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.