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.
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