Update

A Call to Action: Subscribing to My Channel

I know I am still rather perturbed in light of what developments have been happening on YouTube. In spite of that, I want to use this opportunity to invite you all to subscribe to my channel and take a gander at the content I have to offer. I know I have been using this plug for countless of times but it has to be done because this is a reminder that just because my channel only has 529 subscribers does not mean I am going to wallow in self-pity.   I do not just do these vlog-style reviews of operas, concerts, musicals, ballet, anime, cartoons, and movies for kicks-and-giggles. I put in a lot of effort, research, heart, encouragement, and of course, I take my career as an online reviewer very seriously. It has been my mission to not only voice out my opinions via this platform and do so in a way that does not make me come off as mean-spirited nor pushy nor pretentious but to also create genuine, healthy, and long-lasting relationships with my fellow actors, voice actors, singers and musicians of several genres, animators, creators, filmmakers, artists, and reviewers. Through my reviews and through loads and loads of inspiration from many of some fabulous reviewers, who I am glad to call my friends, I felt like I fulfilled making some well-meaning relationships, be it on Manic Expression, Team Night Saturn, Channel Awesome, Steemit, and many other platforms.   I don’t want to bore you too much with a history lesson but I essentially started off as an aspiring actor wanting to be noticed for my craft, as it is the 21st century and some casting directors will end up searching for a video of someone doing a monologue in spite of the fact that the camera quality may not be amazing. It was not until the night before my 21st birthday did I decide to release my first vlog-style review of Donizetti’s Lucrezia Borgia at the Deutsche Oper Berlin starring Edita Gruberova and Pavol Breslik. From this point forward, this was my experimental phase, as I made more vlog-style reviews. I did not want to confine myself to reviewing music, so I made my first anime vlog regarding Space Dandy when I had a stopover in Washington Dulles. I even branched myself out into doing movie reviews, as that was what a lot of my reviewer friends were doing. Whilst making these reviews, I was initially hesitant on becoming a YouTube partner because I did not want to whore myself out and I was rather hesitant. However, that all came to a head in June 2014 when I finally said, yes I will be a YouTube partner. I did not receive my first YouTube payment of 71 Euros until June 2016, as it took me two years to achieve that, which was far from easy as I was still branching out and of course my schedule in my old acting school did not really make it possible for me to watch certain operas and concerts, as several days were intended for rehearsal. The next payment I ended up getting took me 1 year and it was 74 Euros. These days I am really lucky to use Steemit for my overall revenue to increase, as I have a pretty strong following on that particular site and I do enjoy posting my stuff there as I do get something great in return, whether it be payments or people who are genuinely supportive of my content.   Speaking of followings, whilst I may not have the most significant amount of followers ever, I was glad to know some of my favorite opera singers and some fellow opera fans recognized my work. Anna Prohaska, whose concert I saw in Salzburg in the summer of 2014, automatically recognized me as the guy with the vlogs. She even remarked that my work was informative and people can learn a lot. One of my opera singer and opera fan friends recognized me through a review I did of, I believe, The Magic Flute in the Deutsche Oper Berlin. I even made a lot of great friends with a lot of the opera singers of the Deutsche Oper Berlin and I cherish each of them for being such down-to-earth and amazing people. This all got to the point where the Deutsche Oper Berlin even subscribed to my YouTube channel, which was one of the best moments I had so far, as I did make a lot of my reviews based on the Deutsche Oper Berlin’s productions. I even met the likes of Evelin Novak, Katharina Kammerloher, Pavol Breslik, Diana Damrau, Thomas Hampson, Waltraud Meier, Cheryl Studer, Adrianne Pieczonka and Evelyn Herlitzius. I even achieved my biggest dream of seeing Elena Mosuc perform the role of Violetta Valery from La Traviata, of course, at the Deutsche Oper Berlin and she herself loved my review of her performance in one of her signature roles. During my time in Pesaro last summer, some of my friends who performed in Rossini’s Il Viaggio a Reims were so thankful that I not only came to see that production but also make a review of it. Some of them even remarked my review as interesting and thoughtful, so much so that the conductor, Michele Spotti himself, gave me his business card once he recognized me. Through all of these happenings, they were all blessings because I knew deep down that this was what I wanted and I achieved it because I kept soldiering on and I was not going to go up in smoke any time soon. Mind you, I have become so familiar with a lot of operatic topics from the popular works to the rarer works to the many singers of the past and present to even the Fach system, which categorizes vocal types and each of them has their own traits. I was all but thirteen years old when I became familiar with the Fach system, fifteen…

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New Microphone Just Arrived

Guess what arrived in the mail? That’s right. A new Blue Yeti microphone and a pop filter. I want to thank my really good friend, Abel, for this awesome gift and for understanding how much I needed this because I haven’t done voiceovers for a long time and I really want to do a lot more not only after school or the fact that I want to do more professional voice acting no matter what company or project but for my personal pride and joy as I wanted to be a voice actor ever since I was in my early teens. However knowing how tough the industry truly is, it might as well be a hobby. My time with voice acting could last, it could not last, it totally depends. On top of that, when listening to some of my older voiceover recordings, the sound was really crappy, so I had to start from scratch and I got myself back in Behind the Voice Actors to audition for more original works, especially cartoons and audio books. So far, I am really happy with the results. 

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I’m Now on Opera Musica

Hello, everybody. I am officially now on Opera Musica, where I will also release my music-related reviews mostly restricting myself to opera, classical music, and Baroque music. I was introduced to this site by complete chance as this was headed by the fine Mathieu Abelli. When I arrived in Dresden he convinced me to publish my current reviews on Opera Musica specifically on the News section, which I did. So, I hope you enjoy the profile I created, as I will also post the reviews on there, and do stay tuned for my review of Verdi’s La Traviata at the Semperoper Dresden. https://www.operamusica.com/musicfan/antoni-matteo-garcia/

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One New Role Coming Up and it’s Shakespeare-related

Hey, everybody, I regret to inform that I could not make it to the Staatsoper im Schillertheater to watch Berlioz’s La Damnation de Faust and later give a proper vlog-style review, this was also the same case of why I could not make it to my dear Narine Yeghiyan‘s Lieder Recital and give a review of that too, as I had a new project under my belt.   How I got into this project was by complete chance thanks to my very great filmmaker/actress friend, Carolina Rath. As soon as I got the memo that I was going to read for Caliban for Shakespeare’s The Tempest, known in German as Der Sturm, I was quite ecstatic. I knew from the back of my mind this was going to be not only a great challenge for me as it’s always been for someone who’s first language is not even German, but it was also a great opportunity for me to open new gates and eventually make this particular role have a handsome place on my resumé and/or curriculum vitae in order to apply for universities, more acting jobs and the like, since another academic plan for Uni is to not only have English as my major but also Theater Studies, if ever Spanish as my second subject does not fare well or vice versa.   Our director, Frank Tilmann Otto, is a sympathetic and really cool person. I am glad to work with him so far, as long as I keep diligent, hard-working, and disciplined. In addition to that, the overall camaraderie has been positive and I hope it is kept that way.   In terms with how I am faring in school, let’s just say that how I’m doing now is a slight improvement from the first half of the E-Phase and as always, I have been passing all of my subjects and still continue to do so. Once I reach the Q-Phase, as in the last two years of doing my Abitur or pre-university schooling, then I will have to give a lot more effort.   It may seem like I’m doing a bit too much, but I’m open to anything. Though when all is said and done, I’m a lot more excited for my summer break and I’m anticipating what is to come on my journeys.   I wish you all a good night and I hope you all had a pleasant Pentecostal week.

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