As one of my readers pointed out, Tosca does not hurl herself into the Arno. I think I was mixing my operas in my heightened state. But from where I'm sitting at this moment, happy to be home on a brief respite from audition season, I feel good enough to say thank you to this person. Tosca hurls herself into the Tiber, Lauretta only threatens to throw herself into the Arno. Thanks for fixing my Italian geography!
It's a funny time of year to travel. When you're sitting on the train from Baltimore to New York, knitting in the cafe car because the entire train is sold out and you need a place to watch your huge suitcase and the person next to you asks the standard travel questions (Where are you going? What for? Oh, you're an opera singer?) you have a brief and shining moment where, to a total stranger, you seem very glamorous and foreign. An opera singer. Not a pharmacist or lawyer or investment banker. And while they think it's very cool that you've only spent 22 hours in DC and will only spend 24 in New York before you get on yet another train to go home, you know that you've been schlepping your suitcase between every airport and train station since last Friday and you're just so grateful to sit down with your cup of coffee and your knitting. When I call my friends from airports (this seems to be the only time I get to call my friends) they make jokes about me being the 'jet-setter.' But do you know what was so beautiful about this Thanksgiving holiday weekend? It was not the fact that my husband deep-fried a turkey to perfection, it was not the fact that my pecan and pumpkin pies turned out stunningly, and it was not even the fact that the house was filled with people I love.
It was the fact that I didn't go ANYWHERE for Thanksgiving. Nowhere. I stayed put, chopped veggies in my pyjamas, didn't even bother to change out of my robe until the side dishes were in the oven. And even though I would love to have gone to NYC to see Diana Damrau do her last Queen of the Night, a performance that I have dreamed about since I saw the DVD of the Covent Garden production, I am staying home and away from NYC until at least next Tuesday. Next Tuesday, I will get back on the train with my carry-on suitcase packed with my music and headshots and resumes and fabulous dress and bottles of water and vitamins and hopefully a few more balls of yarn to keep me busy on the ride and I will boldly go back into the fray.
And I must confess, as I stood in the hallway at City Opera last week, waiting to do my Florida Grand audition (the third one of the morning, after my HGO audition was suddenly bumped up half an hour due to cancellations "Um, miss, would you mind going right now? Four people ahead of you canceled." "Now? Right now? Give me two minutes and I'll be right there." I went into the elevator, rode it down and then up again with a group of school children who were taking a tour of the Juilliard building, with me yodeling all the way. Weird looks all around, but one of them told me that my dress was pretty.) and having been told that I might be able to switch to an earlier time so I could make the early train out of NYC, I was thinking to myself, "All I can do is my job. I know how to do my job. I kick ass at my job." I waited for nearly two hours, with occasional humming and buzzing and listening to everyone go in and out of the room, watching them fret and I just kept telling myself, "All I can do is my job." And when I walked into the room, I was filled with tremendous calm for the third time that morning. Because I know how to do my job. I kill at my job. You want high and fast? I majored in high and fast. I invented high and fast. It gives me great joy to do high and fast.
So that's what I'm going to do. And when the right job reveals itself to me, it will not be because I wore the pink dress or because someone thought I belonged in my hair color, it will be because I did my job and did it well and someone said, "I want her on my stage." Game on.
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