On being present, singing sick, and the lizard

It was Seth Godin's writing that introduced me to the idea of the lizard brain - the resistance (hat tip: Steven Pressfield), the voice in your head that says be careful and don't take chances because you just might succeed and then where would we be?  Nope, we're happy with the devil we know and he's on this side of the street so there's no need to go chasing after that dream on the other side of the street.  Thankyouverymuch.  Lizard out.  

There are plenty of risks worth taking and plenty of risks NOT WORTH TAKING.  I've been burned twice by trying a new person to cut my hair (in a foreign country, in a foreign language, mind you) and from now on, I'm just gonna go to the lady in the Maske who's lovely and will do exactly what I ask her to do and will not go off-message and land me in trouble with anyone who puts a wig on my head.  I don't care how nice it feels to have someone shampoo my hair with fancy-smelling shampoo.

It's just not worth it.

On the flip side, I was asked to go audition for a crazy modern piece in the late summer so I pulled out my craziest crazy, cleared it with the pianist, and then I didn't start with it.  I started with an aria that I know I sang well, and it showed a lot, but it didn't display the full range of my crazy possibilities.  Why?  WHY???  Because I wanted to start out on "the right foot."  Well screw that.  Next time I'm asked to show up and demonstrate I can do crazy, you best believe I'm gonna show them the operatic equivalent of Linda Blair BECAUSE I CAN and I kick ass.  And until then, I'm letting the unfortunate haircut grow out.  

Today is day 4 of my annual cold.  I get sick about once a year - something that shows up quickly and sits in my chest and makes me wheeze like a smoker.  Usually sets me on my ass for a week.  But this year, I don't have a week.  On day 2 of said cold, I had to sing the first performance of the season, about 3.5 hours of big serious french rep.  The production is large, the costumes are large, the orchestra is large.   On a good day, that show kicks my ass.  Lucky for me, the voice was unaffected - so long as I was sucking on a cough drop to keep the tickle at bay, everything else was in good working order.  But I'm not 24 anymore, so the subtle differences in how my body responds to demands when I'm ill are more noticeable.  To me, at least.  I feel I can't quite get my breath under me like I should.  I have to concentrate about 20% more on making sure I'm really supporting and resonating.  There is no "well let's just grind this out" because life is short but Berlioz is LONG and the hardest singing comes in the last part.  Blerg.  So I had to do something I've never really done before.  I had to focus on every breath, every onset, every vowel.  Even when things went awry and some rather large props went flying, I had to catch them and make sure I was still on my breath.  I have been singing professionally for 10 years and this may have been the first performance where I had to be fully present all night,  100% tuned in to my body and my breath, and I tell you what - 

I don't know that I've ever sung that well in my life, sick or not.  At the end of 3.5 hours of Berlioz (and a whole lot of cough drops) I was tired, but in my body.  My feet hurt, my back was a little tweaky (singing on a big-ass rake does that to you) but my throat felt like I could have kept singing.  Like I could have done it again.  Now I am the first person to tell young singers - DON'T SING SICK, if you can possibly help it.  Don't audition sick (see above - NOT WORTH IT) and if there's any way you can avoid it, do not sing shows sick.  You do yourself and your employer no favors.  And this is the part where I contradict myself.  If you know your body and you know your voice, and you need to sing that performance (in my case, a version of the piece that is never ever done and therefore extremely difficult if not impossible to find a replacement) you better be ready to focus like you have never focused before.  If you are not totally committed to every breath, it will bite you in the ass.  The upside?  When you're engrossed in the work at hand, the lizard has no time to chime in.  Once the opera started, I went to work and the lizard crawled back into his hole.  

So here's what I have to say: if you think you have something to prove, you're not paying attention to the work at hand.  That's the lizard.  If you are locked in and actively engaging in the work at hand, the likelihood of success increases by a metric ton.  And above all - sing smart, make art.  

Flashback

So Facebook has this feature that lets you look back at what you posted on this date in years past.  My birthday is in April, Easter is sometimes in April, the Boston Marathon is in April, and taxes are due in April.  It's a pretty busy month.  Yesterday was the two-year anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombing, so Facebook showed me a glimpse of how our day went, those two years ago.  I still remember how bright the sun was shining, our incredible parking karma as we found a spot in Brookline Village just up from the T stop, how we ran into friends from church who were hopping the T out of the city to go cheer on a loved one who was running the race, the excitement of standing at Kenmore Square as the wheelchair racers flew past us, a gorgeous and perfect day for baseball (even if - as my post indicates - I thought Evan Longoria was being a jerkwad) and a gorgeous and perfect day for being in Boston.  There's a picture on my phone of my husband and I standing in Yawkey Way, grinning like the fool Sox fans we are.  After the game, we headed back to Brookline to cheer on more marathoners as they passed.  And then, there was a bizarre change in the behavior of the policemen working the marathon lines.  Phones started to beep and boop with text messages.  And then so many phones were ringing it became impossible to get through to anyone.  Our little group went back to the house and watched the news in horror, everyone furiously texting to try and grab a little bit of network to reach our loved ones and friends.  The next 36 hours are a blur.  We made it back to our apartment, cuddled the dog, and stayed glued to the television for the days to come.  What had happened, who did it, who was injured, who was not injured, where were you when it happened?

I'm writing this post as our baby girl is waking up from her nap, so I don't have unlimited time to wax poetic about the shortness of life and the importance of living every day and letting go of the BS.
Since she was born, I've turned 35 - I still plan to sing Lulu and run another marathon and go on a real vacation and visit a new country in the years before I turn 40 - but there was no time to make the exhaustive list of 'things I want to do in these years' because life with a child is immediate.  I miss Boston and I miss our people there, but my life is here and my life is now.  And since baby girl is the child of an opera singer, she's making her needs known at high volume.

Boston Strong.  Today and every day.

Working and living in Germany: being a foreigner

Yesterday the second candle on the Advent wreath was lit, which means two more candles till Christmas.  This is my third Christmas in a row in Germany and, slowly but surely, I'm figuring out how to keep my sense of holiday cheer without having all the external trappings of my Christmases past.  My grandmother's ceramic Christmas tree - the one with most of the little colored bulbs missing, but it hung on her door as long as I could remember.  The glass ornaments that sat atop our wedding cake.  The five pounds of pecans I'd order every fall and make pralines and pecan pie, always ordered from that same farm in Texas.  The craft fair angels that would always hang from our dining room light fixture.  The holidays can be hard, but we've really made strides toward a flexible new normal.  My dinky little Swiss Chimes that go 'ding ding ding ding,' purchased from the Frankfurt Christmas market.  The giant paper snowflake gifted to us last winter by a colleague, now hanging in the window of our living room.  And, just so my homesickness doesn't get too out of hand, the Christmas stockings made by my grandma and my aunt hanging around the house (no fireplace).  These things are tangible.  Physical.  And other than the sentimental heirlooms or hand-me-downs that only come from those who came before, the trappings of "home" can be bought and sold.  

This is about the intangibles.  

My friend and singer colleague Nicole Warner wrote a great piece about Esskultur, or, the ins and outs of dining with Germans.  This is one very specific example of how to interact with Germans, and one that you would probably encounter sooner rather than later.  Everyone's gotta eat, right?  Nicole talks about the little cues of when you drink from your drink, how you toast, how to greet people, basically how to get in and out of the door without gravely offending anyone, even unintentionally.

IT IS HARD.  The little things that wouldn't bother you in the least (my mother is fond of saying, "eat while it's hot!" while my grandparents adhered to the "we ALL wait until everyone's food has arrived" rule) or the finer points of shaking hands with everyone at a function, these are things you would only know if someone had told you or you'd spent a lot of time observing.  My first extended stay in Germany, I felt like I was going to have to tackle the waitress to get my check.  It's not just that they're not into "customer service" like US servers are, it's that they expect you're going to sit and stay a while, whether alone or with others.  And when you inadvertently cross some invisible line, it can be a really alienating moment for everyone.  In those moments, when something has happened and you don't know exactly what, that's when the foreign-ness creeps in.  

It's even harder when you don't speak the language.  I've watched my sweet husband go from a grocery-store-induced panic attack (they asked if he was collecting Treuepunkte - like bonus points) to being able to converse with colleagues at the theater.  He doesn't always understand what's being said, but he puts it together and figures it out.  It's more important to communicate than it is to use every correct verb formation and the exact right adjective ending.  We still get looks from time to time when we speak in English on the tram.  We still get looks when we speak in English in the grocery store.  This will never go away, and I'm no longer fussed.  Germans are also a culture of people who stare.  It's not aggressive, like that guy who's staring you down on the subway in NYC.  It's just the way they observe.  Intently.  And it can make you feel even more foreign - like a specimen under a microscope.  With time, you don't take it so personally, and you stifle the urge to ask them what the hell they're looking at (in perfect German, of course), and you chalk it up to "that's how they are."  

How does this cross over into your job?  I don't really have enough hours to devote to the full-scale explanation.  Knowing what your job is (and is NOT) is one critical piece of information.  As a singer, your job is to show up ready to sing, and then try to do everything that's asked of you.  Depending on the director, you may be expected to fill in certain artistic blanks for yourself, or even volunteer ideas.  Some will give you a path to walk and let you live in the mannerisms of the character.  Some will walk the walk for you and want you to do it exactly like that JUST LIKE THAT every time right down to the position of your wrists and fingers.  Some conductors will want you to take liberties.  Others will want you to be trained on their baton like a retriever on a duck.  

As someone trained in the American system, I'm usually over-prepared and, by nature, over-eager to be a good student.  I am the retriever, eager to please, ready to spring into action.  But over time, you may also realize that this is not exactly part of your job - pleasing everyone.  And then, more foreign-ness.  "What do you mean I'm going to be pulled between the conductor and the director and the dramaturgs and then none will be happy with me?  Can't we just talk about it and figure it out?"  

The answer is "sometimes."  But one of the methods of discourse I've encountered has to do with stating an opinion and then proceeding to beat someone about the head and shoulders until they concede that opinion is correct.  It's not enough to say "everyone has an opinion, this is mine, you're entitled to yours too," SOMEONE must concede defeat.  In those moments, I have to stop myself from rolling my eyes because, with a few exceptions that are very close to my heart, being right about every little detail just isn't that important to me.  And then, my old friend from language school says to me, "if you don't stand up for yourself and push back, they won't respect you.  Having an opinion and being quietly confident in that isn't enough - you've got to be able to throw out that opinion with enough oomph to make them take a step back and consider your position."  

This is where I use my whiny voice.  Reeeeeeeeally?  I haaaaaaaaaave to?  UGH.  Idawanna.  It's just too much work and I'd rather use my energy for something important, like memorizing Falstaff.  

But this is a pretty critical issue for foreigners in a foreign land.  Learning the boundaries and rules of another culture is just as important as finding out where your own boundaries start and end.  Because they will be tested.  Over and over and over again.  You'll be mocked for your accent (good/bad/ugly/offensive/indifferent), you'll be corrected for your improper grammar (when you're trying to ask a really complicated question and the answer is WAY more important than the gender of the noun - doesn't matter, you'll get corrected and you still won't have the answer), you'll be discriminated against (regardless of your skin color/gender/sexual preference/marital status - foreign is foreign, to some people), and you will still have to carry on doing your job and making your way through this life, and hope that you get savvy enough to do this without some jackass ruining your day.  

In today's New York Times, there's an opinion piece about giving up one's American passport.  As with most opinion pieces, the comments section (up to 519 as of this moment) is where civility and restraint go to die.  So many are ready to tell the writer that he's not a real American anyway, good riddance to bad rubbish, there are so many people waiting to take your place, and so on.  As if questioning the IRS tax code is tantamount to disloyalty, treason, even!  (What are those stats on how many people cheat on their taxes?)  Having been through this myself, I am here to tell you that dealing with taxes in two countries is a headache and a half, even with a capable bilingual tax account whose entire business is working with expats, and armed with the upbringing I received at the knee of a bookkeeper and eventual US tax auditor.  You want receipts?  I got em.  You want spreadsheets?  I got em.  And it STILL took me forever to get my taxes done.  What's truly disturbing, though not surprising, are those who treat expats as if they have committed the gravest crime - interacting with FOREIGNERS.  Perhaps coincidentally, there are several other pieces about foreigners and Germany in the Times today - this piece about proposed German language requirements and cultural assimilation, another about immigration protests in Dresden, and yet another about the refugee crisis (focusing on Berlin and Hamburg).  I am not a refugee, and I don't even begin to understand how difficult it must be for asylum seekers running for their lives.  But for now, I am a foreigner in a foreign land.  No matter how many verbs I conjugate correctly or how many times I use the Konjunktiv with perfect word order, it doesn't change the nationality on my passport.  

So here's what I've got to say about being foreign:  

Learn as much as you can about the traditions of your host culture.  Honor them, but don't forget to honor your own.  

Learn how to be polite, forceful, assertive, and even a little rude in your host culture, but don't employ that last one unless it's absolutely necessary (sometimes it will be).  

Pick your battles.  I can't overstate that one enough.  

Learn to spot allies and cultivate relationships with them - people who can help you navigate your way through bureaucracy, and who will do so just because they're helpful.  Cherish these people - they will be your saving grace.  

And finally, take the time to figure out what's really important to you about your home country.  Be an informed citizen.  Do your best to epitomize the best of your native land and be a foil to every stereotype.  You will do yourself and every other foreign a big favor by NOT adding fuel to someone else's fire.  

Coming to you from a south-westerly corner of Germany, this foreigner bids you all, 

"Gute Nacht."

-----------------

Up next in this series: Thomas Wolfe says I can never go home again

Appear and inspire - a belated birthday post for Benjamin Britten, and how to be a good colleague

November 22 is Benjamin Britten's birthday.  Last year, Britten 100 was celebrated round the world by orchestras, opera houses, choral societies, churches, singers, musicologists, dramaturgs, and performers like my colleagues Paul and Steven (in a most witty and amusing little ditty by Flanders & Swann - seen here on YouTube).  I attended and spoke at a conference on Britten up at the University of Nottingham, hosted by Mervyn Cooke (a name you should know if you're interested in reading about Britten), and managed to see both Gloriana and Death in Venice at the ROH and ENO, respectively, in the span of a week. The opera house where I work had put on a production of Peter Grimes and was reviving it at the start of last season, so I was pretty well saturated with Britten opera by the time his centenary came up, but nothing says winter to me like Ceremony of Carols (link to a track from the King's College recording).  The King's recording isn't as slick as some of the newer recordings, but I love hearing the honesty of a reverb that comes from centuries-old stone walls and not from the click of an engineer's mouse.  Call me a purist.

The first tracks on that King's recording are not, in fact, Ceremony of Carols.  I first purchased that CD because Pro Arte, the "early music singing group" at Indiana University with whom I was singing at the time, was performing the Britten Hymn To St. Cecilia.  The feast of St. Cecilia is also on November 22nd, so one can imagine that many concerts with that piece seem to take place on or around November 22nd every year, St. Cecilia being the patroness of musicians and all.  It was quite a program - the Britten Cecilia, some Purcell, some Thomas Arne, but it was the Britten that stuck with me.  I had some terrific singing colleagues in that group, and we were really a mixed bag.  A few opera kids, a few organists, some choral conductors, some kids from the Early Music Institute, and this one bass with flaming red hair and beard who always showed up in a seasonally-appropriate outfit for some serious cycling, shoes with clips and everything.  He had some spectacular low notes, I tell you what.  Mr. Poole, our conductor, was a wisp of an Englishman with a tuft of white hair atop his head, a knowing and gentle smile, and I don't actually know if he ever raised his voice above a level of moderate amusement because he never had to.  We all adored him and his quirks - smacking his tuning fork on his head before he'd hold it to his ear, his extremely smart black velvet tuxedo, his love for chocolate so dark it could only be drunk with straight espresso (which he'd offer you when you went to his office), his unassuming way of conducting a piece that sort of implied that he was going to get things going and then he was going to see what happened.  Best compliment I ever received (secondhand, from Mr. Poole to my husband, after a concert I sang) - "She's a good girl."

I don't need an anniversary or a feast day to listen to Britten, but November 22nd usually seems like a good time for me to break out my Britten recordings.  Last year I was all about the opera - listening to the last scene of Midsummer Night's Dream, the Tower Scene from Turn of the Screw, the Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes, the lute songs from Gloriana.  This year, I returned to my old friend, the Hymn To St. Cecilia, realizing that it had been ten years to the day since that concert at Indiana University, ten years since my colleagues and I stood in Auer Hall and sang what I still remember to be an extremely powerful and moving experience.  Auden is always a good idea, in my opinion, and Auden + Britten is the stuff of magic that always reveals something new to the listener.  For a while, it was "I shall never be different - love me" and then it was "O bless the freedom that you never chose" and, that most spectacular tenor line (which I may never hear sung by anyone other than our friend Chris Freeze) "O wear your tribulation like a rose."  This year, it was something smaller, something more subtle, and it kind of stole upon me as things can do.

"Appear and inspire"

Being a musician involves a lot of discipline.  Your mom and/or dad schleps you to and from lessons from a relatively early age, stands at the door of the music room with a wooden spoon she's just pulled out of the sauce she's stirring and says, "I hit pause on the timer.  I'll un-pause it when you start playing again," in an effort to motivate you through the slog that is practicing as a teenager, makes sure you get to all those concerts and recitals at the appointed time, just so they can hear you hack through the third movement of a Mozart sonata WAY TOO FAST (because you're 14 and fast is better) and listen to you whinge about how you could be doing cooler things.  If you manage to stick with it through college, you've hopefully reached a point where your desire to go play ultimate frisbee is outweighed by your need to finish your form & analysis homework (frisbee when you're done, ok?) and you've been inspired by a few people along the way.  People who light a fire under your ass to be better than "just okay."  People who insist on punctuality and don't even deign to give you a withering look if you come in the door late, they'll just dock your grade in accordance with the syllabus (Tim Koch, I'm looking at you) because they are too busy running a rehearsal.  People who, even at an 8am piano lesson, manage to coax some kind of art out of you because they are so ferociously talented it infects your otherwise malaise-riddled twenty-something self and you must must MUST play that phrase with grace and delicacy, and then you DO.  A lot of times, the discipline comes from someone else.  But if you do get out of a university music degree with your major intact (okay, maybe it says church music instead of music ed or vocal performance) and you decide to keep going, that first word is going to mean a lot.

Appear.  Show up.  Get there.  Make it happen.

If you can't get there, people notice.  I'm not talking about the one time when you got in a car accident on your way to a rehearsal/audition or the time when a massive nor'easter hit the east coast and every train and plane and bus between Washington D.C. and Boston was canceled.  I'm talking about showing up.  Early.  Richard Webster, director of music at Trinity Church Boston (and my former boss) taught this mantra to our Choristers.  There are hand signals that go with it - feel free to use your imagination.

"If you're early, you are ON TIME.  If you are ON TIME, you are LATE and will be left behind!"

On choir tour, this was the difference between making a flight to London and not.  On rehearsal nights, it was the difference between being at your spot with all your music and a sharpened pencil at 2 minutes till start, and huffing up the stairs pulling off your layers of winter clothes, praying you still had a pencil in your folder, getting tangled up in all the other people who were late, and getting the eyeball from your colleagues for shoving your way through the crush to your spot.  In an audition situation, it can be the difference between showing up 45 minutes early, only to have them say, "we had three cancellations - can you go in next?" and saying, "you weren't here on time, so we gave your spot away.  If you want to wait around, we might be able to fit you in after the break (in two hours)."  So that last-minute train ticket you paid for is now down the drain, and you look like an ass.

Appear.  Show up.  Get there.  Make it happen.

Now to that second part - Inspire.

If you're the person who's teaching the 8am piano lesson, you've already made it your mission to get there.  Now you've gotta inspire that poor sophomore who drew the short straw and has the early lesson.  I've had a few different kinds of coaches over the years - some of them can come through the door, drop their coat, sit on the bench, and be ready to kick ass because they are always ready to kick ass.  Some of them also like to get there early and do a little warming up, especially on cold days when your fingers just don't want to circulate enough blood to make Stravinsky okay.  If you're the person who's got the first coaching slot of the day, this means getting to the space early, stretching, singing through your scales and exercises, hopefully getting the last of the morning gunk off your voice, and preparing your brain and body to work.  For me, that means at least 10 (preferably 15) minutes of yodeling and stretching and yawning and a whole host of exercises and excerpts that I go through to ready my voice to do bidding.  That's still just under the heading of 'showing up,' by the way.  We're not even close to 'inspire' yet.

There was this pianist at the University of Victoria - Milos Repicky (look him up, he's really something).  He was probably the first pianist ever to coach me, or for me to even know that that was something pianist did/could do.  We were preparing a little recital for my junior year - hits and bits of things, a few German songs here, a few French here.  And I just wasn't getting the French.  I had learned it, for sure, and my diction was pretty good, but I wasn't getting it.  So one day, he shows up with a sprig of fresh rosemary and asks me to inhale as he waves it under my nose.  And he says, "THAT's what French music is like."  Bang!  Major A-ha! moment.  And all because he bothered to try to inspire me.  Milos was (and is) a killer musician, but I've never forgotten the effort he put forth to help me get past the block in my brain.

I love playing on-stage.  I love putting on the outfit and going out to stand up with my colleagues and put on a great show.  Last Friday was my last performance of L'Enfant et les Sortilèges/Le Rossignol, and it was especially bittersweet because I was in that production from its inception and it's not coming back after this run.  Ravel is one of those composers who never fails to inspire me, regardless of the format or instrument, and Stravinsky wrote some of the most exquisite lines for coloratura soprano in that Rossignol and I will sing it as many times and in as many places as I can, for the rest of my life.  It's delicious.  Now this was our 3rd performance of this season and we hadn't had the same cast for two performances in a row.  Our L'Enfant got sick for the revival, came back for the second performance, and was scheduled to be away for the 3rd.  We had people jumping into the production for the very first time with very little prep.  We had orchestra members swapping out.  We had different conductors, flickering monitors, missing props.  It could have been just another slog through just another performance, but something happened.  I can't speak for all of my colleagues, but it happened for me.  In those moments just before I make my entrance, as I'm listening to the celeste cue for "Oh! ma belle tasse chinoise!" I got really tickled.  Like bubbling fits of giggles tickled.  And I allowed myself to make my entrance with every ounce of verve I had (and baby, I got verve to spare) and I allowed myself to make eye contact with our guest L'Enfant and wink and flirt with her as my character is supposed to do, and I didn't worry about tripping over my dress or whether or not the conductor was right with me and would the tempo be quick enough for the coloratura, I just let myself sing this great little aria and did my scene and enjoyed the hell out of it.
Two minutes later, after the quick change (which takes place in the elevator, fyi) I scampered back out for my next entrance, and I wanted to see what would happen if I let it happen again.  I took more time, really sang through my phrases, let those silences settle, and it was magical.  It was inspired.  I was inspired, and I think my colleagues could feel it too.

What would happen if we made this our mantra?  If every lesson, every rehearsal, every performance, we showed up and gave ourselves and colleagues permission to be inspired?  Try it, see what happens.  

Blessed Cecilia, appear in visions 
To all musicians, appear and inspire: 
Translated Daughter, come down and startle Composing mortals with immortal fire.


Happy birthday, Mr. Britten.  

The art formerly known as dead....or....why I can't stop rolling my eyes

We interrupt our series of posts about living and working in Germany to bring you this extremely unimportant and poorly researched post about how opera is dead, care of several news outlets this week alone!  Charts that show opera is dead!  Articles written on someone else's pie graphs about how opera is dead!  Halloween-themed graphics to reference the deadness of opera!  We are so clever!  Holy shit, is opera really dead?!  Go ask your grandma, because she's the only one who goes to the opera anymore!

[I have to stop for a moment, because my eyes have rolled so far back in my head, I can no longer see the screen.  While we wait, some opera as muzak, because classical music only belongs in the background.  Whoops, did it again.....]

Nico Muhly (a living and working composer under 40) had this to say about the Chicken Little school of journalism:

Seriously.  Someone is paying someone else to write this meaningless fluff about the 'state of opera,' and the poor suckers don't even know enough to know where to look for their info, so they make an Excel spreadsheet based on what they find on some opera company's website [*cough*theMET*cough*] and call it research.  They make some charts and some graphs and use different colors and a few emotionally charged signifiers and call it data.

Let's talk for a second about research - REAL research.

What's real:
Financial records for 501(c)3s are available to the public.  You wanna know how a non-profit is spending their money?  Go look up your regional opera company on Guidestar and see what you can make of the data.  Call up their development department and talk to them about trends in giving.  Call up the artistic administration and ask them about how they pick repertoire and factors influencing programming.  Call up the marketing department and ask them how many different social media platforms they are using to interact with the public.  Talk to A HUMAN at AN ACTUAL COMPANY and ask them for real facts and figures.

...and what's not:
Let's assume an opera company has an archivist AND a webmaster.  Let's assume that archivist is the kind of detail-oriented person who keeps track of every program, every season, and let's also assume that their predecessors were the same kind of people.  They made painstakingly detailed records.  When the opportunity arose, they made those records digital.  And they didn't make mistakes.

Now let's assume this company has a real webmaster, not just some kid from marketing who got the job because he knew how to use Twitter AND Constant Contact and could also set up a Facebook page for the company, because that's what the young people are using these days (sorry, my snark is showing again....).  Now let's assume that the archivist has developed a searchable database that can interface with a web-based platform, that both the archivist and the webmaster have the time to make this happen (when the archivist is not also writing/proofing the program notes for the book that needs to go to the printer so they can send out the mailers - you didn't think the archivist was only an archivist, did you?) and that the company has devoted the online storage space to such an online archive, that it all functions the way it should, it's easy to use, it's bug-free, and bang!  Online data archive!  This happens in the real world, right?  Because we should believe everything we read on the internet, right?!  Of course!!

Research takes more than 30 seconds and Wikipedia.  This is why Opera America does field reports.  They lay out the parameters for each group, detail the boundaries of the study, and create detailed data analysis based on those specifics.  Would you like to read one?  Here - I have one for you!

This is the 2011-2012 Opera America Year in Review.  Now if you're a dork who really likes looking at data (says the person who's writing this post, who tracked down the report for a conference paper in the first place), you'll find it very interesting to read about the financial ups and downs of companies at different budgetary levels, and what they did to try to stay afloat.  Did they cut programming?  Did they cut the number of productions or just the number of shows per production?  What are their outreach programs and with which age levels/demographics do they interact?  This is real information.  It's presented in clear and lucid English.  Please please PLEASE take some time to sit down and read it before you click on (or *gasp* share!) any more foolishness that is designed to raise your blood pressure and clutch your pearls.

Opera is a living art form that is changing with every passing day.  I sang a performance of Un Ballo in Maschera to an almost completely full house last night.  I also sang a double bill of Ravel's L'Enfant et les Sortilèges with Stravinsky's Le Rossignol on Thursday night, and the balcony was nearly empty.  Now yesterday was a holiday, and holiday performances are usually sold because going to the theatre is what people seem to do on holidays in Germany, regardless of what's programmed.  Thursday nights are usually poorly sold because it's just before but not quite the weekend.  This information is anecdotal, because it's based on my observations from where I stand on the stage.  Do your homework but, moreover, demand that people who write for major news outlets do theirs.

Working and living in Germany: Auditioning

Part 3: Auditioning

*Note: this post is about auditioning in general, with a little tidbit about auditioning in Germany.  Another post about how to write to houses/agents/etc will follow*

I want to say I was 28 or 29 when I did my first auditions in Germany.  At that time, American fine arts institutions had been coaching most young female singers to show up to auditions in a dress that straddled the line between cocktail and fancy second date, stockings, full face of makeup, serious hair, serious heels, and "statement jewelry."  My audition outfits (and my hair color) underwent radical changes during my conservatory years - a judge at a competition told me that my natural hair color looked "ashy" under the light, so maybe I should get highlights.  Also, being tall and having fair skin, I should wear dresses with 3/4 length sleeves, lest my pale arms look longer than they already are.  A stage director told me that I didn't really read as a blonde, but perhaps as a redhead?  Something with some spark to it, and maybe also show some more cleavage, but definitely wear a shorter heel because I'm tall.  And finally, my then-agent, who said that I should really explore a dark brown (maybe even black?) hair color because, with my fair skin and light eyes, I would read like Snow White and - I'm not kidding here - some casting directors like it when they can identify you with a Disney Princess.

A Disney Princess.  I'll just leave that there.

I was lucky enough to have made friends with some conductors who worked in Germany, and to have spent two summers at the Middlebury German for Singers Program (which I cannot recommend highly enough), so I was able to pick brains of people on the ground before I traipsed into my first European auditions.  Here's what they told me, and it still holds true today:

1.  Americans (especially women) always overdress for auditions in Europe.  They are the ones in the overly flashy outfits with too much makeup and too much jewelry.  If you're a woman, wear a nice casual dress of an appropriate length - a nice wrap dress or even a skirt and sweater, depending on the season - and shoes you can sing in.  If you rock a pair of tall boots, do it.  If you do better in heels, fine.  But leave those awful nude patent platforms at home - you look like you're trying too hard, and you probably are.  Most men I see at auditions are in dark jeans, a pressed button-down shirt, a jacket, and badass shoes.  At the bigger houses, they might wear a suit but rarely a tie.  Use coordinating pocket squares at your discretion.  Coco Chanel's rule of accessorizing is always in effect.

2.  Americans are almost always overly bubbly and gregarious in auditions.  To many Europeans, this can come across as insincere.  Introduce yourself like it's a job interview, not a first date.  Be friendly, speak clearly, but not like the servers at TGIFridays who have to draw their names upside-down on the paper friendly.  It creeps people out.

So I brought my black jersey 3/4 sleeve dress that wouldn't wrinkle if you threw it into rush hour traffic at the Arc de Triomphe (Anne Klein, how I love thee), a pair of dark metallic heels, the strand of Murano glass beads my little sister brought me back from her trip to Venice, and that was my go-to audition outfit in Europe.  Now I'm not so naive as to say that this outfit made me more (or less) acceptable in the eyes of any casting director, but I got more work in a black dress and minimal makeup than I ever did in my plunging purple halter top dress, my melon-colored sleeveless cocktail dress, my Sephora makeup artist-styled smoky eye makeup, or almost anything else I wore to auditions in the States.  And that's the way it's gone since then.  I landed my last job in a pair of tall black boots, a jade green wool pencil skirt, and a black scoop-necked sweater.

Now before you think this is a post about what to wear (or what NOT to wear, in the manner of Stacey and Clinton) I'm gonna say this as clearly and succinctly as I can:

It's not about what you wear.
It's about knowing who you are and owning that with every fiber of your being.
If you don't own it, you can't sell it.

I had a pretty big audition earlier this week.  Big name house, big fancy city I'd never been to before, big fancy opera star I saw walking down the hallway (and nearly fainted from seeing her) after I warmed up.  They sent an info sheet ahead of time saying to bring 3-4 arias from THEIR repertoire, which is substantial, in addition to all the requisite when/where/who/how/etc.  I picked rep that mostly matched their rep but also showed off what I do best, shined up my tall black boots, pulled on a super cute graphic print wrap dress, and prepared to go to town.  I started with one of my two go-to starter arias (mostly because the pianist said he had NEVER played the other one in his life), sang rather well I thought, and then they asked for the "red button" aria that no one can resist - the Vengeance aria.  Killed it.  With a stick.  And then we were told that we could stick around for feedback, if we had time.  This is a new one on me for professional auditions.  Unless it's a one-on-one with the Intendant and they walk across the room and say, "great, we'd like to hire you for xxxx on xxx dates, let's go look at the calendar," feedback doesn't usually happen.  I hung out until the end of the auditions to get my feedback, chatted with this incredible tenor named Issachah Savage (who absolutely KILLED singing some Luisa Miller and Canio - keep your eyes peeled for his name in large print), and tried not to over-analyze what had happened in my audition.  I was pretty surprised at the feedback, truth be told.  The head honcho has ideas about how my go-to aria (and works by that composer, in general) should be sung, and his ideas didn't mesh with how I sang it.  So, as it was explained to me, had I known that, I would have known that starting with said aria was a dangerous prospect.  But I'm not psychic, so I didn't know that, so I went about my auditioning like it was business as usual.  Which I will continue to do.

Five years ago, I would have turned myself inside out about this.  What could I have done that he didn't like, what could I have done differently that might have shown me in a more favorable light, should I consider starting with another aria next time, should I pick another aria by the same composer just in case it's THAT particular aria that throws a switch.  Maybe it's the benefit of experience (and a few more years added to my age) that affords me some perspective.  Maybe it's because my livelihood doesn't hang from one audition.  But I say again to you, dear reader, with all the love in my heart and the all-too-fresh remembrance of every nasty or unhelpful piece of audition feedback I've ever received - you have got to figure out what it is that you do really well, better than most people, and then you have to put it in front of anyone who will listen.  And if their tastes don't match your offerings, this does NOT make your offerings unworthy.  It just means you don't fit their needs or wants on that day.  No more, no less.

I've been turning over the events of that day in my head for the last few days, but the writing of this particular entry today was prompted by my friend and colleague Sarah posting about something a director (who is dear to both our hearts) once told her - "You are enough."  Now that's a very simple statement that covers a deep well.  You've gotta know who you are, and figuring that out takes a lot of time and work.  You've gotta love yourself and your art - I saw the inimitable Leontyne Price give a masterclass some 13+ years ago, and I still remember her saying, "Honey, you gotta love that voice."  And after you've gone through the trouble of getting to know yourself and getting to love yourself, you've gotta figure out how to show yourself - your art, your love - to people with no expectations, take their acceptance or their rejection with a whopping grain of salt, and then move on, regardless of the outcome.  For me, routine helps.  I arrive early enough to warm up and chill out, I bring my Kindle so I have something engaging to read, I always keep Jamiroquai or Earth, Wind & Fire cued up on my iPod, I try to keep myself well-fed and hydrated (low and/or spiky blood sugar does not contribute to sanity), and I try to keep my sense of humor so my relatively even keel doesn't go wonky just because I'm in a high-pressure situation.  I try to remember that I was led to this place in time for a reason.  And then I do my job.

Be honest with yourself.  Be good to yourself.  Be real.  Be amazing.  Be yourself.
Here endeth the lesson.

Working and living in Germany: managing your time and resources

Part 2: Managing your time and resources

Time management is not sexy.  I had a day job for a few years as the music administrator for a downtown church and, in addition to proofreading, event planning, payroll, and general budgetary accounting, I'd say that managing the time and spaces of the department took up a substantial chunk of my time.  My husband, also a former administrator (but at the executive level), would often say that administration is such a thankless business because it goes unnoticed if it's done correctly but, if done incorrectly, it's a disaster.

What does any of this have to do with singing?

When you're in a Fest situation, you're contracted for a (theoretically) fixed number of performances for any Spielzeit.  Let's say that number is 40.  Does this mean that you do one show a week for 40 weeks?  Dream on.  I would hear horror stories and cautionary tales from friends and colleagues about how a Fest can "wreck your voice" by making you sing all kinds of different roles at once and rehearse multiple shows at once and people just end up blowing their voices out.  Can this happen?  Absolutely.  But it doesn't have to.

Last season, I had a pretty light fall/winter.  I was in a new production of Un Ballo in Maschera that had two weeks of rehearsal in late July, just before the six-week summer holiday that every opera house takes, and then went back into rehearsal in early September.  The director was wonderful.  He knew what he wanted, he was good at expressing his ideas, he was excellent at managing large rehearsals with lots of people and chorus and extras.  The show was running like a Swiss watch by the end of the 2nd week of the Spielzeit, so by the time we got around to orchestra rehearsals, there had been plenty of time to play with character and physicality and movement (and even some singing-related things).  I made a decision to sing out in rehearsals starting a few weeks before the performances, just so I could be sure my stamina was where I wanted it to be, come showtime.  Done and done.  Right after that show opened, I went to the Studienleiter and said I wanted to start work on the Händel opera.  It was my first major Händel role, something like nine arias and a massive duet, and the biggest whack of recitative I had ever even considered.  He was quite shocked that I wanted to start so early - late October for a show that didn't rehearse till January - but I was adamant.  I didn't need to coach Flute for the thousandth time, but I wanted to know every single ornament and optional appogiatura and inflection and have all of my da capos and cadenzas with choices to spare.  So we began.  Three times a week, recits only.  And inbetween, I was singing performances of Ballo, and guesting Flute at a house about an hour away.  By the end of December, the Händel role was memorized, my guest Flutes were done, and I felt like I was in really good shape.  Even did a few auditions for new agents.

And then January came.

I jumped in for a colleague on the New Year's Day concert.  I jumped in for the same colleague for a recital four days later.  We began musical rehearsals for the Händel.  We went through the revival rehearsals for Flute.  And I got sick.  Not anything big or serious like bronchitis or the flu, just your regular run-of-the-mill sick.  I missed a few days of rehearsal, I missed the first Flute performance, and after about four days of awful sniffly sneezy wheezy, I dragged myself back into rehearsal because, while I couldn't sing yet, I could do the movement, which was a huge part of this Baroque-movement-highly-choreographed production.  We had almost six weeks of staging/music rehearsal for the Händel, during which I also had a few performances of Flute, and I think a Ballo.  I sprained my ankle in the dress week of the show, so I did those shows with a big boot-splint thing, cleverly hidden under my enormous period skirts.  We did five performances of the Händel (six, if you count the general dress, to which they sold tickets) inside of a week.  And about a week and a half after that show closed, I had auditions at three different opera houses in three different cities, inside of 3 days.

I'll skip the in-depth description of the preparation process for the next shows I did - (four roles in two French shows, single-cast) and cut to the nightmare week I had in June.  Five performances in seven days: part of a French recital, a Ballo, a Flute, and two performances of the French double-bill.  It was hot, it was humid, there's almost no A/C in Europe, I was NOT feeling well, but there we were.  It was what I had to do.  I didn't stay out late, I didn't drink (even socially), and almost every spare moment of time I had was spent taking a nap in my Garderobe or flopped out on the sofa.  And by the time the end of the Spielzeit came, in the midst of performing those last shows, I had been in musical rehearsals for Rosenkavalier so we could go into a fast-paced revival staging rehearsal at the end of July, to resume in the first week of the Spielzeit because the show was going up nine days later.

What what WHAT is the point of all of this rambling about overlapping rehearsals and performances?  You have to have a sense of your whole season.  You have to know how long it takes you to learn a new role.  You have to know which roles you can take off the shelf, dust off, and put back on their feet, and which ones will always need just a little bit of review - I have post-its flagging certain pages of Rosenkavalier so I can review those two pages of the big crazy Act 2 ensemble, just so it's absolutely fresh in my mind on the night of the performance.  You have to know how much sleep you really need - not how much sleep your 19 year-old self needed, because those days are GONE, my friend - and how to make the most of your brain capacity.  When you can't practice because your body is too tired, you can still sit on the sofa/tram/in the practice room and talk through the scenes.  You have to know your physical limits, when to say when, and when to say no.  Beyond all of this, you have to be on a first-name basis with your technique.  Before my makeup call, I get a key for a practice room and have a bit of a yodel.  If I'm on at the top of the show, I show up earlier so I can have a solid half hour to do some breathing exercises, buzz my lips a bit, go through some exercises, and go through any little twiddly bits of the piece BEFORE my makeup call.  Usually, once I'm in makeup, it's straight into costume and then straight onstage, and I prefer to have my yodeling done so I can chill and collect my thoughts before I get called to places.

Time management is about managing yourself.  It's about knowing yourself.  What do you want out of your performances?  What do you want out of your career?  Yes, there are those mad geniuses who can function on next-to-no sleep and deliver brilliant performances of roles they just picked up three days ago.  I am not a mad genius.  I am of above-average intelligence and above-average work ethic, with a solid technique and a very decent instrument.  But the thing that keeps me from going stark raving mad when the schedule spins out of control and I get a head cold and, in the eloquent words of Kurt Vonnegut, "the excrement hits the air conditioner," is that I know how to prep myself.  I know that if I show up an hour before makeup, clear my head, do my exercises, work through all the hard coloratura stuff in the Ravel and that one nasty cadenza in the Stravinsky, sing the end of Amor, sing the middle of Zerbinetta, the runs in the first Queen aria and the triplets in the second Queen aria, my voice is ready to go to work for just about anything and, by the end of all that, so am I.  I can sit in the makeup chair and let them paint my face and pin the wig to my head and still have fifteen to twenty minutes before it's time to get trussed into whichever costume it is, and I can use those fifteen minutes to review the post-its in my score - three bars between entrances here, only two there, don't wait for the chord because the conductor is anticipating me at that rest, review the dialogue before the second aria, anticipate that the stage is going to start turning as soon as my last note is done - bend your knees!  I can do this because I know in my bones that I have these roles down cold and even on a low-energy day, my body and my brain have been prepped to do this thing I do.  Because it is my job.

Know thyself.  Manage thyself.  Your career and your colleagues will thank you for it.