Povero Rigoletto

This is from the movie "Rigoletto from Mantua", a movie of Verdi's 'Rigoletto' filmed live in the city where the action takes place. Beautifully made, tenor Placido Domingo sings the baritone role of Rigoletto at age 70. While not the booming voice one generally hears as Rigoletto, but rather with a 'tenorial' timber, he delivers a lovely performance with dynamic stage presence and touching expression. The entire movie can be seen at PBS currently and is well worth anyone's time who likes great music and great singing. The Italian tenor, Vittorio Grigolo, who has recently been making a big name for himself, sings the Duke of Mantua, and the pretty Russian soprano, Julia Novikova sings Gilda. One of the best opera movies to date, in my humble opinion.

My video clip begins after Gilda, Rigoletto's daughter, has been abducted by the courtiers and brought to the Duke for his vile pleasure. This is after the courtiers have actually fooled Rigoletto, the Duke's court jester, into helping them kidnap his own daughter for her dishonor. As Rigoletto enters the Duke's palace, looking for Gilda, the courtiers sneer and mock him. This clip includes the piece, "Cortigiani, vil razza dannata..." which I posted earlier sung by Louis Quilico.

Archie is a good-lookin' fella.

Making videos for YouTube

Well, it's harder than I thought it would be to make a satisfactory video to upload to YouTube. Their system will not allow just any old avi so I had to do some re-encoding. Since YouTube re-encodes when you upload, any re-encoding is highly undesirable as it will drastically reduce the quality of your clip. I was forced to re-encode one of my videos, as everytime I tried to cut the video from the front, this particular video kept turning out with no picture - arghh!! Must have been some necessary info missing everytime I did it - I tried many free tools to repair and rebuild keyframes and indices, etc., etc., but was finally forced to simply cut and re-encode which rewrites the information and generally solves such problems. I was, however, able to keep the original audio stream, which is most important in an opera video, so I was pleased with that. Still, upon uploading to YouTube, the video at first turned out with a nasty black pixelated look for the first few seconds. I tried many things to get rid of this and finally succeeded by using the x264 video codec rather than xVid. The main free tool I used to do this work is one I have had sitting on my pc desktop for ages and had no idea of all the useful things it could do. It is called avidemux. It can do way more than de-mux. It can mux, encode, cut, join, AND it supports quite a few different file formats. It can also do many of these actions to the original information without re-encoding so you may keep your original quality of video and audio if necessary.

Turns out getting your container right is also pretty important; ('container' meaning avi, mp4, mov, etc.) I always used to make all my videos .avi since the free player I use on my Dell Axim doesn't seem to care what the container is as long as it can process the codecs. However, when uploading to YouTube, an accurate container and file name extension seem to make a big difference in success of the upload, playability, and quality. I decided to simply go for no re-encoding of my second video which was h264 avc and aac audio, since it was possible to cut the video successfully without any re-encoding. This was my original video and I did not want to go back an recapture the video digitally again, however, cutting and getting a video perfectly synced from the avc variable rate video proved a challenge. I finally figured out it is pretty much a snap using the free tool, AVI-Mux GUI. I have used this tool many times for simple muxing, but had never noticed if you click on the audio track, a little box shows where you can set an audio delay - (duh, how great is that?)

I rather prefer hard-coded subtitles on this type of opera clip, but since that would cause a need for re-encoding, I used YouTube's closed-captioning option for the subtitles. I did that on my previous video also as it is very convenient. I also force the option in my embedded videos here, but I don't think you can force the option at YouTube. I am a huge fan of English subtitles for opera - makes the piece come alive to me to fully understand everything being said.

Anyway, there are many great, ad-free, safe, and powerful free tools for video editing out there for Windows users that often can do more operations that spendy software. Many of these tools don't even have to be 'installed' on your pc, but are rather, stand-alone executables.

"Cortigiani, vil razza, dannata!..."

This is one of my favorite baritones singing the big bit from Verdi's Rigoletto, "Cortigiani, vil razza, dannata!..." (Courtiers, you vile, damned race!...") In this solo, Rigoletto, the court jester, whose daughter has just been kidnapped by the duke's courtiers for his immoral pleasure, hurls abuses at the kidnappers. When he realizes he is powerless before them, he then begs them for pity. He pleads with them to return his daughter to him, as, he says, his daughter is his whole world.

Louis Quilico was a famous Verdi baritone who also sang much French opera as he was Canadian-born of an Italian father and a French-Canadian mother. He died in 2000. He has a son, Gino Quilico, who is also today quite successful as an operatic baritone, but his son has a lighter voice and does not have the fatness of sound, and general largeness of voice like his father had, which makes for a more successful Verdi baritone. Rigoletto was probably Louis Quilico's most famous role. This clip is from a Metropolitan Opera broadcast from 1981 with Luciano Pavarotti singing the role of the Duke. The entire opera is currently available for streaming rental at the Met Opera website.

Otello with Placido Domingo and Sherrill Milnes as Iago and now I am testing as to what happens if your title is really long...

This is a video I uploaded to YouTube - a clip from Verd's Otello from the Metropolitan Opera, 1979. It is the tenor-baritone duet which ends the second act in a frenzy of emotion as Otello vows vengeance, believing Iago's lies about Desdemona's unfaithfulness. Placido Domingo is in the title role and his Iago is Sherrill Milnes. These two always worked wonderfully well together and put audiences in a euphoria of heightened emotions with their incredible voices and mastery of Verdi's style.

I tried to cut the video so one can experience the roaring eruption of the audience well before the music ends, generally not done at fancy opera houses like the Met, unless, as in the case with this particular performance, it is so exciting, people just cannot contain themselves. I started the clip a little before the big duet, where Iago has just told Otello about the handkerchief. That way, you don't miss Otello ripping his shirt open, crying, "Sangue, Sangue, SANGUE!!!", and dropping to his knees right before "Si, per ciel..." ("Yes, by heaven...") I probably watched this clip some thirty times while trying to work with the quality and learning how to edit videos, and still, it gives me a chill of excitement every time.

This video can be watched in its entirety at the Metropolitan Opera website for $4 or $5. I don't think the video has ever been released on dvd, however there are three separate commercial dvds available of live performances of the opera with Placido Domingo in the title role, not counting a Franco Zeffirelli movie. He also recorded the role in the studio at least two other times and performed the role live some 223 times. One of the commercial recordings of the opera, from La Scala in 2001 documented his last appearances in the role, as he retired the role at that time. If you are not familiar with the opera, Otello is a very difficult role, requiring a passionate temperament, and a big voice. Only a handful of tenors have made the role their own in the past century and Placido Domingo is one of, if not 'the' most beloved of all time.

'Madama Butterfly' from the Metropolitan Opera

I recently watched this video from the Metopolitan Opera website. You can rent it there to watch on your pc or you can pick up a copy from Amazon.com or if you are real lucky, you local library will have a copy of this performance. I watch and listen to a lot of opera so I can tell you that 'Madama Butterfly' is a difficult opera to execute well because the soprano needs to have a hardy voice, but she also needs to appear to be a waify, 15-year old girl - a very hard thing to pull off. American soprano, Patricia Racette, does the job beautifully with a little help from the costume department. Racette sounds great and doesn't tire out down to the last note of this difficult role. The other singers round out the cast well, and the production, created by Anthony Minghella, includes some wonderful unorthodox puppets. The main puppet used represents Cio Cio San's (That's Butterfly's given name) little boy, whereas generally they just use a real boy. But this puppet is adorable as his masters make him walk around and look at up at her with such a display of trusting emotions. It's quite fantastic. I've seen a few different productions of 'Butterfly' on screen, but none ever worked as well as this one in my opinion. It's just a wonderful show and a great way for anyone to enjoy a Puccini Opera cheaply in the comfort of their own home. If you have never watched an Italian opera before, don't worry, English subtitles are now always provided so you don't have to do any homework, or any thing like that. Just open a bottle of wine and enjoy the show.

First mowing of the year.

February 5 it is, and I already felt compelled to do some lawn-mowing. It was terribly thick in some areas, and if you put it off, you are just heightening the difficulty later. It hasn't rained for quite a few days, so I though had better get at it. I decided to leave the front yard alone as it wasn't bad yet. Also, violets have taken over the place and I want to leave them alone and not discourage them. I have no idea where they came from, but they are so pretty. There is also some beautiful light green clover in the front yard that later blooms with some adorable pink flowers and I didn't want to ruin that either. Then, all around our big cedar tree, and in various small patches in the yard, there is this little bulb flower that makes tall dark green grass and blooms in the spring with pretty little purple flowers. They are cute but the plant seems a bit invasive. I've been in a dilemma how to treat them. I mowed down the backyard ones, but I think if it rains soon, I will selectively pull the front yard ones up by the root and see if you can control them and enjoy their beauty without getting irritated with them. They smell like onions and when you mow over them, they clog up the mower much worse than the thick grass does. Anyway, I like to try to use what I call "selective mowing" to encourage pretty little flowers in the yard. I wish we had some of those tiny white daisies you see in some lawns. It would be great to have an entire lawn or large patch that was mostly small, pretty flowers.

Pocket pcs and smartphones

Pocket pcs and smartphones. I love them. I love carrying around a bunch of my favorite books, movies, music, and pictures in a tiny little device that I can also make a call or send a text message on. Oh, and did I mention their magical web surfing abilities? How there are still people out there who haven't eaten up these delicious little devices with a spoon is beyond me. They are miraculous little tins full of joy and wonder, with side-helpings of security and convenience. Yes, there are times they are a bit maddening, just like your pc, but they are such hardy little multi-taskers, in such sweet miniature pc form, it's only fair to give them the occasional afternoon off. Besides, I enjoy the challenge on those rare occasions when one of my devices chooses not to do my bidding. With a bit of help gleaned from online forums written by other loving (or not so loving) users of the same model, I am generally able to encourage my little friend to right its rebellious ways and all is well again.

More posts to follow on: Windows mobile, used devices, and prepaid cell service, including 'Whatever happened to free Yahoo mail for my cell phone?'

Butternut Squash and it's relatives

Butternut Squash is easy to grow, keeps a long time unrefrigerated, is very healthy, reasonably low in carbohydrates, and produces large fruit with lots of delicious, edible flesh, and very little waste. I don't do a large amount of work growing it, as my husband manages all that, but I can see that he basically puts out the plant along with a few other types of squash, aims for decent soil, and makes sure it can get plenty of sun and water. (Later, I will try to post some information about my husband's terrific reasonably-priced watering system for our garden.)

Most people I know think you have to bake Butternut Squash and then either make some kind of pureed soup out of it, or make a sweet bread. I've done those things with it, and am always impressed with any sweet bread, because I love pretty much all baked treats, but I'm never so pleased with the soups. We ate the soups - I think I like them better than my husband does, but there is always a slight struggle to eat all of it without some going to waste, because it is never quite the intensely amazing soup I envisioned.

So here's a great idea: Butternut Squash benefits by treating it as though it is more like a yam, and then seasoning it in your choice of Asian styles. You can peel the raw squash pretty easily with a good potato peeler. Once it's peeled, a large, sharp knife will dice it up without too much effort. Butternut squash is definitely woody and dense when raw, but peeling it first makes the initial big cuts much easier than you would think.

One of my best methods of using the squash is as follows: I steam my diced squash about 20 minutes until it is cooked, but still quite firm, and dump it in my pan-cooked dish right at the end of cooking, so it doesn't get mushy. Chicken and pork work best with this type of dish, but beef will do in a pinch. A couple times I used pork sausage but don't use much or any curry powder with sausage, in case it clashes. Onions are good in this type of dish, as are a few black beans or garbanzo beans. Whatever vegetables you like or have on hand are great. I add garlic, and a pretty good amount of curry powder, a couple tablespoons of plum jam, or apple butter, or brown sugar, or some apple juice to sweeten it up a bit. I also generally add some raisins and some Sriracha (Red Rooster) hot sauce. Don't put alot salt in it, but rather, serve it over rice with some soy sauce on top and voila! - the best butternut squash dish this side of the Himalayas.

Occasionally I do this spiced more like Chinese food - no curry powder, whole anise seed and fresh, ground ginger at the beginning, ( - okay, sometimes we don't have fresh ginger and I just shake some of the powder stuff in - ), plus white pepper and a pinch of clove powder and a pinch of cinnamon later. Always garlic, and a little Sriracha sauce if you like.

There is also the standard American-style beef or pork roast which you can add big chunks of your raw butternut squash too along with your other veggies - very yummy. If you wait to put the squash in until about thirty minutes before the roast is done, it will be nicer (more firm, less mushy).

I will try to post a picture of one of the dishes with the diced squash, but it will have to wait until next fall, as we just had our last fresh squash from the garden for this past growing season.

I haven't tried processing acorn squash in the same manner yet, but it might work if you can get it chopped first into sections and then peel it. Delicata squash is super-delicious, and not hard to process, but we find the fruit small and the plants a bit fussy to raise, plus the length of time it will keep is shorter than acorn or butternut squash. Spaghetti squash is useful for many dishes, but lame in the one I just described, however, the fruit is generally large and plentiful on each and every plant - it seems the least fussy of all the squash plants we've tried to grow. I often add a bit to Italian tomato-based sauces, but I am not sure my husband is quite as enthused about that as I am. One great thing about spaghetti squash - it is surprisingly low in calories and carbohydrates, less than the other three. The best thing I do with it is add it to red lentils, usually with curry-style spices and serve it over rice. It adds some low-carb veggies to your beans, lowers the calories of your dish, and the flavor compliments the red lentils well.

Dongles

I have just received another useless dongle in the mail. I purposefully ordered this one, as I did all the others, now resting dormant in my special dongle drawer, but by the time I received it, I realized I didn't need it. This dongle is a USB attachment with audio and microphone jacks so you can use Skype or some other internet VOIP service, and just plug your headphones and mic into this gizmo, which goes into a front (or any) USB port. After ordering it, I realized both our pcs have front audio/mic jacks so we will only need this dongle if one of the jacks stops functioning.

I am writing this post, because the word 'dongle', in combination with the many useless 'dongles' I own, is intriguing to me. Did they mean for the word to sound so naughty? It does sort of 'hang out there' from your device in a male manner. I would never use the word in front of my mother.

All the dongles in my dongle drawer are USB types. One is a wifi dongle which seems to work well with my pc but since our wireless router is older, it didn't tie our network together well, and I had to go back to the old ethernet cable for home networking. Another dongle I have is a blue-tooth dongle. I believe I purchased this one to sync a phone that I had no sync cable for. I think I decided I hated the phone, and sent it back, so never used the dongle. I keep them all "just in case". Of course, I will never need any of them until the moment after I have chucked them and the trashman has come and gone.

So, that's it for dongles. I hope to stick with this blog thing and post some useful information on video and audio editing and any other helpful things I have learned in life that might help or entertain someone else out there in cyber world.