O Holy Night

I'm here finishing up supper preferatory to doing some singing and thought I'd take a break and post something, to shake off a funk I've gotten into.

I still have not recovered from my bad experience with the opera. Not that I believe I'm as unmusical as that conductor obviously thought I was, but because it has made me afraid to venture forth.

And just as I write that, thinking of the womb, aka my avocational choir, and whether or not to venture forth from it, I have to mention that the womb is heating up and getting quite crowded and competitive.

There's now a conservatory-trained coloratura soprano there, who is less than half my age. She is now the acknowledged "star" of the choir. When I started singing there, there was another operatically-trained mezzo struggling in the soprano section along with me (we had the highest voices in the choir, solely because of training, not natural tessitura). She and I had a strained relationship to put it mildly but I respected her, most particularly her seniority (in length of time with the choir, not age). And I would have said we were peers. Different voice types (hers got lighter on top, mine got louder) but more or less the same struggles with the various choir soprano parts. In any event, now she has moved on to another musical career entirely.

This young woman is quite nice, although a bit cocky, but then why not? She is feeling her oats. She likes singing in this choir but is out there fishing for paying gigs and has been somewhat successful. And of course as she is a real soprano she's got the Bs and even the Cs that I of course don't have. And no matter how good a second soprano I am, a second soprano is, well, second.

But back to "O Holy Night".

When I was a teenager I had what was my only paying choir gig. My local Unitarian church paid people in the neighborhood to sing in the choir basically if we could carry a tune and were willing to show up for rehearsals. They had paid soloists as well, but couldn't apparently find enough congregants to fill up the choir otherwise. At that time I was at the tail end of childhood Julie Andrews vocal glory because I was a heavy smoker, but I could still pack a punch on a high G, so of course I was in the soprano section.

Well, on Christmas Eve the soprano soloist got to sing O Holy Night, complete with the interpolated B Flat. I was so green with envy. But at least she was older. I could be her when I grew up, so I thought. (Ten years,and some 7500 packs of cigarettes later I was told I was a mezzo.)

When I was "discovered" at my own Unitarian church in 2004, that Christmas I sang Wagner's Angel song (chosen for me by the choir director) for the first time. The resident coloratura sang "O Holy Night". I didn't feel any competition, really. I was one of two soloists out of the entire church, on Christmas Eve which was a pretty high profile occasion.

The following year I sang "O Holy Night" on Christmas Eve, in a version given to me by the choir director where the high note was a G. The Mentor Who Will Not Be Discussed coached me to sing it. It went quite well, despite my leg being in a cast and my needing to be carried up the church steps.

One of my many sources of anger at that church's minister involved her total lack of acknowledgment of me as a musician. At one point at a party she referred to the resident coloratura as the "O Holy Night Lady". When I mentioned (in a later conversation) that I was hurt that she hadn't remembered that I was also an "O Holy Night Lady" because I had sung the song the second year she blew me off saying "well, I guess I didn't remember because it wasn't important to me.....I guess that's not how I see you" If the first diss put my nose out of joint, the second put me in a homicidal rage.

You don't say things like that to a diva.

Fast forward to the Lutheran church. The first year I was there I asked the choir director if I could sing "O Holy Night" on Christmas Eve and he said he really didn't like solos on Christmas Eve because he wanted room for several choir anthems. So I sang Wagner's Angel the Sunday before.

But he has had solos on Christmas Eve, just not any of mine. Miss Coloratura Kid said she and the choir director had "discussed" her singing "O Holy Night" tomorrow night but that he said no. But that he had almost said yes. Maybe. Who knows.

I could have been rehearsing my pitiful mezzo version of the song during my recent practice sessions but I just haven't felt like. Maybe I should leave that one to the real sopranos.

I spoke to the choir director about singing "Schlafe mein Liebster" from the Bach Christmas Oratorio some time during Epiphany. It's slow enough to sing during communion (the choir sings the offeratory and the preludes and postludes are instrumental only) and that time of year we can still sing Christmas music. It's a bit low for me (the perennial problem with this rep - the alto things are too low and the soprano things are either to high or in any event written for lighter voices).

And now that Coloratura Kid is there I just wouldn't feel comfortable singing any of the soprano material, even things I sing well (like the arias from the Messiah).

What I noticed also is now that she is there I would be embarrassed to try to put on a concert again there, like the Samson et Dalila. I don't know why. I guess because she's a real singer, a conservatory graduate who is auditioning in real venues for paying work, and who has friends who sing. She would think something like that was silly.

Well, I have spent enough time here, now. I am going to polish every note, every run, every word of "Schlafe". If I don't get to sing that during Epiphany at least I will have learned it and can look for another solo aria. If nothing else there's always "Et Exsultavit" for a 9:00 anthem.