3.5 down, 312.5 or so..to go

Recit, today you are the bane of my existence.

Sometimes you are just so easy...you roll right off of the tip of my tongue. I look at you ONCE, ONCE!, know the context of the scene that I'm in, and it just makes sense.
Of COURSE I'd say: si,si,lavinceropotessialmenomandargliquestalettermacomedinessunquimifidailtutorhacent'occhibastabastasigilliamolaintanto.
etc.etc.
It ROLLS! I read it once, I got it.

And then there are those that just don't come at all. Neither the pitch NOR the words.
I can play it 5 times. I can read it 5 times. I repeat it slowly, I repeat it quickly. speed up, slow down, cheat by looking at the score when I don't remember what comes next, and then (the WORST) break into recit from ANOTHER section.

That's the thing I have to be most careful of...and so I paced myself today by learning (and trying to memorize) 2 recit-y sections that followed one another, and then took a recit break and looked at the ActI/II (depending on Ricordi or Schirmer) finale.

I'm very far away from freak-out mode since I DO have time to do this, but I wish the process would go a bit faster. All of the finales, finalettos, ensemble pieces, are SO wordy and so long--even if they repeat the same two phrases over and over again, it's like tongue twisters on any note from A below middle C, to two octaves above that--and fast.
And have I mentioned fast?