"It isn't clever, but you'll make it so."

[theladyrose]

I have finished the summer application from hell! Take that, Telluride! And now I've only got to do the much simpler one...

The finals and grades for this semester were quite nice in general. Sure, biology is still my worst subject; I'm just glad that I passed my final. I'm glad that I'm out of Ethnic Voices now-CrWr looks interesting. It sounds much more open-ended than I had expected.

I finally got the bulk of the soundtracks I've been meaning to get for ages. Sure, I'm set behind by about $160 (the most I've ever spent at once on myself), but I rarely buy anything anyway. The nice thing about being me is that I always have some money randomly lying around somewhere for these purposes. Like with lunch today over at the T&C, I had forgotten to bring money but I managed to scrape enough from the bottom of my backpack. Kerstin and I shared a very yummy vanilla coconut ice cream afterwards.

If I have time I will post up some snarky comments on "Welcome to Liberty Village," the third Alias episode of season 4. And if I have time, perhaps I'll do a review of the Phantom of the Opera soundtrack, but that might be better once I actually get the soundtrack. I've found a sneaky way to listen to the soundtrack through a Windows Media Player audio stream. I've got to say that Emmy Rossum is growing on me.

Comments

[horosha.livejournal.com]

Have you seen The Phantom of the Opera yet? I'm curious what your opinion of it will be.

[theladyrose.livejournal.com]

I did see it...I think I posted up some comments some time ago, but I'll repeat them there. It's my definition of a trashy musical that attempts to redeem itself through the costumes and sets.

Listening to the soundtrack, I was struck by how bad Gerald Butler sounds. Seriously. In the film I thought he was OK, not cringe-worthy, but on the soundtrack he tries this weird raspy sensual approach to his singing, and the result is absolutely hilarious! His phrasing's a bit bizarre, too. He's best when trying to hit really solid ending notes on the songs; his range seems to be better suited for the upper reaches of a tenor. As for Emmy Rossum, her voice isn't fully developped yet (she's only 18, if I remember correctly), but I think she has plenty of potential. She's surprisingly good when hitting the really low alto-range notes, and has a very beautiful pure voice for the second-soprano range. For the really high notes, she thankfully doesn't use too much vibrato; you can tell she has a little trouble up there.

Raoul was surprisingly good, probably the best performance in the cast besides Madame Giry (the lady who oversees the opera cast and saved the Phantom when he was a boy) and the two British opera owners. I had absolutely no idea what kind of accent Minnie Driver was trying until about halfway through the film.

The director whose last name I have difficulty spelling was pretty lousy. There's a ton of visual spectacle but I ended up being really overwhelmed by how much...stuff...is happening on screen the entire time. Occasionally the film tends to drag during the musical sequences, which is a really bad sign.

I'm not sure I'm too fond of the orchestrations. Yes, it's a melodrama like your typical opera, but do we really need the super sappy strings? And the retro synthesizer and organ and guitar...I normally like retro stuff, but it really DOESN'T work here, seriously dates the sound. You can tell this stuff was written in the 80's, you know? I have to confess that I'm not a super-huge Andrew Lloyd Webber fan to begin with; I do happen to love Cats, though. This could've been much better, but inexplicably I ended up liking it a lot more than I thought I would. I have no idea why.

[pinkbubbles101.livejournal.com]

what is this telluride? i'll ask you later. you don't have to explain here if you don't want to.

[theladyrose.livejournal.com]

Telluride is this free summer program that offers five seminars on different subjects. I hope that I get into the 20th Century Music seminar, but if I don't, I'm perfectly OK with it. It's really hard to get into.

hello

[crypticonfusion.livejournal.com]

hi,
I finally got an LJ. I figure you'll know who I am. We haven't talked in a long time. thought i'd leave you a note. much love. good night.

Re: hello

[theladyrose.livejournal.com]

Hello there! Yes, I do know who you are. I just friended you.

We haven't talked in ages. When are your free periods this semester?