Little Ms. Bossy (The Soundtrack)

In my regular non-vacay life, there is constant music. At home from the Sounddock, in the car from my iPod, at work from the real live singers I work with, at the bar from the jukebox. I am so rarely without music that the few minutes I'm forbidden to use my iPod on the plane before we reach cruising altitude seem like an eternity.

I have plenty of music on my iPod (drastic understatement), so I can pick the music I listen to based on the mood I'm in at any given moment. Currently it's:

• Jack Johnson and Joshua Radin to relax
• Kate Nash and Lily Allen to primp
• Vampire Weekend and Regina Spektor to smile
• Ingrid Michaelson to feel at home
• Elgar's Cello Concerto and William Fitzsimmons to cry
• Astor Piazzolla and Carla Bruni to feel sexy
• Lauren Kennedy to sing

Except that sometimes, instead of my mood dictating the soundtrack, the soundtrack dictates my mood.

I've been enjoying all the aforementioned artists, yes, but mostly what I've been listening to for the last week is La Bohème. Endlessly. I have 6 full recordings of the opera on my iPod, and I've been cycling through them, act by act. I listen to it while I'm studying, I listen to it while I'm napping, I even listened to it while doing crunches at the gym today. The only way I know to truly learn an opera is to listen to it about a gazillion times. You can wait until you're in rehearsal, where you're forced to hear it that much, or you can do it yourself before the rehearsals start. I prefer the latter approach.

The result of all this Bohème immersion is that I seem to be more emotional than usual, more quick to tears, more prone to unprovoked sappiness. The beauty of Puccini's music is enough to soften the hardest of hearts, and it seems to be a balm to my broken one. My response to the music is emotional, physical, visceral, and at times exhausting. And it's not just the music. I finished translating the libretto today (don't be too impressed—by translating I just mean writing Nico Castel's translation in my score), and there are so many poignant moments in the text alone that just thinking about some of them makes me tear up.

I generally think of myself as a pretty rational, intellectual person, and I think I've got the Puccini-inspired hysterics mostly under control.

For now, that is. I still have 10 weeks of Bohème to go.

Uh-oh.