Signor del mondo...

I had my first coaching with Maestro Wedow today, and was very happy with how it all went. Again, my role isn't very big, but it is important. Nireno is, as Mo. Wedow put it, "Like James Levine, Vince Liotta, and David Effron all rolled into one." Cleopatra trusts him, and really lets him boss her around a bit. I keep forgetting that Cesare is, well, Julius Caesar (ahhh!!!), a larger-than-life character. King of the world. He's more than a general, and Cleopatra knows it. If she wins his love, she wins power. What she doesn't plan on, however, is falling in love with him.
And this is where Nireno helps.
He's proud of Cleopatra. She's "his honor student" as Mo. Wedow said. But he's still a servant. A servant, as he put it, in the way that Hilary Clinton is working with President Obama. And he's on the right team; after all, it is Nireno that begins the coronation scene, declaring Curio to be the victor, and Cesare to be kind of the world. In the back of his mind, though, he's saying, "See, I told you my girl Cleopatra would win. And now all those suckers who supported Tolomeo are being beheaded. Guess I was right!"
But there was still time left after we were finished working through the role, so we worked a little on my aria from Ariadne auf Naxos. I haven't been working on it that long, so it's still pretty rough in a lot of places. But Maestro gave me some very good suggestions, especially on how I learn the aria. He said I should take it in chunks, and that while Struass sounds like it's floating, you have to watch the conductor at all times. In retrospect, I should have sung Mozart for him, but he mentioned that he'd like to hear me sing my aria from Le Clemenza di Tito eventually. But I don't think I made a fool of myself in the least, and learned a great deal.
I'm just so thrilled to be singing in this opera, and to be working with my amazing cast members and artistic team! =)