Nhân tài và thiên tài thật sự không cần sự tung hô vỉ̃ đại.

_____

NO NEED FOR DISCUSSION: just browsing and finding this on Do Quy Dan's forum, as there is something called freedom of speech, which happens to be my specialty in law: So I speak.

FOR READERS' fuller insight into the operatic art:

Wagner stood for very dramatic singing and splendid stage setting: in terms of the voice: kind of contrary to the Italian Bel Canto, which characterized renaissance, so to speak. So Wagner stood for the German school, in symphonies as well as in operas.

There are sources criticizing Wagner for anti-semitism (what else is new, but one should take the time to really look at Europe and Germany before Hitler). (There are critics speaking of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice as anti-semitic as well).

If a singer does Bel Canto, the singer doesn't do Wagner and vice versa. yet, La Callas did it, she did both, within a week's time or so, at the invitation and "mandate" of Conductor Serafin (I believe, just don't hold me to it, since i don't comment on FB with dictionaries or WIKI next to my screen). She did it within a week! Superhuman.

To say that Wagner la nha soan opera vi dai nhat nhan loai thi lam on ngo' lai Bellini with Norma, Puccini, Rossini, etc. of the Bel Canto area and the Italian tradition -- that which created talents like La Callas, as I and many call her.

Cai gi cung la "vi dai nhat nhan loai" cu.m tu nay tu dau ra? Nghe tham thiet qua. I mean tha?m thiet, not tha thiet, not thắm thiết.

TCS da duoc dem ra dat ten duong o Hue cua tui, nhung that tinh TCS co viet duoc "hoa am" nao khong, cho tui nghe voi....

I saluted to Le Thuong, PhamDinh Chuong, before I even thought of TCS, whom I happened to know when I was 6 years old. I know where some of TCS's best songs came from, right around me and below his flat on Nguyen Truong To Hue, me at 6 years of age.

Wagner has his place, no doubt. He inspired many many.

Lam on phan tich nhac va dramaticism cua Wagner cho chung ta cung hieu va thuong thuc thi tot hon la ca len cau, 'vi dai nhat nhan loai."

Further, it's common knowledge that Baroque, classical, romantic, etc. composers of Europe lived off the aristocracy in order to create, so what's new?

Only Beethoven would dare claiming a "meritocracy" which derived from God and Angels (definition of "talents," i.e., Beethoven went to Heaven, Mozart came straight from ...Heaven!)

And then, Mozart, descending upon earth, spoke stacology, and the great Beethoven, upon turning deaf, told his sponsor the Prince (I forgot the spelling of the Prince's name -- Beethoven dedicated one of his best to that Prince. This is what Beethoven said: "Prince, you become you because of Birth, I become me because of...myself. so there are thousands of princes, but there is only one Beethoven."

And yet, I haven't yet said, how dare, I am yet to say, Beethoven is vi dai nhat nhan loai. Nghe den "vi dai" la toa't mo hoi la.nh rung ron ca nguoi.

FYI: all composers of the past in Europe had sponsors who were aristocrats; THIS WAS THE WAY IT WAS!

Chopin of the 19th century had George Sands due to the...heart, but she was also the widow of an aristocrat with money and...castles, and a place in Majorca for Chopin to compose!

Fill me in on further details on my FB, since i can type very fast without research but i can miss something. I am imperfect, yet I am...myself because of..memory!

Rest my case, Bye! I won't return to Do Quy Dan's forum!

DNN

Me and Schubert's Serenade -- Schubert: king of lieders