Am I a Novelty?

Seeing the movie Julie and Julia changed my life. No, I don't cook, but I sing opera. I am not a professional opera singer. I am an almost-60-year-old unpaid choir soloist who is polishing both my oratorio rep, which runs the gamut from "I Know that My Redeemer Liveth" and "Rejoice Greatly" to "Liber Scriptus", and my opera rep, which seems to fall under the Fach known as "baby dramatic mezzo". Seeing Julie and Julia made me realize that you don't have to have a major talent to be a celebrity, all you have to do is chronicle what you're doing and hope someone else finds it interesting. After all, I'm sure even Julie herself would admit that she was neither a great cook nor a great writer - just someone who was passionate about cooking who had a knack for self-promotion.

I have kept a private blog for years under a pseudonym (and yes, you will have to waterboard me to get the link to it). Most of what I wrote about had to do with my singing with odds and ends about my personal life thrown in. Since I want people "out there", whoever you are, to read about my life as a mature avocational singer, I decided to go public.

My Autobiography in Brief

I fooled around in what I now know was known as "the opera underground" in the 1970s when I was in my 20s. Since I had only recently quit smoking and kept myself thin enough to fit into a size 29 jeans by living on yoghurt and peanuts, my voice was quite small and my stamina minimal. So I specialized in "trouser roles". My last hurrah (in 1980)was singing the role of Laura in La Gioconda, by which point my voice had gotten some more heft to it. That was the last time I sang in public until I was "discovered" in 2003, singing from a hymnal from a back pew in my local Unitarian Church, by a charismatic figure who was the main influence on my life and art for the next six years at least. I have written about him at length elsewhere and will not do so here, suffice it to say that I reacquainted myself with solid vocal technique, learned something about the Dalcroze method, shed many tears, retooled my self-image, and decided that I wanted to sing seriously more than anything else in the world.

I was a regular soloist at that Unitarian church for two years and then moved on. I was told that Lutheran churches like operatic voices, so I found a lovely church fairly near where I live with a superb music director. I am not primarily a choral singer so "blending" in the choir while developing what has turned out to be a quite large operatic mezzo voice has been a big challenge, albeit not an insurmountable one. I usually sing second soprano, and sing solos at least once a season.

Since in my new incarnation as a rather more zaftig, larger voiced mezzo I developed an intense emotional relationship with the role of Dalila (people who know me from elsewhere have heard quite a lot about this!) I decided to "actualize" my dream of singing this role and put on a bare bones concert version at the Lutheran church mentioned above.

My current teacher (the one I had studied with in the 1970s, who has done nothing but good things for me) says that even though I am almost 60, I can probably continue to sing the "baby dramatic" mezzo repertoire for another 5-10 years. I take very good care of myself. In fact I am probably much healthier than I was in my 20s.

In addition to spinning my wheels as to where I can put on my next opera in concert, I also audition regularly for no-pay no-fee productions listed as being for "emerging pro" singers. One company out and out said (politely) that I was too old, even though the role I was auditioning for was La Zia Principessa in Suor Angelica. The rest have yielded nothing, but the experience of auditioning is good for me. It keeps it real. If nothing else, spending $10-$25 to put on a fabulous looking dress, stand up in front of several people, and sing (and present) an aria as best as I can, is worth a lot more to me than a movie ticket.

Starting this blog is also my way of saying that even if you don't, I take myself seriously as a singer.

A bientot.