Handel's Lascia ch'io pianga

Elena

New member
Hi everyone.

My latest Opera assignment was Lascia ch'io pianga, a soprano aria by composer George Frideric Handel which has become a popular concert piece. The melody for the song began its life as an Asian dance in his 1705 opera Almira. As an aria the piece was first used in Handel's 1707 oratorio Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno; but with a different text and name, "Lascia la spina".

I have been wanting to sing this song for awhile. I love Cecilia Bartoli, Renee Fleming, and the Farinelli movie's version of the song. I hope you like it.

 
Very nice. I would much rather listen to this than most popular female singers. Never stop what you are doing.
 
I've watched a couple of your videos and though I'm not sure who is doing what as far as camera operating and editing I can safely say that quality is improving with each one.

I do have some suggestions.

1. White balance! Most of the outdoor shots in this video have a blue tint to them. This is because the camera color settings are set to tungsten while youre using it in daylight. You can google the term 'color temperature' for more information. A good way to quickly whitebalance a camera is to hold a piece of white paper in the scene... have the camera zoom in... and then use the auto- whitebalance button see camera manual as it may beed to be 'saved' otherwise it will constantly adjust whitebalance during the recording :)

2. Protect the highlights! Objects that are white and brightly lit get blown out and they lose all detail. Solving this can be a challenge. The term is 'exposure latitude' which is basically the range from black to white that the camera is capable if recording. In video it's really not very much :) so it is a common problem. Colorists who I worked with suggest underexposing to 'protect the highlights' and then using color correction techniques to increase the brightness of just the shadow and midrange. An audio equivelent would be a 3 band parametric EQ but for visuals :)... it does get a bit technical so I would suggest to just keep in mind the extreme light and dark areas to make sure they dont get blown out in a distracting way... like the close up of the fountain. :)

3. Acting-wise you're doing pretty good. Personally I'm not a fan of opera being sung by teens.. but you atleast carry the fact that this is not a happy song... which is better than most. :) However generally you are very stiff... which is probably a cultural thing among classical singers probably much like how it seems classical dancers cant look each other in the eye... drives me nuts... :) our goal as artists (in my opinion) is to make an emotional/spiritual connection in the mind of the audience.

4. Lighting is actually being done fairly well... there is some mixed color temperatures... so keep in mind that if you shoot in a room with a window letting daylight in then all of the lights need to be daylight balanced. The problem is that the sun changes color temperaure fairly rapidly as it rises and sets. A company called rosco makes 'gels' which are plastic sheets used to color lights... the sheets are attached to the lights usually with wooden clothspins because they dont melt :)

5. when using green screen backgrounds based in reality remember to try to match the camera placement in both setups...So if the camera is waiste high and level on the greenscreen set it should be waiste high and level on the background set. I dont do much greenscreen at the moment so I cant go into any details.

Keep up the good work.
 
I would rather pull my fingernails out with a pair of pliers than to listen to opera (particularly baroque opera), but I did watch this through. Beautifully done and you have a wonderful voice.
 
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