Money and Ambivalence

This post is prompted by a number of things, most specifically that I re-connected with someone I had been friendly with when I was just out of high school and we friended each other on Facebook. She seems to be an opera lover, and as she lives in Paris, loves Samson et Dalila, so I said I would post a sound clip of me singing "Amour Viens Aider" on her wall. This was part of a package my mother got me as a Christmas present several years ago. She has a friend who's a sound engineer and he hauled his equipment to my coach's studio in Manhattan and made a CD of me singing several arias (the best is "Stella del Marinar" which I have as my sound clip on this blog).

When I listened to "Amour" just now I really wanted to cringe. Yes, I got up to the interpolated B flat, and actually, that two octave run sounded quite good, but the rest of it didn't. When I'm singing, I'm always conscious of how my upper register can get screamy, but on recordings, it's my lower register that sounds dreadful. Sort of like it won't perch on a pitch anywhere and is just what I call "sqwawky and talky".

Now if I were a "real" singer, I would have made another recording by now, but there's no way I can justify the expense. This probably cost my mother about $300. Even if she were alive I wouldn't have gotten that kind of expensive Christmas present - I spent the past year using dribs and drabs of money in her bank accounts to supplement my income.

Then there's the issue (less directly related to singing) of photographs. There's a "real" singer I follow on Facebook and on my pseudonymous blog, who is "who I wish I were". She is a working opera singer (no big sexy roles, but still...) and is quite attractive in a zaftig kind of way. In any event she exudes sexuality, despite (perhaps because of?) not having a steady relationship. One thing I envy about her is her self-confidence/self-involvement. At least once a month she's posting a spate of very attractive pictures (I have no idea if they are professional photos but they certainly look as if they are). Big cleavage, big lips, everything shown off to advantage - definitely not family snapshots.

I can count on the fingers of one hand the nice photos I have of myself. I just don't know people who take those sorts of photos and again, I couldn't justify spending money on something like that.

When I first began my post-2/15/04 journey, I had no photos of myself at all that didn't make me look middle aged and sexless, so I spent about $300 for head shots. I guess it was long enough ago that I got a contact sheet, and out of about 100 photos, only one didn't make me look like an uptight Junior League lady

but I couldn't justify doing something like that now. What would these pictures be for?

I don't know whether it's generational, but most of the "real" singers I'm so envious of are just enough younger than I am that they are well versed in how to use web cams, make Youtube videos, record themselves on their laptops, etc. If I had the time to learn how to do those things I'm sure I could, but my plate is pretty full, what with copyediting to pay my bills, taking care of my partner, and singing and learning the music I need/want to learn.

So speaking of money....

I am very frightened by what's happening in this country. How can the American people have elected representatives who think it's better to let a big corporation like GE not pay any taxes, than to see that average people can have Social Security, Medicare, and other support programs? I can understand that certain members of Congress live in a bubble, but most people in this country are not rich and you'd think that they would rather have a safety net that they might need than a dream of getting rich - which they won't.

How this affects me personally is that there's a big chance my partner might miss a Social Security payment, and an even bigger chance that her food stamps will be cut off. (If anyone's wondering, that's one of many reasons why we're not getting married. She needs to spend down to get Medicaid and other services, and my assets don't need to go down the drain so that she can be in assisted living. We're at the point when many straight couples wonder how to get divorced so that the surviving spouse won't end up destitute if the older sicker spouse ends his or her life in a nursing home.)

So there's certainly no money for self-indulgences right now. Not to mention that we haven't had a vacation in several years. I actually feel much less stressed out working freelance and not taking vacations than I did working in an office, making twice as much money, being sleep deprived, bored, and angry, and then taking a nice vacation once a year, but it would be nice to take one more trip to Maine and perhaps one to England in between the time our little dog dies (he's 13 and not well, and we simply can't leave him)and when my partner does.

Voice lessons aren't an "indulgence" and neither are group coachings, or the rental of the studio for my concert (that will actually pay for itself), but recordings and photos - those will have to wait.

A Gypsy on the Move

Well, yesterday I had the best practice session I've had, probably since I've been working on the "Condotta" scene.

I think it was a combination of:

Focusing on what my teacher had told me on Tuesday about keeping my ribcage lifed and inflated and not breathing too low.

Thinking "aerobic" (thanks to Peg from NC!)

When all is said and done, I really don't get enough aerobic exercise. I wouldn't trade working at home on my own schedule for going back to working in an office, however much less money I'm making now, but I get even less exercise now than I did then. I probably get up from my "desk" a lot more now, but I don't walk as far (we're talking about a studio apartment about the size of the average luxury hotel room) and there are days when I don't go out in the fresh air at all. Of course I make up for that at some point by taking walks to do errands in the sunlight and working in the evenings on some days, but when I do, I probably don't walk as fast.

Also there's the issue of my knee. During the long stretch when I wasn't singing I took adult ballet classes from time to time but that is now out of the question. If I haven't mentioned it here, I smashed up my knee by tripping over the pavement in 2004 and I can't run or jump. What I can do, is put on bouncy music and dance. If I keep my upper body moving, I can get some aerobic exercise without coming down like a ton of bricks on my feet which could loosen the pins holding the six pieces of my kneecap together.

So in any event, yesterday when I was singing "Condotta", I kept moving, particularly as it moved toward the faster section. Why shouldn't she be moving when she's recounting the story of grabbing the baby and tossing him into the fire? And I can certainly move on those two measures with the A and the B flat. Even moving a little will keep the blood pumping and will get rid of the tension that accumulates when I'm standing still, particularly as with all my orthopedic problems there's never really a comfortable way to stand that doesn't cause tension, which I think is part of the problem.

The bad news? I still can't blow up a balloon. For all I know that takes a different sort of breath control from singing Bach or Handel.

The Bitter and the Sweet

Today's lesson was fabulous. I had had a bad practice day yesterday - did some good B flats in "Condotta" if I just sang the second half; didn't do so well when I tried to sing the whole thing through. My midsection was feeling like it had no "give" in it.

When I explained that to my teacher this afternoon he said it was good that I had pinpointed the problem. He said the ribcage is supposed to expand, and have bounce in it, like a beach ball. Mine seems often to be very rigid. I have always had a very tiny waist, even though I am not skinny. My teacher said I have a very small ribcage - that some people have large ribcages that enable them to sing with a lot of force, and because I don't, I have to make it work. Think of the side expansion. He said maybe I am breathing too low. In any event, I sang through the aria from the beginning and the whole thing was smooth sailing. Maybe now this will be "the thing".

Really, my two biggest problems are tension and fatigue. There's a sort of buoyant energy that I so often lack, which I don't understand, as I get enough sleep and eat a healthy diet for the most part.

Another interesting thing is, when we were talking about breathing I said that something I didn't understand was that despite having superb breath control (that is really one of my strongest assets - one of the easiest things for me to sing is "Rejoice Greatly", which surprises people, although it doesn't go very high; the highest note written is an A flat)I have never been able to blow up a balloon. My teacher said that some voice teachers use blowing up a balloon as an exercise. So he said I should buy some and try to blow them up LOL! If I can think of where one would buy balloons I will do that.

But all in all, things are looking up. My teacher is very excited about this concert because it is getting him back to singing the tenor rep again. And he's already seeing it as the beginning of something, not an isolated one-off.

As for the bitter....I did something stupid, namely, I looked at the web site of this company where I had signed up to sing a tiny role in Carmelites and had walked out because I thought I was being treated badly and for what? to sing three pages of solo music? Anyhow, I saw that two young mezzos were sharing the role of Brangaene, which was the role I auditioned for originally. And I got to thinking about their lives. One of them is married to the director of this company and despite having a full time office job when she's not working she's living and breathing this opera company. Besides singing with them she also does a myriad other things. I guess I was thinking what fun it would be to have a partner with whom I could collaborate on something and that we could run around all the time and have that be our life instead of boring menu planning and vegging out in front of the tv. The other mezzo is young and buxom and married to another singer. I think part of my unhappiness and envy of other people (mostly women who sing who are younger) is that I wish more than anything that I could go back again and make different choices. Not smoke, drink, or starve myself so that I could be some uncomfortable weight (which was what got me started smoking to begin with); not be caught up with what was "cool" (we're talking about 1968 now), and not be browbeaten into being some politicized, self-ghettoizing, countercultural idea of a Lesbian. I mean there will always be a part of me that is attracted to women, but I could have been a curvy, healthy, attractive, more mainstream looking and acting woman who sang with a big lush voice, and was a serious musician and enjoyed being attractive and attracted to men and women without all the nonsense.

And then I read something posted on the Forum - I had promised myself not to trawl that any more as it just made me depressed, but I was looking for something specific - from a mezzo who talked about vocalizing up to a full voice D flat and singing an E flat in a "fast scale" and I know this is not unusual, and thinking about how in my voice my last "full" note is a B and the highest note I have ever been able to sing in a "fast scale" is a C.


What I have to remember is that teacher told me today that when I started studying with him again (this was in 2006) he really didn't know how much I would be able to achieve. He said he is actually quite surprised by the size of my voice and how much stamina I have developed.

So that's what I need to focus on.

Opera Review

Last night I watched Don Carlo on t.v.

Some people consider this the greatest opera Verdi ever wrote, and it is one I have seen numerous times with stellar casts.

The role of Princess Eboli is sort of like the Holy Grail for mezzos. Actually as I've gotten older, I can see that it's not as complex or interesting a role as Amneris, for example, but it has two exposed B naturals, which has absolutely put it off the table for this mezzo. I've seen some great Ebolis: not just my current idol Dolora Zajick, but also Tatiana Troyanos and Marilyn Horne.

Last night's Eboli was Anna Smirnova, who, according to this online bio, is not even 30! (And is about 30 pounds heavier than she was in this picture!) I didn't take to her at first, but as she went on, I could hear that she had that light, airy, spin on the top Bs that I would kill for. Not all mezzos have it. The last Eboli I heard was Olga Borodina, who, despite being one of the hottest ladies on the stage (she owns Dalila IMHO), definitely had a hard time with not only the B naturals but also the B flats, most of which were nothing but screams. And despite her excess weight, Smirnova really knew how to move onstage and was a totally believable character.

The romantic leads were, to say the least, disappointing. Marina Poplaskaya was totally miscast as Elisabeth (could anyone hear her in the house? her voice is smaller than many Susannas)and I'm just not a Roberto Alagna fan.

But this is the world I so yearn to be a part of! Not just opera, but this kind of opera. Large, lavish, romantic, heavily costumed.

So now how can I go about incorporating this into my life?

Last night's practice went very well. I've gone back to doing those exercises my teacher gave me a long time ago singing just on the consonant "v". No vowel. What's odd is that this has helped me more than anything, but when I told him that he sort of pooh poohed it and said I shouldn't get too stuck on one thing???

So first this concert, then possibly my "pocket" Verdi Requiem idea (I don't want to say too much about this until I've got a venue), and then my goal is to be able to sing "O Don Fatale" in the original key before my 62nd birthday (I've got 12 months and 2 weeks.)

I met my goal of being able to sing "Condotta" by my 61st birthday, so there's hope.

Progress

"Condotta" is going better. The secret is to build up energy and buoyancy, not tension. This is a piece with lots of different sections, and plenty of breaks, so there's really no reason why I should get tied up in a knot. I am now at the point where I can always sing that B flat if I start fairly close to the section where it is - the trick is to be able to do it after singing the entire piece. It is not a tiring thing to sing. If anything, the monotony of it can sap my energy. Yesterday I sang through it and the first time I was choking by the time I got to the B flat and then I sang through it again, paying attention to how I felt every second to see if I could pick up clues to what was causing all that tension. I have to recoup myself if I even feel the tiniest smidge of tension creeping in. And this is something I can do. Staying "bouncy" helps, which is really quite hilarious when you think that I'm singing about watching my mother being burned at the stake and throwing a baby into the fire. But then the drama is in the music. As Maria Callas was reported to have said, just look at the score. It's all there. Or as The Mentor once said "You are not supposed to feel anything. You are supposed to make the audience feel something." I learned that with the Judgment Scene from Aida. I don't have to feel dramatic. I just have to follow all the markings in the score. If the character is getting agitated there will be short notes, rests, staccato. I see this in "Condotta" as well. Or as the great Susan Eichhorn Young said to me when I sang "Acerba Volutta" for her, I can be dramatic during the musical passages when I'm not singing. (Although at this point I'm best off using those breaks to get the tension out of my body.)

So I sing this aria every day. I will sing it until I have no more fear of that bloody B flat and then I'll move on to memorizing the following scene. I pretty much have the Aida scenes memorized.

And tomorrow Don Carlo is on tv. I'm not crazy about the cast, but I'm always game to see another Eboli.

Next year I'm going to sing O Don Fatale in the original key, come Hell or Highwater!