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.
Friday, October 24, 2014
Sunday, October 19, 2014
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.
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.
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