Tuesday Morning Quarterbacking, with Help from Susan and Others

Well, after sleeping on it for several days, I feel better about the concert. Neither my teacher nor the soprano I sang with said I sang well, because they both heard me sing better.

But the audience liked it, and I communicated something to the audience about these characters. The biggest compliment I got was from the woman who rents out the studio, herself a dramatic mezzo, who has sung Azucena. She told me that for those moments I was Azucena.

As with so many things, nobody says it better than Susan Eichhorn Young.

Great singers have flaws. Callas had them, God knows. I love Maria Guleghina and I am bored witless by Dawn Upshaw. I mean of course as with all artists I respect her artistry, but I am not moved by the pretty, well-schooled voice.

People laugh at someone like Paul Potts, but in the 1940s or 1950s, that is who big agents would have been chasing and trying to polish, not a cookie cutter cookie from a conservatory with perfect pitch who can play several instruments and sightread obscure contemporary music, all with no passion.

My voice has a lot of flaws. Is that because I started studying so late (even 26, when I began studying seriously the first time, is "late")? Is it because I drank until I was 25 and smoked until I was 26? Is it because I am impetuous and passionate rather than scholarly? (I can throw myself into the study of a role or a piece of sacred music - even a piece of choral music - but I can't bring myself to crack the solfege book and if you ask me what key I'm singing in I have no idea.)

I don't want my voice to have flaws, and I have worked hard on my technique (if I hadn't minded my ps and qs every second at the concert, I wouldn't have even sounded as good as I did)and have reined in my passion but I will never have a perfect scale, like a string of pearls, with every note the same size.

God knows I have lived. The relationship I've had with my partner over three decades could rival the plot of every opera not to mention the high drama that was unleashed by my relationship with The Mentor.

So now I will put the Trovatore score away for a while and get back to some arias I haven't sung for a while, for my recording.