While you’re waiting to see if Jackie Evancho makes it through to the finals on America’s Got Talent (and Miss Mussel knows you all are), feast your ears on these other pint-sized wonders.

Julie Andrews had been singing with her parents on the stage in London for two years before she got her first professional gig at age 12 in a musical revue called Starlight Roof.

The gag was that every night, a Starlight performer would ask if anyone in the audience wanted a balloon animal. Andrews rushed up to the stage, the two would start chatting and Andrews would drop into the conversation that she sang a little. She would be given a moment in the spotlight and come out with “Je suis Titania” from the Thomas Ambroise opera “Mignon”….as one does in these situations. Obviously.

Fun Fact: The top note is the F that makes The Queen Of The Night aria so famous.

Bubbles Silverman began singing professionally at age 4 and later became Beverly Sills, a well-respected opera singer known for her coloratura. The fast scales and intricate patterns required for this type of singing are not everyone’s cup of tea but Sills seemed to have had a knack for it from the very beginning. Here is 8 year old Sills singing “Il Bacio” by Luigi Arditi in the 1937 film “Uncle Sal Solves It.”

In 1997, 11 year-old Welsh soprano Charlotte Church was invited onto Big, Big Talent to introduce her aunt Caroline. It was a bit of a set up, as Church had already become a minor sensation after singing Andrew Lloyd Webber’s ‘Pie Jesu’ over the phone to This Morning. She stole the show and 13 years later she has two kids and a yacht called Sketchy. Oh, and also three platinum records.

Andrew Johnston was head chorister at Carlisle Cathedral in the north of England and had been singing with the choir since age 6. He reached the finals of Britain’s Got Talent in 2008 and ended up with a $2 million record contract with Simon Cowell’s label Syco. Not bad for a kid from the projects in a forgotten part of Britain.

And, for comparison purposes – here’s Jackie from last night’s AGT show.

Is Jackie on par with Sills and Andrews or where things really better in the good old days?

*Why do people insist on saying these children sound like angels? Gabriel, Michael, the pair that visited Lot were all men and the ones on TV are busy eating cream cheese. St Luke is a little light on details but who knows, maybe the Heavenly Host Chorale was a men and boys.

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The most curious part of the whole story for at this point is the change in her sound from the first AGT audition tape to her appearance on the show three weeks ago.

Singers – help a bivalve out here. What’s going on and why would you change a perfectly lovely treble into a faux-grown up soprano?

Exhibit A – audition tape – date unknown although she’s probably 9

Exhibit B – first AGT appearance on 10th August 2010 (start at about 1:35)

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The crew at Washington University practice their Poker Face(s)

From The Harold B. Lee library at Brigham Young University in Utah, ladies and gents, put your hands together for NEEEEEEEWWW SPIIIICE!

(there’s also a behind the scenes)

Søk and Skriv at the University of Bergen in Norway is: the 2010 winner of the Most Amusing Appropriation Of A Clint Eastwood Epigram award.

(If the subtitles aren’t working, click on the CC button)

Even though Miss Mussel doesn’t live in Norway, Washington State or Utah, have many reasons to use an academic library or need a reminder not to copy other people’s work, she watched these videos several times and is now sharing them with her network.

Why? Because they’re clever ideas carried out by someone who knows what they’re doing. In this scenario, the subject matter is irrelevant.

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As usual, there is plenty of material to choose from. Here are the bits about Prima Donna, his theory on critics and the final word on the orchestration question.

Why there were such dramatic changes to the set and libretto for the Sadler’s Wells and Toronto versions. [The premiere was in Manchester in 2009]

There were several reasons, one is that on an artistic level there was way too much going on. The opera was written with the concept that it’s all set in one room until the second act where there’s a flashback and we return to the glory days of the, let’s say, Paris Opera.
After [the director] Daniel [Kramer] had his way with the piece there were 5 set changes in the first act. It was much more camp and over the top

It became more about the back story, what happened that fateful evening at the premiere six years ago, as opposed to what was going on in the opera. To be honest, there were moments of it I adored that I miss sometimes but I think the focus was in general pretty lost. Especially during that interlude in the second half where they finally reveal the drama of the backstage antics that no one really understood at that point.

There was the practical issue of the set didn’t fit anywhere else. They couldn’t get it out of the theatre! [laughs] The opera has to go to Australia and Canada and it couldn’t fit anywhere. I think his intentions were probably good. Unfortunately his insecurities took over at some point.

In terms of it being a new work for the opera world and the ever-tempestuous issue of a pop composer skipping into a more formal genre – he kind of put his energy into the sets almost like a Wizard of Oz type character behind the little curtain using flames to divert people

Once [director] Tim Albery got involved and Anthony McDonald who designed both sets, we had a pow-wow and realized that this opera is a very simple, straight-forward drawing room drama and a lot of the subtlety and the nuance is in the orchestration and in the music so you have to allow that happen.

I’m very very happy with the shift. It just relies a lot more on the singers to hold the piece and to transport it to the audience and it trusts the orchestra and the score and the composition to do what it’s meant to do.

One of the great additions in my opinion is Colin Ainsworth the tenor. You really do feel the sexual interplay is much more realistic.

What do you wish had gone differently?

There’s a few things in this whole process that I’m coming to terms with. Whether it’s my work with Daniel Kramer or let’s say the Metropolitan Opera there were some missed opportunities for what I think could have been a really incredible situation.

I think if Daniel had been a little bit more open. He shut me out of rehearsals until about three weeks before the performance and didn’t let me talk to anybody and was very insecure about my presence and perhaps my star status. But I do feel that if we had worked together and had integrated his wild ideas with my more subtle shifts it could have been really fantastic.

Also with the Met for instance, I think that if they had let me do it in French and perhaps had a little more time to flesh out over a 4-5 year period it could have really worked for both of us in a pretty meteoric way had we trusted each other a little more.

The main thing, above all of this, is that my mother got to see the opera in Manchester. That was the more spiritual reason for the hastening of the production. [Wainwright's mother Kate McGarrigle died in January 2010]

Can we talk about the critics for a minute?

Oh yes, let’s go! [lights up]

I’m talking about classical music criticism here because in pop music it is very different. The main thing about classical critics never pay attention to the audience. Whatever the audience thinks had no bearing, whereas in pop music that’s a fundamental part of it.

It doesn’t really matter what I think because the reaction I get so fundamental depending on what the critic says. If it’s a great critic I feel happy, if it’s a terrible critic I feel awful.

I would say that when my opera was first premiered it was traumatic but not as traumatic as the second time we did it in London. With the first time, I felt that each critic was reacting to it in their own personal way but the second time and maybe this is in my head but because the piece had been around and some of them had seen it twice and certain critics who had panned it the first time went in order to pan it again.

I’m not crying foul play by any means. There were these kind of three distinct groups that emerged. One of them was overt praise was fantastic but doesn’t necessarily serve my purposes but it is great, it is definitely an upper.

The middle group are people who analyze the piece and sift through it and decide what they think work and what they think doesn’t what it needs and what it doesn’t work. Most of those critics for Prima Donna were pretty rough but you know, encouraging and I would say positive in the end. No pushover’s there. That was a useful experience and I accepted it.

But then there was this third strain of very angry, very vitriolic, bitter and reckless criticism, which I was flabbergasted by only in terms of it being really a reaction to me as a celebrity doing this kind of work then to the piece itself. Granted, they’re allowed to hate the piece but my persona became sort of woven into the whole thing as though I was pissing on some altar.

It’s a three-headed monster I guess!

Did you orchestrate the score yourself?
I orchestrated the opera. I wrote every single note. 8 hours a day for over a year I would go in. I worked with an assistant Bryan Senti and yes, I wouldn’t have been able to do this without him in terms of me saying well what time signature is this in and how would you notate this. Some people have argued that he really did it because he translated.

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You can leave good/bad experiences and tips for new standers/things you’d wished you knew in the comments if you like or email hello [at] theomniscientmussel.com.

In your experience, which opera house has the best standing room?
What kind of people are there? [old, young, rabid fans, casual drop-ins]

Also, if you could mention what houses you stand at and what the sound is like compared to other sections that would be helpful as well.

If you can afford to sit, why do you choose to stand?

And finally, what houses aside from The Met, Covent Garden and Vienna have standing rooms?

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Here is Ms Trude in the precursor to Right Said Fred and I’m Too Sexy


[a passable Google translation of the lyrics]

When I was a baby, sweet and very stupid | As early as each man turned to me
And if I was so fond of the polar-bear | Met with delight each of the shock

And why?

Because I’m so sexy, sexy and mad | Are all the men out, all the men out | When they see me, from eighty to ten

Because I’m so sexy, sexy and mad | I tear men down, I tear it back and forth | Until they just let ???

I don’t have a Sophia Loren chassis | But otherwise I’m cute, you probably can see
In Petticoat and fishnet stocking I whistle too | One can see that I do not need something like

And why? [chorus]

I go so much fishing, pike, or whether ?? | However, all fish that swim past
But see me once while fishing any man | ??pike that bites at me

And why? [chorus] [chorus 2]

Trude’s crowning moment is this performance of Ich will keine Schokolade in 1965. At first Miss Mussel feared a Liza With A Z situation but after a few bars, it’s obvious she has the audience eating out of her hand instead of wondering what rehab centres are nearby. Trude is bringing it in a tent-shaped tunic and Miss Mussel cannot do anything other than be deeply impressed.

[again with the Google translation. Basically our damsel wants to get busy and when her mission is compromised by offers of chocolate, she throws tantrums]

I’m incredibly solid and I have never dated.
I’m more than with parents, a bit of a walk now and then.
My father says it must remain that and for that he gives me candy.
But the other day was the last straw because I do not taste sweets anymore!

I do not want chocolate, I prefer a man who I want to kiss me and can wrap around my finger!

I recently had grad birthday and forget this day I never
because all the aunts and relatives were with the party.
They brought roses and daffodils and heavy as chocolate,
there’s me suddenly swept away, I screamed, “I want that stuff no more.”

[chorus]

I bought Sunday at the fair for twenty penny to me a lot.
I’ve actually won but the disappointment was great.
But because I won a teddy bear, chocolate ‘and marzipan.
I threw the rage in the crowd and yelled at the ticket sellers:

[chorus]

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If you have something you’d like to add to the possibility pile, Miss Mussel will gladly supply the address.

Some opera houses have been writing already to inquire about #Operaplot 2011. Miss Mussel is impressed by your forward planning and will respond shortly. For everyone else who is wondering what’s going on, the current update is: it’s on in April again, some new things are in the works but at basic level it will go down exactly the same way it did last year.

It’s been a pleasant surprise to see people keeping the #operaplot hashtag going on the Tweeter. According to the Miss Mussel School of Make-It-Up-As-You-Go-Along-PR, that’s a pretty big deal. Thanks gang!

Hope you are all enjoying the last moments of respite before the monster Mahler Year shoots out of the gate. If his symphonies are any indication (and why wouldn’t they be) it’s going to to be at least 500 days wherein our anxiety about death is repeatedly heightened and then, in turn, assuaged by folk tunes, cowbells, broccoli-loving children (or is it asparagus?) and a cuckoo not quite on board with the idea that a minor third has 3 semitones, not 5.

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Until then, here’s Rufus singing one of his mother’s songs as an encore to his Songs For Lulu album tour. Miss Mussel saw the show in Toronto and even in a room full of too-cool-for-school media types, there wasn’t a dry eye.

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Recorded as part of the 7th Kinoteka Polish Film Festival

Does anyone really like the accordion? Those that play it are certainly talented but there seems to be very little music between the extremes of Myron Floren schmaltz, drunken Oktoberfest polkas and sad clown melancholy. (Think Joanie in last season’s Mad Men or the Amélie soundtrack)

The Motion Trio from Poland knows the instrument can be energetic, expressive, mischievious, subtle and intense and this collaboration with Michael Nyman does a great deal to convince the rest of us to get on board the accordion train.

[Audio clip: view full post to listen]

All of the pieces except the last one are written by Michael Nyman and arranged by Motion Trio leader Janusz Wojtarowicz. The Pole chose wisely and all the tracks survive the poaching with their dignity intact.

Nyman’s brand of minimalism rewards performers that are willing to play up the its inherent warmth and lyricism rather than regard the pieces as mechanical exercises. Surprisingly, the accordion’s natural emotional pull has a good home in this music.

Nyman plays the piano on most of the tracks and about half include trombonist Nigel Barr. Colourwise, the group makes quite a pleasant ensemble with the piano providing incisiveness, the trombone warmth in the bass and the three acoustic accordions a delicious reedy texture.

[Audio clip: view full post to listen]

At only 45 minutes, the album doesn’t wear out its welcome and leaves Miss Mussel wanting to investigate other Motion Trio collaborations.

Tracks: In Re Don Giovanni | Knowing the Ropes | Trysting Fields | Wedding Tango | Come Unto These Yellow Roads | If | Chasing Sheep | The Heart Asks Pleasure First | Miranda | Silence*

*written by Janusz Wojtarowicz

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