They can't take that away from me, or The girl with the silver sandals

As I was tooling around the hall in my (ugly) robe with the fuzzy stripes down the sleeves and trying not to fidget with the silly cap on my head (lip gloss attracts tassel, it's not pretty), one of my former student/colleagues said to me, "I love reading your blog.  It makes me hate my life less."  Well I'm in favor of anyone hating their life less, namely those in my profession,  because life is hard enough even when you don't hate your life.  

A lot has happened in the last two weeks.  I finished up my last set of gigs in Seattle, my parents came to see my new house for the first time, and I graduated with my doctorate.  It was kind of anti-climactic, really.  I went to church that morning, I put on my makeup and my festive shoes (sidebar: the silver sandals were intended for the graduation day, but as they did not arrive in time, nor was the weather conducive for open-toed shoes, I wore my clogs for most of the day until just before the ceremony, when I pulled out my black and white checkerboard wedge heels) and sat in a very small seat for a very long time while the president of the conservatory flapped his gums about the state of the institution and how they were using lots of money for "deferred maintenance" on the campus.  First of all, one city block does NOT a campus make.  Second of all, "deferred maintenance" is a nice way of saying, "this place is being held together with duct tape and if we don't put up some scaffolding and get it done, it's gonna fall down."  Then Ben Zander got up and gave a wonderful (and shorter) talk about musicianship and  wholly energized things, more speaking from the alumni president (snore) and the chosen undergraduate speaker (you, who say you've met every single one of us, what's my name?) and then finally the actual graduation.  Undergrads, masters' students, and at the very end, after everyone else, the eight people who were receiving a doctorate.  Two people from my class - good ole Matt put his nose to the grindstone and finished up same time as I did, three people from the class that started in 2002, and some others from before and after that.  I can't imagine spending seven years on a degree.  It's just unfathomable to me.  I would have killed or taken hostages or burned books or something along the way.  Four years was plenty.  So they put the funny hood on me and I beat feet out of the auditorium to the sounds of a brass quintet, and then tried to get home as quickly as possible to accommodate the 25 people coming to my house to help me celebrate.  Lots of little cooking things and five or six screwdrivers later (was anyone else counting? I sure wasn't...) it was the end of a long day in which I went from a normal (scoff) musician to a doctor musician.  Paging Dr. Shiksa, we have a pedagogical emergency.  

Major event, right?  Cause for pause, right?  Take some time to absorb the gravity of the situation, right?

Nope.  Got on a bus the next day for New York to do an audition for a competition.  A big competition with lots of international audition dates, one that I'll probably audition for again next year.  Did not continue with the celebratory drinking, hydrated lots, prepared for the singing of the arias, fixed the hair, put on the makeup, freaked out about the pianist being late, freaked out some more, and then made my way through the maze underneath the Met to get to my audition spot.  More waiting.  These competitions, the ones that are sectioned off by voice type, they absolutely make me want to kill myself.  Sitting in a room with NINE OTHER SOPRANOS who are all singing the pre-prescribed repertoire, NINE OTHER VERSIONS of "glitter and be gay,"  FOUR OTHER VERSIONS of the queen of the night's first aria, it makes me nauseated.  Seriously.  I thought I sang well, ate some korean food with my pianist, and made my way back to the bus.  Plug in macbook, insert west wing dvd, and wait for the ride home to be over.  Temp work at the church for a few days plus actual church choir work, a little shopping, a little facebook, a little watching of harry potter trailers, more work, contemplation of job possibilities, a job interview at a law office (people who are actually impressed that I finished a doctorate - how unusual), a job interview at a church that was canceled before it even began (how rude) some walking in the park, a tutorial at the apple store on websites (stay tuned) and then the email I got today.

It's not so much about the fact that I didn't advance as the numbers that accompany that fact.  When we auditioned for this competition, we were told that our singing would be scored across four categories, five points each.  So when I received said email, I went to check my scores, thinking that I might receive a little enlightenment.  Did I receive enlightenment?

The answer is a big fat NO.  I received a set of threes, across the board.  This indicates that I am wholly average, across the board.  Alternately, it could indicate that they didn't actually take the time to put in individual scores and just put everyone as average unless they made it into the finals (therefore: "above" average).  What do numbers tell us?  They tell us how we did on standardized tests, potentially determining where we went to school or how much we paid to go there.  They tell us how much our speeding ticket is going to be when we are caught by an especially zealous member of law enforcement sitting at the bottom of a hill (personal anecdote?  I deny everything)  or how many stitches we have to knit before we can turn around and purl on the sweater we're working on.  

If I were in a different place (as I have been many times since I read these numbers) I would think that I am a wholly average singer, and that I should just hang it up, embrace the doctorate and the teaching career, and get the lead out on the job search.  If I were in a different place I would question my worth or the originality of what I do, or even go back and try to micro-examine every tone that came out of my mouth three days ago.  I would question what I wore, my hair, my makeup, my shoes.  But I'm not in that place right now.  I'm wearing the silver sandals (which are fabulous, by the way) and I'm in that "screw you" state of mind.  

I am an individual.  

I am an intelligent and thoughtful performer.  

I kick particular quantities of ass on the two arias I was asked to sing.  

I look DAMN HOT in my purple dress.

And I realize that I was the last person before your lunch break, but I deserve more than a set of threes simply because you couldn't be bothered to use another keystroke.  I'm not saying I deserve higher scores, I'm saying I deserve a few minutes of consideration to consider if my technique played better than my musicianship, or if my artistic presentation was really as strong as my facility.  I'm asking for the consideration of someone who gives a crap.  Because I do give a crap about what I do.  And I do give a crap about my languages and my diction and my legato line and the cleanliness of my coloratura.  I do care about those things.  

And if that's not enough, I have a doctorate that no one can ever take back, and a killer pedicure inside these silver sandals.  And that makes Dr. Shiksa a ten, thank you very much.

Swinging for the fences since 1980.

Spring has been hip-checked by summer

Just two weeks ago, we were wearing socks to bed so our feet wouldn't be cold.  The heat was on, I wore a long coat on Easter morning, and the possibility of more snow did not seem unlikely.  This morning, I woke up at 8 and got out the door for a run around 8:30am.  I ran on the east side of the street in hopes of getting some shade from the houses and trees, and by the time I got back, I was wishing and praying for death and a cold shower because it was HOT.  According to the little widget on my dashboard, it's 81 degrees outside and it's not even noon.  I went looking for my summer clothes and realized that I need to get a new pair of squishy flip-flops and that I seriously need to find a new sunscreen.  

Educational sidebar:  Sunscreen has an expiration date.  It should be good for up to three years, as long as it's in a cool place like your medicine cabinet.  But you shouldn't be keeping sunscreen for that long because you should be using it EVERY DAY.  And anything below SPF 15 is just a joke.  

So I pulled out my trusty bottle of Neutrogena, SPF 45, for my little run yesterday evening.  And I was sure to cover my ears and my neck and a little extra on my nose.  But my skin started to tingle, and my husband said his did the same, and even though I know that my super duper Neutrogena is less than nine months old, it started to tingle on my face so I threw that business in the trash can and I'm going to the drugstore today.  My moisturizer has SPF 28 but that's not nearly enough.  I'm looking into the serious SPF 50 stuff that Aveeno makes, especially with the new endorsements from the american academy of dermatology.  Wear your sunscreen y'all.  No one wants to look like a Coach purse before they've actually purchased one.

Because it's warmer, I'm going to have to inspire myself into getting up earlier and earlier to get in the run.  By the time the afternoon comes around, I'm just feeling lazy and the sun is over in the west which means it's shining right on my running path.  Ick.  So that means I'm going to hang my running clothes on the armoire and put my running socks on top of my shoes and set my alarm a little earlier each day.  Because if I can get my butt into my running shorts before I leave the bedroom, there is an increased possibility that I will actually go running.  Otherwise, you're just some silly girl in her running clothes sitting on the sofa watching The View.  And I do not want to be that girl.  I want to be the girl with the firm legs trotting down the parkway.  The happy girl who sleeps well.  The happier version of myself.  So let's do the math.

run/walk

total time - 39:45

total distance - 2.89 miles

The goal: make this into my "short run,"  find a "long run" that doesn't involve dodging cars.

And finally, the countdown:

18 days till my parents arrive, 19 days till Dr. Shiksa

Hooray!

Doors

"When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us."

-Helen Keller

When perusing the blogroll that google suggests, I rarely find anything of serious interest. Angry people writing about angry things, a few opera singers who, like myself, share the same issues of insecurity and travel and jet lag and ever-flexible relationships with those two little folds that live inside our throats. But a fellow singer who, not unlike myself, is facing some changes in his life that affect not only how you do your job but where you do your job and how you life your life. He's in the thick of it, but someone else had this Helen Keller quote on their blog, and he reposted it to his and, at the risk of starting some kind of weird meme, I've posted it to mine.

I had dinner with my voice teacher tonight. It's his last trip to Boston, his last week of teaching, and the last time I'll see him before I walk across the stage and an administrator places my DMA in my hot little hands. We talked about his students and their seeking me out to ask for grad school advice, career advice, audition advice. We talked about my search for a new teacher and the idea of technique as process, an idea that I didn't even know I had until I was articulating it to another singer. I suppose it's more of a philosophy about learning than anything else. We seek out new people and new perspectives because our learning is ever-changing, and we seek those new words so that an idea, which may have always been in our consciousness, can be new to us. Same with singing. We seek those new teachers, new coaches, so that they may speak the magic words to us that create new neural pathways and reactivate those two little folds in our throats so that they may perform that same task of vibrating in a new and hopefully easier way. Even having this conversation with him was weird. I'm no longer the naive 24 year-old, fresh from Mississippi, with no experience on a stage bigger than a municipal auditorium and more time in an orchestra pit than on the other side of the footlights. But I'm not ready to assume the other role of the real teacher, the mentor who guides those young singers down the scary and treacherous path that hopefully leads to happiness. Notice I didn't say, "success."

I'm trying to be patient. I'm trying to keep my eyes open. I'm trying to keep those lamps trimmed and burning so that when the time draws nigh, I am ready to embrace whatever my future really is. I am treading water like mad and wishing I had a new language to learn, one with a really hard alphabet, or maybe some kind of complicated artistic craft, like glassblowing or furniture-building. Patience is a virture and I SUCK AT IT. But the door of studenthood is closing. Rapidly. And I'm watching it close. I pray for the good sense and awareness to look forward once it's shut.

To that singer-blogger-colleague, my heart goes out to you. It will get better.

Spring is in the air

It's a beautiful day in Boston, which means that we might actually be rounding the corner into spring, leaving that long winter behind us.  I was cleaning out my closet and armoire (with the help and coercion of my sweet husband) and discovered a pair of boots that still have salt stains on them.  I've put away the heavy sweaters and the waterproof boots, but it's not quite warm enough to go out without a coat.  I think I like this time of year the best.  Sam Summer is now on tap in the bars, which means that Sox season has started.  I went out without socks today and didn't even glance at my hat.  Tomorrow, when husby and I make our way to Fenway Park, I'm not even thinking about wearing long underwear under my Sox T-shirt, and I might actually have to find my sunglasses.  

Sunshine makes me unusually optimistic, so I'm especially gushy after seeing that my old friend Jeff is engaged.  And in his typical style, he didn't just propose - he brought his bride to a fancy French restaurant, disappeared mysteriously, and then sang to her.  Now as a girl who has swooned at the romance of singing (and who swoons onstage pretty regularly) I give Jeff extra points for turning up the romance dial.  Another wonderful man joining the married club, we're happy to have you here.  

It's been a hard month.  Lots of trips, auditions, a dissertation that finally got approved (that's right kids, they're handing me the doctorate in count it - ONE MONTH) and the constant refrain of "what's next" that will not stop whistling in my ears.  But today, I'm feeling good.  I told my mom, the closer I get to 30, the better I feel.  I have good skin (thanks to all those years of sunscreen and moisturizing), I have great hair (genetics), and the older I am, the happier I am with my body.  My voice is in good shape, my apron strings to the academic institution are being chopped at last, and I'm really free to do whatever I like.  I can teach, or not.  I can go to work at Starbucks, or not.  I can wake up every morning and watch Beyonce sing about how a diva is a female version of a hustler (sidebar: how exactly did she come to the conclusion?  And what does being a diva have to do with wearing weird clothes and super stilettos and tossing your hair?  What am I missing?  Girl has got some style, but I think she got some bad advice on that particular video.  I'm just saying.), or dance around listening to Justin Timberlake while I'm folding the laundry.  Now if only some of those options would fall away and leave me with what I'm really supposed to be doing?!

Oy.  In the meantime.  Fenway Park.  And a story about Chanel for another time.

Mean people suck, and another year of thicker skin

When I was in elementary school, I had these two girlfriends who lived around the corner.  Their houses were on the same street, and we would roam the neighborhood with some frequency as a giggly, awkward, nerdy triumvirate.  One of them even had the same birthday as I do (which means she's turning 30 this year as I celebrate my last year in the twenties) and I don't think there was a single Saturday in 1989 that wasn't spent at one of their houses, watching The Princess Bride or making papier-mache jewelry.  Sometime in the eighth grade, they both ditched me.  Without ceremony, and without warning.  This was around the time I became "one of the guys" with the boys in my gifted English and Algebra classes.  Despite my new status as the only girl among many nerdy boys, I was crushed that my girlfriends had deserted me.  They had moved on to cooler, more arch pursuits that probably involved tanning by someone's pool and playing junior varsity soccer or what have you.  And my mother tried her best to comfort me, saying all the things that mothers do: "They're not worth your tears, You're so much better off without them, They were intimidated by your intelligence, They need to hang around with underlings to make themselves feel superior."  Miss Jean is pretty smart in that way, and in time, I saw that they were hanging around with the intellectual equivalent of nutrient agar and felt slightly better.  Like that amazing quote from 'Some Kind of Wonderful' - 

"Look, I was hanging with you fungi in a vain effort to cool you out, but all I am getting is breeze."  Mean people suck.

What does this have to do with today's daily doings, you might ask?  

Just before an audition this afternoon, I was killing time in the green room and checked my email.  I found this message in my inbox:

A user has submitted their contact information.

Name: xxx

Email: xxx

Comment:

"most important sopranos of our time"?

Come on babe.  You're pretty and you've got a nice voice, but don't be a jerk by falling prey to the egotistical stuff that other young singers do.  Just be yourself and let your voice do the talking---okay?

A few things.  

First, this person left only a first name and last initial, and an email address that I seriously doubt is real.  

Second, the fact that they took the time to peruse my website and leave a nasty comment leads me to believe that they really have nothing better to do with their life.  

Third, I don't write my own bio, because if I did it would say, "Shiksa sings, likes dogs and the Red Sox, and wants you to hire her."  And then my agent's head would explode.  The bio on my website, and any print material that's associated with my career, is written and proofed by my agent.  It's their job to get me work.  

Fourth, mean people suck.  

Needless to say, I wasn't completely on my game during that audition.  I really hope I sang well, because there were some jobs in the room I'd like to come my way.  But who knows?  I was so wrapped up in this horrible vortex of, "Do people really think I'm some kind of self-aggrandizing jerk who would actually purport myself to be an important singer?  Does this person know me and think this?  And if they don't know me, have they heard that I'm a huge self-important diva?  Does my headshot say that I'm a huge self-important diva?"  It was awful, just awful.  And I fretted and fretted and called my husband and my mom and fretted some more.  While I was buying a birthday cupcake for my colleague Liz, I treated myself to a mini-cupcake and tried to gain some perspective between the cake and the frosting.  Still finding it lacking, I ran 4.5 miles.  And I tell you what people, clarity sure as shootin does come between the third and fourth mile, when you no longer care about anything other than why somebody bumped the fan that was blowing on you.  I was watching CNN, all the kerfuffle about GM and Chevrolet and Madonna adopting some little girl in Malawi and none of it even made a dent. Because I was in the quiet place in my head.  

My feelings were hurt, are hurt, that someone who probably doesn't know me at all would take the time to try to bump me down a peg.  I have worked very hard for this peg.  I have worked nearly 29 years to get this peg to where I want it to be.  I'm good at what I do, and I know what I know, and I'm getting better at accepting who I am (fierce warrior queen - that's another story) and even liking who I am.  I think grace comes with age, and I think muscle comes with more mileage, and I've got new Smartwool socks to aid me on that particular journey.  But Miss Jean was right back in eighth grade, and she's right again today.  That thicker skin that I'm so reluctant to grow, it does help us protect ourselves from those who would hurt us, simply because they can.  So here's to another year of grace and thicker skin.  Now it's time to see how my to-do list from this year shaped up:

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

Half isn't bad, and I'm confident that I'll still accomplish some of those before 2009 is out.  And speaking of gratitude, I'm going to do 10, because gratitude is most needed on the days when things are sucky, like today.  Let's do this.

1.  one of my colleagues, who reached out and hugged me today without any kind of warning, simply because she saw I was hurting

2.  the silent and comforting monotony of the treadmill

3.  random days of sunshine in Seattle

4.  my parents, who are nuts, but they're mine and I love them

5.  good moisturizer

6.  dogs, because they never lie

7.  seven days till home and house

8.  friends both far and near

9.  red beans and rice from the Steelhead Diner - who knew I could find real southern cooking at a diner in Seattle?

10.  my husband, who always offers a great vengeance plan, and then tempers it with, "But that wouldn't make you feel better, would it."  He's the best.

Poop on your head, mean person in the internet abyss.  Dr. Shiksa (thank you very much) is too cool for your drama.

Blue bayou

I'm listening to the Cox Family sing "Blue Bayou" and it pulls at my heart so badly I can hardly breathe.  I've been doing these Skype interviews for my friend's elementary music classes and they get to ask me all kinds of questions about my job and my life as an opera singer.  Notice I make the distinction - my job is NOT my life.  Maybe it used to be, but I'm really working hard to remedy that.  Kim Witman has been talking recently about singing on your interest instead of on your principal - continuing to build that technique so you're not eating away at the raw materials of your talent.  She also talks about living on your interest instead of your principal.  This is a subject that goes unmentioned in most round-table opera discussions.  People talk about managing their jet-lag, they talk about dealing with complicated income taxes, they dish about managers and directors and where they're staying, but no one ever talks about the life part of this business.  The part where you leave that house, the house you saved for and finally bought, and the family that you never get to see except now and then when they can come to one of your performances, and the friends that you don't really get to visit with unless you happen to be between gigs.  Well those little ones just reached right out and pushed the buttons.  They asked me if I get lonely being away.  They asked me if the people I work with become like my family.  They asked me if I plan to have kids.  They asked if I ever regret going into this profession.  Who knew that agreeing to do a few little Q&A sessions with seventh-graders would stir up so many sore subjects?  

I have a new running buddy.  We were out the other day talking about subletting in Seattle and how the majority of furnished sublets you'll find are with six frat guys in the U district and thank you very much but NO I will not be staying there.  He said it didn't really strike him as the type of place I would go for and I joked that I was either very transparent or he was a good judge of character.  And he paid me the most interesting compliment - he said that it was probably a little of both, because I struck him as a person who's very self-aware, but also unapologetic about who I am.  

Unapologetic.  Self-aware.  

Well that's about the nicest thing someone's ever said to me while pounding out a few miles of pavement.  

I've been thinking a lot about perception, especially when it comes to auditions.  I'm a tall girl.  Can't change that (sorry to the costume designer who thought putting me in flats would somehow disguise how much taller I am than the countertenor - that ship has sailed sweetie) and really I wouldn't want to.  I've got presence.  I'm a smart girl.  And no amount of eyelash batting seems to conceal that I really do know what I'm talking about.  I keep giving off this worldly-wise-vibe that takes me out of the running for every young milkmaid part that involves looking like easy prey for some local nobleman.  Because chances are, I could bat my eyelashes but I would still look like I was going to clock him with the milk pail.  

I have to believe that I am meant to be who I am.  I am meant to be a tall, self-possessed, academically-minded individual who can rattle off the names of Poulenc scholars.  I am meant to be this person.  And anyone who can't deal with this probably won't hire me.  And I have to be okay with that too, because there are enough people who see my strengths as advantages, and I want to work with THEM.  People who think tall is beautiful and statuesque, and I have to stop trying to fake this stupid soubrette that I'm simply NOT.  And I have to take this opera-free summer as a blessing in disguise and enjoy my time at home with my husband and my dog and my house.  Take long runs.  Experiment with new recipes in the kitchen.  Go to the beach and enjoy the wind off the Cape.  And maybe, just maybe, take a long vacation to the homeland and not worry about spending too much time with my family, lest we drive each other crazy.  Families make each other crazy, and the place where you grew up can be a place that stirs up old weirdness.  But there it is.  Unapologetic.  

So let that be the goal for my 29th year.  To live up to that compliment.  To be unapologetic and self-aware.  To really embrace myself and all of my flaws.  I've got just under two weeks to get ready for that challenge, so let's get going.

I'm going back someday, come what may, to Blue Bayou

Two kinds of people

Last night I was having a chat with Ian, the revival director of Flute.  He was telling me how there are two kinds of people: those who pack their suitcases two days in advance and sit there, poised and ready to go to the airport at any moment.  And people who don't.  

Three guesses which one I am.  

I'm still sitting in my pyjamas, reluctant to get in the shower because it means I must acknowledge my impending departure from this experience, my international debut, my two and a half months in London, my reacquaintance with some really wonderful friends, and my work on a production that has become so incredibly dear to me.  And when I say impending, I mean I have to leave this house in a little over an hour.  My husband would be pulling out his eyebrows with frustration, were he here to see this.  

Now don't think I'm totally unprepared.  The bed is stripped, the suitcase just needs to have the toiletries thrown into it, and the clothes I'm going to wear are laid out and ready.  It's just me that's not ready.  Last night, I got to the theatre nice and early so I could put cards in the rooms of my colleagues.  I even stocked up on mindless reading material (a big thank you to Stephanie Meyer, for writing those inane Twilight books - you're keeping the crazy away on those long flights) so I was all set when Eddy came in to do the wig.  I gave my dresser and my makeup artist their gifts - large bottles of alcohol always seem appropriate at the end of a long run of a show - and tried hard not to contemplate how many friends and important people were in the audience.  And suddenly, poof!  they're calling my name over the intercom to get up on the rock, George the birdman tells me thank you and he hopes we'll see each other again, my little dove behaves herself like a good girl should, and then Rob and I just go out there and have a good time.  This is the best part of my job.  When you're onstage with a colleague and you're both having such a good time, you can flash your eyes at them and they flash theirs back, and you know you're both doing your jobs and enjoying each other's company.  Same way in the second aria - I'm shrieking down at SJ, and she's grinning up at me, examining my back molars, and in those little secret moments, we're just two singers on stage, having a fabulous time in really kick-ass costumes.  

It's over all too quickly.  Some people hate doing the long run.  They would rather have their eyelashes plucked out at the root than do a revival of Magic Flute.  And maybe the guy from that audition is right - maybe I will have to say no to Queen someday.  But that day is not today, nor will it be any time this year, Lord willing and the creek don't rise.  

To all of my singer friends, I wish you the kind of happiness and support I received on this production.  We should all endeavor to be better colleagues, better stewards of our craft, more generous with our art and our time, and more open to the possibilities that lie in these old productions.  

Shit.  Now I really do have to get in the shower.  

1.  for my excellent and estimable colleagues - who made this experience beautiful and memorable

2.  for my sweet husband and dog - who were willing to let me go for two and a half months so I could do this

3.  for my dear dear friends in London - who came to the performances and were loud and raucous and made me feel as if I might belong here

4.  for the opera gods, who smiled on us almost every night, and for George the birdman, who made sure the birds were always magnificent

5.  for the gorgeous day outside that makes me wish I had just one more day to walk through the park, to meet my friends for coffee and cake, to go to the theatre

6.  (because my heart is swelling a little) to the city of Boston - I'm coming home!

Make new friends, but keep the old

I was walking through Covent Garden with Ayla today, shooting the bull like we always do, when I was seized by a sudden realization that I'm actually leaving London in two days.  This means that I won't get to ring up my friends and make dates for French pastry, or get on the tube to go eat pancakes with them, or even just send silly texts to talk about how crap the TFL is.  And it made me a little sad.  

I've been away from Boston for two and a half months.  I'm sitting here in my Red Sox t-shirt (birthday gift from husby last year) and jammy pants and I absolutely can't wait to be home in my house with my sweet puppy and my washing machine and my DRYER (oh how I've missed my dryer) and my DISHWASHER (let's not even go there - it's a Russian novel) and all of the clothes that I left behind.  It will be like an episode of What Not To Wear, where they show footage of some poor soul wearing the same clothes over and over again on video, and then they give her this great wardrobe.  Yep, that's me, the girl wearing the same black sweater for two and a half months, because I had to do this operation in one large suitcase.  Good thing I like that black sweater.  Yeesh.  I just want to wear a different coat.  My black trench coat needs to go back into the closet, and stay there for a while.  But I digress.  

Ayla and I ended up sitting at Pret, waiting for another girlfriend of mine and her new boyfriend to arrive.  We were joking about how we just walk around and shoot the shit (sex and boys, sex and boys, she says) and then about the occasional interruptions for architecture and art history lessons (sex and boys, sex and boys, ooh look it's a combination of neo-Gothic and Victorian architecture! sex and boys) and then my googling at dogs on the street (sex and boys, Gothic Revival, look a labrador! sex and boys).  It occurs to me how much I will miss this girl.  We met ten years ago, at very silly ages, and totally hit it off.  Ten years later, we're no longer quite so silly, but our love for pencil cases (mission accomplished!) and good cups of tea and the incredible ease of company has remained.  Hubby says it's because neither of us suffer from the "smartest girl in the room" disorder when we're together.  

After supper, I took a little time to walk around, popping in and out of shops, gently deflecting comments from people about the "smudge" on my forehead (um, hello, it's Ash Wednesday?) and realizing how comfortable I've started to feel in London.  I know my way around so much better than I ever did, and the warm fuzzies from the ENO people make me hope and pray that I will be hired back.  I'm not ready to cross London off the list.  In how many other cities could you go to a Templar church, and buy a Japanese pencil case, and then go to the opera, and see the crown jewels, and listen to a real Evensong service, all in one day?

So.  I've lapsed a little in my habits of betterment.  Let's get back on the horse.  For Lent, I'm giving up trying to relive the old lives of myself, chocolate, and sleeping past 9am.  And I'm bringing back the gratitude, because there's so much I have to be thankful for.  Let's do it.

1.  Muji - the silly store full of fun organizational things that make my heart hum

2.  good friends, who still remember how silly I was 10, 5, 2 years ago, and like me anyway

3.  an Ash Wednesday service in which I was neither leader nor singer

4.  the kindness of strangers

5.  progress, grace, and humility, in no particular order

Penitential seasons

Yesterday was Mardi Gras, one of my absolute favorite holidays that I haven't been home to celebrate in years and years. At least I was with some friends who decided to make pancakes - the yummy little thin French ones that you put sugar and lemon on. And nutella. Ohhhh nutella. So I woke up this morning, still trying to figure out what I'm going to give up for Lent.

Letting go of things is important. These last few weeks have been really strange for me. I've been grilled about my degree, I've gotten absolutely rotten reviews, I've had this enormous train of friends come through London to see the show and I've flown and driven all over the UK for auditions. And while visiting some of those old places I had to really look hard at the old times. Sitting in the pubs where I drank myself silly as a 21 year-old masters' student, I was remembering how hard those times were, how uncertain I was and how much I DO NOT MISS THOSE TIMES.

So this is where I'm at. Sometimes you can't get those things back, and you can't get those times back, and sometimes you really don't even want to. I'm giving up looking back. No more.

Three days till home. Eyes on the prize.

Greatness at work

I just got home from the dress rehearsal for Doctor Atomic.  It opens this Wednesday and if any of my readers (lurking out there in the blogosphere) happen to be in London, GO SEE IT.  I've never seen a John Adams opera before, or any opera that made use of amplification and effects of this magnitude, but it really was an amazing sight to see.  I felt that the drama was very well-written and executed beautifully, and the singing was just breathtaking.  I have a huge singer crush on Gerald Finley now, which makes me one of the many, but he's such a consummate artist.  Such finely honed singing, so excellently crafted and finessed, and with the kind of diction that you usually hear on recordings.  As a point of home-turf pride, I was happy to see that Sasha Cooke turned out marvelously well.  Our Seattle Opera parents are bursting with excitement to have two former young artists on the mainstage at ENO, and now I can go there next week and tell them I saw her kick ass with my own two eyes.  Lots of good singing up on that stage, a few minor mishaps with the raising and lowering of shades, but I was absolutely riveted to my seat.  Another one of those days where I just love what I do for a living because it means I get to sit in the opera house and watch greatness happen.  

Katrina and I were sitting in Paul today, nibbling on french macaroons and almond pastry and quiche, and I was telling her about my most recent crisis of career/conscience/life.  At an audition last week, I suddenly found myself in an episode of Jeopardy, getting grilled about everything from where I went to school to what I studied and why, and whether or not I was finishing the doctorate and why did I start it and did I really want to be a singer.  Now everyone I've told this story to butts in at this juncture and says, "Um, did you tell them that HELLO you already ARE a singer???"  While I agree with them, that's not really the kind of attitude you want to throw down when hoping to be hired, so I did a lot of creative tap dancing to get out the door without offending the people on the audition panel.  When I mentioned it to my agent, they told me that the concern is not so much that I might be less-than-devoted to the profession of singing, it's that an opera singer might be too intelligent.  Read: more intelligent than the people directing/coaching/conducting them.  It's a very complex issue for me.  I've spent all this time and effort working on finishing this degree with both speed and success, I've managed to write and edit a dissertation while maintaining a full performing and auditioning schedule, and now that I'm on the precipice of finishing (the disser went to committee last week, let's hope they will have an answer for me soon) I have to effectively shelf my intelligence so that I don't scare the people I want to employ me.  Now no one wants to hire a singing idiot who can't put together two grey cells to get from stage right to stage left, but no one likes the smartest kid in the class either.  This has been a long-standing source of contention with my colleagues that's well-documented in this blog, so I won't belabor the point by expounding further.  Needless to say, I was pondering the duplicity of this philosophy at the opera tonight.  John Adams wrote some seriously hard music, and it makes me think that the people involved in that production are of serious musical cred to be able to pull it off successfully.  Would John Adams care whether or not the singers were too intelligent?  Or would he be grateful that they had spent twelve years in higher education so they could execute his score with expedience and accuracy and artistry?  Points to ponder.

Three days till the close of Flute.  Four days till I fly back to Boston, green money, and my sweet life in my sweet house with my husband and dog.  And six days till I fly to Seattle to start Midsummer.  Eeep.

A beautiful day in the neighborhood

Or borough, as some might say.  Hubby left early this morning after one long whirlwind of a week that involved a trip to Glasgow for an audition, a quick run-out trip to Exeter for a bit of nostalgia, more auditions, and two performances of Flute with a veritable revolving door of friends from the States.  The show is going really well - last night's performance was especially fun, with the added benefit of hubby and friends in the audience raising a serious ruckus, and a visit from a UN ambassador who couldn't make it to the end of intermission without coming backstage to meet me.  Seriously.  There was a tiara, and they called her "her excellency."  

So now that the sun is shining and the cloud of grey seems to have lifted from its permanent place over the UK, I find myself feeling a little melancholy.  How strange to long for sunshine and then be a little surprised when it shows up.  It was a hard week for us.  One of my husband's friends from high school was killed in a plane crash - the one that went down in Buffalo - and he's been taking it, well, exactly as one expects to take it.  Hard.  You reconsider your life when faced with death.  Am I doing what I should be doing?  Am I living up to my potential?  What is my potential?  Should I have done (insert list of potential life choices) instead of (insert list of life choices actually made) and would it have made a difference?  Hard to say on all counts.  In the same week, I found out that one of my high school classmates died.  The paranoid superstition within me says, "ohhhhh crap, bad things come in threes, please let it be over...." but it doesn't feel like that.  When I think about it, it feels nothing.  Numb.  I was not close with either of these people who died, but when I contemplate their seemingly senseless deaths at incredibly young ages, it makes me want to get on a plane and fly home and see my grandmother and my aunts and uncles and cousins and even my crazy parents and my reclusive brother.  It makes me want to call everyone I've lost touch with, just to make sure they're okay.  One of my high school boyfriends turned up in a dream the other night - he hasn't spoken to me in ten years, but there he was, in my subconscious, and I awoke with this panic.  It's irrational, I know it is.  And my sweet husband petted my arm and told me to go back to sleep, because that's just how great he is, but I confess I'm still going through that mental list of, "wow, I haven't spoken to them in forEVER, I wonder how they're doing."  Facebook is the devil and only enables this kind of morbid curiosity, so I'm trying to keep it to a minimum.  

It's not the same for my husband.  He had a relationship with his friend who died, he had personal memories and photos and a friendship to think about.  I have these snippets from high school, passing conversations, vague remembrances, and a generally warm feeling about the person who has died, a well of sadness for his family, and this little voice in my head that says, "why on earth are you gallivanting around the planet doing this silly opera business instead of sitting at home with your family?"  

Separation is an ongoing theme for me.  Meeting new people, living with strangers, coming home to my husband and the dog and my friends in Boston.  Packing, repacking, unpacking.  Wash, rinse, repeat.  And along the way, some things do get left behind.  But how do we choose what to take with us as we go forward?  How do we sift through the everyday and the pedantic and the frivolous and hold on to the dear and precious?  

Call your parents.  Better yet, call mine, will you?  They're crazy, but I'll keep them just the same.  

A trip to the library

I don't have an inner nerd.  I have an outer nerd that is frequently cloaked in costumes and outfits that make me look like an opera singer instead of a musicologist.  Well Monday was "come as you are," and Ayla and I got on the train at 7:38am to Saxmundham, en route to Aldeburgh and the Britten-Pears Library.  One train, one very confused bus driver, and a little tromp through the mud later, we arrived at the Red House on Golf Lane, also known as the home of Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears.  Nerd heaven.

Three hours, three boxes of archival scores (annotated in Colin Graham and Britten's handwriting), and a stack of uncatalogued photographs later, the archivist suggested that we break for lunch.  And here's where the real festivity began.  Ayla and I traipsed into Aldeburgh to get something hot to drink - the rain was coming down sideways! - and ended up at this local pub.  When she sends me the photos I'll be sure to put this one up, because the bar was housed in what I can only assume was some kind of general store.  You know, with the painted windows advertising their wares?  And they sold, in the order in which they appeared on the window: "fancy goods, sponges, photographic, toilets."  Wow.

The inside of the pub was nearly as festive as the outside.  Being the only two patrons in there, we were served by the barman and a guy named Barry, who referred to himself as "the local drunk getting drunk as a skunk."  He kept patting us on the shoulder and asking if everything was okay.  Um, we just ordered a pot of tea, dude.  And it's fine.  Barry would stagger back and forth, and the dog on the floor would grouse a little and come over and sniff my umbrella and then grouse back to the bar.  Then, Barry and George decided to come over and talk to the foreigners with their pot of tea, and we got to go through the fun "where are you from?" conversation.  Now Ayla is an expert at dealing with strangers, she is so smooth you wouldn't even know she's trying to escape.  I'm not so smooth, so I let her do the talking.  We finish our tea and fantastic lunch and hike back up toward the library, via the parish church yard where Britten and Pears (and Imogen Holst) are buried.  It's a little surreal to walk through this town and the church yard and the high street and think to myself, "This is where Britten spent a large part of his life.  This is where the two of them would walk down and get groceries."  It's a tremendously special thing to stand where those before you have stood.  So we hiked back up to the library, I finished my photocopying and had a marvelous conversation with another librarian, who just happened to be a Poulenc scholar and she just happened to have written a huge chapter on Mamelles, and in that chapter she went to the library in Paris that housed the original program from the Paris premiere, and she basically saved my ass from trying to figure out if I was nuts, or if scholars had failed to figure out if Mamelles premiered with Boheme or a ballet.  Whew.  Then, the curator showed us all around the library and opened up Red House for a little private guided tour.  It's closed until June, so it was very quiet, just the sound of the rain and our bootie-covered feet (to protect the floors and rugs) shuffling through the house where Britten and Pears lived.  The chairs where they sat.  The desk where Britten composed, his spectacles and manuscript paper still lying on the desk.  The photos and artwork.  My favorite photo was in the windowsill by the windowseat overlooking the garden.  It was a picture of Britten sitting in the windowseat, the tapestries unchanged, the light a little dim, just as it was when I was standing there.  The photo of Peter Pears with one of the dogs on his lap, having a fantastic laugh.  Since Pears was also an art collector, Ayla got to see a lot of modern art and talk with the curator about the building and the preservation/restoration efforts.  A totally worthwhile use of our time, and completely worth getting the early train there.  When we finally caught the bus back to Saxmundham just after 6pm, soaking from the rain and freezing our tails off, I could only feel happy and satisfied.  Not only had I put my hands on the primary source material from which my dissertation has sprung, but I got to touch things that the public has never seen, that scholars have never seen.  I got to leaf through scores and see photos and walk through Britten's living room and study, and run my hands over Peter Pears' piano.  As Ayla was saying to me, the English have a very good sense of place when it comes to history - this is something that America is working on, but it's hard to convince people that a house not lived in is worth preserving when space is at a premium.  Here, history is just sitting there, waiting to be seen.  Churches, cathedrals, even in the tiny streets of London that are so inconvenient for driving, it's just waiting.  What a treasure.

So we got back to Saxmundham, had pub dinner in front of a fire, and got back on the train to London at 7:32pm.  Spent the night at Ayla's, drinking tea and warming up from our journey and recovering from an extremely long day.  I spent the morning working on my dissertation edits and sent what I hope will be the final draft to my advisers.  I answered every question, integrated every section, checked my sources and citations, and even managed to find a great quote for the front page.  I think it's done.  Please let them think it's done too.  

It's just before 11am, so I've got to get dressed and out of here in the next hour and a half.  I'm meeting my old adviser from Exeter.  From one musicologist to another.  Nerd lunch :)

Pictures to follow! 

Why I love my job, part 2

My dear friend Tobi came all the way from Stuttgart with his girlfriend Babsi to see me sing this weekend.  They arrived super late on Thursday night, we spent most of Friday sight-seeing and shopping (my first successful trip yet - I found true adult love with a handbag) and then I spent Saturday indoors recovering for the performance while they trotted all over London.  I left the house early so I could go in and pick up my beautiful bag, bringing my Midsummer score with me - no sense in buying a professional bag if it doesn't fit the needs of your professional materials, then into the theatre.  I've got the sniffles but I'm feeling unusually optimistic.  Everyone is so tired from having done the matinee, but there's something wonderful about a double-dipper day.  The initial nerves are mostly gone, even though our 2nd cast Pamina is on for a double-dip as well, the staff has all gone out and grabbed a quick bite to eat, and the theatre is still buzzing with people coming and going.  Eddy comes and gets the face on, puts on Her Highness (the wig), and since I'm drinking tea like a fiend, Jessie lets me make one last trip to the loo before the massive skirts go on.  The makeup and wardrobe people are taking pictures for their archive, so we get to pose in the hallway and lark about being silly.  I'm called for the first aria, George the birdman hands me the missus, who proceeds to get squirmy AGAIN and now I've just accepted that this will be part of our routine.  Squirmy bird makes for a good aria.  Fine.  The first aria did go really really well, if I do say so myself, and then I did some work on Midsummer until the interval when Jessie was kind enough to release me from the skirts (more tea, more loo, is this TMI or what?) and then before I know it, they're calling me for the second aria.  Feeling good, feeling in control, a little tickle in the throat during the last b-flat, I'm sure that didn't sound exactly the way I wanted it to, but on the whole, quite good, storm offstage and what do I see?

Rob, my Tamino, standing there with a tray of McDonalds - big Mac, fries, and a vanilla milkshake, and I'm laughing and jumping up and down so much I'm afraid I'll disturb the scene that's still going on.  I'm pulling off my gloves as fast as I can because those are fries and they need to be in my mouth as fast as possible and I can see the costume staff inwardly cringing so I take the tray back to my dressing room, tell Rob that I will kiss his face soundly once I've got all this makeup off, and then the dressers take turns photographing the Queen, stuffing her face with a burger.  

Back story: last Saturday, when the performance was going really well, I came off after the 2nd aria and there was Rob and Roddy, just hanging about and listening until their next entrance and I said to them, "you know, I just get so hungry singing this role but I don't dare eat a thing until after the 2nd aria is over.  I could so eat a big dirty burger or fish and chips or something."  They found this hilarious, and Rob said that one night, he wouldn't say when, he would appear with a burger for me after that second aria.  I thought he was totally kidding, and we had a good laugh about it, so for him to appear with a burger when I'm coming down from that second aria high was just about the best feeling ever.  All of my self-criticism about my singing vanished, all of my worries about the sniffles vanished, and I could only think about how hilarious this was, and how wonderful my castmates are to do such silly and thoughtful things.  And also, I began to plot exactly how I will surprise him next time......must plan must plan.....

The show ended, the audience was marvelously responsive (though I'm sure that most of the shouting for me was from my small entourage that came to visit) and then I was getting changed as quickly as possible to get out there when the conductor stuck his head through my door.  He said it was an amazing night for me, and that I had hit the nail right on the head.  

It still makes the hairs on my arms stand up to think about him saying that, to think of the audience roaring, and how happy this whole process makes me.  Later, after drinks with my friends, we were talking about how hard it can be to find something new in Flute, to make the orchestra play with the kind of enthusiasm that comes when a piece is fresh and straight off the page.  But really, for me, this has been about finding new ways to express myself through the work - new ways to let myself off the leash without completely letting go of the reins, how to play the scene fast and hard without singing fast and hard, and also how to temper what other people say with what I know happened on the stage.  

I know that I'm still smarting from the critics.  I know I am.  It hurts to have your name printed up with such awful adjectives and mean-spirited opinions.  It's horrible.  And it makes you question everything you do and how you do it and whether or not it's even worth it to go on with the next performance.  Because this is an extension of ourselves, of our deepest and innermost desires, and we're about to dress it up and put it onstage for others to see, and hopefully to enjoy.  It's their right to say that I'm too young or that they don't like my singing.  They are entitled to create a blog that's all about their criticism of arts events and post what they think, just as I'm entitled to say what I think here on my blog.  But I should not let any of those people into that spot in my heart, the spot that still swells from hearing the overture and skips a beat when the walls part, the part that gets hurt when I think someone doesn't respect my work.  Because that spot is still mine, most cherished, and I should protect it and nurture it.  Because I love my job, and I want to continue to love it.  

So while they're all entitled to their opinion, I will kindly ask them to piss off, please.  My friends are waiting out there, and they're waiting to watch me kill.  Which I did.

Oh the weather outside is frightful

Yeah, you know what song I'm talking about.  And that's just what happened and brought the city of London to its knees.  What we Bostonians would classify as "just a little snow" (read: less than two feet) crippled the public transportation system, shut down the airports, and suspended the bus services entirely.  Wow.  

It is beautiful to see everything all covered in a white blanket.  Watching the big fat flakes come down makes me think of home.  But at home, I would be curled up with the dog and the husband with a cup of tea in my big striped Starbucks mug.  Can't linger too long on that idea or I'll get weepy all over again.  

Homesickness has kicked in full-throttle.  I've tried my best to keep it at bay with trip to friends' houses and practicing and even cooking, but it kicked me hard yesterday.  Everything made me weepy.  Even watching a really stupid movie (and "You, Me & Dupree" is a REALLY stupid movie) made me weepy and wish for home.  

The snow has stopped and the sun is making it melt and fall off the trees in big clumps.  I just hope the sun sticks around for a little while - long enough for me to get outside and feel it on my face.  I'm not brave enough to go running in the park with the amount of broken tree branches I've seen falling under the weight of the snow, but maybe just walking to the Tube, if it would hang up there a little while longer.  That would be nice.  

Sigh.

One in the hand, or, Why I love my job

Performance #3.  

In my zeal to get errands done beforehand I left pretty early, made my photocopies, topped up my Oyster card, and dropped into a little bakery to grab a coffee, which turned out to be a colossal mistake.  There's a reason chain coffee shops do well in England.  I'm totally willing to stand in line at Cafe Nero from now on.

I got to the theatre a good 30 minutes before my makeup call and had enough time to really warm up in peace.  Did a little bit of singing through a new aria I'm contemplating, worked on my knitting, and then Eddie came in to begin the 'tarting' of the Queen.  Feeling unusually good, looking forward to my dinner with a board member from Seattle, strangely excited but calm about this performance.  I think I'm in good voice.  Got dressed, more knitting, wait wait wait, got the page on the speaker went up to the stage climb up on the rock veil down here comes George the birdman with my bird.  She's a little more ruffled than usual.  Curious.  So he puts her in my hands, as he always does, and I stroke her back with my thumbs, as I always do, and she starts to fidget.  Turns around and looks at me, fidget fidget fidget and then she's really trying to get away from me.  Holy shit, I've got this bird in my hands and I'm calling out to George and the stage manager because she really REALLY doesn't want to be in my hands, she's stretching her neck away, digging her little talons into my hands trying to push out, but there's nothing we can do because James has just called the cue for the wall to open and the orchestra is playing the beginning of my aria and if she can just hold on for another ten bars I swear I swear I swear I'll let you go little bird just bear with meOKAYGOTHEN.  Whew.  

Things that are beyond your control, volume two: live animals onstage.  Once she's out of my hands, she's no longer my problem, thankfully.  I was thinking about something the conductor had said to me the other night about practicing patience and how it's so hard for him not to rush Pamina's aria.  Practicing patience.  Consciously collecting yourself and keeping it level.  So that's what I decided to try with my girl Queenie.  Not letting myself get completely lost in the moment - playing the intent but reminding myself, me the singer, to breathe deeply.  And I have to say, I wish those jackass critics had been there last night because I WAS ON FIRE.  

Feeling really really good, I got out of the costume and worked on the knitting and sat in my dressing gown feeling generally very pleased.  Once the interval is over, Act II comes up pretty quickly so there isn't much time to fiddle with things - the scene starts out strong, and I've got my scene partner for only the second time ever, I'm going to take my time and make sure we're really communicating.  Practice patience.  Be in the moment, control the dialogue as I'm meant to, not just as we rehearsed it.  [Stepping out of this for a moment, I have to say that Mozart is not especially kind to Queens in the second act.  The vengeance aria starts out with this trembling rush that sort of whoooshes out and you've only got a bar and a half to get your shit together before you've got to be on it like white on rice.  There isn't a long prelude to get you into the mood, or to give you time to adjust.  This is a superman-pulls-off-his-clothes-while-taking-off-type entrance, not a batman-goes-down-the-elevator-and-puts-on-his-suit-and-gets-in-the-car-type entrance.]  But I'm the one driving this train so I've got to make sure I'm in control.  Take the moment, really breathe deeply, look into her eyes and then sing to the dress circle, show the crazy but don't feel the crazy, BREATHE and do it again, okay the f's are over, now it's on to the serious singing you know how to do this, even though you're dragging her across the floor don't forget to breathe slam the knife into her hand crazy woman crazy woman crazy woman breathe and nail it to the back wall, turn and swish and exit.  Nailed it.  

Tamino, the kidder that he is, is amused when I tell him that I'm really hungry.  If I'm meant to take him at his word, it's possible that fries might appear at some juncture during the run.  That's photo op #2: Queen of Night eats french fries in costume.  Right after photo op #1: Queen of Night knitting socks and drinking tea in costume.  It's so going to happen.  

It was an evening of peril and unexpected complication.  The match meant to light my taper nearly blew out, and then my taper nearly blew out before it was supposed to, but the quick change went smoothly and we all made it upstairs in plenty of time for the bows.  It was an especially warm audience, and they were very kind to our cover Pamina, who really did a marvelous job.  Dashing back to my dressing room because I'm meeting the Seattle board guy for supper and I'm STARVING, I'm pulling off my gloves when Papagena comes in the dressing room and tells me that she just saw Fiona Shaw in the hallway.  Fiona recently directed Riders to the Sea at ENO so I'm not especially surprised she's around.  I scrub off most of my makeup, throw on my normal clothes, and I hear my darling Kate out in the hallway and I want to get her before she runs off so we can talk about where to go for drinks, and there she is.  Fiona Shaw is standing in the hallway between our dressing rooms.  Kate introduces me to her, and she says, "So nice to meet you - you were brilliant!  Didn't you hear the audience roaring for you?"  And just like that, it all melts away.  The fear and the anxiety and the pain of reading what all of those critics wrote, the insults, the illness, it's all gone, because this amazing actress of stage and screen is telling me that I did a good job, and she should know because she's in the business of stage and screen, not the business of deconstructing it.  I'm absolutely overwhelmed and I don't think my feet touched the ground for the rest of the night.  I met up with Stephen and we had quick drink at the pub with the cast and crew before heading to Brown's for dinner, where I indulged and had the most delicious prawn and chorizo pasta thingie that was out of this world.  

I think I got home from all this excitement about 13 hours ago and I'm still tingling.  The critics can say what they will - the house was still full, the audience was still roaring, and Fiona Shaw thinks I'm brilliant.  I love my job.

Frailty, thy name is 'voce'

It's been a week since the show opened and we've got our third show tonight.  I've still got some lingering throat crud from the crazy weather changes, but I know it will be gone by 6:30pm when the curtain goes up tonight.  More reviews have come in, good and bad alike, and I've come to the conclusion that I will not wake up with another voice inside my throat simply because someone gave me a review.  If only it were so!  How many times have we wished for the ability to take that pesky little mechanism out of our throat, take it apart and clean every corner, tweak it until it runs like a NASCAR racer, and put it back in, better than it was before.  Well Virginia, there may indeed be a Santa Claus, but anatomy don't lie and you only get the one larynx so just deal with reality.  Some things, many things actually, are beyond our control.  Like illness.  

I'm not actually talking about my own illness, I'm talking about the illness of one of my colleagues that caused the artistic director to pull her from the show at intermission the other night.  Poor darling, she's got a nasty bug and even though she made it through the first act beautifully, her cover was put on notice and sent onstage to do the second act.  It's every young singer's secret and unspoken dream, and every other singer's secret and unspoken nightmare. What do you mean, she's sick?  Like really sick?  And I get to put on the costume and perform the role that I've been nurturing all this time?  I really get to do it?  

I'm sick.  Yes, I know.  But I can still get through this, I can I know I can.  But you're putting on the understudy.  Oh God, please don't let this be happening.  

This is my soapbox for the moment: supporting your colleagues.  Really supporting them, not this false show of kindness and collegiality that only lasts until the other person is out of the room.  We are all vulnerable to this kind of incident.  My husband and I recently signed up for life insurance, for both of us, and disability insurance, just for him.  Why just for him, you might ask.  Because the insurance company doesn't see not being able to sing as "disability."  

They can't qualify exactly what that means, so they won't insure it.  Have you ever met a singer who can't sing anymore?  I'm not talking about the ones who retire.  A singer who's on vocal rest because they've got health issues.  It's like a caged animal living behind those eyes, terrified that they will never be able to open their mouth and make that noise again, terrified that they will open their mouth and the noise that comes out will not even remotely resemble the sound that they spent years and years of lessons and coaching and education honing into a sound that would pay their rent.  Every time a singer cracks a note, or feels that tickle start to come in, the terror stirs and asks, "will this be the last?"  Dramatic, I know, but bear with me here - we live and work in wigs and dresses that require three people to get through the door.  The incredible frailty of those little muscles that live inside the throat of every singer should inspire the utmost compassion and sympathy, especially from their colleagues.  So I tell you this now: every time you think bad thoughts about that singer who's in your cast, the one who really wish would come down with a terminal case of bad hair and retire, every time you talk about another singer being a drama queen because they won't go out the night before a performance, or mock them for drinking water when everyone else has a cocktail, ask yourself this question:

Who will hold my hand when they tell me I'm not going on for act II?  

I'm really lucky right now.  I've got wonderful colleagues.  WONDERFUL.  And I'm relishing it because I know it will not always be this way.  So you double up on your vitamin C and say your prayers and give thanks for whatever gift the good Lord gave you.  Be kind to one another.

I'm off to the theatre.  

A blog in three parts

There's a lot to say, so we'll do this Lord of the Rings-style.

Part I:  The Birds

I got to the theatre for opening night a bit early.  More than a bit early, really.  Early enough to get a sandwich from Pret, stand in line at Cafe Nero (yes, I am the girl who gets her sandwich from one place and her latte from another) and still get backstage 20 minutes before my makeup call.  Changed into dressing gown and stockings and character shoes, listened to silly music on iPod to keep spirits up and nerves down.  Eddie the makeup wizard was there to put on the most beautiful false eyelashes that look like exotic birds and make sure my wig didn't get inspired to go anywhere.  We were hearing the calls go out over the PA and the admins were dashing in and out, handing out cards and bringing flowers and well-wishing.  First night is always so much fun.  Everyone is hopeful and excited and just so thrilled to get things off the ground finally.  So my dresser shows up to lace me into my corset and we hear the audience start to titter.  And then laugh.  And laugh even louder, when Eddie turns to me and says, "Something's happened....it must be the birds."  Now some of you know this score already, but here's the catch-up:  George the birdman is in costume every night, just in case one of his trained beauties decides to go off-message.  He's been onstage maybe three times in 20 years, but those birds got a wild hair (or feather, if you will) and decided that nope nosiree were they going into the basket not having any of it.  George did go out and rescue our Papageno and the show did go on.  Despite last week's close encounter with illness, I got up on that stage and brought every inch of game I have.  I was fierce, I was manipulative, I played good mommy/ bad mommy and I didn't trip on my train.  And when the wall closed back, I was satisfied, happy even, with the way Act I had gone for me.  During intermission the admins came back to say how pleased they were and they hoped I was pleased too.  I was scarfing half of my Pret sandwich, trying to replace some of the calories I had just burned.  I'm always amazed by how much energy this role takes out of me.  Maybe it's the ramp-up, but I have to say I'm relieved every time the arias are over.  It's like the high jump - will I clear the bar?  Because there is no redemption if I don't clear the bar.  Act II is time for serious concentration.  Pace backstage to get the swish into my skirt, feel my foot roll into the floor, envision myself as the stalking panther, deep breath and into the scene.  Stalking panther, spitting cobra, Joan Crawford, throw the knife, grab the wrists and throw to the ground, boom let's sing about vengeance.  

Breath breath breath center the brain lower that larynx and don't forget to actually sing, not just hiss and spit.  Norma Desmond Bette Davis Kathy Bates Maria Callas Carrie Diana Damrau take a breath and pick up the knife, wail like a banshee, exit with thunder and lightning.

Score.  Eat a carmel egg.  Change for the finale.  Half a cup of coffee.  Stalk in an overcoat, go down the trap, begin to throw off clothes for quick change, someone takes off my wig wrap, pull up the corset, shove the skirt underneath, double check for earrings and necklace, straighten gloves, hightail it upstairs and don't get snagged on the doorframe.  Bows.  Lots of yelling, and the roar wells up and surprises me.  The balcony just goes up and up and up and up and the lights are so bright.  Tiptoeing forward and backward in the line so I don't get tripped up in my skirts and then the curtain comes down down and we're hugging and kissing and congratulating each other and it's beautiful.  I want to do this as long as I can, with these people.  Because I have the best colleagues ever.  Hugs hugs hugs find the dresser get unhooked start to take off the eyelashes and spirit gum and don't scrub too hard you'll take off a full layer of skin brush out the pincurls hoo boy that looks interesting throw on my nice shoes for the opening night party congrats congrats good show see you upstairs yes.  

Everyone should have the opportunity to feel like this, at least once in their lifetime.  To stand on an historic stage, whatever form that takes, and to know that you've showed out well.  

Here endeth part one.

Part II:  Opinions are like....well, you know.

I'm rubber, you're glue.  I know you are, but what am I.  As you get older, these kinds of insults transform into more acidic, pointed, personal barbs that are designed to make your point with maximum impact and minimum length, hopefully ending in someone walking away quickly.  Now I wouldn't be a good girl if I didn't know how to turn a phrase, so I know when someone is trying to put me down.  You don't have to sugar-coat it, but at least tell the truth.  That's all I ask of you, if you're going to talk smack.  Opening night was Saturday, so reviews usually come out Monday.  Just after midnight, on a serious dissertation tear that started as a two-hour stint in Pret and ended in butter chicken after 10pm, I decided to have a look-see.  Thanks to google, one can find almost any kind of information at the click of a mouse and, if you know what you're looking for, it makes the fishing part easier.  So I went fishing.  And boy did I get the business end of that hook.  Lacking authority.  Has technical facility.  Lacking technical facility.  Good acting.  Bad acting.  No acting.  Excellent character.  Not old enough to be believable (that's a new one - I'm sorry, aren't we here for the willful suspension of disbelief?).  And here's where I draw the line: sang wrong notes.  He didn't even come out and say it.  He just said I sang some impressive high notes, just not the ones Mozart asked for.  

Well I'm gonna call bullshit on that one mister.  You can say my intonation went awry if you think it did.  You can say my coloratura was filled with malice.  And you can say that I'm not old enough to be believed as the mother of an adult.  Well no shit.  But that's why we put on costumes.  Welcome to the theatre!  I'm putting you on notice.  Because I sang all the right notes, so don't go throwing that one at me.  

I was a disaster for most of the day.  Google news is like my own personal hell.  So how did I channel my emotional turmoil?  I worked on my dissertation.  I worked and worked and worked to the point where I've only got one comment box left.  One little question that's unresolved.  I'm waiting on an answer from a librarian and when I hear back, that box will get closed and the dissertation will go back to the editors and hopefully stay there.  Some people channel their drama into their work, but that way usually leads to losing your voice in my profession.  Me, I get out the scissors and needle and thread and mend up all the little flaws in my dissertation - my magnum opus that will go before a committee who will decide whether or not I'm worthy to be called "Dr." by my students in the future.  So here I am again, up late, working through this series of emotions ranging from confusion to utter disbelief to outrageous elation to murderous rage to blase dismissal.  And that's where I'm at right now.  

Which brings us to part three.

Part III:  Like water off a duck's back, or "it's not business, it's personal."

When you carry your instrument and thereby your occupation around inside your body, it tends to foster a certain amount of paranoia.  Hence every singer stereotype about the tea and the water and the lozenges and the humidifiers and the nasal rinses.  It's all true.  It's all there and it's all true and we all do it in our own fashion.  I think the high frequencies inside the head lead to madness, so that means I've got a one-way ticket to Crazytown.  This means that a criticism of said instrument is directly related to a criticism of the body in which it lives.  This is inevitable and we all find ways to deal with it.  Detachment.  Information.  Science.  Therapy.  

For me, it's running.  Since I got sick last week, I haven't been running, which explains why it was harder than usual to find some clarity in this experience.  They hired me for a reason.  They hired ME.  And I did my job and will continue to do my job.  The opinions of the dilettantes should just roll off me.  Should.  But it hurts to see total strangers put down what you do in major news publications.  So I did what I always do.  I read and reread and reread until I found the angle.  And here it is: if you read six reviews of the same performance, you will find six different performances.  The soprano was flat, the soprano was sharp, the soprano was not mentioned.  The orchestra played well, the orchestra was not together, the orchestra was very stylish, the orchestra is stuck in a rut.  The production is beautiful and timeless, the production is musty and dated, the production is uninspired, and so on and so on.  

We cannot live and die at the hands of our critics.  We cannot allow ourselves to be so open to the opinions of others.  We cannot mold ourselves to be everything that they want and even if we could, we would lose that spark of individuality that puts our stamp on everything we do.  I can only sing like me.  And if a handful of people who have access to print media don't like that, then I can only shrug and say I'm sorry they don't like my singing.  So I've given myself my one day of sulking.  I watched The Holiday and a few silly episodes of Friends and worked on my knitting and tomorrow I'm going to get up and go running.  I'm going to the grocery store where I will pick up good food for the rest of the week.  I'm going to take off this ridiculous blue nail polish and cut my nails before I stab myself in the eyeball trying to put in or take out a contact lens.  And I'm going to allow for the possibility that the casting director and artistic director and conductor and director might know more than the critic who didn't like my singing.

Maybe not so efficient as the business with the duck's back.  Maybe it's more like my dog's fur when he goes out in the rain.  Being a Lab, he doesn't get soaked like other long-haired dogs do.  He gives a good shake before he comes in the house, starting at his head and down his back and all the way to the end of his tail, and then I just have to get the excess moisture off his coat before he rubs it into my jeans.  Maybe this is me, having shaken off most of it, waiting for the rest to be wiped away.  I am stronger for this.  But gosh, did I have to get so much stronger in such a short period of time?

I cannot grow; I have no shadow to run away from, I only play.

I cannot err; there is no creature whom I belong to, whom I could wrong.

I am defeat when it knows it can now do nothing by suffering.

All you lived through, dancing because you no longer need it for any deed.

I shall never be different.  Love me.

Blessed Cecilia, appear in visions to all musicians, appear and inspire.

Translated daughter, come down and startle composing mortals with immortal fire.

Auden put it on the line.  I shall never be different.  Love ME.  That's what we have to do, every hour of every day.  How is it that being ourselves is the hardest thing to do, yet who else would we be?

Gratitude, at this very late hour:

1.  sleeping in when I need it

2.  the kindness of friends who go to the library because you can't do it yourself

3.  simplicity of emotion

4.  the ability to get back up again

5.  seven more chances to stick it to the critics - "I know I am an artist, but what are you?"

Nothing but net.  Because it's always go time.

It's go time

It's 10:45am in London.  I have to leave the house in six hours for the theatre.  Makeup starts at 6:15pm, the dresser comes at 7:20pm to lace me into my corset, and the overture begins right around 7:35pm.  The excessively polite voice will come over the PA and ask patrons to take their seats, the admins walking around backstage will give us one last wave of good luck and good show and make their way out to the house that seats over 2000 people and take their places to watch this time-tested production of Magic Flute go up.  The trap will work, the snake will be slain, the birds will fly, and I will be backstage, humming and knitting and sipping my licorice tea (new performance ritual) and trying not to get stuck going through doors.  When your costume is four times as wide as you are and your wig makes you nearly 7 feet tall, this is a feat.  

It's go time.  I've been waiting for this day, wishing it would hurry up and get here, wishing it would still be another two weeks off because I'm not ready I'm not ready of course I'm ready.

I'm ready for this.  A week ago I was on Liz's sofa coughing and feeling wretched and on the verge of tears and now, my nose is a little dry, but I slept with my eye mask on so the morning light wouldn't wake me at 7am and I am well-rested.  I am prepared.  I'm going to cook a good breakfast, make myself my morning cup of tea, and watch the series finale of West Wing season 7.  I'm going to do some stretching, take a long shower and inhale all that beautiful steam and warm up slowly.  The dress rehearsal was at 1030am, the worst possible time they could have picked for this kind of singing, and it went well.  That means that an opera starting at 730pm will be just fine.  Better than fine.  

Because it's go time.  I'm here, I'm ready, I'm singing a role I know I can sing and acting a character I know I can play.  And it's time to bring it hard.  

London Coliseum.  7:30pm.  Game on.

Fit to print

I just had a weird role reversal on the phone with my mother.  She was telling me about some crazy beotch from her work who tore her head off when my mother suggested that she might stop looking at wedding gowns online and finish up her work at the end of the day.  Because doing your job is optional, apparently.  So she tears into Miss Jean and Miss Jean, being who she is, writes this girl an email apologizing for her 'lack of tact' (read: telling the truth).  And I don't know why, but this huge surge of protectiveness welled up inside of me and I basically lectured my mother for ten minutes on the importance of keeping that kind of discourse in person and OUT of email, lest someone try to use her well-intentioned email against her.  

When I write emails to faculty about the DMA, I usually CC it to about four people - advisers, administrators, department heads, etc. because I know that information needs to be seen by multiple people and they all need to see the same text.  I also do this to cover my own ass, lest someone say, "but that's not what you said to so-and-so."  Especially useful when negotiating things, the e-paper trail has become a way of life.  And my poor sweet mother is just the type of person to put her do-gooder self in jeopardy by apologizing to some accounting tartlet who really doesn't care about her job, nor does she care about her relationship with Miss Jean.  

I kept telling her I just don't want her to get hurt.  I don't want someone to manipulate her words.  This is the danger with email: there is no context, there is no tone, no inflection.  

I think I hurt her feelings.  I know I hurt her feelings.  And after it was all said and done, I found myself apologizing if I came across as harsh.  For all of her smarts, Miss Jean genuinely believes in the good in people.  This unfortunate gene was also passed on to me, and my sweet husband frequently tells me to stop doing those things I do like talking to strangers, trying to build bridges with difficult colleagues.  Things that I do instinctively, but don't really have anything to do with my work.  

How do open-hearted people survive in this world?  I'm at this great opera company with wonderful colleagues right now and I'm almost dreading going anywhere else, lest the colleagues be not as nice, the staff not as helpful or solicitous.  I'm now spoiled for other companies, and I don't want to go.  And my poor mother, now probably sniffling quietly because I yelled at her for being too nice, is surrounded by these young sharks who are just interested in their own lives, their own careers, and I don't want her to get hurt.  

I don't want to get hurt either.

Sigh.

O say can you see

Inauguration Day 2009.  

Twelve years ago I was standing in the bitter January cold watching President Clinton get sworn in for the second time and thinking about how amazing it is to be an American citizen.  Well this year it's going to be me in my jammies watching the inauguration on youtube or some other streaming video, thinking about how amazing guaifenesin syrup is and how it's almost completely gotten rid of the crud on my cords in the last four days.  Four days of no singing, tea and honey and lemon and water, and a lot A LOT of television.  It's not in my nature to take illness lying down.  I'm usually the first person to beat feet to the doctor's office.  But this time, that role was taken up by my sweet husband who was all over me like a duck on a june bug to get my ass to the doctor.  But here's what I've learned about being a singer.  No matter what's going on in your throat, unless it's bacterial, there ain't shit a doctor can do for you.  They will offer you antibiotics that won't work, they will offer you a steroid injection to make a short-term difference that could enable long-term damage, and they will tell you what your mother always told you: go home, get some rest, drink lots of fluids and eat soup.  Well this time, I'm listening.  I almost spent more time running to the loo than I did on Liz's sofa, thanks to the double-fisted cocktail of tea and water, coupled with the magical G sauce.  Pity I couldn't find mucinex over here - it doesn't taste nearly as nasty as that syrup.  Yeech.  Bleh.  Gak.

My old friend Molly got me thinking about optimism.  A lot of people are waiting for Barack Obama to be the saviour of the nation, and a lot of people are waiting for him to fall on his face and renege on the promises made during his campaign.  The mantra of 'change' has affected everyone I know, cynic and optimist alike, prompting them to wonder what form this 'change' will take.  Molly put forth the idea that even changing the way people think about optimism, about hope, is a move in the right direction, and I'm gonna get behind her on this one.  I can be hopeful that things will be better.  I can hope that this new president will have the intelligence and the tenacity to jump in and get his hands dirty, to look at things with fresh eyes (nearly wrote French eyes there - guess who hasn't had caffeine in days??) and try to steer things closer to a course that's right for most of the people, not right for most of the right.  And I can hope that four years from now, we'll still have the faith in him that we do now, and we'll elect him all over again.  Because I want my kids to grow up with hope and faith in their nation.  

So what's the moral for the day?  Vote and take your vitamins.  

Gratitude:

1.  four years of hope, coming this way

2.  modern medicine in the form of mucinex

3.  licorice tea and manuka honey - tastes better than cough drops

4.  the opportunity to sing on a world stage - pray hard that the voice is ready.  Shit, pray hard that I'm ready.

5.  my incredible friends and husband, drawing near from all over the world to bear witness to this huge event in my career.  

T minus four days till opening night.