Interestinger and interestinger

So, today, I was the sole member of a quality control "panel" for the clinic. The only invited person who attended. I told the social worker conducting the "panel" of my consistent experiences, and by the time I was done, she was without words. I mean, I've been speechless before, but this was something to see. No one in the room had anything at all to say for about 15 seconds.

We'll see if this accomplishes anything; it was good to learn that the idiot who had screwed my prescription refills over the last year and a half had been "replaced." I hope that whatever he's doing, no one's health care is associated with it. He'd be someone good to .. oh, I don't know, lay around the house and bitch about how awfully he's been treated while someone else takes care of the expenses, the cleaning, the cooking, the laundry, and .. well, everything else.

Today while working on loans - four of 'em, actually, it totally interfered with my planned work for the day - I had an email from Wayne (who's the Prince of Sweetness) that had a link to a YouTube video in it. The video was amazing. I had chills all over my upper body throughout the entire video, and then had tears in my eyes for 20 minutes.

So, tonight, we're going to have a little lesson. Yep. This lesson is two-fold; it's about culture, and it's about passion.

First, a little walk into movie past - the show is "Pretty Woman," and the scene is where Richard Gere puts Julia into an incredible dress, and into about a quarter million dollars worth of jewelry and flies her on a private jet to San Francisco to see a production of "La Traviata." She's never been to an opera before. She asks what to expect, and he says, basically, you're going to either love it or hate it.

And she's captivated.

Opera is like that for me, when it's .. well, captivating. I've been to gorgeous opera productions - millions upon millions of dollars spent on set, costume, lighting, and the musical execution is flawless - and it has all of the emotion of putting your white clothing into the laundry and heaving in some soap.

I've also been to opera that cost about sixteen dollars to produce, where the singers were musically talented but they conveyed the meaning of the piece through their emotional involvement. And, there's nothing like it.

So, here we're going to review a few short clips of the same piece of music performed by a few different professional, well known opera stars .. just to get a sense of what we're doing.

The show is "Turandot," by Puccini. The piece is the Nessun Dorma, one of the most famous tenor pieces in all of the world of opera. I'm going to copy out the first paragraph of the Wikipedia article for you, because it references the guy who is the point of all of this piece tonight.

Turandot is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini, to an Italian libretto by Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni, based on the play Turandot by Carlo Gozzi. It was left unfinished by Puccini at his death, and completed by Franco Alfano. The first performance, at the Teatro alla Scala, in Milan, on 25 April 1926, conducted by Arturo Toscanini, included only Puccini's music and not Alfano's additions. Later performances were of the completed score. In June of 2007, Paul Potts, a performer on the British television show "Britain's Got Talent" sung an abridged version of Nessun Dorma, a piece of the opera often performed by such renowned tenors as Pavarotti and Domingo. The Youtube video of his performance, posted on June 10, 2007, had 1,014,418 hits by June 13. As acclaim of the performance has spread over the internet, millions of viewers who had never pursued or observed classical Italian opera have been introduced to the art by this performance.

So, first let's look at the most well known of tenors, Pavarotti. Make sure you watch the whole thing - the words are subtitled for you:



Pretty impressive, huh? Musically, he's awesome.

No chills for me, though. No tears. No response. (yawn..) Did I park my car on the fourth floor of the garage? Hmmm.

Now, we're going to watch someone who kicks things up a notch. Not as flawless in his apparent musicality, but still very good. Phrasing is awesome.



Here's the thing - this guy's singing gives me chills BEFORE he emits a single tone. Watch his face - he's THINKING about what he's saying with the lyric. Chills, chills, chills. Wow. This is great stuff. In Ankara, Turkey? Did we know that they have an opera house? Can you hear the people EXPLODE into applause and cheers? They don't give this kind of a reception for the other performers, it's more politeness and an acknowledgement for their reputation and accomplishments.

Bottom line, now - this guy who sang on the UK television show "Britain's Got Talent." He's a mobile phone salesman in South Wales. It's his dream to be an opera singer. I don't know that he's formally trained, but from his pitch control, I'd have to say that he's not.

It was pointed out to me today that Paul has a partially cleft palate. So, no background for this stuff, physical impairment, and what does he have? One shot on a cheesy TV show with Simon (legree) as the Head Bastard in Chief.

Watch this:



I've watched this clip now five times today. Every single time, I've had chills all up and down the ENTIRE time he sang. The first time, I had tears in my eyes for twenty minutes. I just watched it for the sixth time today as I was posting the embedded link, and I have tears running down my face.

This is what passion is. This is what commitment is. This is what faith is. This is how some people succeed beyond all obstacles.

Find it in yourself.