I’m currently obsessed with the new Mildred Pierce (2011) miniseries - of course it cannot surpass the awesomeness of the 1945 film - which recently inspired me to do a portrait drawing of Evan Rachel Wood. She plays Veda, a stunningly beautiful tyrannical child with serious mommy issues, who later discovers that she is better as a singer than an actress. Veda’s singing voice is performed by Korean soprano Sumi Jo for most of the operatic scenes (my favorite parts of the film).
Dad wouldn’t approve of Sumi Jo - he still prefers good old Andrea Bocelli or Luciano Pavarotti. In retrospect, opera was my childhood lullaby. I was raised on classical music. I remember ball dancing with my dad, classics blasting through the huge stereo speakers he invested heavily in. I remember crying at the end of it, not because I was filled with emotion from the achingly beautiful music, but because I was filled with immense pain from hitting the wall and losing a tooth. With that, here goes my first amateur recording of Ave Maria, the soundtrack of my adolescence.
P.S.: My latin sucks and, like Miss Woods, I’m not trained in opera. Expect nothing!
Behind my friend Sam’s saccharine smile are some powerful pipes.