A moving performance….

I have watched this video over and over since it came out on Sunday, and it still moves me every time. Before I go any further, please take a moment to watch it:

In watching this video, I am reminded of why I love opera and the singers that perform it. Yes, I know that Les Misérables is NOT opera, but her performance was a stellar one of a singer in the same fold. When I watch opera and listen to it’s music, I seldom understand all that is said as I do not have a mastery of the European languages. So it left to the singer to convey that meaning to me through their voice and actions. So many times the music will bring me to the point of tears, and yet the singer will leave me hanging, unable or unwilling to take me that single step further. That frustrates me to no end. I despise that I can hear the potential in someone’s voice; to grasp that they CAN take me there if they would only DO it. Over the years of listening to many, many singers that are technically proficient, there are but a few which will provoke that reaction from me. I am usually almost overcome with a desire to scream, “RIP MY HEART OUT, DAMMIT! DO IT!”, only to be left wanting and disappointed at the end of the performance. And then, without warning, someone comes along who gets it. They let themselves go deeper, and sang with emotion and passion, vocally taking me to a place of sheer ecstasy and beauty in their sound. I wish to live in that place of beauty when I hear it, and it makes me crave it all the more when I am deprived of it. That glorious woman in that video achieved what so many of the singers I’ve heard over the years could not. While she wasn’t technically perfect, and her nervousness broke through here and there, she sang with all her heart and it was wonderful.

God bless her.

Peace.

~ by Carl on April 15, 2009.