Untitled #33

I have been working very diligently on Non so piu and O del mio dolce.  Wednesday in Studio I sang Non so piu for the first time and it went well but I still have problems with putting a "schwa" in cosa and some other words in the lyrics.  I am also working on not holding back because as you and other people have pointed out, I will approach a note with power and intensity and then back off quite noticeably.  I am also trying not to push so hard because I dont want to hurt myself.  I get very fatigued after I sing Non so Piu or O del mio Dolce and I want to sing more efficiently and more healthily.  So as I am practicing my repertoire this weekend, I am trying to sing lighter.  Does that make sense?  I feel like the reason I am getting so fatigued is because I push to hard and sing to heavy.  So I am trying to sing lighter and more effortlessly.  I also got the comment that the words sound too harsh for Italian... I'm not exactly sure what that means, but maybe I am enunciating too harshly?  Or am I overdoing the accents and the vowels?