Comments

Karen, how interesting! Oh, dear, I think the writing is on the wall. Your true love calls.

Can we still make viola jokes around you? : )

Terez is right...the C String is calling you...

On the flip side, everybody has lousy practice weeks, or shameful practice weeks, or no practice weeks, so maybe that is it.

I see a triangle – Karen, uh oh. ;-) Sounds like time to zen out and take control to me. I'll do good to play a little violin, but you make viola sound compelling.

Get off Karen's back you ole funk-monkey devil. Back! BACK!!!!

Now, you may take back your focus and enthusiasm for both.

I advise you not to give up forever on playing your violin. Just put it aside until it calls you irresistibly to come back. Meanwhile, keep playing your viola and loving it. I bet the Puccini your viola wants to play is Suor Angelica. The violas really carry that opera. No, I'm not going to give up playing the violin, I'm just going to put it away for now like Pauline says. I still have hopes of playing the Bach double in church in the fall. Fellow v.commie Jennifer Warren arranged it for violin and viola and sent me the part, and my professional violist friend wants to play the viola part. That's fine with me, maybe I'll have my violin bow rehaired by then.

But as far as lessons, orchestra, etc., I think I only have time for one instrument. The real kryptonite is trying to spread oneself too thin.

Bill, do you mean that Angelica's sister is named Anna Viola? Or is there actually a good viola part in that opera? I was just researching it, and hadn't known it's part of a trio of Puccini operas. I've played violin in the pit orchestra for university productions of the other two (Il Tabarro and Gianni Schicchi), but they didn't perform Suor Angelica as part of the set. Yes, the viola part often has the melody in the most intense and emotional parts of the opera. It's very surprising that your group did Trittico without Angelica - all three productions I've seen over several decades omit Il Tabarro only.