How do these charismatic, elegant, fabulous, and fine gentlemen fare, in the form of basso cantante, Ildar Abdrazakov, and full lyric tenor, Rolando Villazon, in their duets and solo arias? Find out in this review and have a most prosperous Thanksgiving.
Articles by Antoni Matteo Garcia
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I heard the news of Signore Dmitri Hvorostovsky’s passing after a long battle with brain cancer and I want to dedicate this now ancient review to his memory. I know that I also stated at the end of this video that it was also dedicated to Justin “JewWario” Carmical, Gerd Albrecht, and Shirley Temple, but given the recent news of Hvorostovsky’s transcendence of the flesh, I thought this would suffice. So, Signore Hvorostovsky, may you rest in peace, may your legacy live on through all generations, and may the Lord welcome you to His Kingdom.
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.
Thomas Adés’s The Exterminating Angel, which was based on Luis Buñuel’s surrealist film of the same name, takes on the United States of America through New York’s Metropolitan Opera House, after its debut performances in Salzburg and London, headed by a cavalcade of veritable vocal superstars! Enjoy the review and let me know your opinions as well.
And now for your viewing here’s a one-minute film I made that was meant for the Linguland contest, A Posh Goth Moment starring me as The Posh Goth. As you can tell, I put in a lot of dedication, passion, and love to this project, as I knew this was going to be something really fun, especially doing my own goth make-up, which I love to do. Even if I do not win this contest hosted by Linguland for the sake of my English major course, I will admit one thing. I had fun, I totally got into it, and it was an overall great experience.
When I look back at the rant I wrote about my former high school bully, who in my fury gave her the nickname Crapsack after I blocked her, I felt a couple of things. On one hand, it was cathartic because I never got an apology from her for everything she did and said to me like calling me a fail at life and just being condescending, cruel, and rude. On the other hand, it did feel rather harsh of me, but you know how it is, what goes around comes around and an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. That rant apparently caught the attention of her older sister, who proceeded to say that my bully never did anything wrong to me and just called me a petty kid. It sort of made me realize that my former high school bully does get away with a lot of things because she thought she was smart and all that and she and her older sister are so accustomed to being rude and condescending towards each other as their form of sisterly love. The other part of me was hurting because we were batchmates, I wanted to see the best in her, I tried to treat her like a good friend, and she still had every right to emotionally harass me even after the retreat and Dux Lucis. Going back to her older sister, it made acknowledge how much of an ignorant, stupid, rude, and obnoxious person she is and on top of that, she was a crummy role model to her younger sister. Sure they may have jobs, but does that entitle especially my former bully to think what she did and said to me was okay? No. Did her older sister think that I would easily forget about it even if it were after so many years without even getting an apology from her? No. On top of that, through a really good friend of mine, I kind of realized that my former high school bully was not just mean and unemphatic to me but to a lot of other people when she was a lot younger and even had a rather toxic relationship with her older sister to the point where they are so rude to each other and from what I can interpret, it’s like their parents do not even have a clue on how to discipline them and be great role models. And comparing her to the other former bullies I had, she really gets the short end of the stick when it comes to truly growing up, whereas some of the other ones have actually turned out for the better and saw the crap they did and made their own lives greatly. Just by realizing what my former high school bully was through her older sister and to an extent her family made me realize how grateful I should be to have had parents who ensured that we, my younger brother, my younger sister, and I, stayed kind, patient, polite, and with good decorum. If I were to be a teacher, then this is something that I have to acknowledge. It’s so easy for kids and teenagers to bully, harass, and put certain people down and think they can get away with it, which is why I am not a fan of bullies, nor anyone who puts on a thinly-veiled mask after hurting certain people. Sometimes the words one says to a person can last for a long time and usually the one afflicted will end up coming back with something even more painful. All in all, I am very happy I got myself away from her and her older sister, because like I said, I never want to be as fake and nasty as those two. I don’t need them to be in my life anymore as they belong in the distant past. I have a lot of other people in my life I need and want to connect with given my YouTube and performing arts careers and especially my future career of being an English teacher. There are so many things I need to do with my life and more than anything, I always have to love and respect myself, if I want to live a life full of good contacts, meaningful relationships, and an overall fruitfulness to ensure things go spectacularly.
This Veterans Day, I have figuratively found myself across the Atlantic to hear some exceptional Evensongs from the likes of Ralph Vaughan Williams, Henry Purcell, and Charles Hubert Hastings Parry. On top of that, this review is my first Red Ribbon Reviewer 2017 contribution. Enjoy the review and let me know your opinions as well.
Happy Veterans Day, everybody, Antoni here, with another fan fiction recommendation. This is Lethean Caresses written by ZoZo1770 back on February 9, 2014, starring two of my most favorite Soul Calibur warriors of all time Siegfried Schtauffen and Kilik and they are a couple in this story, which I really love with a passion. It’s rated M, it’s in English, and it’s under Angst/Romance. I know a lot of people who support Kilik and Xianghua as a couple will be out for my blood, but as much as I like that couple, along with Siegfried and Cassandra and to some extent Siegfried and Sophitia, I absolutely fancy the pants off of Siegfried and Kilik as a handsome, sexy, and awesome couple. Think about it, both of these gentlemen have very haunting pasts, what with Siegfried murdering his father, Frederick, for mistaking him for an enemy bandit, and Kilik murdering his half-sister, Xianglian, when he was under the influence of the Evil Seed, they are of the same age and born in the same month of February, with Kilik being three days younger than Siegfried, both carry huge and long weapons, Siegfried with his Zweihänder and Kilik with his bo staff, they are both the fan favorites in the gaming community, and in Japanese they are respectively voiced by two of my most favorite male Seiyuu, Nobuyuki Hiyama as Siegfried and Souichiro Hoshi as Kilik. The very interesting thing about Hiyama-sensei and Hoshi-sensei when it comes to the characters they voice together there is a certain Ho-Yay atmosphere going between said characters. It could be a fan thing, it could be kind of canon in the show, or it could be interpreted by fan fiction authors and fan artists as belligerent sexual tension. On top of that, while Nobuyuki Hiyama specializes in a lot of passionate heroes, tragic anti-heroes, maniacal villains, and even comedic characters all thanks to his rough, wide-ranging, husky tenor voice, which can reach baritonal low notes, Souichiro Hoshi specializes in a lot of youthful, boyish, and a lot of boy-next-door characters all thanks to the soft-toned and light tenor voice. Speaking of which, both of them have really gorgeous singing voices. Hiyama’s singing voice has that smoothness and coolness which make him very alluring, whilst Hoshi’s is youthful and gentle. When you put these two together, their voices blend gorgeously with Hiyama’s earthier and rougher timbre being a fine complement to Hoshi’s airier and more delicate timbre. Don’t get me wrong I also love Grant George as Kilik and Crispin Freeman as Siegfried before he got Darrin’d by Roger Craig Smith as these two also did phenomenal jobs of embodying them, but I can never go wrong with Hiyama-sensei and Hoshi-sensei for their amazing works as Siegfried and Kilik. With that said, let’s get on to the fanfic. I will warn you that this is not for everyone to read, mostly because it is rather erotic with our two heroes making really passionate yet painful love to each other. That’s pretty much the entire story and I’m sure some of you are feeling hot beneath the gussets. Yes, the plot is rather minimalistic with two men caressing, kissing, embracing, and making love to each other, but this minimalistic plot is more than compensated by the language and stylistic devices. Let us not forget that Lethe is a river in the Underworld, which is meant for forgetfulness, hence the title Lethean Caresses. What we have here in this story are two men tormented and tortured by their sordid pasts that they find solace, comfort, intimacy, and such strong and mutual affection for each other, so much so, that they yearn to forget their earthly pains by making strong love to each other. There are only two pieces of dialogue, which are just the words “Bitte.”, or please in English said by Siegfried and “Look at me.”, said by Kilik, as the imagery, atmosphere, wordplay, and many other stylistic devices I could barely name off the top of my head help to make this story a huge blast to read from beginning to end and of course, make it extremely interesting. Speaking of language, I found no typography errors whatsoever and even though a super small of punctuations were a bit questionable, that did not distract from the enjoyment I had reading this fanfic. The vocabulary has a lot of distinction as it is vivid, colorful, and just plain excellent in a somber and melancholic way. The overall language manages to manipulate my emotions so masterfully that I was so rooted in Siegfried and Kilik’s erotically intimate tale. Speaking of our two male leads, Siegfried and Kilik sell the story. Their chemistry with each other is so effective, as their personalities blended so well, and I have to give ZoZo1770 a lot of credit for bringing in this much action to the both of them whilst keeping them sufficiently in character. I can sense the tension, the passion, the steam, and the longing for solace going on between them and it is a marvelous experience. On top of that, I can see their moments of intense intimacy playing in my head, all in courtesy of the great use of such poetic language, which showed eloquence, passion, and allure. Overall, I am absolutely astounded by this dark and haunting tale of erotic pleasures going on between such tortured souls as Siegfried and Kilik. With such magnificent poetry in the passages and an overall haunting yet darkly romantic atmosphere to move the story along, this is a major must-read especially if you like Yaoi, Soul Calibur, or of course, Siegfried and Kilik just making out with each other. With that said, I give this an A+. I spotted no grammatical errors, I was not left bored, and the action going on between Siegfried and Kilik was thrilling, which were the biggest strengths of this story. Well, that’s all for now, and tune in later for…
I can’t just boil it down to one, but here they are. 1. My old high school bully and her older sister. I do not ever want to be as rude, unemphatic, cruel, inconsiderate, condescending, bad-tempered, discouraging, and territorial like those two are, especially the former, who never returned my friendship and kindness by scolding me for the dumbest of reasons, only caused pain, frustration, and anger, and was never sorry for hurting me. And of course her older sister, for thinking that her younger sister never did anything to me and just regarded me as a petty kid, I never want to be as ignorant as her. 2. My former adopted sister/cousin. I never want to be as nosey nor possessive nor treacherous nor cowardly nor manipulative like her back then, especially when she states that people say shit about me, when she told my mom that I talk to myself as if it were a bad thing, and when she wants to have me as her bodyguard. Granted she’s doing much better in her life, but the memories of having her do and say all of that were very upsetting to the point where I could never achieve anything higher because of her trying to get me into trouble so that I could spend more time with her and my family. With us parting and with that said, I still hope she does find her own way in life. 3. My friends and family. Sure there are some members who stand out more than the others but in general, they see me for who I am, and I am blessed by how unique they are. They have their own unique quirks, tragic flaws, and own brilliance. Some of them were former bullies, who have actually changed for the better and were generally much kinder and more mature than what they used to be. Others are family members and friends who still don’t know what they want with their lives, yet a fair amount of them see how much I’ve done to strive to get what I want and are in turn rather inspired. On top of that, their mistakes also inspire me to not make the same as them and find my own path to fulfillment. Much acknowledgment has to go to my parents who did their absolute best to put me on the right track, while at the same time, I learned from their mistakes, thus making me a much better person and I am very grateful they raised me and my younger siblings well. 4. All of my beloved fellow reviewers, actors, singers, voice actors, filmmakers, writers, and in general, artists. They are all the reasons why I love what I love and why I maintain my passion for reviewing installments in either music or animation. I do not ever want to let them down and I will always find something from them, which inspire and enlighten me. 5. All of my teachers from grade school until now. As an aspiring English teacher, I have learned so much from them. Granted, when I was still a very young boy, I was not the most ideally teachable nor angelic person, even though I was reasonably smart for my age. Each of them has acknowledged who I am and as I grew and grew, they saw loads of potential and have done their damnedest to put me on the right track. On top of that, through them, I always have to remind myself never to let myself down. 6. Finally, myself. I know that sounds egotistical but this is my life, my path, and my hopes, dreams, and ambitions and I’m not pussyfooting around here. I know exactly what I want, what will always make me happy, and I can always give myself a greater boost of self-esteem. I do not ever want to fail myself as a reviewer, an actor, a singer, a voice actor, and a person. I have to always be the much better person than I was years ago and I always have to make healthy and long-lasting relationships.
After watching my fair share of animated installments, which bear some pretty heavy themes, how about having an irreverent comedy starring a handsome, sexy, debonair douchebag of a devil and the various vignettes accompanying this obscure piece of British-Canadian animation? Enjoy the review and let me know your opinions as well.