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.

Working and living in Germany: a multi-part series

Every time I talk to one of my singer-friends back home about some particularly gnarly or complicated piece of rigmarole that relates to my job as an opera singer in a German opera house (auditioning, applying for visas, how to dress for auditions, travel hacks, contract negotiation) they say to me, "someday you should write a book about this."  Well, today is not the day I write that book.  But today is the day I had to assemble every single receipt related to my foreign (read: non-German) income for the Finanzamt because the Germans do NOT do taxes like the IRS does.  So here's part 1 in the multi-part series.

FULL DISCLOSURE - I AM NOT A TAX PROFESSIONAL.  I AM AN OPERA SINGER.

Part 1:  Taxes in Germany

Residency/non-residency, guesting/festing
If you are a US resident guesting in Germany, you need to get your hands on an A1 from the Social Security office and turn it over to the finance office at the opera house.  This will, in most cases, keep the non-US house you're working for from taking out their version of social security, disability, etc, because the A1 says that you'll pay taxes on this income at home in the USA.  In Germany, they will still take out unemployment.  If your agent is being paid directly by the opera house, there will also be Umsatzsteuer (value-added tax) on the agent fee.  If you are paid a Reisepauschale (lump sum for travel) they may also assess some kind of blanket income taxes on that.  You will receive a statement from the opera house detailing your payments and the breakdown of what's what.  Keep them, and ask the finance office to explain and translate exactly what all those abbreviations mean.  Not all houses code things the same, so I won't bother listing them here.

If you have taken a Fest position at a house in Germany, you are an employee.  You will have taxes taken out for Krankenkasse (health insurance, split between employer and employee), Arbeitlosengeld (unemployment), Pflegeversicherung (disability), Solidaritätszuschlag (solidarity tax - reunification), and Rentenversicherung (pension).  Again, this list is neither exclusive nor exhaustive.  If you register as a particular faith (they will ask you when you go to register for residency), they will take out church taxes.  The percentages vary depending on your Steuerklasse (tax category - married, unmarried, with children, without, etc).

IF YOU GO FROM A GUESTING NON-RESIDENT TO FEST RESIDENT INSIDE ONE CALENDAR YEAR, YOU MUST FILE A FULL TAX RETURN IN BOTH COUNTRIES.  Take a tip from someone who's going through this right now - bring with you every shred of paper that pertains to that calendar year.  The last thing you want to have to do is send someone into your storage unit to hunt for receipts.

**Edit for clarification: to my knowledge, so long as one holds US citizenship, one MUST file US taxes.  I hear differing reports from expats, so check with an account or four.**

Guesting while Fest (what to expect, so you don't spit out your coffee when you see what shows up in your bank account)
If you are industrious/tenacious/lucky/in-demand enough to guest on the side while also singing at your Fest job, good for you.  It's a great way to supplement your income.  You'll usually be given a flat rehearsal fee (either as a per-day figure, or a lump sum for a time period) and either a Reisepauschale or reimbursement for travel.  Housing is almost never included.  Know this in advance, and don't be left looking for a hotel room the day you arrive.  Guesting engagements are usually assessed at Steuerklasse 6, which is about 50% if you're married, about 60% if you're unmarried.  So if you are engaged Fest at a house, married, and your guest contract says you'll be paid 10K (assuming the opera house splits a 10% agent fee with you 40/60), you can expect about 44% of that to show up in your bank account, after taxes.

The good news: if you keep track of all your expenses, you're often entitled to a refund of some amount.  Hard to swallow on payday, I know, but go in with your eyes open.

Documentation
Here's the basic rule.  Keep every piece of paper.  Every receipt.  Everything.  The IRS will take your word for it unless they decide to audit you.  The German Finanzamt is not so trusting.  They want it all up-front.  Receipts.  Contracts.  Everything.  Food doesn't count for the Germans - they use a per-diem.  Start a spreadsheet with a tab for every state or country you work in.  Detail the date, the transaction, the amount (in local currency, EUR and USD, check your daily exchange rates and note them), and what it's for.  If the expenses are associated with a specific gig, make a column for the ensemble/opera house/concert organization, and the dates you were engaged to work there.  Put the receipts for that spreadsheet in a large envelope marked TAXES 2014.  Start a folder on your desktop where you can print to PDF everything you book online - train tickets, plane tickets, invoices from your voice teacher.  Do this as you go along because it is a PAIN IN THE ASS to do it later.

Deadlines
Truthfully, this has yet to become clear to me.  When you live outside the US for more than 6 months, you are granted an extension of 2 months to file your US taxes (June 15 instead of April 15). HOWEVER - an extension to file is NOT an extension to pay.  Read that again.
So let's say you get your US taxes all tied up and paid by April 15.  Good for you.  No penalties.  But let's say you need a little more time and you get them done by June 15.  Unless your accountant overestimates and includes a penalty, you'll probably get a bill come September saying that you owe the IRS something ridiculously negligible like $7.27 and that if you don't pay by the date (which has already passed, because you're receiving your mail outside the USA) that amount will go up to $7.29.  German taxes are a bit more complicated, mostly because you need to have your US taxes mostly done before you can file your German ones.  But their deadlines aren't nearly as nuts - I think we finished filing ours around July.  Downside - if they come back and say they need additional documentation for anything, you will not see one red cent of refund until they decide they're done reviewing your case.

What you can deduct (this list is neither exhaustive nor exclusive)
Audition clothing, audition shoes, makeup, trips to your hairdresser, stockings, suitcases, gowns, medicine, doctor visits, certain toiletries (if they can be put under the heading of 'grooming'), your cell phone, prepaid cell phones abroad, public transportation, taxis to and from the airport/gigs/concerts, voice lessons (this includes those skype lessons you have with your teacher when you're a continent away), sheet music, CDs, tickets to a performance, the computer you use to manage your life, accounting fees, banking fees (wire transfer fees), tax preparation fees, temporary gym memberships, plane tickets, train tickets, hotels, airport wifi, in-flight wifi, hotel wifi, tips and gifts to your makeup artist/dresser (IF YOU DOCUMENT IT), rental cars, baggage fees, union dues, agent fees.  The list can go on and on.  When in doubt, ask your accountant.

Dealing with accountants
If you are not detail-oriented, pour yourself a strong drink.  Dealing with accountants is not always easy.  Dealing with accountants in a foreign language is enough to drive anyone to Xanax.  Your best bet is having everything laid out and labeled as clearly as possible so that you can send it to them via Dropbox or some other kind of file transfer.  I prefer services like Dropbox and email because it starts an electronic trail between you and that person.  Start early.  Ask for an estimate of their fees, based on your needs.  Ask colleagues who they use, especially ones whose tax situation is similar to yours.
This is the hardest part: do not assume that your accountant will get everything right.  Be emotionally (and temporally) prepared to comb through your tax return, line-by-line, to make sure nothing is missing and nothing appears twice where it shouldn't.  Check your social security number.  Check your address.  Check your banking details.  Do this every time you receive documentation from them.  If they make a mistake and you don't catch it, you are still responsible for the content of your tax return.  Period.

Life is complicated and messy and an opera career often feels like the teacup ride at Disneyworld - looks like lots of fun and bright and shiny from the outside, can give you vertigo and/or induce vomiting once you're whirling around in a suddenly-unstable-seeming vehicle from which there is no immediate escape.  When in doubt, write it down, ask questions, get professional advice, do your homework.  There is no substitute for due diligence, and the quantity or quality of talent you possess as an artist is not worth one iota to the IRS or the Finanzamt when they demand to know where the money came from and where it went.  The more you know.

Part 2: ???  I'll take suggestions.  

Crowded House

Every time I read an article about a labor lockout, I can't help but have this Crowded House song pop into my head.

"I've been locked out, I've been locked in
But I always seem to come back againWhen you're in that room, oh what do you do?I know that I will have you in the end"

While the drama of the Minnesota Orchestra lockout resembled an epic poem, the recent Metropolitan Opera happenings were more of a mini-series.  "Will the musicians' unions strike?  Will the backstage unions strike in solidarity?  Will the chorus' pay and benefits be cut?  Will the season start on-time??"  Film at eleven, in which the captain of the Flagship Opera Institution in the USA declares that opera is dying.  Oh, for crying out loud.

Now I'm all for drama, when it's ON THE STAGE, but I'm also the daughter of an accountant.  Opera is expensive.  This is no mystery.  There are no magical abacuses (abaci?) or slide rules that make opera not expensive.  In the States, most houses are not repertory houses, which means you've gotta get the people there and back, house them and get them to/from rehearsals, clothe them in the designer's vision, build and dress and light the sets, rent and mark (and subsequently erase marks from) the orchestra parts, rehearse the orchestra, rent the venue (if you don't happen to own your own theatre), and turn the power on and off for the whole time.  All before a single ticket-holder sits down, all before a single player/singer gets paid.  It's a lot.  I know significantly less about the costs of a symphony orchestra (namely because I work in opera) but my fingers and toes tell me that decreased income + mis-management of assets and investments + rising (or even level) expenses = someone's gonna come at you with a hat asking for money, and the next round of contract negotiations will not be pretty.  This week, it's the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, who's just been locked out.  Again.

Now before I start talking about what's at stake here, I'm just gonna put this out there:  I live and work in Germany, where my breathtaking tax bill affords me rather good health insurance and care (as well as a host of other socialized benefits - paid sick leave, retirement, disability, unemployment, etc.) and subsidizes my job in the arts, from which I can actually support myself and my family.  This has been the case for approximately one year, during which I was ill twice (as compared to every 6 weeks, when I was freelancing on the road year-round) and I sang easily twice the number of performances I'd sung in the previous season.  At the end of my first season as a full-time ensemble singer [read: employee of one opera house], I came to a very real and tangible conclusion:  Stability is something for which many people will sacrifice.  Glitter and the promise of "the next big break" are seductive, but I'd much rather sleep in my own bed.  This is me, knowing myself.  This is also me, saying that my perspective is biased toward my own priorities.

For many orchestra musicians, seeking those coveted full-time orchestra positions is akin to my Fest job.  They can buy a house instead of renting, send their kids to school, pay into their IRA, and they get to do the thing they trained to do - BE musicians, without fretting every single month if their gig will come through so they can pay their mortgage.  Is freelancing more financially lucrative, on a per-performance basis?  Absolutely.  But it's a choice, and there are tradeoffs.  AGAIN, speaking only from the point of view with which I have personal experience - opera - I can say that stability is not a glamorous choice.  It's not a choice that (usually) lands you on the cover of Opera News, or even in a feature in Classical Singer.  Stability is not very sexy.  But let's also assume, for the moment, that stability is not always about the individual.  It's not about whether or not the 4th desk 2nd violinist in the ASO gets to check off all the symphonies on his bucket list, or whether or not the principal viola gets to play the Bartók viola concerto.  And it's not even about whether or not I'll ever cross Lulu off my list of "roles I really really REALLY wanna perform and would be SO absolutely perfect for me."  It's about being able to afford to take your kids to the doctor when they get sick.  It's about being able to pay the deductible when someone rear-ends you and pulls a hit-and-run [witnessed that for the first time last month - it made me ill] and it's about being able to take personal time when your mother/father needs help caring for themselves or each other.  It's about the things that make us human, which are also the things that make us better artists.

I don't have a pithy punchline about the ASO.  I feel for those musicians, and for their families, and I hope they come to some kind of agreement with management soon - one that recognizes the sacrifices they've already made, and also allows the organization to move forward.  But I also hope that the unfortunate (and not recently developed) sentiment of "if artists do what they love and love what they do, they should be willing to do it for less/for free/for a sandwich" will be replaced with some more sound thinking.

Countdown to birthday

As some of my previous blog posts indicate, I'm not too much for New Year's resolutions.  I've never been good at giving up carbs, sugar, or red meat (for longer than Lent), my exercise regimens can and do last for quite a long time, but they do require regular re-vamping, and the struggle between optimism and Schadenfreude is a daily one.  But we're having an unseasonably early spring here in Germany, I've had two day-trips away from K-roo in the last 3 days, both with absolutely ideal weather and, against my better Bostonian judgment, I swapped out my winter wardrobe for my spring/summer wardrobe which means the return of all the clothes I really like to wear.  With the return of turquoise, my 'power color' (as my friend Zach calls it), the disappearance of all things sweater-like into the vacuum storage bags, and the tick-tocking away of the minutes toward my birthday, I'm feeling contemplative.  So I took a little trip down blog post memory lane.  

Just before I turned 30, I took stock of the things I'd accomplished between 20 and 29.  Bought a house.  Finished my doctorate.  Started running.  I also found this little list of things I wanted to accomplish before 35.  

Things I'd like to do between 30 and 35

run my first marathon, and then some

suck even less at Italian

get a shredder and a bigger filing cabinet (to downsize the paper crap)

take a real vacation (no family, no auditions, no work) with my husband

learn Lulu

reconsider playing softball in the summer

learn to make really good pie crust

add another continent to my passport stamp collection

spend more time with my friends and family who live far away

I've italicized the ones that I've since completed.  It's a bit of a mixed bag, really.  I've spent more time with friends who lived far away because I moved to Europe and suddenly, they're a lot closer than they were before.  On the flip side, I'm now even farther away from my family.  The number of Italian operas I've done in my life has doubled in the last six months - including a massive Handel opera with a metric ton of recit - so my Italian is infinitely better than it was before.  I did run my first marathon and another few half marathons after that, but a series of injuries and crazy travel schedules really got the better of my running.  I still haven't taken a real vacation with my husband, though hope springs eternal and, unless there's a summer softball league at the opera house I don't know about, I suspect softball is right out.  But I made some serious pie crusts and they were GOOD.  

My sprained ankle is nearly healed.  I made notes on my pilates classes and have been doing the ab/core/back work at home, at least twice a week, plus the stretches from physical therapy.  While I don't have the knees or the lower back that I did in my 20s, at least I'm aware enough not to ignore tightness or discomfort, shrug it off, and keep pushing.  What the heck does any of this have to do with personal growth?  It's about listening.  I'm finally listening to myself.  I ditched my toxic US agent back in January.  I put my foot down with the administration about singing a role I didn't think I was ready to sing.  I stood up for myself, firmly but professionally, with a director.  I'm learning to pick my battles, not just to pick them carefully, but to win them.  I realized, somewhat sheepishly, that I've spent the last two birthdays in Germany.  Last year, in KA with my boo.  The year before, in Frankfurt with a friend and colleague.  And two years before that?  I made it back to Boston from Germany only days before my 30th birthday party.  The universe pointed to Germany and we decided to listen.  

So here's to finding out what the universe has in store for the next few years.  How about that list?

Things I'd like to do between 34 and 39

run another marathon

improve my conversational French

take a real vacation (no family, no auditions, no work) with my husband

learn Lulu

add another continent to my passport stamp collection

spend more time with my friends and family who live far away

practice patience, truth, and grace in my professional and personal life - in short, what I preach

And with that, I'm going to go cuddle with the best birthday present - Sammy the dog, who came into my life 11 years ago, and continues to make it a sweeter, if furrier, existence.  Happy (almost) birthday to me.  

It's a dog-eat-dog world

I was on skype with my friend Nicole yesterday.  Nicole is another multi-continental singer like myself - we met what seems like forever ago (okay, only 6 years ago) when I was singing a gig with the International Bachakademie Stuttgart.  She sings, she blogs, she teaches German and, as a former German resident-type, she was talking me through the whys and wherefores of how I might convince the Ausländerbehörde to loosen the strings on my work permit so I could....oh, you know....work more.
This led to a very long and involved discussion about artistic administrations, working in the Fest system, dealing with agents, and all things having to do with being a working singer.  I don't remember how we came to this point, but we were talking about how destructive and pernicious relations between fellow singers can be, and I think I said I felt like the American system encourages singers to "eat their own kind."

Our business is competitive.  Even the most cursory glance at the numbers will tell you that the top 9 opera-producing cities in the world are NOT in the US.  New York is #10, and there isn't another city in the US in the top 50.  Chilling, but true.  How many universities and colleges and conservatories are turning out performance majors every year?  You do the math.  No one goes into music thinking it's going to be their big-ticket money-making endeavor.  But what does this have to do with how we treat ourselves and each other?

First - how we treat ourselves.  Nicole and I were talking about this piece with regard to a most heinous non-job offer she received.  I call it a "non-job offer"because, like so many musicians, someone didn't just try to lowball her for a gig, they tried to shame her for declining their ridiculous offer.  My mentor-teacher was married to a wonderful woman, who also happened to be a kickass coach.  She told me once, when talking about some young whippersnappers complaining about having to pay a pianist, that she'd work free, but she wouldn't work cheap.  Those words have stayed with me, not only because Annie is still in my life, sharing her sparky wisdom with me from time to time, but because it said something powerful about how she approached her artistry.  Annie is a giver.  You'd learn something from her, even if you were just sitting next to her in a bus shelter in the rain.  In addition to smacking me around for crappy legato, poor grammar, and singing with my head crooked to one side, she gave me so much of her time.  Time filled with all her years of experience, wisdom, insight, information, and love.  You can't put a price on that.  But if you had to, neither you nor I could afford it.  It's my hope that we sing because we need to communicate something, share something.  But we also need to pay our mortgages, our light bills, our teachers, our coaches and, if we're really lucky, we have the time to go and visit our loved ones, necessitating (usually expensive) plane tickets.  As my cousin's boyfriend said (after she proclaimed her desire to paint their entire apartment - all 3 levels - herself), "money can be exchanged for goods and services."  Bottom line - don't devalue yourself for people who don't value your services, your art, your contribution.  If you want to take a gig because it means something to you, and you can afford to do so, do it for expenses (travel, housing, food) or for free.  And to any conductors and/or artistic administrators out there, I have a long list of pieces I'd sing for the price of the plane ticket and a comfy place to sleep....

Second - how we treat others.  When I'm well-rested and sane, I believe with all my heart and soul that no one person's success takes away from your own.  If I could find it, I'd link back to the "shoe speech," which I've given at every master class I've ever taught, and to many singers (friends, strangers, and acquaintances alike).  The Reader's Digest version is this:

Opportunity is the confluence of what you can do, what you're right for, and what they're looking for on that day.  If you're great at what you do, and they think so too, but they don't need you, there's no opportunity right now.  You do not lose anything by singing/playing an audition.  You come out of the door with the same artistry, the same loved ones, the same life you had before you went in.  YOU LOSE NOTHING.  If you don't get the job, this does not make you unworthy.  If you were shopping for a black pointy-toed kitten-heeled shoe in a size 11 and the salesperson brought out 15 pairs of black pointy-toed kitten-heeled shoes in a size 11 (look for horsemen and plagues of locusts, because it's a sign of the apocalypse) you'd try them on until you found the ones that fit.  You'd put the others back, and you'd buy the ones that fit best.  But you would not hold up a shoe and say to it, "YOU, SHOE!  You have wasted my time!  You are an inferior shoe!  You are not worth the leather out of which you are made!"  You wouldn't do this because it would be silly, but we do it to ourselves all the time.  If only I had done *** then they would have hired me, If only I were taller/thinner/curvier/not-so-curvy WHATEVER then they would have hired me.  This is also a waste of time and energy.  You do you.  This is all you can do.  

But I digress.  As much as we assign value to ourselves (and take it away when things don't go our way), we do the same to our colleagues.  We mark someone as our 'enemy' in our fach - that person who's always right before or after you in the young artist auditions circuit.  That person who's three years older/three years younger and seems to be hitting a sweet spot with competitions or roles that you didn't hit.  We demonize them.  Now today is a day when I'm both well-rested AND sane, so I say again, no one person's success takes away from your own.  No other soprano's success takes away from mine.  Shoot, I've even made friends with other Queens because they understand the special hell that it is to have your entire artistic output judged on someone else's response to five high f's.  Nicole and I were spitballing hopefully about how, perhaps, in this age of hyper-connectivity, there will arise a generation of musicians who are connected, rather than isolated.  Who reach out to each other for collaboration, rather than giving each other the stink eye of competition.  Who share their experiences, offer each other counsel, even help other advocate for themselves.  And what an age that would be.  Less drama, better theatre.  Work hard, yes, always work hard.  But work against yourself - beat back your own laziness/sloth/entropy.  Challenge yourself to be the best at what you can do.

Miss Jean says you never know what goes on inside someone else's marriage.  I'll extrapolate that and say you never know what goes on inside someone else's life.  The next time you feel the lizard brain kicking in, the next time your eyes start to turn green with envy, think back to a time something really moved you.  For me, it's The Lark Ascending (Vaughan Williams), or the beginning of O soave fanciulla (Act I, La Bohème, Puccini).  My heart swells in a way that I can't articulate, my eyes start to well up, and I'm overcome.  There's nothing jealous or covetous in that kind of feeling, and if you're still a professional musician after all those lean years of saying "yes" to jobs that were really not at all worth the time it took for you to get there on public transportation, you need to remember that feeling.  Recognize it, feed it, cherish it.  That's the part of you that the audience sees when you're really doing what you do best.  Honor it in yourself, respect it in others, and the next generation of musicians (and their children/students/colleagues) will have a shot at experiencing that too.

Be good to yourself.  Practice kindness and professionalism.  Don't troll the internet to find potential competitors/objects of ire.  Life really is too short for that.

Check that box - CHECK IT

I've posted a few times about the nature of opportunity.  If you happen to be what a house is looking for, when they are looking for it, and you're available, then there's an opportunity.  If you're not what they're looking for, or they aren't looking for you right now, or you're not available, *poof* goes opportunity.  This is no one's fault, and it's nigh on impossible to control.  If you're not very good at giving up control [in the film in my mind, there would be a giant flashing arrow pointing to me right now] this makes you nuts.

Let's talk about what is in your control.

1.  Are you prepared?  Have you gone through your arias with coaches who will push you to do more than your everyday best?  Do you have a well-formed and imaginative perspective on the characters you're singing, the kind of perspective that will show on your face and in your body?  The kind of perspective that shows you being a character, rather than simply putting on their clothes?  Does your musical interpretation go beyond what's on the page - does the coloratura say/show something other than that you're really good at 16th notes?  If you're not saying something, no one cares.  

2.  Have you done your best to disaster-proof your audition?  Do you have rehearsals in which you ask the pianist to try to lead you astray?  Play a blatantly wrong tempo?  Do you know how to lead a pianist into the tempo you want, or will you allow yourself to be thrown under the bus by someone else's force of will and/or lack of familiarity with the piece?  This is something that can and should be practiced by anyone walking into an audition where you don't know the pianist.  There will come a time when a pianist poops all over what should be standard repertoire.  It may or may not be at a big house, it may or may not be an audition in someone's home studio.  But if you poop all over yourself because of it, that's on you.  There will be no disclaimer at the end of the audition [again, in the film in my mind] that drops down from the fly space, flashing "the pianist had never seen that before and didn't catch all the meter changes - it's not my fault, please hire me anyway," and even if it did, they wouldn't.

3.  Do you know how much prep time you need before an audition?  I'm a person who doesn't like to get anywhere too early.  The airport, the train station, the theatre before a show.  Just ask my husband - I'm puttering around the house, finding every excuse not to leave until the ABSOLUTE last minute because I hate waiting.  Sitting around makes me stir crazy.  For German auditions, where you have to show up early to get into the order of singing, 90 minutes is about all I can stand.  Show up, sign in, warm up, meet with the pianist, and then do my damnedest to distract myself from the waiting.  The other day, I was bookended by two other sopranos auditioning.  The rooms were NOT soundproofed.  I wanted to fling myself from the window, just to escape the truly perverse call and response of "Spiel ich die Unschuld vom Lande" and the "Gioir! Gioir!" that leads into 'Sempre libera.'  OVER AND OVER.  Moral of the story?  Know thyself.  If you can handle sitting around without getting squirrelly [film in my mind - Snow White-like animated chipmunk comes and perches on my shoulder] then good for you.  If you can't, bring headphones and Beyonce.

4.  Have you sung in these shoes before?  This may seem like a silly thing, but it's NOT.  I have two pair of audition shoes.  I have been singing in those shoes since grad school.  They are always comfy (enough), they always make my legs look good, and I know I can walk across the stage in them without tripping or having them slip off or anything like that.  This week, I had to improvise.  Having a sprained ankle means no heels for at least another few weeks, so I had to go with the tall boots.  Was I going to wear them to my audition without having given them a test run?  No.  So I wore them to my coaching last week, along with the skirt I intended to wear to the audition, and asked my coach to look me over.  We agreed I needed a fancier top, but he liked the boots & skirts combo.  I trust his fashion sense, and I trust that he'll tell me if something doesn't flatter, and I trust that if I can sing through more than half of my audition arias in these boots successfully, they won't interfere with my audition singing, when the stakes are higher and I'm not just singing for one person.  MEN - this applies to you too.  No one wants to watch you shift your weight from foot to foot.  If you start to sway during your audition, the panel will get vertigo, or they'll worry that you will.

[Sidebar - I subscribe to Bulletproof Musician.  This week's update just popped into my inbox, and it's called "Is it helpful to listen to music right before your audition?"  If you don't subscribe but want to read it, here's the article.]

And now, we talk about the unpleasant stuff.  The stuff that's out of your control.  Even thinking about this shit gives me vertigo.  Oy.

1.  When they're not looking for you and/or your voice type, right now or otherwise.  This sucks.  Sometimes houses will hear you just because you inquire - this is called an 'informative' audition.  The downside is that you may not get a job from these auditions.  The upside is that you may get a job down the line.  If you audition well, and you make a good impression, people keep track of what you're up to.  Never a bad thing.

2.  When you're not available.  I used to stretch myself like Elastigirl to make every possible gig work.  Less sleep, more travel, skipping meals, skipping days across time zones.  It's not worth it.  If you can't show up and do your best work from day 1, you can't do it.  Emergencies happen, extenuating circumstances happen.  But if you intentionally schedule exhaustion and overbooking, you're playing Russian Roulette with your own health and, thereby, your professional well-being.

3.  When you don't check the box.  And now we've come to the real point of this post.
It's my opinion that there are two kinds of auditions: the kind where someone takes an interest in you as an artist, and the kind where they're looking for you to check a box.  In Germany, this can get chalked up to the 'fach box.'  In your contract, you have to list a fach, and you have to be specific.  If you just list 'soprano,' that covers everything from Sieglinde to Mimi to Semiramide.  Do you want to sing Mimi and the Queen of the Night and Lady Macbeth and Lucia and Tosca?  (Don't we all?) But I'd really like to keep singing, thank you.  If you check the box, then there's an opportunity.  If you don't check the box, there's no opportunity.  It's slightly pessimistic on my part, but I tend to assess this point on how quickly the audition panel pivots from my first aria (Cleopatra's Piangerò from Giulio Cesare: secco recit, slow A, lightning-fast B with cadenza, da capo slow A with ornaments) to the Vengeance Aria.  If it's the first and only thing they ask for, I'm reasonably certain they're box-checkers.  They want to know if I can do what I say I can do, which is fair, but once they've heard it, they don't want to know anything else about my artistry.  I have checked the box.  If they say, "we'd like to hear one of the Queen arias, your choice, and we'd also like to hear Konstanze," this tells me they're looking for a Mozart coloratura, not just a Queen.  If they ask to hear Musetta or Cunegonde, I'm practically leaping with joy, because it means they want to see if I can act/be funny/be charming/be sexy.

I can.

Auditioning is a process.  It's a skill.  You get better at it with time.  Sometimes you wake up and everything goes your way and you'd swear there was a drop of Felix Felicis in your coffee.  The weather is beautiful.  The trains are on time.  You sing amazingly.  The pianist is great.  You are ROCKING that outfit and you even have good hair, all at the same time.  And you don't get hired.  On the other side, there are days when it's raining sideways, your train is delayed, you do your makeup on the subway in much closer proximity to your fellow passengers than you'd ever get on a third date with someone you really liked, you manage to yodel a few notes in the elevator on the way up, arriving just 5 minutes early, only to find out that they had a cancellation and can you sing right NOW.  You do what you can, but you feel it's not your best.  And you get hired.  There is very little rhyme or reason involved.  There is a lot of faith, a lot of shrugging, a lot of 'I get knocked down but I get up again' (great - I'm gonna have Chumbawumba in my head ALL DAY), a fair amount of disappointment, and maybe, just maybe, some success.

Here's what matters - what you do between auditions.  Do you make time to see friends when you're in their city?  Do you reach out to family members and meet them for dinner when you're done?  Do you pack a mask and comfy slippers so you can sit in your jammies and watch TV with your friend who's letting you crash on their sofa?  Do you help other singers who are figuring it out?  Taking care of yourself becomes really serious business as you get deeper into this business, but keeping an open heart is even more serious.  My first real opera big sister is a gorgeous, flame-haired vixen of a soprano - she was singing Pamina to my Queen in my first professional production of Flute.  She told it to me like it was, and I've never forgotten that.  We would wake up early and go walk her dog and get a coffee at the Dunkin Donuts and talk about everything - marriage, work, agents, traveling, taxes.  Lindy is the best.  I still remember her telling me - "Half the people you go to school with will be out of this business within 2 years of graduation.  By the time you get to 30, another half will have fallen away - they couldn't get it started, the lifestyle isn't for them, or they decided it wasn't worth it and chose another profession.  When you get to 35, that number will decrease again, and again, and again."
Well, I'm gonna be 34 in a few weeks, and I'm still here.

Singing for a living is hard, but you don't have to do it alone.  Work hard, yes, work really fucking hard.  But be a person - be the kind of person people want to work with, the kind of person people want to help and the kind of person people look to for assistance.  Check THOSE boxes.

Why you gotta be so mean?

For those of you who may not know me personally, I have a confession to make.  This may be shocking.

I love pop music.  Sure, in my eight years in Boston, I went to hear the BSO, sang in a bunch of early music groups, performed a few operas, gave recitals, and even worked on a few musicals.  But when it comes to making my heart glad or giving words to an unquiet heart or getting pumped up before a show, I don't turn to Anne Schwanewilms' luminous recordings of Strauss or Felicity Lott's Poulenc or even Dawn Upshaw's gut-wrenching Anne Trulove.  I turn to Joni Mitchell, Justin Timberlake, Jamiroquai, Beyonce, the Funky Meters and sometimes, like today, Taylor Swift.

When I was singing Flute at my first 'big house' - it's hard to believe that was five years ago - I was nervous as hell.  Not just a big name house, but also a really BIG house - balconies that seemed to go up and up and up and a stage that never ended.  I thought I was singing well.  The company peeps said they were pleased.  My colleagues were supportive.  The production was beautiful and I was having a good time, despite feeling incredibly green.  And then the first round of reviews came out.
Slam after slam against the 'talentless American,' comments about 'shooting off powerful top notes, just not necessarily the ones Mozart asked for,' a conflation of critiques about the character and the costume  (which, of course, the singer has direct control over the production design, didn't you know?) and my age and my voice that made me sit on the floor of my room and cry for almost a full day.  That was the day before I started final revisions on my dissertation with a vengeance (har har har), certain that I would never have a career as a professional singer, and determined to finish that dissertation and graduate as soon as possible.  After the first few shows, we had quite a bit of time between performances.  I'd make multiple pots of tea and spend hours proofing - today, we do all the French footnotes; tomorrow, all the English footnotes; the next day, every single citation.  Send to adviser, repeat.  My flatmates were absolutely lovely and didn't question why I wouldn't come out of my room for a full day and then spend three hours watching The West Wing while eating take-away curry.  I suspect they knew a woman on a mission when they saw one.

And then the most extraordinary thing happened.  I got another bad review.  For a performance the critic did not attend.  How do I know the critic did not attend this performance?  Because the other cast was performing that evening, and they identified all of the principals from my cast by name.  I laughed so hard I probably started crying again.  I went on my research trip to the Britten-Pears Library, I ate some more take-away curry, I finished my dissertation, I sang my first Britten opera, and then I graduated.  And I kept singing.

What does any of this have to do with Taylor Swift?

It's five years now since that soul-shredding experience, and I still remember the nasty words in the papers.  I still remember the despair and doubt and incredible uncertainty as to whether or not I could do my job or not.  Luckily, I've had five more years of professional singing experience, with my fair share of very good and very bad reviews (and everything inbetween), and those five years tell me that you can't please everyone, and you really can't please people who are determined to be displeased.  I'm in a run of a beautiful production right now.  My first Handel opera, my first role with NINE ARIAS (Lord, give me strength) and so much recit I feel like chatty Cathy, my first opera with baroque gesture, my first twisted ankle, and all at a Handel festival that sold out five performances and the dress rehearsal too.  I'm singing alongside some of the most generous colleagues, lovely people and great singers to boot, and we've put the last 8 weeks of our lives into what I believe to be a truly special experience.  There's been more press coverage of this show than any show I've ever sung, so it's a real shock to wake up every morning to another three or four reviews from news outlets across Germany, and even into the UK.  I'm not a guest in this house - this is my 'home house' - so I've also gotten a lot of support and positive feedback from my colleagues and house administration, and it makes me feel so good.  Which made today absolutely inevitable.  The first review that one could call downright mean.  Most of the less-than positive reviews, I shrug off, but this one actually made me laugh.  Why is that?
Because five years ago, I thought my career was over before it began.  That a few scribblers' opinions (I'll not call them critics, as a critic implies critical thinking, and calling them writers implies a command of language) could knock me out of the game entirely.  And this simply isn't true.  It just means there's one person who came to the show who really didn't like what I was doing.

Feedback is good but, like Miss Jean always said, consider the source.  If your board of directors - your coach, your teacher, a conductor who knows your singing, maybe your agent - says you need to take a second or third look at something, you probably should.  There's merit in fresh eyes and fresh ears, and constructive criticism is essential for growth and development.  I had some years of serious uphill battles, fighting against old habits and old voices in my head, trying so hard to get out of my own way, and I came out on the other side.  I am absolutely convinced this will happen again and again, because the voice changes with the body and the body changes every day.  This career is not a sprint - it's a long-distance obstacle course marathon tough mudder at night wearing a corset and heels.  But I'm not out of this party until I say it's time to go, and I'm just getting warmed up.

Which brings me back to Taylor.  Because someday, I will be singing in a big ole city.  And all that person's ever gonna be is mean.