ffm 463In those days I kept dreaming and thinking, hm, dal dire al fare, vero? … Later I met in the hood of Brás to a nonna Garofalo [Giannina, if I remember] who never tired of repeating, Figliolo, ma senti, mi raccomando … su, via, dai, e non dimenticare mai, mettila nei cornetti, quì nei cornetti, capisci! Talking about the voice, of course. The only advice about vocal technique I remember. That to put the voice there nei cornetti left me a little wary, but after all …
Then came Maura [Moreira, from “Minas Gerais” like me], the best and most beautiful mezzo-soprano or contralto I've heard in my life, already triumphant in Vienna, Munich, Cologne and surroundings. Come to Germany, darling, sure you need some help, I’ll show you the way.
My enthusiasm was changing into euphoria.
Then it was the turn of Aldo Baldin: in Frankfurt there’s a good teacher, come on, let’s go there,
I’ll introduce you for an audition and so you join the High-school of Singing [Musikhochschule].
I still do not know how many times I've regretted it. It may have been fate, but also a mere chance.
The devil. Hard times of continual struggle with the language, the German way of life, food, climate, but also of many joys and surprises, the discovery of a new world, unsuspected possibilities, new friendships, different nationalities, landscapes, intense “saudades” (homesickness) and the dogged determination to win.

arleen1981I went to Frankfurt, where, not the mentioned teacher, a real catastrophe, but a woman, the most perfect opera singer I've ever heard and the most wonderful person I came to meet then, who not only saved my heart and soul from the abyss into which I was fallen, but helped me understand the real meaning of singing, its purity, the sublimity of it as an art.

I owe her the miracle of have not immersed myself, after hard experiences, disappointments and a traumatic accident near by Göttingen, in God knows what whirl of discouragement and disillusion.
Her exceptional talent and contagious spontaneity, her deep affection and personal dedication, her voice, her smile and her presence, were my salvation.

Her terrible untimely death is still bitter and deeply hurting.
An impossible love-story. R.I.P. wherever she may be.

-4ever, J. A. A.