Gracious Diva - an oxymoron?

When I finished my masters' degree, my voice teacher gave me a sweet little plant in a beautiful lavender planter with a card. The plant died and I lost the card in one of many moves. I don't remember everything that was written inside, but two words have been burned into my brain: "gracious diva."

Now the word "diva" can conjure some pretty negative images. A high-strung soprano socking a director at the Met, a tenor stepping in front of his supposed lover to hold that high note longer than seems humanly (or healthily) possible, two high sopranos hollering out, "Ich bin die erste Saengerin" in what seems like farce but might actually just be art imitating reality. These are only a few examples; I could call up any number of singers and come up with many MANY more.

But what does it mean to be a diva in a non-negative sense? The online etymology dictionary tells me that "diva" in Italian means "goddess, fine lady," and from the masculine form of divus (Latin) that means "divine one." In the singer sense, it means you kick ass at singing. It doesn't necessarily mean that everyone loves your voice or the way that you sing, but it does mean that your ability is undeniable. People can disagree at the tops of their voices about whether or not you should have done that cadenza or the nerve of adding the obscenely high note, but as a singer, being a diva means you are a force of nature. La Divina herself, Maria Callas, comes to mind.

Now most of the time, I'm so in awe of my professional colleagues that it takes the three ladies shouting, "The Queen! She comes! She comes! SHE COMES!" for me to remember that they're talking about me and I'd better get my butt on stage. I'm well-acquainted with my golden retriever people-pleaser nature that causes me to say things like, "You want me to climb up into a giant puppet hand and then you'll fly me down forty feet while I'm singing one of the hardest arias ever? Sure!" And when the director says, "Let's go back and run the whole act again," I'm usually the person who says, "Okay!" and scampers back to my place, even if we've already run this act multiple times and I've been given exactly zero notes.

But I'm learning things now. I'm learning that, even though the Fs always come out exactly when I need them to, I'm more susceptible to illness and allergies when I travel. My skin and hair are drier, I'm drinking so much water it's ridiculous. I'm trying to eat healthily (and on a budget) but it's difficult when you have two little burners and a microwave with which to cook, and a crappy grocery store nearby that carries a limited supply of organic and natural foods. I'm putting myself on the elliptical machine and sweating a crazy amount to stave off the crazy. And if I didn't sleep well the night before, chances are I'll feel more tired - it will show in the puffiness around my eyes and the slightly ragged edges on the first few warmups of the day. What does all of this mean? It means that I have to preserve and protect that asset that lives in my throat like my career depends upon it. BECAUSE IT DOES.

So this afternoon, when the director said we were going to run Act I again, I went up to him and asked, very politely, if he really needed me to sing my aria again. First, he said, "um, yes, I do." And I said, "okay, the whole thing?" and he said, "well......actually........no. We just need your entrance and exit to cue the puppeteers." And I said, "Great, I'm happy to do that."
And you know what? It was fine. I entered; I exited. Cues given. Done. But I had to ask.
This is something I'm not used to doing. The asking part. It feels like cheating not to sing through. But I've come to a strange and long-time-coming conclusion: it's okay to be a diva, so long as you're a gracious diva. Not the soprano who throws a hissy because she has to share a dressing room with another person when there are only three dressing rooms for a cast of twenty. It's okay to mark when you can (sidebar: I recently tried to mark through the Queen's arias. It's ridiculously impractical and a waste of time and energy. Sing it or don't sing it. Anything inbetween is just folly.) and to save your voice when you know you're going to be rehearsing for a while. It's okay to make sure that your break times are honored. Because no one will think twice about hiring someone else if you can't sing. It is no one's responsibility but your own to safeguard your instrument, and thereby, your career.

So I'm totally cool going up in the giant puppet hand 40 feet in the air. I will be super careful and double-check the latches on the gates and get a good hold on the structure. I will be conscientious about my movement and say a little prayer every time they release me into the air. I promise to show up on time, warmed up, wearing the appropriate footwear. But in the interest of self-preservation, I reserve the right to sing the five high Fs that Mozart gave me no more than once a day if we're going to be doing this every day for the next two weeks. And I will always say "please" and "thank you." Because that's what gracious divas do.

My 200th post - a non-event

Things to do when you're in an extended-stay hotel:

1. catch up on every single episode of Project Runway
2. watch Sox game one
3. re-acquaint myself with the elliptical machine
4. stretch
5. listen to the airplanes fly over
6. work on my dissertation
7. think about baking cookies - realize, once again, that I have no oven
8. make pudding instead
9. count my WW points
10. fantasize about public transportation that simply does not exist
11. plan my return to the Starbucks downtown
12. experiment with single pan cooking
13. wonder if Christian Slater's forehead has actually gotten larger or his eyebrows pointier
14. watch Sox game two
15. stare at the Chicago Manual of Style until my eyes cross
16. go back to the elliptical machine
17. watch Tabitha's Salon Takeover - wonder how many bad hairdressers there are on television
18. flip flip flip flip flip flip flip
19. ask myself a major life question: Would I really want to be Paris Hilton's new BFF?
20. sigh in disgust, think to self that Paris Hilton looks like a slightly cross-eyed not-very-cute Siamese cat and prepare lunch

Hope everyone is having a marvelous Sunday!

A prairie home opinion from the shiksa

No one who knows me doubts my love for Garrison Keillor. He is literate, articulate, humorous, wry, heartfelt, and he likes Messiaen. Four years ago I came across his book Homegrown Democrat. I bought it in hardback. I bought it on audiobook, just to hear his melodious voice speaking those tender words to my ears on the twelve-hour drives from Bloomington to Hattiesburg. I stood against a large metal pole for several hours just to watch the live show at Tanglewood and then stood in line getting my ankles eaten by mosquitoes so I could shake his enormous hand and tell him how much I enjoy his work. Long live radio - it keeps those of us who travel from getting too lonely on the road.

Sometimes it makes people skittish to talk about politics. In large groups of educated women, I frequently find myself shaking my head in tandem with them at the unfortunate turn this election has taken, embodied in the well-coiffed red-heeled persona of the Republican vice-Presidential candidate. We foam and froth about her lack of eloquence, her evasive answers, and her inability to produce the name of a single periodical that she reads. We, liberal women all around the table, scoff that she does not read the New Yorker. This makes the less liberal among us believe that we hate her because she is not Hilary. I can't put my finger on why, but Hilary never appealed to me. Qualified, educated, tough-as-nails no doubt, but her message never spoke to me. So my aversion to the woman in the Tina Fey glasses is not because my heart beats its last drops for Clinton.

I remember reading Keillor's book nearly four years ago and remembering his words - the Republican party is the party of fear. Not much has changed since then. Some people are so intoxicated by fear that they actually believe same-sex marriage will somehow endanger the sanctity of marriage. Many MANY of my friends are living testaments to the contrary. They are good spouses, good parents, pillars of their church communities, public servants, and walking embodiments of the golden rule. Some people believe that they can return this nation, this generation, to an earlier, purer, more naive time by closing their eyes and turning their hearts away from the future, from their neighbors, from their problems.

I'm not a die-hard Obama enthusiast either. I was extremely disheartened to watch him tiptoe across the aisle and tag the 'marriage only between a man and a woman' base. I was reading an article in my New Yorker (there I go again - does anyone have a band-aid for my bleeding heart?) about Jim Webb and his attempt to bring Obama to rural Virginia, to make him more relevant, more appealing to otherwise skeptical voters. There's this unbelievable segment about David (Mudcat) Saunders - a "good ole boy" of the highest order, and a zealous Democrat. When Webb was running against George Allen, Saunders came out to support Webb and spoke on the issue of a gay marriage ban that was on the docket. This is what he had to say:

"In my first interview, I said, This has nothing to do with queers getting married, this has to do with politics, " Saunders recalled. "This has to do with drivin' up George Allen's numbers. It has to do with dividing God's children. The one thing people better understand is God loves every queer every bit as much as he loves any Republican. It's about individual rights."
(The New Yorker, October 6, 2008, article by Peter J. Boyer entitled "The Apppalachian Problem")

It's about individual rights. It is my right to think what I want to think and believe what I want to believe and, whether I agree with you or not, and it is your right to think what you want to think and believe what you want to believe. I believe the Red Sox are among God's chosen people and that the Yankees can build all the new stadiums they want, it won't make them a worthwhile team. And you can cheer for the Devil Rays to kick the shit out of the Sox and we can all sit in Fenway Park together and manage not to kill each other because we are civilized human beings and we are entitled to the same rights. But this isn't about baseball. It's about welfare and security and ensuring the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity.

So I urge you, my friends and readers, to read Garrison Keillor's piece in the Chicago Tribune.
You want plain-spoken, he's got it. You want opinion without a lot of the academic-speak fanfare, he's got it.

More than that, I urge you to make sure that you are registered to vote and that you get your ass out there on election day or you fill out that absentee ballot. Because it is your individual right to have your say. So go have it.

On the job again

I flew to Syracuse this morning to start my first professional non-YAP opera contract. I'm here for a few weeks so after a fair amount of grumbling about the new baggage fees, I checked the bag affectionately known as 'Big Red' and schlepped my enormous laptop bag and a grocery bag of breakfast food onto a very VERY small airplane. Note to self: I don't like small planes. Not one bit.

The lead-up to this morning was a lot more eventful. My friend Zach was my zen shopping guru on Thursday and helped me find the perfect 'first day of work' outfit. Yesterday, I went to Kenneth Cole and a very sweet theatre major from Northeastern did an excellent job of helping me into not one but two gorgeous pair of shoes, pictured here for your drooling enjoyment. Then I went and chopped off a significant amount of hair to eliminate what I've identified as the 'ponytail problem.' So long as the hair is long enough to go into a ponytail, that's the only place it will go on a daily basis. It's still long enough to go under my Red Sox hat and behind my ears so I don't eat my hair while I'm running, but short enough that it has a lot more opportunity for me to maximize the curl possibility. Read: Now I have to fix my hair.

What prompted this adventure in fashion and personal grooming, you might ask? Well here's the thing. I've been a student for so long, I've forgotten what business dress looks like. I know what I can wear to go to class or to a concert, but the whole idea of a dressy look for professional purposes is largely lost on me. I have one audition outfit. I have multiple gowns. And I have three amazing pair of jeans, one pair of waterproof trail runners, one pair of regular running shoes, and a whole lot of shoes that are really meant to look pretty while I'm standing still on the stage. But when I walk into our first meeting tomorrow and I meet a new conductor, artistic director, stage director, and the cast of a show that's being re-mounted (that's right, I'm the 'new kid' in class) I don't want them to see a doctoral candidate with my JanSport backpack and my Dansko clogs and my favorite comfy jeans and tortoiseshell glasses. I want them to see an opera singer. Wearing amazing shoes.

Keeping score

This is not a post about sports. I did go see the Sox play the Yankees on Friday night after trekking into the city in the horizontal rain and sitting in Boston Beer Works while they told us the game was delayed for rain (it's raining? really?) first until 8:05 and then 8:30 and then when they stopped the game in the LONGEST INNING EVER to send out the grounds crew to pull the tarps over the diamond. Damn Yankees. Stupid Johnny Damon. But this is not a post about sports.

This is not a post about my career. I'm home for another few days before I head off to Syracuse to sing some Magic Flute with puppets and masks. Read it again. Puppets and masks. Like Mardi Gras, only with opera. I'm trying to locate my character shoes but I have a sneaking feeling that they are actually still in Seattle. A curious problem. I also have to figure out how to condense my stage makeup kit down to a travel-friendly size because I refuse to take more than one suitcase. As it is, I have issues about checking bags. Let's not even talk about London for two and a half months. But this is not a post about my career.

This is a post about math. In an attempt to get a handle on what I eat and how I eat, I started doing Weight Watchers. This is not about eating less or more. This is about eating better and in a non-emotional way. Eating the veggies and the fruits because they're good for me. Cutting down on the double steak nachos and beer on Thursday nights with the gang. Two beers instead of four. Eight glasses of water instead of two. Actually preparing soup and a sandwich instead of grazing on whatever happens to be at the front of the fridge. And so I asked my mother to send me the food guides from WW. She and Mr. Hart have had great success with this program and pop has managed to stop complaining about being 'starved and deprived,' realizing that two scoops of creole cream cheese ice cream really IS one serving, especially when you add strawberries to it. Yum! Anyway, the books came in the mail and my hubby is flipping through them. There are 'points' values assigned to each of the foods listed so you can keep score throughout the day - how many points you've used, how many you have left, when you're making a recipe or a sandwich or whatever. And then he stops and says I won't believe what he's found.

Complete A-Z Food List

Opossum, cooked, 1oz 2points
Squirrel, cooked, 1oz 1point

Wow. But what I really want to know is this: what's the Points value for Nutria??

Country road, take me home

In this case, the country road happens to be Jet Blue, who finally got their act together and rescheduled my flight for Saturday morning.

I haven't been home in nearly two years, since Christmas of 06, and that's just too long. I have cousins to hug, friends to drink with, and of course, Miss Jean, Mr. Hart, and their neurotic sideshow dog, Max. It's strange to say that I'm excited to go, in light of the recent evacuations and the storm systems still out in the Gulf, but I am excited. I want to sit shivering inside the local coffee shop, knowing that it's above 90 outside and I'm freezing because of the a/c. I want to order a shrimp po-boy and know that it will take longer because they're frying the shrimp right now. I want to drive across the twin spans and see the outline of the CBD when I hit the peak of the bridge, just for a moment before it goes down.

You can take the girl out of the south. You can even make her into a baseball fan who owns a house in Boston. But you can't take the south out of the girl.

I'm coming home!

Paging sanity

Dear Jet Blue,

Your customer service department is run by monkeys. And not the smart ones, either. If you expect me to believe that my flight to New Orleans tomorrow morning is 'on time' and that I can just waltz off the plane into a city whose residents are being discouraged from returning BECAUSE THERE'S NO ELECTRICITY, then you are smoking the crack rock. And as the immortal Whitney Houston told us, "Crack is whack."

Get a clue. Preferably before tomorrow morning because I'm not dragging my ass down to the airport just so you can tell me my flight isn't happening.

Disappointedly yours,
Shiksa Traveler

Listen to me.

It's taken me 28 years to know who I am. Listen to me.

I like singing Poulenc more than I like singing Faure or even Debussy. Listen to me.
I know that Beethoven is one of the cornerstones of Western music but I still don't want to sit through one of his piano sonatas or his string quartets. Listen to me.
I don't care if you think that there's no difference between Coke and Diet Coke, I can taste the difference so don't try to pull a fast one. Same with Pepsi. I know the difference. Listen to me.
I like the Red Sox better than the Yankees. Why? Because I do. And the rest of Red Sox Nation agrees with me so don't try to tell me that the Yankees are better. Listen to me.
I make my bed every day and when I change the sheets, I still fold the ends with hospital corners like my dad taught me. I know it's OCD, but it's what I do. Listen to me.
I like real butter, but the unsalted kind. You may not think it tastes as good, but I like it better. Listen to me.
I say [pI 'kan] and not ['pi kan] and I say ['pra lin] and not ['prei lin]. I make them and unless you've stood over the stove with the candy thermometer, don't correct my pronunciation. Listen to me.

I'm a soprano. A high one. I sing high soprano repertoire. And it's taken me a long time to figure out that I should do this, how to do it well, and exactly how much I can juice up certain parts of my voice without sacrificing my super high notes. Trial and error, lots of practicing, lots of listening, lots of mistakes, but I've taken a lot of time to get to know my voice. So what makes you think that you can make pronouncements about my voice and my attitude toward the 'narrowly conceived scope of what my voice can do' from a fifteen minute tape and a seven minute live audition? What gives you the right to tell me that I need to throw caution to the wind and blow out my chest voice because that's what is in the score? You're not the one with binding executed contracts that tell me I have to show up and sing that high F the number of times that Mozart put it on the page or else they won't hand me the paycheck at intermission.

It's taken me 28 years to know who I am. I've spent the last eight weeks questioning that because of coaches and pianists who presume to know better. Well I'm closing the question/answer portion of this segment. Your ticket is no longer valid. And not everyone has earned the right to give me their opinion. So step off.

Listen to me.

Testing, testing

*Warning - I was angry. I am still angry. I am not past angry. But it's where I am and I have to accept that before I can move forward*

My friend Stacey wrote a most interesting entry about an approach to wedding invitations that, as a person who fought tooth and nail with her family about inviting every single second cousin, really appealed to me. If I recall correctly, she had read about this in a 'how to save money on weddings' article on consumerist.com - how do we weed out the people who are coming out of social obligation and the hunt for free cake? Only the people who could answer the following questions would be issued an invitation to the wedding.

1) Name the city I'm living in now.
2) Name at least two of my closest friends.
3) Name my current employer and my past employer.
4) Do I have any kids?
5) Do you know the name of my fiancé? Bonus question: Where and when did we meet?
6) Do you know where my parents are and whether they are still alive?
7) Name at least two of my hobbies.
8) How old am I?
9) Where did I go to college?
10) Name my last boyfriend before this engagement.

Now I'm pretty partial to this idea. Thanks to a major natural disaster, my wedding was pretty small and included only very immediate family and friends. But I still had to address what seemed like a jillion invites and put a stamp on every single one, even the last-minute ones that my in-laws requested. You know, a week before the wedding when they ask, "Oh, did you remember to invite so-and-so, the guy who was my postgrad student and I was his thesis adviser?" Seriously? Seriously.

Reading Stacey's blog and the above questions got me thinking. I've been struggling a lot lately with my relationship with my parents and that sense of obligation that I feel that makes me buy plane tickets to see them every year, even though they haven't been to Boston to see me since my wedding. It's that little voice inside that says, "Well, if you left your husband three days earlier than you'd planned, you could see your parents for two days while you're in Seattle, just before you're about to work on a 10-day contract with brand new music and a director." It's also the same voice that says, "Even if you're upset with them, you only get one set of parents. You don't get to pick your family. They're all you have, you have to make nice."
And it occurred to me today that the voice that says all of those things belongs to someone. It belongs to my mother. The voice of guilt, the voice that makes my stomach clench up, the voice of obligation and 'don't be a bad daughter' belongs to none other than Miss Jean. And anyone who's met her in person knows what I'm talking about. If I have a well-developed look of scorn, she's got the Sears catalogue variety. If I'm well-versed in the art of disdain through politeness, she's on freaking Team USA.

Maybe it's not nice. Maybe we're not supposed to test people by quizzing them about their lives, or judge the depth of our relationships by whether or not they can answer these questions. Given her encyclopedic memory, my mother could probably answer all of those questions. But in less than a month, I'm getting on an airplane to New Orleans and will be there for ten days and all I can think about is how I'm going to balance who I want to visit and who I'm obligated to visit. I've got huge quantities of family - aunts, uncles, cousins, plus the parents, the brother, and the globe-trotting Opa who may or may not be in the States at that time - and I can say with absolute certainty that if I do not get in my rental car and drive my ass all over God's country to see (or at least try to see) each and every one of them, I will hear about it. Now answer me this - WHY MUST I BE THE ONE WHO TRAIPSES ALL OVER THE SOUTH WHEN MOST OF THEM DON'T EVEN BOTHER TO PICK UP THE PHONE AND CALL??

Even sitting here, consciously resisting the urge to delete that sentence, I hear that voice in my head:
"Now sweetheart, we all have obligations to our family. Not everyone has enough time to call you and keep up with everything it is that you're doing. We have lives too and we know you're a very busy girl with all that traveling you do. And it's your duty to make an effort to see your relatives while you're in town. And don't say that we haven't been supportive, we came to every piano recital you had when you were little and every choir concert. We've done our part. Now why don't you go set the table for dinner?"

It makes me want to vomit with rage. I have been so angry for so long and now that it's riding close to the surface, I feel it in every part of my body. I feel my jaw starting to clench and I feel my shoulders pulling up towards my ears, just thinking about my mother pontificating to me about the importance of being a good daughter, my duties in being a good wife to my husband, don't be too hard on your father he doesn't understand exactly what you do but would you give him a call please he feels neglected when you don't and don't forget to write your aunt a thank-you card, it's the polite thing to do. IT MAKES ME WANT TO SCREAM.

I've been trying to think of a constructive way to talk about this with her. Him. Either of them.
Maybe I'll write an email. Maybe I'll call. Maybe I'll write a letter. Or maybe I'll just never answer the phone again. Ever. I just can't fake it any more. I can't endure any more of the false politeness, the superficial niceties and the rehearsed speeches about what it is that I'm supposed to do to be a good and dutiful daughter. The phone works both ways and so do the airlines.
I'm so sick and tired of this fake relationship that involves one of us being shamed into doing something we don't want to do and the other holding the carrot of love. Because I'm not a child anymore. And I refuse to play this game any longer. I'm angry. And that's where I'm at.

Survivor

No, not the television show. I've never actually seen it, but it sounds like a silly idea to me. Even more silly than a houseful of 'exotic dancers' fighting over Bret Michaels.

I'm in my little room at Twood, listening to Beverly Sills sing the 'Dunque io son' duet from Barber of Seville and enjoying the fact that, thanks to the weird cold front that moved in, I don't have the fan blowing full blast to create a breeze in my stuffy (not nearly as romantic as a garrett apartment, I assure you) fourth floor chamber. Bubbles is on fire with coloratura and ornaments that are to die for, and while I'm excited to be working on this scene, it's been a hard few weeks. The Russian songs are memorized and sitting in the back of my mind, waiting to be resurrected for a development event in a week or so, I'm trying to motivate myself to memorize the Brahms songs that are simply too low for me, and in losing my bel canto virginity, I'm also trying to memorize a whole lot of Italian.

But really, I'd rather be hunting for the missing bolts to the bed among the unpacked boxes in our new house. I'd rather be dusting and swiffing and watching Sammy sniff the new place to be sure if it's really home for him. And most of all, I'd like to be back to the business of learning the music that is on the docket for next season and not constantly feeling as if I'm in the crosshairs of someone else's educational conquest, spouting all of the reasons why I should be learning all of this low rep that's not really right for me, questioning my resistance against opening all of those barriers that are in place not only for my own protection but also for the security of my performance. Security is boring, who needs control, safety is boring. I've heard this in so many different ways that it makes me resentful, a little spiteful even. All those years trying to figure out how to line up the voice, training it and the brain and the body to be at ease, under control but not controlled so that, amid all of the acrobatics, we can let loose and emote. And now you're telling me that control is boring, that seeing a performer completely secure is boring. That you'd rather see a singer make a mistake because they're 'in the moment' than hear the safer but perhaps less spontaneous performance.

I get it. The larger lesson. I get it. But I have my own timeline that needs to play itself out in singing, in acting, in therapy, before those barriers are going to come down in front of a roomful of strangers. And you can't tell me that Diana Damrau didn't practice floating that C in Caro Nome flat on her back in the bed in the Dresden production so that it looked spontaneous AND sounded gorgeous. Spontaneous but practiced. Involved but not over-involved. Rehearsed but not mechanical.

Yo-yo Ma was talking about the communication between the conscious and the subconscious in its most present and pliable state - half asleep, half awake - and how we can use that time to really experiment with our imagination. When I first wake up in the morning, once I've hit the snooze button and pulled the mask back over my eyes, I'm so relaxed. It doesn't occur to me that I haven't talked to my parents in more than a week or that those crazy English Magic Flute translations need to be learned or that I have to get new innersoles for my running shoes because that stupid right one keeps creeping back. I'm swimming in this warm dark place under my pillow, my jaw isn't clenched (at least it doesn't feel that way), my stomach isn't turning over with anxiety, and my heart isn't heavy and confused trying to figure out exactly when I put up this protective shell against conflict and hurt.

Why does life feel more like surviving than living these days? And when can I get off the evil merry-go-round with the bad music and the clowns who keep telling me to smile?

Omigosh (x4)

1. sang in a masterclass for Renee Fleming today. It was sixteen kinds of awesome.

2. saw the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra in an all-Mozart program. Who knew that three hours of Mozart would be exciting and not just interminable?

3. the new Harry Potter trailer is up online. Why is Harry Potter so RAD?

4. after tomorrow, we won't have an apartment. Just a house that's all our own.

Quit while you're ahead, says I. So I'm putting myself to bed before anything threatens to dampen my mood.

There is no halfway

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dynasty

One of my Tanglewood colleagues invited me to a recital the other night. She attended a music camp up the road for a great deal of her youth and, now that her sister's string quartet is in residence and her mother is teaching there and her father is teaching at Tanglewood, their family actually gets to see each other for the summer. Her parents were giving a concert with Lucy Shelton, a (mostly) new music soprano at whose feet I have worshipped from afar for quite some time, so there was no way that I could refuse. We dashed to her car just after supper and made the drive through what seemed like middle of nowhere Massachusetts, up the mountain toward Greenwood and she related stories of her childhood and early youth as a young musician, both parents teaching and older sister as a professional string player, caught in this tug of war between going into the family business or not. Another one of my friends was sitting in the back seat and, as his father was an 80s pop star and went on to do quite a bit of work in music both theatrical and popular, he was under a great deal of pressure to do the same. Both of them struggled with this but eventually succumbed. It was interesting to hear them talk about this family of musicians phenomena. A lot of my colleagues come from musical families - mom was a piano teacher or dad played violin or both their parents were singers or one was a composer and the other was a bassoon player. You get the picture. As I was listening to Abby talk about the summers she spent at music camp and the pieces that were commissioned for her and her father, I couldn't help but feel jealous. And then I felt bad for feeling jealous.

It is no one's fault that my parents are not musicians. It is no one's fault that my performing career has not made the circuit back down toward the homeland. And it is no one's fault that my parents are too busy or otherwise occupied or interested in spending their vacation time actually on vacation instead of coming to see me perform. It is no one's fault. I tell myself this regularly.

But it gets hard sometimes when you're on the phone with your grandmother and she wants to see you and you can't really tell her when you're coming to visit. And your mother-in-law is really ill and you're away at a festival so instead of spending the 36 hours that you and your husband have together sitting on the lawn with wine and listening to the BSO play Mahler, you're going to spend it looking at calendars and talking through the logistics of travel and care for the dog. And when you find yourself suddenly up to your eyeballs in deep conversation with Christine Ebersole about the incredibly complicated existence that is wife and daughter and singer and (maybe someday we'll see) mother and even she, who has managed to have this amazing Tony-winning career and a husband and kids and pets and film and stage, has no answers to the problems that are presented. It gets hard.

So I'm sitting in this amazing recital with Lucy Shelton emoting out of every cell and having a marvelous time, singing barefoot in this adorable recital hall up on the mountain in Massachusetts, the night air blowing in through the screen doors, the sky so dark that you can actually see the stars and there isn't even a prayer of cell phone signal so don't even bother, and I'm enjoying myself so immensely when I'm hit over the head with these huge waves of jealousy and emptiness. I will never do recitals with my parents. I will never be able to spend one lucky summer where we're all in the same place doing what it is that we love to do, that our entire family loves to do. And even though my two friends are talking about what a bittersweet and sometimes uncomfortable existence it is with parents who are musicians, I envy them their discomfort. What must it be like to say to your parents, "I'm going to New York to do twelve auditions this week, I really hope that the pianist doesn't poop all over my first aria," and for them to say back, "Well even if they do, you just lead with your consonants and sing as beautifully and freely as you can. Most of the people casting opera these days are executives so don't forget to wear the dress that shows off your legs, and say hi to so-and-so at the festival, we played all those concerts back in the day when your mother and I were in residence and there was that awful conductor who had a comb-over."

Most of this is fantasy and embroidered with my own longings. I wish my father and I had more in common than DNA, OCD and James Taylor. I wish my parents wouldn't call me and ask me for the nineteenth time, "So what EXACTLY is it that you're doing out at Tanglewood? We can't find your name on any of the programs. And you're not getting paid? Oh." Because it makes me want to vomit into my shoes. The nice ones that I wear for concerts. The concerts for which I'm not getting paid.

I'm a lucky girl. I have a sweet husband who's on his way here even as I type this rant, I have an amazing dog whose tail goes round and round when he sees me, I have a career that seems to be taking off, and I have really comfy running shoes that keep me from losing my mind when I'm just about to. So please know that I am grateful for everything that I do have, even when I take up much more paragraph space talking about what I don't have. It's one of those days.

The 'pro' column

There were many lists used in the making of this decision - the one to come to Tanglewood, that is. And it didn't occur to me, until one of my friends pointed out that James Taylor, Garrison Keillor, Dawn Upshaw, and Lucy Shelton would be at Tanglewood, that a person's presence could be counted in the 'pro' column. Well the 'pro' column was working overtime this week. I'm still all euphoric so this blog will be short on prose - I have to get in line for the shower.

Things that made it into the 'pro' column this week:

1. singing for James Levine
2. having James Levine blow me kisses
3. shaking Dawn Upshaw's hand
4. coaching Messiaen with Dawn Upshaw
5. having Dawn Upshaw tell me that I have a glorious voice
6. seeing 'A Prairie Home Companion' live at the Shed
7. paying zero dollars for this experience
8. hanging around after the broadcast to sing songs with Garrison Keillor
9. hanging around after the hanging around to meet Garrison Keillor
10. talking about Messiaen with Garrison Keillor
11. singing for Phyllis Curtin twice a week and hearing her tell stories about Copland
12. sitting in on Lucy Shelton's lecture on techniques for learning contemporary music
13. being the designated TMC fellow for the ushers
14. having the ushers know who I am and give me really expensive concert seats for free
15. walking onto the Tanglewood grounds every day and seeing the mountains and the lake
16. staying on the grounds today to stealthily catch the James Taylor concert
17. catching a little bit of the sound check in the middle of the afternoon
18. getting a standing spot right on the edge of the lawn
19. total strangers offering the use of their extra lawn chairs
20. my friend Alan bringing a bottle of whiskey for the concert and sharing it
21. watching James Taylor sing about the Berkshires while actually being IN THE BERKSHIRES
22. paying zero dollars to watch James Taylor sing about the Berkshires
23. Sweet Baby James

Life doesn't get too much better than this my friends. My dear sweet husband has almost finished painting our house of many colors - I'm the most excited about our Tiffany Box-blue kitchen - and very soon, he will come visit me. But not in the dorm. No sir.
In the meantime, I'm still all warm and fuzzy from the incredible happiness of hearing James Taylor again. So many wonderful memories from my childhood, my youth, my turbulent adolescence, and my even more turbulent college years. But he always brings me back to that happy place, soaking wet at Jazzfest with the people who were most near and dear to me. Who still are near and dear to me.

I send my love to you.

Shiksa prosaic

I've been here for a week now and I'm starting to feel the Tanglewood effect. It's hard to describe - people who have been here before talk about this loving environment of real musicianship coupled with a genuine desire to teach and mentor to developing musicians, the cooperation across the genres, the sense of community and the incredible experiences that we as fellows get to experience. My first official coaching is in a little over an hour so I've had quite a bit of time to myself. I've been running (2.2 miles with my roommate the violinist) and developing my ears and tongue for Russian vowels (jaw loose, pretend to say [I] but pucker the lower lip ever so slightly - do this forty times in front of the mirror, you're almost there) and translating my French - all of the things that we never seem to have time to do in the opera schedule. Most of my prep work is done on airplanes and trains but I've actually had time to practice my language sitting next to a native speaker and watch Clue in the lounge with the other fellows and take naps and go for runs and sit in a masterclass for two hours while Phyllis Curtin, one of the last remaining grand dames of singing from the 20th century, hands out her sage advice on the business and mechanisms of singing. And I'm sitting last night, watching the Mark Morris Dance Group do their dress rehearsal for the Brahms/Schubert/Barber program, listening to my amazing colleagues sing the Liebeslieder waltzes and watching these unbelievable dancers, turning around every now and then to glance out the back of Seiji Ozawa Hall because they've opened the retractable wall and the sun is setting, and I'm struck by how wonderful this is. We've been given this tremendous gift - two months in the Berkshires with the music director from the Metropolitan Opera and some of the most influential artists of the 20th and 21st century - John Harbison, Dawn Upshaw, Lucy Shelton, Mark Morris, Elliott Carter (regardless of what one thinks of his music) - and we don't have to pay for it. I was on the phone with my father the other day and he was having trouble wrapping his brain around exactly what it is that we do here. This is, by no means, unusual for my father - he frequently does not understand what it is that I do. But I found myself at a loss for words to describe the scale of what goes on here and how it really doesn't matter that we don't get paid because the kind of artistry to which we are exposed is steeped in a lineage of artistry so great that I feel humbled just to say I'm a part of it. Phyllis Curtin - who was telling stories just this morning about covering Leontyne Price at the Met in the premiere of Barber's Antony & Cleopatra and how her costume was so expensive because she and Leontyne weren't even close to the same size and couldn't share. And this weekend, I get to put on my pretty dress and heels and walk into the chamber music hall so I can sing for whom? James Levine. I'm sorry, what is it that he does again? Oh that's right, he conducts the Boston Symphony. And the Met Opera. And anything else that tickles his fancy. Right. That guy.

Pardon the gush. But on Saturday night, after I'm done singing for James Levine, I'm going to throw my dress into my backpack and slap on some jeans because Garrison Keillor is doing A Prairie Home Companion just across the campus. And that in itself is an amazing thing about Tanglewood. How am I spending 4th of July? Watching James Taylor from the lawn. And the week after that? Singing Messiaen in Seiji Ozawa Hall. It's everything that a musician could ask for. If only there were another women's bathroom on the 4th floor of the dorm. But one can't have everything.

Big shout out to my friend Jamie who is driving from St. Louis to Aspen - she knows this magic of which I speak, as well as the pain of sharing the 4th floor hall bathroom. Shower shoes. That's all I'm gonna say.

Shiksa in nature

So I'm out in the Berkshires for the next two months, practicing and rehearsing and spraying myself down with bug spray. The scenery is beautiful, hands down, and since I don't have a formal rehearsal until next Thursday, I thought I'd take in some of it with my roommate on a run this morning. So when our alarms went off at 7:15am, we both hit snooze for another half hour (I appreciate that we both made that decision) and then dragged our asses out of bed and into the outdoors. Now those of you who have been keeping up will know that this is about the time of year when I start running outside again, early enough to avoid the summer heat, and usually with enough sense to wear the proper attire. Well I was all set - sunscreen on the nose and the neck, with the Red Sox hat and the correct shorts and sports bra and shoes. What was missing? The correct socks. So about halfway through I discovered some evil hot spots on the inside of my arch. And then they multiplied. So now I have matching hot spots because I was not awake enough to put on the correct socks. Stupid stupid stupid.

On the plus side, we ran for 30 minutes and I feel like I could probably do it again tomorrow. Once I get some band-aids for my feet. Oy.

I'm also launching the assault on my dissertation. Yesterday, I put together an outline and started some writing and research. Today, I'll try to keep going on that, with breaks for Russian practice and lunch and episodes of Grey's Anatomy. Being in a dorm brings me back to those incredibly productive days when I could shut myself in a room for a week and come out with a masters' thesis. But it also brings me back to the awkwardness of communal living (read: sharing a bathroom with a hall full of strangers) and the reality of shower shoes. Eew. There's a reason we don't share bathrooms with strangers unless there is a team of people armed with industrial strength cleansers. Same with the dining hall eating arrangements. Plus side: neverending coffee. Minus side: eggs with unusually bright yolks. Plus side: large assortment of cereal. Minus side: unusual fruit-flavored carbonated beverages that do NOT take the place of actual juice. And I'm going to give a shout-out to the DP and remind her of those LA Tech days when we would create modern art out of our leftovers at the cafeteria. I'm proud to say that I no longer take more food than I eat, but when I accidentally put soy sauce on my salad instead of balsamic vinegar, it took all of my willpower not to use it in an installation exhibit. I'm just sayin.

Update over. Back to the Poulenc and my blisters and my turquoise Sigg bottle.

Next on "Shiksa in the Berkshires," Shiksa visits the Wal-Mart. Stay tuned.

Papi the patriot

Citizen Papi, whose cast has come off and has been replaced by a removable splint. Get better soon Papi!

NKOTB

My curiosity was piqued, I'll admit. I heard a while back that NKOTB would be getting back together and, since they're local boys, I think my curiosity was even more heightened - between the Sox season, the finals between the Lakers and the Celtics and now this, I've entered a new dimension of Boston fanaticism. I'm ten years old again and I'm listening to New Kids on the Block while I'm making my bed and singing along with a very VERY young Joey McIntyre. But Joey has grown up, as have I, and so have the other boys. Which means that, as a 28 year old doctoral student who's just come home from watching CNN while sweating it out on the elliptical machine, I feel a little sheepish to admit that I watched the new video. And then a few more of the old ones. And it is taking all of my willpower to tear myself away to get on with the business of the day because I really really really want to go find my NSYNC cd and listen to it while I'm cleaning the rest of the house.

It's an illness. And that illness is going to be in my head all day. Oy vey.

Someone tries to take Shiksa for a ride

Let me be clear about this. My mother is a hard-ass. Her parents were hard-asses. Apple falling far from the tree? Not so much.

So what, Mr. Stick-up-your-ass Seller, makes you think that I will simply lie back and think of England when you're trying to screw me over? You hemmed and hawed about the stainless steel appliances, to which you agreed in the offer, and said that it would destroy the 'country kitchen' that you had designed. We already know my opinions on the country kitchen, so I won't bore my readers with a recap. You sent the appliance proposal, even though you KNEW they were not in accordance with the specs laid out in plain English in the offer and again in the purchase and sale documents. You tried to tell us that it was not possible to find a refrigerator with an ice maker and a water dispenser that was Energy Star rated. This is, quite simply, a lie. And then, your agent had the NERVE to say that you really didn't want to go back and forth so much on the appliances and that we should just go with what you suggested.

Have you heard of the internet? Have you heard of HomeDepot.com? Are you aware that I can just make a few little clicks with my finger and see exactly what it is that you're proposing, how much it costs, and how it compares to the other appliances that are less expensive AND more energy efficient? Did you think we wouldn't look? Did you think we wouldn't do our homework when you first told us that you were installing a full set of Bosch in the house and that our eyebrows wouldn't go up when you turned around with a hodgepodge of older model GE?

You thought we were a young stupid couple buying our first house. You thought that because we were a young stupid couple we would be soooo in love with the house that we wouldn't research things, or that we wouldn't have the time and would simply agree to whatever you said. You thought that by indicating your impatience with the tedium of selecting appliances, we would be cowed into going along with what you said. Well I've got news for you mister - YOU THOUGHT WRONG.

I love this house. I do. I've already picked out paint colors for each room, envisioned curtains and shelving and where everything is going to go in the kitchen (which will be painted a lovely shade of Tiffany Box Blue). But I get reaaaaaally angry when people seem to think that they can take me and my husband for a ride. And it takes a great deal of willpower to write the kind of civilized email that I wrote this morning, in which I politely requested that the seller simply reduce the purchase price by a nice round dollar amount, a dollar amount that we would use to put the appliances in ourselves. But I wrote the email because I'm smart, educated, and have the strength of character not to reach through the computer and STRANGLE YOUR SORRY ASS FOR INSULTING MY INTELLIGENCE.

Fuck you. Nasty letter to follow.

So many reasons why the Red Sox rock, here's one more....

MANNY RAMIREZ HITS HIS 500TH HOME RUN!!! HOORAY MANNY!!

Hin und zurück

Yeesh. Now I really know how delinquent I've been with my blogging. My many apologies to the loyal readers in Deutschland who have given voice to their complaint. I'll try to suck less from now on ;)

It's been a busy month. I was back in Seattle for a few weeks doing this workshop thing for their new commission, a piece called Amelia (libretto by Gardner McFall, story by Stephen Wadsworth, music by Daron Hagen) scheduled for 2010 on the mainstage. It was a fruitful and relatively drama-free experience until the last 12 hours, the events of which I will not divulge publicly because my momma didn't raise no fool. Fortunately, the good people at Cupcake Royale and the makers of Pikolinos were able to rescue me from my funk, along with the company of some good friends. I returned to Boston, my fair city, just in time for the Sox to leave town *sad face* and to start rehearsing for my next gig, A Little Night Music with the Boston Pops. Tanglewood begins June 19, so I have approximately nineteen days to do as much packing as humanly possible because when I return to Boston in August, we will be in the new house, Lord willing and the creek don't rise.

On the house front - I nearly sent a nasty letter to the seller who had the audacity to attempt a little bit of rigmarole on the day of the purchase and sale agreement. He tried to say that he was not going to put in the appliances until our mortgage commitment came through because, in the event that we didn't take the house, the stainless steel appliances would ruin the 'country kitchen' that he had envisioned and, subsequently, the house would lose some of its selling power. Now let's review. It is NOT a great time to be selling a house. The sub-prime mortgage scandal has left a lot of people high and dry and so, to my mind, any seller should be thrilled to have a buyer come around who's putting down an extremely respectable down payment and wants to buy the house. So imagine my dismay when this guy tries to tell us, through his lawyer and ours, that our taste in appliances will ruin his country kitchen. I've got some very colorful words for his country kitchen, most of which my husband heard on the telephone when he told me about this ridiculousness, but this is the bottom line: yellow walls and white cabinets do NOT a country kitchen make. And we're painting over that stupid yellow anyway, so you and your country kitchen can stick it.

Aside from the aesthetic differences, the appraisal MUST include a stove, in accordance with the first-time buyers program from Massachusetts Housing. And for our mortgage to close up tight, the appraisal has to be complete. So if he wants to sell that house, he'd better put in the freakin appliances. End of story.

What else is there to say? I got my ENO contract in the mail, signed and sent it back, so I can officially tell anyone I please that I'm singing with ENO next season (anyone fancy making a trip to London in February?) , and my pianist Brett and I have been invited to perform the Harbison Milosz Songs at a very sweet little chamber music festival in Wisconsin, hosted by the composer and his wife. So if you're in Wisconsin at the end of August, come check us out at the Token Creek Chamber Festival!

I will apologize again if this reads like a calendar explication. There is more to say, and I'm still wrapping my brain around how to say it. But as a teaser, it involves the ashes of my grandmother, a Duck tour with my family, and why one should always be very explicit about their wishes. I'll say no more for now, but beg your indulgence - I recently updated my website and need some feedback about the formatting and user-friendliness. Feel free to leave comments here.

Shiksa is a weenie

It's the time of year when I pull out my running shoes and strap on the mp3 player, venturing out into the neighborhood to greet the blooming trees and reacquaint myself with the feel of the pavement under my feet. The weather has been especially beautiful so yesterday, when it was deliciously warm outside and the breeze was blowing, I couldn't help myself. I went for a run.

I have this ongoing romance with running. I like to read the magazines - Runner's World is my favorite - and I like the clothes and I love the shoes and I love the feel of the impact on my legs. Running is noble and individual. Running is something that great athletes do - marathon runners are like heroes in the city of Boston. But let me be clear - I am NOT one of those runners. I am the weenie who is so proud that she can scrape herself back up the hill and not expire on someone's driveway. I am the weenie who still measures her progress in minutes rather than miles. And I am the idiot who thought it was a good idea to go running at 1:30pm, when the sun was high and the air was muggy.

I went back to the gym today to redeem myself. Lifting weights is also something that great athletes do. And I don't suck at that so today I will content myself with my lifting and tomorrow, I will go running again. At a slightly earlier hour, before the sun has hit its peak. Yeesh.

New Balance has this new ad campaign about running: LOVE/hate. I think it's worth saying that this is an ongoing relationship. And yesterday, I got schooled by running, my on-again off-again fling, for being away so long. LOVE/hate. Grrrrr.

Shiksa buys a house

There's this great book called "Yiddish with Dick & Jane." It makes my heart glad on so many levels, especially in demonstrating the proper use of the word 'schlep.'

Jane works in real estate.
Today is Sunday.
Jane has an Open House.
She must schlep the Open House signs to the car.

See Jane schlep.
Schlep, Jane. Schlep.
Schlep, schlep, schlep.

Well Jane had nothing on us this last week. We began the house-hunting process exactly nine days ago when we went to see a private mortgage adviser. After three hours of all kinds of acronyms running through my head (PMI, DTI, ARM - don't all of these sound like sexually transmitted diseases?) and more numbers than ever crossed my path in my third semester of calculus, we began looking for a house.

The actual looking began a week ago, last Saturday, when we made the pilgrimage out to Dorchester. Now if you'll follow the link to that neighborhood, affectionately known as 'The Dot,' you'll probably find out that there are several beautiful parts of Dorchester filled with remodeled Victorians and Georgians and such. You'll also find out that it's more than a little scary to go there at any time of the day because of the incredible crime rate. Wonderful. I'd love to live here and go running and walk my dog in a neighborhood where you really shouldn't leave the block. Great. That was Saturday.

Sunday was church for both of us, and we decided to catch a few open houses before I had to go sing evensong. First house was beautiful, a newly converted classic 3-family near the Forest Hills T stop. This sounds like a good idea. The building is great, the structure is all revamped with new electrics and plumbing and such, off-street parking, bonus, no a/c. Hmm. Well, we live without a/c now, it couldn't be any worse, and there is central heat. Okay. House number two has now become known as the 'Fiesta House,' where every day is Cinco de Mayo. Oy. I would have needed a margarita every time I came home to deal with the terracotta colored walls. All of the walls, friends, all of them. Living room, dining room, kitchen, it was like there was a leftover paint sale for the Mexican restaurant scene. Remember the Crayola color 'thistle'? That was the color of the second bedroom. The bathroom? Aqua. NOT KIDDING. But it had central heat and a/c and yard space, etc. All good things. Big drawback - street parking. Hmm. Third house was a dive. It smelled funny and, despite the huge square footage, the bathroom was not only unusually small and had not been updated, but the single update in the bathroom was this weird vanity sink that looked like a mixing bowl with a spout hanging over it. Would it have killed them to redo the windows instead of putting in a chi-chi sink? Big fat NO on that one. That was Sunday.

On Monday our agent had some time and one of our appointments was canceled, so we took a leisurely drive through a few different neighborhoods. "You know those beautiful new condos you saw online? I'm going to show you why we're not going to look at them. Okay, see the building?" *nod* "Now look around the corner as we drive around. See that big brick complex that looks a little scary?" *nod nod* "That's the housing project that's being torn down in three years. That's why the condos are priced below their value. I just wanted you to know why we're not going to look at them." *nodnodnodnodnodnodnod* So we drove around for a while before our appointment at this house in Hyde Park.

Now let me preface this by saying that husband and I had several conversations about the house selection process. What's our first step - establish our price range. Second step - make a list of the 'must have' and the 'would like to have' aspects of the property, structure and neighborhood. Rank these in order of priority. Use this criteria and our agent's access to the MLS service in order to locate houses that are both affordable and desirable. Calculate commute time, research neighborhoods, rule out houses that don't take pets, rule out houses that don't have our top five, make appointments to see said houses. He asked me, "What about emotion?" My extremely naive response to this question was something like, "I don't really think emotion enters into this decision. We will only look at the houses that match our search criteria, so any of them should be in the running. It will just be a question of which one is the best deal for the best house."

I want to go on record for the benefit of my husband and anyone who came in contact with me over the last five days and say, "I WAS WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG." And I get that about myself. The wrongness.

So Monday, after our driving tour through Roslindale, Forest Hills and Hyde Park, we arrive at our appointment. I am immediately impressed by the off-street parking area that is not only paved but has lots of space, likely enough for six cars, but is only shared by the three units in the house. Perfect for turkey frying, note to self. I notice the three compressors outside as part of the a/c system. I notice that the yard is landscaped with terraced garden areas, one for each unit. We go in through the basement which is HUGE and has enclosed storage space for each unit, as well as the new hot water heaters and the incredible common storage space. Just right for refinishing a porch swing. Big enough for a worktable or three. Fine. We go up the stairs into the back hall and investigate the rest of the house. I'll spare you the details because it reads like a Harlequin romance novel with me falling in LOVE WITH THIS HOUSE. No bare-chested Fabio with his hair rippling in the wind, just me freezing my ass off on a cold day in my Red Sox hat, mouth agape in shock at the size of this place that's only supposed to be 910 square feet. But that's without the laundry room, the foyer, the enclosed and insulated sun porch. Did I mention the laundry room? Because that means we would never have to schlep our laundry to the basement again.

Suffice it to say that I dragged husband back that night to see the house. After a few more visits on Tuesday and Wednesday, we put in an offer on Thursday afternoon. I went to church for evensong and choir practice, phone charged and on silent in my hand the entire evening. We went out with our friends to the bar and talked about the house and our plans and how this was all happening waaaaaaaaay fast for us. Friday was the counteroffer/counteroffer/counteroffer process, and finally our offer was accepted Friday afternoon around 4:30pm.

So if everything goes as planned, on June 30, 2008, we will be homeowners.











Welcome to our home.

Back by popular demand.....

My darling friend Nicole intimated that it's been a while since my last post and, in keeping with her track record, she is not wrong. I've been quite busy in the last few weeks, coming back to Boston, back to back concerts, and getting ready for the great house hunt that began on Saturday and is continuing even as I type. Cross your fingers that we don't end up in the ghetto.

Something that's been on my mind a lot lately - respect. How do we define the respect that we give others, our spouses, friends, family, colleagues, etc. Returning home to Boston, a lot of my conservatory friends asked me how the program in Seattle was. Anyone who has read my blog has a pretty fair idea of how I feel about my experience in Seattle, but a few weeks' distance affords me a little more perspective. What did I go there to accomplish? Husband and I said that the purpose of going to this program was to 1. get management 2. get work and 3. better my craft. Done, done and done. I know that I did a lot of bitching and whining and crying over how I didn't make the friends I wanted to or how I didn't get included in the cool kids' table, but safe in the warmth of my office with my dog asleep on the rug, I can say that it all comes down to respect. You either respect yourself or you don't. You either respect your art or you don't. And you either respect the work or you don't.

My mom is a superwoman. She went back to school when I was a senior in college to start her bachelor's degree and pushed, full steam ahead, through her undergrad and masters with a 4.0 at the end of everything and then went straight into her first accounting job, and started studying for the CPA exam. And even though Miss Jean gets on my nerves, as I know I get on hers, I have a tremendous amount of respect for my mom.

My piano teacher is also a superwoman. She suffered a huge blow about eight years ago with a nerve disorder that left two fingers on her right hand unusable as a pianist. Many people would have closed up shop and taken up scrapbooking. What did she do? After many rounds of physical and drug therapy, she re-learned how to play the piano with eight fingers and came back to play my masters' recital. And with eight fingers she wipes the floor with many pianists who still have all ten. The Divine Dr. L is an ass-kicker of phenomenal proportions.

My husband is also an ass-kicker of phenomenal proportions. He has supported this insane opera career of mine for the last four years, packing lunches and suitcases and driving me to and from the airport and coming to concerts and helping me not lose my mind when I want to kill the people I work with. And he's put together a career of working for non-profit music schools (is there such a thing as a for-profit music school?) who desperately need the kind of energetic organization and innovation that he provides, expanding and revamping the music program at his church (even if by force, says I), and organizing and rehearsing concerts of his own music in his 'spare' time. Show me a musician who has spare time and I'll give you a shiny new nickel.

*Shameless plug - go to his website and listen to the sound files from last week's concert. Go now. I will wait here for you.*

Back now? Good.

What do these people have in common, other than that they're on speed dial in my telephone? I have tremendous respect for these people and many others that I've talked about in the last few years on this blog. And it's not just that they respect themselves and their art (my mother will tell you accounting is an art and, since I don't have the experience in that field, I defer to her). Most of all, they respect the work. And because they respect the work, they are in turn respected by their colleagues. This is what I want from my career. I want to respect the art and the work enough to continue to fuel the drive that makes me practice and research and read and explore. I want my kids to tell their friends that their parents are ass-kickers and takers of names. I want to come home from work exhausted from working well and working hard. And I want to still love it as much as I do now.

Things work out, you know. The truth is always the easiest path. It's less complicated to be yourself. All those cliche nuggets of wisdom that your parents told you, they're true. And I know that I'll get upset again when I have to work with someone who doesn't respect the work. I just have to remind myself that I get to come home to the husband and the house and the dog. And so long as I'm faithful to the work, the work will be faithful to me. The rest is, in the words of Alex Ross, "just noise."

Go shorty, it's your birthday (Shorty?)

That's right, it's my birthday. For another hour and fourteen minutes. A lot of people do New Year's resolutions, well I'm going to do something similar. My beer/pizza/cupcake-induced glow has left me prosaic, so here we go.

28 things I want to accomplish in my 29th year on earth:

1. finish my doctorate
2. buy a house
3. paint a room in said house blue
4. learn to make a really good red sauce
5. get to the point with my knitting where I don't have to look at my hands
6. bump up my Italian reading proficiency
7. go to a foreign country - NOT for work - with my husband
8. train for and run a 10K
9. spend time with my relatives in NOLA
10. spend a full day at the beach, any beach that's warm will do
11. reread Pride & Prejudice
12. eat more veggies
13. do more yoga
14. go to a Red Sox game
15. go to a Southern Miss football game
16. eat crawfish - lots and lots of crawfish
17. pick a haircolor
18. sit on the porch with Dr. L and shoot the breeze
19. get Sammy to go running with me
20. go sailing on the Charles again
21. meet Garrison Keillor
22. get my piano north of the Mason-Dixon line
23. learn a new role, just to learn it
24. swim in the ocean
25. accompany a recital
26. go to church - not go to work at church

27. get hired to do an opera back home

28. be more thankful

The doctor (ABD) is in

It's that other time of year. The time of year when people make decisions about what to do in the fall. The scholarship letters are being sent and returned, hesitant phone calls and emails are exchanged between teachers and prospective students, and institutions try very hard to make sure that they get the best people at the lowest price. That's right, I said 'price.'

Because it's that time of year, I've been getting quite a few emails from fellow singers who want my opinion about one institution or another, one teacher or another (or however many I'm willing to talk about in detail) neighborhoods, apartments, young artist programs. I'm pretty free with my opinion, but every time I talk about the masters' degree, I find myself with a funny clenching in my jaw and a taste of bitterness in the back of my throat. Why is that, one might ask? I've got two masters' degrees, one in musicology from a relatively prestigious English university, and another in vocal performance from a not-so-prestigious university in the south (God's country) that prepared me to apply for the DMA that I started at yet another university in the Midwest and am finishing at a conservatory that fancies themself the flagship of music education in the northeast. Pleased as punch, am I. Well hindsight is 20/20 my friends, so make yourselves comfortable - I'm about to tell it like it is.

Why do people get degrees in music? Some would say that it's to pursue some life-long dream of being a great artist and performer. Some are fulfilling the dreams of their parents who are convinced that their child is an undiscovered star. And still others want to share the wonderful experience of music with children through music education. I think that the people who become music educators must drink a pretty serious cocktail of hope and illusion to put up with the public school system and what a bunch of so-called 'educators' think music in the schools should be, which is why I didn't last very long in public school music, but that's another story. The true music educators, like my junior high school choir teacher and my first piano teacher, are right up there for sainthood, in my opinion. They are generous, kind-hearted but firm, and try to instill a love and respect for the arts in the hearts and minds of their bratty pupils (of which I was one, so don't think I'm unaware of the platform from whence I speak).

There are also a group of people who get degrees in music in order to get another degree in music. For many, the undergraduate degree in music is a holding pattern where we hone our skills in theory, learn to write papers about music that don't make us sound like idiots, read about history and context, and prepare our performance skills for the next level - the masters' degree. And this is where I begin to take issue.

Since when did the masters' degree become the new bachelor's degree? It's practically a foregone conclusion that students will go on and get the masters', if not an expectation. I know many fine teachers who do not have a doctorate. I know many shitty teachers who do. And after spending as much time in higher education as I have, I can only conclude that it's about the masters' degree - the proving ground where we separate the wheat from the chaff and all that.
My first masters' degree was in musicology - this happened by accident. The adviser for the Tudor Church Music masters' degree and I did not share many viewpoints on the role of women in church music, especially English church music, so I switched degrees. I got a new adviser, a wonderful man who made me cups of tea while spilling red ink all over my essays on Samuel Barber, and took a real interest in my work both as a performer and an academic. He and I believed (and still believe) that academia and performance should be at the service of each other, not mutually exclusive in their ivory towers. Performance should inform and inspire intellectualism, and research and literature should inform and inspire performers to be more expressive, more sharing, and broaden their base of experience, the experiences that allow us to communicate effectively in performance. Circuitous enough? Good! My nine months in Exeter kept me in the library for some long hours, and in the practice room for even longer, trying to put together my first serious recital of serious music, practicing so I could perform, reading so I could practice, etc, etc.

When I returned, I was hell-bent on sharing all of this with some impressionable young minds. So I taught school. This did NOT go well, and I ran screaming back to grad school and yet another masters' program. Opera history, 20th century music theory, voice lessons, intensive French, intensive German, French diction, German diction, choirchoirchoirchoirchoirchoir, opera theatre, musical theatre, coaching, playing, teaching, conducting, working, writing, 19th century music theory, voice lessons, competitions, recital. Basta cosi. Three semesters, poof! I have a masters in music. What does this qualify me to do? Teach school more? Perhaps. Teach college? Not for any kind of good salary, benefits, retirement, etc. So now what? I start on the doctorate. Now I've written plenty about my DMA so I don't think anyone will feel left out if I don't talk about my doctorate.

Let's back up to that masters. What if you don't want a doctorate? What if you're not ready to teach? What if you don't want to teach, you want to perform? Didn't you get a masters degree in performance? So then why are most of the people I know who hold masters degrees in performance NOT PERFORMING? Now I don't claim to know it all. I can only speak from what I've experienced, and this is it: Most masters degrees in music are the biggest farce ever put on by an institute of higher education. They claim that they are helping bridge the gap between undergrad and a performing career for young artists. Perhaps this is true for other areas of performance, but for singers it is a LIE. If the masters degree was all that was needed to bridge the gap between undergrad and a career, then the slew of young artist programs in operation would not be turning away people by the hundreds every year.

How old are most 'young artists' in 'young artist programs,' you might ask? In the Seattle program, currently made up of 12 singers, we have four (if I'm remembering correctly) singers at or under the age of 25. The other eight are between 26 and 33. Now how old are most singers finishing their masters' degree? Maybe 23. Maybe 24. How long are most young artist residencies? One to two years. And then what? Another young artist residency, and another, until someone decides you're old enough to sing mainstage rep and maybe experienced enough to get paid for it? What is this cycle of debt and bullshit that never seems to actually produce the promised result: the artist, ready to embrace their career??

It's not about the doctorate. I'm almost done with the damned doctorate and it's NOT about the doctorate. What do we need from a masters degree? More language, more diction, more coaching, more history and literature and poetry study, more stagecraft, combat and acting training, more workshops, more lessons, more masterclasses with people who are IN the business, not spectating from afar. Maybe a handful of people are offered these things in their masters' degree. And an even smaller handful of people are able to take advantage of all of them. But if I had a nickel for every singer I know who went house-deep into debt for a masters' degree, only to find that what they actually needed was another masters' degree, then I would be able to buy season tickets behind home plate for the Red Sox FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE.

So I leave you with this lengthy note of caution. Before you decide that your art is worth more than money or that you really need a conservatory education, think long and hard about what you want after that masters' degree is over. How will you get the performance experience you need to shape you as an artist? How will you afford coachings? Lessons? How will you continue to polish those language skills (yes, you really do need French, Italian and German, and a little bit of a Slavic language wouldn't hurt either) and pay rent and eat and see your family?

I admire Laura Claycomb a great deal, both as an artist and a person. She has a young artist corner on her website and, if she'll forgive me for borrowing and repasting some of her thoughts, I think this about crystallizes what I have to say:

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Expectations

What do you want to do with your life? Sing, you say? First, what do you envision as your "ideal" life? Picture it; what does it entail? Marriage? Children? The normalcy of a fixed daily life? Being with your family for every holiday? A close circle of friends? Having dinnerparties with your friends, holding opera/theatre subscriptions, teaching some, taking classes on the side, or doing charity work?
Really get a good idea of what is most important to you. Of these things, which is absolutely essential for you, and which is something that you'd like, but that you'd be able to feel fulfilled without? Be HONEST with yourself. There is nothing more tragic than someone who has talent, and feels that he/she wants to do this career, only to discover that he/she really doesn't like the lifestyle years down the road. Just because you CAN sing and have the talent does not mean you HAVE to sing. You do not "owe it to your gift" to have a crazy opera career. You owe it to yourself to be happy and fulfill yourself however you can.
I don't believe it's impossible to have a free-lance operatic career and have some of these things; but to expect to have all of them, and when you want them, is unrealistic and downright delusional. The reality of the lifestyle is much different than what you may expect, and it's better to be forwarned than spend all your schooling learning to do something that you'll either burn out on quickly, become disillusioned about, or both. There are compromises, and there are endless ways to deal with the difficulties. Or there are different ways to structure a career - you can concentrate on whatever period or style of music really lights your fire, and do concerts. Baroque music tends to provide more concerts than operas, for example. Or modern music!! There is a nice niche in singing contemporary music, also. Whatever your passion, study and do intensive research with experts in the field; really specialize - don't just say "that you like it." Remember that there ARE other things than singing the same old Puccini onstage!

Reality of Lifestyle for a Free-Lance Singer

The reality of life is that your operatic career is a business like any other, and some aspects of it must be treated as such. Work breeds work. If you're not in the "market," you will most likely not get many other offers. If you're working a lot, most likely, you will get more and more offers and even have to turn down things. In order to have a big career, you have to work! So forget the idea in the beginning of "I'll just do two gigs a year and teach and have babies on the side." It sounds like a perfect compromise, but A) performing usually takes you away from your great teaching job just when the students need you and B)if you're only doing two things a year, everyone's going to forget who you are, (unless you established a great name for yourself first) and the performing work will dry up. Let me be very simplistic and OVERLY pessimistic. Everyone thinks he/she is the exception to the rule. There are few exceptions to the rule, and one has to work really hard in order to earn the distinction of breaking the rule! Usually the exceptions busted their hineys for at least ten years, establishing themselves, and then decided to stay more in one place. More power to whomever is managing both careers, but I have yet to see someone who juggles both jobs of international performer and teacher perfectly.
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Be careful. Be thoughtful. But first and foremost, be HONEST with yourself.