Wednesday

I'm working on a very challenging new aria. It's hard, don't get me wrong, but most of it is working it's way right into my throat. EXCEPT: There are about two measures that are giving me a hernia-- a very fierce coloratura passage, naturally. My facility has really improved in that way lately, and my very high extension is stronger than it has been in ten years, but this one section....sigh. And as we all know, even if you can sing the whole rest of the thing, not being able to do two crucial measures well can ruin the whole aria.

So my question is this: with something like coloratura (that honestly is not as natural to me as I would like it to be), can practicing the passage hundreds of times mean that eventually it WILL sound natural and gorgeous? Or is what I have always kind of suspected true: if it doesn't work within the first ten times you try to sing it, it's probably not the right aria for you?

Hmmm.