AMD 2, Madeline Thibault

For my AMD I decided to watch the opera "The Magic Flute". I was able to find the whole opera on youtube! This performance was filmed at the Metropolitan Opera House in 1991. Pamina was played by Kathleen Battle and Tamino was played by Francisco Araiza. I was really excited to find out that Kathleen Battle was playing Pamina because she is one of my favorite sopranos to listen to. I thoroughly enjoyed watching this video however, it was hard to understand what they were saying and singing because there were no subtitles. I am familiar with the story line of the opera which made it easier to know what was going on but it was still hard to know exactly what they were singing.

German is by far one of my favorite languages to sing in. I love the way it sounds in my voice and in my opinion it sounds a lot prettier sung than it does when you are speaking it. There were some times when I could pick out the meaning of things that they were saying. The staging and costumes were really beautiful and the singers' diction were for the most part very good. This made it a lot easier to know what was going on and gave me an idea about what exactly was happening during a particular scene. There were some times when I could tell that for a certain aria the singer was modulating the vowel to help them hit a higher note because it didn't sound very German.

Currently I am working on the aria "Ach Ich Fühl's" which is from this opera. Pamina performs this aria in Act 2. At this point in the opera, Pamina is talking to Tamino but he is not responding because he is bound to a vow of silence as a part of the trials. This leaves Pamina to believe that Tamino does not love her anymore. In this song she is saying how their love is gone and the only thing that she will feel peace in if he does not love her back is death. This aria is beautiful and requires so much emotion. The dissonances in the piece show the emotion and longing Pamina has for Tamino's love. Watching this and listening to the way Kathleen pronounced the words and which words she stressed was very helpful and interesting to watch.

I really loved watching this opera and found that even though it didn't have subtitles, it was a lot easier for me to really focus on the German and how they pronounced it. Instead of just reading the subtitles, I was trying to figure out what the words meant. It was a challenge but it kept things interesting and familiarized me more with the German language.