There is no halfway

In or out - don't just stand there in the door letting all the cold air out. This phrase is common to any household that enjoys the necessity (some might say the 'privilege' but they are crazy) of air conditioning, especially in peak summer when the humidity is above 80% and the heat index says just don't bother going outside because you'll bake before you even get to your car. In or out. Make a decision.

For the last few years, I've been grappling with a performance issue that I suspect is largely linked to the academic, analytical side of my personality. The side that likes to get all the notes right, all the words right, every articulation exactly as it appears on the page, every interval tuned. The side that takes such great joy in the beauty of form - the tension of voice against voice, the perfect unfolding of a fugue, the subtlety of excellent orchestration. This is also the side of me that rejoices in the fact that I finally understand grammar, thanks to the cases of German. I think structure is beautiful.

But this is also the side of me that searches for control in every situation. Immediately unpacking my suitcase even if I'm only in one place for one night, putting my folded clothes into a drawer, setting out my toiletries on the bathroom shelf. Purchasing little colored flags to distinguish my arias from my art songs. Obsessing over the perfect day planner at Staples - one that fits my time needs (why can't I find a three-year planner, seriously??) and dovetails nicely with the end of my previous planner. Salivating over desk organizers, those little stackable trays and dividers and drawer inserts. Let's not even talk about The Container Store. It's an obsessive-compulsive orgy just waiting to happen.

How does this relate to performance, some might ask. At the end of the dress rehearsal for the Messiaen piece I did a few weeks ago, my coach said that, in general, she felt that I was holding back, emotionally. And I asked her if there were specific places that she wanted me to be more expressive, if this is a stylistic issue or (dare I say it) a vibrato issue. And she said that, in general, she felt that I was too contained. Now let's first address the justifiable side of this issue. What I sing usually requires a pretty sufficient amount of breath efficiency, so I can't be emoting all over the place with 'expressive breaths' because quite frankly, I wouldn't be able to sing half of what I do if I emoted with my breath. And a lot of my rep has lots of vocal fireworks and acrobatics, which requires that I keep my wits about me, lest my voice run away with itself. The arias are usually a bit longer than usual, so I have to pace myself. All of this means that I have to be in the driver's seat of my singing - I can't check out or go on auto-pilot so I can enjoy the moment.
A few years ago, during dress rehearsals for Dialogues of the Carmelites, I caught myself getting all choked up during the scene in which the jailer comes into the cell and reads the death sentence for the nuns. I was completely overwhelmed and, as a result, unable to sing through my tears. In one way, I was glad, even proud that it happened because it meant that I was involved in the scene, connected with the text and emoting from a direct and honest place. But on the other hand, the audience can't be connected with the scene if the singers are too busy crying to sing what Poulenc put on the page. They deserve more than supertitles. And as my voice teacher later said to me, it's not about what I'm feeling, it's about what the character is feeling. It's our job to project what the character is feeling, what the poet has to say, what the composer has chosen to emote. Stage actors, I'm sure, deal with this in a different way but for singers, the bottom line is this: if you're crying, you can't sing.
Earlier that same year, I was in a masterclass being held in my German diction class. I was preparing for my masters' recital and it seemed only fitting to bring in my Strauss set. Allerseelen is one of my favorites, so I thought I'd start with that. After my initial sing-through, the baritone, this wonderful man named Benno Schollum, began to talk with me about the text, the poem by Hermann von Gilm.

Allerseelen
Stell auf den Tisch die duftenden Reseden,
Die letzten roten Astern trag herbei
Und laß uns wieder von der Liebe reden
Wie einst im Mai.

Gib mir die Hand, daß ich sie heimlich drücke,
Und wen mans sieht, mir ist es einerlei,
Gib mir nur einen deiner süßen Blicke
Wie einst im Mai.

Es blüht und funkelt heut auf jedem Grabe,
Ein Tag im Jahre ist den Toten frei;
Komm an mein Herz, daß ich dich wieder habe,
Wie einst im Mai.

And I've done my translation so I know what it means, but then he begins to discuss philosophies on death and how, for this poet, death isn't the ending of this relationship, that the speaker still maintains this relationship with their beloved, beyond the bounds of death, speaking tenderly to them as if they were still sitting across the table, holding hands, and even now, sitting here typing I feel the tears welling up in my eyes because I was thinking about my crazy old German grandparents, scolding each other over using too much coffee in the pot but still calling each other 'Schatz,' grousy in their old German ways of eating herring salad (not kidding people, it's pink) and shaming their grandchildren into eating all of the boiled purple cabbage that was put on their plate and shaking hands instead of hugging. Even now, four years after that masterclass, I can't talk about this song without crying. I thought I was doing okay until I was asked to sing it for the All Saints' concert at Trinity a few years ago - I was holding it together reasonably well until the last page of "Komm an mein Herz, daß ich dich wieder habe," and then it was over. I could barely phonate, the tears were rolling down my face, I'm just grateful that the pianist went on without me to the end because someone had to finish out the song and it sure wasn't going to be me.

So as my coach is telling me that she finds me a little too emotionally contained, I'm trying to figure out what I'm supposed to do. Some people are able to walk right up to that line, touch it, caress it, and then step back. Some people can tap dance right on top of the emotion and then shake it off in a breath. Christine Ebersole, such an amazing performer, allowing her voice to break just a little in 'Send in the Clowns,' but still finishing out the song with beautifully sad tone, tugging on the heartstrings of everyone in the Shed. Maybe I haven't gotten there yet, maybe the lines are still too strongly defined, but I can't split the difference. Because if the door isn't shut while I'm working, if even a little of my real feelings start to leak out, it's the surprise flood that brings my singing to a total stand-still. Anyone who was at my husband's concert in April bore witness to this - a song that I'd rehearsed and sung through as recently as fifteen minutes before the concert, suddenly snuck up on me and laid me bare to an entire audience, my pianist trying so hard to wait for me to get a decent breath between sobs so I could sing the last note, the LAST NOTE of the ENTIRE CONCERT. Listening to the recording, I can tell you the exact moment at which it got away from me. I can hear my breath hopped up, my throat starting to close, the waver in my voice that says I'm no longer driving my own train.

I'm not saying that I hold this back all of the time. I watch my favorite movies and get sniffly at the same parts every time, I go to the opera and my heart swells at the end of Act I of Boheme, I listen to those Indigo Girls songs that meant so much to me in high school and I'm transported back to that emotionally turbulent time when I took solace in putting one song on repeat for the entire afternoon and reading Jane Austen and drinking passionfruit tea. I cried when Canio killed Nedda and Silvio, I teared up just last night when I was at the movies watching the new Batman movie - the situation I will not disclose because I know that some of my friends still want to see it.

But all of this is to say that I'm not emotionally contained because I'm removed from the innate emotion of what I'm doing. It's because I can't multitask in that way. I, the great multitasker who can sing and play and translate and write a dissertation and spin flaming hoops at the same time, cannot get that close. I've been struggling with this and trying to figure out how to rework my thinking but it just comes back to the same idea. Once the toothpaste is out, you can't put it back in the tube. And once the door is open, the cold air will go rushing out. In or out. Maybe it's the safe decision. Maybe it's the decision of self-preservation because I don't want my emotions dripping down my face in front of coaches and pianists and strangers and audience members. Maybe it's because I'm scared to let it all out for fear of what that looks and feels like. But for now, I have to sing with the door shut.