Every time I talk to one of my singer-friends back home about some particularly gnarly or complicated piece of rigmarole that relates to my job as an opera singer in a German opera house (auditioning, applying for visas, how to dress for auditions, travel hacks, contract negotiation) they say to me, "someday you should write a book about this." Well, today is not the day I write that book. But today is the day I had to assemble every single receipt related to my foreign (read: non-German) income for the Finanzamt because the Germans do NOT do taxes like the IRS does. So here's part 1 in the multi-part series.
FULL DISCLOSURE - I AM NOT A TAX PROFESSIONAL. I AM AN OPERA SINGER.
Part 1: Taxes in Germany
Residency/non-residency, guesting/festing
If you are a US resident guesting in Germany, you need to get your hands on an A1 from the Social Security office and turn it over to the finance office at the opera house. This will, in most cases, keep the non-US house you're working for from taking out their version of social security, disability, etc, because the A1 says that you'll pay taxes on this income at home in the USA. In Germany, they will still take out unemployment. If your agent is being paid directly by the opera house, there will also be Umsatzsteuer (value-added tax) on the agent fee. If you are paid a Reisepauschale (lump sum for travel) they may also assess some kind of blanket income taxes on that. You will receive a statement from the opera house detailing your payments and the breakdown of what's what. Keep them, and ask the finance office to explain and translate exactly what all those abbreviations mean. Not all houses code things the same, so I won't bother listing them here.
If you have taken a Fest position at a house in Germany, you are an employee. You will have taxes taken out for Krankenkasse (health insurance, split between employer and employee), Arbeitlosengeld (unemployment), Pflegeversicherung (disability), Solidaritätszuschlag (solidarity tax - reunification), and Rentenversicherung (pension). Again, this list is neither exclusive nor exhaustive. If you register as a particular faith (they will ask you when you go to register for residency), they will take out church taxes. The percentages vary depending on your Steuerklasse (tax category - married, unmarried, with children, without, etc).
IF YOU GO FROM A GUESTING NON-RESIDENT TO FEST RESIDENT INSIDE ONE CALENDAR YEAR, YOU MUST FILE A FULL TAX RETURN IN BOTH COUNTRIES. Take a tip from someone who's going through this right now - bring with you every shred of paper that pertains to that calendar year. The last thing you want to have to do is send someone into your storage unit to hunt for receipts.
**Edit for clarification: to my knowledge, so long as one holds US citizenship, one MUST file US taxes. I hear differing reports from expats, so check with an account or four.**
Guesting while Fest (what to expect, so you don't spit out your coffee when you see what shows up in your bank account)
If you are industrious/tenacious/lucky/in-demand enough to guest on the side while also singing at your Fest job, good for you. It's a great way to supplement your income. You'll usually be given a flat rehearsal fee (either as a per-day figure, or a lump sum for a time period) and either a Reisepauschale or reimbursement for travel. Housing is almost never included. Know this in advance, and don't be left looking for a hotel room the day you arrive. Guesting engagements are usually assessed at Steuerklasse 6, which is about 50% if you're married, about 60% if you're unmarried. So if you are engaged Fest at a house, married, and your guest contract says you'll be paid 10K (assuming the opera house splits a 10% agent fee with you 40/60), you can expect about 44% of that to show up in your bank account, after taxes.
The good news: if you keep track of all your expenses, you're often entitled to a refund of some amount. Hard to swallow on payday, I know, but go in with your eyes open.
Documentation
Here's the basic rule. Keep every piece of paper. Every receipt. Everything. The IRS will take your word for it unless they decide to audit you. The German Finanzamt is not so trusting. They want it all up-front. Receipts. Contracts. Everything. Food doesn't count for the Germans - they use a per-diem. Start a spreadsheet with a tab for every state or country you work in. Detail the date, the transaction, the amount (in local currency, EUR and USD, check your daily exchange rates and note them), and what it's for. If the expenses are associated with a specific gig, make a column for the ensemble/opera house/concert organization, and the dates you were engaged to work there. Put the receipts for that spreadsheet in a large envelope marked TAXES 2014. Start a folder on your desktop where you can print to PDF everything you book online - train tickets, plane tickets, invoices from your voice teacher. Do this as you go along because it is a PAIN IN THE ASS to do it later.
Deadlines
Truthfully, this has yet to become clear to me. When you live outside the US for more than 6 months, you are granted an extension of 2 months to file your US taxes (June 15 instead of April 15). HOWEVER - an extension to file is NOT an extension to pay. Read that again.
So let's say you get your US taxes all tied up and paid by April 15. Good for you. No penalties. But let's say you need a little more time and you get them done by June 15. Unless your accountant overestimates and includes a penalty, you'll probably get a bill come September saying that you owe the IRS something ridiculously negligible like $7.27 and that if you don't pay by the date (which has already passed, because you're receiving your mail outside the USA) that amount will go up to $7.29. German taxes are a bit more complicated, mostly because you need to have your US taxes mostly done before you can file your German ones. But their deadlines aren't nearly as nuts - I think we finished filing ours around July. Downside - if they come back and say they need additional documentation for anything, you will not see one red cent of refund until they decide they're done reviewing your case.
What you can deduct (this list is neither exhaustive nor exclusive)
Audition clothing, audition shoes, makeup, trips to your hairdresser, stockings, suitcases, gowns, medicine, doctor visits, certain toiletries (if they can be put under the heading of 'grooming'), your cell phone, prepaid cell phones abroad, public transportation, taxis to and from the airport/gigs/concerts, voice lessons (this includes those skype lessons you have with your teacher when you're a continent away), sheet music, CDs, tickets to a performance, the computer you use to manage your life, accounting fees, banking fees (wire transfer fees), tax preparation fees, temporary gym memberships, plane tickets, train tickets, hotels, airport wifi, in-flight wifi, hotel wifi, tips and gifts to your makeup artist/dresser (IF YOU DOCUMENT IT), rental cars, baggage fees, union dues, agent fees. The list can go on and on. When in doubt, ask your accountant.
Dealing with accountants
If you are not detail-oriented, pour yourself a strong drink. Dealing with accountants is not always easy. Dealing with accountants in a foreign language is enough to drive anyone to Xanax. Your best bet is having everything laid out and labeled as clearly as possible so that you can send it to them via Dropbox or some other kind of file transfer. I prefer services like Dropbox and email because it starts an electronic trail between you and that person. Start early. Ask for an estimate of their fees, based on your needs. Ask colleagues who they use, especially ones whose tax situation is similar to yours.
This is the hardest part: do not assume that your accountant will get everything right. Be emotionally (and temporally) prepared to comb through your tax return, line-by-line, to make sure nothing is missing and nothing appears twice where it shouldn't. Check your social security number. Check your address. Check your banking details. Do this every time you receive documentation from them. If they make a mistake and you don't catch it, you are still responsible for the content of your tax return. Period.
Life is complicated and messy and an opera career often feels like the teacup ride at Disneyworld - looks like lots of fun and bright and shiny from the outside, can give you vertigo and/or induce vomiting once you're whirling around in a suddenly-unstable-seeming vehicle from which there is no immediate escape. When in doubt, write it down, ask questions, get professional advice, do your homework. There is no substitute for due diligence, and the quantity or quality of talent you possess as an artist is not worth one iota to the IRS or the Finanzamt when they demand to know where the money came from and where it went. The more you know.
Part 2: ??? I'll take suggestions.
Monday, October 13, 2014
Monday, September 08, 2014
Crowded House
Every time I read an article about a labor lockout, I can't help but have this Crowded House song pop into my head.
"I've been locked out, I've been locked in
But I always seem to come back againWhen you're in that room, oh what do you do?I know that I will have you in the end"
While the drama of the Minnesota Orchestra lockout resembled an epic poem, the recent Metropolitan Opera happenings were more of a mini-series. "Will the musicians' unions strike? Will the backstage unions strike in solidarity? Will the chorus' pay and benefits be cut? Will the season start on-time??" Film at eleven, in which the captain of the Flagship Opera Institution in the USA declares that opera is dying. Oh, for crying out loud.
Now I'm all for drama, when it's ON THE STAGE, but I'm also the daughter of an accountant. Opera is expensive. This is no mystery. There are no magical abacuses (abaci?) or slide rules that make opera not expensive. In the States, most houses are not repertory houses, which means you've gotta get the people there and back, house them and get them to/from rehearsals, clothe them in the designer's vision, build and dress and light the sets, rent and mark (and subsequently erase marks from) the orchestra parts, rehearse the orchestra, rent the venue (if you don't happen to own your own theatre), and turn the power on and off for the whole time. All before a single ticket-holder sits down, all before a single player/singer gets paid. It's a lot. I know significantly less about the costs of a symphony orchestra (namely because I work in opera) but my fingers and toes tell me that decreased income + mis-management of assets and investments + rising (or even level) expenses = someone's gonna come at you with a hat asking for money, and the next round of contract negotiations will not be pretty. This week, it's the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, who's just been locked out. Again.
Now before I start talking about what's at stake here, I'm just gonna put this out there: I live and work in Germany, where my breathtaking tax bill affords me rather good health insurance and care (as well as a host of other socialized benefits - paid sick leave, retirement, disability, unemployment, etc.) and subsidizes my job in the arts, from which I can actually support myself and my family. This has been the case for approximately one year, during which I was ill twice (as compared to every 6 weeks, when I was freelancing on the road year-round) and I sang easily twice the number of performances I'd sung in the previous season. At the end of my first season as a full-time ensemble singer [read: employee of one opera house], I came to a very real and tangible conclusion: Stability is something for which many people will sacrifice. Glitter and the promise of "the next big break" are seductive, but I'd much rather sleep in my own bed. This is me, knowing myself. This is also me, saying that my perspective is biased toward my own priorities.
For many orchestra musicians, seeking those coveted full-time orchestra positions is akin to my Fest job. They can buy a house instead of renting, send their kids to school, pay into their IRA, and they get to do the thing they trained to do - BE musicians, without fretting every single month if their gig will come through so they can pay their mortgage. Is freelancing more financially lucrative, on a per-performance basis? Absolutely. But it's a choice, and there are tradeoffs. AGAIN, speaking only from the point of view with which I have personal experience - opera - I can say that stability is not a glamorous choice. It's not a choice that (usually) lands you on the cover of Opera News, or even in a feature in Classical Singer. Stability is not very sexy. But let's also assume, for the moment, that stability is not always about the individual. It's not about whether or not the 4th desk 2nd violinist in the ASO gets to check off all the symphonies on his bucket list, or whether or not the principal viola gets to play the Bartók viola concerto. And it's not even about whether or not I'll ever cross Lulu off my list of "roles I really really REALLY wanna perform and would be SO absolutely perfect for me." It's about being able to afford to take your kids to the doctor when they get sick. It's about being able to pay the deductible when someone rear-ends you and pulls a hit-and-run [witnessed that for the first time last month - it made me ill] and it's about being able to take personal time when your mother/father needs help caring for themselves or each other. It's about the things that make us human, which are also the things that make us better artists.
I don't have a pithy punchline about the ASO. I feel for those musicians, and for their families, and I hope they come to some kind of agreement with management soon - one that recognizes the sacrifices they've already made, and also allows the organization to move forward. But I also hope that the unfortunate (and not recently developed) sentiment of "if artists do what they love and love what they do, they should be willing to do it for less/for free/for a sandwich" will be replaced with some more sound thinking.
"I've been locked out, I've been locked in
But I always seem to come back againWhen you're in that room, oh what do you do?I know that I will have you in the end"
While the drama of the Minnesota Orchestra lockout resembled an epic poem, the recent Metropolitan Opera happenings were more of a mini-series. "Will the musicians' unions strike? Will the backstage unions strike in solidarity? Will the chorus' pay and benefits be cut? Will the season start on-time??" Film at eleven, in which the captain of the Flagship Opera Institution in the USA declares that opera is dying. Oh, for crying out loud.
Now I'm all for drama, when it's ON THE STAGE, but I'm also the daughter of an accountant. Opera is expensive. This is no mystery. There are no magical abacuses (abaci?) or slide rules that make opera not expensive. In the States, most houses are not repertory houses, which means you've gotta get the people there and back, house them and get them to/from rehearsals, clothe them in the designer's vision, build and dress and light the sets, rent and mark (and subsequently erase marks from) the orchestra parts, rehearse the orchestra, rent the venue (if you don't happen to own your own theatre), and turn the power on and off for the whole time. All before a single ticket-holder sits down, all before a single player/singer gets paid. It's a lot. I know significantly less about the costs of a symphony orchestra (namely because I work in opera) but my fingers and toes tell me that decreased income + mis-management of assets and investments + rising (or even level) expenses = someone's gonna come at you with a hat asking for money, and the next round of contract negotiations will not be pretty. This week, it's the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, who's just been locked out. Again.
Now before I start talking about what's at stake here, I'm just gonna put this out there: I live and work in Germany, where my breathtaking tax bill affords me rather good health insurance and care (as well as a host of other socialized benefits - paid sick leave, retirement, disability, unemployment, etc.) and subsidizes my job in the arts, from which I can actually support myself and my family. This has been the case for approximately one year, during which I was ill twice (as compared to every 6 weeks, when I was freelancing on the road year-round) and I sang easily twice the number of performances I'd sung in the previous season. At the end of my first season as a full-time ensemble singer [read: employee of one opera house], I came to a very real and tangible conclusion: Stability is something for which many people will sacrifice. Glitter and the promise of "the next big break" are seductive, but I'd much rather sleep in my own bed. This is me, knowing myself. This is also me, saying that my perspective is biased toward my own priorities.
For many orchestra musicians, seeking those coveted full-time orchestra positions is akin to my Fest job. They can buy a house instead of renting, send their kids to school, pay into their IRA, and they get to do the thing they trained to do - BE musicians, without fretting every single month if their gig will come through so they can pay their mortgage. Is freelancing more financially lucrative, on a per-performance basis? Absolutely. But it's a choice, and there are tradeoffs. AGAIN, speaking only from the point of view with which I have personal experience - opera - I can say that stability is not a glamorous choice. It's not a choice that (usually) lands you on the cover of Opera News, or even in a feature in Classical Singer. Stability is not very sexy. But let's also assume, for the moment, that stability is not always about the individual. It's not about whether or not the 4th desk 2nd violinist in the ASO gets to check off all the symphonies on his bucket list, or whether or not the principal viola gets to play the Bartók viola concerto. And it's not even about whether or not I'll ever cross Lulu off my list of "roles I really really REALLY wanna perform and would be SO absolutely perfect for me." It's about being able to afford to take your kids to the doctor when they get sick. It's about being able to pay the deductible when someone rear-ends you and pulls a hit-and-run [witnessed that for the first time last month - it made me ill] and it's about being able to take personal time when your mother/father needs help caring for themselves or each other. It's about the things that make us human, which are also the things that make us better artists.
I don't have a pithy punchline about the ASO. I feel for those musicians, and for their families, and I hope they come to some kind of agreement with management soon - one that recognizes the sacrifices they've already made, and also allows the organization to move forward. But I also hope that the unfortunate (and not recently developed) sentiment of "if artists do what they love and love what they do, they should be willing to do it for less/for free/for a sandwich" will be replaced with some more sound thinking.
Monday, March 31, 2014
Countdown to birthday
As some of my previous blog posts indicate, I'm not too much for New Year's resolutions. I've never been good at giving up carbs, sugar, or red meat (for longer than Lent), my exercise regimens can and do last for quite a long time, but they do require regular re-vamping, and the struggle between optimism and Schadenfreude is a daily one. But we're having an unseasonably early spring here in Germany, I've had two day-trips away from K-roo in the last 3 days, both with absolutely ideal weather and, against my better Bostonian judgment, I swapped out my winter wardrobe for my spring/summer wardrobe which means the return of all the clothes I really like to wear. With the return of turquoise, my 'power color' (as my friend Zach calls it), the disappearance of all things sweater-like into the vacuum storage bags, and the tick-tocking away of the minutes toward my birthday, I'm feeling contemplative. So I took a little trip down blog post memory lane.
Just before I turned 30, I took stock of the things I'd accomplished between 20 and 29. Bought a house. Finished my doctorate. Started running. I also found this little list of things I wanted to accomplish before 35.
Things I'd like to do between 30 and 35
run my first marathon, and then some
suck even less at Italian
get a shredder and a bigger filing cabinet (to downsize the paper crap)
take a real vacation (no family, no auditions, no work) with my husband
learn Lulu
reconsider playing softball in the summer
learn to make really good pie crust
add another continent to my passport stamp collection
spend more time with my friends and family who live far away
I've italicized the ones that I've since completed. It's a bit of a mixed bag, really. I've spent more time with friends who lived far away because I moved to Europe and suddenly, they're a lot closer than they were before. On the flip side, I'm now even farther away from my family. The number of Italian operas I've done in my life has doubled in the last six months - including a massive Handel opera with a metric ton of recit - so my Italian is infinitely better than it was before. I did run my first marathon and another few half marathons after that, but a series of injuries and crazy travel schedules really got the better of my running. I still haven't taken a real vacation with my husband, though hope springs eternal and, unless there's a summer softball league at the opera house I don't know about, I suspect softball is right out. But I made some serious pie crusts and they were GOOD.
My sprained ankle is nearly healed. I made notes on my pilates classes and have been doing the ab/core/back work at home, at least twice a week, plus the stretches from physical therapy. While I don't have the knees or the lower back that I did in my 20s, at least I'm aware enough not to ignore tightness or discomfort, shrug it off, and keep pushing. What the heck does any of this have to do with personal growth? It's about listening. I'm finally listening to myself. I ditched my toxic US agent back in January. I put my foot down with the administration about singing a role I didn't think I was ready to sing. I stood up for myself, firmly but professionally, with a director. I'm learning to pick my battles, not just to pick them carefully, but to win them. I realized, somewhat sheepishly, that I've spent the last two birthdays in Germany. Last year, in KA with my boo. The year before, in Frankfurt with a friend and colleague. And two years before that? I made it back to Boston from Germany only days before my 30th birthday party. The universe pointed to Germany and we decided to listen.
So here's to finding out what the universe has in store for the next few years. How about that list?
Things I'd like to do between 34 and 39
run another marathon
improve my conversational French
take a real vacation (no family, no auditions, no work) with my husband
learn Lulu
add another continent to my passport stamp collection
spend more time with my friends and family who live far away
practice patience, truth, and grace in my professional and personal life - in short, what I preach
And with that, I'm going to go cuddle with the best birthday present - Sammy the dog, who came into my life 11 years ago, and continues to make it a sweeter, if furrier, existence. Happy (almost) birthday to me.
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
It's a dog-eat-dog world
I was on skype with my friend Nicole yesterday. Nicole is another multi-continental singer like myself - we met what seems like forever ago (okay, only 6 years ago) when I was singing a gig with the International Bachakademie Stuttgart. She sings, she blogs, she teaches German and, as a former German resident-type, she was talking me through the whys and wherefores of how I might convince the Ausländerbehörde to loosen the strings on my work permit so I could....oh, you know....work more.
This led to a very long and involved discussion about artistic administrations, working in the Fest system, dealing with agents, and all things having to do with being a working singer. I don't remember how we came to this point, but we were talking about how destructive and pernicious relations between fellow singers can be, and I think I said I felt like the American system encourages singers to "eat their own kind."
Our business is competitive. Even the most cursory glance at the numbers will tell you that the top 9 opera-producing cities in the world are NOT in the US. New York is #10, and there isn't another city in the US in the top 50. Chilling, but true. How many universities and colleges and conservatories are turning out performance majors every year? You do the math. No one goes into music thinking it's going to be their big-ticket money-making endeavor. But what does this have to do with how we treat ourselves and each other?
First - how we treat ourselves. Nicole and I were talking about this piece with regard to a most heinous non-job offer she received. I call it a "non-job offer"because, like so many musicians, someone didn't just try to lowball her for a gig, they tried to shame her for declining their ridiculous offer. My mentor-teacher was married to a wonderful woman, who also happened to be a kickass coach. She told me once, when talking about some young whippersnappers complaining about having to pay a pianist, that she'd work free, but she wouldn't work cheap. Those words have stayed with me, not only because Annie is still in my life, sharing her sparky wisdom with me from time to time, but because it said something powerful about how she approached her artistry. Annie is a giver. You'd learn something from her, even if you were just sitting next to her in a bus shelter in the rain. In addition to smacking me around for crappy legato, poor grammar, and singing with my head crooked to one side, she gave me so much of her time. Time filled with all her years of experience, wisdom, insight, information, and love. You can't put a price on that. But if you had to, neither you nor I could afford it. It's my hope that we sing because we need to communicate something, share something. But we also need to pay our mortgages, our light bills, our teachers, our coaches and, if we're really lucky, we have the time to go and visit our loved ones, necessitating (usually expensive) plane tickets. As my cousin's boyfriend said (after she proclaimed her desire to paint their entire apartment - all 3 levels - herself), "money can be exchanged for goods and services." Bottom line - don't devalue yourself for people who don't value your services, your art, your contribution. If you want to take a gig because it means something to you, and you can afford to do so, do it for expenses (travel, housing, food) or for free. And to any conductors and/or artistic administrators out there, I have a long list of pieces I'd sing for the price of the plane ticket and a comfy place to sleep....
Second - how we treat others. When I'm well-rested and sane, I believe with all my heart and soul that no one person's success takes away from your own. If I could find it, I'd link back to the "shoe speech," which I've given at every master class I've ever taught, and to many singers (friends, strangers, and acquaintances alike). The Reader's Digest version is this:
Opportunity is the confluence of what you can do, what you're right for, and what they're looking for on that day. If you're great at what you do, and they think so too, but they don't need you, there's no opportunity right now. You do not lose anything by singing/playing an audition. You come out of the door with the same artistry, the same loved ones, the same life you had before you went in. YOU LOSE NOTHING. If you don't get the job, this does not make you unworthy. If you were shopping for a black pointy-toed kitten-heeled shoe in a size 11 and the salesperson brought out 15 pairs of black pointy-toed kitten-heeled shoes in a size 11 (look for horsemen and plagues of locusts, because it's a sign of the apocalypse) you'd try them on until you found the ones that fit. You'd put the others back, and you'd buy the ones that fit best. But you would not hold up a shoe and say to it, "YOU, SHOE! You have wasted my time! You are an inferior shoe! You are not worth the leather out of which you are made!" You wouldn't do this because it would be silly, but we do it to ourselves all the time. If only I had done *** then they would have hired me, If only I were taller/thinner/curvier/not-so-curvy WHATEVER then they would have hired me. This is also a waste of time and energy. You do you. This is all you can do.
But I digress. As much as we assign value to ourselves (and take it away when things don't go our way), we do the same to our colleagues. We mark someone as our 'enemy' in our fach - that person who's always right before or after you in the young artist auditions circuit. That person who's three years older/three years younger and seems to be hitting a sweet spot with competitions or roles that you didn't hit. We demonize them. Now today is a day when I'm both well-rested AND sane, so I say again, no one person's success takes away from your own. No other soprano's success takes away from mine. Shoot, I've even made friends with other Queens because they understand the special hell that it is to have your entire artistic output judged on someone else's response to five high f's. Nicole and I were spitballing hopefully about how, perhaps, in this age of hyper-connectivity, there will arise a generation of musicians who are connected, rather than isolated. Who reach out to each other for collaboration, rather than giving each other the stink eye of competition. Who share their experiences, offer each other counsel, even help other advocate for themselves. And what an age that would be. Less drama, better theatre. Work hard, yes, always work hard. But work against yourself - beat back your own laziness/sloth/entropy. Challenge yourself to be the best at what you can do.
Miss Jean says you never know what goes on inside someone else's marriage. I'll extrapolate that and say you never know what goes on inside someone else's life. The next time you feel the lizard brain kicking in, the next time your eyes start to turn green with envy, think back to a time something really moved you. For me, it's The Lark Ascending (Vaughan Williams), or the beginning of O soave fanciulla (Act I, La Bohème, Puccini). My heart swells in a way that I can't articulate, my eyes start to well up, and I'm overcome. There's nothing jealous or covetous in that kind of feeling, and if you're still a professional musician after all those lean years of saying "yes" to jobs that were really not at all worth the time it took for you to get there on public transportation, you need to remember that feeling. Recognize it, feed it, cherish it. That's the part of you that the audience sees when you're really doing what you do best. Honor it in yourself, respect it in others, and the next generation of musicians (and their children/students/colleagues) will have a shot at experiencing that too.
Be good to yourself. Practice kindness and professionalism. Don't troll the internet to find potential competitors/objects of ire. Life really is too short for that.
This led to a very long and involved discussion about artistic administrations, working in the Fest system, dealing with agents, and all things having to do with being a working singer. I don't remember how we came to this point, but we were talking about how destructive and pernicious relations between fellow singers can be, and I think I said I felt like the American system encourages singers to "eat their own kind."
Our business is competitive. Even the most cursory glance at the numbers will tell you that the top 9 opera-producing cities in the world are NOT in the US. New York is #10, and there isn't another city in the US in the top 50. Chilling, but true. How many universities and colleges and conservatories are turning out performance majors every year? You do the math. No one goes into music thinking it's going to be their big-ticket money-making endeavor. But what does this have to do with how we treat ourselves and each other?
First - how we treat ourselves. Nicole and I were talking about this piece with regard to a most heinous non-job offer she received. I call it a "non-job offer"because, like so many musicians, someone didn't just try to lowball her for a gig, they tried to shame her for declining their ridiculous offer. My mentor-teacher was married to a wonderful woman, who also happened to be a kickass coach. She told me once, when talking about some young whippersnappers complaining about having to pay a pianist, that she'd work free, but she wouldn't work cheap. Those words have stayed with me, not only because Annie is still in my life, sharing her sparky wisdom with me from time to time, but because it said something powerful about how she approached her artistry. Annie is a giver. You'd learn something from her, even if you were just sitting next to her in a bus shelter in the rain. In addition to smacking me around for crappy legato, poor grammar, and singing with my head crooked to one side, she gave me so much of her time. Time filled with all her years of experience, wisdom, insight, information, and love. You can't put a price on that. But if you had to, neither you nor I could afford it. It's my hope that we sing because we need to communicate something, share something. But we also need to pay our mortgages, our light bills, our teachers, our coaches and, if we're really lucky, we have the time to go and visit our loved ones, necessitating (usually expensive) plane tickets. As my cousin's boyfriend said (after she proclaimed her desire to paint their entire apartment - all 3 levels - herself), "money can be exchanged for goods and services." Bottom line - don't devalue yourself for people who don't value your services, your art, your contribution. If you want to take a gig because it means something to you, and you can afford to do so, do it for expenses (travel, housing, food) or for free. And to any conductors and/or artistic administrators out there, I have a long list of pieces I'd sing for the price of the plane ticket and a comfy place to sleep....
Second - how we treat others. When I'm well-rested and sane, I believe with all my heart and soul that no one person's success takes away from your own. If I could find it, I'd link back to the "shoe speech," which I've given at every master class I've ever taught, and to many singers (friends, strangers, and acquaintances alike). The Reader's Digest version is this:
Opportunity is the confluence of what you can do, what you're right for, and what they're looking for on that day. If you're great at what you do, and they think so too, but they don't need you, there's no opportunity right now. You do not lose anything by singing/playing an audition. You come out of the door with the same artistry, the same loved ones, the same life you had before you went in. YOU LOSE NOTHING. If you don't get the job, this does not make you unworthy. If you were shopping for a black pointy-toed kitten-heeled shoe in a size 11 and the salesperson brought out 15 pairs of black pointy-toed kitten-heeled shoes in a size 11 (look for horsemen and plagues of locusts, because it's a sign of the apocalypse) you'd try them on until you found the ones that fit. You'd put the others back, and you'd buy the ones that fit best. But you would not hold up a shoe and say to it, "YOU, SHOE! You have wasted my time! You are an inferior shoe! You are not worth the leather out of which you are made!" You wouldn't do this because it would be silly, but we do it to ourselves all the time. If only I had done *** then they would have hired me, If only I were taller/thinner/curvier/not-so-curvy WHATEVER then they would have hired me. This is also a waste of time and energy. You do you. This is all you can do.
But I digress. As much as we assign value to ourselves (and take it away when things don't go our way), we do the same to our colleagues. We mark someone as our 'enemy' in our fach - that person who's always right before or after you in the young artist auditions circuit. That person who's three years older/three years younger and seems to be hitting a sweet spot with competitions or roles that you didn't hit. We demonize them. Now today is a day when I'm both well-rested AND sane, so I say again, no one person's success takes away from your own. No other soprano's success takes away from mine. Shoot, I've even made friends with other Queens because they understand the special hell that it is to have your entire artistic output judged on someone else's response to five high f's. Nicole and I were spitballing hopefully about how, perhaps, in this age of hyper-connectivity, there will arise a generation of musicians who are connected, rather than isolated. Who reach out to each other for collaboration, rather than giving each other the stink eye of competition. Who share their experiences, offer each other counsel, even help other advocate for themselves. And what an age that would be. Less drama, better theatre. Work hard, yes, always work hard. But work against yourself - beat back your own laziness/sloth/entropy. Challenge yourself to be the best at what you can do.
Miss Jean says you never know what goes on inside someone else's marriage. I'll extrapolate that and say you never know what goes on inside someone else's life. The next time you feel the lizard brain kicking in, the next time your eyes start to turn green with envy, think back to a time something really moved you. For me, it's The Lark Ascending (Vaughan Williams), or the beginning of O soave fanciulla (Act I, La Bohème, Puccini). My heart swells in a way that I can't articulate, my eyes start to well up, and I'm overcome. There's nothing jealous or covetous in that kind of feeling, and if you're still a professional musician after all those lean years of saying "yes" to jobs that were really not at all worth the time it took for you to get there on public transportation, you need to remember that feeling. Recognize it, feed it, cherish it. That's the part of you that the audience sees when you're really doing what you do best. Honor it in yourself, respect it in others, and the next generation of musicians (and their children/students/colleagues) will have a shot at experiencing that too.
Be good to yourself. Practice kindness and professionalism. Don't troll the internet to find potential competitors/objects of ire. Life really is too short for that.
Sunday, March 09, 2014
Check that box - CHECK IT
I've posted a few times about the nature of opportunity. If you happen to be what a house is looking for, when they are looking for it, and you're available, then there's an opportunity. If you're not what they're looking for, or they aren't looking for you right now, or you're not available, *poof* goes opportunity. This is no one's fault, and it's nigh on impossible to control. If you're not very good at giving up control [in the film in my mind, there would be a giant flashing arrow pointing to me right now] this makes you nuts.
Let's talk about what is in your control.
1. Are you prepared? Have you gone through your arias with coaches who will push you to do more than your everyday best? Do you have a well-formed and imaginative perspective on the characters you're singing, the kind of perspective that will show on your face and in your body? The kind of perspective that shows you being a character, rather than simply putting on their clothes? Does your musical interpretation go beyond what's on the page - does the coloratura say/show something other than that you're really good at 16th notes? If you're not saying something, no one cares.
2. Have you done your best to disaster-proof your audition? Do you have rehearsals in which you ask the pianist to try to lead you astray? Play a blatantly wrong tempo? Do you know how to lead a pianist into the tempo you want, or will you allow yourself to be thrown under the bus by someone else's force of will and/or lack of familiarity with the piece? This is something that can and should be practiced by anyone walking into an audition where you don't know the pianist. There will come a time when a pianist poops all over what should be standard repertoire. It may or may not be at a big house, it may or may not be an audition in someone's home studio. But if you poop all over yourself because of it, that's on you. There will be no disclaimer at the end of the audition [again, in the film in my mind] that drops down from the fly space, flashing "the pianist had never seen that before and didn't catch all the meter changes - it's not my fault, please hire me anyway," and even if it did, they wouldn't.
3. Do you know how much prep time you need before an audition? I'm a person who doesn't like to get anywhere too early. The airport, the train station, the theatre before a show. Just ask my husband - I'm puttering around the house, finding every excuse not to leave until the ABSOLUTE last minute because I hate waiting. Sitting around makes me stir crazy. For German auditions, where you have to show up early to get into the order of singing, 90 minutes is about all I can stand. Show up, sign in, warm up, meet with the pianist, and then do my damnedest to distract myself from the waiting. The other day, I was bookended by two other sopranos auditioning. The rooms were NOT soundproofed. I wanted to fling myself from the window, just to escape the truly perverse call and response of "Spiel ich die Unschuld vom Lande" and the "Gioir! Gioir!" that leads into 'Sempre libera.' OVER AND OVER. Moral of the story? Know thyself. If you can handle sitting around without getting squirrelly [film in my mind - Snow White-like animated chipmunk comes and perches on my shoulder] then good for you. If you can't, bring headphones and Beyonce.
4. Have you sung in these shoes before? This may seem like a silly thing, but it's NOT. I have two pair of audition shoes. I have been singing in those shoes since grad school. They are always comfy (enough), they always make my legs look good, and I know I can walk across the stage in them without tripping or having them slip off or anything like that. This week, I had to improvise. Having a sprained ankle means no heels for at least another few weeks, so I had to go with the tall boots. Was I going to wear them to my audition without having given them a test run? No. So I wore them to my coaching last week, along with the skirt I intended to wear to the audition, and asked my coach to look me over. We agreed I needed a fancier top, but he liked the boots & skirts combo. I trust his fashion sense, and I trust that he'll tell me if something doesn't flatter, and I trust that if I can sing through more than half of my audition arias in these boots successfully, they won't interfere with my audition singing, when the stakes are higher and I'm not just singing for one person. MEN - this applies to you too. No one wants to watch you shift your weight from foot to foot. If you start to sway during your audition, the panel will get vertigo, or they'll worry that you will.
[Sidebar - I subscribe to Bulletproof Musician. This week's update just popped into my inbox, and it's called "Is it helpful to listen to music right before your audition?" If you don't subscribe but want to read it, here's the article.]
And now, we talk about the unpleasant stuff. The stuff that's out of your control. Even thinking about this shit gives me vertigo. Oy.
1. When they're not looking for you and/or your voice type, right now or otherwise. This sucks. Sometimes houses will hear you just because you inquire - this is called an 'informative' audition. The downside is that you may not get a job from these auditions. The upside is that you may get a job down the line. If you audition well, and you make a good impression, people keep track of what you're up to. Never a bad thing.
2. When you're not available. I used to stretch myself like Elastigirl to make every possible gig work. Less sleep, more travel, skipping meals, skipping days across time zones. It's not worth it. If you can't show up and do your best work from day 1, you can't do it. Emergencies happen, extenuating circumstances happen. But if you intentionally schedule exhaustion and overbooking, you're playing Russian Roulette with your own health and, thereby, your professional well-being.
3. When you don't check the box. And now we've come to the real point of this post.
It's my opinion that there are two kinds of auditions: the kind where someone takes an interest in you as an artist, and the kind where they're looking for you to check a box. In Germany, this can get chalked up to the 'fach box.' In your contract, you have to list a fach, and you have to be specific. If you just list 'soprano,' that covers everything from Sieglinde to Mimi to Semiramide. Do you want to sing Mimi and the Queen of the Night and Lady Macbeth and Lucia and Tosca? (Don't we all?) But I'd really like to keep singing, thank you. If you check the box, then there's an opportunity. If you don't check the box, there's no opportunity. It's slightly pessimistic on my part, but I tend to assess this point on how quickly the audition panel pivots from my first aria (Cleopatra's Piangerò from Giulio Cesare: secco recit, slow A, lightning-fast B with cadenza, da capo slow A with ornaments) to the Vengeance Aria. If it's the first and only thing they ask for, I'm reasonably certain they're box-checkers. They want to know if I can do what I say I can do, which is fair, but once they've heard it, they don't want to know anything else about my artistry. I have checked the box. If they say, "we'd like to hear one of the Queen arias, your choice, and we'd also like to hear Konstanze," this tells me they're looking for a Mozart coloratura, not just a Queen. If they ask to hear Musetta or Cunegonde, I'm practically leaping with joy, because it means they want to see if I can act/be funny/be charming/be sexy.
I can.
Auditioning is a process. It's a skill. You get better at it with time. Sometimes you wake up and everything goes your way and you'd swear there was a drop of Felix Felicis in your coffee. The weather is beautiful. The trains are on time. You sing amazingly. The pianist is great. You are ROCKING that outfit and you even have good hair, all at the same time. And you don't get hired. On the other side, there are days when it's raining sideways, your train is delayed, you do your makeup on the subway in much closer proximity to your fellow passengers than you'd ever get on a third date with someone you really liked, you manage to yodel a few notes in the elevator on the way up, arriving just 5 minutes early, only to find out that they had a cancellation and can you sing right NOW. You do what you can, but you feel it's not your best. And you get hired. There is very little rhyme or reason involved. There is a lot of faith, a lot of shrugging, a lot of 'I get knocked down but I get up again' (great - I'm gonna have Chumbawumba in my head ALL DAY), a fair amount of disappointment, and maybe, just maybe, some success.
Here's what matters - what you do between auditions. Do you make time to see friends when you're in their city? Do you reach out to family members and meet them for dinner when you're done? Do you pack a mask and comfy slippers so you can sit in your jammies and watch TV with your friend who's letting you crash on their sofa? Do you help other singers who are figuring it out? Taking care of yourself becomes really serious business as you get deeper into this business, but keeping an open heart is even more serious. My first real opera big sister is a gorgeous, flame-haired vixen of a soprano - she was singing Pamina to my Queen in my first professional production of Flute. She told it to me like it was, and I've never forgotten that. We would wake up early and go walk her dog and get a coffee at the Dunkin Donuts and talk about everything - marriage, work, agents, traveling, taxes. Lindy is the best. I still remember her telling me - "Half the people you go to school with will be out of this business within 2 years of graduation. By the time you get to 30, another half will have fallen away - they couldn't get it started, the lifestyle isn't for them, or they decided it wasn't worth it and chose another profession. When you get to 35, that number will decrease again, and again, and again."
Well, I'm gonna be 34 in a few weeks, and I'm still here.
Singing for a living is hard, but you don't have to do it alone. Work hard, yes, work really fucking hard. But be a person - be the kind of person people want to work with, the kind of person people want to help and the kind of person people look to for assistance. Check THOSE boxes.
Let's talk about what is in your control.
1. Are you prepared? Have you gone through your arias with coaches who will push you to do more than your everyday best? Do you have a well-formed and imaginative perspective on the characters you're singing, the kind of perspective that will show on your face and in your body? The kind of perspective that shows you being a character, rather than simply putting on their clothes? Does your musical interpretation go beyond what's on the page - does the coloratura say/show something other than that you're really good at 16th notes? If you're not saying something, no one cares.
2. Have you done your best to disaster-proof your audition? Do you have rehearsals in which you ask the pianist to try to lead you astray? Play a blatantly wrong tempo? Do you know how to lead a pianist into the tempo you want, or will you allow yourself to be thrown under the bus by someone else's force of will and/or lack of familiarity with the piece? This is something that can and should be practiced by anyone walking into an audition where you don't know the pianist. There will come a time when a pianist poops all over what should be standard repertoire. It may or may not be at a big house, it may or may not be an audition in someone's home studio. But if you poop all over yourself because of it, that's on you. There will be no disclaimer at the end of the audition [again, in the film in my mind] that drops down from the fly space, flashing "the pianist had never seen that before and didn't catch all the meter changes - it's not my fault, please hire me anyway," and even if it did, they wouldn't.
3. Do you know how much prep time you need before an audition? I'm a person who doesn't like to get anywhere too early. The airport, the train station, the theatre before a show. Just ask my husband - I'm puttering around the house, finding every excuse not to leave until the ABSOLUTE last minute because I hate waiting. Sitting around makes me stir crazy. For German auditions, where you have to show up early to get into the order of singing, 90 minutes is about all I can stand. Show up, sign in, warm up, meet with the pianist, and then do my damnedest to distract myself from the waiting. The other day, I was bookended by two other sopranos auditioning. The rooms were NOT soundproofed. I wanted to fling myself from the window, just to escape the truly perverse call and response of "Spiel ich die Unschuld vom Lande" and the "Gioir! Gioir!" that leads into 'Sempre libera.' OVER AND OVER. Moral of the story? Know thyself. If you can handle sitting around without getting squirrelly [film in my mind - Snow White-like animated chipmunk comes and perches on my shoulder] then good for you. If you can't, bring headphones and Beyonce.
4. Have you sung in these shoes before? This may seem like a silly thing, but it's NOT. I have two pair of audition shoes. I have been singing in those shoes since grad school. They are always comfy (enough), they always make my legs look good, and I know I can walk across the stage in them without tripping or having them slip off or anything like that. This week, I had to improvise. Having a sprained ankle means no heels for at least another few weeks, so I had to go with the tall boots. Was I going to wear them to my audition without having given them a test run? No. So I wore them to my coaching last week, along with the skirt I intended to wear to the audition, and asked my coach to look me over. We agreed I needed a fancier top, but he liked the boots & skirts combo. I trust his fashion sense, and I trust that he'll tell me if something doesn't flatter, and I trust that if I can sing through more than half of my audition arias in these boots successfully, they won't interfere with my audition singing, when the stakes are higher and I'm not just singing for one person. MEN - this applies to you too. No one wants to watch you shift your weight from foot to foot. If you start to sway during your audition, the panel will get vertigo, or they'll worry that you will.
[Sidebar - I subscribe to Bulletproof Musician. This week's update just popped into my inbox, and it's called "Is it helpful to listen to music right before your audition?" If you don't subscribe but want to read it, here's the article.]
And now, we talk about the unpleasant stuff. The stuff that's out of your control. Even thinking about this shit gives me vertigo. Oy.
1. When they're not looking for you and/or your voice type, right now or otherwise. This sucks. Sometimes houses will hear you just because you inquire - this is called an 'informative' audition. The downside is that you may not get a job from these auditions. The upside is that you may get a job down the line. If you audition well, and you make a good impression, people keep track of what you're up to. Never a bad thing.
2. When you're not available. I used to stretch myself like Elastigirl to make every possible gig work. Less sleep, more travel, skipping meals, skipping days across time zones. It's not worth it. If you can't show up and do your best work from day 1, you can't do it. Emergencies happen, extenuating circumstances happen. But if you intentionally schedule exhaustion and overbooking, you're playing Russian Roulette with your own health and, thereby, your professional well-being.
3. When you don't check the box. And now we've come to the real point of this post.
It's my opinion that there are two kinds of auditions: the kind where someone takes an interest in you as an artist, and the kind where they're looking for you to check a box. In Germany, this can get chalked up to the 'fach box.' In your contract, you have to list a fach, and you have to be specific. If you just list 'soprano,' that covers everything from Sieglinde to Mimi to Semiramide. Do you want to sing Mimi and the Queen of the Night and Lady Macbeth and Lucia and Tosca? (Don't we all?) But I'd really like to keep singing, thank you. If you check the box, then there's an opportunity. If you don't check the box, there's no opportunity. It's slightly pessimistic on my part, but I tend to assess this point on how quickly the audition panel pivots from my first aria (Cleopatra's Piangerò from Giulio Cesare: secco recit, slow A, lightning-fast B with cadenza, da capo slow A with ornaments) to the Vengeance Aria. If it's the first and only thing they ask for, I'm reasonably certain they're box-checkers. They want to know if I can do what I say I can do, which is fair, but once they've heard it, they don't want to know anything else about my artistry. I have checked the box. If they say, "we'd like to hear one of the Queen arias, your choice, and we'd also like to hear Konstanze," this tells me they're looking for a Mozart coloratura, not just a Queen. If they ask to hear Musetta or Cunegonde, I'm practically leaping with joy, because it means they want to see if I can act/be funny/be charming/be sexy.
I can.
Auditioning is a process. It's a skill. You get better at it with time. Sometimes you wake up and everything goes your way and you'd swear there was a drop of Felix Felicis in your coffee. The weather is beautiful. The trains are on time. You sing amazingly. The pianist is great. You are ROCKING that outfit and you even have good hair, all at the same time. And you don't get hired. On the other side, there are days when it's raining sideways, your train is delayed, you do your makeup on the subway in much closer proximity to your fellow passengers than you'd ever get on a third date with someone you really liked, you manage to yodel a few notes in the elevator on the way up, arriving just 5 minutes early, only to find out that they had a cancellation and can you sing right NOW. You do what you can, but you feel it's not your best. And you get hired. There is very little rhyme or reason involved. There is a lot of faith, a lot of shrugging, a lot of 'I get knocked down but I get up again' (great - I'm gonna have Chumbawumba in my head ALL DAY), a fair amount of disappointment, and maybe, just maybe, some success.
Here's what matters - what you do between auditions. Do you make time to see friends when you're in their city? Do you reach out to family members and meet them for dinner when you're done? Do you pack a mask and comfy slippers so you can sit in your jammies and watch TV with your friend who's letting you crash on their sofa? Do you help other singers who are figuring it out? Taking care of yourself becomes really serious business as you get deeper into this business, but keeping an open heart is even more serious. My first real opera big sister is a gorgeous, flame-haired vixen of a soprano - she was singing Pamina to my Queen in my first professional production of Flute. She told it to me like it was, and I've never forgotten that. We would wake up early and go walk her dog and get a coffee at the Dunkin Donuts and talk about everything - marriage, work, agents, traveling, taxes. Lindy is the best. I still remember her telling me - "Half the people you go to school with will be out of this business within 2 years of graduation. By the time you get to 30, another half will have fallen away - they couldn't get it started, the lifestyle isn't for them, or they decided it wasn't worth it and chose another profession. When you get to 35, that number will decrease again, and again, and again."
Well, I'm gonna be 34 in a few weeks, and I'm still here.
Singing for a living is hard, but you don't have to do it alone. Work hard, yes, work really fucking hard. But be a person - be the kind of person people want to work with, the kind of person people want to help and the kind of person people look to for assistance. Check THOSE boxes.
Wednesday, February 26, 2014
Why you gotta be so mean?
For those of you who may not know me personally, I have a confession to make. This may be shocking.
I love pop music. Sure, in my eight years in Boston, I went to hear the BSO, sang in a bunch of early music groups, performed a few operas, gave recitals, and even worked on a few musicals. But when it comes to making my heart glad or giving words to an unquiet heart or getting pumped up before a show, I don't turn to Anne Schwanewilms' luminous recordings of Strauss or Felicity Lott's Poulenc or even Dawn Upshaw's gut-wrenching Anne Trulove. I turn to Joni Mitchell, Justin Timberlake, Jamiroquai, Beyonce, the Funky Meters and sometimes, like today, Taylor Swift.
When I was singing Flute at my first 'big house' - it's hard to believe that was five years ago - I was nervous as hell. Not just a big name house, but also a really BIG house - balconies that seemed to go up and up and up and a stage that never ended. I thought I was singing well. The company peeps said they were pleased. My colleagues were supportive. The production was beautiful and I was having a good time, despite feeling incredibly green. And then the first round of reviews came out.
Slam after slam against the 'talentless American,' comments about 'shooting off powerful top notes, just not necessarily the ones Mozart asked for,' a conflation of critiques about the character and the costume (which, of course, the singer has direct control over the production design, didn't you know?) and my age and my voice that made me sit on the floor of my room and cry for almost a full day. That was the day before I started final revisions on my dissertation with a vengeance (har har har), certain that I would never have a career as a professional singer, and determined to finish that dissertation and graduate as soon as possible. After the first few shows, we had quite a bit of time between performances. I'd make multiple pots of tea and spend hours proofing - today, we do all the French footnotes; tomorrow, all the English footnotes; the next day, every single citation. Send to adviser, repeat. My flatmates were absolutely lovely and didn't question why I wouldn't come out of my room for a full day and then spend three hours watching The West Wing while eating take-away curry. I suspect they knew a woman on a mission when they saw one.
And then the most extraordinary thing happened. I got another bad review. For a performance the critic did not attend. How do I know the critic did not attend this performance? Because the other cast was performing that evening, and they identified all of the principals from my cast by name. I laughed so hard I probably started crying again. I went on my research trip to the Britten-Pears Library, I ate some more take-away curry, I finished my dissertation, I sang my first Britten opera, and then I graduated. And I kept singing.
What does any of this have to do with Taylor Swift?
It's five years now since that soul-shredding experience, and I still remember the nasty words in the papers. I still remember the despair and doubt and incredible uncertainty as to whether or not I could do my job or not. Luckily, I've had five more years of professional singing experience, with my fair share of very good and very bad reviews (and everything inbetween), and those five years tell me that you can't please everyone, and you really can't please people who are determined to be displeased. I'm in a run of a beautiful production right now. My first Handel opera, my first role with NINE ARIAS (Lord, give me strength) and so much recit I feel like chatty Cathy, my first opera with baroque gesture, my first twisted ankle, and all at a Handel festival that sold out five performances and the dress rehearsal too. I'm singing alongside some of the most generous colleagues, lovely people and great singers to boot, and we've put the last 8 weeks of our lives into what I believe to be a truly special experience. There's been more press coverage of this show than any show I've ever sung, so it's a real shock to wake up every morning to another three or four reviews from news outlets across Germany, and even into the UK. I'm not a guest in this house - this is my 'home house' - so I've also gotten a lot of support and positive feedback from my colleagues and house administration, and it makes me feel so good. Which made today absolutely inevitable. The first review that one could call downright mean. Most of the less-than positive reviews, I shrug off, but this one actually made me laugh. Why is that?
Because five years ago, I thought my career was over before it began. That a few scribblers' opinions (I'll not call them critics, as a critic implies critical thinking, and calling them writers implies a command of language) could knock me out of the game entirely. And this simply isn't true. It just means there's one person who came to the show who really didn't like what I was doing.
Feedback is good but, like Miss Jean always said, consider the source. If your board of directors - your coach, your teacher, a conductor who knows your singing, maybe your agent - says you need to take a second or third look at something, you probably should. There's merit in fresh eyes and fresh ears, and constructive criticism is essential for growth and development. I had some years of serious uphill battles, fighting against old habits and old voices in my head, trying so hard to get out of my own way, and I came out on the other side. I am absolutely convinced this will happen again and again, because the voice changes with the body and the body changes every day. This career is not a sprint - it's a long-distance obstacle course marathon tough mudder at night wearing a corset and heels. But I'm not out of this party until I say it's time to go, and I'm just getting warmed up.
Which brings me back to Taylor. Because someday, I will be singing in a big ole city. And all that person's ever gonna be is mean.
I love pop music. Sure, in my eight years in Boston, I went to hear the BSO, sang in a bunch of early music groups, performed a few operas, gave recitals, and even worked on a few musicals. But when it comes to making my heart glad or giving words to an unquiet heart or getting pumped up before a show, I don't turn to Anne Schwanewilms' luminous recordings of Strauss or Felicity Lott's Poulenc or even Dawn Upshaw's gut-wrenching Anne Trulove. I turn to Joni Mitchell, Justin Timberlake, Jamiroquai, Beyonce, the Funky Meters and sometimes, like today, Taylor Swift.
When I was singing Flute at my first 'big house' - it's hard to believe that was five years ago - I was nervous as hell. Not just a big name house, but also a really BIG house - balconies that seemed to go up and up and up and a stage that never ended. I thought I was singing well. The company peeps said they were pleased. My colleagues were supportive. The production was beautiful and I was having a good time, despite feeling incredibly green. And then the first round of reviews came out.
Slam after slam against the 'talentless American,' comments about 'shooting off powerful top notes, just not necessarily the ones Mozart asked for,' a conflation of critiques about the character and the costume (which, of course, the singer has direct control over the production design, didn't you know?) and my age and my voice that made me sit on the floor of my room and cry for almost a full day. That was the day before I started final revisions on my dissertation with a vengeance (har har har), certain that I would never have a career as a professional singer, and determined to finish that dissertation and graduate as soon as possible. After the first few shows, we had quite a bit of time between performances. I'd make multiple pots of tea and spend hours proofing - today, we do all the French footnotes; tomorrow, all the English footnotes; the next day, every single citation. Send to adviser, repeat. My flatmates were absolutely lovely and didn't question why I wouldn't come out of my room for a full day and then spend three hours watching The West Wing while eating take-away curry. I suspect they knew a woman on a mission when they saw one.
And then the most extraordinary thing happened. I got another bad review. For a performance the critic did not attend. How do I know the critic did not attend this performance? Because the other cast was performing that evening, and they identified all of the principals from my cast by name. I laughed so hard I probably started crying again. I went on my research trip to the Britten-Pears Library, I ate some more take-away curry, I finished my dissertation, I sang my first Britten opera, and then I graduated. And I kept singing.
What does any of this have to do with Taylor Swift?
It's five years now since that soul-shredding experience, and I still remember the nasty words in the papers. I still remember the despair and doubt and incredible uncertainty as to whether or not I could do my job or not. Luckily, I've had five more years of professional singing experience, with my fair share of very good and very bad reviews (and everything inbetween), and those five years tell me that you can't please everyone, and you really can't please people who are determined to be displeased. I'm in a run of a beautiful production right now. My first Handel opera, my first role with NINE ARIAS (Lord, give me strength) and so much recit I feel like chatty Cathy, my first opera with baroque gesture, my first twisted ankle, and all at a Handel festival that sold out five performances and the dress rehearsal too. I'm singing alongside some of the most generous colleagues, lovely people and great singers to boot, and we've put the last 8 weeks of our lives into what I believe to be a truly special experience. There's been more press coverage of this show than any show I've ever sung, so it's a real shock to wake up every morning to another three or four reviews from news outlets across Germany, and even into the UK. I'm not a guest in this house - this is my 'home house' - so I've also gotten a lot of support and positive feedback from my colleagues and house administration, and it makes me feel so good. Which made today absolutely inevitable. The first review that one could call downright mean. Most of the less-than positive reviews, I shrug off, but this one actually made me laugh. Why is that?
Because five years ago, I thought my career was over before it began. That a few scribblers' opinions (I'll not call them critics, as a critic implies critical thinking, and calling them writers implies a command of language) could knock me out of the game entirely. And this simply isn't true. It just means there's one person who came to the show who really didn't like what I was doing.
Feedback is good but, like Miss Jean always said, consider the source. If your board of directors - your coach, your teacher, a conductor who knows your singing, maybe your agent - says you need to take a second or third look at something, you probably should. There's merit in fresh eyes and fresh ears, and constructive criticism is essential for growth and development. I had some years of serious uphill battles, fighting against old habits and old voices in my head, trying so hard to get out of my own way, and I came out on the other side. I am absolutely convinced this will happen again and again, because the voice changes with the body and the body changes every day. This career is not a sprint - it's a long-distance obstacle course marathon tough mudder at night wearing a corset and heels. But I'm not out of this party until I say it's time to go, and I'm just getting warmed up.
Which brings me back to Taylor. Because someday, I will be singing in a big ole city. And all that person's ever gonna be is mean.
Thursday, February 13, 2014
Setting boundaries
We've been in Germany for nearly six months now, and I think it's finally sunk in that we live here. I'm preparing for my third production (Handel Festspiele, y'all - they do early music for serious) and it's unlike anything I've ever done before. The director specializes in baroque-style performances with candlelight and period makeup/costume and baroque gesture. So it's kind of like dance, only not really. And everything is choreographed, only not really. We open next week, and I feel like I'm really getting the hang of this - I'm moving well, I'm able to put impulses into the fluidity, and all the long slow crosses are really giving my legs a workout when.......as if it were inevitable.....I'm overly tired at the end of a long rehearsal and I slip on the stairs and boom. Ankle sprained. My first ankle sprain in nearly 34 years on this earth.
Now I could elaborate with great enthusiasm about the wonderfulness of the socialized medicine system that got me in to see the ortho doc and into an ankle brace on the same day, and into physical therapy on the next day, but that's not what this post is about. This post is about setting boundaries.
The week before a show opens, you can't just bail from rehearsal because you've sprained your ankle, especially when you're single-cast and orchestra rehearsals are starting. I mean, I guess you could, but it would probably make life very very difficult and complicated. I'm still perfectly able to hobble around (not nearly as gracefully as before, but there you go) and my singing is unimpeded, so I get a bigger shoe for the foot with the brace, and I start figuring out ways to do what I need to do without putting myself in pain or danger. Into the fourth hour of a five-hour rehearsal (not counting the two hours of makeup and costume that come before work 'starts') my foot was really starting to throb. I'd already popped an ibuprofen before rehearsal (medication and singing - that's yet another post) to keep the swelling at bay, but I knew it was just a matter of time before we got to the part in the third act where I get thrown to the floor. In a medieval corseted dress. This is hard enough when you have full use of both of your feet. I did a full training course in stage combat so I know how to do this correctly, but when there's an injury involved, you gotta figure out another way to get the job done.
[Sidebar: there is no such thing as 'stage combat' in some European houses - there's a slap, you get slapped. There's a fight, they expect you to figure it out. This is NOT, I repeat NOT OKAY. Safety first, no matter what anyone says, no matter who the director is. NO EXCEPTIONS.]
So I say to the director, I can do it like so - he's already grabbed my wrists, so it looks like he's forcing me down to my knees, and then he flings me (read: he releases my wrists and I fling myself in a controlled and planned manner) toward the floor from there, smacking my palms on the floor so it makes a nice 'thump' and everyone in the audience gasps. Now our director is a good guy, he really is, but he likes to do all the movements himself. So he says, "okay, I try this myself," and off he goes. In his jeans and t-shirt and flexible shoes. And he says, "can you do it like this?" as he flings himself toward the edge of the set staircase. And I say, "I'm not comfortable flinging myself backward toward a staircase I can't see." And he says, "okay, we try it." And I say, "no, I'll try it slowly and see if it's possible." And he says, "okay, we try it with the music." And I say, "no, I'll try it slowly and see if it's possible." And he says, "well if I can do it it's possible," and I say, "yes, but you're not wearing a corset and two skirts, and you don't have a sprained ankle. I have to try it myself. Please give me a minute."
So I try it his way, slowly. It's awkward and I don't know if I can execute it in real-time safely. I tell him we'll have to try it a few times when the orchestra clock is not running. We do it once, awkwardly, and then we move on. We'll do it again on Monday.
One of the frequent questions I hear asked about the German Fest system is the danger question - will it ruin my voice? Will I be forced to sing roles that aren't right for me? Will I be doing back-to-back performances of dramatically different repertoire?
The answer to all of these questions is - Yes, if you allow it.
I have to sing a Flute on Saturday. I've been rehearsing Handel nonstop since the start of January. I told the AD I am not coming to rehearsal on Saturday morning. She said, "oh, if that's what you would prefer, I will ask," and I said, "No, you don't understand. I'm not coming. I have to sing Queen on Saturday night. I am staying home." Tomorrow night, we have a rehearsal. I am telling the director that I will not be staying past 8pm. He's a nice guy, but he's not great with time management, so he'll probably be a little pissed. But I have to take care of myself. You don't get points for pleasing people at the expense of your professional output. There is no "oh, she was overly tired from rehearsals but boy was she punctual" prize. There is no award for being a person who always says yes. This is a very hard lesson for me to learn, as I am a person who always wants to do what is asked of me. But at some point, you have to be real with yourself. If what you do to pay your rent is the thing that lives inside your body, not taking care of your body is just bad maintenance. It's a bad return on the years of investment you put into building that instrument. It's a waste.
Long story short - You do you. You have to watch your own back. You have to be your own guard and policeman and warden and judge and jury. Everything else is someone else's job, and pleasing everyone is WAY beyond your pay grade.
With that said, I gotta put my foot up. It hurts like a sonofabitch.
Now I could elaborate with great enthusiasm about the wonderfulness of the socialized medicine system that got me in to see the ortho doc and into an ankle brace on the same day, and into physical therapy on the next day, but that's not what this post is about. This post is about setting boundaries.
The week before a show opens, you can't just bail from rehearsal because you've sprained your ankle, especially when you're single-cast and orchestra rehearsals are starting. I mean, I guess you could, but it would probably make life very very difficult and complicated. I'm still perfectly able to hobble around (not nearly as gracefully as before, but there you go) and my singing is unimpeded, so I get a bigger shoe for the foot with the brace, and I start figuring out ways to do what I need to do without putting myself in pain or danger. Into the fourth hour of a five-hour rehearsal (not counting the two hours of makeup and costume that come before work 'starts') my foot was really starting to throb. I'd already popped an ibuprofen before rehearsal (medication and singing - that's yet another post) to keep the swelling at bay, but I knew it was just a matter of time before we got to the part in the third act where I get thrown to the floor. In a medieval corseted dress. This is hard enough when you have full use of both of your feet. I did a full training course in stage combat so I know how to do this correctly, but when there's an injury involved, you gotta figure out another way to get the job done.
[Sidebar: there is no such thing as 'stage combat' in some European houses - there's a slap, you get slapped. There's a fight, they expect you to figure it out. This is NOT, I repeat NOT OKAY. Safety first, no matter what anyone says, no matter who the director is. NO EXCEPTIONS.]
So I say to the director, I can do it like so - he's already grabbed my wrists, so it looks like he's forcing me down to my knees, and then he flings me (read: he releases my wrists and I fling myself in a controlled and planned manner) toward the floor from there, smacking my palms on the floor so it makes a nice 'thump' and everyone in the audience gasps. Now our director is a good guy, he really is, but he likes to do all the movements himself. So he says, "okay, I try this myself," and off he goes. In his jeans and t-shirt and flexible shoes. And he says, "can you do it like this?" as he flings himself toward the edge of the set staircase. And I say, "I'm not comfortable flinging myself backward toward a staircase I can't see." And he says, "okay, we try it." And I say, "no, I'll try it slowly and see if it's possible." And he says, "okay, we try it with the music." And I say, "no, I'll try it slowly and see if it's possible." And he says, "well if I can do it it's possible," and I say, "yes, but you're not wearing a corset and two skirts, and you don't have a sprained ankle. I have to try it myself. Please give me a minute."
So I try it his way, slowly. It's awkward and I don't know if I can execute it in real-time safely. I tell him we'll have to try it a few times when the orchestra clock is not running. We do it once, awkwardly, and then we move on. We'll do it again on Monday.
One of the frequent questions I hear asked about the German Fest system is the danger question - will it ruin my voice? Will I be forced to sing roles that aren't right for me? Will I be doing back-to-back performances of dramatically different repertoire?
The answer to all of these questions is - Yes, if you allow it.
I have to sing a Flute on Saturday. I've been rehearsing Handel nonstop since the start of January. I told the AD I am not coming to rehearsal on Saturday morning. She said, "oh, if that's what you would prefer, I will ask," and I said, "No, you don't understand. I'm not coming. I have to sing Queen on Saturday night. I am staying home." Tomorrow night, we have a rehearsal. I am telling the director that I will not be staying past 8pm. He's a nice guy, but he's not great with time management, so he'll probably be a little pissed. But I have to take care of myself. You don't get points for pleasing people at the expense of your professional output. There is no "oh, she was overly tired from rehearsals but boy was she punctual" prize. There is no award for being a person who always says yes. This is a very hard lesson for me to learn, as I am a person who always wants to do what is asked of me. But at some point, you have to be real with yourself. If what you do to pay your rent is the thing that lives inside your body, not taking care of your body is just bad maintenance. It's a bad return on the years of investment you put into building that instrument. It's a waste.
Long story short - You do you. You have to watch your own back. You have to be your own guard and policeman and warden and judge and jury. Everything else is someone else's job, and pleasing everyone is WAY beyond your pay grade.
With that said, I gotta put my foot up. It hurts like a sonofabitch.
Wednesday, January 15, 2014
The wisdom of R Kelly and Chaka Khan
In one of his more profound moments, R Kelly unleashed the following phrases upon the hapless ears of millions -
"My mind is telling me NOOOOOO
But my body, my body is telling me YESSSSS
Baby, I don't want to hurt nobody, but there is something I must confess..."
Needless to say, his confession is far different than mine, and the subject matter that follows diverges wildly from his original topic, but here it is:
I'm sick.
I had to cancel a performance.
It sucked, but it happened.
Well into day 4 of my winter cold, I'm feeling much more like a human and much less like a useless blob of sniffles and sneezes. My eyes are clear, my ears are no longer popping every time I take a sip of tea, I don't sound like Tom Waits when I speak, and I can climb the two flights of stairs up to my apartment without getting dizzy. Progress. This was not the case when I awoke on Sunday morning.
I stood up, got dizzy, sat down. Emailed the higher-ups at the opera house, went back to sleep. Awoke an hour later when one of them called me and said they'd get a replacement. I don't remember much of this conversation. Went back to sleep. Awoke two hours later, took a combination of mucinex and sinupret and ibuprofen, repeated at regular intervals, went through an entire box of kleenex, drank enough tea to float a barge, and generally bemoaned my misery. My husband, sweet man that he is, bore it all with grace and large batches of soup. When I went to the doctor on Monday, I found myself back in that frame of mind I'd always had as a freelances - I must not be sick. I must NOT be sick. I have to get better. RIGHT NOW. And my doctor, in her oh-so-efficient minces-no-words fashion, said, "Irgendwann sagt der Körper nein." ("Eventually/sometimes the body says no.")
And that's really it. All those years of rushing to the ENT because I had to do a show or an audition or a concert. What did it earn me? A whole lot of fussing and fretting (and a rather impressive traveling medicine cabinet) didn't manage to stop me from getting sick when my body insisted it was going to happen. I could write at length about the cognitive dissonance of our business that says, "you should never sing sick," whilst also saying, "there are no second chances," but that's something everyone has to sort out for themselves. After a rather nasty reaction to prednisone last year, I resolved I would never put myself through that particular roller-coaster ride again. I wash my hands like a fiend, I eat healthy, and I get enough sleep, but sometimes we just get a bug. It happens. And no matter how much your mind screams that this is NOT happening, that you can power through this if you can just get enough of the right drugs on-board, your body is going to do as it damn well pleases.
Lo and behold, four days later, I can function. I'm not singing just yet - thanks, drippy nose/sore throat - but I'm able to go to staging rehearsals and get things done. I'll try singing again later this week, maybe even tomorrow, depending on how I feel. I thought I'd be much more downcast by canceling, but it wasn't my decision. My body simply said, "YES, I'M REALLY SICK. NO, YOU CAN'T DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT." And there's no arguing.
And now, another spectacular pop music quote taken wildly out of context. A love song for my inner perfectionist-workaholic, delivered by the unmatchable Chaka Khan and Rufus.
"Got no time is what you're known to say.
I bet you wish there was 48 hours to each day.
The problem is you ain't been loved like you should.
What I got to give will sho nuff do you good."
Sometimes you don't need an emergency trip to the ENT. Sometimes you need to give yourself permission to be human - to get sick, and to allow your body to heal itself. And in all cases, you need Chaka Khan.
"My mind is telling me NOOOOOO
But my body, my body is telling me YESSSSS
Baby, I don't want to hurt nobody, but there is something I must confess..."
Needless to say, his confession is far different than mine, and the subject matter that follows diverges wildly from his original topic, but here it is:
I'm sick.
I had to cancel a performance.
It sucked, but it happened.
Well into day 4 of my winter cold, I'm feeling much more like a human and much less like a useless blob of sniffles and sneezes. My eyes are clear, my ears are no longer popping every time I take a sip of tea, I don't sound like Tom Waits when I speak, and I can climb the two flights of stairs up to my apartment without getting dizzy. Progress. This was not the case when I awoke on Sunday morning.
I stood up, got dizzy, sat down. Emailed the higher-ups at the opera house, went back to sleep. Awoke an hour later when one of them called me and said they'd get a replacement. I don't remember much of this conversation. Went back to sleep. Awoke two hours later, took a combination of mucinex and sinupret and ibuprofen, repeated at regular intervals, went through an entire box of kleenex, drank enough tea to float a barge, and generally bemoaned my misery. My husband, sweet man that he is, bore it all with grace and large batches of soup. When I went to the doctor on Monday, I found myself back in that frame of mind I'd always had as a freelances - I must not be sick. I must NOT be sick. I have to get better. RIGHT NOW. And my doctor, in her oh-so-efficient minces-no-words fashion, said, "Irgendwann sagt der Körper nein." ("Eventually/sometimes the body says no.")
And that's really it. All those years of rushing to the ENT because I had to do a show or an audition or a concert. What did it earn me? A whole lot of fussing and fretting (and a rather impressive traveling medicine cabinet) didn't manage to stop me from getting sick when my body insisted it was going to happen. I could write at length about the cognitive dissonance of our business that says, "you should never sing sick," whilst also saying, "there are no second chances," but that's something everyone has to sort out for themselves. After a rather nasty reaction to prednisone last year, I resolved I would never put myself through that particular roller-coaster ride again. I wash my hands like a fiend, I eat healthy, and I get enough sleep, but sometimes we just get a bug. It happens. And no matter how much your mind screams that this is NOT happening, that you can power through this if you can just get enough of the right drugs on-board, your body is going to do as it damn well pleases.
Lo and behold, four days later, I can function. I'm not singing just yet - thanks, drippy nose/sore throat - but I'm able to go to staging rehearsals and get things done. I'll try singing again later this week, maybe even tomorrow, depending on how I feel. I thought I'd be much more downcast by canceling, but it wasn't my decision. My body simply said, "YES, I'M REALLY SICK. NO, YOU CAN'T DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT." And there's no arguing.
And now, another spectacular pop music quote taken wildly out of context. A love song for my inner perfectionist-workaholic, delivered by the unmatchable Chaka Khan and Rufus.
"Got no time is what you're known to say.
I bet you wish there was 48 hours to each day.
The problem is you ain't been loved like you should.
What I got to give will sho nuff do you good."
Sometimes you don't need an emergency trip to the ENT. Sometimes you need to give yourself permission to be human - to get sick, and to allow your body to heal itself. And in all cases, you need Chaka Khan.
Sunday, November 24, 2013
Wardrobe malfunction
So I'm doing this run of Flute in Frankfurt. For the second aria, I come up through the floor of the stage on this trap door thingie. My dress is gorgeous but massive and there's a cape that's just begging to get caught in the crack between the trap and the stage, as it did in the very first trap door run I did for this production back in March 2012.
There are two women who work as Ankleiderin (female dresser) in the Damensolo Garderobe (women's dressing room) in Frankfurt. Anna and Anja are the two lovely women who push and pull and lace and hook me into this gorgeous getup and, since I can't actually walk through a door in this dress without assistance, they hold doors for me as I make my way to the trap underneath the stage. Every performance. Except last night. Last night, there was someone new. She didn't introduce herself, but Anja said, "oh, she's going to get you dressed and go with you tonight." Um, okay. Does she know the special magical configuration of gathering the cape up in my hands and then tucking the tail of the dress under my left foot so it doesn't slip and I don't sing the whole Vengeance Aria from two square feet of real estate? Yikes.
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| Ain't she a purdy Queen? |
Well you can imagine. It was a comedy of errors. She stepped on my dress twice on the way to the trap, almost making me fall over. Did I mention there's a dagger in my a pocket of my dress? She thought she was supposed to hold the cape, so we had this hurried whisper conversation about how it was I who was supposed to hold the cape and she was supposed to tuck it under. Finally, I'm hoofing it up the little stairs into the trap and she's following me, when my heels gets caught in the underskirt. Not just caught. Hooked. Like it's gone through the underskirt and it's stuck. I can't see it, I can't move forward or back, it's dark, and we're supposed to be really quiet because I'm supposed to be zipping up that trap door in about 8 seconds. 7. 6. 5..... I manage to free my heel from my dress, promptly stepping on the front of the underskirt and almost doing a faceplant onto the stairs, I step onto the trap and she throws the tail of my dress up and hops off the trap, and up I go, just in time to hiss,
"Zurück!"
The dialogue in Frankfurt is of a goodly length. I had a new Pamina last night (who sang beautifully, btw) and we had run it once. While we were both in our makeup call. I was so rattled about all the bullshit with my dress and cape and crap, it wasn't until about 20 bars into the aria that I realized I was in the scene. My conscious mind was elsewhere, still shaking off the anxiety of getting stuck, and then I jerked back to the aria just in time to sing this part, which always makes me crazy, when I realized, "Wow, I'm really kicking ass tonight!" It only got better from there. Nailed it.
Long story short, it is possible to be too present. My friend Lizzie says that, henceforth, I should ask my dresser to smack me in the face before I go on. If that doesn't produce some full-blown Queen of the Night stink-eye, I don't know what will.
To read more about creativity and distraction (plus and minus) see this article in Bulletproof Musician.
Monday, November 18, 2013
Bend EXTEND
So the GMD (general music director)'s wife Elaine is this badass ballet dancer. She looks like Tinkerbell, all cuteness and curly blonde hair and absolutely zero body fat on her. But underneath her calling everyone "my darling" is the take-no-prisoners teacher who puts a few masochistic opera singers through their paces twice a week while she's in town. 90 minutes of every torturous pilates exercise you could ever think up, and then some extra ballet stuff for good measure. And she clucks her tongue in time with her exercises, "bend extend lift drop bend extend lift drop bend extend lift drop bend EXTEND bend EXTEND bend and EXTEND" until you're absolutely sure that your legs have turned to jelly and your hips couldn't possibly be meant to move in that fashion and you peel yourself off the mat and despite all of the wailing and gnashing of teeth, you actually feel better. It's good for you. I don't know if I'd go so far as to say that pilates builds character, but it certainly brings out the personality in my colleagues. Good stuff.
We've been in Germany for nearly three months now. Three months is, in my experience, about the time when you start to see the cracks. The newness has worn off, you've had at least one brush with either extreme inconvenience or extreme incompetence (or one as the result of the other), you realize you haven't had some particular food that's dear to your heart (peanut butter - I'm coming for you), and at least one holiday has come and gone. When I was in England, my first big holiday away was Thanksgiving. A few sympathetic Englanders helped throw a Thanksgiving Dinner for the lonely American, and boy did I need it. There's a very good reason many of those study abroad programs happen during the summer. Winter is hard. It's grey and cold and the wind bites through your clothes and reminds you that you did not grow up in a climate where winter was a big deal. Where I come from, winter is that thing that happens after Thanksgiving but before Mardi Gras when you put on a long-sleeved shirt and a jacket. Maybe a scarf. All those romantic photos of some New Yorker in an open jacket with an artfully draped hat? Yeah, New York doesn't look like that in the winter. But New Orleans sure does. The New Yorkers are freezing their asses off and wearing the same puffy sleeping bag coat that I wear all winter long - from ankles to eyebrows with a hood. But I digress.
Winter is hard. The other nasty thing about being in a foreign country for longer than three months is when the country you're in doesn't celebrate those holidays you hold dear. Halloween is not a big deal here. Thanksgiving is nonexistent. It's small wonder the Christmas decor came out in mid-October. Christmas is the next big holiday that's happening, and they are going to get the most out of it. Bring on the Glühwein!
What the hell does any of this have to do with pilates? I'm getting there.
We have wonderful people living in our house back in Boston. Lovely human beings who have a dog, just like we do, and love the colors we painted our kitchen, just like we do. They have friends in the nearby areas and they are students of public transportation, so they appreciate the two train lines that run nearby, just as we did. They even purchased some of our furniture, so now it's their furniture. I am and was and continue to be very happy that all of this happened. But there's this weird little ache in my heart when I see a picture of their dog in the living room that used to be ours, next to the accent wall that we painted when we moved in. We taped and painted all of those walls ourselves. We picked out the paint colors at the local hardware store. Your first house is always your first house.
But before I slip too deeply into the nostalgia shame spiral, I have to remind myself that having these wonderful people living in our house makes possible our life here, in Germany. Even if I wanted to go back and move back to our old neighborhood, I couldn't have the life that we have here. Sure, we could pack it all up and go back, but what then? Why did we sell 75% of what we own and move six time zones away, if not for this? Why did we put ourselves through this crazy roller coaster ride?
Because we want more for our life together. We want a life that involves eating two if not three meals a day together. We want to see where this career goes and yes, I admit, I wanted to keep singing. Freelancing in the States means you pay rent on an apartment you only see 2 weeks out of every 8. It means you pay through the nose for the kind of health insurance that lets you go see anyone because you're never at home when you need to see a doctor. It means you miss birthdays and anniversaries and births and deaths and even though it's cruel, you tell yourself and your colleagues tell you that this is what's expected. And turning away from those things is not hard, but turning away from our families and friends and from the life we'd build on that continent is really hard. When the days are short and frequently grey, it's even harder. But when you get a day of sunshine, like we had today, and you have a really good coaching and your coach tells you that your Italian recit is actually sounding like it should and that it's coming more quickly than it did before, and you get to do something extremely ordinary like go to the grocery with your husband and smell the smells of the chili he made for dinner, watch a movie on the sofa and snuggle with the dog, you tell yourself it was worth it.
Every day I'm away from the States, I tell myself I'm getting more flexible. Learning to roll with the punches in a language that I speak reasonably well but in a culture I'm only just beginning to know. So when pixie-drillsargent Elaine tells me to bend and extend, it's not just my leg she's talking about. And it hurts, oh how it hurts. But it makes me stronger.
And with that, I'm going to work on the menu for Thanksgiving. Even if Germany doesn't celebrate Thanksgiving, we are going to feast and be thankful for the companions we have on this crazy journey. Thankful, so thankful, for each other's presence, and for the life that allows us to be here together.
We've been in Germany for nearly three months now. Three months is, in my experience, about the time when you start to see the cracks. The newness has worn off, you've had at least one brush with either extreme inconvenience or extreme incompetence (or one as the result of the other), you realize you haven't had some particular food that's dear to your heart (peanut butter - I'm coming for you), and at least one holiday has come and gone. When I was in England, my first big holiday away was Thanksgiving. A few sympathetic Englanders helped throw a Thanksgiving Dinner for the lonely American, and boy did I need it. There's a very good reason many of those study abroad programs happen during the summer. Winter is hard. It's grey and cold and the wind bites through your clothes and reminds you that you did not grow up in a climate where winter was a big deal. Where I come from, winter is that thing that happens after Thanksgiving but before Mardi Gras when you put on a long-sleeved shirt and a jacket. Maybe a scarf. All those romantic photos of some New Yorker in an open jacket with an artfully draped hat? Yeah, New York doesn't look like that in the winter. But New Orleans sure does. The New Yorkers are freezing their asses off and wearing the same puffy sleeping bag coat that I wear all winter long - from ankles to eyebrows with a hood. But I digress.
Winter is hard. The other nasty thing about being in a foreign country for longer than three months is when the country you're in doesn't celebrate those holidays you hold dear. Halloween is not a big deal here. Thanksgiving is nonexistent. It's small wonder the Christmas decor came out in mid-October. Christmas is the next big holiday that's happening, and they are going to get the most out of it. Bring on the Glühwein!
What the hell does any of this have to do with pilates? I'm getting there.
We have wonderful people living in our house back in Boston. Lovely human beings who have a dog, just like we do, and love the colors we painted our kitchen, just like we do. They have friends in the nearby areas and they are students of public transportation, so they appreciate the two train lines that run nearby, just as we did. They even purchased some of our furniture, so now it's their furniture. I am and was and continue to be very happy that all of this happened. But there's this weird little ache in my heart when I see a picture of their dog in the living room that used to be ours, next to the accent wall that we painted when we moved in. We taped and painted all of those walls ourselves. We picked out the paint colors at the local hardware store. Your first house is always your first house.
But before I slip too deeply into the nostalgia shame spiral, I have to remind myself that having these wonderful people living in our house makes possible our life here, in Germany. Even if I wanted to go back and move back to our old neighborhood, I couldn't have the life that we have here. Sure, we could pack it all up and go back, but what then? Why did we sell 75% of what we own and move six time zones away, if not for this? Why did we put ourselves through this crazy roller coaster ride?
Because we want more for our life together. We want a life that involves eating two if not three meals a day together. We want to see where this career goes and yes, I admit, I wanted to keep singing. Freelancing in the States means you pay rent on an apartment you only see 2 weeks out of every 8. It means you pay through the nose for the kind of health insurance that lets you go see anyone because you're never at home when you need to see a doctor. It means you miss birthdays and anniversaries and births and deaths and even though it's cruel, you tell yourself and your colleagues tell you that this is what's expected. And turning away from those things is not hard, but turning away from our families and friends and from the life we'd build on that continent is really hard. When the days are short and frequently grey, it's even harder. But when you get a day of sunshine, like we had today, and you have a really good coaching and your coach tells you that your Italian recit is actually sounding like it should and that it's coming more quickly than it did before, and you get to do something extremely ordinary like go to the grocery with your husband and smell the smells of the chili he made for dinner, watch a movie on the sofa and snuggle with the dog, you tell yourself it was worth it.
Every day I'm away from the States, I tell myself I'm getting more flexible. Learning to roll with the punches in a language that I speak reasonably well but in a culture I'm only just beginning to know. So when pixie-drillsargent Elaine tells me to bend and extend, it's not just my leg she's talking about. And it hurts, oh how it hurts. But it makes me stronger.
And with that, I'm going to work on the menu for Thanksgiving. Even if Germany doesn't celebrate Thanksgiving, we are going to feast and be thankful for the companions we have on this crazy journey. Thankful, so thankful, for each other's presence, and for the life that allows us to be here together.
Monday, November 11, 2013
You talkin to me?
So I'm in the midst of a three-month push to cram a metric ton of Italian recit into my head. It's my first Handel opera, it's a leading lady role, and this means she never seems to shut her yap about how unhappy she is. Eight arias, three ariettas, a fat duet, and SO MUCH RECIT. And no cuts.
Complaining over.
I've never felt confident about my Italian, which means I sway like a pendulum between two extremes:
1. coach me coach me coach me coach me pick every detail apart until it's absolutely perfect again again again!
2. leave me aloooooooooooooooooooooone!
It takes a long time for me to get past 1 and on to phase 2, especially with works in Italian, but I suspect that my insecurity and my desire to achieve fluidity in my recits is ultimately a good thing. Hammering and tinkering and pulling and pushing at it until it feels like it's mine is just part of the way we get there. This isn't the case with German. Since I first started singing in German - later than I started singing in Italian, mind you - it's a language that has always made sense to me. Fighting with the grammar made me realize that I didn't know shit about grammar in English, but once I understood the constructs, life was beautiful. German is beautiful. I enjoy speaking it, and I actually like the way it feels in my mouth. One of the big thrills of singing the Queen is tasting the progression of consonants and vowels as you say, "Siehst du hier diesen Stahl? Er ist für Sarastro geschliffen." The length of the [a] vowel in Stahl lets the threat hang in the air just long enough to scare the ever-loving poop out of any Pamina, and when her eyes get big, I know I'm doing my job. Thanks, German! The downside of feeling like this language is a part of me - when someone wants to tweak something, I can get defensive. Really defensive. Almost 'take my ball and go home' defensive. But before I get my hackles up, I have to remind myself that, whether I speak this language or not, it's not my mother tongue. And even if it were, there's always room for improvement. Always. I remember a few years ago something a conductor said - if they're still giving notes, that means they're still wanting you to improve. If they stop giving notes, it's because they think you're cooked (read: no longer open for improvement).
I don't want to be cooked. I want to slow roast as long as I can. I'd like to be surprised by something new in my work, enjoy something I've not yet experienced, be frightened by a challenge [see the above Italian recit slog - I WILL conquer this!] and then delighted when I overcome said challenge. Last week, talking about how I wasn't really known for my legato, my coach said, "We will change that this year!" and while working on legato isn't ever finished, it's really nice to know that he's invested in this with me. Pushing me to be better. More honest. Letting go of preciousness and embracing passion, even in high holy pieces of Museumkunstmusik (my made-up word - thanks, German!) - in fact, especially in those kinds of pieces. Because who gives a shit about perfection? I want to be moved, and I want to move people.
Sidebar - I really love original records, where you can hear people shifting in their chairs or the rustle of the pages turning or the intake of breath by a singer. There's this wonderful recording of Phyllis Curtin singing the Copland Emily Dickinson songs, with Copland at the piano. I love Phyllis' singing, and especially on this album. I first heard it on LP in the listening library at Exeter, sitting in this dark little corner, reading the liner notes while I listened. Phyllis is a take-no-prisoners no-pretense straight-shooter kind of singer. There's nothing fussy about her delivery, and the singing is just wonderful. This is what I aspire to. I want to get past the pretense and get to the art. And this also means setting aside my ego and opening up my ears to what other people have to say. Take it all in. Use what I can. Try on and try out ideas, see what they're good for. But the moment we allow pride to stand in place of learning, you can bet your sweet bippy the countdown has started for a cosmic kick in the tuchus. And we all have it coming.
And with that, I'm going to mutter to myself in Italian until dinner is ready. I'm not cooked yet.
Complaining over.
I've never felt confident about my Italian, which means I sway like a pendulum between two extremes:
1. coach me coach me coach me coach me pick every detail apart until it's absolutely perfect again again again!
2. leave me aloooooooooooooooooooooone!
It takes a long time for me to get past 1 and on to phase 2, especially with works in Italian, but I suspect that my insecurity and my desire to achieve fluidity in my recits is ultimately a good thing. Hammering and tinkering and pulling and pushing at it until it feels like it's mine is just part of the way we get there. This isn't the case with German. Since I first started singing in German - later than I started singing in Italian, mind you - it's a language that has always made sense to me. Fighting with the grammar made me realize that I didn't know shit about grammar in English, but once I understood the constructs, life was beautiful. German is beautiful. I enjoy speaking it, and I actually like the way it feels in my mouth. One of the big thrills of singing the Queen is tasting the progression of consonants and vowels as you say, "Siehst du hier diesen Stahl? Er ist für Sarastro geschliffen." The length of the [a] vowel in Stahl lets the threat hang in the air just long enough to scare the ever-loving poop out of any Pamina, and when her eyes get big, I know I'm doing my job. Thanks, German! The downside of feeling like this language is a part of me - when someone wants to tweak something, I can get defensive. Really defensive. Almost 'take my ball and go home' defensive. But before I get my hackles up, I have to remind myself that, whether I speak this language or not, it's not my mother tongue. And even if it were, there's always room for improvement. Always. I remember a few years ago something a conductor said - if they're still giving notes, that means they're still wanting you to improve. If they stop giving notes, it's because they think you're cooked (read: no longer open for improvement).
I don't want to be cooked. I want to slow roast as long as I can. I'd like to be surprised by something new in my work, enjoy something I've not yet experienced, be frightened by a challenge [see the above Italian recit slog - I WILL conquer this!] and then delighted when I overcome said challenge. Last week, talking about how I wasn't really known for my legato, my coach said, "We will change that this year!" and while working on legato isn't ever finished, it's really nice to know that he's invested in this with me. Pushing me to be better. More honest. Letting go of preciousness and embracing passion, even in high holy pieces of Museumkunstmusik (my made-up word - thanks, German!) - in fact, especially in those kinds of pieces. Because who gives a shit about perfection? I want to be moved, and I want to move people.
Sidebar - I really love original records, where you can hear people shifting in their chairs or the rustle of the pages turning or the intake of breath by a singer. There's this wonderful recording of Phyllis Curtin singing the Copland Emily Dickinson songs, with Copland at the piano. I love Phyllis' singing, and especially on this album. I first heard it on LP in the listening library at Exeter, sitting in this dark little corner, reading the liner notes while I listened. Phyllis is a take-no-prisoners no-pretense straight-shooter kind of singer. There's nothing fussy about her delivery, and the singing is just wonderful. This is what I aspire to. I want to get past the pretense and get to the art. And this also means setting aside my ego and opening up my ears to what other people have to say. Take it all in. Use what I can. Try on and try out ideas, see what they're good for. But the moment we allow pride to stand in place of learning, you can bet your sweet bippy the countdown has started for a cosmic kick in the tuchus. And we all have it coming.
And with that, I'm going to mutter to myself in Italian until dinner is ready. I'm not cooked yet.
Saturday, October 19, 2013
Comparison
A few days ago, I had my first performance as an Ensemblemitglied (translation: a full-time employed opera singer who works primarily at one opera house) in Verdi's Un Ballo in Maschera. Now, momma don't usually sing Verdi, but Oscar fits like a snazzy pair of running shoes. He/she is a know-it-all trouble-making sass-giving back-talking busybody who sings zippy things and provides some levity in the midst of some serious bizarre love triangle omigosh this opera is about killing a king drama. I had a great time, I got to wear some awesome outfits, and I can't wait to do it again.
Challenges singing Verdi presents: you have to be able to pop around like a coloratura, but then you have to hitch up those big girl britches and sing you some legato. You have to be able to sing over the top of two male choruses and tenor soloists and make it sound beautiful and easy. And you have to do it with your boobs flattened down against your chest by what can only be described as a smasher-downer (German vocabulary of the week: "Brustquetscher" - "Breast-squeezer") and acting like a young-ish boy, which can sometimes translate to lots of running and jumping and such.
Luckily, there's a six-week rehearsal period for new productions, so you have a good amount of time to develop your character's physicality, personality, learn the staging, experiment with new ways to deliver lines, integrate input from the director/music director, all that good stuff. For someone who likes to overprepare and overthink things, this method is kind of great. It gives me enough time to get in my own way and then get out of my own way. I was also splitting rehearsal time with one of my colleagues, as we were double cast. She's been at the house a lot longer than I have (12 years, to be precise) and she knows her way around the house, so it was really a gift to have her sharing the benefits of her insight with me - everything from how to fill out forms to which person to go to when you need shit to get done and how to find out the things you need to find out. Good colleagues are always a valuable commodity.
The director was very clear from the beginning that he saw us as two distinct artists. We aren't shaped the same, we don't move the same, and our instincts aren't the same, so he didn't expect us to be the same. This made me ecstatic, because it meant he didn't expect me to mimic her or her to mimic me. Some things, basic traffic patterns, sure, those were essentially the same. But when it comes to how we do what we do, he gave us liberty to be ourselves. (For the record, it isn't always like this.) And when my premiere was over and done, he gave me a big hug and told me he was really pleased with how much I'd made the movements, the expressions, and the whole character my own. He said he could see that it was really motivated, from start to finish, and that he was very pleased. I was so tickled, I could have pinched myself.
Opening nights are full of hugs and smooches and occasional head-desk moments where you do something you weren't supposed to do (like leave the row of the bow to go get the director who's.....NOT standing at stage right like you practiced) and opening night gifts (I made skull-and-crossbones cookies for my castmates) for your colleagues and your dresser and makeup person and all the people who make the night go from start to finish. And if all goes well (or at least according to plan) everyone goes home with a rose and a smile on their face. And I did. And I was grateful and happy.
But then I made a classic mistake. I looked for the reviews.
head-desk head-desk head-desk head-desk head-desk head-desk head-desk
Why oh why oh WHY did I do this? Because my stupid vanity wanted to see if someone else liked my performance. Stupid stupid stupid stupid.
And this brings me to today's quote. "Comparison is the thief of joy." (Theodore Roosevelt)
There was one review of my performance on an arts blog. Someone who writes about the shows at my opera house. I hesitate to call it a review because he really didn't talk about my singing. He talked about how my singing was not like my colleague's singing, which he enjoyed very much. He made a comparison. See the quote of the day. There goes the joy, straight out the window. I am an idiot. And instead of thinking about how much fun it was to be onstage with my wonderful colleagues, I found myself in that shame spiral of comparison, following the treacherous trail of bread crumbs right down the open sucking drain of awfulness.
I'm going to a party this evening. It's a housewarming for one of my colleagues who's in a new apartment. My hunny has made banana nut muffins that will blow your mind. And I am going to put this ridiculousness out of my mind and out of my heart and banish my unnecessarily hurt feelings because everyone is entitled to give their opinion. They are allowed to give it, but I am the only one who can take it.
And while it's not Teddy Roosevelt, I'm going to borrow some wisdom from some colorful stage creatures and not take it anymore.
Challenges singing Verdi presents: you have to be able to pop around like a coloratura, but then you have to hitch up those big girl britches and sing you some legato. You have to be able to sing over the top of two male choruses and tenor soloists and make it sound beautiful and easy. And you have to do it with your boobs flattened down against your chest by what can only be described as a smasher-downer (German vocabulary of the week: "Brustquetscher" - "Breast-squeezer") and acting like a young-ish boy, which can sometimes translate to lots of running and jumping and such.
Luckily, there's a six-week rehearsal period for new productions, so you have a good amount of time to develop your character's physicality, personality, learn the staging, experiment with new ways to deliver lines, integrate input from the director/music director, all that good stuff. For someone who likes to overprepare and overthink things, this method is kind of great. It gives me enough time to get in my own way and then get out of my own way. I was also splitting rehearsal time with one of my colleagues, as we were double cast. She's been at the house a lot longer than I have (12 years, to be precise) and she knows her way around the house, so it was really a gift to have her sharing the benefits of her insight with me - everything from how to fill out forms to which person to go to when you need shit to get done and how to find out the things you need to find out. Good colleagues are always a valuable commodity.
The director was very clear from the beginning that he saw us as two distinct artists. We aren't shaped the same, we don't move the same, and our instincts aren't the same, so he didn't expect us to be the same. This made me ecstatic, because it meant he didn't expect me to mimic her or her to mimic me. Some things, basic traffic patterns, sure, those were essentially the same. But when it comes to how we do what we do, he gave us liberty to be ourselves. (For the record, it isn't always like this.) And when my premiere was over and done, he gave me a big hug and told me he was really pleased with how much I'd made the movements, the expressions, and the whole character my own. He said he could see that it was really motivated, from start to finish, and that he was very pleased. I was so tickled, I could have pinched myself.
Opening nights are full of hugs and smooches and occasional head-desk moments where you do something you weren't supposed to do (like leave the row of the bow to go get the director who's.....NOT standing at stage right like you practiced) and opening night gifts (I made skull-and-crossbones cookies for my castmates) for your colleagues and your dresser and makeup person and all the people who make the night go from start to finish. And if all goes well (or at least according to plan) everyone goes home with a rose and a smile on their face. And I did. And I was grateful and happy.
But then I made a classic mistake. I looked for the reviews.
head-desk head-desk head-desk head-desk head-desk head-desk head-desk
Why oh why oh WHY did I do this? Because my stupid vanity wanted to see if someone else liked my performance. Stupid stupid stupid stupid.
And this brings me to today's quote. "Comparison is the thief of joy." (Theodore Roosevelt)
There was one review of my performance on an arts blog. Someone who writes about the shows at my opera house. I hesitate to call it a review because he really didn't talk about my singing. He talked about how my singing was not like my colleague's singing, which he enjoyed very much. He made a comparison. See the quote of the day. There goes the joy, straight out the window. I am an idiot. And instead of thinking about how much fun it was to be onstage with my wonderful colleagues, I found myself in that shame spiral of comparison, following the treacherous trail of bread crumbs right down the open sucking drain of awfulness.
I'm going to a party this evening. It's a housewarming for one of my colleagues who's in a new apartment. My hunny has made banana nut muffins that will blow your mind. And I am going to put this ridiculousness out of my mind and out of my heart and banish my unnecessarily hurt feelings because everyone is entitled to give their opinion. They are allowed to give it, but I am the only one who can take it.
And while it's not Teddy Roosevelt, I'm going to borrow some wisdom from some colorful stage creatures and not take it anymore.
Saturday, October 12, 2013
Women in classical music
I'm a woman. I work in classical music. Most opera conductors who've stood in the darkened pit, flinging their arms in my general direction, have been men. Most of the directors who've told me to enter from stage left (or to find my way to the trapdoor under the stage) have been men. My first voice teachers were men. My first piano teachers were women. My first choral directors were women. My musicology adviser at the masters' level is a man. My doctoral dissertation adviser is a woman. My longtime mentor voice teacher was a man. My current voice teacher is a woman. I've had women and men hold my ass to the fire and demand better of me, demand that I work harder, push my own boundaries, practice smarter, stand up for myself, teach myself, teach others to teach themselves. My career is the sum of many parts and many people, to whom I am ever grateful.
Recently, the question of gender inequality in classical music has made it into the news. NPR posted this article about women conductors and the men who were foolish enough to talk about their neanderthal views on female conductors to reporters. That's not the focus of my writing today, as Alex Ross more than sufficiently addresses the issue (and the incredible hubris and stupidity of the men - I won't call them 'gentlemen' - who removed all doubt of their lacking in sense by opening their mouths). The main area of these articles deals with the question (who knew it was a question?) of women conductors in the professional sphere. I remember seeing JoAnn Falletta conduct the Louisiana Phil when I was a teenager - in hindsight, the inclusion of John Adams' "The Chairman Dances" from Nixon in China was pretty adventurous programming for south LA - and she was a fireball. I even remember thinking, "Wow, this woman is a total badass." Now I've snored through some conductors in my time (both on and off the stage) and I can tell you that it has nothing to do with their gender. If you can stand in front of an orchestra and do the job with excellence and passion, you can do the job. Period. But gender bias isn't about whether or not you can do the job. Gender bias is about someone else's ideas and someone else's agenda.
In the NPR article, Anastasia Tsioulcas writes,
Anyone who's ever sung in choir knows that there are way more female singers than men. This, in itself, is a dissertation waiting to be written. So by the time you get to be a professional singer (for my purposes, I define this as making a living and paying your bills primarily from singing), you can do the math. Sopranos come in econo-packs, so you'd better work your tuchus off to be the best at what you do, the fittest and the most flexible, with extra skills like roller-skating/gymnastics/ballet/tap-dancing/whistling/Irish step-dancing, and you'd better know that you're not an endangered species. You've spent years of your life in a practice room, in rehearsals, in voice lessons, in coachings, you've finally gotten to the point where you get a paying gig, and at this point, you get the added bonus of a little gaslighting. Don't expect humane treatment or respect - you're a soprano, you should feel lucky you have a job. Don't ever say no when a director asks you to do something, even if it's slightly unsafe - you are so very replaceable. Don't second-guess an offer to work on a role, even if it's incredibly wrong for you - there are way more fish in the sea and by the way you're replaceable. You're replaceable. You are not special. You are just another soprano. You are just another woman. You are not a unique and special snowflake. Quit asking for special treatment. You're replaceable.
This doesn't happen everywhere and it doesn't happen to everyone. But if you have even slightly pleaser-ish tendencies, you can and will be run over by your own good manners, with the help of anyone who doesn't see you as a person. A few years ago, I even developed my own little theory to help me deal with this - rather, to help me take getting or not getting a gig in stride, based on the idea that if you're not what a company is shopping for, it's not a reflection on your worth as an artist. And it't not. But that's still not what I'm talking about. There's this funny (not ha-ha) slightly abusive quality to the kind of things you're told about your worth. Some of it is definitely for your own good - expecting to get out of school and be picked up by a major house 15 minutes later is unrealistic, you will eventually have to teach yourself your music so pay attention in sight-singing class, your body is your instrument so treat it like a temple not a trash compactor, be on time because tardiness is a sign of disrespect, etc. But the part where you get reminded how replaceable you are and how you'd better get along and not make any waves, the proportion of truth to bullshit on that one weighs a little heavy on the bullshit.
I have had wonderful people along the way who told me to stick up for myself. With my agent, who once yelled at me and reminded me that I'm not the ONLY Queen on their roster. With conductors, who say, "but it's mic'd and we're going to take this to a bigger venue - are you sure you won't sing Turandot?" With directors who, had I not called stop and insisted it was dangerous, would have let me hobble down a perilously steep set of stairs in a 4-inch pencil stiletto. I had good parents who loved me and told me I was valuable. I had good teachers who took me to task when I was an ass. But somewhere in the middle, I was also told that sopranos were worth less than other singers. That female singers were worth less than male singers. That I should lie about my age and flirt back when flirted with and never speak about my husband and always show cleavage and never EVER talk about having children and be smart but not too smart and always be 150% better than any of my colleagues, just to be taken remotely seriously. And I say now, in possession of all of my faculties and a doctorate in music and all of 33 years on this earth that this MUST STOP. NOW.
Being a musician is hard work and it demands commitment and sacrifice. But self-worth should NOT stand on the list of things one must sacrifice. Missy Mazzoli, kicking ass and taking names over on the composition side of the music business, had this to say on the NPR article:
Recently, the question of gender inequality in classical music has made it into the news. NPR posted this article about women conductors and the men who were foolish enough to talk about their neanderthal views on female conductors to reporters. That's not the focus of my writing today, as Alex Ross more than sufficiently addresses the issue (and the incredible hubris and stupidity of the men - I won't call them 'gentlemen' - who removed all doubt of their lacking in sense by opening their mouths). The main area of these articles deals with the question (who knew it was a question?) of women conductors in the professional sphere. I remember seeing JoAnn Falletta conduct the Louisiana Phil when I was a teenager - in hindsight, the inclusion of John Adams' "The Chairman Dances" from Nixon in China was pretty adventurous programming for south LA - and she was a fireball. I even remember thinking, "Wow, this woman is a total badass." Now I've snored through some conductors in my time (both on and off the stage) and I can tell you that it has nothing to do with their gender. If you can stand in front of an orchestra and do the job with excellence and passion, you can do the job. Period. But gender bias isn't about whether or not you can do the job. Gender bias is about someone else's ideas and someone else's agenda.
In the NPR article, Anastasia Tsioulcas writes,
"But what I find perhaps most astonishing is the number of assumptions made about women's lives. What the feminist revolution was about, in many ways, was advocating self-agency for women....I would like to hear the women in our community speak up as well, without fear of embarrassment, contempt or retribution."Well, Anastasia, this is me, speaking up. First, I want to say that I don't speak for all women, I don't speak for all opera singers, I don't speak for all sopranos, and I don't even speak for all coloraturas between the ages of 30 and 40. I only speak for myself and from my own experience as a female singer in the business of opera.
Anyone who's ever sung in choir knows that there are way more female singers than men. This, in itself, is a dissertation waiting to be written. So by the time you get to be a professional singer (for my purposes, I define this as making a living and paying your bills primarily from singing), you can do the math. Sopranos come in econo-packs, so you'd better work your tuchus off to be the best at what you do, the fittest and the most flexible, with extra skills like roller-skating/gymnastics/ballet/tap-dancing/whistling/Irish step-dancing, and you'd better know that you're not an endangered species. You've spent years of your life in a practice room, in rehearsals, in voice lessons, in coachings, you've finally gotten to the point where you get a paying gig, and at this point, you get the added bonus of a little gaslighting. Don't expect humane treatment or respect - you're a soprano, you should feel lucky you have a job. Don't ever say no when a director asks you to do something, even if it's slightly unsafe - you are so very replaceable. Don't second-guess an offer to work on a role, even if it's incredibly wrong for you - there are way more fish in the sea and by the way you're replaceable. You're replaceable. You are not special. You are just another soprano. You are just another woman. You are not a unique and special snowflake. Quit asking for special treatment. You're replaceable.
This doesn't happen everywhere and it doesn't happen to everyone. But if you have even slightly pleaser-ish tendencies, you can and will be run over by your own good manners, with the help of anyone who doesn't see you as a person. A few years ago, I even developed my own little theory to help me deal with this - rather, to help me take getting or not getting a gig in stride, based on the idea that if you're not what a company is shopping for, it's not a reflection on your worth as an artist. And it't not. But that's still not what I'm talking about. There's this funny (not ha-ha) slightly abusive quality to the kind of things you're told about your worth. Some of it is definitely for your own good - expecting to get out of school and be picked up by a major house 15 minutes later is unrealistic, you will eventually have to teach yourself your music so pay attention in sight-singing class, your body is your instrument so treat it like a temple not a trash compactor, be on time because tardiness is a sign of disrespect, etc. But the part where you get reminded how replaceable you are and how you'd better get along and not make any waves, the proportion of truth to bullshit on that one weighs a little heavy on the bullshit.
I have had wonderful people along the way who told me to stick up for myself. With my agent, who once yelled at me and reminded me that I'm not the ONLY Queen on their roster. With conductors, who say, "but it's mic'd and we're going to take this to a bigger venue - are you sure you won't sing Turandot?" With directors who, had I not called stop and insisted it was dangerous, would have let me hobble down a perilously steep set of stairs in a 4-inch pencil stiletto. I had good parents who loved me and told me I was valuable. I had good teachers who took me to task when I was an ass. But somewhere in the middle, I was also told that sopranos were worth less than other singers. That female singers were worth less than male singers. That I should lie about my age and flirt back when flirted with and never speak about my husband and always show cleavage and never EVER talk about having children and be smart but not too smart and always be 150% better than any of my colleagues, just to be taken remotely seriously. And I say now, in possession of all of my faculties and a doctorate in music and all of 33 years on this earth that this MUST STOP. NOW.
Being a musician is hard work and it demands commitment and sacrifice. But self-worth should NOT stand on the list of things one must sacrifice. Missy Mazzoli, kicking ass and taking names over on the composition side of the music business, had this to say on the NPR article:
"Any women who makes it through grad school with a degree in music is tough enough to see through blatant sexism pretty quickly. But conducting careers don't start in your 30s; a career in music usually begins in your early teens at the latest. We need to look at our daughters and pinpoint when they stopped raising their hands in class. And we need to look at these man-child thirty-something conductors and figure out when these sexist attitudes took root. Probably around the same age. If we want to solve the "female problem" in classical music, let's start a summer program for female composers and conductors in their early teens. Let's give them confidence and support and while we're at it, some amazing recordings and video of their work so they can get into the best schools, rise to positions of power and eventually fire all these misogynist douchebags."To all of the wonderful people with whom and for whom I've worked, I am so grateful to you for your presence in my career and in my life. I am a better musician and a better person because of you. But to anyone, male or female, who wishes to advance their career on bias that diminishes the innate value of another, my future students are coming for you. My future children are coming for you. My friends are coming for you. And we can smell the stink off of your cowardice from two time zones away.
Friday, October 11, 2013
Fear itself
FDR was a badass. He coined one of the most iconic turns of rhetoric ever to be spoken aloud:
"...let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself - nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror, which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance."
Now FDR was not talking about singing or pursuing a career, but it's his description of fear that's tickling my brain today. Nameless, unreasoning, unjustified. Paralyzing needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. Let's talk about retreat.
I'm a few weeks into my new job. October 15th is the deadline by which the theatre must tell employees if their contract will be extended another year. Now that doesn't mean that October 15th comes and the people who aren't extended are fired. It means their contract expires at the end of the season, around September of next year. This system is still pretty new to me, but I think that kind of notification is pretty standard. If you're extended, then you get another year. This time next year, October 2014, I'll be notified if I'm extended through September 2015, or not. Having a long notification is probably a good thing. It allows people time to audition or apply for other jobs, make travel or moving plans, weigh their options, and make a choice that's the most right for them, rather than one made out of haste. At least, this is the hope. However, if you're a fretter (and I am a fretter) then you look at that deadline - although it is a WHOLE YEAR away - and you think, "Oh shit. So I have to prove my worth and right quick because otherwise I won't be extended. I have to kick ass in every performance. I have to be polite and nice to everybody and work on my German to show that I want to assimilate into their culture. I must be good at all of the things and it has to happen RIGHT FREAKING NOW!!!
Doesn't this sound like a wonderful way to spend your day?
Sidebar. I had this wonderful student named Helen. Helen is not pursuing a career in singing. Helen is not auditioning to get into shows. Helen wanted nothing more than to be able to sing in the church choir and feel like she was making a contribution. A wonderful 60+ year-old lady who was terrifically smart, a former US foreign service world traveler who'd lived in many countries and spoke several languages, but when it came to singing in front of people, she'd practically run and hide. We ended up together because she bid on a package of voice lessons I put in the church silent auction, and won.
Whenever I start with a new student, I like to sit and talk to them for a while about why they want to study singing and if they have specific goals. Improving their sight-reading. Confidence. Being able to sing a little solo, or not to freak out if they're called upon to do so. Body coordination so they can walk and sing at the same time. Releasing high notes. Whatever. For Helen, it was the whole package. [I should say I'm not telling any secrets by disclosing these things - she'd happily tell you about it herself.] After many years of being told she sang too loud or unpleasantly, Helen had taken the bit between her teeth, and by golly she was gonna conquer this singing thing. Now I knew that Helen was a pistol in life, so I pulled no punches. She'd mealy mouth through a phrase and I'd yell at her to do it again. I'd see her eyes drifting off into self-criticism and I'd clap my hands and tell her to come back to me because our lesson time is happening right NOW and the voices in her head will have to wait. And after a while, Helen was breathing freely, matching pitch, and reading better than she had, but she still couldn't admit that she'd made progress. And I had had it with that. It was time for her to recognize the steps she'd taken and shake off the old self-doubt. She needed to be able to say that she was kicking ass when she was kicking ass. But Helen is a well-mannered woman who probably doesn't curse like a sailor, even when no one's around, so I told her that she should figure out how to say, "I kick ass" in some foreign language.
The picture of diligence herself, Helen did just that. She called up a Swedish friend who said that the rough equivalent was "Jåg ger järnet." And then, she did an hilarious and wonderful thing. She had it printed on a t-shirt in those beautiful blue and yellow swedish colors, and gave me one. Helen wore them to her lessons, and it always gave us a really good laugh. Talk about converting retreat into advance.
Even after she was no longer my student, Helen continued to be a terrific friend and helper on this crazy journey of ours. She sat and read the English libretto of Mamelles to me so I could type it into the score. She drove all the way from Jamaica Plan up to Andover and sat in a coffee shop with me for hours, talking and listening and telling me her tales about international travel. When I went off for a gig, if she had a friend in the area (even in the tiniest corner of France) she'd send them my way so I'd have someone to meet for coffee. And now, recognizing that she should perhaps not live on her own in the future (rather cleverly and well in advance, that's our Helen) she's moving. Our realtor and friend is a neighbor and friend of Helen's, so he took this fantastic picture of her on moving day:
.JPG)
There's my friend, Helen - wearing her "I kick ass" t-shirt, as she embarks on the next phase of this adventure. She's long since joined the church choir, by the way. Even went on choir tour with them to England earlier this summer. She practices like a fiend, helps out at all the choir functions. I'm so very proud of her, overcoming those old fears and charging forward. Forward!
Which brings me back to where we started. Fear.
Last night, after chatting with my bestie about her work and my work and whatnot, my husband stuck his head around the door and said, "I just want you to be aware of the difference between real stress and perceived stress." And after that sat in the room for a while, I said, "Are you accusing me of fearmongering?" He, without hesitation, said yes.
Well shit.
So even as I sit here, acknowledging that it's possible to work oneself into a torpor and succumb to the vortex of one's own agitation, I have, indeed, succumbed to it myself. I let myself slip into the overblown land of 'what if?' and everything that I rail against: trying to read the minds of others in order to please them, trying to mold myself into the artist I think someone else wants (rather than that artist that I want to be) and appropriating the fears of other people to wrap into my own. Because fears need company and darkness in order to survive.
I don't know what's going to come next October. I don't know if I'll be given a third year on my contract or not. Or if I'll even want it. But I do know that if I spend the next 12 months looking over my shoulder, I will be miserable and not 1/100th of the artist that I can be. Because how am I supposed to draw strength from the fear demon eating its own tail? How am I supposed to let go and explore my creative possibilities if I can't get out of my own way? Rhetorical line of questioning ended.
I can't. So we gotta do something different.
I'm wearing my Honey Badger t-shirt today. And Honey Badger, as we all know, takes what he wants. So I'm gonna channel my brave friend Helen and the Honey Badger, and charge forward, convert retreat into advance. Because I kick ass, and it's time to start acting like it. Booya. Game on.
"...let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself - nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror, which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance."
Now FDR was not talking about singing or pursuing a career, but it's his description of fear that's tickling my brain today. Nameless, unreasoning, unjustified. Paralyzing needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. Let's talk about retreat.
I'm a few weeks into my new job. October 15th is the deadline by which the theatre must tell employees if their contract will be extended another year. Now that doesn't mean that October 15th comes and the people who aren't extended are fired. It means their contract expires at the end of the season, around September of next year. This system is still pretty new to me, but I think that kind of notification is pretty standard. If you're extended, then you get another year. This time next year, October 2014, I'll be notified if I'm extended through September 2015, or not. Having a long notification is probably a good thing. It allows people time to audition or apply for other jobs, make travel or moving plans, weigh their options, and make a choice that's the most right for them, rather than one made out of haste. At least, this is the hope. However, if you're a fretter (and I am a fretter) then you look at that deadline - although it is a WHOLE YEAR away - and you think, "Oh shit. So I have to prove my worth and right quick because otherwise I won't be extended. I have to kick ass in every performance. I have to be polite and nice to everybody and work on my German to show that I want to assimilate into their culture. I must be good at all of the things and it has to happen RIGHT FREAKING NOW!!!
Doesn't this sound like a wonderful way to spend your day?
Sidebar. I had this wonderful student named Helen. Helen is not pursuing a career in singing. Helen is not auditioning to get into shows. Helen wanted nothing more than to be able to sing in the church choir and feel like she was making a contribution. A wonderful 60+ year-old lady who was terrifically smart, a former US foreign service world traveler who'd lived in many countries and spoke several languages, but when it came to singing in front of people, she'd practically run and hide. We ended up together because she bid on a package of voice lessons I put in the church silent auction, and won.
Whenever I start with a new student, I like to sit and talk to them for a while about why they want to study singing and if they have specific goals. Improving their sight-reading. Confidence. Being able to sing a little solo, or not to freak out if they're called upon to do so. Body coordination so they can walk and sing at the same time. Releasing high notes. Whatever. For Helen, it was the whole package. [I should say I'm not telling any secrets by disclosing these things - she'd happily tell you about it herself.] After many years of being told she sang too loud or unpleasantly, Helen had taken the bit between her teeth, and by golly she was gonna conquer this singing thing. Now I knew that Helen was a pistol in life, so I pulled no punches. She'd mealy mouth through a phrase and I'd yell at her to do it again. I'd see her eyes drifting off into self-criticism and I'd clap my hands and tell her to come back to me because our lesson time is happening right NOW and the voices in her head will have to wait. And after a while, Helen was breathing freely, matching pitch, and reading better than she had, but she still couldn't admit that she'd made progress. And I had had it with that. It was time for her to recognize the steps she'd taken and shake off the old self-doubt. She needed to be able to say that she was kicking ass when she was kicking ass. But Helen is a well-mannered woman who probably doesn't curse like a sailor, even when no one's around, so I told her that she should figure out how to say, "I kick ass" in some foreign language.
The picture of diligence herself, Helen did just that. She called up a Swedish friend who said that the rough equivalent was "Jåg ger järnet." And then, she did an hilarious and wonderful thing. She had it printed on a t-shirt in those beautiful blue and yellow swedish colors, and gave me one. Helen wore them to her lessons, and it always gave us a really good laugh. Talk about converting retreat into advance.
Even after she was no longer my student, Helen continued to be a terrific friend and helper on this crazy journey of ours. She sat and read the English libretto of Mamelles to me so I could type it into the score. She drove all the way from Jamaica Plan up to Andover and sat in a coffee shop with me for hours, talking and listening and telling me her tales about international travel. When I went off for a gig, if she had a friend in the area (even in the tiniest corner of France) she'd send them my way so I'd have someone to meet for coffee. And now, recognizing that she should perhaps not live on her own in the future (rather cleverly and well in advance, that's our Helen) she's moving. Our realtor and friend is a neighbor and friend of Helen's, so he took this fantastic picture of her on moving day:
.JPG)
There's my friend, Helen - wearing her "I kick ass" t-shirt, as she embarks on the next phase of this adventure. She's long since joined the church choir, by the way. Even went on choir tour with them to England earlier this summer. She practices like a fiend, helps out at all the choir functions. I'm so very proud of her, overcoming those old fears and charging forward. Forward!
Which brings me back to where we started. Fear.
Last night, after chatting with my bestie about her work and my work and whatnot, my husband stuck his head around the door and said, "I just want you to be aware of the difference between real stress and perceived stress." And after that sat in the room for a while, I said, "Are you accusing me of fearmongering?" He, without hesitation, said yes.
Well shit.
So even as I sit here, acknowledging that it's possible to work oneself into a torpor and succumb to the vortex of one's own agitation, I have, indeed, succumbed to it myself. I let myself slip into the overblown land of 'what if?' and everything that I rail against: trying to read the minds of others in order to please them, trying to mold myself into the artist I think someone else wants (rather than that artist that I want to be) and appropriating the fears of other people to wrap into my own. Because fears need company and darkness in order to survive.
I don't know what's going to come next October. I don't know if I'll be given a third year on my contract or not. Or if I'll even want it. But I do know that if I spend the next 12 months looking over my shoulder, I will be miserable and not 1/100th of the artist that I can be. Because how am I supposed to draw strength from the fear demon eating its own tail? How am I supposed to let go and explore my creative possibilities if I can't get out of my own way? Rhetorical line of questioning ended.
I can't. So we gotta do something different.
I'm wearing my Honey Badger t-shirt today. And Honey Badger, as we all know, takes what he wants. So I'm gonna channel my brave friend Helen and the Honey Badger, and charge forward, convert retreat into advance. Because I kick ass, and it's time to start acting like it. Booya. Game on.
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