Since I now have had the chutzpah to make this blog's link part of my "signature" on The Forum (which, BTW, no longer intimidates me so much since I'm being taken semi-seriously at auditions and group coachings) I thought I'd do another regular singing post.
Something I'm really excited about, is that my wonderful voice teacher (I'm not comfortable posting his name here without his permission) said he would do a concert of duets with me in the Spring.
We met 34 years ago when we were both singing with the "Opera Underground" (a facetious name for the no-pay opera groups that were around in the 1970s that predominately but not exclusively featured avocational singers of all ages who were not conservatory graduates, many of whom had gorgeous voices, some of whom had flawed voices, and most of whom did not sight read or stray too far from the standard opera rep). He was transitioning from baritone to tenor and I was a hooty contralto who had been singing with a Gilbert & Sullivan company and smoking like a chimney. I had recently quit smoking and needed some help learning how to use my head voice (when I smoked I not only had no high notes to speak of - I could barely scream out Katisha's high G at the end of Act I of The Mikado- I also could neither hum nor scream, only squawk). When I found out that this young singer (we were the same age) was a teacher, and would only charge me $10 a lesson to learn what his teacher was teaching him (mostly techniques for lightening the voice) I jumped at the chance and have never regretted it.
When I first began singing again at 54 I studied with The Mentor Who Shall Not Be Discussed but after we had irreconcilable differences I returned to my original teacher, who was still around. At that time he was singing tenor, but switched to baritone again. Now, at 60, he is back to singing tenor and we both think a concert of duets would be a great thing to do.
As I said in a response to a comment on The Forum about whether or not there are any skinny opera singers with big voices, I mentioned that when I returned to singing I was about 10 pounds heavier, had stopped starvation dieting, and was much better able to support my voice, which has turned out to be much bigger than I had thought it was way back when. In fact my teacher has me learning Amneris (an aria-less role that is none the less the Holy Grail for dramatic mezzos) and it is one of the most comfortable roles I have ever sung in my entire life!!!.
I had already been working on the Judgement Scene which is a mezzo/bass duet, for a concert I will be doing with my bass friend (another older avocational singer) and now have made a start on the duet immediately previous. It has two High B Flats in it, which don't scare me at all since they're part of an upwardly progressing scale, which makes singing them really just like vocalizing. And she has to sing big, but she gets lots of breaks.
I have always thought of this role as out of bounds since I don't know if I have the C flat for the Triumphal Scene (how mean could a composer get? making a mezzo sing out of her range in a context where she could just as easily be singing an octave lower since all the chorus sopranos are singing up there) but there's nothing to stop me from keeping those two last scenes in my concert rep.
So maybe I'm a moving from "Baby Dramatic" to the real deal?
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