Opera Concert Report: An Evening of Art, Song, and Opera

I went to the concert on Monday November 19th, 2012 titled “An Evening of Art Song and Opera”. The concert overall I felt was put together well and the singers Lori Hultgren, and Kyle Engler did a very good job singing each opera song. The pianist Daniel Lau was very eccentric and moved with with the music very well making it fun to watch as he played each song. The concert lasted a little over an hour as it had played more than 13 different opera songs. The first half of the concert had songs that were in other languages and I could not understand the words but I could understand the mood the composer was trying to create. The second half of the concert they played songs in English songs and since it was opera I still could not understand the lyrics for the most part. I could hear the words more clearly when Kyle Engler sang more than when Lori Hultgren sang although both sang very well. I remember Kyle singing a very casual lyric like 'I woke up and walked outside' or something like that, and the music that went along with it was very dark and scary sounding and I liked that a lot cause it makes me wonder what all the lyrics are saying. The Pianist Daniel Lau was very good and I was able to sit in the second row sort of behind him, so that I could see all the music that he would play and see his hands and feet very clearly. I noticed how fast most of the songs were and that he was able to play each song with ease. I noticed some of the songs required a lot of sheet music because he spent almost a minute a few times to simply fold out the music that he was using for the next song. I also noticed how he flipped the page during each song while still playing a lot with one hand he switched the page and then contnued from there. The foot pedals were fun to watch because he would smoothly dance from one pedal to another as the sound of the music differed very minutely. I am not a real big fan of Opera music however the opera singing and pianist were a