Email from Russia

Yesterday I received an email with no title and the sender was “Елена Савка” and an attachment. At first I thought to simply erase it without opening it. It seems that lots of viruses come from Russia. When I looked at the email preview all became clear. It was from Elena,  a fellow student in one of my classes that left two weeks ago. This was one of the rare cases when a fellow student, regardless of country of origin spoke no english. So the only means of communication was Italian. As is usually the case when a new student enters the class there is a round of introductions. In this case I was the new student in the class. When it came to Elena, she said that she is from somewhere in Siberia and now lives, I think, in Saint Petersburg. After her “normal” education she spent 9 years in two conservatories studying voice and sings opera. She is tall, beautiful and always somehow managed to dress elegantly. She extended her stay for two weeks and so was in the same class for a month. On the last day of class we asked her to sing for us. After much coaxing she said, “OK but I can’t sing for very long because my voice is not warmed up.” She was seated next to me and stood up and asked that we close the window. She stood up and started to sing. I have gone to several operas and enjoy them but never have I been in the same room, much less 3 feet from an opera singer of any sort. She is a soprano and is VERY good (at least to my ear). It’s hard to describe the clarity and the FORCE of her voice. I thought of that commercial where a singer , Ella Fitzgerald I think, broke a glass with her voice. I doubt that she could compare with the sheer volume of Elena’s voice. It was absolutely incredible! I am so glad that I had that experience.

Back to the email. On that last day that Elena was at school I had forgotten to bring my camera and the iPhone is pretty useless as a camera. However Elena had a very nice camera and someone else took a picture of us. She took down my email address and promised to send it to me. She delivered.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 22nd, 2012 at 8:41 am and is filed under Culture, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.