Of Lent, Benefits, and Other Things

I haven't written much lately, mostly because I am drowning in work. Today is Ash Wednesday. To me Lent is mostly about singing (my choir sings more during Lent than at any other time) and sometimes about trying to be a better person.

Growing up Marxist, needless to say I was not raised with Lent, but I certainly was expected to live a life of penance, at least on some level. I went to an expensive private school but wore old second hand clothes, went to the theater but owned little jewelry, and of course was discouraged from fussing with my hair or using cosmetics (my rebellion was neither to become a Weatherperson nor a Conservative but simply to stuff my bathroom cabinet with lipsticks, nail polish, and hair products of every possible type and variety, the more the merrier). I was also made to feel guilty about any personal vanity. The triggering event (I think) to the brouhaha surrounding the pseudonymous blog that I deleted involved my asking the universe whether or not singers in general were self-involved. This was prompted mainly by my envy of the number of photos of themselves these people have (and post everywhere). I was not making a moralistic value judgment. I was probably mostly expressing envy not only that I didn't know people who would take these sorts of photos of me unless I made a big deal of asking them (hence my new profile picture here) and that I don't have the kind of smart phone that makes it easy for me to photograph myself, but that I also think I shouldn't want these sorts of photos. There was a time in my life (before the digital age) when I had a camera with me on every vacation, as did the friends I went with or visited. But the purpose of that was to photograph the larger world, and if people appeared in the picture it was incidental, and we hardly primped ourselves beforehand.

To be honest, I am extremely self-involved regarding my appearance, I just don't move in the right circles to milk this aspect of myself.

In any event, I feel that so much of my behavior and life is "Lenten" that I am not much in the mood to do anything to honor the season other than stick to my promise not to pick fights with my partner. She is mostly an ex partner, we don't live together, I can do what I please when work allows (and this covers quite a lot of territory that I don't discuss here), so I should be agreeable and kind during the weekend days when I cook, do laundry, shop, and sometimes even have an enjoyable outing with her.

Otherwise I am mostly focused on what solo oratorio piece I will be singing. The choir director said that "Lux Aeterna" would not work as a solo (well, yes...I wanted to sing it as a trio but couldn't get two men from the choir to sing the other parts) so I might do "Buss und Reu" from the St. Matthew Passion as it's a "Matthew" liturgical year and the choir will be singing some of the choral sections on Good Friday. Or I may sing "Fac ut Portem" again, which I love.

As for the other subject of this post, benefits, I saw a Facebook posting from a "real" singer (she is not one of my envy targets because she is a different voice type and is actually not one of the women who posts lots of pictures of herself) saying that she finally had health insurance. She said she mostly sings for a living but has had to take some other work as well, to feel more financially secure.

So how did I get where I am now. I was never unemployed, not even for one day, since 1977, until I left my last full-time job in 2009. And I have never not had benefits, full stop. When I left that job in 2009 it was with a "retirement package" that allows me to stay on their health insurance rolls. Now I am working freelance 30 hours a week.

I have a singer friend (another late bloomer, like me) who said that she probably wouldn't have wanted a career as a singer because of the cutthroat competition. For me, the issue was not that, but rather, among other things, the idea of financial insecurity.

I also almost cried when I heard from my teacher how little he is getting from Social Security. I am going to claim it when I am 62, and it won't be much, but it will be almost 5 times what he is getting.

Was all this worth 35 years of boredom and counting? I don't know. I made the choices I made.

On another subject, on Monday I saw Aida at the Met. I don't have time to write a review here now, but might do so another time.

Valentine's Day and Beyond

I wasn't going to post anything about Valentine's Day as there is not much left to say about it after all these years. If you aren't familiar with my story you can read here.

But I posted this on my Facebook page, because every year on this anniversary I think it is important to take stock.

it is now 8 years since that fateful Samson et Dalila duet. Every V-Day I think about the Mentor (sometimes I don't think about him for months at a time, amazingly). Do I thank him for my big dramatic mezzo voice that I discovered in my mid50s? The passion for my art that has never waned not even for one day? The fact that nothing will ever be the same? Nonetheless, I am still going out for a simple meal with the love of my life, who never asked to come along on this journey. I am blessed that she is still here when so many are gone.

I also posted this on the Forum because the pseudonym I've used for so long relates to this anniversary, and I thought I ought to just say something about it. The Forum is to me what young people call a "frenemy". I have gotten a lot of help from it but it has made me sad too, as being yet another place to read about the lives of "real" singers.

Right now we're friends again. I got suggestions from two people I really respect, which have spurred me on (if I needed more spurring) to proceed with the Verdi Requiem project. And I got a cute response to my posting about Valentine's Day and my name. This was from a gentleman whom I mostly knew through my pseudonymous blog. He was never a friend of mine but he was a friend of one of the women who wrote there, probably my number one envy-idol, because she not only had the singer-life I wished I had, but also had a lot of the kind of natural sex appeal that I seem not to have unless I work very hard at it (or am in a private situation with someone where we're all clear about what's what). Which is why, despite my leftward leaning political views, I am one of those women feminists love to hate because I still am not convinced that someone like Clarence Thomas is legion in the world of office work. I certainly never encountered anyone who ever even noticed my decolletage let alone commented on it or anything else in an untoward way and I worked in offices for 35 years.

In any event this gentleman was always flirting online with the lady in question, in a way no one has ever flirted with me, except in private, so I was quite startled when he responded to my off-topic post.

Here is my response to his kind comment that "music finds us":

This wasn't just any music. This was a moment of magic, during which I felt like a big diva, not to mention the sexiest and most beautiful woman in the world singing the sexiest aria ever written, and in a church no less!

How could life ever be the same after that?

And there you have it.

I have worked hard in the past eight years, put in hours of blood and sweat in my "practice room" (the loo), sung an entire concert version of Samson et Dalila (minus the chorus), several opera scenes in concert, and numerous church solos, but I have never found that ever again.

As for the Forum itself, it seems that the posted topics are a bit different from the last time I perused it (several years ago?) There are quite a few posts from people with much less experience than I have, and I can answer people like that if I choose. I know about vocal technique, fachs, church repertoire, even what arias and other music might be suitable for different voice types.

I also know quite a bit about health issues.

What I don't know much about are costume fittings, stage makeup (the real kind, not the DIY kind I wear all the time even to do the laundry), travel as work, travel as infidelity trap (the last time I had any hopes of that I was on a business trip for my last job and I fell and fractured my kneecap - a punishment, perhaps?), and dodging passes (if you want to dodge them) during love scenes onstage.

So I don't need to read those posts.

We will see if the Forum and I stay friends.

Now it's back to work, and off to choir practice.

I will wait until the 26th before checking back with the choir director about "Lux Aeterna"

Left Behind?

Just as I was really feeling a lot better, thinking about my plan for the Verdi Requiem which will only not happen if I am dead before March 23 of 2013, I happened to run into the young coloratura from the choir, who actually had not been singing with us since the holidays, because she now has a paying job at a Catholic church, as a regular soloist. And they are doing a major choral work over Lent, for which she is the soprano soloist. So not only is she getting paid for doing this, but she was also "chosen" to do this and this will be the kind of public event that gets advertised and that people come to. I mean she didn't act arrogant about it, but still, I felt very much that here I am, still an unpaid choir member who has to "ask" to sing solos (this isn't just me - anyone who wants to sing a solo asks for permission).

Interestingly, my partner, who is not the most supportive person in the world when it comes to my singing, said how privileged I was to be in this choir which is run by someone who is launched on an international career as a concert pianist and who teaches at a famous conservatory.

I just need to focus on the fact that I have 13 months to be letter perfect with all the sections of the Requiem that use the solo quartet and that I will do it. Even though I will have learned most of it by ear by plunking my part, playing it on the keyboard while I'm playing the CD, and then making sure I can sing my part "against" the CD.

I have decided to move up the official kickoff date from November to September to make sure nothing goes wrong.

I gave the choir director the music for "Lux Aeterna" and he said he would take a look at it. Vocally it is really coming along. I sang through it at my lesson yesterday and it went quite well. Singing pianissimo in my upper middle register is something I now am quite proficient at, thanks to singing Mozart's "Laudate Dominum".

Although interestingly, when I told the choir director if he didn't like the idea of "Lux Aeterna" as a solo I could sing "Fac ut Portem" again he said he wanted to get away from "too much Latin". So we'll see. Almost everything I have for this season is Latin.

I think in addition to learning the Requiem I am going to start looking for some new church solos. I bought another book of them, and found some interesting things, most notably an aria from something called "St Ludmilla" by Dvorak. It is in English although the words are quite nineteenth-century melodrama.

One of the people who answered my post on the Forum mentioned singing "character parts". I think I would not be averse to singing older parts - for example I would love to sing the entire role of Azucena - but I prefer roles that are dramatic or sexy. I had thought of looking at some of the Strauss roles - Herodias or maybe Klytaemnestra. I think my voice is certainly heavy enough for these. Which will also be an impetus to improve my German. At the very least I can improve my pronunciation. Particularly as my "forever" rep will no doubt be all those Bach alto solo cantatas.

Accountability

When I was involved with the pseudonymous blogging community, I for good or ill had a rather intimate look into the lives of a lot of "real" (aka "working")singers. Many of these were trying to lose weight, so they set up "Boot Camps" which were mostly about fitness but could be about anything. A key to this was "accountability" which is easier to maintain if you make your intentions public.

Yesterday, thanks to a lot of encouragement from my therapist; the pastor and choir director at the church where I sing; the church office manager; various Facebook friends; Zachary, the nice man who comments here; and most surprisingly of all, two singers I respect enormously - Cindy Sadler and a man who calls himself "houndentenor", both of whom responded to that post on the The Forum that I was so frightened to post, I am now "accountable" for my Verdi Requiem concert.

I am going to make this happen, full stop. In November I will put it on the church calendar (I will shoot for the Saturday before Palm Sunday) and ask my teacher if he wants to sing. I will also see if the soprano who sang in my Verdi concert will be free. She sounded really eager to do it. And I will take it from there. The long lead time will give me a chance to get my ducks in a row, so to speak. And if people back out, I will deal. I have done it before.

This is definitely a work I can sing. Other than the bang-up high A flat in "Liber Scriptus" (which I can sing like gangbusters when I'm feeling well) and the sustained pianissimo in "Lux Aeterna" there is nothing vocally difficult. It requires a high level of musicianship, which I have definitely begun to acquire thanks to my involvement with the church choir. Even though I am not primarily a choral singer and always have to be careful not to do uncomfortable things to "blend", my involvement with this choir, singing soprano one week, second soprano the next, and alto the next, in a variety of music ranging from Bach cantatas to African-American spirituals arranged for classical voices, in a setting with not that many other singers and only at most 3-5 other trained singers, has taught me so much!!

Yesterday I asked God to bless this endeavor, which brought tears to my eyes. Although I am not Christian, I am not an atheist like my parents either. Asking for this blessing has helped keep fear at bay: fear that something will intervene to derail it, mostly. I just can't think about that.

But what all the planning I did yesterday mostly underscored, is that people take me seriously. I was actually stunned that Cindy wrote back to me on the Forum and I thanked her.

I also got a nice email from the woman who had said she was insulted that I had asked her to sing for free. She is, as I said, a good person, and she explained why she gets upset when people ask her to sing for free, which I can understand.

I am feeling better than I have in a while. I was please to see that I made a lot of money last month without feeling I was taking time away from my singing; I am beginning to recover from all the recent losses I've sustained - two pets and my partner's neighbor, which triggered a lot of fear that if this woman could die suddenly in her apartment my partner could also; and my partner now has a cleaning lady coming regularly, which means that our time together can be more pleasant. We even went to see Hugo last weekend.

Tonight I am going to bring the music for "Lux Aeterna" and give it to the choir director to see if he would like it for a solo.

An Emotional Roller Coaster of a Day

And not because of that event that many people were obsessed with today. It's just not on my radar screen. Never has been. My father was a Marxist college professor who had never been to or watched a sporting event in his life.

No, my day began at 6 when I woke up to get ready for my choir gig (yes, I do call it that) when I found a response from the soprano I had invited to participate in my Verdi Requiem (I wanted to check that she wasn't interested because I am going to have to postpone it) and she started off basically indicating that she was insulted that I had asked her. Then she ended by trying to be polite. She is a good person, not a snark.

I mean I know there are people struggling to make money singing who hate people who do it for free. On an intellectual level I can understand it. But I already feel inferior enough that I'm an "amateur". This is why I wish I could meet some people who want to sing opera but don't sing quite as well as I do or have quite as much experience. This is not about ego, it's about wanting someone who will be happy that I invited them to do something and see it as a good opportunity. I mean the only reason I asked this woman was I had seen her perform at a pay to sing outfit (the one where my teacher used to sing for free all the time, until he got tired of it).

So I ended up feeling bad about myself and I really don't need one more reason to feel bad about myself.

I mean singing is something that people do for love (like all the arts). Which I guess sets up an adversarial situation with people who want to get paid for work they do in the arts. I mean, sure, I would love to get paid to sing, but if I don't, I'm going to do it anyhow. Most things people get paid to do are not enjoyable which is why they expect to be paid. I mean I would never read or edit anything anyone had written for free. Never. Nor would I do any left brain work for anyone: filing, organizing, reading business letters and explaining what they mean. These are things my partner has asked me to do and I have always said no. I will cook, shop, do the laundry, even scrub the kitchen floor. But not anything that is even remotely connected with what I do for a living. For example I don't own a watch because my entire life in offices revolved around time, and not wasting it, and trying to maximize productivity, so my rebellion is I don't own a watch so that I can make a statement that when I am not working I am exclusively a sensual, right-brain person who doesn't care what time it is.

So if someone does something for free does that make them inferior? I feel I always have to apologize that I am not paid for my choir spot.

Yesterday that whole interchange made me angry (although I suppose my asking this woman to sing in my vanity concert made her angry) so it spurred me on to want to post my little search for peers on the Forum but then I got cold feet again. I feel that that universe is full of exactly the kind of people who would laugh at me for wanting to produce concerts for no money. I would rather do that than pay $300 at one of these pay to sing outfits. If it's my production I can decide what role or scenes I am singing and have control of the rehearsal schedule. Of course then there's the issue of people backing out for one reason or another.

Today I saw that they put out a calendar of events for Lent, so I spoke to the choir director and told him that I would not be doing this Requiem concert this year but that the Pastor said I could use the church so I will do it next year. And I will. I wanted to sing Dalila, so I did. In any event, I said I would like to sing "Lux Aeterna" in one of the services. (I know he doesn't like "Liber Scriptus".) I looked at Lux Aeterna carefully and it can easily be turned into a solo, I think. He said I could bring him the music Wednesday. I said if he didn't like it maybe I could sing the aria from the Rossini Stabat Mater again (Fac ut Portem) or maybe the Crucifixus from the Petit Messe. I think I made a faux pas in that I said I didn't want to "throw away" any of those pieces singing at one of the Wednesday 6:30 services because they are not well attended. After I could see he was put out I apologized for being rude. In any event he said I could definitely sing something as a solo for Lent as it is a big singing season.

I also got some bad news (this may be a rumor that has spiraled out of control) that the Supreme Court may hear a case about rent control and rent stabilization. I know I am terrified every time the State Legislature votes on it but at least those people, even the Republicans, understand about how people live in New York City. But the people on the Supreme Court have no idea and could declare it unconstitutional. I mean we don't know yet if they will even hear the case. In any event, this is a really serious matter and could mean I would be out of my apartment in the "armpit of Lincoln Center", which I love, on the other hand living there couldn't be worse for someone with a modest talent - no, I don't think I have a modest talent - I think I have a big unusual dramatic voice, like the old Italian mezzos. I have a modest ability because I started too late, did too much damage to myself at a very young age, even though I have not touched alcohol or nicotine in over three decades, and never was in the right environment to foster a musical talent (some of which was certainly my fault), and now it is too late.

So maybe I'll end up in that small town after all. As long as I don't have to learn to drive.

Verdi Requiem Postponed and That Long-Deferred Post

I don't think this Verdi Requiem concert is going to happen this year. It was partly my own fault. I kept waiting to see what was going to happen with the Gioconda production. I am definitely doing it next year, though, now that I know that the pastor will let me use the sanctuary without paying (I will just turn over the ticket money to the church to use for whatever charity they are sponsoring for Lent that year.) So I will set a date this November for next March.

My teacher says that he really would like to try to do it and the soprano who sang in my Verdi concert definitely wants to do it, she just had a few unforeseen issues to deal with this year.

As for the long deferred post, I am talking about what I referred to here.

Both my therapist and the nice man, Zachary, who reads this blog, said that I should "advertise" for older singers.

I want to post something on the Forum but I find that place daunting. Interestingly, I looked there a few days ago and there was a thread about dramatic voices so I posted something there.

I think I find the Forum daunting because when I first began reading it, probably 5 years ago (how time flies), I thought of myself as a "real" singer who had something to offer - I'm not speaking vocally, but simply as someone who had sung, who could claim singing experiences as a part of my past. So I would post a whole range of things from questions to health advice. I actually got quite a bit of help there both with my Samson et Dalila concert and with finding repertoire to sing as church solos. But then something would always scare me away.

I think I'm afraid if I start a thread looking for avocational singers in their 50s and older with big operatic voices, who are not professionals, but who would love to sing and help me produce concerts, etc., that someone will laugh at me (or worse, no one will respond).

I guess I just have to do it. I was going to wait until I saw my therapist (this wouldn't be until the 17th) because she said I could write out what I was going to say and read it to her and then just put it out into the universe.

What I had in mind was something like

"I am a 61-year old dramatic mezzo living in mid-Manhattan who began studying voice seriously at the age of 54. I am looking for other singers with similar demographics who are eager to perform standard operatic repertoire, with or without 100% technical proficiency, and would be willing and happy to help me out with the cost and planning of operatic concerts and concert operas. Of course older more experienced singers would be welcome too, but I want people who would really be interested in this and not jump ship if a better offer comes along. I am also just interested in meeting people with a similar demographic profile, even people who don't live here, so that we can correspond and share experiences.

So I will sit on this until Monday and see if I can bring myself to post it.

Now, as I have to get up at 6 to sing in a 9 am service (I defy any paid choir singer to tell me they take what they do more seriously than I do) I had better hop in a bath and hit the pillow.