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.
